A thermoelectric power generating heat exchanger: Part I - Experimental realization

An experimental realization of a heat exchanger with commercial thermoelectric generators (TEGs) is presented. The power producing capabilities as a function of flow rate and temperature span are characterized for two different commercial heat transfer fluids and for three different thermal interface materials. The device is shown to produce 2 W per TEG or 0.22 W cm$^{-2}$ at a fluid temperature difference of 175 $^\circ$C and a flow rate per fluid channel of 5 L min$^{-1}$. One experimentally realized design produced 200 W in total from 100 TEGs. For the design considered here, the power production is shown to depend more critically on the fluid temperature span than on the fluid flow rate. Finally, the temperature span across the TEG is shown to be 55% to 75% of the temperature span between the hot and cold fluids.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Adaptive two-pass rank order filter to remove impulse noise in highly corrupted images

This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of Brunel University's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. © 2004 IEEE.In this paper, we present an adaptive two-pass rank order filter to remove impulse noise in highly corrupted images. When the noise ratio is high, rank order filters, such as the median filter for example, can produce unsatisfactory results. Better results can be obtained by applying the filter twice, which we call two-pass filtering. To further improve the performance, we develop an adaptive two-pass rank order filter. Between the passes of filtering, an adaptive process is used to detect irregularities in the spatial distribution of the estimated impulse noise. The adaptive process then selectively replaces some pixels changed by the first pass of filtering with their original observed pixel values. These pixels are then kept unchanged during the second filtering. In combination, the adaptive process and the sec ond filter eliminate more impulse noise and restore some pixels that are mistakenly altered by the first filtering. As a final result, the reconstructed image maintains a higher degree of fidelity and has a smaller amount of noise. The idea of adaptive two-pass processing can be applied to many rank order filters, such as a center-weighted median filter (CWMF), adaptive CWMF, lower-upper-middle filter, and soft-decision rank-order-mean filter. Results from computer simulations are used to demonstrate the performance of this type of adaptation using a number of basic rank order filters.This work was supported in part by CenSSIS, the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems, under the Engineering Research Centers Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) under Award EEC-9986821, by an ARO MURI on Demining under Grant DAAG55-97-1-0013, and by the NSF under Award 0208548

A novel vitamin B9 sensor based on modified screen-printed electrode

In the field of determination of vitamin B9 (folic acid, FA), we have described the development of a sensitive electrochemical sensor through promoting the screen-printed electrode (SPE) and taking the advantage of zinc ferrite magnetic nanoparticles (ZnFe2O4MNPs). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) experiments demonstrated the powerful activity of ZnFe2O4MNPs/SPE for electrooxidation of FA by showing the prominent oxidation peak at 600 mV vs. Ag/AgCl. By differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) measurements, a linear relation between current response and concentration of vitamin B9 was determined in the range of 1.0–100.0 μM, and detection limit is found to be 0.3 μM (S/N=3). Except high sensitivity, the developed sensor demonstrated high stability, reproducibility and repeatability, and was also successfully applied to specify FA in real samples of vitamin B9 tablets and human urine

Geofencing Motion Planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using an Anticipatory Range Control Algorithm

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This paper presents a range control approach for implementing hard geofencing for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), and especially remotely piloted versions (RPVs), via a proposed anticipatory range calculator. The approach employs turning circle intersection tests that anticipate the fence perimeter on approach. This ensures the vehicle turns before penetrating the geofence and remains inside the allowable operational airspace by accounting for the vehicles’ turning dynamics. Allowance is made for general geozone shapes and locations, including those located at the problematic poles and meridians where nonlinear angle mapping is dealt with, concave geozones, narrow corners with acute internal angles, and transient turn dynamics. The algorithm is shown to prevent any excursions using a high-fidelity simulation of a small remotely piloted vehicle. The algorithm relies on a single tuning parameter which can be determined from the closed-loop rise time in the aircraft’s roll command tracking.Peer reviewe

Molecular Biomarkers in Cancer

Molecular cancer biomarkers are any measurable molecular indicator of risk of cancer, occurrence of cancer, or patient outcome. They may include germline or somatic genetic variants, epigenetic signatures, transcriptional changes, and proteomic signatures. These indicators are based on biomolecules, such as nucleic acids and proteins, that can be detected in samples obtained from tissues through tumor biopsy or, more easily and non-invasively, from blood (or serum or plasma), saliva, buccal swabs, stool, urine, etc. Detection technologies have advanced tremendously over the last decades, including techniques such as next-generation sequencing, nanotechnology, or methods to study circulating tumor DNA/RNA or exosomes. Clinical applications of biomarkers are extensive. They can be used as tools for cancer risk assessment, screening and early detection of cancer, accurate diagnosis, patient prognosis, prediction of response to therapy, and cancer surveillance and monitoring response. Therefore, they can help to optimize making decisions in clinical practice. Moreover, precision oncology is needed for newly developed targeted therapies, as they are functional only in patients with specific cancer genetic mutations, and biomarkers are the tools used for the identification of these subsets of patients. Improvement in the field of cancer biomarkers is, however, needed to overcome the scientific challenge of developing new biomarkers with greater sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value.Peer reviewe

A Survey of Recent Machine Learning Solutions for Ship Collision Avoidance and Mission Planning

Machine Learning (ML) techniques have gained significant traction as a means of improving the autonomy of marine vehicles over the last few years. This article surveys the recent ML approaches utilised for ship collision avoidance (COLAV) and mission planning. Following an overview of the ever-expanding ML exploitation for maritime vehicles, key topics in the mission planning of ships are outlined. Notable papers with direct and indirect applications to the COLAV subject are technically reviewed and compared. Critiques, challenges, and future directions are also identified. The outcome clearly demonstrates the thriving research in this field, even though commercial marine ships incorporating machine intelligence able to perform autonomously under all operating conditions are still a long way off

Molecular Biomarkers in Cancer

Molecular cancer biomarkers are any measurable molecular indicator of risk of cancer, occurrence of cancer, or patient outcome. They may include germline or somatic genetic variants, epigenetic signatures, transcriptional changes, and proteomic signatures. These indicators are based on biomolecules, such as nucleic acids and proteins, that can be detected in samples obtained from tissues through tumor biopsy or, more easily and non-invasively, from blood (or serum or plasma), saliva, buccal swabs, stool, urine, etc. Detection technologies have advanced tremendously over the last decades, including techniques such as next-generation sequencing, nanotechnology, or methods to study circulating tumor DNA/RNA or exosomes. Clinical applications of biomarkers are extensive. They can be used as tools for cancer risk assessment, screening and early detection of cancer, accurate diagnosis, patient prognosis, prediction of response to therapy, and cancer surveillance and monitoring response. Therefore, they can help to optimize making decisions in clinical practice. Moreover, precision oncology is needed for newly developed targeted therapies, as they are functional only in patients with specific cancer genetic mutations, and biomarkers are the tools used for the identification of these subsets of patients. Improvement in the field of cancer biomarkers is, however, needed to overcome the scientific challenge of developing new biomarkers with greater sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value.Peer reviewe