A New Directional-Intent Recognition Method for Walking Training Using an Omnidirectional Robot

In order to avoid being bedridden, a preemptive walking rehabilitation is essential for people who lose their walking ability because of illness or accidents. In a previous study, we developed an omnidirectional walking training robot (WTR), the effectiveness of which in rehabilitation was validated by clinical testing. In the primary stage of the walking training, the WTR guides the user to follow the predesigned therapy program to conduct the walking training. This study focuses on the later stages of training in which the user plays an active role of determining the training by himself/herself, and the WTR must follow the user’s intent. However, identifying a user’s intent is challenging. In the present study, we address this problem by introducing a directional-intent identification method based on a distance-type fuzzy reasoning algorithm. The effectiveness of the directional identification method is experimentally confirmed.     

Group SkSP-R sampling plan for accelerated life tests

This study presents a group skip-lot sampling plan using resampling (SkSP-R) for accelerated life tests. It is assumed that the lifetime of a product follows Weibull distribution with known shape parameter under the use condition, while the scale parameter can be obtained from acceleration factor. The plan parameters are determined through a non-linear optimisation problem for fixed values of producer’s risk and consumer’s risk. The advantages of the proposed plan over the existing one are explained with some practical examples.     

Dam break flood wave under different reservoir’s capacities and lengths

Dam failure has been the subject of many hydraulic engineering studies due to its complicated physics with many uncertainties involved and the potential to cause many losses of lives and economical losses. A primary source of uncertainties in many dam failure analyses refers to prediction of the reservoir’s outflow hydrograph, which is studied in the present investigation. This paper presents an experimental study on instantaneous dam failure flood under different reservoir’s capacities and lengths in which the side slopes change within a range of 30°–90°. Thus, several outflow hydrographs are calculated and compared. The results reveal the role of the side slopes on dam break flood wave, such that lower side slope creates more catastrophic outflow. The reservoir capacity and length are also recognized to be important factors, such that they do affect peak discharge and time to peak of the outflow hydrograph. Finally, the paper presents two simple relations for peak discharge and maximum water level estimation at any downstream location.     

Partially decomposed PVP as a surface modification of ZnO,CdO, ZnS and CdS nanostructures for enhanced stability and catalytic activity towards sulphamethoxazole degradation

In order to prepare stable and efficient photocatalysts, a microwave-furnace-assisted method using ethylene glycol (EG) as a solvent has been employed to obtain metal oxides and metal sulphides nanocatalysts with partial decomposition of the polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) cap (P-ZnO, P-CdO, P-ZnS and P-CdS); this associates the protective functionality of PVP with enhanced catalytic activity due to effective carriers transfer. The as-produced catalysts characterization revealed an extended growth of metal oxides compared with metal sulphides, which is attributed to the competition of EG as the source of oxygen with PVP to capsulate metal oxides during the synthesis. Infrared spectra confirmed the PVP–metal complexation and partial decomposition of the polymer. Metal sulphides exhibited a better catalytic activity compared with metal oxides for sulphamethoxazole degradation in UVC light owing to their size and morphology impact; further, P-CdS induced 71% antibiotic degradation after 10 h of illumination with visible light compared with only 48% for P-ZnS, 29% for P-ZdO and 20% for P-CdO due to improved light absorption. Interestingly, around 86% degradation was induced by mixing P-CdS with P-ZnS in 80:20% ratio, indicating an enhanced visible light activity due to improved electron–hole pair separation and high redox potential of P-ZnS.     

Two-way QKD with single-photon-added coherent states

In this work we present a two-way quantum key distribution (QKD) scheme that uses single-photon-added coherent states and displacement operations. The first party randomly sends coherent states (CS) or single-photon-added coherent states (SPACS) to the second party. The latter sends back the same state it received. Both parties decide which kind of states they are receiving by detecting or not a photon on the received signal after displacement operations. The first party must determine whether its sent and received states are equal; otherwise, the case must be discarded. We are going to show that an eavesdropper provided with a beam splitter gets the same information in any of the non-discarded cases. The key can be obtained by assigning 0 to CS and 1 to SPACS in the non-discarded cases. This protocol guarantees keys’ security in the presence of a beam splitter attack even for states with a high number of photons in the sent signal. It also works in a lossy quantum channel, becoming a good bet for improving long-distance QKD.