Conventional track circuit condition monitoring systems are fixed at the wayside, with each installation reporting on a single track circuit. In this work, we present a custom-built, sensitive, magnetic field detection system, which can be fitted to the underside of a rail vehicle. With this system installed, some characteristics of an operating track circuit can be monitored from the vehicle whilst it is in motion. By using appropriate analysis techniques, it is possible to identify the signatures of equipment relating to audio frequency track circuits, the topic of this work. Analysing the signatures of track circuit equipment demonstrated that there were clear differences between track circuit assets. By building on other research into the behaviours of failing track circuits, and continuing to conduct this research, the authors believe that it is possible, and beneficial, to perform condition monitoring of track circuits from low-cost equipment mounted on the train. Coupling this with advanced analysis techniques will allow predictive maintenance of track circuits with very little capital outlay.

DAQ software is often a little-considered part of an experiment, with many experiments either using a rigid, heavily convoluted multi experiment framework or custom built software that lacks features and is fragmented. Equally these solutions tend not to be fault tolerant, scalable, distributed, dynamic to hardware changes or easy to produce. Presented here is ToolDAQ a C++ DAQ framework which has been designed to be easy and fast to develop for in a modular and simple way. It has many features such as in-built service discovery, dynamic reconfiguration, remote control/monitoring via web and terminal interfaces and a highly scalable fault-tolerant network communication infrastructure provided by ZeroMQ (ZMQ) built in. It is also compatible with newer and older hardware, both being very lightweight and with low dependencies. The framework is currently in use on the Accelerator Neutrino Neutron Interaction Experiment (ANNIE) in Fermilab and has been used to develop the DAQ for Hyper Kamiokande (Hyper-K) , whose implementations and use cases we will discuss, as well as many other places like stand-alone hardware and the intermediate water Cherenkov detector (E61) at J-PARC.

A recording system has been developed to measure intraluminal temperature changes from six sites simultaneously in the upper gastrointestinal tract at rates up to 10 Hz from each site. The temperature probe contains six type K thermocouples mounted in 14 French gauge orogastric tube. The data is logged, after digital conversion and signal multiplexing, onto disc storage by a dedicated microcomputer. The fluctuating temperature profile, defined as temperature spikes, has been subjected to novel computer analysis to allow definition of temperature load and dissipation within the oesophagus, stomach and duodenum. This system enables the effects of drinking and eating hot and cold foods on the physiological functions of the gastrointestinal tract to be studied accurately.

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