Posture Maintenance Control of 2-Link Object By Nonprehensile Two-Cooperative-Arm Robot Without Compensating Friction

In this paper, a method to posture maintenance control of 2-link object by nonprehensile two-cooperative-arm robot without compensating friction is proposed. In details, a mathematical model of the 2-link object is firstly built. Based on the model, stable regions for holding motion of nonprehensile two-cooperative-arm robot are obtained while the 2-link object is kept stable on the robot arms with static friction. Among the obtained stable regions, the robust pairs of orientation angles of the 2-link object are found. Under the robust orientation angles, a feedback control system is designed to control the arms to maintain the 2-link object’s posture while it is being held or lifted up. Finally, experimental results are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.      

The Impact of Intermittent Hypoxia on Metabolism and Cognition

Intermittent hypoxia (IH), one of the primary pathologies of sleep apnea syndrome (SAS), exposes cells throughout the body to repeated cycles of hypoxia/normoxia that result in oxidative stress and systemic inflammation. Since SAS is epidemiologically strongly correlated with type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance, obesity, hypertension, and dyslipidemia included in metabolic syndrome, the effects of IH on gene expression in the corresponding cells of each organ have been studied intensively to clarify the molecular mechanism of the association between SAS and metabolic syndrome. Dementia has recently been recognized as a serious health problem due to its increasing incidence, and a large body of evidence has shown its strong correlation with SAS and metabolic disorders. In this narrative review, we first outline the effects of IH on the expression of genes related to metabolism in neuronal cells, pancreatic β cells, hepatocytes, adipocytes, myocytes, and renal cells (mainly based on the results of our experiments). Next, we discuss the literature regarding the mechanisms by which metabolic disorders and IH develop dementia to understand how IH directly and indirectly leads to the development of dementia.     

亚纳米精度长度溯源计量型动态模式原子力显微镜

通过与长度溯源三轴激光干涉仪测量系统结合,设计开发计量型动态模式原子力显微镜(AFM).此AFM系统中,三轴激光干涉仪系统用于实时测量AFM测头与试样的相对位移.激光干涉仪系统的x,y,z测量轴正交于AFM探针顶端附近的一点,基本可以避免系统的阿贝误差,使AFM具有极高的测量精度.除此之外,扫描过程中三轴激光干涉仪系统还用于工作台x,y方向位移的反馈控制,完全克服AFM中压电器件的缺陷对水平尺寸测量的影响.分析表明,在对纳米标准栅的平均栅距测量中,AFM系统达到亚纳米的测量精度.     

Total sputtering yields of solids under MeV-energy Si ion bombardment

Total sputtering yields have been measured for SiO₂ and Cu targets bombarded with Si ions at an incident energy between 500 keV and 5.0 MeV using a quartz crystal microbalance technique. In order to measure total yields accurately, we have developed a beam modulation technique to avoid the effect of thermal drift. In the MeV energy range, an ion penetrates through thin SiO₂ and Cu targets and is implanted into a quartz crystal. Therefore, the thickness of these layers deposited on quartz crystals was carefully controlled to avoid damage of quartz crystal by incident ions. As a result, total sputtering yields of SiO₂ increased with incident Si ion energy, while those of the Cu target decreased. The total yields of the SiO₂ target were represented well by a power low of the electronic stopping power.     

Characterization of recrystallization of 12Cr and 15Cr ODS ferritic steels

The recrystallization behavior of 12Cr and 15Cr oxide dispersion-strengthened (ODS) ferritic steels, which are the promising candidate materials for long-life core materials of the advanced fast breeder reactors, was investigated in terms of an intermediate softening heat treatment. It was clarified that keeping recovery structure at the intermediate heat treatment is indispensable for producing recrystallized structure at the final heat treatment. Prevention of repeating recrystallization is owing to the stable {100} 〈110〉 texture formation with less stored strain energy by the cold-rolling of the recrystallized structure. The two-step softening process was proposed to suppress the recrystallization and obtain adequate hardness reduction at the intermediate heat treatment. This process is effective for producing a stable recrystallized structure at the final heat treatment of the manufacturing process of ODS ferritic steel cladding.     

Using Decision Trees to Construct a Practical Parser

This paper describes a novel and practical Japanese parser that uses decision trees. First, we construct a single decision tree to estimate modification probabilities; how one phrase tends to modify another. Next, we introduce a boosting algorithm in which several decision trees are constructed and then combined for probability estimation. The constructed parsers are evaluated using the EDR Japanese annotated corpus. The single-tree method significantly outperforms the conventional Japanese stochastic methods. Moreover, the boosted version of the parser is shown to have great advantages; (1) a better parsing accuracy than its single-tree counterpart for any amount of training data and (2) no over-fitting to data for various iterations. The presented parser, the first non-English stochastic parser with practical performance, should tighten the coupling between natural language processing and machine learning.     

Efficient heat utilization of a space cooling system over a range of atmospheric temperatures and solar radiation

Behavior of a space cooling system using the diurnal range of atmospheric temperatures in the summer is examined by numerical simulation. The system consists of radiators, a thermal energy storage tank, fan‐coil coolers, and an electric cooler. Conditions for the calculation were obtained from actual weather records and characteristics of appliances. Total consumption of electric power was used for evaluating the system performance. The larger the volume of the storage tank becomes, the smaller the consumption. The consumption is smaller when the radiator is operated for a period of some limited hours than when operating through the night. To decrease the consumption, there are optimum values of the flow rate of the pumps and in the on–off temperature of the fan‐coil cooler. Stratified tanks could reduce the consumption compared with mixed ones. This system has the possibility of reducing demand for electricity or of shifting the demand to off‐peak hours. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Asian Res, 30(2): 126–138, 2001