Image analysis system for acquiring three-dimensional contour of foot arch during balanced standing

Compared to the X-ray approach, footprint analysis is a non-radiation and more viable method for clinical assessment of the medial longitudinal arch of the foot. In this study, we have designed an optical footprint acquisition system that consists of a digital camera and two pieces of glass, each with four load cells under each corner. When the subject stands on the transparent force plates, the digital camera is triggered, photographing the soles of the feet at the moment when both feet bear approximately at the same weight. A blue gel is placed between the foot and the force plate to enhance the contrast between sole and background. Based on the relationship between the brightness of the image and the thickness of the gel, the three-dimensional (3D) structure of the arch can be reconstructed which can provide more representative information than a conventional footprint image, with its low resolution and easy smearing.     

Atom-to-atom interactions for atomic layer deposition of trimethylaluminum on Ga-rich GaAs(001)-4?×?6 and As-rich GaAs(001)-2?×?4 surfaces: a synchrotron radiation photoemission study

High-resolution synchrotron radiation photoemission was employed to study the effects of atomic-layer-deposited trimethylaluminum (TMA) and water on Ga-rich GaAs(001)-4 × 6 and As-rich GaAs(001)-2 × 4 surfaces. No high charge states were found in either As 3d or Ga 3d core-level spectra before and after the deposition of the precursors. TMA adsorption does not disrupt the GaAs surface structure. For the (4 × 6) surface, the TMA precursor existed in both chemisorbed and physisorbed forms. In the former, TMA has lost a methyl group and is bonded to the As of the As-Ga dimer. Upon water purge, the dimethylaluminum-As group was etched off, allowing the now exposed Ga to bond with oxygen. Water also changed the physisorbed TMA into the As-O-Al(CH₃)₂ configuration. This configuration was also found in 1 cycle of TMA and water exposure of the (2 × 4) surface, but with a greater strength, accounting for the high interface defect density in the mid-gap region.     

Designing the rule classification with oversampling approach with high accuracy for imbalanced data in semiconductor production lines

The product quality is the major factor for enhancing the production ability and competitiveness. Decreasing the cost and increasing production capacity are common approaches to realize the enhancement of the product quality. The production managers apply various multimedia data to evaluate the product quality. For example, capturing the stamping sound to evaluate the correct cutting and taking the component image to measure the chip positions are common heterogeneous multimedia data that are applied to manufacturing. However, the production managers prefer to minimize the number of defective products, e. g. the secondary operation and fixing the product tolerance in the assembly stage, to fitting the production target. Therefore, contrasting the defective product identification procedure with high accuracy becomes a challenge due to the decrease of the number of the defective products. In this paper, we propose the Rule Classification with Oversampling (RCOS) approach to provide the high accuracy with few defective products. The proposed RCOS includes the oversampling technique and the rule classification approach to emphasize the properties of the defective products and provide the precise classes. Given few defective products, capturing the properties of the failure is difficult. The RCOS considers the revised Synthetic Minority Over-Sampling Technique (SMOTE) to highlight the failure properties, and then the rule model is considered to extract the root cause of the defective products. We implement the proposed RCOS in the semiconductor production line. From the experiment results, the proposed RCOS provide about at most 98% in accuracy, and the comparison shows that the results have been improved in common criteria e. g. the true-positive rate, G mean, F1 score, and False Alarm Rate. Therefore, the proposed RCOS provides high practicality for the implementation consideration.

     

Optically enhanced sensitivity of external electro-optic polymer probing system

We propose an optical-sensitivity-enhanced external electro-optic (EO) measurement system using a poled polymer as an EO sensor. A pumping laser is used to induce the photoisomerization effect in a prepoled EO polymer to both enhance and maintain the noncentrosymmetric molecular orientation. This approach increases the EO coefficient and, hence, enhances the EO measurement sensitivity. Experimental results of an EO sensor made of DR1/PMMA show that this method can improve the sensitivity by at least a factor of 2.     

Continuous monitoring of enzyme reactions on a microchip: application to catalytic RNA self-cleavage

Kinetic analysis of RNA enzymes, or ribozymes, typically involves the tedious process of collecting and quenching reaction time points and then fractionating by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE). As a way to automate and simplify this process, continuous analysis of a ribozyme reaction is demonstrated here using completely automated capillary sample introduction onto a microfabricated device with laser-induced fluorescence detection. The method of injection is extremely reproducible thereby standardizing data analysis. A 30-nucleotide ribozyme model, the self-cleaving lead-dependent ribozyme, or "leadzyme", which cleaves into a 24-mer and a 6-mer in the presence of Pb(2+), was end-labeled with fluorescein (FAM) and used to demonstrate the potential of this technique. After manually initiating the cleavage reaction by Pb(2+) addition, reaction samples were automatically injected directly into the parallel separation lanes of the chip via a capillary at predetermined time intervals, thus eliminating the need for additional sample-handling steps. The FAM-labeled leadzyme starting material and products were monitored for 60 min in order to ascertain kinetic information. The effect of lead acetate concentration on cleavage rates was also studied, and the results are in agreement with rates determined by conventional hand-mixing/PAGE analysis. This work demonstrates, through the use of a simple ribozyme model, the potential of this method to provide valuable kinetic information for other, more complex, biologically relevant RNA and protein enzymes.     

Adhesion optimization for catalyst coating on silicon-based reformer

CMZ (ca. 30.0 wt.% Cu, 20 wt.% Mn, and 50 wt.% Zn) catalyst was chosen for the partial oxidation of methanol (POM) reaction. To enhance adhesion between a silicon-based reactor and catalysts, boehmite and bentonite were used as binders. Changes in conditions such as pH value, ratio of bentonite/boehmite, amount of solid contents per area of substrate, and aging time have crucial effects on adhesion and result in variable performance of catalyst in POM reaction. Regarding optimized adhesion conditions, 13 wt.% weight loss was observed and methanol conversion could be kept at ca. 80–90% of original catalyst performance in a packed-bed reactor. However, poor performance was observed in the micro-channel reactor. The methanol conversion (C_MeOH), H₂ selectivity (S_H2), and H₂ yield (Y_H2) achieved 58%, 67%, 5.7 × 10^?6 mol/min in micro-channel reformer at 250 °C, respectively.