A feasibility study on the use of anthropometric variables to make muscle–computer interface more practical

High classification accuracy has been achieved for muscle–computer interfaces (MCIs) based on surface electromyography (EMG) recognition in many recent works with an increasing number of discriminated movements. However, there are many limitations to use these interfaces in the real-world contexts. One of the major problems is compatibility. Designing and training the classification EMG system for a particular individual user is needed in order to reach high accuracy. If the system can calibrate itself automatically/semi-automatically, the development of standard interfaces that are compatible with almost any user could be possible. Twelve anthropometric variables, a measurement of body dimensions, have been proposed and used to calibrate the system in two different ways: a weighting factor for a classifier and a normalizing value for EMG features. The experimental results showed that a number of relationships between anthropometric variables and EMG time-domain features from upper-limb muscles and movements are statistically strong (average r=0.71?0.80) and significant (p<0.05). In this paper, the feasibility to use anthropometric variables to calibrate the EMG classification system is shown obviously and the proposed calibration technique is suggested to further improve the robustness and practical use of MCIs based on EMG pattern recognition.     

Potential of diffuse scatterer interferometry for monitoring CO2 storage sites in European contexts (land cover types)

This article proposes to test the feasibility of long-term surface deformation monitoring based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry on carbon dioxide (CO₂) storage sites with land cover representative of potential European injection sites (agricultural or forests with minimum built-up land cover). Because no operational injection site is currently active in Europe, a SAR data set (based on EnviSAT–ASAR spaceborne data) is simulated by combining SAR scenes acquired over a potential future European injection site with deformation measurements from SAR analysis carried out on the In-Salah (Algeria) CO₂ injection demonstrator site. The study shows that under such conditions, both persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) and diffuse scatterer (DS) interferometry appear insufficient to provide a sufficiently dense measurement network to characterize surface deformation correctly. Alternative solutions, to be investigated in further studies, include the use of data archives with shorter acquisition time spans (e.g. Sentinel-1 data when available) or installation of corner reflectors. The cost of the latter mixed space/ground solution must be evaluated with respect to conventional ground-based measurement methods in the proposed context.     

Multi-month memory effects on early summer vegetative activity in semi-arid South Africa and their spatial heterogeneity

In semi-arid African regions (annual rainfall between 200 and 600 mm), variability of vegetative activity is mainly due to the rainfall of the current rainy season. In most of South Africa, the rainy season occurs from October to March. On average, vegetative activity lags rainfall by 1 to 2 months. The interannual variability in early summer (December to September) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) depends primarily on precipitation at the beginning (October to November) of the rainy season. However, once this primary control is removed, the residual interannual variability in NDVI highlights a double memory effect: a 1-year effect, referred to as Mem₁, and a 7- to 10-month effect, referred to as Mem₂. This article aims at better describing the influence of soil and vegetation characteristics on these two memory effects. The data sets used in this study are as follows: (1) a 19-year NDVI time series from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, (2) rainfall records from a network of 1160 rain-gauge stations compiled by the Water Research Commission (WRC), (3) vegetation types from Global Land Cover (GLC) 2000 and (4) soil characteristics from the soil and terrain database for Southern Africa (SOTERSAF). Results indicate that among 20–30% of NDVI variance that is not explained by the concurrent rainfall, one-third is explained by the two memory effects. Mem₁ is found to have maximum effect in the northwest of our study domain, near the Botswana boundary, in the South Kalahari. Associated conditions are open grasslands growing on Arenosols. Mem₁ is less important in the southeast, particularly in open grassland with shrubs growing on Cambisols. Thus, Mem₁ mainly depends on soil texture. Mem₂ is more widespread and its influence is the greatest in the centre, the south and the east of our domain. It is related to rainfall from January to April, which controls, beyond the intervening dry season, the interannual variations of NDVI (December to September) at the beginning of the next rainy season. Through these new findings, this article emphasizes again the high potential of remote-sensing techniques to monitor and understand the dynamics of semi-arid environments.     

Study of thermal and acoustic noise interferences in low stiffness atomic force microscope cantilevers and characterization of their dynamic properties

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is a powerful tool for the measurement of forces at the micro/nano scale when calibrated cantilevers are used. Besides many existing calibration techniques, the thermal calibration is one of the simplest and fastest methods for the dynamic characterization of an AFM cantilever. This method is efficient provided that the Brownian motion (thermal noise) is the most important source of excitation during the calibration process. Otherwise, the value of spring constant is underestimated. This paper investigates noise interference ranges in low stiffness AFM cantilevers taking into account thermal fluctuations and acoustic pressures as two main sources of noise. As a result, a preliminary knowledge about the conditions in which thermal fluctuations and acoustic pressures have closely the same effect on the AFM cantilever (noise interference) is provided with both theoretical and experimental arguments. Consequently, beyond the noise interference range, commercial low stiffness AFM cantilevers are calibrated in two ways: using the thermal noise (in a wide temperature range) and acoustic pressures generated by a loudspeaker. We then demonstrate that acoustic noises can also be used for an efficient characterization and calibration of low stiffness AFM cantilevers. The accuracy of the acoustic characterization is evaluated by comparison with results from the thermal calibration.     

Phase Separation and Spatial Morphology in Sodium Silicate Glasses by AFM,Light Scattering and NMR

The morphological and structural properties of sodium silicate (Na₂O–SiO₂) glasses were analyzed using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and light scattering following thermal treatments. AFM observations indicated that the glass surface microstructure evolves during the phase separation mechanisms from continuous interpenetrating phases in the spinodal decomposition process to separated droplets embedded in a continuous matrix for the nucleation/growth one. Raman mapping gave evidence of a phase separation through the nucleation/growth process with formation of silica‐rich clusters characterized by higher polymerization degree as separate droplets. The variations in inhomogeneities versus temperature investigated by Brillouin are exponential for spinodal decomposition and linear in the case of nucleation/growth mechanism. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to investigate the spatial distribution of the various Q_n species present in thermally treated glasses and allows determining fractal dimension between two and three.     

Spark Plasma Sintering of fine alpha-silicon nitride ceramics with LAS for spatial applications

Many space systems such as satellite mirrors and their supporting structures require to be made from very low-thermal expansion materials combining both high hydrostability and relatively high mechanical properties. In this study, we have applied the “composite concept” in order to explore the possibility of fabricating near zero thermal expansion silicon nitride based ceramics. Consequently, a negative thermal expansion material belonged to the lithium aluminosilicate family (LAS powder crystallized under de β-eucryptite structure) was introduced in an alpha-silicon nitride fine powder (5 and 20 vol% of LAS) and the resulting composite system was sintered by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) at 1400 and 1500 °C. In the case of 20 vol% LAS compositions, relatively well-densified ceramics (94.4% of the theoretical density) were produced without adding any further sintering additive. The addition of yttria and alumina oxides allowed enhancing the densification level up to 98.2% (20 vol% LAS compositions) or from 62.3% up to 96.7% of the theoretical density in 5 vol% LAS materials. Nevertheless, it was impossible to full consolidate silicon nitride/LAS composite ceramics at temperatures lower than the temperature at which β-eucryptite melts, even by using SPS technology. Moreover, because of the relatively low temperatures involved in SPS, the α to β-Si₃N₄ transformation was avoided, resulting in microstructures composed of fine equiaxed α-Si₃N₄ grains (<200 nm) and of a glassy phase. Even if the effect of having a very large negative thermal expansion material was lost during the sintering step (because of the β-eucryptite melting), ceramics containing only 20 vol% of LAS-based phase exhibited very interesting values as regards of mechanical properties (strength, hardness, toughness, and Young's modulus), thermal conductivity and thermal expansion coefficient. We discuss in this work why we are so interested in developing dense silicon nitride/LAS ceramics sintered without any further additive addition, even though β-eucryptite is melted during the process and the transformation to the β phase is avoided.