The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of the Babesia infection in domestic animals in Kurdistan Province of Iran for the first time. In this survey, 9,111 domestic livestock, including cattle and sheep, were randomly sampled and examined from 500 flocks in Kurdistan Province from July 2007 to September 2009. Thin peripheral blood smears were taken and then stained by Giemsa staining method. From a total of 9,111 collected samples, 2,642 were sheep and 6,469 were cattle. Babesia spp. is detected in 1,359 (51.4%) out of sheep samples and 136 (2.1%) out of cattle samples by direct examination of blood smear. Altogether, the prevalence rate of Babesia infection was 16.4% (n = 1,495) in both animal groups. Babesia ovis and Babesia bigemina were the most prevalent species found in sheep and cattle, respectively. The relatively high prevalence of Babesia infection in livestock indicates the epizootic stability status of babesiosis in the western part of Iran.

Electrical machines are widely used in home appliances, the performance of which is mostly related to the quality function of the electrical machines. What has been used so far in home appliances brought with themselves a wide assortment of advantages and disadvantages. With the aim to overcome the drawbacks of the previously implemented electrical motors in washing machines, a new configuration of flux switching permanent magnet motor (FSPM) with the segmented outer rotor (SOR-FSPM) is proposed benefitting from a direct driven drum. To reduce the cogging torque as well as torque ripple and to improve the total harmonic distortion, cutting the stator in a way to lower overlapping between the rotor and stator pole, inserting notches into the poles of the rotor to modify the air gap between the stator teeth and the rotor segments are proposed. The Taguchi method and sensitivity analysis are further applied to find the best combination set of changes in such a way to smoothen the chart showing reluctance between stator and rotor and fix the zero-point crossing of the flux linkages in different rotor positions. Finally, the proposed SOR-FSPM is prototyped, and experimental results along with the finite element method results are discussed and compared in order to verify the design process. K E Y W O R D SAC motors, brushless machines, design of experiments, finite element analysis, optimisation, permanent magnet machines, Taguchi methodsThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Rotor excited flux‐switching permanent magnet machines (REFSPMs) have been recently introduced exhibiting high power density and low permanent magnet consumption. Despite the advantages, 12/8 configuration of REFSPM has an intrinsic unbalanced voltage waveform due to the existence of even‐order harmonics. Aiming to improve the machine voltage THD, using notches on the rotor segments is proposed. To study the effects of the rotor notch on machine performance with low computational time, the non‐linear magnetic equivalent circuit is developed taking into account the effects of fringing fluxes, iron saturation, and rotor transition. An optimisation procedure based on Taguchi method is applied to minimise the voltage THD value taking the effects of uncontrollable factors into account. Finally, the REFSPM is prototyped and the measured results are compared with the analytical and numerical results.

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