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 & Clutch. The organization has 36123 authors who have published 51450 publications receiving 855200 citations. The organization is also known as: Ford Motor & Ford Motor Corporation.

Path planning for autonomous vehicles using model predictive control

Abstract: Path planning for autonomous vehicles in dynamic environments is an important but challenging problem, due to the constraints of vehicle dynamics and existence of surrounding vehicles. Typical trajectories of vehicles involve different modes of maneuvers, including lane keeping, lane change, ramp merging, and intersection crossing. There exist prior arts using the rule-based high-level decision making approaches to decide the mode switching. Instead of using explicit rules, we propose a unified path planning approach using Model Predictive Control (MPC), which automatically decides the mode of maneuvers. To ensure safety, we model surrounding vehicles as polygons and develop a type of constraints in MPC to enforce the collision avoidance between the ego vehicle and surrounding vehicles. To achieve comfortable and natural maneuvers, we include a lane-associated potential field in the objective function of the MPC. We have simulated the proposed method in different test scenarios and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in automatically generating reasonable maneuvers while guaranteeing the safety of the autonomous vehicle.

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa

Abstract: Background Metabolic syndrome is a multifaceted disorder strongly associated with increased risk for development of cardiovascular disease. Chronic inflammatory diseases have been associated with metabolic syndrome. Hidradenitis suppurativa is a chronic inflammatory skin disease with significant physical and emotional sequelae. Objective We sought to investigate a possible association between hidradenitis suppurativa and metabolic syndrome. Methods A retrospective chart review of all dermatology clinic encounters over an 18-month period identified 366 patients with an appropriate diagnosis of hidradenitis suppurativa. A control population was created from patients seen in the same clinic during the same time period for the diagnoses of either keloids or verruca vulgaris using the matching criteria of age ±5 years, race, and gender. All participants were examined for characteristics of the metabolic syndrome as defined by the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Program III guidelines. Results The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in patients with hidradenitis suppurativa was 50.6%, which was significantly higher than the control group at 30.2% (P Limitations This was a retrospective review. Some participants could not be analyzed for metabolic syndrome presence as a result of missing data points. Conclusion Our results indicate that patients with hidradenitis suppurativa may be at high risk for metabolic syndrome.

Bone marrow stromal cells reduce axonal loss in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis mice

Abstract: We investigated the ability of human bone marrow stromal cell (hBMSC) treatment to reduce axonal loss in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) mice. EAE was induced in SJL/J mice by injection with proteolipid protein (PLP). Mice were injected intravenously with hBMSCs or PBS on the day of clinical onset, and neurological function was measured daily (score 0–5) until 45 weeks after onset. Mice were sacrificed at week 1, 10, 20, 34, and 45 after clinical onset. Bielshowsky silver was used to identify axons. Immunohistochemistry was performed to measure the expression of nerve growth factor (NGF) and MAB1281, a marker of hBMSCs. hBMSC treatment significantly reduced the mortality, the disease severity, and the number of relapses in EAE mice compared with PBS treatment. Axonal density and NGF+ cells in the EAE brain were significantly increased in the hBMSC group compared with the PBS group at 1, 10, 20, 34, and 45 weeks. Disease severity was significantly correlated with decreased axonal density and decreased NGF, and increased axonal density was significantly correlated with reduced loss of NGF expression after hBMSC treatment. Most of the NGF+ cells are brain parenchymal cells. Under 5% of MAB1281+ cells colocalized with NG2+, a marker of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells. Nearly 10% of MAB1281+ cells colocalized with GFAP, a marker of astrocytes, and MAP-2, a marker of neurons. Our findings indicate that hBMSCs improve functional recovery and may provide a potential therapy aimed at axonal protection in EAE mice, in which NGF may play a vital role. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Autonomous vehicle control for impaired driver

Abstract: A condition of an operator of a vehicle is detected. It is determined that the condition is an impaired condition. At least one autonomous operation is performed based on the impaired condition.