In development of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engines, simultaneous control of combustion phasing and power output has been a major challenge. In this study, a new strategy is developed to control the engine power output and combustion phasing at any desired operating condition. A single zone thermodynamic model coupled to a full kinetic mechanism of Primary Reference Fuels (...

Restoration of lung homeostasis following injury requires efficient wound healing by the epithelium. The mechanisms of lung epithelial wound healing include cell spreading and migration into the wounded area and later cell proliferation. We hypothesized that mechanical properties of cells vary near the wound edge, and this may provide cues to direct cell migration. To investigate this hypothesi...

Adherent cells are typically cultured on rigid substrates that are orders of magnitude stiffer than their tissue of origin. Here, we describe a method to rapidly fabricate 96 and 384 well platforms for routine screening of cells in tissue-relevant stiffness contexts. Briefly, polyacrylamide (PA) hydrogels are cast in glass-bottom plates, functionalized with collagen, and sterilized for cell cul...

in this paper, we propose a novel method for fully automatic detection and tracking of human heads and faces in video sequences. the proposed algorithm consists of two modules: a face detection module and a face tracking module. the detection module, detects the face region and approximates it with an ellipse at the first frame using a modified version of adaboost cascaded classifier. the detec...

The main design criteria of ballasted railway tracks include rail deflections, rail bending stresses, rail wheel contact stresses, sleeper bending moments and ballast sleeper contact pressures. Numerous criteria have been defined for the design of ballasted railway tracks owing to the various mechanical properties of track components and their complex interaction. Therefore, railway track desig...

background : previous studies have investigated different effects of muscle fatigue on body systems. however, there are no reports on the effect of fatigue protocol and its level on musculotendinous stiffness (mts) of the tricep-surae. this study was designed to compare the effects of 2 levels of submaximal fatigue contraction on mts of triceps-surae. methods: twenty female students by simple r...

Serpentine robots are slender, multisegmented vehicles designed to provide greater mobility than conventional wheeled or tracked robots. Serpentine robots are thus ideally suited for urban search and rescue as well as for surveillance and inspection tasks in hazardous and hard-to-reach environments. One such serpentine robot, currently under development at the University of Michigan, is the “Om...

We present a tactile telepresence system for real-time transmission of information about object stiffness to the human fingertips. Experimental tests were performed across two laboratories (Italy and Ireland). In the Italian laboratory, a mechatronic sensing platform indented different rubber samples. Information about rubber stiffness was converted into on-off events using a neuronal spiking m...

A finite element (FE) model of the below-knee residual limb and prosthetic socket was created to investigate the effects of parameter variations on the interface stress distribution during static stance. This model was based upon geometric approximations of anthropometric residual limb geometry. The model was not specific to an individual with amputation, but could be scaled to approximate the ...

We demonstrate the existence of a percolationlike stiffness transition in fiber networks with a bidisperse orientation distribution and with fiber densities clearly above the geometrical and the ordinary stiffness transition. The fibers are oriented parallel and perpendicular to a strain direction and they have a large fiber aspect ratio. The stiffness K of the fiber nets can be described by a ...