Optimizing Design of Highway Horizontal Alignments: New Substantive Safety Approach

Abstract:   Highway agencies are continually facing safety problems on highways, especially on horizontal alignments. Traditionally, the geometric design implicitly considers safety through satisfying minimum design requirements for different geometric elements. This article presents a new substantive-safety approach for the design of horizontal alignments based not only on minimum design guidelines, but also on actual collision experience. The curve radii, spiral lengths, lane width, shoulder width, and tangent lengths are determined to optimize the mean collision frequency along the highway. The model allows the parameters of the horizontal alignment to vary within specified ranges. The model also considers any specified physical obstructions in selecting the optimal alignment. Collision experience is addressed using existing collision prediction models for horizontal alignments and cross sections. The model is applicable to two-lane rural highways for which collision prediction models exist. Application of the model is presented using numerical examples. The proposed substantive-safety approach takes horizontal alignment design one step further beyond the minimum-guideline concept, and therefore should be of interest to highway designers.     

An intelligent system for the climate control and energy savings in agricultural greenhouses

A greenhouse for crop production is a complex thermodynamic system where the indoor temperature and the humidity conditions have a great impact on the crop yields. This system can be considered a multivariable input output system MIMO. This paper aims at presenting a physical model of a greenhouse, experimentally validated, in order to propose a fuzzy-based controller to manage the indoor climate of a greenhouse using some actuators (induction motors, heating system etc.…) for ventilation, heating, humidifying, and dehumidifying purposes. In addition, a novel approach is presented for energy management by involving the photovoltaic energy in order to minimize the use of conventional electrical grid and to lower costs of agriculture production. The photovoltaic (PV) generator will serve to power a direct torque control (DTC) controlled induction motor which drive a variable speed fan. The validation of the physical model shows a high agreement with the experimental measurement. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the fuzzy controller as well as the PV generator for saving the energy and lowering the costs of crop production into greenhouses.     

Vitamin D and multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the central nervous system and characterized by neurological and cognitive manifestations. The disease is more common in populations living in high altitudes with low sun exposure, women more than men, and certain ethnic backgrounds more than others. The etiology of MS is yet unknown, although several factors have been implicated in its development. These include genetic factors and environmental factors as well as dietary components and their interactions. Among the dietary components that have recently attracted the attention is vitamin D. This mini-review summarizes current knowledge on the potential use of vitamin D in the protection and treatment of MS. In addition, the mechanism(s) by which vitamin D plays a role in the development and/or protection from MS are discussed.     

Geometric Correction for Uneven Quadric Projection Surfaces Using Recursive Subdivision of Bézier Patches

This paper presents a scheme for geometric correction of projected content for planar and quadratic projection surfaces. The scheme does not require the projection surface to be perfectly quadratic or planar and is therefore suitable for uneven low‐cost commercial and home projection surfaces. An approach based on the recursive subdivision of second‐order Bézier patches is proposed for the estimation of projection distortion owing to surface imperfections. Unlike existing schemes, the proposed scheme is completely automatic, requires no prior knowledge of the projection surface, and uses a single uncalibrated camera without requiring any physical markers on the projection surface. Furthermore, the scheme is scalable for geometric calibration of multiprojector setups. The efficacy of the proposed scheme is demonstrated using simulations and via practical experiments on various surfaces. A relative distortion error metric is also introduced that provides a quantitative measure of the suppression of geometric distortions, which occurs as the result of an imperfect projection surface.     

beta-Sitosterol enhances tamoxifen effectiveness on breast cancer cells by affecting ceramide metabolism

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the dietary phytosterol beta-sitosterol (SIT) and the antiestrogen drug tamoxifen (TAM) on cell growth and ceramide (CER) metabolism in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells. The MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cell lines were studied as models of estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells. Growth of both cell lines as determined using the sulforhodamine B assay was inhibited by treatment with 16 microM SIT but only MCF-7 cell growth was inhibited by treatment with 1 microM TAM. The combination of SIT and TAM further inhibited growth in both cell lines, most significantly in MDA-MB-231 cells. CER is a proapoptotic signal and CER levels were increased in both MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells by individual treatment with SIT and TAM and the combined treatment raised cellular CER content even further. SIT and TAM raised CER levels by different means. SIT potently activated de novo CER synthesis in both MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells by stimulating serine palmitoyltransferase activity; whereas TAM promoted CER accumulation in both cell types by inhibiting CER glycosylation. These results suggest that the combination regimen of dietary SIT and TAM chemotherapy may be beneficial in the management of breast cancer patients.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Effect of Urea on the Morphology of Fe3O4 Magnetic Nanoparticles and Their Application in Potentiometric Urea Biosensors

Silicon - The effect of different concentrations of urea on the morphology of iron oxide (Fe3O4) magnetic nanoparticles was studied. Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles were fabricated by the...     

Safe semi supervised multi-target regression (MTR-SAFER) for new targets learning

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Multi-target regression (MTR) is a challenging research problem which aims to predict more than one continuous variable as output in a pattern. In recent time, a...