Many studies concerning morphing aircraft concepts in which enhanced performance and increased energy efficiency are two of the main goals have been recently conducted. Some of those concepts deal with wing span changes. In line with those, in a variable-span wing of the telescopic type, the cross-sections of the sliding panels, whether be two, three or more, must be made geometrically compatible among them. This requirement serves two purposes: to minimize the aerofoils' geometric discontinuity which negatively affects wing drag and lift; and to provide a simple structural support between any two sliding panels. This paper describes the methodology employed to develop geometrically compatible aerofoils obtained from a constant geometric offset applied to a given initial aerofoil. This methodology is used to create inward offset aerofoils and outward offset aerofoils. The geometric and aerodynamic characteristics of the resulting offset aerofoils are compared with those of the original aerofoils. From the analysis of six different original aerofoils, strong trends in the geometric changes and in the aerodynamic characteristics of the resulting inward and outward offset aerofoils are observed. Ultimately, this study can help a telescopic wing designer decide whether an inward or an outward offset aerofoil is more appropriate for the specific design at hand.
In the last decade, we have seen an increase in the use cases of digital technologies in our daily lives, including advanced systems such as our mobile applications, smart digital kiosks for intelligent retailing, touch screens for ordering food, or simple implementations such as the ticket machines in the butchers. However, from the perspective of interaction design, those sensing systems suffer from a range of limitations like low usability and poor hygiene. For example, the elderly or the disabled normally have huge difficulties when interacting with these types of digital systems. Moreover, the recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made us to rethink the contact manner for interaction with the digital devices. Hence, in this paper, we have presented a novel solution for digital interaction through a contactless manner. Such a system can provide human gesture recognition and therefore it can be integrated into others to achieve contactless control. We have implemented a prototype based on cost efficient sensors to validate the idea's feasibility. A sequence of real world experiments has also been conducted to evaluate its performance. This system is composed with 1) piece of hardware-a grid of ultrasound sensors to capture the distance information from a human body; 2) a piece of software to analyse the data for gesture predictions. The analysis results then will be transformed into control commands to interact with the attached system. The experimental results have shown that the proposed system is capable of providing a contactless Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and also has a great opportunity to replace existing touching interaction manner with a remote control scheme.
INTRODUCTION: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) can be a particularly useful tool to assess the integrity of corticospinal tract (CST) in post-stroke patients, based on the motor evoked potential (MEP) of which we can determine the extent of brain damage and predict motor recovery after brain injuries. OBJECTIVE: To provide a practical guide to assess the functional integrity of the CST in the hand area of primary motor cortex (Hand-M1) using single-pulse TMS. RESULTS: A step by step procedure should be initiated with markings to find C3 or C4 from the 10-20 system, depending on which hemisphere is damaged, with the proper coil positioning at a 45° angle for we to properly find the MEP navigating from the original point. If no potentials are evoked at rest condition, MEP should be searched during a slight tonic contraction of the target muscle. If no voluntary movement can be produced in the affected muscles, facilitated MEPs should be searched with an isometric recruitment of the contralateral homologous target muscles. MEP will be considered absent if no visible muscle contraction is identified after the pulse. In addition, we can perform MEP search with electromyographic recordings for a peak-to-peak signal analysis. CONCLUSION: We can use this practical guide to assess the functional integrity of CST in Hand-M1 with single pulse TMS to consider a present or absent MEP and determine the extent of brain damage and predict a possible motor recovery after stroke.
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