A randomized algorithm for natural object colorization

Natural objects often contain vivid color distribution with wide variety of colors. Conventional colorization techniques, on the other hand, produce colors that are relatively flat with little color variation. In this paper, we introduce a randomized algorithm which considers not only the value of target color but also the distribution of target color. In essence, our algorithm paints a color distribution to a region which synthesizes color distribution of a natural object. Our approach models the correlation between intensity and color in HSV color space in terms of H – S, H – V and S – V joint histogram. During the colorization process, we randomly swap and reassign color of a pixel to minimize a cost function that measures color consistency to its neighborhood and intensity‐to‐color correlation captured in the joint histogram. We tested our algorithm extensively on many natural objects and our user study confirms that our results are more vivid and natural compared to results from previous techniques.     

Intelligent healthcare service based on context inference using smart device

In the field of “U-Healthcare Service”, many studies have been actively conducted to develop “smart device”-based healthcare applications that enable healthcare providers and patients to be better served through interoperations among various kinds of sensors and wireless network interfaces. In particular, contemporary intelligent healthcare services not only recognize users’ context information through smart devices, computers, and so forth, but also acquire information from heterogeneous sensors to achieve context-aware inference services. Among such information, the weather information is tightly related to diseases such as asthma and allergies. Therefore, there is a high demand for research to utilize the weather information for healthcare services. In this paper, we propose a context inference-based intelligent healthcare service that exploits both the weather conditions information and the diverse healthcare ontologies available on the Internet. The proposed service aims at modeling a context ontology in users’ healthcare service environment and defining the inference rules, thereby accomplishing a satisfactory real-time healthcare service.     

Latent catalyst effects in halogen‐free epoxy molding compounds for semiconductor encapsulation

Latent catalyst effects were investigated to improve the physical properties of halogen‐free epoxy molding compounds (EMCs) for semiconductor encapsulation. In this study, biphenyl‐type resins were used as the epoxy and hardener resin for halogen‐free EMCs to obtain high flame‐retardant properties and high filler contents. Latent catalyst effects were examined with two kinds of EMC compositions, halogen‐free EMCs and conventional EMC compositions. We used triphenylphosphine‐benzoquinone salt (TPP‐BQ) as a latent catalyst. Spiral flow and gel time were measured to investigate the change in moldability with the latent catalyst. We measured package fail, moisture absorption, and delamination for reliability evaluation and flexural strength, flexural modulus, and adhesion for mechanical properties to examine latent catalyst effects. An improvement in moldability, reliability, and the mechanical properties were observed in two types of halogen‐free EMCs with TPP‐BQ as a latent catalyst. These phenomena were seen in conventional EMCs, including o‐cresol novolac epoxy resin. The cure kinetics of these systems were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry with an isothermal approach to explain these phenomena. The results indicate that the improvement in moldability in halogen‐free EMCs with TPP‐BQ was due to the low conversion rate of this system, and the increase in mechanical properties was attributed to the high conversion of curing reaction. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 2287–2299, 2005     

Scaled Jacobian transpose based control for robotic manipulators

This paper presents a scaled Jacobian transpose based control method for robotic manipulators as a modification of a conventional Jacobian transpose based method. The proposed method has several advantages such as it shows faster convergence and better tracking performance than the conventional method, furthermore, it does not have any singularity problem similar to the conventional method. The scaled Jacobian transpose is obtained by collecting each pseudoinverse of the column vector of the Jacobian matrix. The proposed method performs a given task well under singular configurations while minimizing the task error. Finally, a few comparative studies with the conventional method are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method through simulations.     

Development and control of a new AUV platform

This paper presents an architecture of a newly developed autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) platform, named KAUV-1, which is designed as a torpedo with very light weight and small size, suitable for use in marine exploration and monitoring. The KAUV-1 has a unique ducted propeller located at the aft end with yawing actuation acting as a rudder. For depth motion, the KAUV-1 is designed to have a mass shifter mechanism inside to change the vehicle center of gravity and to control its pitch angle and depth motion. The paper also presents an analysis on the equations of motion of the KAUV-1 with mass shifter mechanism and a new depth control strategy for the KAUV-1. The feasibility of the proposed control strategy is validated through simulation and experiment of performance of the vehicle.     

Exploration of unknown object by active touch of robot hand

This paper proposes a method of exploring the local shape of an unknown object using the force and torque information obtained from active touch. In the first, we present a method to estimate an unknown curvature, using rolling and sliding motion with a force/torque sensor attached to the fingertip of the hand. Then, the normal curvature equation from 2D curvatures is obtained. Finally we present a reconstruction algorithm of local geometry by using a normal curvature equation, which is composed of principal curvatures and principal directions. The method is tested by using a hand-arm system consisting of an industrial robot arm and an anthropomorphic robot hand with 6-axis force/torque sensor. The feasibility of the proposed method is experimentally validated for objects with simple geometries such as cylinder, spheres etc.     

Synthesis and properties of acrylonitrile-CR-methyl methacrylate graft copolymer

Graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) onto polychloroprene (CR) was carried out using benzoyl peroxide as initiator. The effects of mole ratio of AN to MMA, reaction temperature, reaction time, solvent, and initiator concentration on the graft copolymerization were examined. It was found that the thermal stability and weatherability of the AN—CR—MMA graft copolymer (ACM) were considerably better than those of CR.     

Analysis of deformation processes in glassy polycarbonate using internal friction measurements during a tensile test

Internal friction has been measured by torsion at 1 Hz during tensile tests performed on glassy polycarbonate at room-temperature. Steady-state flow and transient effects have been studied during continuous tensile tests and strain-rate changes. During steady-state, internal friction and flow-stress vary in a similar way with strain-rate. But during transients, internal friction varies continuously while flow-stress passes through a maximum (or a minimum). These results are interpreted assuming that non-elastic deformation of glassy polymers requires some microscopic discontinuous processes such as motion of defects. Two parameters are considered: the velocity v and the density ρ of mobile defects. Assuming that the former is directly related to the flow stress, it has been shown that internal friction is related to the density of mobile defects ρ. This feature is used to interpret the different stages of a tensile test curve. Activation volumes for both velocity and density of mobile defects are calculated from experimental data.     

The effect of composition on thermal,mechanical, and morphological properties of thermotropic liquid crystalline polyester with alkyl side-group and polycarbonate blends

A thermotropic liquid crystalline polymer (LCP) with an alkyl side-group was synthesized. Blends of the LCP with polycarbonate (PC) were prepared by coprecipitatton from a common solvent. The rheological behavior of the LCP/PC blends was found to be very different from that of PC, and significant viscosity reductions were observed in the temperature range of 200–230°C. Blends of different LCP compositions were extruded with different draw ratio from a capillary rheometer. The ultimate tensile strength showed a maximum at a 10 wt% LCP composition in the blends. It decreased for compositions greater the 10 wt% LCP, whereas the initial modulus increased with increasing LCP content. The morphology of the blends was found to be affected by their compositions. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies revealed finely dispersed spherical LCP domains in the PC matrix. The SEM micrographs also showed a poor adhesion between the two phases.     

Syntheses of new black dyes for ink-jet inks

Drop-on-demand ink-jet inks made from dyes generally show poor light and wet fastness. A number of studies have been carried out previously to improve the fastness of such inks by introducing novel dyes and new additives. Based on the research results, use of fast dyes could give ink-jet inks with good properties. This study describes new black dyes for aqueous ink-jet inks, which show better light and wet fastness and print quality, compared to an analogous ink formulated from CI Food Black 2.