Motion retargeting and evaluation for VR-based training of free motions

Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as one of the important and effective tools for education and training. Most VR-based training systems are situation based, where the trainees are trained for discrete decision making in special situations presented by the VR environments. In contrast, this paper discusses the application of VR to a different class of training, for learning free motion, often required in sports and the arts. We propose a VR-based motion-training framework that contains an intuitive motion-guiding interface, posture-oriented motion retargeting, and an evaluation and advice scheme for corrective feedback. Applications of the proposed framework to simple fencing training and a dance imitation game are demonstrated.     

Automatic heat-shrink sleeve applicator using the low-temperature catalytic combustor

Catalytic combustion for applying heat shrink sleeves (HSS) to a pipeline in KOGAS was investigated. We used a low temperature catalytic combustor in order to place HSS in the conduit. The surface temperature of the catalytic combustor maintained the conditions at which HSS can become well-adhesive at the conduit. Therefore, the automatic HSS construction provided the chance to establish gas pipeline safety by an automatic catalytic combustor device.     

Evaluation of thermal contact conductance using a new experimental-numerical method in fin-tube heat exchangers

In a fin-tube heat exchanger the contact between fin collar and tube surface is obtained through mechanical expansion of tubes. Since the interfaces between the tubes and fins consist partially of metal-to-metal contact and partially of air, the features of heat transfer through the contact interfaces have not been fully investigated. The present study aims at the development of a new tool including an experiment and a numerical calculation for the estimation of the thermal contact conductance between the fin collar and tube surface, and pursues the evaluation of the factors affecting the thermal contact conductance in a fin-tube heat exchanger. Heat exchangers fabricated for the current study have been put to the test for heat balance in a vacuum chamber with water as an internal fluid. And a finite difference numerical scheme has been used for the data reduction of the experimental data to evaluate the thermal contact conductance. Fin-tube heat exchangers employed in the current research are of tube diameter of 7 mm with different tube expansion ratios, fin spacings, and fin types. The results of the present study imply that these parameters as well as hydrophilic fin coating have a significant effect on the thermal contact conductance. It has been discovered that the portion of the thermal contact resistance is not negligible compared with the total thermal resistance in a fin-tube heat exchanger, and this means that in order to reduce the thermal contact resistance thoughtful care should be taken in fabricating heat exchangers.     

Physicochemical characterization of diclofenac sodium-loaded poloxamer gel as a rectal delivery system with fast absorption

Rectal poloxamer gel systems composed of poloxamers and bioadhesive polymers were easy to administer to the anus and were mucoadhesive to the rectal tissues without leakage after the dose. However, a poloxamer gel containing diclofenac sodium could not be developed using bioadhesive polymers, since the drug was precipitated in this preparation. To develop a poloxamer gel using sodium chloride instead of bioadhesive polymers, the physicochemical properties such as gelation temperature, gel strength, and bioadhesive force of various formulations composed of diclofenac sodium, poloxamers, and sodium chloride were investigated. Furthermore, the pharmacokinetic study of diclofenac sodium delivered by the poloxamer gel was performed. Diclofenac sodium significantly increased the gelation temperature and weakened the gel strength and bioadhesive force, while sodium chloride did the opposite. The poloxamer gels with less than 1.0% sodium chloride, in which the drug was not precipitated, were inserted into the rectum without difficulty and leakage, and were retained in the rectum of rats for at least 6 hr. Furthermore, poloxamer gel gave significantly higher initial plasma concentrations and faster T_max of diclofenac sodium than did solid suppository, indicating that drug from poloxamer gel could be absorbed faster than that from the solid one in rats. Our results suggested that a rectal poloxamer gel system with sodium chloride and poloxamers was a more physically stable, convenient, and effective rectal dosage form for diclofenac sodium.     

Correlations between optical properties, microstructure, and processing conditions of Aluminum nitride thin films fabricated by pulsed laser deposition

Aluminum nitride (AlN) films were deposited using pulsed laser deposition (PLD) onto sapphire (0001) substrates with varying processing conditions (temperature, pressure, and laser fluence). We have studied the dependence of optical properties, structural properties and their correlations for these AlN films. The optical transmission spectra of the produced films were measured, and a numerical procedure was applied to accurately determine the optical constants for films of non-uniform thickness. The microstructure and texture of the films were studied using various X-ray diffraction techniques. The real part of the refractive index was found to not vary significantly with processing parameters, but absorption was found to be strongly dependent on the deposition temperature and the nitrogen pressure in the deposition chamber. We report that low optical absorption, textured polycrystalline AlN films can be produced by PLD on sapphire substrates at both low and high laser fluence using a background nitrogen pressure of 6.0 × 10^− 2 Pa (4.5 × 10^− 4 Torr) of 99.9% purity.     

Novel Digital Nonvolatile Memory Devices Based on Semiconducting Polymer Thin Films

Recent increases in the demand for mobile devices have stimulated the development of nonvolatile memory devices with high performance. In this Communication, we describe the fabrication of low‐cost, high‐performance, digital nonvolatile memory devices based on semiconducting polymers, poly(o‐anthranilic acid) and poly(o‐anthranilic acid‐co‐aniline). These memory devices have ground‐breaking and novel current–voltage switching characteristics. The devices are switchable in a very low voltage range (which is much less than those of all other devices reported so far) with a very high ON/OFF current ratio (which is on the order of 10⁵). The low critical voltages have the advantage for nonvolatile memory device applications of low operation voltages and hence low power consumption. With this very low power consumption, the devices demonstrate in air ambient to have very stable ON‐ and OFF‐states without any degradation for a very long time (which has been confirmed up to one year so far) and to be repeatedly written, read and erased. Our study proposes that the ON/OFF switching of the devices is mainly governed by a filament mechanism. The high ON/OFF switching ratio and stability of these devices, as well as their repeatable writing, reading and erasing capability with low power consumption, opens up the possibility of the mass production of high performance digital nonvolatile polymer memory devices with low cost. Further, these devices promise to revolutionize microelectronics by providing extremely inexpensive, lightweight, and versatile components that can be printed onto plastics, glasses or metal foils.     

TD‐CFIE Formulation for Transient Electromagnetic Scattering from 3‐D Dielectric Objects

In this paper, we present a time domain combined field integral equation formulation (TD‐CFIE) to analyze the transient electromagnetic response from dielectric objects. The solution method is based on the method of moments which involves separate spatial and temporal testing procedures. A set of the RWG functions is used for spatial expansion of the equivalent electric and magnetic current densities, and a combination of RWG and its orthogonal component is used for spatial testing. The time domain unknowns are approximated by a set of orthonormal basis functions derived from the Laguerre polynomials. These basis functions are also used for temporal testing. Use of this temporal expansion function characterizing the time variable makes it possible to handle the time derivative terms in the integral equation and decouples the space‐time continuum in an analytic fashion. Numerical results computed by the proposed formulation are compared with the solutions of the frequency domain combined field integral equation.     

Development of stress-modified fracture strain for ductile failure of API X65 steel

The present paper proposes ductile failure criteria in terms of true fracture strain (the equivalent strain to fracture) as a function of the stress triaxiality (defined by the ratio of the hydrostatic stress to the equivalent stress) for the API X65 steel. To determine the stress-modified fracture strain, smooth and notched tensile bars with four different notch radii are tested, from which true fracture strains are determined as a function of the notch radius. Then detailed elastic–plastic, large strain finite element analyses are performed to estimate variations of stress triaxiality in the tensile bars, which leads to true fracture strains as a function of the stress triaxiality, by combining them with experimental results. Two different failure criteria are proposed, one based on local stress and strain information at the site where failure initiation is likely to take place, and the other based on averaged stress and strain information over the ligament where ductile fracture is expected. As a case study, ligament failures of API X65 pipes with a gouge are predicted and compared with experimental data.     

OmniCon: a Mobile IP‐based vertical handoff system for wireless LAN and GPRS links

Wi‐Fi based hotspots offer mobile users broadband wireless Internet connectivity in public work spaces and corporate/university campuses. Despite the aggressive deployment of these hotspots in recent years, high‐speed wireless Internet access remains restricted to small geographical areas due to the limited physical coverage of wireless LANs. On the other hand, despite their lower throughput, cellular networks have a significantly wider coverage and are thus much more available. Recognizing that 2.5G or 3G cellular networks can effectively complement wireless LANs, we set out to develop a vertical handoff system that allows mobile users to seamlessly fall back to such cellular networks as the general packet radio service (GPRS) or 3G whenever wireless LAN connectivity is not available. The resulting handoff mechanism allows a network connection of a mobile node to operate over multiple wireless access networks in a way that is transparent to end user applications. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of a fully operational vertical handoff system, called OmniCon, which enables mobile nodes to automatically switch between wireless LAN and GPRS, based on wireless LAN availability, by introducing a simple extension to the existing Mobile IP implementation. We discuss the design issues in the proposed vertical handoff system for heterogeneous networks, including connection setup problems due to network address translation, and the disparity in link characteristics between wireless LANs and GPRS. A detailed performance evaluation study of the OmniCon prototype demonstrates its ability to migrate active network connections between these two wireless technologies with low handoff latency and close to zero packet loss. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stabilizing receding horizon H ∞ control for linear discrete time-varying systems

In this paper, we simply derive matrix inequality conditions on the terminal weighting matrices for linear discrete time-varying systems that guarantee non-increasing and non-decreasing monotonicities of the saddle-point value of a dynamic game. We show that the derived terminal inequality conditions ensure the closed-loop stability of the receding horizon H X control (RHHC). The stabilizing RHHC guarantees the H X norm bound of the closed-loop system. The derived terminal inequality conditions include most well-known existing terminal conditions for the closed-loop stability as special cases. The condition on the state weighting matrix is weakened so as to include even the zero matrix. The results for time-invariant systems are obtained correspondingly from those in the time-varying case.