Measures of site hazard—hazardous maneuvers

This paper describes hazardous maneuvers and their possible utilization to evaluate hazard of roadway sites. Some established hazardous maneuvers are erratic maneuvers, traffic conflicts, near-miss and hazardous regions of vehicle pairs.

Hazard is defined as an occurrence function. The possible output consists of a continuous range of manifest severity events—accidents, hazardous and borderline maneuvers. An interval of that range is described by a subfunction of the occurrence function. The input consists of driver. environment and vehicle (DEV) variables. A random variable is interrelated with the DEV variables in the occurrence function forming complex interactions.

In a comprehensive hazard reduction program, the concept of hazardous maneuvers is only a subset of the total hazard. Remedial techniques would be applied to the DEV variables as suggested by models of occurrence subfunctions and conventional traffic engineering studies.     

A study about the mechanism of hepatocyte injury induced by endotoxin--interaction of Kupffer cells and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs)

Focusing our attention on the TNF (tumor necrosis factor) produced by Kupffer cells (KCs). The role of KCs and polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) in endotoxin (LPS)-induced hepatocellular injury was investigated. This study used the culture fluid supernatant of KCs which had been stimulated with LPS as the "LPS stimulation supernatant", and evaluated hepatocellular injury as ornithine carbamyl transferase percent leakage. There was no difference between groups I (HCs: hepatocytes) and II (HCs + PMNs), but there were differences between groups I and III (HCs + LPS stimulation supernatant, groups II and IV (HCs + LPS stimulation supernatant + PMNs), and III and IV. There was no significant difference between III and V (III + anti-TNF antibody), but a difference was found between IV and VI (IV + anti-TNF antibody). These findings suggest that PMNs activated by KCs-generated TNF as well as KCs-derived humoral factors other than TNF play a role in the development of LPS-induced hepatocellular injury.     

Study of the repairing process of gastric ulcer using multivariate analysis of bFGF-positive cells, haemodynamics, PAS-positive mucus amount and glandular index in the gastric mucosa

To investigate pathophysiological diversities in the repairing process of gastric ulcer, distribution density of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF)-positive fibroblasts and myofibroblasts and vascular endothelial cells, mucosal haemoglobin content, PAS-positive mucus amount and glandular index were compared in the peripheral region of an open ulcer (the unhealed group; n = 17), the central region of a red scar (the red scar group; n = 32) and the central region of the white scar (white scar group; n = 32). Density of bFGF-positive fibroblasts and myofibroblasts and vascular endothelial cells was highest in the unhealed group, followed by the red scar group, while the white scar group showed a low value close to control. Mucosal haemoglobin content was high in the red scar and unhealed groups. PAS-positive mucus amount in the unhealed and red scar groups showed lower values compared with that in the white scar group. Glandular index in the unhealed group was the lowest, followed by the red scar group, while the white scar group neared control values. Statistically significant correlations were observed between the density of bFGF-positive "fibroblasts and myofibroblasts' and density of bFGF-positive vascular endothelial cells, between the density of bFGF-positive vascular endothelial cells and mucosal haemoglobin content and between the PAS-positive mucus amount and glandular index. Discriminant analysis demonstrated that the unhealed group could be distinguished from the red and white scar groups, based on glandular index, density of bFGF-positive "fibroblasts and myofibroblasts', mucosal haemoglobin content and PAS-positive mucus amount, while the red scar group could be discriminated from the white scar group based on the density of bFGF-positive "fibroblasts and myofibroblasts', density of bFGF-positive vascular endothelial cells, glandular index, haemoglobin content and PAS-positive mucus amount. The white scar group was difficult to discriminate from control. Our present results show that the recovery of glandular formation and mucus production continues throughout the repairing process, whereas the acceleration of angiogenesis and granulation formation is observed only in unhealed ulcers and at the red scar stage.     

Optimization of fuel consumption and NOx emission for mild HEV via hierarchical model predictive control

In this paper, we consider the fuel economy optimization problem for a mild hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) using hierarchical model predictive control. In the proposed algorithm, two problems are addressed: eco-driving and torque distribution. In the eco-driving problem, vehicle speed was controlled. Considering the reduction in fuel consumption and NOx emissions, the torque required to follow the target speed was calculated. Subsequently, in the torque distribution problem, the distribution between the engine and motor torques were calculated. In this phase, engine characteristics were considered. These problems differ in terms of time scales; therefore, a hierarchical model predictive control is proposed. Lastly, the numerical simulation results demonstrated the efficacy of this research.     

Experimental investigations of liquid flow in rib-patterned microchannels with different surface wettability

The effects of rib-patterned surfaces and surface wettability on liquid flow in microchannels were experimentally investigated in this study. Microchannels were fabricated on single-crystal silicon wafers by photolithographic and wet-etching techniques. Rib structures were patterned in the silicon microchannel, and the surface was chemically treated by trichlorosilane to create hydrophobic condition. Experiments with water as the working fluid were performed with these microchannels over a wide range of Reynolds numbers between 110 and 1914. The results for the rib-patterned microchannels showed that the friction factor with the hydraulic diameter based on the rib-to-upper-wall height was lower than that predicted from incompressible theory with the same height. The friction factor-Reynolds number products for the hydrophobic condition increased as Reynolds number increased in the laminar flow regime. The experimental results were also compared with the predictive expressions from the literature, and it was found that the experimental data for the small rib/cavity geometry was in good agreement with those in the literature.     

Molecular dynamics simulation of ribosome jam

We propose a coarse-grained molecular dynamics model of ribosome molecules to study the dependence of translation process on environmental parameters. We found the model exhibits traffic jam property, which is consistent with an ASEP model. We estimated the influence of the temperature and concentration of molecules on the hopping probability used in the ASEP model. Our model can also treat environmental effects on the translation process that cannot be explained by such cellular automaton models.     

Subdivision templates for converting a non-conformal hex-dominant mesh to a conformal hex-dominant mesh without pyramid elements

This paper presents a computational method for converting a non-conformal hex-dominant mesh to a conformal hex-dominant mesh without help of pyramid elements. During the conversion, the proposed method subdivides a non-conformal element by applying a subdivision template and conformal elements by a conventional subdivision scheme. Although many finite element solvers accept mixed elements, some of them require a mesh to be conformal without a pyramid element. None of the published automated methods could create a conformal hex-dominant mesh without help of pyramid elements, and therefore the applicability of the hex-dominant mesh has been significantly limited. The proposed method takes a non-conformal hex-dominant mesh as an input and converts it to a conformal hex-dominant mesh that consists only of hex, tet, and prism elements. No pyramid element will be introduced. The conversion thus considerably increases the applicability of the hex-dominant mesh in many finite element solvers.     

Information transfer in a swarm of soldier crabs

Collective behavior is broadly observed in animal groups such as insect swarm, bird flock, and fish school. Both theoretical studies and field observations have investigated possible underlying principles based on local interaction among individuals in a group without global information via conductors or leaders. Information transferred among individuals would play a key role to understand it. In this study, to investigate how individual in a swarm uses information of its own past behavior or swarm mates’ behavior, we analyzed behavior of soldier crabs Mictyris guinotae in terms of local active information storage and local transfer entropy.