Trust in Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

In traditional Pedestrian Automatic Emergency Braking (PAEB) system, vehicles equipped with onboard sensors such as radar, camera, and infrared detect pedestrians, alert the driver and/ or automatically take actions to prevent vehicle-pedestrian collision. In some situations, a vehicle may not be able to detect a pedestrian due to blind spots. Such a vehicle could benefit from the sensor data from neighboring vehicles in making such safety critical decisions. We propose a trust model for ensuring shared data are valid and trustworthy for use in making safety critical decisions. Simulation results of the proposed trust model show promise

Outward FDI from India and its policy context

India is now the world's 21st largest outward investor, which is significant given its historically miniscule foreign direct investment (FDI) outflows. Annual FDI outflows have jumped fifty-fold after 2000, and Indian firms have invested over US$ 75 billion overseas in the past decade, in some cases to attain global status by acquiring world-leading firms. Substantial improvements in the country's economic performance and the competitiveness of its firms and their strategy, resulting from ongoing liberalization in economic and outward FDI (OFDI) policies, made these developments possible. Indian firms now invest across a wide variety of sectors and countries, departing from their historical focus on trading and textile investments in developing countries. Following the 25% crisis-induced drop in Indian OFDI in 2009, Indian firms are once again increasing their overseas investment, including through mergers and acquisitions (M&As). India's OFDI should continue its rapid upward trend over the next few years, as more companies seek to transfer their products and service innovations to new markets, and acquire strategic international know-how and market shares, particularly in crisis-hit developed economies

Inward FDI in India and its policy context

A minor global FDI player in 2000, India is now the world's thirteenth largest FDI host country. With 2008 inflows of US$42 billion and 2009 inflows of US$ 27 billion, it is also a global top three preferred investment destination. Notable liberalizations in FDI policy and in several economic sectors, a globally competitive workforce, and rapid GDP and market growth are the main drivers of foreign investment in India. Yet, equity caps limit the size of potential new inflows, while national security concerns might prompt more oversight of FDI approval processes

Effect of substrate stiffness on early human embryonic stem cell differentiation

Background: The pluripotency and self renewing properties of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) make them a valuable tool in the fields of developmental biology, pharmacology and regenerative medicine. Therefore, there exists immense interest in devising strategies for hESC propagation and differentiation. Methods involving simulation of the native stem cell microenvironment, both chemical and physical, have received a lot of attention in recent years. Equally important is evidence that cells can also sense the mechanical properties of their microenvironment. In this study, we test the hypothesis that hESCs accept mechanical cues for differentiation from the substrate by culturing them on flexible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) of varying stiffness. Results: PDMS substrates were prepared using available commercial formulations and characterized for stiffness, surface properties and efficiency of cell attachment and proliferation. Across different substrate stiffness, cell numbers, cell attachment and cell surface area were found to be similar. Expression of pluripotency markers decreased with increased time in culture across all PDMS substrates of varying stiffness. Analysis of gene expression of differentiation markers indicates that the differentiation process becomes less stochastic with longer culture times. Conclusions: We evaluated the utility of PDMS substrates for stem cell propagation and substrate mediated differentiation. The stiffness affected gene expression of pluripotent and differentiation markers with results indicating that these substrate systems could potentially be used to direct hESC fate towards early mesodermal lineages. This study suggests that coupled with soluble factors, PDMS substrates could potentially be useful in generating defined populations of differentiated cells.Engineering and Applied Science

Projective Ring Line of a Specific Qudit

A very particular connection between the commutation relations of the elements of the generalized Pauli group of a $d$-dimensional qudit, $d$ being a product of distinct primes, and the structure of the projective line over the (modular) ring \bZ_{d} is established, where the integer exponents of the generating shift ($X$) and clock ($Z$) operators are associated with submodules of \bZ^{2}_{d}. Under this correspondence, the set of operators commuting with a given one -- a perp-set -- represents a \bZ_{d}-submodule of \bZ^{2}_{d}. A crucial novel feature here is that the operators are also represented by {\it non}-admissible pairs of \bZ^{2}_{d}. This additional degree of freedom makes it possible to view any perp-set as a {\it set-theoretic} union of the corresponding points of the associated projective line

STRENGTH STUDIES ON SELF CURING HIGH PERFORMANCE FIBRE REIFORCED CONCRETE (HPFRC)

High performance concrete (HPC) is one of the prevailing techniques which have become popular due to its mechanical and durability properties. To enhance the property, fibre reinforcement is providing with steel fibre and also overcome the insufficient curing problem due to human irregularity during the period of curing the self curing methodology have been adopted. In this study mechanical property of self curing HPFRC is examined with varies percentage of self curing agent of Polyethylene Glycol (PEG400) with a constant proportion of silica fume and steel fibre. The steel fibre of aspect ratio 50mm is adopted for minimizing the cracks in concrete and improving strength, durability, impact, toughness etc. The HPC of grade M60 is prepared with water cement ratio of 0.3 and PEG400 varies from 0% to 1.5% at 0.5% intervals with and without using steel fibres and replacing cement with 6% of silica fume. To enhance the workability of HPC, super plasticizer (conplast 430) at a range of 1.8% of cement was used. Mechanical properties like compressive strength, split tensile strength, flexural strength and modulus of elasticity were examined at 3 days, 7 days and 28 days to evaluate the optimum percentage of PEG 400 with and without steel fibre

Projective Ring Line Encompassing Two-Qubits

The projective line over the (non-commutative) ring of two-by-two matrices with coefficients in GF(2) is found to fully accommodate the algebra of 15 operators - generalized Pauli matrices - characterizing two-qubit systems. The relevant sub-configuration consists of 15 points each of which is either simultaneously distant or simultaneously neighbor to (any) two given distant points of the line. The operators can be identified with the points in such a one-to-one manner that their commutation relations are exactly reproduced by the underlying geometry of the points, with the ring geometrical notions of neighbor/distant answering, respectively, to the operational ones of commuting/non-commuting. This remarkable configuration can be viewed in two principally different ways accounting, respectively, for the basic 9+6 and 10+5 factorizations of the algebra of the observables. First, as a disjoint union of the projective line over GF(2) x GF(2) (the "Mermin" part) and two lines over GF(4) passing through the two selected points, the latter omitted. Second, as the generalized quadrangle of order two, with its ovoids and/or spreads standing for (maximum) sets of five mutually non-commuting operators and/or groups of five maximally commuting subsets of three operators each. These findings open up rather unexpected vistas for an algebraic geometrical modelling of finite-dimensional quantum systems and give their numerous applications a wholly new perspective.Comment: 8 pages, three tables; Version 2 - a few typos and one discrepancy corrected; Version 3: substantial extension of the paper - two-qubits are generalized quadrangles of order two; Version 4: self-dual picture completed; Version 5: intriguing triality found -- three kinds of geometric hyperplanes within GQ and three distinguished subsets of Pauli operator