Smiths Industries Research Articles

Catheter-related fungemia caused by Candida intermedia

Candida intermedia is rarely reported as a human pathogen. We report two cases of catheter-related fungemia caused by C. intermedia which were treated successfully with intravenous fluconazole and catheter removal. The isolates were identified by commercial biochemical methods, oligonucleotide array, and partial sequencing analysis of rRNA genes.

Vancomycin Heteroresistance in Methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, Taiwan

Vancomycin Heteroresistance in Methicillin-resistant<i>Staphylococcus aureus</i>, Taiwan

The ineffective loading process of the embryo transfer catheter alters implantation and pregnancy rates

The ineffective loading process of the embryo transfer catheter alters implantation and pregnancy rates

Smiths Industries acquire Actuation Systems business from BAe Systems

Smiths Industries acquire Actuation Systems business from BAe Systems

Smiths Industries acquires Invensys' aerospace division for $175 million

Smiths Industries acquires Invensys' aerospace division for $175 million

£1.25 million contract from Smiths Industries

£1.25 million contract from Smiths Industries

1 Embedded Systems Development Integration

ABSTRACTMost European aircraft development programmes are undertaken by consortia of geographically distributed and culturally diverse industrial organisations. Specification of avionic systems, and their realisation, is undertaken by multiple system specifiers (airframe manufacturers) and multiple avionic system suppliers, using their own methods, standards and tools. The key objective of the SPIDERS project is to reduce the cost and timescale of this distributed specification process. The SPIDERS consortium includes four aircraft manufacturers: Aerospatiale, Eurocopter France, Daimler‐Benz Aerospace Airbus, and British Aerospace Airbus. SPIDERS also includes two avionic systems suppliers, Smiths Industries Aerospace and Sextant Avionique. The programme has a central workpackage involving all of the partners, working towards definition of the New System Development Model. During the project, many improvements in processes, methods and tools were identified and evaluated. The “Current System Development Model” was first captured for each partner as a baseline. This was then harmonised and improvements incorporated to give a “New System Development Model”.

Smiths Industries acquires Stewart Hughes Ltd, adding to diagnostic technologies for aerospace industry

Smiths Industries acquires Stewart Hughes Ltd, adding to diagnostic technologies for aerospace industry

Smiths Industries in major avionics upgrade for Southwest Airlines

Smiths Industries in major avionics upgrade for Southwest Airlines

Outbreak of Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteremia among oncology patients.

From 7 to 24 March 1997, four patients developed Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteremia at the hospital; one on the oncology ward and the other three in the chemotherapy room. These patients all had underlying malignancies and had the Port-A-Cath (Smiths Industries Medical Systems, Deltec, Inc., St. Paul, Minn.) implants. Three patients had primary bacteremia, and one had Port-A-Cath-related infection. None of these patients had received a blood transfusion before the episodes of bacteremia. All patients recovered: two received antimicrobial agents with in vitro activity against the isolates, and the other two did not have any antibiotic treatment. A total of eight blood isolates were recovered from these patients during the febrile episodes that occurred several minutes after the infusion of chemotherapeutic agents via the Port-A-Cath. These isolates were initially identified as P. fluorescens or Pseudomonas putida (four), Burkholderia (Ralstonia) pickettii (three), and a non-glucose-fermenting gram-negative bacillus (one) by routine biochemical methods and the Vitek GNI card. These isolates were later identified as P. fluorescens on the basis of the characteristic cellular fatty acid chromatogram and the results of supplemental biochemical tests. The identification of identical antibiotypes by the E test and the random amplified polymorphic DNA patterns generated by arbitrarily primed PCR of the isolates showed that the outbreak was caused by a single clone of P. fluorescens. Surveillance cultures of the possibly contaminated infusion fluids and disinfectants, which were performed 7 days after recognition of the last infected patient, failed to isolate P. fluorescens. This report of a small outbreak caused by P. fluorescens suggests that timely, accurate identification of unusual nosocomial pathogens is crucial for early initiation of an epidemiological investigation and timely control of an outbreak.

Smiths Industries Aerospace announces new divisional structure

Smiths Industries Aerospace announces new divisional structure

Smiths Industries wins $50 million aerospace orders

Smiths Industries wins $50 million aerospace orders

Ultrasonic fuel gauging

Explains the development of an ultrasonic fuel gauging system by Smiths Industries in response to Boeing’s desire for a system which offers greater reliability. Looks at components and considerations and discusses current developments.

UK Ministry of Defence generic health and usage monitoring system (GenHUMS)

Smiths Industries Aerospace (SI) offers a multi‐aircraft capable generic health and usage monitoring system (GenHUMS) using field proven, off‐the‐shelf, airborne and ground‐based technology. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has selected the GenHUMS for the Chinook aircraft with additional options for Puma, Sea King and Lynx aircraft. The GenHUMS provides all conventional HUMS functionality, and incorporates key innovation in the areas of rotor track and balance, failure detection, flight regime recognition, alert generation, system configurability, and user interface. The architecture is unique in that all required airborne data acquisition and processing, including crash survivable cockpit voice and flight data recording, are combined in a single line replaceable unit. This architecture significantly reduces space, weight and power requirements and results in the highest reliability, least risk, lowest life cycle cost, HUMS known today. Fixed and portable PC‐based HUMS ground stations provide configurable, user friendly, data extraction and analysis capabilities.

The North Finding Module

Smiths Industries has developed a low-cost North Finding Module (NFM) for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and the U.S. Army Missile Command (MICOM). This paper provides a description of the system, details of the design, and performance results. The primary requirements of the NFM are to establish navigational heading relative to true north within 3 min statically and within 1 min dynamically from any initial heading with an error of less than 10 mrad. The system utilizes Smiths Industries dynamically tuned gyroscopes (DTGs), Allied Signal digital accelerometers, and the Collins precision low-cost GPS receiver (PLGR). An extensive system executive adapts the Kalman filter measurements for the current environment; i.e., all available measurements are optimally utilized in the presence of physical motion, the state of the GPS receiver, heading uncertainty, etc. Field test data on a prototype system show the static and dynamic performance of the NFM.

Dynamic software reconfiguration for fault-tolerant real-time avionic systems

This paper reports on research conducted by Smiths Industries (SI) Aerospace within the Control Technology Programme (CTP), to ascertain the feasibility of hardware fault tolerance via dynamic software reconfiguration and to demonstrate its viability in the context of a typical real-time avionic application. Hardware fault-tolerant (FT) systems require the physical replication of hardware components, with the component being the smallest configurable unit. The research approach adopted here is to segregate fully the software (functionality) from the hardware, and regard the configurable units as the software functions themselves. Failure of a component within a computing module would therefore require dynamically reconfiguring the affected software functions elsewhere within the module. Furthermore, it would be possible to reconfigure individual functions not only over different processors but also to currently active processors if spare processing capacity was available in those processors. The computing platform for conducting the research comprised a message-based multiprocessor module, on which was developed a distributed Operating System layer to support both the initial configuration of the application functions and their reconfiguration as a result of user-instigated failure of the module hardware. Software reconfiguration from both module-local memory and module-external backing store was successfully demonstrated for critical and non-critical functions respectively. Based on the research/development system, a self-contained FT module variant was constructed for integration within the System Digital Control Laboratory (SDCL) at BAe Airbus. This module additionally demonstrated the periodic and aperiodic communication capability of the ARINC 629 Combined Mode Protocol (CP) Databus in supporting both the module's functional operation and configuration/reconfiguration process.

Airway Obstruction With Percutaneous Tracheostomy

We enjoyed and agreed with the article by Friedman et al 1 Friedman Y. Fildes J. Mizock B. et al. Comparison of percutaneous and surgical tracheostomies. Chest. 1996; 110: 480-485 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (273) Google Scholar comparing the advantages and disadvantages between traditional open (surgical) and percutaneous tracheostomy. However, we have recently encountered a serious problem with percutaneous tracheostomy not mentioned in their paper. This problem may be specific to a different tube than the one used by the investigators, but it is one in common use today. Airway Obstruction With Percutaneous Tracheostomy: To the EditorCHESTVol. 111Issue 5PreviewI appreciate the comments of Sakabu et al regarding their experience with the Per-Fit Tracheostomy Kit (Smiths Industries Medical Systems; Keene, NH) designed for percutaneous dilational tracheostomy (PDT). At the time of our study the Per-Fit Kit for PDT was not available for use. Full-Text PDF

System development — the challenges of re-useability

This paper describes the challenges faced by aerospace avionic systems developers in the 1990s, as they use ‘in anger’ both best-practice processes and state-of-the-art tools to try and achieve that most elusive goal in a large system development: Re-useable designs, meeting all customer needs, on-time, and within budget. The Boeing 777 electrical load management system (ELMS) developed by Smiths Industries Civil Systems, Cheltenham, has involved up to 250 engineers since 1991. It is an example of military technology being applied in the civil sector, and integrates over 50 aircraft utility systems as well as managing the supply of electrical power. The author has been Engineering Manager for this system since its inception, and takes this project as an example of large system development. He shares the advantages of those process approaches and types of tool which worked, and the disadvantages of those approaches which were less successful. The objectives of this paper are: • ⊗ To share practical experience of current methods and types of tool for requirements capture, structured analysis, object-oriented design (which is very different to methodologies used only a decade ago), verification/validation and certification. • ⊗ To discuss where these modern methods and tools assist reuseability, and where they impede it. • ⊗ To describe the fresh management challenges they present, such as lack of visibility (-it's all in the system, if you know how to access it!). • ⊗ To examine the design review strategies which and most value with these methods. (More peer-level reviews; less large formal meetings.) • ⊗ To review how well these modern methods cope when faced with customer specification changes — both small changes and large-scale changes. (Is there much value in huge volumes of traceability information if it is all to be scrapped by a large change?) The paper also emphasizes the human elements in a successful development. Examples are the value of co-locating good engineers with customers (and good customer engineers within the developer's teams) and how this compares with technology such as datalinks, conference calls and videoconferencing; the values of concurrent engineering within the project; and good communication at all levels (technical and managerial). The author believes that even with best-class processes and tools, you still need good engineers to have a successful outcome!

Smiths Industries Double Award

TWO navigation display systems, developed to meet the contrasting conditions found in aircraft cockpits and river boats, have each earned the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for Smiths Industries. The awards highlight an area of increasing expertise within the company, which is in demand for both military and commercial applications.

Contracts

Smiths Industries Aerospace, Defence Division (Newmark), has been awarded a contract for Bell Helicopter Textron to supply 3‐inch Attitude Indicators (ADI's) for use on OH‐58Ds (Kiowa Warrior). This order is part of the United States Army's Helicopter Improvement Programme which may total 507 OH‐58Ds. The OH‐58D is in great demand outside the USA.