Supermedia-enhanced Internet-based telerobotics

This paper introduces new planning and control methods for supermedia-enhanced real-time telerobotic operations via the Internet. Supermedia is the collection of video, audio, haptic information, temperature, and other sensory feedback. However, when the communication medium used, such as the Internet, introduces random communication time delay, several challenges and difficulties arise. Most importantly, random communication delay causes instability, loss of transparency, and desynchronization in real-time closed-loop telerobotic systems. Due to the complexity and diversity of such systems, the first challenge is to develop a general and efficient modeling and analysis tool. This paper proposes the use of Petri net modeling to capture the concurrency and complexity of Internet-based teleoperation. Combined with the event-based planning and control method, it also provides an efficient analysis and design tool to study the stability, transparency, and synchronization of such systems. In addition, the concepts of event transparency and event synchronization are introduced and analyzed. This modeling and control method has been applied to the design of several supermedia-enhanced Internet-based telerobotic systems, including the bilateral control of mobile robots and mobile manipulators. These systems have been experimentally implemented in three sites test bed consisting of robotic laboratories in the USA, Hong Kong, and Japan. The experimental results have verified the theoretical development and further demonstrated the stability, event transparency, and event synchronization of the systems.     

Tc trend in high-Tc superconductors

In our previous works, we have shown that most existing ceramic superconductors can be considered to be built of superconductor-semiconductor composite and we have estimated the change in phonon spectrum of the intrinsic superconductor unit if a semiconductor unit is attached to it. Moreover, the proximity effect under the size quantization condition has been examined in the superconductor-semiconductor composite. Each of the stated effects by itself could causeT _c enhancement in general as more semiconductor blocks are added to the system. We extend our study in this paper to analyze the combined actions of phonon spectral change and proximity effect without size quantization condition onT _c variation in members of the Tl₁ series of high-T _c superconductors. Our results indicate that an optimumT _c is obtained if the stated effects are included in the idealized unit cells of the superconductors made up of a superconductor-semiconductor array.     

Organosoluble and light-colored fluorinated polyimides derived from 2,3-bis(4-amino-2-trifluoromethylphenoxy)naphthalene and aromatic dianhydrides

A novel fluorinated bis(ether amine) monomer, 2,3-bis(4-amino-2-trifluoromethylphenoxy)naphthalene, was prepared through the nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction of 2-chloro-5-nitrobenzotrifluoride and 2,3-dihydroxynaphthalene in the presence of potassium carbonate, followed by catalytic reduction with hydrazine and Pd/C. A series of new fluorine-containing polyimides having inherent viscosities of 0.54 to 1.10 dl/g were synthesized from the diamine with various commercially available aromatic dianhydrides using a standard two-stage process with thermal imidization of poly(amic acid) films. These polyimides were highly soluble in a variety of organic solvents, and most of them afforded transparent, light-colored, and tough films with good tensile strengths. These polyimides exhibited glass transition temperatures (T_gs) of 247-300 °C and showed no significant decomposition below 500 °C under either nitrogen or air atmosphere. Except for the polyimide derived from pyromellitic dianhydride, the polyimide films were almost colorless, with an ultraviolet-visible absorption cutoff wavelength below 400 nm and low b∗ values (a yellowness index) of 10.7-41.9. These polyimides had dielectric constants of 3.09 to 3.65 (1 MHz) and moisture absorptions in the range of 0.2-0.3 wt%.     

Influence and adjustment goals: Sources of cultural differences in ideal affect.

Previous studies have found that in American culture high-arousal positive states (HAP) such as excitement are valued more and low-arousal positive states (LAP) such as calm are valued less than they are in Chinese culture. What specific factors account for these differences? The authors predicted that when people and cultures aimed to influence others (i.e., assert personal needs and change others' behaviors to meet those needs), they would value HAP more and LAP less than when they aimed to adjust to others (i.e., suppress personal needs and change their own behaviors to meet others' needs). They test these predictions in 1 survey and 3 experimental studies. The findings suggest that within and across American and Chinese contexts, differences in ideal affect are due to specific interpersonal goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fuzzy rule interpolation for multidimensional input spaces in determining d50c of hydrocyclones

Fuzzy rule-based systems have been very popular in many engineering applications. In mineral engineering, fuzzy rules are normally constructed using some fuzzy rule extraction techniques to establish the determination model in predicting the d50c of hydrocyclones. However, when generating fuzzy rules from the available information, it may result in a sparse fuzzy rule base. The use of more than one input variable is also common in hydrocyclone data analysis. This paper examines the application of fuzzy interpolation to resolve the problems using sparse fuzzy rule bases, and to perform analysis of fuzzy interpolation in multidimensional input spaces.