Infants' sensitivity to optical flow for controlling posture.

Infants' sensitivity to optical flow for controlling sitting and standing was tested using a "moving room" in which all of the walls moved together, or only the side walls or front wall moved. Two questions motivated this research. (a) is the optical flow necessary for inducing postural compensations spatially distributed in the optic array? (b) Do visually induced compensations follow a developmental progression, or alternatively, emerge all at once? Experiment 1 was designed to test postural compensations by 14-month-old infants capable of standing in the moving room. Experiment 2 was designed to test postural compensations by 5- to 9-month-old infants who were passively supported while sitting in the moving room. The results revealed that partial flow is generally sufficient for inducing postural compensations, but that the amplitude and consistency of the response depend on the location of the flow in the optic array. In addition, there was evidence suggesting that compensatory responses become increasingly systematic during the second half of the first year. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Editorial: January 1992.

Explains changes in the American Psychologist (AP) and reveals plans for 3 special issues in 1992 and 1993 (including a commemorative issue to observe the American Psychological Association's (APA's) centennial year. AP's standard editorial procedure, reasons for some rejections, and reconsideration of submissions are discussed. The editor notes that APA's new building (already a financial success) and its highly successful publications program can become an additional source of income to APA. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Robust Superhydrophobic Fabric for Durability,Self-Cleaning,and Oil/Water Separation via Thiol–Acrylate Polymerization

In recent years, highly efficient oil/water separation materials have brought much attention. It requests superhydrophobic surfaces with a rapid and facile separation process, excellent durability, and large-scale fabrication. Herein, a facile vapor-liquid sol-gel, and free radical polymerization reaction method to prepare the durable and robust superhydrophobic cotton fabric is proposed. Moreover, the fabric can be used for highly efficient and various oil/water separation. It is prepared via a simple two-step process, including a vapor-liquid sol-gel process to deposit with thiols particles, and then followed a free radical polymerization reaction to graft 2,2,3,4,4,4-hexafluorobutyl methacrylate. Scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry prove that the rough structures are generated from the hydrolysis condensation reaction between tetraethyl orthosilicate and 3-mercaptopropyltriethoxysilane. As a result, the synthetic chemical composition provided by the natural fabric and silica nanoparticles synergistically construct a superhydrophobic surface with water contact angles and shedding angle of 158° and 9°, respectively. Additionally, the treated fabric exhibits excellent chemical resistance and self-cleaning ability. Remarkably, the fabric still retains superhydrophobic and excellent mechanical robustness after 30 cycles of various oil/water separation. In summary, the resultant fabrics with excellent chemical resistance, remarkable mechanical robustness, and versatile separation abilities have potential applications in various oil/water separations.     

The Synthesis of Covalent Triazine-Based Frameworks via Friedel–Crafts Reactions of Cyanuric Chloride with Thienyl and Carbazolyl Derivatives for Fluorescence Sensing to Picric Acid,Iodine and Capturing Iodine

A multifunctional thiophene-based covalent triazine framework (TTPATTh) with triphenylamine as core is synthesized by Friedel–Crafts reaction of cyanuric chloride with thienyl derivative for the first time. The yield of TTPATTh (99.59%) is far higher than that of the carbazole-based CTF (TTPATCz, 47.03%). TTPATTh and TTPATCz possess high BET surface areas with 1235 and 2501 m² g^–1 as well as high pore volumes with 1.60 and 2.23 cm³ g^–1, respectively. TTPATTh and TTPATCz have high thermal stability with high thermal decomposition temperatures of 514 and 598 °C in nitrogen atmosphere. With the introduction of triazine rings, the fluorescence sensing sensitivities of TTPATTh and TTPATCz to picric acid and iodine are improved significantly. Especially for TTPATTh, the K_sv values reach 5.95 × 10⁵ and 1.61 × 10⁴ L mol^–1, and LODs reach 1.02 × 10^–12 and 1.86 × 10^–12 mol L^–1. To the best of the knowledge, this is the most sensitive value among thiophene-based porous organic polymers to PA and I₂. Furthermore, TTPATTh and TTPATCz can also adsorb iodine in vapor phase, cyclohexane solution and aqueous solution, and release iodine by heating or in ethanol solution. The efficiency of controlling the release of iodine is higher than that in ethanol.     

Degradable Superhydrophilic Iron-Pillared Bentonite Doped with Polybutylene Adipate/Terephthalate Open-Cell Foam: Its Application in Dye Degradation,Removal of Heavy Metal Ions,and Oil–Water Separation

Development of industrialization has brought convenience to people's lives; however, it has also brought serious harm to the environment, where, water pollution is the most obvious. Here, a polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) open-cell foam doped with iron-pillared bentonite (IPB) is prepared by using sugar as a pore-forming agent and solution phase separation, and then combined with a solution dipping method to coat the foam surface with a polyacrylamide/SiO₂, which makes the PBAT foam superhydrophilic. The static adsorption effect of superhydrophilic IPB-doped PBAT open-cell foam on methylene blue (MB) and Cu²⁺ is studied. The adsorption isotherm fitting shows that the adsorption conforms to the Langmuir model and it has biased toward monolayer adsorption. The adsorption kinetics fitting confirms that the adsorption process is in line with the pseudo-second-order adsorption model, which is dominated by chemical adsorption. The modified PBAT open-cell foam has an adsorption effect on Cu²⁺; however, it has weak cyclic adsorption capacity. It shows a good cyclic adsorption ability for the cationic dye MB and it has >95% photodegradation efficiency of the MB after five time's cyclic adsorption. The superhydrophilicity makes the foam to have better applications in oil–water separation.     

Highly Thermal Stable Polyimides Applied in Flexible Resistive Memory

Flexible memory devices are one of the most crucial elements in the wearable electronics. In this work, polyimides (PIs)-based flexible resistive memory devices with an excellent thermal and mechanical durability are demonstrated. Four kinds of functional PIs are derived from the heterocyclic diamines including 2,6-diaminodibenzo-p-dioxin (OODA) and 2,6-diaminothianthrene, and dianhydrides including 4,4′-(hexafluoroisopropylidene)diphthalic anhydride (6FDA) and 3,3′,4,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic dianhydride. PI with diamine of OODA and dianhydride of 6FDA (PI(OODA_6FDA)) possesses outstanding thermal and mechanical properties with a high glass transition temperature of 352 °C, a low coefficient of thermal expansion of 28.1 ppm K⁻¹, and a high elongation at break of 10%. In addition, PI(OODA_6FDA)-based memory shows write-once-read-many behavior with a high on/off current ratio of 10⁶ and a stable data retention, attributed to the donor–acceptor charge transfer between the polymer chains. The retained current levels at a low resistive state can be observed even with thermal treatment at 200 °C for 24 h or 1000 times cyclic bending at a bending radius of 5 mm. These results demonstrate the potential of heterocyclic PIs for flexible resistive memory.     

Catalytic feasibility of Ce-doped LaCoO3 systems for chlorobenzene oxidation: An analysis of synthesis method

A family of Ce-doped LaCoO₃ perovskites are presented as possible catalysts for Cl–VOCs elimination. These materials with different contents of Ce were obtained through the citrate and the reactive grinding methods. The insertion of Ce in the original perovskite structure favours the presence of Co²⁺/Co³⁺ and Ce³⁺/Ce⁴⁺ redox pairs and a higher content of oxygen vacancies that enhances the catalytic performance in chlorobenzene combustion based on differential kinetics studies. The family obtained by the grinding method presents a performance as high as that synthesized by citrate method. Thus, the reactive grinding is a feasible green chemistry alternative to obtain a catalyst with the same performance as that obtained from traditional methods. Finally, the stability of samples was evaluated under total combustion reaction conditions showing an excellent activity during 45 h time on stream.     

Asynchronous decentralized event-triggered control

In this paper we propose an approach to the implementation of controllers with decentralized strategies triggering controller updates. We consider set-ups with a central node in charge of the computation of the control commands, and a set of not co-located sensors providing measurements to the controller node. The solution we propose does not require measurements from the sensors to be synchronized in time. The sensors in our proposal provide measurements in an aperiodic way triggered by local conditions. Furthermore, in the proposed implementation (most of) the communication between nodes requires only the exchange of one bit of information (per controller update), which could aid in reducing transmission delays and as a secondary effect result in fewer transmissions being triggered.     

Utility of stereoscopic displays for indirect-vision driving and robot teleoperation

The effectiveness of an active shutter-glasses stereoscopic display (SD) and a passive polarised SD was evaluated in a live robot-teleoperation task and a simulated indirect-vision driving task in various terrains. Overall, participants completed their tasks significantly faster with the SDs in three-dimensional (3D) mode than with the SDs in the baseline 2D mode. They also navigated more accurately with the SDs in 3D mode. When the effectiveness of the two types of SDs was examined separately, results showed that the active shutter-glasses SD resulted in faster responses and task completion times than the passive polarised SD, though most of the differences failed to reach statistical significance. Perceived workload when interacting with the two SD systems did not differ significantly between the active versus passive display types or between the 3D and 2D modes of operation; however, participants reported more severe discomfort after interacting with the passive polarised SD.     

A 3D analysis of the joint torques developed during driver's ingress–egress motion

Providing an easy ingress–egress (I/E) movement remains a challenge for car designers. I/E has been largely studied in kinematics, but not in dynamics. This study proposes: (1) to evaluate and describe the motor torques developed in the lower limbs and lumbar joints during I/E motions and (2) to analyse the influence of the car geometry and subject anthropometry. An experiment was performed to observe 15 subjects of three anthropometrical groups getting in and out of a car mock-up simulating three different vehicle configurations. Motor torques were extracted using an inverse dynamics analysis. Both ingress and egress motions were primarily characterised by large torques. Overall, the taller a subject and the lower the seat of the vehicle were, the larger the peak torques were. Moreover, peak torques were higher for egress than ingress. These results are discussed in regard to the current knowledge on I/E ergonomics.