Perception systems for assisted driving and autonomy enable the identification and classification of objects through a concentration of sensors installed in vehicles, including Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), camera, Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), ultrasound, and HD maps. These sensors ensure a reliable and robust navigation system. Radar, in particular, operates with electromagnetic waves and remains effective under a variety of weather conditions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraffic simulations are valuable tools for urban mobility planning and operation, particularly in large cities. Simulation-based microscopic models have enabled traffic engineers to understand local transit and transport behaviors more deeply and manage urban mobility. However, for the simulations to be effective, the transport network and user behavior parameters must be calibrated to mirror real scenarios.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMelanoma is an aggressive skin cancer that affects approximately 140,000 people worldwide each year, with a high fatality rate. Available treatment modalities show limited efficacy in more severe cases. Hence, the search for new treatment modalities, including immunotherapies, for curing, mitigating, and/or preventing cancer is important and urgently needed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper presents an investigation, performed in the framework of density functional theory, on the properties of functionalized few-layer silicene nanosheets, denoted as SiX bilayers and SiX trilayers with X = B, N, Al, and P. Searching for stable phases, we computed the structural, energetic, thermodynamic, dynamic, elastic, and electronic properties of those systems in several stacking configurations, labeled as AA', AB, AA'A'', and ABC. The results revealed that AA'-SiN, AB-SiN, AA'-SiP, and AB-SiP bilayers, as well as ABC-SiB, ABC-SiAl, AA'A''-SiP, and ABC-SiP trilayers are all dynamically stable, based on their respective phonon dispersion spectra.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince December 2019, the world has faced an unprecedented pandemic crisis due to a new coronavirus disease, coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), which has instigated intensive studies on prevention and treatment possibilities. Here, we investigate the relationships between the immune activation induced by three coronaviruses associated with recent outbreaks, with special attention to SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, and the immune activation induced by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to understand the points of convergence in immune induction and modulation. Evidence suggests that CNTs are among the most promising materials for use as immunotherapeutic agents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvances in nanobiotechnology have allowed the utilization of nanotechnology through nanovaccines. Nanovaccines are powerful tools for enhancing the immunogenicity of a specific antigen and exhibit advantages over other adjuvant approaches, with features such as expanded stability, prolonged release, decreased immunotoxicity, and immunogenic selectivity. We introduce recent advances in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to induce either a carrier effect as a nanoplatform or an immunostimulatory effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe discovery of a pressure induced iron-related spin crossover in Mg((1-x))Fe(x)O ferropericlase (Fp) and Mg-silicate perovskite, the major phases of Earth's lower mantle, has raised new questions about mantle properties which are of central importance to seismology. Despite extensive experimental work on the anomalous elasticity of Fp throughout the crossover, inconsistencies reported in the literature are still unexplained. Here we introduce a formulation for thermoelasticity of spin crossover systems, apply it to Fp by combining it with predictive first principles density-functional theory with on-site repulsion parameter U calculations, and contrast results with available data on samples with various iron concentrations.
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