The need for indoor pedestrian navigators is quickly increasing in various applications over the last few years. However, indoor navigation still faces many challenges and practical issues, such as ...the need for special hardware designs and complicated infrastructure requirements. This paper originally proposes a pedestrian navigator based on tightly coupled (TC) integration of low-cost microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors and WiFi for handheld devices. Two other approaches are proposed in this paper to enhance the navigation performance: the use of MEMS solution based on pedestrian dead reckoning/inertial navigation system (PDR/INS) integration and the use of motion constraints, such as non-holonomic constraints, zero velocity update, and zero angular rate update for the MEMS solution. There are two main contributions in this paper: TC fusion of WiFi, INS, and PDR for pedestrian navigation using an extended Kalman filter and better heading estimation using PDR and INS integration to remove the gyro noise that occurs when only vertical gyroscope is used. The performance of the proposed navigation algorithms has been extensively verified through field tests in indoor environments. The experiment results showed that the average root mean square position error of the proposed TC integration solution was 3.47 m in three trajectories, which is 0.01% of INS, 10.38% of PDR, 32.11% of the developed MEMS solution, and 64.58% of the loosely coupled integration. The proposed TC integrated navigation system can work well in the environment with sparse deployment of WiFi access points.
•Ethanol direct injection+gasoline port injection was experimentally investigated.•Late ethanol direct injection (LEDI) was effective on suppressing engine knock.•Early ethanol direct injection ...(EEDI) resulted in higher efficiency than LEDI did.•EEDI was more effective on extending the lean burn limit than LEDI was.
Ethanol is a promising alternative fuel for internal combustion engines due to its renewable feature. To make the use of ethanol fuel more effective and efficient, ethanol direct injection plus gasoline port injection (EDI+GPI) has been investigated in recent years. By directly injecting ethanol into the engine, the advantages of ethanol fuel such as high latent heat of vaporization, fast laminar flame speed, wide flammability and better low temperature combustion stability can be well utilized to enhance engine anti-knock ability and improve lean burn performance. For an engine equipped with direct injection (DI) system, start of injection (SOI) timing is an important control parameter which directly affects the engine performance. This paper reports the investigation to the effect of ethanol fuel SOI timing on knock mitigation and lean burn. Experiments were conducted on a 250cc single cylinder spark ignition (SI) engine equipped with EDI+GPI system. Ethanol fuel SOI timing before and after the inlet valve closing, defined as early and late injection timings (EEDI and LEDI) were investigated in engine conditions at knock limited spark advance (KLSA) and lean burn limit. The experimental results showed that LEDI was effective on suppressing engine knock and permitting more advanced spark timing. EEDI was less effective than LEDI on mitigating knock due to the increased heat transfer from cylinder wall to gases. The mixture quality may be deteriorated in LEDI conditions which resulted in low engine efficiency and high emissions. Volumetric efficiency was increased and combustion duration was reduced in EEDI conditions. The combined effects of improved volumetric efficiency, reduced combustion duration and moderately advanced spark timing resulted in increased engine thermal efficiency in EEDI conditions. In lean burn, EEDI was more effective on extending lean burn limit. The maximum lambda achieved in EEDI condition was 1.29 when ethanol energy ratio (EER) was 24% and SOI timing was 290 CAD BTDC. LEDI only slightly increased lean burn limit which was just over stoichiometric air–fuel ratio (AFR). In EEDI conditions, IMEP was greater and combustion stability (COV) was better than that in LEDI conditions. The emissions in EEDI conditions were also lower than that in LEDI conditions.
Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a malignant tumor that is difficult to diagnose and treat. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are biomarkers that may be used to diagnose certain cancers or act as targets for cancer ...treatment. We aimed to explore the functions of human circular RNA 001587 (hsa_circRNA_001587) on the progression of PC and the underlying mechanism. The expression pattern of hsa_circRNA_001587 and microRNA-223 (miR-223) in PC tissues and cells was determined by RT-qPCR. Dual-luciferase reporter gene assay, RNA-pulldown, Argonaute 2 (AGO2) immunoprecipitation assay, and Northern blot analysis were applied to verify the binding relationships among hsa_circRNA_001587, miR-223 and solute carrier family 4 member 4 (SLC4A4). Further analysis of their roles was performed in PC cell line PANC-1. Moreover, we either downregulated or upregulated the expression of hsa_circRNA_001587, miR-223, and SLC4A4 by transfection in vitro. A mouse xenograft model of PC cells was established to evaluate tumor growth in vivo. hsa_circRNA_001587 was poorly expressed, but miR-223 was highly expressed in PC tissues and cell lines. Upregulation of hsa_circRNA_001587 downregulated the expression of matrix metalloproteinase-2 and-9, minichromosome maintenance 2, and vascular endothelial growth factor, and decreased the proliferation, migration, invasion, angiogenic and tumorigenic abilities of PC cells. MiR-223, which can bind with hsa_circRNA_001587, reversed the effects of hsa_circRNA_001587 on PC cells. In addition, SLC4A4 was identified as a target of miR-223, and its knockdown could counteract the regulatory effects of overexpressed hsa_circRNA_001587 or inhibited miR-223 expression on PC cells. Therefore, hsa_circRNA_001587 inhibits PC cell migration, invasion, angiogenesis and tumorigenesis by impairing miR-223-mediated SLC4A4 inhibition.
Human circular (hsa_circ)RNA_001587 and solute carrier family 4 member 4 (SLC4A4) are poorly expressed but microRNA (miR)R-223 is overexpressed in pancreatic cancer (PC) cells. hsa_circRNA_001587 binds to miR-223. Overexpression of hsa_circRNA_001587 inhibits PC progression. Overexpression of miR-223 downregulates the expression of SLC4A4 and promotes PC cell growth. hsa_circRNA_001587 may be a potential target for PC treatment.
Indoor wireless localization using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons has attracted considerable attention after the release of the BLE protocol. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that uses the ...combination of channel-separate polynomial regression model (PRM), channel-separate fingerprinting (FP), outlier detection and extended Kalman filtering (EKF) for smartphone-based indoor localization with BLE beacons. The proposed algorithm uses FP and PRM to estimate the target's location and the distances between the target and BLE beacons respectively. We compare the performance of distance estimation that uses separate PRM for three advertisement channels (i.e., the separate strategy) with that use an aggregate PRM generated through the combination of information from all channels (i.e., the aggregate strategy). The performance of FP-based location estimation results of the separate strategy and the aggregate strategy are also compared. It was found that the separate strategy can provide higher accuracy; thus, it is preferred to adopt PRM and FP for each BLE advertisement channel separately. Furthermore, to enhance the robustness of the algorithm, a two-level outlier detection mechanism is designed. Distance and location estimates obtained from PRM and FP are passed to the first outlier detection to generate improved distance estimates for the EKF. After the EKF process, the second outlier detection algorithm based on statistical testing is further performed to remove the outliers. The proposed algorithm was evaluated by various field experiments. Results show that the proposed algorithm achieved the accuracy of <2.56 m at 90% of the time with dense deployment of BLE beacons (1 beacon per 9 m), which performs 35.82% better than <3.99 m from the Propagation Model (PM) + EKF algorithm and 15.77% more accurate than <3.04 m from the FP + EKF algorithm. With sparse deployment (1 beacon per 18 m), the proposed algorithm achieves the accuracies of <3.88 m at 90% of the time, which performs 49.58% more accurate than <8.00 m from the PM + EKF algorithm and 21.41% better than <4.94 m from the FP + EKF algorithm. Therefore, the proposed algorithm is especially useful to improve the localization accuracy in environments with sparse beacon deployment.
The emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as smart manufacturing and smart home, lead to a huge demand on the provisioning of low-cost and high-accuracy positioning and navigation ...solutions. Inertial measurement unit (IMU) can provide an accurate inertial navigation solution in a short time but its positioning error increases fast with time due to the cumulative error of accelerometer measurement. On the other hand, ultrawideband (UWB) positioning and navigation accuracy will be affected by the actual environment and may lead to uncertain jumps even under line-of-sight (LOS) conditions. Therefore, it is hard to use a standalone positioning and navigation system to achieve high accuracy in indoor environments. In this article, we propose an integrated indoor positioning system (IPS) combining IMU and UWB through the extended Kalman filter (EKF) and unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to improve the robustness and accuracy. We also discuss the relationship between the geometric distribution of the base stations (BSs) and the dilution of precision (DOP) to reasonably deploy the BSs. The simulation results show that the prior information provided by IMU can significantly suppress the observation error of UWB. It is also shown that the integrated positioning and navigation accuracy of IPS significantly improves that of the least squares (LSs) algorithm, which only depends on UWB measurements. Moreover, the proposed algorithm has high computational efficiency and can realize real-time computation on general embedded devices. In addition, two random motion approximation model algorithms are proposed and evaluated in the real environment. The experimental results show that the two algorithms can achieve certain robustness and continuous tracking ability in the actual IPS.
Pseudouridine synthases (PUSs) are responsible for installation of pseudouridine (Ψ) modification in RNA. However, the activity and function of the PUS enzymes remain largely unexplored. Here we ...focus on human PUS10 and find that it co-expresses with the microprocessor (DROSHA-DGCR8 complex). Depletion of PUS10 results in a marked reduction of the expression level of a large number of mature miRNAs and concomitant accumulation of unprocessed primary microRNAs (pri-miRNAs) in multiple human cells. Mechanistically, PUS10 directly binds to pri-miRNAs and interacts with the microprocessor to promote miRNA biogenesis. Unexpectedly, this process is independent of the catalytic activity of PUS10. Additionally, we develop a sequencing method to profile Ψ in the tRNAome and report PUS10-dependent Ψ sites in tRNA. Collectively, our findings reveal differential functions of PUS10 in nuclear miRNA processing and in cytoplasmic tRNA pseudouridylation.
Aim Timbre in piano performance plays a critical role in enhancing musical expression. However, timbre control in current piano performance education relies mostly on descriptive characterization, ...which involves large variations of interpretation. The current study aimed to mitigate the limitations by identifying quantitative indices with adequate precision to characterize piano timbre. Methods A total of 24 sounds of G6 were recorded from 3 grand pianos, by 2 performers, and with 4 repetitions. The sounds were processed and analyzed with audio software for the frequencies and volumes of harmonic series in the spectrum curves. Ten quantitative timbre indices were calculated. Precision validation with statistical gage R&R analysis was conducted to gage the repeatability (between repetitions) and reproducibility (between performers) of the indices. The resultant percentage study variation (%SV) of an index must be ≤10% to be considered acceptable for characterizing piano timbre with enough precision. Results Out of the 10 indices, 4 indices had acceptable precision in characterizing piano timbre with %SV ≤10%, including the square sum of relative volume (4.40%), the frequency-weighted arithmetic mean of relative volume (4.29%), the sum of relative volume (3.11%), and the frequency-weighted sum of relative volume (2.09%). The novel indices identified in the current research will provide valuable tools to advance the measurement and communication of timbre and advance music performance education.
► Gasoline fuel could be leveraged by ethanol fuel using ethanol direct injection plus gasoline port injection (EDI+GPI). ► Brake mean effective pressure and volumetric efficiency increased with the ...increase of ethanol/gasoline energy percentage. ► The NO emission was decreased by enhanced charge cooling effect and reduced in-cylinder peak temperature in EDI+GPI. ► CO and HC emissions increased with the increase of ethanol/gasoline energy percentage.
Ethanol has been used as an alternative fuel or fuel addicts in spark ignition (SI) engines for years. However, the existing methods of using ethanol fuel, such as blending gasoline and ethanol, pure ethanol and by-fuel of ethanol or gasoline do not make the best use of ethanol’s potentials in improving engine performance. Compared with gasoline fuel, ethanol fuel possesses greater octane number and latent heat of vaporization, which allow higher compression ratio and consequently lead to the increased thermal efficiency. Ethanol fuel’s higher combustion velocity could also help increase the combustion efficiency and minimize the energy loss. This paper reports our preliminary investigation to the leveraging effect of using ethanol direct injection plus gasoline port injection (EDI+GPI) on reducing the consumption of gasoline fuel. Experiments were conducted on a YBR250 engine which was a single cylinder SI engine modified to be equipped with EDI+GPI. At each of the four designated engine speeds, the engine load was set to be either medium or light and the ethanol/gasoline energy ratio (EER) was varied from 0% to 60.1%. The rate of the total heating energy of two fuels was kept constant in one of the two engine load conditions. Experimental results were analyzed and discussed in terms of engine performance, in-cylinder combustion characteristics and engine emissions. They showed certain leveraging effect of using ethanol fuel by the increased BMEP, volumetric efficiency and thermal efficiency and reduced NO with the increase of EER.
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