RFID Positioning and Physiological Signals for Remote Medical Care

The safety of patients and the quality of medical care provided to them are vital for their wellbeing. This study establishes a set of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)-based systems of patient care based on physiological signals in the pursuit of a remote medical care system. The RFID-based positioning system allows medical staff to continuously observe the patient's health and location. The staff can thus respond to medical emergencies in time and appropriately care for the patient. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the proposed system was used to provide timely information on the location and body temperature of patients who had been screened for the disease. The results of experiments and comparative analyses show that the proposed system is superior to competing systems in use. The use of remote monitoring technology makes user interface easier to provide high-quality medical services to remote areas with sparse populations, and enables better care of the elderly and patients with mobility issues. It can be found from the experiments of this research that the accuracy of the position sensor and the ability of package delivery are the best among the other related studies. The presentation of the graphical interface is also the most cordial among human-computer interaction and the operation is simple and clear.     

Accuracy verification of a simple local three-dimensional displacement measurement method of DIC with two images coordinates

There are two methods applied for three-dimensional digital image correlation method to measure three-dimensional displacement. One is to measure the spatial coordinates of measuring points by analyzing the images. Then, the displacement vectors of these points can be calculated using the spatial coordinates of these points obtained at different stages. The other is to calibrate the parameters for individual measuring points locally. Then, the local displacements of these points can be measured directly. This study proposes a simple local three-dimensional displacement measurement method. Without any complicated distortion correction processes, this method can be used to measure small displacement in the three-dimensional space through a simple calibration process. A laboratory experiment and field experiment are carried out to prove the accuracy of this proposed method. Laboratory test errors of one-dimensional experiment are similar to the accuracy of the XYZ table; the error in Z-direction is only 0.0025% of the object distance. The measurement error of laboratory test is about 0.0033% of the object distance for local three-dimensional displacement measurement test. Test and analysis results of field test display that in-plane displacement error is only 0.12 mm, and the out-of-plane error is 1.1 mm for 20 m × 30 m measuring range. The out-of-plane error is only about 10 PPM of the object distance. These test and analysis results show that this proposed method can achieve very high accuracy under small displacement for both of laboratory and field tests.     

Translation, adaptation, and validation of the SF-36 Health Survey for use in Japan

Development of the Japanese SF-36 was completed in two phases: Phase 1: Japanese version 1.1 was produced according to International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) project guidelines, but some results of psychometric tests were unexpected. First, scores varied little across physical-functioning items. Second, using factor analysis, we could not clearly distinguish the scales designed to measure the "physical" component of quality of life from those designed to measure the "mental" component. Phase 2: Focus-group discussions revealed that limited had often been interpreted as limited by a doctor. Therefore, is difficult to do was used instead (version 1.2). Results of two surveys indicated that version 1.2 yields scores that are reliable by internal consistency and test-retest standards and yields two principal components. In Japan, however, the pattern of correlations between some scales and the principal components differs from that in the United States. Iterative use of qualitative and quantitative methods was very important in developing the Japanese SF-36.     

Matrix molecular orientation in fiber-reinforced polypropylene composites

A distinctive crystalline morphology which develops in certain fiber-reinforced thermoplastics, termed "transcrystallinity", occurs as the result of dense nucleation of polymer crystals at the surface of reinforcing fibers. As these fiber-sponsored nuclei grow, they impinge upon one another, such that crystal growth occurs essentially perpendicular to the fiber axis. Previous studies concerning transcrystallized composites have generally focused on single-fiber composites or model systems. Our interest is in elucidating the crystal orientation in conventional fiber-reinforced composites, and in quantifying the fraction of transcrystallized matrix, where present. In the present work, we develop a wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) technique to investigate composites formed from an isotactic polypropylene (PP) matrix with practical loading levels of unidirectional pitch-based carbon, polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon, or aramid fibers. The transcrystalline fraction of the crystalline matrix approaches 0.95 in pitch-based carbon composites and 0.50 in the aramid composites near fiber loadings of 30 vol %. In addition, a previously-unreported mode of matrix orientation is observed in composites containing the non-transcrystallizing PAN-based carbon fibers, arising from restrictions on the isotropic growth of PP crystallites by the unidirectional fibers. This "constrained growth" orientation can coexist with the transcrystallized matrix at lower fiber loadings.     

Guiding students to the right questions: adaptive navigation support in an E‐Learning system for Java programming

Rapid growth of the volume of interactive questions available to the students of modern E‐Learning courses placed the problem of personalized guidance on the agenda of E‐Learning researchers. Without proper guidance, students frequently select too simple or too complicated problems and ended either bored or discouraged. This paper explores a specific personalized guidance technology known as adaptive navigation support. We developed JavaGuide, a system, which guides students to appropriate questions in a Java programming course, and investigated the effect of personalized guidance a three‐semester long classroom study. The results of this study confirm the educational and motivational effects of adaptive navigation support.     

Comparison of forecasting methods with an application to predicting excess equity premium

This paper reviews various forecast methods including combination using theoretically optimal weights and those under model selection approaches. In addition, we suggest two modified simple averaging forecast combination methods—a mean corrected and a mean and scale corrected method. We conclude that due to the fact that real data is usually subject to structural breaks, rolling forecasting scheme has a better performance than fixed window and continuously updating scheme. In addition, methods that use less information appear to perform better than methods using all the sample information about the covariance structure of the available forecasts. The mean and scale corrected simple average approach yield smaller mean squared forecast error than the three widely used regression approaches suggested by Granger and Ramanathan [11].     

A neural-network-based exponential H∞ synchronisation for chaotic secure communication via improved genetic algorithm

In this study, a novel approach via improved genetic algorithm (IGA)-based fuzzy observer is proposed to realise exponential optimal H^∞ synchronisation and secure communication in multiple time-delay chaotic (MTDC) systems. First, an original message is inserted into the MTDC system. Then, a neural-network (NN) model is employed to approximate the MTDC system. Next, a linear differential inclusion (LDI) state-space representation is established for the dynamics of the NN model. Based on this LDI state-space representation, this study proposes a delay-dependent exponential stability criterion derived in terms of Lyapunov's direct method, thus ensuring that the trajectories of the slave system approach those of the master system. Subsequently, the stability condition of this criterion is reformulated into a linear matrix inequality (LMI). Due to GA's random global optimisation search capabilities, the lower and upper bounds of the search space can be set so that the GA will seek better fuzzy observer feedback gains, accelerating feedback gain-based synchronisation via the LMI-based approach. IGA, which exhibits better performance than traditional GA, is used to synthesise a fuzzy observer to not only realise the exponential synchronisation, but also achieve optimal H^∞ performance by minimizing the disturbance attenuation level and recovering the transmitted message. Finally, a numerical example with simulations is given in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.     

Novel in-line WAT processing of 55 nm CIS product and effect of process waiting time on void growth at interface of SiCN with copper capping layer

The WAT (wafer acceptance test) is the last examination that is performed before a wafer or a chip fab out to ensure the quality and stability of chip performance. In 55 nm CIS (CMOS Image Sensor) technology, a highly smooth wafer surface is critical for the BSI (backside illumination) process. The traditional WAT process cannot be used; rather the in-line WAT must be performed during the process for forming copper interconnect. However, increasing the processing time increases the period of exposure of the copper interconnect to air, which is called the Q-time, affecting the reliability of copper interconnect. Nitrogen-doped silicon carbide (also called NDC or SiCN) has been used to fabricate copper diffusion barrier films. PECVD SiCN dielectric has a promisingly low dielectric constant for use as a copper diffusion barrier. Copper diffusion barrier films comprise one or more layers of silicon carbide. Covering a copper layer with a single thin NDC pre-layer significantly increases the maximum allowable Q-time for wafer probing. However, after the Q-time, a void forms between NDC layer and the NDC pre-layer. This work proposes a new two-step NDC process and the optimization of the thickness of the NDC pre-layer. The process has the advantages of providing a high stability for parametric test and a long allowable Q-time. These advantages are achieved by changing the thickness of the NDC pre-layer. This new approach has been analyzed using TEM and by performing parametric tests, and the feasibility has been confirmed experimentally. No void is formed between the NDC layers and a high test stability is achieved when the thickness of the NDC pre-layer is 120 Å.     

GPU accelerated tensor contractions in the plaquette renormalization scheme

We use the graphical processing unit (GPU) to accelerate the tensor contractions, which is the most time consuming operations in the variational method based on the plaquette renormalized states. Using a frustrated Heisenberg J₁–J₂ model on a square lattice as an example, we implement the algorithm based on the compute unified device architecture (CUDA). For a single plaquette contraction with the bond dimensions C = 3 of each rank of the tensor, results are obtained 25 times faster on GPU than on a current CPU core. This makes it possible to simulate systems with the size 8 × 8 and larger, which are extremely time consuming on a single CPU. This technology successfully relieves the computing time dependence with C, while in the CPU serial computation, the total required time scales both with C and the system size.     

Robust H infinity fuzzy control for a class of uncertain discrete fuzzy bilinear systems.

The main theme of this paper is to present robust fuzzy controllers for a class of discrete fuzzy bilinear systems. First, the parallel distributed compensation method is utilized to design a fuzzy controller, which ensures the robust asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system and guarantees an H(infinity) norm-bound constraint on disturbance attenuation for all admissible uncertainties. Second, based on the Schur complement and some variable transformations, the stability conditions of the overall fuzzy control system are formulated by linear matrix inequalities. Finally, the validity and applicability of the proposed schemes are demonstrated by a numerical simulation and the Van de Vusse example.