Assessment of a Flexible Architecture for Distributed Control*

Production pipelines of manufactory industries present several machines and robots in which the movements of interpolated axes are managed by computerized numerical controls (CNCs). These are typically synchronized with several other simpler actuators along the pipeline of production. CNCs have to be flexible, easily expandable, and reusable, when pipelines of production are frequently reconfigured to realize different arranged pipelines with different technical requirements. In this paper, the assessment of a flexible CNC for such reconfigurable pipelines is presented. The analysis has been focused on defining objective metrics that can be applied for assessing performance and feasibility of distributed controls for pipelines. The method proposed has been applied on the distributed control architecture defined in the MUPAAC ESPRIT HPCN (Multi Processor Architecture for Automatic Control, High Performance Computer Networking of the European Commission). MUPAAC architecture and prototype has been assessed in order to identify the critical configurations and the limits of the architecture.     

Simple baseband synchronisation scheme for tamed frequencymodulation

A novel carrier and clock synchronisation scheme for tamed frequency modulation is presented. It requires one complex sample per bit, like the digital Costas loop for offset in-phase and quadrature modulations, and is based on processing baseband samples of the phase of the received signal. The performance of the synchroniser is assessed by S-curves and simulated acquisition trajectories     

Oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids with ruthenium and osmium tetroxide

The oxidation of the alkali metal salts of oleic and undecylenic acid with ruthenium and osmium tetroxides is reported. The oxidants are used in catalytic amounts in conjunction with an excess of the in-expensive cooxidant sodium hypochlorite. Ruthenium tetroxide cleaves the carbon-carbon double bond of potassium oleate, to give pelargonic and gives sebacic acid. With osmium tetroxide, hydroxylation of the double bond of potassium oleate gives a 95% yield oferythro-9,10-dihydroxystearic acid. The osmium tetroxide oxidation of sodium undecylenate results in the formation of 10,11-dihydroxyundecanoic acid and the cleavage product sebacic acid in varying yields.     

Deep Resequencing of 9 Candidate Genes Identifies a Role for ARAP1 and IGF2BP2 in Modulating Insulin Secretion Adjusted for Insulin Resistance in Obese Southern Europeans

Type 2 diabetes is characterized by impairment in insulin secretion, with an established genetic contribution. We aimed to evaluate common and low-frequency (1–5%) variants in nine genes strongly associated with insulin secretion by targeted sequencing in subjects selected from the extremes of insulin release measured by the disposition index. Collapsing data by gene and/or function, the association between disposition index and nonsense variants were significant, also after adjustment for confounding factors (OR = 0.25, 95% CI = 0.11–0.59, p = 0.001). Evaluating variants individually, three novel variants in ARAP1, IGF2BP2 and GCK, out of eight reaching significance singularly, remained associated after adjustment. Constructing a genetic risk model combining the effects of the three variants, only carriers of the ARAP1 and IGF2BP2 variants were significantly associated with a reduced probability to be in the lower, worst, extreme of insulin secretion (OR = 0.223, 95% CI = 0.105–0.473, p < 0.001). Observing a high number of normal glucose tolerance between carriers, a regression posthoc analysis was performed. Carriers of genetic risk model variants had higher probability to be normoglycemic, also after adjustment (OR = 2.411, 95% CI = 1.136–5.116, p = 0.022). Thus, in our southern European cohort, nonsense variants in all nine candidate genes showed association with better insulin secretion adjusted for insulin resistance, and we established the role of ARAP1 and IGF2BP2 in modulating insulin secretion.     

Virtues and problems of the high C-field Cs beam frequency standard

The high C-field Cs beam frequency standard is presently a working machine that is undergoing first evaluations. The projected 10(-14 ) accuracy goal is as yet unattained, mainly because of inadequate C-field uniformity and stability. An analysis of the projected possible C-field improvements and the consequent uncertainty is here reported.     

White matter lesion detection in multiple sclerosis: improved interobserver concordance with multispectral MRI display

The histopathology specimens from 256 consecutive prostatectomies were retrospectively analysed and classified into three categories namely BPH alone, BPH and an inflammatory lesion and adenocarcinoma. Mode of presentation (acute urine retention versus prostatism) as well as short term post-operative complications, namely, haemorrhage and genitourinary infection were compared in the three histological categories to study the impact of histology on clinical presentation and complications. There were no significant differences between the three categories neither in presentation nor in complications. We conclude that prostate gland histology neither correlates with the onset of acute urine retention nor with the surgical complications studied in this report.