A mobile robot with a two-degree-of-freedom suspension for traversing uneven terrain with minimal slip: Modeling, simulation and experiments

It is known in literature that a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) with fixed length axle will slip on an uneven terrain. One way to avoid wheel slip is to use a torus-shaped wheel with lateral tilt capability which allows the distance between the wheel-ground contact points to change even with a fixed length axle. Such an arrangement needs a two degree-of-freedom (DOF) suspension for the vertical and lateral tilting motion of the wheel. In this paper modeling, simulation, design and experimentation with a three-wheeled mobile robot, with torus-shaped wheels and a novel two DOF suspension allowing independent lateral tilt and vertical motion, is presented. The suspension is based on a four-bar mechanism and is called the double four-bar (D4Bar) suspension. Numerical simulations show that the three-wheeled mobile robot can traverse uneven terrain with low wheel slip. Experiments with a prototype three-wheeled mobile robot moving on a constructed uneven terrain along a straight line, a circular arc and a path representing a lane change, also illustrate the low slip capability of the three-wheeled mobile robot with the D4Bar suspension. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Bearing capacity of circular footings over rock mass by using axisymmetric quasi lower bound finite element limit analysis

The ultimate bearing capacity of a circular footing, placed over rock mass, is evaluated by using the lower bound theorem of the limit analysis in conjunction with finite elements and nonlinear optimization. The generalized Hoek-Brown (HB) failure criterion, but by keeping a constant value of the exponent, alpha = 0.5, was used. The failure criterion was smoothened both in the meridian and pi planes. The nonlinear optimization was carried out by employing an interior point method based on the logarithmic barrier function. The results for the obtained bearing capacity were presented in a non-dimensional form for different values of GSI, m(i), sigma(ci)/(gamma b) and q/sigma(ci). Failure patterns were also examined for a few cases. For validating the results, computations were also performed for a strip footing as well. The results obtained from the analysis compare well with the data reported in literature. Since the equilibrium conditions are precisely satisfied only at the centroids of the elements, not everywhere in the domain, the obtained lower bound solution will be approximate not true. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stabilization of the high-temperature and high-pressure cubic phase of ZnO by temperature-controlled milling

The reversible transition of wurtzite to rock salt phase under pressure is well reported in literature. The cubic phase is unstable under ambient conditions both in the bulk and in nanoparticles. This paper reports defect-induced stabilization of cubic ZnO phase in sub 20 nm ZnO particles and explores their optical properties. The size reduction was achieved by ball milling in a specially designed mill which allows a control of the milling temperature. The process of synthesis involved both variation of milling temperature (including low temperature similar to 150 K) and impact pressure. We show that these have profound influence in the introduction of defects and stabilization of the cubic phase. A molecular dynamics simulation is presented to explain the observed results. The measured optical properties have further supported the observations of defect-induced stabilization of cubic ZnO and reduction in particle size.

Differential proteomic and genomic profiling of mouse striatal cell model of Huntington's disease and control; probable implications to the disease biology

Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant disorder of central nervous system caused by expansion of CAG repeats in exon1 of the huntingtin gene (Htt). Among various dysfunctions originated from the mutation in Htt gene, transcriptional deregulation has been considered to be one of the most important abnormalities. Large numbers of investigations identified altered expressions of genes in brains of HD patients and many models of HD. In this study we employed 2D SDS-PAGE/MALDI-MS coupled with 2D-DIGE and real-time PCR experiments of an array of genes focused to HD pathway to determine altered protein and gene expressions in STHdh(Q111)/Hdh(Q111) cells, a cell model of HD and compared with STHdh(Q7)/Hdh(Q7) cells, its wild type counterpart. We annotated 76 proteins from these cells and observed differential expressions of 31 proteins (by 2D-DIGE) involved in processes like unfolded protein binding, negative regulation of neuron apoptosis, response to superoxides etc. Our PCR array experiments identified altered expressions of 47 genes. Altogether significant alteration of 77 genes/proteins could be identified in this HD cell line with potential relevance to HD biology. Biological significance: In this study we intended to find out differential proteomic and genomic profiles in HD condition. We used the STHdh cells, a cellular model for HD and control. These are mouse striatal neuronal cell lines harboring 7 and 111 knock -in CAG repeats in their two alleles. The 111Q containing cell line (STHdh(Q111)/Hdh(Q111)) mimics diseased condition, whereas the 7Q containing ones (STHdh(Q7)/Hdh(Q7)), serves as the proper control cell line. Proteomic experiments were performed earlier to obtain differential expressions of proteins in R6/2 mice models, Hdh(Q) knock -in mice and in plasma and CSF from HD patients. However, no earlier report on proteomic alterations in these two HD cell lines and control was available in literature. It was, therefore, an important objective to find out differential expressions of proteins in these two cell lines. In this study, we annotated 76 proteins from STHdh(Q7)/Hdh(Q7) and STHdh(Q111)/Hdh(Q111) cells using 2D-gel/mass spectrometry. Next, by performing 2D-DIGE, we observed differential expressions of 31 proteins (16 upregulated and 15 downregulated) between these two cell lines. We also performed customized qRT-PCR array focused to HD pathway and found differential expressions of 47 genes (8 gene exptessions increased and 39 genes were decreased significantly). A total of 77 genes/proteins (Htt downregulated in both the studies) were found to be significantly altered from both the experimental paradigms. We validated the differential expressions of Vim, Hypk, Ran, Dstn, Hspa5 and Sod2 either by qRT-PCR or Western blot analysis or both. Out of these 77, similar trends in alteration of 19 out of 31 and 38 out of 47 proteins/genes were reported in earlier studies. Thus our study confirmed earlier observations on differential gene/protein expressions in HD and are really useful. Additionally, we observed differential expression of some novel genes/proteins. One of this was Hypk, a Htt-interacting chaperone protein with the ability to solubilize mHtt aggregated structures in cell lines. We propose that downregulation of Hypk in STHdh-Qm (Q111)/Hdh(Q111) has a causal effect towards HD pathogenesis. Thus the novel findings from our study need further research and might be helpful to understand the molecular mechanism behind HD pathogenesis. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Assessment of Microscale Test Methods of Peeling and Splitting along Surface of Thin-Film/Substrates

Peel test methods are assessed through being applied to a peeling analysis of the ductile film/ceramic substrate system. Through computing the fracture work of the system using the either beam bend model (BB model) or the general plane analysis model (GPA model), surprisingly, a big difference between both model results is found. Although the BB model can capture the plastic dissipation phenomenon for the ductile film case as the GPA model can, it is much sensitive to the choice of the peeling criterion parameters, and it overestimates the plastic bending effect unable to capture crack tip constraint plasticity. In view of the difficulty of measuring interfacial toughness using peel test method when film is the ductile material, a new test method, split test, is recommended and analyzed using the GPA model. The prediction is applied to a wedge-loaded experiment for Al-alloy double-cantilever beam in literature.

Hermano de hombre soy : Entrevista al P. Juan Carlos Scannone S.I. sobre la mediación de la filosofía en el diálogo entre literatura y teología

Tres miembros del Seminario Interdisciplinario Permanente de Literatura, Estética y Teología entrevistaron a Juan Carlos Scannone en búsqueda de una conversación que abra nuevas perspectivas. Los temas principales fueron: el inicio de Scannone en el diálogo entre literatura y teología, la formación humanística de los jesuitas, los precursores en la Argentina, la mediación simbólica, los aportes de Paul Ricoeur, el método interdisciplinario y la mediación filosófica, la novela latinoamericana.

Don Ramón Vega, enigmático rebelde de la ópera mexicana

Resumen: Un fortuito hallazgo del libreto manuscrito de la ópera El grito de Dolores, de Ramón Vega, compositor mexicano del siglo XIX, protagonizado por esta autora, desencadenó una serie de preguntas que hasta el presente no han sido respondidas a cabalidad por los estudios dedicados a la historia de la música en México. La investigación desarrollada con el propósito de situar el manuscrito encontrado en el contexto social y cultural del siglo de la Independencia y la exhaustiva pesquisa realizada en diferentes archivos históricos fructificaron en el descubrimiento de un vasto corpus de fuentes documentales actualmente desconocidas. La información que arrojó el análisis de estos documentos completó el conocimiento existente sobre la vida de Ramón Vega, permitió enderezar algunas ideas falibles en torno a su producción operística, así como construir y sustentar la hipótesis de que El grito de Dolores puede calificarse como el primer intento de creación de una ópera mexicana “enteramente nacional”.

A Novel Inverse Method For Determining The Refractive Indices Of Medium And Dispersed Particles Simultaneously By Turbidity Measurement

The refractive indices of particles and dispersion medium are important parameters in many colloidal experiments using optical techniques, such as turbidity and light scattering measurements. These data are in general wavelength-dependent and may not be available at some wavelengths fitting to the experimental requirement. in this Study we present a novel approach to inversely determine the refractive indices of particles and dispersion medium by examining the consistency of measured extinction cross sections of particles with their theoretical values using a series of trial values of the refractive indices. The colloidal suspension of polystyrene particles dispersed in water was used as an example to demonstrate how this approach works and the data obtained via such a method are compared with those reported in literature, showing a good agreement between both. Furthermore, the factors that affect the accuracy of measurements are discussed. We also present some data of the refractive indices of polystyrene over a range of wavelengths smaller than 400 nm that have been not reported in the available literature. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Pressure-Correction Method And Its Applications On An Unstructured Chimera Grid

In this paper, an unstructured Chimera mesh method is used to compute incompressible flow around a rotating body. To implement the pressure correction algorithm on unstructured overlapping sub-grids, a novel interpolation scheme for pressure correction is proposed. This indirect interpolation scheme can ensure a tight coupling of pressure between sub-domains. A moving-mesh finite volume approach is used to treat the rotating sub-domain and the governing equations are formulated in an inertial reference frame. Since the mesh that surrounds the rotating body undergoes only solid body rotation and the background mesh remains stationary, no mesh deformation is encountered in the computation. As a benefit from the utilization of an inertial frame, tensorial transformation for velocity is not needed. Three numerical simulations are successfully performed. They include flow over a fixed circular cylinder, flow over a rotating circular cylinder and flow over a rotating elliptic cylinder. These numerical examples demonstrate the capability of the current scheme in handling moving boundaries. The numerical results are in good agreement with experimental and computational data in literature. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of the surface tension on non-propagating solitary waves

In this paper, the effect of the surface tension is considered carefully in the study of non-propagating solitary waves. The parameter plane of the surface tension and the fluid depth is divided into three regions; in two of them a breather soliton can be produced. In literature the parameters of breather solitons are all in one of the parameter regions. The new region reported here has been confirmed by our experiments. In the third region, the theoretical solution is a kink soliton, but a kind of the non-propagating solitary wave similar to the breather soliton was found in our experiments besides the kink soliton.

Pertsonaia protagonista femeninoen ezaugarriak eta bilakaera euskal narratiba garaikidean

361 p.

Introducción: Variedad de temas y de tratamientos sobre la Innovación

[ES] Este artículo de introducción al número especial sobre innovación de la revista Cuadernos de Gestión consta de dos apartados bien diferenciados. En el primero, se recogen algunas ideas que pueden ser útiles para los lectores que se aproximan al tema de la innovación y observan una gran variedad conceptual. En concreto, se ha tratado de explicar de una manera más o menos exhaustiva el concepto de Open Innovation (OI). La OI surge del reconocimiento de que la empresa no puede innovar de manera aislada, y, por lo tanto, necesita siempre adquirir las ideas y los recursos del entorno exterior.