Elegant Stepping: A Model of Visually Triggered Gait Adaptation

Existing visually guided walking machines have difficulty traversing terrain cluttered with obstacles. These walking machines use computationally intense approaches that require construction of a geometrically correct model of both the environment and the robot. However, most terrestrial vertebrates accomplish this task easily, suggesting that better strategies exist. We present a model inspired by recent research in cats and humans. In our model, perception and action are tightly coupled. The mapping is adaptive and based on experience. The goal of the adaptation is to use distance measurements to smoothly modulate a central pattern generator (CPG) controlling gait. A key element in our model is the use of a temporal gating hypothesis. This hypothesis simplifies the learning problem and is consistent with biological observations. Our approach does not require that a geometric representation of the environment be created or updated based on new observations. This is in strong contrast to current practice in machine vision and robotics of surface reconstruction as a prerequisite to planning. Our simulation results indicate that the desired mapping can be learned quickly with few mistakes before perfect performance is achieved. The resulting gait modulation is smooth and coordinated with the phase of the CPG controlling the robot.     

Design of integrated 1.6 GHz, 2 W tuned RF power amplifier

This paper describes the design of an integrated tuned power amplifier specified to operate at Inmarsat satellite uplink frequencies from 1626.5 to 1660.5 MHz. The basic topology of the amplifier lies on the parallel tuned inverse class E amplifier that is modified by placing the DC-blocking capacitor into a new position and by adjusting the size of the capacitor to improve stability below the desired band. Further, the new positioning reduces losses between drain and load. The high currents flowing in the circuit made it necessary to use wide inductor width and high-Q finger capacitors in the on-chip resonator. The amplifier was implemented as a Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) integrated circuit (IC) that delivered 2 W of output power while the drain efficiency was ca. 56%. Measurements included source and load pulls to further improve the performance of the amplifier and to investigate the stability at small input drive levels.     

Dynamic simulation of product process

During 90’s Nokia utilized Concurrent Engineering (CE) process in mobile phone business successfully. Strong growing of the company, more complex technologies, maturing markets and changes in competition has increased the need to develop the product process of the company to keep its position as an agile, innovative and productive product developer. Dynamic simulation approach has been one of the activities among other product process re-engineering efforts in the company.This paper describes the approach and “Product Process Decision Simulation” (PPDS) solution as the first implemented application of the approach. A dynamic model of product development has been created and applied to manage product process complex dynamic behavior on system level in order to reduce product development cycle times, slippages and costs as well as improve perceived product quality. The key contribution of the simulation solution is to provoke facilitated discussion in order to gain shared understanding of interdependencies and dynamic causes and effects in product process.The implementation and frequent simulation workshops have started in June 2006 and about 500 R&D people have already participated.     

Particle packing simulations based on Newtonian mechanics

A program to simulate the packing of round particles was made in the course of this work. The theoretical packing of the particles was studied in 3-dimensional situations with the program. The effects of friction, elasticity, size and spring co-efficient on packing were examined. It was observed that increased friction caused decreased packing density. Elasticity had a minor effect on the density, while the spring constant defining the interactions between particles had a minimal effect.     

A distributed framework for multi-risk assessment of natural hazards used to model the effects of forest fire on hydrology and sediment yield

Within the European Commission-funded MEDIGRID project, Grid computing technology is used to integrate various natural hazard models and data sets, maintained independently at different centres in Europe, into a single system, accessible to users over the internet. Each centre forms a process (application) or data storage node and has been fitted with the Globus toolkit, which provides the distributed computing environment functionality that is required for the system set up. In addition, several Grid data management components were developed to allow the system to operate on different computing platforms. Access to the data and application management services is enabled through a Grid Portal. A series of portlets enable users to access the system, providing a personalised interface to the Grid. Integration of the individual models required them to be modified as web services, so as to be run remotely over the internet. As the models have different data characteristics, a common data format was adopted for creating harmonised data sets and allowing the exchange of data between the models. As an example, the Fire Spread Engine model is used to derive a map of areas that have been burnt by fire. This forms an input to the SHETRAN hydrology, soil erosion and landslide model, which in turn could provide data for other models such as vegetation regeneration. The use of the system is demonstrated for a site in south-west Spain where a large forest fire occurred on 2 August 2003. The MEDIGRID system marks an advance in the integration of independently constructed models to provide improved hazard assessment technology.     

Malolactic fermentation in sea buckthorn (Hippophaë rhamnoides L.) juice processing

Malolactic fermentation (MLF) traditionally used in winemaking was applied to sea buckthorn to reduce the high sourness of the berry juice. Chemical and microbiological aspects, as well as sensory properties of the juice during MLF were studied in order to develop an optimal process. In 1:1 water diluted juice with malic acid content of 15 g/l and pH 2.8, efficient conversion of l-malic acid to l-lactic acid was achieved with direct inoculation of unadapted Oenococcus oeni at a cell density of 10⁹ CFU/ml. The rapid malic acid degradation was performed by non-growing bacterial cells without loss of sugars, vitamin C, or pulp oil. More than 50% of the initial malic acid was metabolized to lactic acid and CO₂ already in 12 h of fermentation and a significant decrease in sourness and astringency was noticed. In 24 h fermentation, pH value was increased to 3.1 and only 3 g/l malic acid remained in the juice. Prolonged fermentation had only minor effect on malolactic reaction, but off-flavor of the juice began to increase.     

Freeze‐drying method prepared UHMWPE/CNTs composites with optimized micromorphologies and improved tribological performance

Uniformly dispersed carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reinforced ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) composites were successfully prepared by freeze‐drying method. Specifically, polymer powders were mixed with CNT aqueous paste, and then freeze‐dried. As a consequence, CNTs covered at the surface of UHMWPE powders evenly when CNT content was not very high, which improved the quantity of crystals and crystallinity of UHMWPE/CNTs composites by providing more nucleation sites during the upcoming compression‐molded process. Furthermore, optimized dispersion state of CNTs and concomitant higher crystallinity made freeze‐drying technique prepared composites display much lower wear rate when compared with pure UHMWPE and UHMWPE/CNTs composites fabricated by common heat‐drying method. In a word, our proposed method of freeze‐drying is simple and effective for mass production of UHMWPE/CNTs composites, and it is promising to be applied to fabricate many kinds of nanofillers modified polymer composites, for example, polymer/graphene material. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41885.     

Relationships between injuries at work and during leisure time

The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between injuries at work and during leisure time. Three independent but similar data sets based on the National Work and Health Survey were analyzed. A total of 2156 subjects participated this study in 1997, 2053 subjects in 2000, and 2335 subjects in 2003. In the interview the subjects reported their accidents at work, which had caused at least minor injury during the past 12 months. Workers involved in work injuries were significantly more often involved in leisure-time injuries (p<0.05). Less than 1% of the subjects were involved in both injuries at work and during leisure time during the past 12 months. We can conclude that involving in work injuries could increase the risk of leisure-time injuries.     

Unconditionally stable algorithms for rigid body dynamics that exactly preserve energy and momentum

We show that, for rigid body dynamics, the mid-point rule formulated in body co-ordinates exactly conserves energy and the norm of the angular momentum for incremental force-free motions, but fails to conserve the direction of the angular momentum vector. Further, we show that the mid-point rule formulated in the spatial representation is, in general, physically and geometrically meaningless. An alternative algorithm is developed which exactly preserves energy, and the total spatial angular momentum in incremental force-free motions. The implicit version of this algorithm is unconditionally stable and second order accurate. The explicit version conserves exactly angular momentum in incremental force-free motions. Numerical simulations are presented which illustrate the excellent performance of the proposed procedure, even for incremental rotations over 65 degrees. The procedure is directly applicable to transient dynamic calculations of geometrically exact rods and shells.     

Immobilized lipoxygenase in continuous production of fatty acid hydroperoxides

Soybean lipoxygenase-1 was covalently coupled to agarose with 75% recovery of catalytic activity. Because evidence was obtained that the immobilization resulted in improved operational stability of the enzyme, a lipoxygenase-reactor and a continuous process for the synthesis of 13-hydroperoxy-linoleic acid and 15-hydroperoxyarachidonic acid were developed. A procedure based on spectrophotometric hydroperoxide assay and constant oxygraphic monitoring of the effluent is presented for the calibration of the reactor to operate at the highest conversion efficiency when oxygenating quantitatively the substrate. Under these conditions, the reactor was capable of producing about 0.6 mg of hydroperoxy fatty acid/1.0 ml of wet gel/hr. The covalently coupled enzyme has been stable during six months of storage at 3 C in 0.2 M Na-borate buffer, pH 9.0, and during the same period, its operational stability in the column has been unaltered under the conditions used.