Minimal-drift heading measurement using a MEMS gyro for mobile robots: Fused with odometry

To achieve the goal of low-cost MEMS gyros for the precise self-localization of mobile robots, this paper presents a simple, yet effective method to minimize drifts on the heading angle by combining measurements from a gyro with measurements from wheel encoders (odometry). The main idea of the proposed approach is to estimate the accuracy of both sensors as a function of the actual maneuver being carried out, and then the output of both sensors are fused by the complementary filter taking into account the maneuvering conditions. The proposed method is applied to a mobile robot and the experimental data demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.     

Lipid peroxidation and antioxidant status is affected by different vitamin E levels when feeding fish oil

The protective role of vitamin E and changes in the status of several physiological antioxidants after feeding rats a fish oil diet were investigated. Six-week-old male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups and fed experimental diets for 8 wk. Three fish oil (FO) groups were fed a menhaden fish oil and soybean oil (SO) (9∶1) mixture as 10% (w/w) of the diet. These groups were provided with ≤3, 45 or 209 IU of vitamin E/kg diet. One SO group was used as control and was fed ≤45 IU of vitamin E/kg diet. Plasma vitamin E levels, when expressed as vitamin E per mL plasma, were extremely low in the group fed FO and ≤3 IU of vitamin E, and were lower in the groups fed FO than in the group fed SO. However, plasma vitamin E levels when expressed per mg plasma lipid were higher in the FO groups provided with ≤45 and 209 IU of vitamin E than in the SO group. Compared with the SO group, plasma levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), when expressed per mg lipid, were higher in the three FO groups, plasma retinol levels were lower in the FO groups provided with ≤3 and 45 IU of vitamin E, and ascorbic acid levels were lower only in the FO group provided with ≤3 IU of vitamin E. Blood glutathione (GSH) levels were lower in all three FO groups than in the SO group. Liver vitamin E levels increased as the dietary level of vitamin E increased, but all FO groups had higher liver levels of TBARS than the SO group. The dietary vitamin E levels were correlated positively with plasma vitamin E (r=0.71) and negatively with TBARS in both the plasma and liver of rats fed FO. Among the antioxidants measured, correlations were found between plasma retinol and vitamin C (r=0.64), and plasma vitamin C, uric acid (r=0.72) and blood GSH (r=0.60). Weaker correlations were found between plasma retinol, uric acid and blood GSH. It is concluded that vitamin E requirements are higher when feeding fish oil. Vitamin E seems necessary to prevent enhanced lipid peroxidation and to maintain appropriate levels of other physiological antioxidants.     

An experimental study on the residual mechanical properties of fiber reinforced concrete with high temperature and load

The effects of high temperature and fiber content on the residual mechanical properties of concrete have experimentally investigated. In this paper, residual mechanical properties of high-strength and normal strength concretes made with different water to cement (w/c; 0.55, 0.42 and 0.32) ratios exposed to high temperature were compared with those obtained in fiber reinforced concretes with similar characteristics ranging from 0.05 to 0.20 % polypropylene (PP) fibers by volume of concrete. Also, variables including pre-load level of 20 and 40 % of the maximum load at room temperature were considered. Concrete specimens prepared with the variables were tested for outbreak time, thermal strain, length change, weight loss, compressive strength, modulus of elasticity and energy absorption capacity. It is seen that the cross-sectional area of PP fiber can influence the residual mechanical properties and the spalling tendency of concrete of fiber reinforced concrete exposed to high temperature from the results. Especially, the external loading influenced to increase not only the residual mechanical properties of concrete but also the risk of spalling and the brittle failure tendency.     

Process development of ITO source/drain electrode for the top-gate indium-gallium-zinc oxide transparent thin-film transistor

Indium-tin oxide (ITO) has been widely used as electrodes for LCDs and OLEDs. The applications are expanding to the transparent thin-film transistors (TTFT_S) for the versatile circuits or transparent displays. This paper is related with optimization of ITO source and drain electrode for TTFTs on glass substrates. For example, un-etched ITO remnants, which frequently found in the wet etching process, often originate from unsuitable ITO formation processes. In order to improve them, an ion beam deposition method is introduced, which uses for forming a seed layer before the main ITO deposition. We confirm that ITO films with seed layers are effective to obtain clean and smooth glass surfaces without un-etched ITO remnants, resulting in a good long-run electrical stability of the top-gate indium-gallium-zinc oxide-TTFT.     

Effective color correction method employing HSV color model

This paper suggests a new algorithm to solve problems of the current retinex algorithm such as distortion of grey out and color noise due to the individual treatment of RGB channel and log function,and halo effect occurred by use of the Gaussian filter.The current retinex algorithm treats each channel in RGB space that brings a phenomenon to change the rate of RGB.To improve this phenomenon,the color information was fixed in the HSV color space,and retinex treatment was conducted against the V value,a luminance feature.Linear treatment was carried out to remove color noise occurred by the use of log function.S value,a saturation value was compensated in proportion to the change of V value in luminance to obtain a clearer image.The proposed algorithm was evaluated against the landscape images that had strong backlit phenomena,and it is proved to have a better performance than the current retinex algorithm,multiscale retinex with cdor restoration(MSRCR).