Neurocontrol for lateral vehicle guidance

A solution to autonomous lateral vehicle guidance using a neurocontroller that can learn from measured human-driving data without knowledge of the physical car parameters is discussed. Simulations and practical tests confirm that a small-size feedforward autonomous neural network (21 neurons) can learn to steer a vehicle at high speeds only from looking at human-driving examples. In this way, the network learns the total closed-loop behavior, including the nonlinear dynamics of the vehicle and the driver's individual driving style. The main result of practical investigations is that the neutral controller trained on human-driving examples exhibits an aperiodic behavior that does not vanish at higher speeds (tests performed up to 130 km/h) and produces fewer lateral deviations than the linear state controller     

The Electrochemistry of Liposomes

This review aims to summarize the current state of research concerning the interaction of electrodes with liposomes suspended in solutions. Main attention is given to the complex mechanism of adhesion and spreading of liposomes on mercury electrodes. That mechanism can be studied with the help of chronoamperometry, where each adhesion-spreading event appears as a capacitive current spike. Integration of these spikes produces charge versus time transients that can be modeled and simulated, revealing the details of the multi-step adhesion-spreading process. Whereas the number of spikes per time mirrors the macro-kinetics, the analysis of the time behavior of each spike mirrors the micro-kinetics of each adhesion-spreading event. The reviewed studies show that this approach provides a new tool to study the properties of liposome membranes. The adhesion-spreading of liposomes on mercury electrodes has strong similarities to the process of vesicle fusion, which makes these studies a biomimetic model allowing one to deduce the effects of foreign molecules in bilayer membranes.     

The Growth of the Third-Party Maintenance Industry

Abstract

Beginning as an innovative idea in the early 1970s, the third-party maintenance industry realized revenues in 1986 of $1.4 billion. This flourishing industry offers opportunities for vendors and customers alike.     

Scientific sketching for collaborative VR visualization design

We present four studies investigating tools and methodologies for artist-scientist-technologist collaboration in designing multivariate, virtual reality (VR) visualizations. Design study 1 identifies the promise of 3D drawing-style interfaces for VR design and also establishes limitations of these tools with respect to precision and support for animation. Design study 2 explores animating artist-created visualization designs with scientific 3D fluid flow data. While results captured an accurate sense of flow that was advantageous as compared to the results of study 1, the potential for visual exploration using the design tools tested was limited. Design study 3 reveals the importance of a new 3D interface that overcomes the precision limitation found in study 1 while remaining accessible to artist collaborators. Drawing upon previous results, design study 4 engages collaborative teams in a design process that begins with traditional paper sketching and moves to animated, interactive, VR prototypes "sketched" by designers in VR using interactive 3D tools. Conclusions from these four studies identify important characteristics of effective artist-accessible VR visualization design tools and lead to a proposed formalized methodology for successful collaborative design that we expect to be useful in guiding future collaborations. We call this proposed methodology Scientific Sketching.     

Mid-infrared Frequency Comb Spanning an Octave Based on an Er Fiber Laser and Difference-Frequency Generation

We describe a coherent mid-infrared continuum source with 700 cm^-1 usable bandwidth, readily tuned within 600–2500 cm^-1 (4–17 μm) and thus covering much of the infrared "fingerprint" molecular vibration region. It is based on nonlinear frequency conversion in GaSe using a compact commercial 100-fs-pulsed Er fiber laser system providing two amplified near-infrared beams, one of them broadened by a nonlinear optical fiber. The resulting collimated mid-infrared continuum beam of 1 mW quasi-cw power represents a coherent infrared frequency comb with zero carrier-envelope phase, containing about 500,000 modes that are exact multiples of the pulse repetition rate of 40 MHz. The beam's diffraction-limited performance enables long-distance spectroscopic probing as well as maximal focusability for classical and ultraresolving near-field microscopies. Applications are foreseen also in studies of transient chemical phenomena even at ultrafast pump-probe scale, and in high-resolution gas spectroscopy for e.g. breath analysis.     

Scattering-type near-field optical microscopy

A highly promising tool for nanoscale material characterization exploits local optical/infrared light scattering simultaneously with standard atomic force microscopy imaging. Thus, both the topography and the local optical/infrared properties of a sample surface can be mapped at better than 20 nm spatial resolution.     

In vivo electrochemical impedance measurement on single cell membrane

The electrochemical characteristics of the plasma membranes of single cells and organelles were investigated. Silicon fabrication technology was used to produce a metal ultra-microelectrode (UME). Furthermore, the UME was characterized in a cell medium using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). A single rat fibroblast cell, or chloroplast purified from Peperomia metallica leaves, was immobilized by a micropipette after which the UME was inserted into its cytosolic space through cell membrane using a piezo actuator. An in vivo EIS measurement between the UME and the counter electrode outside of a single cell was taken. The measurements were analyzed using equivalent circuits in order to estimate the membrane impedance of a single cell.