Formula SAE Monocoque Chassis Development

Formula SAE is a collegiate competition hosted by SAE International with the primary goal being to design, manufacture, and race an open wheel race car. The Cal Poly Racing Formula SAE team strives for improvement every race season and has remained competitive as a result. The 2019-2020 management team determined that further research and development towards the chassis would yield the greatest performance benefit for future seasons, as the previous chassis platform limited packaging and mounting options for vehicle subsystems which interfaced with the chassis. A redesign of the Cal Poly Racing Formula SAE team’s carbon fiber reinforced polymer monocoque chassis was requested to improve subsystem integration, increase torsional stiffness, and reduce weight compared to the previous platform. Specifically, this senior project team focused on manufacturing process improvement and laminate design to meet these goals for the 2020 Formula SAE competition. This report details the design and manufacturing of such a chassis. Specific emphasis was placed on the geometry, laminate, and manufacturing process design. The geometry was designed using subsystem input for satisfactory integration of all subsystem components while maintaining a high specific torsional stiffness. The team also developed numerous analysis tools including spreadsheets and finite element models to design the asymmetric laminate of the chassis. Modular, multi-piece tooling was designed to produce a single-piece chassis and to allow for easy geometric changes in the future. Though two complete chassis were delivered to the Formula SAE team, the outbreak of COVID-19 prevented the collection of data that would have been used to validate the design. However, the Formula SAE team was made aware of the validation plan proposed in this report

The Early Clinical Features of Dengue in Adults: Challenges for Early Clinical Diagnosis

Dengue infection in adults has become increasingly common throughout the world. As most of the clinical features of dengue have been described in children, we undertook a prospective study to determine the early symptoms and signs of dengue in adults. We show here that, overall, dengue cases presented with high rates of symptoms listed in the WHO 1997 or 2009 classification schemes for probable dengue fever thus resulting in high sensitivities of these schemes when applied for early diagnosis. However, symptoms such as myalgia, arthralgia, retro-orbital pain and mucosal bleeding were less frequently reported in older adults. This trend resulted in reduced sensitivity of the WHO classification schemes in older adults even though they showed increased risks of hospitalization and severe dengue. Instead, we suggest that older adults who present with fever and leukopenia should be tested for dengue, even in the absence of other symptoms. This could be useful for early clinical diagnosis in older adults so that they can be monitored and treated for severe dengue, which is especially important when an antiviral drug becomes available

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Dengue transmission in the Asia-Pacific region: Impact of climate change and socio-environmental factors

Free to read Summary Objective  To review the scientific evidence about the impact of climate change and socio-environmental factors on dengue transmission, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Methods  Search of the published literature on PubMed, ISI web of Knowledge and Google Scholar. Articles were included if an association between climate or socio-environmental factors and dengue transmission was assessed in any country of the Asia-Pacific region. Results  Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria. The weight of the evidence indicates that global climate change is likely to affect the seasonal and geographical distribution of dengue fever (DF) in the Asia-Pacific region. However, empirical evidence linking DF to climate change is inconsistent across geographical locations and absent in some countries where dengue is endemic. Conclusion  Even though climate change may play an increasing role in the transmission of DF, no clear evidence shows that such impact has already occurred. More research is needed across countries to better understand the relationship between climate change and dengue transmission. Future research should also consider and adjust for the influence of important socio-environmental factors in the assessment of the climate change-related effects on dengue transmission