Ford Motor Company

About: Ford Motor Company is a company organization based out in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Internal combustion engine & Signal. The organization has 36123 authors who have published 51450 publications receiving 855200 citations. The organization is also known as: Ford Motor & Ford Motor Corporation.

Method of providing dynamic regionally relevant data to a mobile environment

Abstract: A dynamic method of delivering regionally relevant information to a plurality of geographically disperse and mobile environments, such as, for example, motor vehicles, allows passengers to immediately access regionally relevant information, such as weather, traffic, points of interest, restaurants, advertisements for local establishments, etc., without incurring expensive air-time from connecting through cellular infrastructure. The invention utilizes a filtering process referred to herein as dynamic geo filter/fencing (DGFF). This involves a receiver element in a mobile environment, such as a motor vehicle, taking a geo-code reading (e.g., latitude and longitude readings obtained from a GPS satellite via a GPS receiver) for identifying the location of the vehicle, then logically drawing a fence around that location reading, for example two miles square. At a separate location (e.g., a satellite uplink facility) regionally relevant data is tagged with the geo-code of the region to which the data is relevant, then broadcast (e.g., over a satellite link) to a wide footprint. The aforementioned receiver element receives the geo-coded regionally relevant information and filters it using the aforementioned logical fence according to the aforementioned DGFF process. Thus, received information bearing a geo-code within the logical fence is kept and processed, while information bearing a geo-code falling outside of the logical fence is not kept and processed. The inventive methodology is dynamic in that the fence automatically moves as the mobile environment moves, thereby automatically changing the nature and content of the information that is allowed to pass through the DGFF filter.

Spin-Density Oscillations in Ferromagnetic Alloys. I. "Localized" Solute Atoms: Al, Si, Mn, V, and Cr in Fe

Abstract: The internal magnetic fields and isomer shifts of ${\mathrm{Fe}}^{57}$ nuclei in a number of iron-rich bcc binary alloy systems were measured by the M\"ossbauer technique. The added solute atoms Al, Si, Mn, Cr, or V give structure to the individual lines of the spectra indicating that their effects are quite localized. These line shapes were analyzed by a computer program which interpreted them in terms of the effects of the solute atoms in the first five neighbor shells. It appears justifiable to attribute the observed hyperfine-field shifts in the FeAl series to the spatial variation of the spin polarization of the $4s$ conduction electrons around an Fe atom in pure iron. The observed $4s$ spin-polarization variation with distance had oscillations with a ${k}_{F}\ensuremath{\simeq}(1.0\ensuremath{-}1.2)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{8}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ corresponding to 0.4-0.6 electrons/atom in the $4s$ conduction band. These oscillations are compared with those obtained by recent improved calculations of the indirect exchange polarization which take into account the full $k$ dependence of the conduction-electron wave functions. For all the alloy series reported here, internal field shifts at the first and second nearest neighbors decreased the internal field. This indicates that the $4s$ electrons produce an antiferromagnetic contribution to the magnetic coupling in iron. The average internal field of each alloy was also obtained, and for all the alloy series described here this quantity decreases more rapidly than the moment per Fe atom as a function of solute-atom concentration. The isomer shifts due to solute atoms in the first three neighbor shells are also reported.

Discrete Conductance Fluctuations in Lipid Bilayer Protein Membranes

Abstract: Discrete fluctuations in conductance of lipid bilayer membranes may be observed during the initial stages of membrane interaction with EIM ("excitability inducing material"), during destruction of the EIM conductance by proteolysis, and during the potential-dependent transitions between low and high conductance states in the "excitable" membranes. The discrete conductance steps observed during the initial reaction of EIM with the lipid membranes are remarkably uniform, even in membranes of widely varying lipid composition. They range only from 2 to 6 x 10-10 ohm-1 and average 4 x 10-10 ohm-1. Steps found during destruction of the EIM conductance by proteolysis are somewhat smaller. The transition between high conductance and low conductance states may involve steps as small as 0.5 x 10-10 ohm-1. These phenomena are consistent with the formation of a stable protein bridge across the lipid membrane to provide a polar channel for the transport of cations. T6he uniform conductance fluctuations observed during the formation of these macromolecular channels may indicate that the ions in a conductive channel, in its open state, are largely protected from the influence of the polar groups of the membrane lipids. Potential-dependent changes in conductance may be due to configurational or positional changes in the protein channel. Differences in lipid-lipid and lipid-macromolecule interactions may account for the variations in switching kinetics in various membrane systems.