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Plug in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have gained interest over last decade due to their increased fuel economy and ability to displace some petroleum fuel with electricity from power grid. Given the complexity of this vehicle powertrain, the energy management plays a key role in providing higher fuel economy. The energy management algorithm on PHEVs performs the same task as a hybrid vehicle energy management but it has more freedom in utilizing the battery energy due to the larger battery capacity and ability to be recharged from the power grid. The state of charge (SOC) profile of the battery during the entire driving trip determines the electric energy usage, thus determining overall fuel consumption.

The occurrence of disease epidemics in bioregenerative life support systems would seriously limit the production of essential life support requirements. The capacity of diseased plants in closed environment chambers to scrub CO2 was studied with lettuce plants infected with a common greenhouse pathogen, Pythium.At harvest, infected lettuce showed less edible biomass, decreased leaf area, and reduced photosynthesis averaging 50% on a per chamber basis. These results and others are discussed to show the potential of using existing instrumentation in life support systems to monitor the health of the plant canopy, predicting early onset of disease and refining remediation strategies.