Abstract: A method for estimating damping characteristics of shock absorbers in an active or semi-active suspension involves providing a reference model of a nominal relation between a road severity index related to vertical acceleration values, and the mean driving current of the control valves of the shock absorbers, acquiring respective relative acceleration or speed data of at least the front wheels of the vehicle with respect to the vehicle body, determining a value of the road severity index starting from relative acceleration or speed data of the front wheels of the vehicle with respect to the vehicle body, acquiring values representative of the mean driving current of the control valve of each shock absorber, comparing acquired value of the mean driving current with an expected value of the nominal mean driving current determined as a function of the road severity index according to the reference model, and determining a degradation condition if the acquired value does not correspond to the expected value.

Abstract: An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; and at least one non-transitory memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to: manage an application service using a management web portal; request, using the management web portal, the application service with a given service level agreement from a catalogue of offered application services; and communicate, using the management web portal, with an application service management function; wherein the application service management function is configured to translate the service level agreement of the requested application service to a specification of an application slice, and to trigger a creation of an application slice instance by contacting an application slice management function.

Abstract: A collecting system is provided that can include a probe configured to collect pathogens from a surrounding fluid, an elution chamber containing a liquid solvent and configured to receive the probe to elute the pathogens collected on the probe using the liquid solvent, and a heater configured to lyse the pathogens to release the genetic material of the pathogens into the liquid solvent.