Soft error rate analysis methodology of multi-Pulse-single-event transients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Bin; Huo Mingxue; Xiao Liyi

2012-01-01

As transistor feature size scales down, soft errors in combinational logic because of high-energy particle radiation is gaining more and more concerns. In this paper, a combinational logic soft error analysis methodology considering multi-pulse-single-event transients (MPSETs) and re-convergence with multi transient pulses is proposed. In the proposed approach, the voltage pulse produced at the standard cell output is approximated by a triangle waveform, and characterized by three parameters: pulse width, the transition time of the first edge, and the transition time of the second edge. As for the pulse with the amplitude being smaller than the supply voltage, the edge extension technique is proposed. Moreover, an efficient electrical masking model comprehensively considering transition time, delay, width and amplitude is proposed, and an approach using the transition times of two edges and pulse width to compute the amplitude of pulse is proposed. Finally, our proposed firstly-independently-propagating-secondly-mutually-interacting (FIP-SMI) is used to deal with more practical re-convergence gate with multi transient pulses. As for MPSETs, a random generation model of MPSETs is exploratively proposed. Compared to the estimates obtained using circuit level simulations by HSpice, our proposed soft error rate analysis algorithm has 10% errors in SER estimation with speed up of 300 when the single-pulse-single-event transient (SPSET) is considered. We have also demonstrated the runtime and SER decrease with the increment of P0 using designs from the ISCAS-85 benchmarks. (authors)

An empirical study on the basic human error probabilities for NPP advanced main control room operation using soft control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Inseok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Harbi, Mohamed Ali Salem Al; Lee, Seung Jun; Kang, Hyun Gook; Seong, Poong Hyun

2013-01-01

Highlights: ► The operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed by adopting new HSIs. ► The operation action in NPP Advanced MCRs is performed by soft control. ► Different basic human error probabilities (BHEPs) should be considered. ► BHEPs in a soft control operation environment are investigated empirically. ► This work will be helpful to verify if soft control has positive or negative effects. -- Abstract: By adopting new human–system interfaces that are based on computer-based technologies, the operation environment of main control rooms (MCRs) in nuclear power plants (NPPs) has changed. The MCRs that include these digital and computer technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, soft controls, and so on, are called Advanced MCRs. Among the many features in Advanced MCRs, soft controls are an important feature because the operation action in NPP Advanced MCRs is performed by soft control. Using soft controls such as mouse control, touch screens, and so on, operators can select a specific screen, then choose the controller, and finally manipulate the devices. However, because of the different interfaces between soft control and hardwired conventional type control, different basic human error probabilities (BHEPs) should be considered in the Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) for advanced MCRs. Although there are many HRA methods to assess human reliabilities, such as Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP), Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP), Human Error Assessment and Reduction Technique (HEART), Human Event Repository and Analysis (HERA), Nuclear Computerized Library for Assessing Reactor Reliability (NUCLARR), Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method (CREAM), and so on, these methods have been applied to conventional MCRs, and they do not consider the new features of advance MCRs such as soft controls. As a result, there is an insufficient database for assessing human reliabilities in advanced

A Survey of Soft-Error Mitigation Techniques for Non-Volatile Memories

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sparsh Mittal

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Non-volatile memories (NVMs offer superior density and energy characteristics compared to the conventional memories; however, NVMs suffer from severe reliability issues that can easily eclipse their energy efficiency advantages. In this paper, we survey architectural techniques for improving the soft-error reliability of NVMs, specifically PCM (phase change memory and STT-RAM (spin transfer torque RAM. We focus on soft-errors, such as resistance drift and write disturbance, in PCM and read disturbance and write failures in STT-RAM. By classifying the research works based on key parameters, we highlight their similarities and distinctions. We hope that this survey will underline the crucial importance of addressing NVM reliability for ensuring their system integration and will be useful for researchers, computer architects and processor designers.

Basic human error probabilities in advanced MCRs when using soft control

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, In Seok; Seong, Poong Hyun; Kang, Hyun Gook; Lee, Seung Jun

2012-01-01

In a report on one of the renowned HRA methods, Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP), it is pointed out that 'The paucity of actual data on human performance continues to be a major problem for estimating HEPs and performance times in nuclear power plant (NPP) task'. However, another critical difficulty is that most current HRA databases deal with operation in conventional type of MCRs. With the adoption of new human system interfaces that are based on computer based technologies, the operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed. The MCRs including these digital and computer technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, soft controls, and so on, are called advanced MCRs. Because of the different interfaces, different Basic Human Error Probabilities (BHEPs) should be considered in human reliability analyses (HRAs) for advanced MCRs. This study carries out an empirical analysis of human error considering soft controls. The aim of this work is not only to compile a database using the simulator for advanced MCRs but also to compare BHEPs with those of a conventional MCR database

Soft error rate simulation and initial design considerations of neutron intercepting silicon chip (NISC)

Science.gov (United States)

Celik, Cihangir

Advances in microelectronics result in sub-micrometer electronic technologies as predicted by Moore's Law, 1965, which states the number of transistors in a given space would double every two years. The most available memory architectures today have submicrometer transistor dimensions. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), a continuation of Moore's Law, predicts that Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) will have an average half pitch size of 50 nm and Microprocessor Units (MPU) will have an average gate length of 30 nm over the period of 2008-2012. Decreases in the dimensions satisfy the producer and consumer requirements of low power consumption, more data storage for a given space, faster clock speed, and portability of integrated circuits (IC), particularly memories. On the other hand, these properties also lead to a higher susceptibility of IC designs to temperature, magnetic interference, power supply, and environmental noise, and radiation. Radiation can directly or indirectly affect device operation. When a single energetic particle strikes a sensitive node in the micro-electronic device, it can cause a permanent or transient malfunction in the device. This behavior is called a Single Event Effect (SEE). SEEs are mostly transient errors that generate an electric pulse which alters the state of a logic node in the memory device without having a permanent effect on the functionality of the device. This is called a Single Event Upset (SEU) or Soft Error . Contrary to SEU, Single Event Latchup (SEL), Single Event Gate Rapture (SEGR), or Single Event Burnout (SEB) they have permanent effects on the device operation and a system reset or recovery is needed to return to proper operations. The rate at which a device or system encounters soft errors is defined as Soft Error Rate (SER). The semiconductor industry has been struggling with SEEs and is taking necessary measures in order to continue to improve system designs in nano

Study on a new framework of Human Reliability Analysis to evaluate soft control execution error in advanced MCRs of NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Inseok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Jung, Wondea; Seong, Poong Hyun

2016-01-01

Highlights: • The operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed by adopting new HSIs. • The operation action in NPP Advanced MCRs is performed by soft control. • New HRA framework should be considered in the HRA for advanced MCRs. • HRA framework for evaluation of soft control execution human error is suggested. • Suggested method will be helpful to analyze human reliability in advance MCRs. - Abstract: Since the Three Mile Island (TMI)-2 accident, human error has been recognized as one of the main causes of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) accidents, and numerous studies related to Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) have been carried out. Most of these methods were developed considering the conventional type of Main Control Rooms (MCRs). However, the operating environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed with the adoption of new Human-System Interfaces (HSIs) that are based on computer-based technologies. The MCRs that include these digital technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, and soft controls, are called advanced MCRs. Among the many features of advanced MCRs, soft controls are a particularly important feature because operating actions in NPP advanced MCRs are performed by soft control. Due to the differences in interfaces between soft control and hardwired conventional type control, different Human Error Probabilities (HEPs) and a new HRA framework should be considered in the HRA for advanced MCRs. To this end, a new framework of a HRA method for evaluating soft control execution human error is suggested by performing a soft control task analysis and the literature regarding widely accepted human error taxonomies is reviewed. Moreover, since most current HRA databases deal with operation in conventional MCRs and are not explicitly designed to deal with digital HSIs, empirical analysis of human error and error recovery considering soft controls under an advanced MCR mockup are carried out to collect human error data, which is

Low delay and area efficient soft error correction in arbitration logic

Science.gov (United States)

Sugawara, Yutaka

2013-09-10

There is provided an arbitration logic device for controlling an access to a shared resource. The arbitration logic device comprises at least one storage element, a winner selection logic device, and an error detection logic device. The storage element stores a plurality of requestors' information. The winner selection logic device selects a winner requestor among the requestors based on the requestors' information received from a plurality of requestors. The winner selection logic device selects the winner requestor without checking whether there is the soft error in the winner requestor's information.

Additional Records of Two Rare Crabs, Ilia nucleus (Linnaeus, 1758 and Ethusa mascarone (Herbst, 1785 from Izmir Bay, Aegean Sea, Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Okan AKYOL

2016-11-01

Full Text Available One specimen of Ilia nucleus and one specimen of Ethusa mascarone were collected from Urla coasts, Izmir Bay, Aegean Sea. Up to now, both rare species are being reported for the three and four times from Izmir Bay, respectively.

FPGAs and parallel architectures for aerospace applications soft errors and fault-tolerant design

CERN Document Server

Rech, Paolo

2016-01-01

This book introduces the concepts of soft errors in FPGAs, as well as the motivation for using commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) FPGAs in mission-critical and remote applications, such as aerospace.  The authors describe the effects of radiation in FPGAs, present a large set of soft-error mitigation techniques that can be applied in these circuits, as well as methods for qualifying these circuits under radiation.  Coverage includes radiation effects in FPGAs, fault-tolerant techniques for FPGAs, use of COTS FPGAs in aerospace applications, experimental data of FPGAs under radiation, FPGA embedded processors under radiation, and fault injection in FPGAs. Since dedicated parallel processing architectures such as GPUs have become more desirable in aerospace applications due to high computational power, GPU analysis under radiation is also discussed. ·         Discusses features and drawbacks of reconfigurability methods for FPGAs, focused on aerospace applications; ·         Explains how radia...

Neutron detection using soft errors in dynamic Random Access Memories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Darambara, D.G.; Spyrou, N.M.

1994-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to present results from experiments that have been performed to show the memory cycle time dependence of the soft errors produced by the interaction of alpha particles with dynamic random access memory devices, with a view to using these as position sensitive detectors. Furthermore, a preliminary feasibility study being carried out indicates the use of dynamic RAMs as neutron detectors by the utilization of (n, α) capture reactions in a Li converter placed on the top of the active area of the memory chip. ((orig.))

Modeling the cosmic-ray-induced soft-error rate in integrated circuits: An overview

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Srinivasan, G.R.

1996-01-01

This paper is an overview of the concepts and methodologies used to predict soft-error rates (SER) due to cosmic and high-energy particle radiation in integrated circuit chips. The paper emphasizes the need for the SER simulation using the actual chip circuit model which includes device, process, and technology parameters as opposed to using either the discrete device simulation or generic circuit simulation that is commonly employed in SER modeling. Concepts such as funneling, event-by-event simulation, nuclear history files, critical charge, and charge sharing are examined. Also discussed are the relative importance of elastic and inelastic nuclear collisions, rare event statistics, and device vs. circuit simulations. The semi-empirical methodologies used in the aerospace community to arrive at SERs [also referred to as single-event upset (SEU) rates] in integrated circuit chips are reviewed. This paper is one of four in this special issue relating to SER modeling. Together, they provide a comprehensive account of this modeling effort, which has resulted in a unique modeling tool called the Soft-Error Monte Carlo Model, or SEMM

Radiation effects and soft errors in integrated circuits and electronic devices

CERN Document Server

Fleetwood, D M

2004-01-01

This book provides a detailed treatment of radiation effects in electronic devices, including effects at the material, device, and circuit levels. The emphasis is on transient effects caused by single ionizing particles (single-event effects and soft errors) and effects produced by the cumulative energy deposited by the radiation (total ionizing dose effects). Bipolar (Si and SiGe), metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS), and compound semiconductor technologies are discussed. In addition to considering the specific issues associated with high-performance devices and technologies, the book includes th

Human error recovery failure probability when using soft controls in computerized control rooms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Inseok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Seong, Poong Hyun; Jung, Wondea

2014-01-01

Many literatures categorized recovery process into three phases; detection of problem situation, explanation of problem causes or countermeasures against problem, and end of recovery. Although the focus of recovery promotion has been on categorizing recovery phases and modeling recovery process, research related to human recovery failure probabilities has not been perform actively. On the other hand, a few study regarding recovery failure probabilities were implemented empirically. Summarizing, researches that have performed so far have several problems in terms of use in human reliability analysis (HRA). By adopting new human-system interfaces that are based on computer-based technologies, the operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed from conventional MCRs to advanced MCRs. Because of the different interfaces between conventional and advanced MCRs, different recovery failure probabilities should be considered in the HRA for advanced MCRs. Therefore, this study carries out an empirical analysis of human error recovery probabilities under an advanced MCR mockup called compact nuclear simulator (CNS). The aim of this work is not only to compile a recovery failure probability database using the simulator for advanced MCRs but also to collect recovery failure probability according to defined human error modes to compare that which human error mode has highest recovery failure probability. The results show that recovery failure probability regarding wrong screen selection was lowest among human error modes, which means that most of human error related to wrong screen selection can be recovered. On the other hand, recovery failure probabilities of operation selection omission and delayed operation were 1.0. These results imply that once subject omitted one task in the procedure, they have difficulties finding and recovering their errors without supervisor's assistance. Also, wrong screen selection had an effect on delayed operation. That is, wrong screen

Human error and the associated recovery probabilities for soft control being used in the advanced MCRs of NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Inseok; Jung, Wondea; Seong, Poong Hyun

2016-01-01

Highlights: • The operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed by adopting digital HSIs. • Most current HRA databases are not explicitly designed to deal with digital HSI. • Empirical analysis for new HRA DB under an advanced MCR mockup are carried. • It is expected that the results can be used for advanced MCR HRA. - Abstract: Since the Three Mile Island (TMI)-2 accident, human error has been recognized as one of the main causes of Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) accidents, and numerous studies related to Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) have been carried out. Most of these studies were focused on considering the conventional Main Control Room (MCR) environment. However, the operating environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed with the adoption of new human-system interfaces (HSI) largely based on up-to-date digital technologies. The MCRs that include these digital and computer technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, and soft controls, are called advanced MCRs. Among the many features of advanced MCRs, soft controls are a particularly important because operating actions in advanced MCRs are performed by soft control. Due to the difference in interfaces between soft control and hardwired conventional controls, different HEP should be used in the HRA for advanced MCRs. Unfortunately, most current HRA databases deal with operations in conventional MCRs and are not explicitly designed to deal with digital Human System Interface (HSI). For this reason, empirical human error and the associated error recovery probabilities were collected from the mockup of an advanced MCR equipped with soft controls. To this end, small-scaled experiments are conducted with 48 graduated students in the department of nuclear engineering in Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are participated, and accident scenarios are designed with respect to the typical Design Basis Accidents (DBAs) in NPPs, such as Steam Generator Tube Rupture

A statistical approach to estimating effects of performance shaping factors on human error probabilities of soft controls

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Yochan; Park, Jinkyun; Jung, Wondea; Jang, Inseok; Hyun Seong, Poong

2015-01-01

Despite recent efforts toward data collection for supporting human reliability analysis, there remains a lack of empirical basis in determining the effects of performance shaping factors (PSFs) on human error probabilities (HEPs). To enhance the empirical basis regarding the effects of the PSFs, a statistical methodology using a logistic regression and stepwise variable selection was proposed, and the effects of the PSF on HEPs related with the soft controls were estimated through the methodology. For this estimation, more than 600 human error opportunities related to soft controls in a computerized control room were obtained through laboratory experiments. From the eight PSF surrogates and combinations of these variables, the procedure quality, practice level, and the operation type were identified as significant factors for screen switch and mode conversion errors. The contributions of these significant factors to HEPs were also estimated in terms of a multiplicative form. The usefulness and limitation of the experimental data and the techniques employed are discussed herein, and we believe that the logistic regression and stepwise variable selection methods will provide a way to estimate the effects of PSFs on HEPs in an objective manner. - Highlights: • It is necessary to develop an empirical basis for the effects of the PSFs on the HEPs. • A statistical method using a logistic regression and variable selection was proposed. • The effects of PSFs on the HEPs of soft controls were empirically investigated. • The significant factors were identified and their effects were estimated

An empirical study on the human error recovery failure probability when using soft controls in NPP advanced MCRs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Inseok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Jung, Wondea; Seong, Poong Hyun

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Many researchers have tried to understand human recovery process or step. • Modeling human recovery process is not sufficient to be applied to HRA. • The operation environment of MCRs in NPPs has changed by adopting new HSIs. • Recovery failure probability in a soft control operation environment is investigated. • Recovery failure probability here would be important evidence for expert judgment. - Abstract: It is well known that probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) today consider not just hardware failures and environmental events that can impact upon risk, but also human error contributions. Consequently, the focus on reliability and performance management has been on the prevention of human errors and failures rather than the recovery of human errors. However, the recovery of human errors is as important as the prevention of human errors and failures for the safe operation of nuclear power plants (NPPs). For this reason, many researchers have tried to find a human recovery process or step. However, modeling the human recovery process is not sufficient enough to be applied to human reliability analysis (HRA), which requires human error and recovery probabilities. In this study, therefore, human error recovery failure probabilities based on predefined human error modes were investigated by conducting experiments in the operation mockup of advanced/digital main control rooms (MCRs) in NPPs. To this end, 48 subjects majoring in nuclear engineering participated in the experiments. In the experiments, using the developed accident scenario based on tasks from the standard post trip action (SPTA), the steam generator tube rupture (SGTR), and predominant soft control tasks, which are derived from the loss of coolant accident (LOCA) and the excess steam demand event (ESDE), all error detection and recovery data based on human error modes were checked with the performance sheet and the statistical analysis of error recovery/detection was then

High angular and spectral selectivity of purple emperor (Lepidoptera: Apatura iris and A. ilia) butterfly wings.

Science.gov (United States)

Pantelić, Dejan; Curčić, Srećko; Savić-Šević, Svetlana; Korać, Aleksandra; Kovačević, Aleksander; Curčić, Božidar; Bokić, Bojana

2011-03-28

The iridescent features of the butterfly species Apatura iris (Linnaeus, 1758) and A. ilia (Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775) were studied. We recognized the structural color of scales only on the dorsal side of both the fore and hind wings of males of both of the aforementioned butterfly species. The scale dimensions and microstructure were analyzed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The optical properties were measured and it was found that the peak reflectivity is around 380 nm, with a spectral width (full width at half maximum) of approximately 50 nm in both species. The angular selectivity is high and a purple iridescent color is observed within the angular range of only 18 degrees in both species.

A navigation system for percutaneous needle interventions based on PET/CT images: design, workflow and error analysis of soft tissue and bone punctures.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira-Santos, Thiago; Klaeser, Bernd; Weitzel, Thilo; Krause, Thomas; Nolte, Lutz-Peter; Peterhans, Matthias; Weber, Stefan

2011-01-01

Percutaneous needle intervention based on PET/CT images is effective, but exposes the patient to unnecessary radiation due to the increased number of CT scans required. Computer assisted intervention can reduce the number of scans, but requires handling, matching and visualization of two different datasets. While one dataset is used for target definition according to metabolism, the other is used for instrument guidance according to anatomical structures. No navigation systems capable of handling such data and performing PET/CT image-based procedures while following clinically approved protocols for oncologic percutaneous interventions are available. The need for such systems is emphasized in scenarios where the target can be located in different types of tissue such as bone and soft tissue. These two tissues require different clinical protocols for puncturing and may therefore give rise to different problems during the navigated intervention. Studies comparing the performance of navigated needle interventions targeting lesions located in these two types of tissue are not often found in the literature. Hence, this paper presents an optical navigation system for percutaneous needle interventions based on PET/CT images. The system provides viewers for guiding the physician to the target with real-time visualization of PET/CT datasets, and is able to handle targets located in both bone and soft tissue. The navigation system and the required clinical workflow were designed taking into consideration clinical protocols and requirements, and the system is thus operable by a single person, even during transition to the sterile phase. Both the system and the workflow were evaluated in an initial set of experiments simulating 41 lesions (23 located in bone tissue and 18 in soft tissue) in swine cadavers. We also measured and decomposed the overall system error into distinct error sources, which allowed for the identification of particularities involved in the process as well

A new form of spondyloperipheral dysplasia with facial dysmorphism, flattened vertebrae, hypoplastic pelvis, brachydactyly and soft tissue syndactyly

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kitoh, Hiroshi

2001-01-01

We report the case of a 9-year-old Japanese boy with spondyloperipheral skeletal dysplasia associated with facial dysmorphism, pelvic abnormalities, and distinctive hands and feet. Radiographic manifestations included mild platyspondyly with posterior scalloping, small flared ilia with shallow acetabulae, mesomelic shortening of long bones, marked delay of carpal bone maturation, and brachydactyly with hypoplastic middle and terminal phalanges bilaterally in both hands and feet. There was bilateral soft tissue syndactyly of the 2nd and 3rd interdigital spaces of the hands, the 2nd interdigital space of the feet, with hypoplastic nails. The clinical and radiographic manifestations in this case appear to represent a unique type of skeletal dysplasia. (orig.)

Real-time soft error rate measurements on bulk 40 nm SRAM memories: a five-year dual-site experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Autran, J. L.; Munteanu, D.; Moindjie, S.; Saad Saoud, T.; Gasiot, G.; Roche, P.

2016-11-01

This paper reports five years of real-time soft error rate experimentation conducted with the same setup at mountain altitude for three years and then at sea level for two years. More than 7 Gbit of SRAM memories manufactured in CMOS bulk 40 nm technology have been subjected to the natural radiation background. The intensity of the atmospheric neutron flux has been continuously measured on site during these experiments using dedicated neutron monitors. As the result, the neutron and alpha component of the soft error rate (SER) have been very accurately extracted from these measurements, refining the first SER estimations performed in 2012 for this SRAM technology. Data obtained at sea level evidence, for the first time, a possible correlation between the neutron flux changes induced by the daily atmospheric pressure variations and the measured SER. Finally, all of the experimental data are compared with results obtained from accelerated tests and numerical simulation.

Calculation of the soft error rate of submicron CMOS logic circuits

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Juhnke, T.; Klar, H.

1995-01-01

A method to calculate the soft error rate (SER) of CMOS logic circuits with dynamic pipeline registers is described. This method takes into account charge collection by drift and diffusion. The method is verified by comparison of calculated SER's to measurement results. Using this method, the SER of a highly pipelined multiplier is calculated as a function of supply voltage for a 0.6 microm, 0.3 microm, and 0.12 microm technology, respectively. It has been found that the SER of such highly pipelined submicron CMOS circuits may become too high so that countermeasures have to be taken. Since the SER greatly increases with decreasing supply voltage, low-power/low-voltage circuits may show more than eight times the SER for half the normal supply voltage as compared to conventional designs

A Fast Soft Bit Error Rate Estimation Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ait-Idir Tarik

2010-01-01

Full Text Available We have suggested in a previous publication a method to estimate the Bit Error Rate (BER of a digital communications system instead of using the famous Monte Carlo (MC simulation. This method was based on the estimation of the probability density function (pdf of soft observed samples. The kernel method was used for the pdf estimation. In this paper, we suggest to use a Gaussian Mixture (GM model. The Expectation Maximisation algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of this mixture. The optimal number of Gaussians is computed by using Mutual Information Theory. The analytical expression of the BER is therefore simply given by using the different estimated parameters of the Gaussian Mixture. Simulation results are presented to compare the three mentioned methods: Monte Carlo, Kernel and Gaussian Mixture. We analyze the performance of the proposed BER estimator in the framework of a multiuser code division multiple access system and show that attractive performance is achieved compared with conventional MC or Kernel aided techniques. The results show that the GM method can drastically reduce the needed number of samples to estimate the BER in order to reduce the required simulation run-time, even at very low BER.

Analyzing Reliability and Performance Trade-Offs of HLS-Based Designs in SRAM-Based FPGAs Under Soft Errors

Science.gov (United States)

Tambara, Lucas Antunes; Tonfat, Jorge; Santos, André; Kastensmidt, Fernanda Lima; Medina, Nilberto H.; Added, Nemitala; Aguiar, Vitor A. P.; Aguirre, Fernando; Silveira, Marcilei A. G.

2017-02-01

The increasing system complexity of FPGA-based hardware designs and shortening of time-to-market have motivated the adoption of new designing methodologies focused on addressing the current need for high-performance circuits. High-Level Synthesis (HLS) tools can generate Register Transfer Level (RTL) designs from high-level software programming languages. These tools have evolved significantly in recent years, providing optimized RTL designs, which can serve the needs of safety-critical applications that require both high performance and high reliability levels. However, a reliability evaluation of HLS-based designs under soft errors has not yet been presented. In this work, the trade-offs of different HLS-based designs in terms of reliability, resource utilization, and performance are investigated by analyzing their behavior under soft errors and comparing them to a standard processor-based implementation in an SRAM-based FPGA. Results obtained from fault injection campaigns and radiation experiments show that it is possible to increase the performance of a processor-based system up to 5,000 times by changing its architecture with a small impact in the cross section (increasing up to 8 times), and still increasing the Mean Workload Between Failures (MWBF) of the system.

Nicolae Milescu Spătarul - ancestor of a Nobel Laureate - Ilia I. Mecinikov. Part II. Ilia I. Mecinikov’s life and scientific work; 16th of May 2011 - 166 years since the birth of the European scholar; 15th of July 2011 - 95 years since death

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan RIGA

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The work showcases the promotion of Romanian lineage - Nicolae Milescu Spătarul (1636-1708 as ancestor of scientist Ilia Ilici Mecinikov (1845-1916, Nobel Laureate (1908.A great figure in world science and bio-medicine, the scientist - creator of two new modernsciences (immunology and gerontology – is claimed and honoured by four nations: Israeli, French,Russian and Ukrainian. Despite his known Romanian descent on his paternal side – biographicallyconsecrated by his wife Olga Mecinikov – Romania has pushed him into oblivion, by not promotingthis historical truth and reality to all.In our country, Prof. Dr. doc. Ilie Th. Riga (1908-1977 publishes in 1930, in the Romanianmagazine, Natura (Nature, Originea românească a lui Metchnikoff (Metchnikoff’s Romanianorigins. In the 2007-2011 period, two of the authors of the work continuously publish, in thecountry and abroad, thus creating Dosarul ascendenţei româneşti al lui Mecinikov (Mecinikov’sfile on his Romanian lineage, for the global informational civilization. They published their worksin printed version: in scientific magazines (2007, 2011, in their own monograph Medicina antiîmbătrânireşi ştiinţele longevităţii (Anti-aging Medicine and Longevity Sciences, (2007, innewspapers Ziua USA (The Day - USA, (2008 and Clipa. Magazinul Actualităţii CulturaleRomâneşti (The Moment. The Romanian Cultural Current Affairs Magazine, (2011, inEnciclopedia medicală Românească (Encyclopaedia of Romanian Medicine, (2009 and also onSorin Riga, Dan Riga, Vasile Man - Nicolae Milescu Spătarul - ancestor of a Nobel Laureate - Ilia I. Mecinikov...250webpages (the online era: www.DacoRomanica.ro (2010, www.revista-studii-uvvg.ro (2011,www.ziuausa.com (2008, www.revistaclipa.com (2011, taken over by other internet websites.

Soft Decision Analyzer

Science.gov (United States)

Lansdowne, Chatwin; Steele, Glen; Zucha, Joan; Schlesinger, Adam

2013-01-01

We describe the benefit of using closed-loop measurements for a radio receiver paired with a counterpart transmitter. We show that real-time analysis of the soft decision output of a receiver can provide rich and relevant insight far beyond the traditional hard-decision bit error rate (BER) test statistic. We describe a Soft Decision Analyzer (SDA) implementation for closed-loop measurements on single- or dual- (orthogonal) channel serial data communication links. The analyzer has been used to identify, quantify, and prioritize contributors to implementation loss in live-time during the development of software defined radios. This test technique gains importance as modern receivers are providing soft decision symbol synchronization as radio links are challenged to push more data and more protocol overhead through noisier channels, and software-defined radios (SDRs) use error-correction codes that approach Shannon's theoretical limit of performance.

Multi-bits error detection and fast recovery in RISC cores

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Jing; Yang Xing; Zhang Weigong; Shen Jiao; Qiu Keni; Zhao Yuanfu

2015-01-01

The particles-induced soft errors are a major threat to the reliability of microprocessors. Even worse, multi-bits upsets (MBUs) are ever-increased due to the rapidly shrinking feature size of the IC on a chip. Several architecture-level mechanisms have been proposed to protect microprocessors from soft errors, such as dual and triple modular redundancies (DMR and TMR). However, most of them are inefficient to combat the growing multi-bits errors or cannot well balance the critical paths delay, area and power penalty. This paper proposes a novel architecture, self-recovery dual-pipeline (SRDP), to effectively provide soft error detection and recovery with low cost for general RISC structures. We focus on the following three aspects. First, an advanced DMR pipeline is devised to detect soft error, especially MBU. Second, SEU/MBU errors can be located by enhancing self-checking logic into pipelines stage registers. Third, a recovery scheme is proposed with a recovery cost of 1 or 5 clock cycles. Our evaluation of a prototype implementation exhibits that the SRDP can successfully detect particle-induced soft errors up to 100% and recovery is nearly 95%, the other 5% will inter a specific trap. (paper)

Multi-bits error detection and fast recovery in RISC cores

Science.gov (United States)

Jing, Wang; Xing, Yang; Yuanfu, Zhao; Weigong, Zhang; Jiao, Shen; Keni, Qiu

2015-11-01

The particles-induced soft errors are a major threat to the reliability of microprocessors. Even worse, multi-bits upsets (MBUs) are ever-increased due to the rapidly shrinking feature size of the IC on a chip. Several architecture-level mechanisms have been proposed to protect microprocessors from soft errors, such as dual and triple modular redundancies (DMR and TMR). However, most of them are inefficient to combat the growing multi-bits errors or cannot well balance the critical paths delay, area and power penalty. This paper proposes a novel architecture, self-recovery dual-pipeline (SRDP), to effectively provide soft error detection and recovery with low cost for general RISC structures. We focus on the following three aspects. First, an advanced DMR pipeline is devised to detect soft error, especially MBU. Second, SEU/MBU errors can be located by enhancing self-checking logic into pipelines stage registers. Third, a recovery scheme is proposed with a recovery cost of 1 or 5 clock cycles. Our evaluation of a prototype implementation exhibits that the SRDP can successfully detect particle-induced soft errors up to 100% and recovery is nearly 95%, the other 5% will inter a specific trap.

High energy hadron-induced errors in memory chips

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peterson, R.J. [University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

2001-09-01

We have measured probabilities for proton, neutron and pion beams from accelerators to induce temporary or soft errors in a wide range of modern 16 Mb and 64 Mb dRAM memory chips, typical of those used in aircraft electronics. Relations among the cross sections for these particles are deduced, and failure rates for aircraft avionics due to cosmic rays are evaluated. Measurement of alpha pha particle yields from pions on aluminum, as a surrogate for silicon, indicate that these reaction products are the proximate cause of the charge deposition resulting in errors. Heavy ions can cause damage to solar panels and other components in satellites above the atmosphere, by the heavy ionization trails they leave. However, at the earth's surface or at aircraft altitude it is known that cosmic rays, other than heavy ions, can cause soft errors in memory circuit components. Soft errors are those confusions between ones and zeroes that cause wrong contents to be stored in the memory, but without causing permanent damage to the circuit. As modern aircraft rely increasingly upon computerized and automated systems, these soft errors are important threats to safety. Protons, neutrons and pions resulting from high energy cosmic ray bombardment of the atmosphere pervade our environment. These particles do not induce damage directly by their ionization loss, but rather by reactions in the materials of the microcircuits. We have measured many cross sections for soft error upsets (SEU) in a broad range of commercial 16 Mb and 64 Mb dRAMs with accelerator beams. Here we define {sigma} SEU = induced errors/number of sample bits x particles/cm{sup 2}. We compare {sigma} SEU to find relations among results for these beams, and relations to reaction cross sections in order to systematize effects. We have modelled cosmic ray effects upon the components we have studied. (Author)

High energy hadron-induced errors in memory chips

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peterson, R.J.

2001-01-01

We have measured probabilities for proton, neutron and pion beams from accelerators to induce temporary or soft errors in a wide range of modern 16 Mb and 64 Mb dRAM memory chips, typical of those used in aircraft electronics. Relations among the cross sections for these particles are deduced, and failure rates for aircraft avionics due to cosmic rays are evaluated. Measurement of alpha pha particle yields from pions on aluminum, as a surrogate for silicon, indicate that these reaction products are the proximate cause of the charge deposition resulting in errors. Heavy ions can cause damage to solar panels and other components in satellites above the atmosphere, by the heavy ionization trails they leave. However, at the earth's surface or at aircraft altitude it is known that cosmic rays, other than heavy ions, can cause soft errors in memory circuit components. Soft errors are those confusions between ones and zeroes that cause wrong contents to be stored in the memory, but without causing permanent damage to the circuit. As modern aircraft rely increasingly upon computerized and automated systems, these soft errors are important threats to safety. Protons, neutrons and pions resulting from high energy cosmic ray bombardment of the atmosphere pervade our environment. These particles do not induce damage directly by their ionization loss, but rather by reactions in the materials of the microcircuits. We have measured many cross sections for soft error upsets (SEU) in a broad range of commercial 16 Mb and 64 Mb dRAMs with accelerator beams. Here we define σ SEU = induced errors/number of sample bits x particles/cm 2 . We compare σ SEU to find relations among results for these beams, and relations to reaction cross sections in order to systematize effects. We have modelled cosmic ray effects upon the components we have studied. (Author)

Comparing sports vision among three groups of soft tennis adolescent athletes: Normal vision, refractive errors with and without correction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shih-Tsun Chang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The effect of correcting static vision on sports vision is still not clear. Aim: To examine whether sports vision (depth perception [DP], dynamic visual acuity [DVA], eye movement [EM], peripheral vision [PV], and momentary vision [MV], were different among soft tennis adolescent athletes with normal vision (Group A, with refractive error and corrected with (Group B and without eyeglasses (Group C. Setting and Design: A cross-section study was conducted. Soft tennis athletes aged 10–13 who played softball tennis for 2–5 years, and who were without any ocular diseases and without visual training for the past 3 months were recruited. Materials and Methods: DPs were measured in an absolute deviation (mm between a moving rod and fixing rod (approaching at 25 mm/s, receding at 25 mm/s, approaching at 50 mm/s, receding at 50 mm/s using electric DP tester. A smaller deviation represented better DP. DVA, EM, PV, and MV were measured on a scale from 1 (worse to 10 (best using ATHLEVISION software. Statistical Analysis: Chi-square test and Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare the data among the three study groups. Results: A total of 73 athletes (37 in Group A, 8 in Group B, 28 in Group C were enrolled in this study. All four items of DP showed significant difference among the three study groups (P = 0.0051, 0.0004, 0.0095, 0.0021. PV displayed significant difference among the three study groups (P = 0.0044. There was no significant difference in DVA, EM, and MV among the three study groups. Conclusions: Significant better DP and PV were seen among soft tennis adolescent athletes with normal vision than those with refractive error regardless whether they had eyeglasses corrected. On the other hand, DVA, EM, and MV were similar among the three study groups.

Calculating Error Percentage in Using Water Phantom Instead of Soft Tissue Concerning 103Pd Brachytherapy Source Distribution via Monte Carlo Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

OL Ahmadi

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Introduction: 103Pd is a low energy source, which is used in brachytherapy. According to the standards of American Association of Physicists in Medicine, dosimetric parameters determination of brachytherapy sources before the clinical application was considered significantly important. Therfore, the present study aimed to compare the dosimetric parameters of the target source using the water phantom and soft tissue. Methods: According to the TG-43U1 protocol, the dosimetric parameters were compared around the 103Pd source in regard with water phantom with the density of 0.998 gr/cm3 and the soft tissue with the density of 1.04 gr/cm3 on the longitudinal and transverse axes using the MCNP4C code and the relative differences were compared between the both conditions. Results: The simulation results indicated that the dosimetric parameters depended on the radial dose function and the anisotropy function in the application of the water phantom instead of soft tissue up to a distance of 1.5 cm,  between which a good consistency was observed. With increasing the distance, the difference increased, so as within 6 cm from the source, this difference increased to 4%. Conclusions: The results of  the soft tissue phantom compared with those of the water phantom indicated 4% relative difference at a distance of 6 cm from the source. Therefore, the results of the water phantom with a maximum error of 4% can be used in practical applications instead of soft tissue. Moreover, the amount of differences obtained in each distance regarding using the soft tissue phantom could be corrected.

Neutron detection using soft errors in dynamic random access memories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Darambara, D.G.; Spyrou, N.M.

1992-01-01

The fact that energetic alpha particles have been observed to be capable of inducing single-event upsets in integrated circuit memories has become a topic of considerable interest in the past few years. One recognized difficulty with dynamic random access memory devices (dRAMs) is that the alpha-particle 'contamination' present within the dRAM encapsulating material interact sufficiently as to corrupt stored data. The authors essentially utilized the fact that these corruptions may be induced in dRAMs by the interaction of charged particles with the chip of the dRAM itself as a basis of a hardware system for neutron detection with a view to applications in neutron imaging and elemental analysis. The design incorporates a bank of dRAMs on which the particles are incident. Initially, these particles were alpha particles from an appropriate alpha-emitting source employed to assess system parameters. The sensitivity of the device to logic state upsets by ionizing radiation is a function of design and technology parameters, inducing storage node area, node capacitance, operating voltage, minority carrier lifetime, electric fields pattern in the bulk silicon, and specific device geometry. The soft error rate of the device in a given package depends on the flux of alphas, the energy spectrum, the distribution of incident angles, the target area, the total stored charge, the collection efficiency, the cell geometry, the supply voltage, the cycle and refreshing time, and the noise margin

Error Recovery Properties and Soft Decoding of Quasi-Arithmetic Codes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christine Guillemot

2007-08-01

Full Text Available This paper first introduces a new set of aggregated state models for soft-input decoding of quasi arithmetic (QA codes with a termination constraint. The decoding complexity with these models is linear with the sequence length. The aggregation parameter controls the tradeoff between decoding performance and complexity. It is shown that close-to-optimal decoding performance can be obtained with low values of the aggregation parameter, that is, with a complexity which is significantly reduced with respect to optimal QA bit/symbol models. The choice of the aggregation parameter depends on the synchronization recovery properties of the QA codes. This paper thus describes a method to estimate the probability mass function (PMF of the gain/loss of symbols following a single bit error (i.e., of the difference between the number of encoded and decoded symbols. The entropy of the gain/loss turns out to be the average amount of information conveyed by a length constraint on both the optimal and aggregated state models. This quantity allows us to choose the value of the aggregation parameter that will lead to close-to-optimal decoding performance. It is shown that the optimum position for the length constraint is not the last time instant of the decoding process. This observation leads to the introduction of a new technique for robust decoding of QA codes with redundancy which turns out to outperform techniques based on the concept of forbidden symbol.

Soft errors in 10-nm-scale magnetic tunnel junctions exposed to high-energy heavy-ion radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Kobayashi, Daisuke; Hirose, Kazuyuki; Makino, Takahiro; Onoda, Shinobu; Ohshima, Takeshi; Ikeda, Shoji; Sato, Hideo; Inocencio Enobio, Eli Christopher; Endoh, Tetsuo; Ohno, Hideo

2017-08-01

The influences of various types of high-energy heavy-ion radiation on 10-nm-scale CoFeB-MgO magnetic tunnel junctions with a perpendicular easy axis have been investigated. In addition to possible latent damage, which has already been pointed out in previous studies, high-energy heavy-ion bombardments demonstrated that the magnetic tunnel junctions may exhibit clear flips between their high- and low-resistance states designed for a digital bit 1 or 0. It was also demonstrated that flipped magnetic tunnel junctions still may provide proper memory functions such as read, write, and hold capabilities. These two findings proved that high-energy heavy ions can produce recoverable bit flips in magnetic tunnel junctions, i.e., soft errors. Data analyses suggested that the resistance flips stem from magnetization reversals of the ferromagnetic layers and that each of them is caused by a single strike of heavy ions. It was concurrently found that an ion strike does not always result in a flip, suggesting a stochastic process behind the flip. Experimental data also showed that the flip phenomenon is dependent on the device and heavy-ion characteristics. Among them, the diameter of the device and the linear energy transfer of the heavy ions were revealed as the key parameters. From their dependences, the physical mechanism behind the flip was discussed. It is likely that a 10-nm-scale ferromagnetic disk loses its magnetization due to a local temperature increase induced by a single strike of heavy ions; this demagnetization is followed by a cooling period associated with a possible stochastic recovery process. On the basis of this hypothesis, a simple analytical model was developed, and it was found that the model accounts for the results reasonably well. This model also predicted that magnetic tunnel junctions provide sufficiently high soft-error reliability for use in space, highlighting their advantage over their counterpart conventional semiconductor memories.

Detecting Soft Errors in Stencil based Computations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sharma, V. [Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); Gopalkrishnan, G. [Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); Bronevetsky, G. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

2015-05-06

Given the growing emphasis on system resilience, it is important to develop software-level error detectors that help trap hardware-level faults with reasonable accuracy while minimizing false alarms as well as the performance overhead introduced. We present a technique that approaches this idea by taking stencil computations as our target, and synthesizing detectors based on machine learning. In particular, we employ linear regression to generate computationally inexpensive models which form the basis for error detection. Our technique has been incorporated into a new open-source library called SORREL. In addition to reporting encouraging experimental results, we demonstrate techniques that help reduce the size of training data. We also discuss the efficacy of various detectors synthesized, as well as our future plans.

Dimensioning of multiservice links taking account of soft blocking

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Iversen, Villy Bæk; Stepanov, S.N.; Kostrov, A.V.

2006-01-01

of a multiservice link taking into account the possibility of soft blocking. An approximate algorithm for estimation of main performance measures is constructed. The error of estimation is numerically studied for different types of soft blocking. The optimal procedure of dimensioning is suggested....

A Conceptual Framework of Human Reliability Analysis for Execution Human Error in NPP Advanced MCRs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jang, In Seok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Seong, Poong Hyun [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Jung, Won Dea [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2014-08-15

The operation environment of Main Control Rooms (MCRs) in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) has changed with the adoption of new human-system interfaces that are based on computer-based technologies. The MCRs that include these digital and computer technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, and soft controls, are called Advanced MCRs. Among the many features of Advanced MCRs, soft controls are a particularly important feature because the operation action in NPP Advanced MCRs is performed by soft control. Using soft controls such as mouse control, and touch screens, operators can select a specific screen, then choose the controller, and finally manipulate the given devices. Due to the different interfaces between soft control and hardwired conventional type control, different human error probabilities and a new Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) framework should be considered in the HRA for advanced MCRs. In other words, new human error modes should be considered for interface management tasks such as navigation tasks, and icon (device) selection tasks in monitors and a new framework of HRA method taking these newly generated human error modes into account should be considered. In this paper, a conceptual framework for a HRA method for the evaluation of soft control execution human error in advanced MCRs is suggested by analyzing soft control tasks.

A Conceptual Framework of Human Reliability Analysis for Execution Human Error in NPP Advanced MCRs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, In Seok; Kim, Ar Ryum; Seong, Poong Hyun; Jung, Won Dea

2014-01-01

The operation environment of Main Control Rooms (MCRs) in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) has changed with the adoption of new human-system interfaces that are based on computer-based technologies. The MCRs that include these digital and computer technologies, such as large display panels, computerized procedures, and soft controls, are called Advanced MCRs. Among the many features of Advanced MCRs, soft controls are a particularly important feature because the operation action in NPP Advanced MCRs is performed by soft control. Using soft controls such as mouse control, and touch screens, operators can select a specific screen, then choose the controller, and finally manipulate the given devices. Due to the different interfaces between soft control and hardwired conventional type control, different human error probabilities and a new Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) framework should be considered in the HRA for advanced MCRs. In other words, new human error modes should be considered for interface management tasks such as navigation tasks, and icon (device) selection tasks in monitors and a new framework of HRA method taking these newly generated human error modes into account should be considered. In this paper, a conceptual framework for a HRA method for the evaluation of soft control execution human error in advanced MCRs is suggested by analyzing soft control tasks

Nicolae Milescu Spătarul - ancestor of a Nobel Laureate - Ilia I. Mecinikov. Part I. Nicolae Milescu-Spătarul’s secular European impact; 1st of June 2011 - 375 years since the birth of the European erudite

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dan RIGA

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The culture of tradition and patrimony is an act of civilization, as well as one of identitaryeducation. This is why the promotion of restitution comprises all areas of progress and humancreation.Nicolae Milescu-Spătarul (b. 1636 in Moldavia - d. 1708 in Russia was an eruditehumanist scholar, an encyclopaedist, a theologist, diplomat, historian, geographer, ethnographer,translator, memorialist and a polyglot (Romanian, ancient and modern Greek, Latin, Turkish andSlavonic-Russian. Commemorating and honouring this figure, of European and Eurasianimportance alike, is a debt of honour: 1958 – 250 years since death; 2011 – 375 years since birth.At this time, the need to fully publish his work arises, as a large part of it is still kept in libraries,archives and European private collections in the form of manuscripts. Nicolae Milescu-Spătarulwas the ancestor of the Nobel Laureate (1908, scientist Ilia I. Mecinikov (1845-1916.The work reveals the great scholar’s (eastern, but also western, European and Asiancultural, scientific and diplomatic impact – at that moment and throughout time – but also theSorin Riga, Dan Riga, Vasile Man - Nicolae Milescu Spătarul - ancestor of a Nobel Laureate - Ilia I. Mecinikov impact of his vast work. The remarkable monograph The Description of China (58 chapters was published in Romanian only in 1958.

Effects of soft control in the nuclear power plants emergency operation condition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Al Harbi, Mohamed Ali Salem; Kim, Ar Ryum; Jang, Inseok; Seong, Poong Hyun; Shirouzu, Shigenori; Katayama, Sotetsu; Kang, Hyun Gook

2013-01-01

Highlights: ► We investigated the effect of touch screen, known as ESCM, which is a soft control, on emergency operation of nuclear plants. ► Experiments clearly show the occurrence of more human errors in ESCM task groups. ► Physiological measures (ECG, EEG, nose temperature) were analyzed. ► Higher stress levels were consistently observed in ESCM task groups. - Abstract: In addition to the evolution from buttons and switches to the computer-based consoles, the operator may interact with the plant via soft controls. Soft controls are input interfaces connected with control and display systems that are mediated by software, rather than by direct physical connections. However use of soft control may cause unknown difficulties of operation and provide new opportunities of human errors. This study is to investigate the effect of the new interface to human errors in the emergency operation. Based on the emergency operation procedure, the human error modes were identified by using systematic human error reduction and prediction approach. Experiments with 21 graduate students in main control room mockup in the nuclear engineering departments of universities in UAE and Korea were conducted to observe the operators’ behavior resulted from the use of new input interface (Emergency safety feature-component control system Soft Control Module, ESCM). Physiological parameters such as electroencephalogram, electrocardiogram and skin temperature were measured to assess the stress level of the subjects. The experimental results showed more human errors during ESCM tasks than non-ESCM tasks. The analysis of the physiological measurements also demonstrated that subjects were in high stress level during the ESCM tasks in comparison with non-ESCM tasks. It is notable that this study was performed with graduate students without consideration of their expertise levels. Different behaviors of the novice and the expert groups were also discussed

Performance limitations of imaging microscopes for soft x-ray applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lewotsky, K.L.; Kotha, A.; Harvey, J.E.

1993-01-01

Recent advances in the fabrication of nanometer-scale multilayer structures have yielded high-reflectance mirrors operating at near-normal incidence for soft X-ray wavelengths. These developments have stimulated renewed interest in high-resolution soft X-ray microscopy. The design of a Schwarzschild imaging microscope for soft X-ray applications has been reported by Hoover and Shealy. Based upon a geometrical ray-trace analysis of the residual design errors, diffraction-limited performance at a wavelength of 100 angstrom was predicted over an object size (diameter) of 0.4 mm. In this paper the authors expand upon the previous analysis of the Schwarzschild X-ray microscope design by determining the total image degradation due to diffraction, geometrical aberrations, alignment errors, and realistic assumptions concerning optical fabrication errors. NASA's Optical Surface Analysis Code (OSAC) is used to model the image degradation effects of residual surface irregularities over the entire range of relevant spatial frequencies. This includes small angle scattering effects due to mid spatial frequency surface errors falling between the traditional figure and finish specifications. Performance predictions are presented parametrically to provide some insight into the optical fabrication and alignment tolerances necessary to meet a particular image quality requirement

Soft-error tolerance and energy consumption evaluation of embedded computer with magnetic random access memory in practical systems using computer simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Nebashi, Ryusuke; Sakimura, Noboru; Sugibayashi, Tadahiko

2017-08-01

We evaluated the soft-error tolerance and energy consumption of an embedded computer with magnetic random access memory (MRAM) using two computer simulators. One is a central processing unit (CPU) simulator of a typical embedded computer system. We simulated the radiation-induced single-event-upset (SEU) probability in a spin-transfer-torque MRAM cell and also the failure rate of a typical embedded computer due to its main memory SEU error. The other is a delay tolerant network (DTN) system simulator. It simulates the power dissipation of wireless sensor network nodes of the system using a revised CPU simulator and a network simulator. We demonstrated that the SEU effect on the embedded computer with 1 Gbit MRAM-based working memory is less than 1 failure in time (FIT). We also demonstrated that the energy consumption of the DTN sensor node with MRAM-based working memory can be reduced to 1/11. These results indicate that MRAM-based working memory enhances the disaster tolerance of embedded computers.

Error analysis and prevention of cosmic ion-induced soft errors in static CMOS RAMS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diehl, S.E.; Ochoa, A. Jr.; Dressendorfer, P.V.; Koga, R.; Kolasinski, W.A.

1982-06-01

Cosmic ray interactions with memory cells are known to cause temporary, random, bit errors in some designs. The sensitivity of polysilicon gate CMOS static RAM designs to logic upset by impinging ions has been studied using computer simulations and experimental heavy ion bombardment. Results of the simulations are confirmed by experimental upset cross-section data. Analytical models have been extended to determine and evaluate design modifications which reduce memory cell sensitivity to cosmic ions. A simple design modification, the addition of decoupling resistance in the feedback path, is shown to produce static RAMs immune to cosmic ray-induced bit errors

Closed-Loop Analysis of Soft Decisions for Serial Links

Science.gov (United States)

Lansdowne, Chatwin A.; Steele, Glen F.; Zucha, Joan P.; Schlesinger, Adam M.

2013-01-01

We describe the benefit of using closed-loop measurements for a radio receiver paired with a counterpart transmitter. We show that real-time analysis of the soft decision output of a receiver can provide rich and relevant insight far beyond the traditional hard-decision bit error rate (BER) test statistic. We describe a Soft Decision Analyzer (SDA) implementation for closed-loop measurements on single- or dual- (orthogonal) channel serial data communication links. The analyzer has been used to identify, quantify, and prioritize contributors to implementation loss in live-time during the development of software defined radios. This test technique gains importance as modern receivers are providing soft decision symbol synchronization as radio links are challenged to push more data and more protocol overhead through noisier channels, and software-defined radios (SDRs) use error-correction codes that approach Shannon's theoretical limit of performance.

A software solution to estimate the SEU-induced soft error rate for systems implemented on SRAM-based FPGAs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Zhongming; Lu Min; Yao Zhibin; Guo Hongxia

2011-01-01

SRAM-based FPGAs are very susceptible to radiation-induced Single-Event Upsets (SEUs) in space applications. The failure mechanism in FPGA's configuration memory differs from those in traditional memory device. As a result, there is a growing demand for methodologies which could quantitatively evaluate the impact of this effect. Fault injection appears to meet such requirement. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to analyze the soft errors in SRAM-based FPGAs. This method is based on in depth understanding of the device architecture and failure mechanisms induced by configuration upsets. The developed programs read in the placed and routed netlist, search for critical logic nodes and paths that may destroy the circuit topological structure, and then query a database storing the decoded relationship of the configurable resources and corresponding control bit to get the sensitive bits. Accelerator irradiation test and fault injection experiments were carried out to validate this approach. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

Discrete polyphase matched filtering-based soft timing estimation for mobile wireless systems

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Olwal, TO

2009-01-01

Full Text Available of the communication system is conserved. However, the computational complexity of ideal turbo synchronization is increased by 50%. Several simulation tests on bit error rate (BER) and block error rate (BLER) versus low SNR reveal that the proposed iterative soft...

Compact disk error measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Howe, D.; Harriman, K.; Tehranchi, B.

1993-01-01

The objectives of this project are as follows: provide hardware and software that will perform simple, real-time, high resolution (single-byte) measurement of the error burst and good data gap statistics seen by a photoCD player read channel when recorded CD write-once discs of variable quality (i.e., condition) are being read; extend the above system to enable measurement of the hard decision (i.e., 1-bit error flags) and soft decision (i.e., 2-bit error flags) decoding information that is produced/used by the Cross Interleaved - Reed - Solomon - Code (CIRC) block decoder employed in the photoCD player read channel; construct a model that uses data obtained via the systems described above to produce meaningful estimates of output error rates (due to both uncorrected ECC words and misdecoded ECC words) when a CD disc having specific (measured) error statistics is read (completion date to be determined); and check the hypothesis that current adaptive CIRC block decoders are optimized for pressed (DAD/ROM) CD discs. If warranted, do a conceptual design of an adaptive CIRC decoder that is optimized for write-once CD discs.

Hydraulic Soft Yaw System Load Reduction and Prototype Results

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stubkier, Søren; Pedersen, Henrik C.; Markussen, Kristian

2013-01-01

Introducing a hydraulic soft yaw concept for wind turbines leads to significant load reductions in the wind turbine structure. The soft yaw system operates as a shock absorption system on a car, hence absorbing the loading from turbulent wind conditions instead of leading them into the stiff wind...... turbine structure. Results presented shows fatigue reductions of up to 40% and ultimate load reduction of up to 19%. The ultimate load reduction increases even more when the over load protection system in the hydraulic soft yaw system is introduced and results show how the exact extreme load cut off...... operates. Further it is analyzed how the soft yaw system influence the power production of the turbine. It is shown that the influence is minimal, but at larger yaw errors the effect is possitive. Due to the implemeted functions in the hydraulic soft yaw system such as even load distribution on the pinions...

The pitfalls of ultrasonography in the evaluation of soft tissue masses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwok, Henry CK.; Pinto, Clinton H.; Doyle, Anthony J.

2012-01-01

Ultrasonography is associated with a high error rate in the evaluation of soft tissue masses. The purposes of this study were to examine the nature of the diagnostic errors and to identify areas in which reporting could be improved. Patients who had soft tissue tumours and received ultrasonography during a 10-year period (1999–2009) were identified from a local tumour registry. The sonographic and pathological diagnoses were categorised as either ‘benign’ or ‘non-benign’. The accuracy of ultrasonography was assessed by correlating the sonographic with the pathological diagnostic categories. Recommendations from radiologists, where offered, were assessed for their appropriateness in the context of the pathological diagnosis. One hundred seventy-five patients received ultrasonography, of which 60 had ‘non-benign’ lesions and 115 had ‘benign’ lesions. Ultrasonography correctly diagnosed 35 and incorrectly diagnosed seven of the 60 ‘non-benign’ cases, and did not suggest a diagnosis in 18 cases. Most of the diagnostic errors related to misdiagnosing soft tissue tumours as haematomas (four out of seven). Recommendations for further management were offered by the radiologists in 144 cases, of which 52 had ‘non-benign’ pathology. There were eight ‘non-benign’ cases where no recommendation was offered, and the sonographic diagnosis was either incorrect or unavailable. Ultrasonography lacks accuracy in the evaluation of soft tissue masses. Ongoing education is required to improve awareness of the limitations with its use. These limitations should be highlighted to the referrers, especially those who do not have specific training in this area.

Figure tolerance of a Wolter type I mirror for a soft-x-ray microscope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chon, Kwon Su; Namba, Yoshiharu; Yoon, Kwon-Ha

2007-01-01

The demand for an x-ray microscope has received much attention because of the desire to study living cells at a high resolution and in a hydrated environment. A Wolter type I mirror used for soft-x-ray microscope optics has many advantages. From the mirror fabrication point of view, it is necessary to perform tolerance analysis, particularly with respect to figure errors that considerably degrade the image quality.The figure tolerance of a Wolter type I mirror for a biological application in terms of the image quality and the state-of-the-art fabrication technology is discussed. The figure errors rapidly destroyed the image quality, and the required slope error depended on the detector used in the soft-x-ray microscope

Bipolar soft connected, bipolar soft disconnected and bipolar soft compact spaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Shabir

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Bipolar soft topological spaces are mathematical expressions to estimate interpretation of data frameworks. Bipolar soft theory considers the core features of data granules. Bipolarity is important to distinguish between positive information which is guaranteed to be possible and negative information which is forbidden or surely false. Connectedness and compactness are the most important fundamental topological properties. These properties highlight the main features of topological spaces and distinguish one topology from another. Taking this into account, we explore the bipolar soft connectedness, bipolar soft disconnectedness and bipolar soft compactness properties for bipolar soft topological spaces. Moreover, we introduce the notion of bipolar soft disjoint sets, bipolar soft separation, and bipolar soft hereditary property and study on bipolar soft connected and disconnected spaces. By giving the detailed picture of bipolar soft connected and disconnected spaces we investigate bipolar soft compact spaces and derive some results related to this concept.

Soft systems methodology: other voices

OpenAIRE

Holwell, Sue

2000-01-01

This issue of Systemic Practice and Action Research, celebrating the work of Peter Checkland, in the particular nature and development of soft systems methodology (SSM), would not have happened unless the work was seen by others as being important. No significant contribution to thinking happens without a secondary literature developing. Not surprisingly, many commentaries have accompanied the ongoing development of SSM. Some of these are insightful, some full of errors, and some include both...

Estimating patient-specific soft-tissue properties in a TKA knee.

Science.gov (United States)

Ewing, Joseph A; Kaufman, Michelle K; Hutter, Erin E; Granger, Jeffrey F; Beal, Matthew D; Piazza, Stephen J; Siston, Robert A

2016-03-01

Surgical technique is one factor that has been identified as critical to success of total knee arthroplasty. Researchers have shown that computer simulations can aid in determining how decisions in the operating room generally affect post-operative outcomes. However, to use simulations to make clinically relevant predictions about knee forces and motions for a specific total knee patient, patient-specific models are needed. This study introduces a methodology for estimating knee soft-tissue properties of an individual total knee patient. A custom surgical navigation system and stability device were used to measure the force-displacement relationship of the knee. Soft-tissue properties were estimated using a parameter optimization that matched simulated tibiofemoral kinematics with experimental tibiofemoral kinematics. Simulations using optimized ligament properties had an average root mean square error of 3.5° across all tests while simulations using generic ligament properties taken from literature had an average root mean square error of 8.4°. Specimens showed large variability among ligament properties regardless of similarities in prosthetic component alignment and measured knee laxity. These results demonstrate the importance of soft-tissue properties in determining knee stability, and suggest that to make clinically relevant predictions of post-operative knee motions and forces using computer simulations, patient-specific soft-tissue properties are needed. © 2015 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Diagnostic and organizational error in head injuries].

Science.gov (United States)

Zaba, Czesław; Zaba, Zbigniew; Swiderski, Paweł; Lorkiewicz-Muszyíska, Dorota

2009-01-01

The study aimed at presenting a case of a diagnostic and organizational error involving lack of detection of foreign body presence in the soft tissues of the head. Head radiograms in two projections clearly demonstrated foreign bodies that resembled in shape flattened bullets, which could not have been missed upon evaluation of the X-rays. On the other hand, description of the radiograms entered by the attending physicians to the patient's medical record indicated an absence of traumatic injuries or foreign bodies. In the opinion of the authors, the case in question involved a diagnostic error: the doctors failed to detect the presence of foreign bodies in the head. The organizational error involved the failure of radiogram evaluation performed by a radiologist.

Comparison of soft-input-soft-output detection methods for dual-polarized quadrature duobinary system

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Chun; Huang, Benxiong; Xu, Zhengguang; Li, Bin; Zhao, Nan

2018-02-01

Three soft-input-soft-output (SISO) detection methods for dual-polarized quadrature duobinary (DP-QDB), including maximum-logarithmic-maximum-a-posteriori-probability-algorithm (Max-log-MAP)-based detection, soft-output-Viterbi-algorithm (SOVA)-based detection, and a proposed SISO detection, which can all be combined with SISO decoding, are presented. The three detection methods are investigated at 128 Gb/s in five-channel wavelength-division-multiplexing uncoded and low-density-parity-check (LDPC) coded DP-QDB systems by simulations. Max-log-MAP-based detection needs the returning-to-initial-states (RTIS) process despite having the best performance. When the LDPC code with a code rate of 0.83 is used, the detecting-and-decoding scheme with the SISO detection does not need RTIS and has better bit error rate (BER) performance than the scheme with SOVA-based detection. The former can reduce the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) requirement (at BER=10-5) by 2.56 dB relative to the latter. The application of the SISO iterative detection in LDPC-coded DP-QDB systems makes a good trade-off between requirements on transmission efficiency, OSNR requirement, and transmission distance, compared with the other two SISO methods.

A framework to assess diagnosis error probabilities in the advanced MCR

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ar Ryum; Seong, Poong Hyun [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Jong Hyun [Chosun University, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of); Jang, Inseok; Park, Jinkyun [Korea Atomic Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO)’s operating experience database revealed that about 48% of the total events in world NPPs for 2 years (2010-2011) happened due to human errors. The purposes of human reliability analysis (HRA) method are to evaluate the potential for, and mechanism of, human errors that may affect plant safety. Accordingly, various HRA methods have been developed such as technique for human error rate prediction (THERP), simplified plant analysis risk human reliability assessment (SPAR-H), cognitive reliability and error analysis method (CREAM) and so on. Many researchers have asserted that procedure, alarm, and display are critical factors to affect operators’ generic activities, especially for diagnosis activities. None of various HRA methods was explicitly designed to deal with digital systems. SCHEME (Soft Control Human error Evaluation MEthod) considers only for the probability of soft control execution error in the advanced MCR. The necessity of developing HRA methods in various conditions of NPPs has been raised. In this research, the framework to estimate diagnosis error probabilities in the advanced MCR was suggested. The assessment framework was suggested by three steps. The first step is to investigate diagnosis errors and calculate their probabilities. The second step is to quantitatively estimate PSFs’ weightings in the advanced MCR. The third step is to suggest the updated TRC model to assess the nominal diagnosis error probabilities. Additionally, the proposed framework was applied by using the full-scope simulation. Experiments conducted in domestic full-scope simulator and HAMMLAB were used as data-source. Total eighteen tasks were analyzed and twenty-three crews participated in.

Smart Braid Feedback for the Closed-Loop Control of Soft Robotic Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Felt, Wyatt; Chin, Khai Yi; Remy, C David

2017-09-01

This article experimentally investigates the potential of using flexible, inductance-based contraction sensors in the closed-loop motion control of soft robots. Accurate motion control remains a highly challenging task for soft robotic systems. Precise models of the actuation dynamics and environmental interactions are often unavailable. This renders open-loop control impossible, while closed-loop control suffers from a lack of suitable feedback. Conventional motion sensors, such as linear or rotary encoders, are difficult to adapt to robots that lack discrete mechanical joints. The rigid nature of these sensors runs contrary to the aspirational benefits of soft systems. As truly soft sensor solutions are still in their infancy, motion control of soft robots has so far relied on laboratory-based sensing systems such as motion capture, electromagnetic (EM) tracking, or Fiber Bragg Gratings. In this article, we used embedded flexible sensors known as Smart Braids to sense the contraction of McKibben muscles through changes in inductance. We evaluated closed-loop control on two systems: a revolute joint and a planar, one degree of freedom continuum manipulator. In the revolute joint, our proposed controller compensated for elasticity in the actuator connections. The Smart Braid feedback allowed motion control with a steady-state root-mean-square (RMS) error of [1.5]°. In the continuum manipulator, Smart Braid feedback enabled tracking of the desired tip angle with a steady-state RMS error of [1.25]°. This work demonstrates that Smart Braid sensors can provide accurate position feedback in closed-loop motion control suitable for field applications of soft robotic systems.

Iterative Soft Decision Interference Cancellation for DS-CDMA Employing the Distribution of Interference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gerstacker WolfgangH

2010-01-01

Full Text Available A well-known receiver strategy for direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA transmission is iterative soft decision interference cancellation. For calculation of soft estimates used for cancellation, the distribution of residual interference is commonly assumed to be Gaussian. In this paper, we analyze matched filter-based iterative soft decision interference cancellation (MF ISDIC when utilizing an approximation of the actual probability density function (pdf of residual interference. In addition, a hybrid scheme is proposed, which reduces computational complexity by considering the strongest residual interferers according to their pdf while the Gaussian assumption is applied to the weak residual interferers. It turns out that the bit error ratio decreases already noticeably when only a small number of residual interferers is regarded according to their pdf. For the considered DS-CDMA transmission the bit error ratio decreases by 80% for high signal-to-noise ratios when modeling all residual interferers but the strongest three to be Gaussian distributed.

Soft x-ray virtual diagnostics for tokamak simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, J. S.; Zhao, L.; Bogatu, I. N.; In, Y.; Turnbull, A.; Osborne, T.; Maraschek, M.; Comer, K.

2009-11-01

The numerical toolset, FAR-TECH Virtual Diagnostic Utility, for generating virtual experimental data based on theoretical models and comparing it with experimental data, has been developed for soft x-ray diagnostics on DIII-D. The virtual (or synthetic) soft x-ray signals for a sample DIII-D discharge are compared with the experimental data. The plasma density and temperature radial profiles needed in the soft x-ray signal modeling are obtained from experimental data, i.e., from Thomson scattering and electron cyclotron emission. The virtual soft x-ray diagnostics for the equilibriums have a good agreement with the experimental data. The virtual diagnostics based on an ideal linear instability also agree reasonably well with the experimental data. The agreements are good enough to justify the methodology presented here for utilizing virtual diagnostics for routine comparison of experimental data. The agreements also motivate further detailed simulations with improved physical models such as the nonideal magnetohydrodynamics contributions (resistivity, viscosity, nonaxisymmetric error fields, etc.) and other nonlinear effects, which can be tested by virtual diagnostics with various stability modeling.

Soft x-ray virtual diagnostics for tokamak simulations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, J. S.; Zhao, L.; Bogatu, I. N.; In, Y.; Turnbull, A.; Osborne, T.; Maraschek, M.; Comer, K.

2009-01-01

The numerical toolset, FAR-TECH Virtual Diagnostic Utility, for generating virtual experimental data based on theoretical models and comparing it with experimental data, has been developed for soft x-ray diagnostics on DIII-D. The virtual (or synthetic) soft x-ray signals for a sample DIII-D discharge are compared with the experimental data. The plasma density and temperature radial profiles needed in the soft x-ray signal modeling are obtained from experimental data, i.e., from Thomson scattering and electron cyclotron emission. The virtual soft x-ray diagnostics for the equilibriums have a good agreement with the experimental data. The virtual diagnostics based on an ideal linear instability also agree reasonably well with the experimental data. The agreements are good enough to justify the methodology presented here for utilizing virtual diagnostics for routine comparison of experimental data. The agreements also motivate further detailed simulations with improved physical models such as the nonideal magnetohydrodynamics contributions (resistivity, viscosity, nonaxisymmetric error fields, etc.) and other nonlinear effects, which can be tested by virtual diagnostics with various stability modeling.

Sporadic error probability due to alpha particles in dynamic memories of various technologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Edwards, D.G.

1980-01-01

The sensitivity of MOS memory components to errors induced by alpha particles is expected to increase with integration level. The soft error rate of a 65-kbit VMOS memory has been compared experimentally with that of three field-proven 16-kbit designs. The technological and design advantages of the VMOS RAM ensure an error rate which is lower than those of the 16-kbit memories. Calculation of the error probability for the 65-kbit RAM and comparison with the measurements show that for large duty cycles single particle hits lead to sensing errors and for small duty cycles cell errors caused by multiple hits predominate. (Auth.)

Addressing the Hard Factors for Command File Errors by Probabilistic Reasoning

Science.gov (United States)

Meshkat, Leila; Bryant, Larry

2014-01-01

Command File Errors (CFE) are managed using standard risk management approaches at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Over the last few years, more emphasis has been made on the collection, organization, and analysis of these errors for the purpose of reducing the CFE rates. More recently, probabilistic modeling techniques have been used for more in depth analysis of the perceived error rates of the DAWN mission and for managing the soft factors in the upcoming phases of the mission. We broadly classify the factors that can lead to CFE's as soft factors, which relate to the cognition of the operators and hard factors which relate to the Mission System which is composed of the hardware, software and procedures used for the generation, verification & validation and execution of commands. The focus of this paper is to use probabilistic models that represent multiple missions at JPL to determine the root cause and sensitivities of the various components of the mission system and develop recommendations and techniques for addressing them. The customization of these multi-mission models to a sample interplanetary spacecraft is done for this purpose.

Scintillator power meter applied on Z-pinch plasma soft X-ray yield measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Siqun; Huang Xianbin; Li Jing; Dan Jiakun; Li Jun; Yang Libing; Cui Mingqi; Zhao Yidong

2010-01-01

This paper presents the configuration and measuring parameters of scintillator power meter applied in Z-pinch plasma soft X-ray yield measurement on Yang accelerator. It also introduces the calibration experiment on BSRF, and analyzes the defect of the power meter from calibration results, the possible errors and feasible method for correcting the errors. The measuring results are revised according to spectrum acquired from Dante spectrometer. The revised discrepancy of two instruments is decreased from over 30% to subter-15%. Finally, the result of yield measurement of the puff Z-pinch X-ray radiation is reported as well, i.e., hundreds of Joule, multigigawatt levels of soft X ray radiation were produced by puff Z-pinch on Yang accelerator. (authors)

A Novel Nonlinear Parameter Estimation Method of Soft Tissues

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qianqian Tong

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The elastic parameters of soft tissues are important for medical diagnosis and virtual surgery simulation. In this study, we propose a novel nonlinear parameter estimation method for soft tissues. Firstly, an in-house data acquisition platform was used to obtain external forces and their corresponding deformation values. To provide highly precise data for estimating nonlinear parameters, the measured forces were corrected using the constructed weighted combination forecasting model based on a support vector machine (WCFM_SVM. Secondly, a tetrahedral finite element parameter estimation model was established to describe the physical characteristics of soft tissues, using the substitution parameters of Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio to avoid solving complicated nonlinear problems. To improve the robustness of our model and avoid poor local minima, the initial parameters solved by a linear finite element model were introduced into the parameter estimation model. Finally, a self-adapting Levenberg–Marquardt (LM algorithm was presented, which is capable of adaptively adjusting iterative parameters to solve the established parameter estimation model. The maximum absolute error of our WCFM_SVM model was less than 0.03 Newton, resulting in more accurate forces in comparison with other correction models tested. The maximum absolute error between the calculated and measured nodal displacements was less than 1.5 mm, demonstrating that our nonlinear parameters are precise.

Progressive and Error-Resilient Transmission Strategies for VLC Encoded Signals over Noisy Channels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guillemot Christine

2006-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the issue of robust and progressive transmission of signals (e.g., images, video encoded with variable length codes (VLCs over error-prone channels. This paper first describes bitstream construction methods offering good properties in terms of error resilience and progressivity. In contrast with related algorithms described in the literature, all proposed methods have a linear complexity as the sequence length increases. The applicability of soft-input soft-output (SISO and turbo decoding principles to resulting bitstream structures is investigated. In addition to error resilience, the amenability of the bitstream construction methods to progressive decoding is considered. The problem of code design for achieving good performance in terms of error resilience and progressive decoding with these transmission strategies is then addressed. The VLC code has to be such that the symbol energy is mainly concentrated on the first bits of the symbol representation (i.e., on the first transitions of the corresponding codetree. Simulation results reveal high performance in terms of symbol error rate (SER and mean-square reconstruction error (MSE. These error-resilience and progressivity properties are obtained without any penalty in compression efficiency. Codes with such properties are of strong interest for the binarization of -ary sources in state-of-the-art image, and video coding systems making use of, for example, the EBCOT or CABAC algorithms. A prior statistical analysis of the signal allows the construction of the appropriate binarization code.

Soft shoulders ahead: spurious signatures of soft and partial selective sweeps result from linked hard sweeps.

Science.gov (United States)

Schrider, Daniel R; Mendes, Fábio K; Hahn, Matthew W; Kern, Andrew D

2015-05-01

Characterizing the nature of the adaptive process at the genetic level is a central goal for population genetics. In particular, we know little about the sources of adaptive substitution or about the number of adaptive variants currently segregating in nature. Historically, population geneticists have focused attention on the hard-sweep model of adaptation in which a de novo beneficial mutation arises and rapidly fixes in a population. Recently more attention has been given to soft-sweep models, in which alleles that were previously neutral, or nearly so, drift until such a time as the environment shifts and their selection coefficient changes to become beneficial. It remains an active and difficult problem, however, to tease apart the telltale signatures of hard vs. soft sweeps in genomic polymorphism data. Through extensive simulations of hard- and soft-sweep models, here we show that indeed the two might not be separable through the use of simple summary statistics. In particular, it seems that recombination in regions linked to, but distant from, sites of hard sweeps can create patterns of polymorphism that closely mirror what is expected to be found near soft sweeps. We find that a very similar situation arises when using haplotype-based statistics that are aimed at detecting partial or ongoing selective sweeps, such that it is difficult to distinguish the shoulder of a hard sweep from the center of a partial sweep. While knowing the location of the selected site mitigates this problem slightly, we show that stochasticity in signatures of natural selection will frequently cause the signal to reach its zenith far from this site and that this effect is more severe for soft sweeps; thus inferences of the target as well as the mode of positive selection may be inaccurate. In addition, both the time since a sweep ends and biologically realistic levels of allelic gene conversion lead to errors in the classification and identification of selective sweeps. This

Efficient Error Detection in Soft Data Fusion for Cooperative Spectrum Sensing

KAUST Repository

Saqib Bhatti, Dost Muhammad

2018-03-18

The primary objective of cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS) is to determine whether a particular spectrum is occupied by a licensed user or not, so that unlicensed users called secondary users (SUs) can utilize that spectrum, if it is not occupied. For CSS, all SUs report their sensing information through reporting channel to the central base station called fusion center (FC). During transmission, some of the SUs are subjected to fading and shadowing, due to which the overall performance of CSS is degraded. We have proposed an algorithm which uses error detection technique on sensing measurement of all SUs. Each SU is required to re-transmit the sensing data to the FC, if error is detected on it. Our proposed algorithm combines the sensing measurement of limited number of SUs. Using Proposed algorithm, we have achieved the improved probability of detection (PD) and throughput. The simulation results compare the proposed algorithm with conventional scheme.

A Physics-Based Engineering Methodology for Calculating Soft Error Rates of Bulk CMOS and SiGe Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor Integrated Circuits

Science.gov (United States)

Fulkerson, David E.

2010-02-01

This paper describes a new methodology for characterizing the electrical behavior and soft error rate (SER) of CMOS and SiGe HBT integrated circuits that are struck by ions. A typical engineering design problem is to calculate the SER of a critical path that commonly includes several circuits such as an input buffer, several logic gates, logic storage, clock tree circuitry, and an output buffer. Using multiple 3D TCAD simulations to solve this problem is too costly and time-consuming for general engineering use. The new and simple methodology handles the problem with ease by simple SPICE simulations. The methodology accurately predicts the measured threshold linear energy transfer (LET) of a bulk CMOS SRAM. It solves for circuit currents and voltage spikes that are close to those predicted by expensive 3D TCAD simulations. It accurately predicts the measured event cross-section vs. LET curve of an experimental SiGe HBT flip-flop. The experimental cross section vs. frequency behavior and other subtle effects are also accurately predicted.

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry: analysis of pediatric fat estimate errors due to tissue hydration effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Testolin, C G; Gore, R; Rivkin, T; Horlick, M; Arbo, J; Wang, Z; Chiumello, G; Heymsfield, S B

2000-12-01

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) percent (%) fat estimates may be inaccurate in young children, who typically have high tissue hydration levels. This study was designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of pediatric tissue hydration effects on DXA %fat estimates. Phase 1 was experimental and included three in vitro studies to establish the physical basis of DXA %fat-estimation models. Phase 2 extended phase 1 models and consisted of theoretical calculations to estimate the %fat errors emanating from previously reported pediatric hydration effects. Phase 1 experiments supported the two-compartment DXA soft tissue model and established that pixel ratio of low to high energy (R values) are a predictable function of tissue elemental content. In phase 2, modeling of reference body composition values from birth to age 120 mo revealed that %fat errors will arise if a "constant" adult lean soft tissue R value is applied to the pediatric population; the maximum %fat error, approximately 0.8%, would be present at birth. High tissue hydration, as observed in infants and young children, leads to errors in DXA %fat estimates. The magnitude of these errors based on theoretical calculations is small and may not be of clinical or research significance.

Soft x-ray tomography on the Alcator C tokamak

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Camacho, J.F.

1985-06-01

A soft x-ray tomography experiment has been performed on the Alcator C tokamak. An 80-chord array of detectors consisting of miniature PIN photodiodes was used to obtain tomographic reconstructions of the soft x-ray emissivity function's poloidal cross-section. The detectors are located around the periphery of the plasma at one toroidal location (top and bottom ports) and are capable of yielding useful information over a wide range of plasma operating parameters and conditions. The reconstruction algorithm employed makes no assumption whatsoever about plasma rotation, position, or symmetry. Its performance was tested, and it was found to work well and to be fairly insensitive to estimated levels of random and systematic errors in the data

Perception-Based Tactile Soft Keyboard for the Touchscreen of Tablets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kwangtaek Kim

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Most mobile devices equipped with touchscreens provide on-screen soft keyboard as an input method. However, many users are experiencing discomfort due to lack of physical feedback that causes slow typing speed and error-prone typing, as compared to the physical keyboard. To solve the problem, a platform-independent haptic soft keyboard suitable for tablet-sized touchscreens was proposed and developed. The platform-independent haptic soft keyboard was verified on both Android and Windows. In addition, a psychophysical experiment has been conducted to find an optimal strength of key click feedback on touchscreens, and the perception result was applied for making uniform tactile forces on touchscreens. The developed haptic soft keyboard can be easily integrated with existing tablets by putting the least amount of effort. The evaluation results confirm platform independency, fast tactile key click feedback, and uniform tactile force distribution on touchscreen with using only two piezoelectric actuators. The proposed system was developed on a commercial tablet (Mu Pad that has dual platforms (Android and Windows.

45 Gb/s low complexity optical front-end for soft-decision LDPC decoders.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakib, Meer Nazmus; Moayedi, Monireh; Gross, Warren J; Liboiron-Ladouceur, Odile

2012-07-30

In this paper a low complexity and energy efficient 45 Gb/s soft-decision optical front-end to be used with soft-decision low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders is demonstrated. The results show that the optical front-end exhibits a net coding gain of 7.06 and 9.62 dB for post forward error correction bit error rate of 10(-7) and 10(-12) for long block length LDPC(32768,26803) code. The performance over a hard decision front-end is 1.9 dB for this code. It is shown that the soft-decision circuit can also be used as a 2-bit flash type analog-to-digital converter (ADC), in conjunction with equalization schemes. At bit rate of 15 Gb/s using RS(255,239), LDPC(672,336), (672, 504), (672, 588), and (1440, 1344) used with a 6-tap finite impulse response (FIR) equalizer will result in optical power savings of 3, 5, 7, 9.5 and 10.5 dB, respectively. The 2-bit flash ADC consumes only 2.71 W at 32 GSamples/s. At 45 GSamples/s the power consumption is estimated to be 4.95 W.

Soft Ultrathin Electronics Innervated Adaptive Fully Soft Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chengjun; Sim, Kyoseung; Chen, Jin; Kim, Hojin; Rao, Zhoulyu; Li, Yuhang; Chen, Weiqiu; Song, Jizhou; Verduzco, Rafael; Yu, Cunjiang

2018-03-01

Soft robots outperform the conventional hard robots on significantly enhanced safety, adaptability, and complex motions. The development of fully soft robots, especially fully from smart soft materials to mimic soft animals, is still nascent. In addition, to date, existing soft robots cannot adapt themselves to the surrounding environment, i.e., sensing and adaptive motion or response, like animals. Here, compliant ultrathin sensing and actuating electronics innervated fully soft robots that can sense the environment and perform soft bodied crawling adaptively, mimicking an inchworm, are reported. The soft robots are constructed with actuators of open-mesh shaped ultrathin deformable heaters, sensors of single-crystal Si optoelectronic photodetectors, and thermally responsive artificial muscle of carbon-black-doped liquid-crystal elastomer (LCE-CB) nanocomposite. The results demonstrate that adaptive crawling locomotion can be realized through the conjugation of sensing and actuation, where the sensors sense the environment and actuators respond correspondingly to control the locomotion autonomously through regulating the deformation of LCE-CB bimorphs and the locomotion of the robots. The strategy of innervating soft sensing and actuating electronics with artificial muscles paves the way for the development of smart autonomous soft robots. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Application of round grating angle measurement composite error amendment in the online measurement accuracy improvement of large diameter

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Biao; Yu, Xiaofen; Li, Qinzhao; Zheng, Yu

2008-10-01

The paper aiming at the influence factor of round grating dividing error, rolling-wheel produce eccentricity and surface shape errors provides an amendment method based on rolling-wheel to get the composite error model which includes all influence factors above, and then corrects the non-circle measurement angle error of the rolling-wheel. We make soft simulation verification and have experiment; the result indicates that the composite error amendment method can improve the diameter measurement accuracy with rolling-wheel theory. It has wide application prospect for the measurement accuracy higher than 5 μm/m.

Soft biometrics in conjunction with optics based biohashing

Science.gov (United States)

Saini, Nirmala; Sinha, Aloka

2011-02-01

Biometric systems are gaining importance because of increased reliability for authentication and identification. A biometric recognition technique has been proposed earlier, in which biohashing code has been generated by using a joint transform correlator. The main drawback of the base biohashing method is the low performance of the technique when an "impostor" steals the pseudo-random numbers of the genuine and tries to authenticate as genuine. In the proposed technique, soft biometrics of the same person has been used to improve the discrimination between the genuine and the impostor populations. The soft biometrics are those characteristics that provide some information about the individual, but lack the distinctiveness and permanence to sufficiently differentiate between any two individuals. In the enrolment process, biohash code of the target face images has been integrated with the different soft biometrics of the same person. The obtained code has been stored for verification. In the verification process, biohash code of the face image to be verified is again diffused with the soft biometric of the person. The obtained code is matched with the stored code of the target. The receiving operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the equal error rate (EER) have been used to evaluate the performance of the technique. A detailed study has been carried out to find out the optimum values of the weighting factor for the diffusion process.

Soft Robotics Week

CERN Document Server

Rossiter, Jonathan; Iida, Fumiya; Cianchetti, Matteo; Margheri, Laura

2017-01-01

This book offers a comprehensive, timely snapshot of current research, technologies and applications of soft robotics. The different chapters, written by international experts across multiple fields of soft robotics, cover innovative systems and technologies for soft robot legged locomotion, soft robot manipulation, underwater soft robotics, biomimetic soft robotic platforms, plant-inspired soft robots, flying soft robots, soft robotics in surgery, as well as methods for their modeling and control. Based on the results of the second edition of the Soft Robotics Week, held on April 25 – 30, 2016, in Livorno, Italy, the book reports on the major research lines and novel technologies presented and discussed during the event.

From Soft Sculpture to Soft Robotics: Retracing a Physical Aesthetics of Bio-Morphic Softness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Jonas

2017-01-01

Soft robotics has in the past decade emerged as a growing subfield of technical robotics research, distinguishable by its bio-inspired design strategies, interest in morphological computation, and interdisciplinary combination of insights from engineering, computer science, biology and material...... science. Recently, soft robotics technology has also started to make its way into art, design, and architecture. This paper attempts to think an aesthetics of softness and the life-like through an artistic tradition deeply imbricated with an interrogation of softness and its physical substrates, namely...... the soft sculpture that started proliferating in the late 1960s. Critical descriptions of these works, interestingly, frequently emphasize their similarities with living organisms and bodies as a central tenet of their aesthetics. The paper seeks to articulate aspects of a contiguity between softness...

The soft notion of China's 'soft power'

OpenAIRE

Breslin, Shaun

2011-01-01

· Although debates over Chinese soft power have increased in\\ud recent years, there is no shared definition of what ‘soft power’\\ud actually means. The definition seems to change depending on\\ud what the observer wants to argue.\\ud · External analyses of soft power often include a focus on\\ud economic relations and other material (hard) sources of power\\ud and influence.\\ud · Many Chinese analyses of soft power focus on the promotion of a\\ud preferred (positive) understanding of China’s inter...

Assessing the suitability of soft computing approaches for forest fires prediction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samaher Al_Janabi

2018-07-01

Full Text Available Forest fires present one of the main causes of environmental hazards that have many negative results in different aspect of life. Therefore, early prediction, fast detection and rapid action are the key elements for controlling such phenomenon and saving lives. Through this work, 517 different entries were selected at different times for montesinho natural park (MNP in Portugal to determine the best predictor that has the ability to detect forest fires, The principle component analysis (PCA was applied to find the critical patterns and particle swarm optimization (PSO technique was used to segment the fire regions (clusters. In the next stage, five soft computing (SC Techniques based on neural network were used in parallel to identify the best technique that would potentially give more accurate and optimum results in predicting of forest fires, these techniques namely; cascade correlation network (CCN, multilayer perceptron neural network (MPNN, polynomial neural network (PNN, radial basis function (RBF and support vector machine (SVM In the final stage, the predictors and their performance were evaluated based on five quality measures including root mean squared error (RMSE, mean squared error (MSE, relative absolute error (RAE, mean absolute error (MAE and information gain (IG. The results indicate that SVM technique was more effective and efficient than the RBF, MPNN, PNN and CCN predictors. The results also show that the SVM algorithm provides more precise predictions compared with other predictors with small estimation error. The obtained results confirm that the SVM improves the prediction accuracy and suitable for forest fires prediction compared to other methods. Keywords: Forest fires, Soft computing, Prediction, Principle component analysis, Particle swarm optimization, Cascade correlation network, Multilayer perceptron neural network, Polynomial neural networks, Radial basis function, Support vector machine

SOFT AND SOFTER HANDOVER PERFORMANCE OF CDMA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lina wati

2010-12-01

Full Text Available One of telecommunication providers in Indonesia applies CDMA2000 1x technology. The technology hasmany advantages such as larger channel capacity of BTS (Base Transceiver Station. On the other hand, thecapacity depends on user’s density. Therefore to guarantee voice connection when user or mobile station (MS isalways moving from one cell to others, handover technique is needed. However the technique can be failed for manyreasons. Therefore impact of call attempt on softer and soft handover performance is investigated. Hence the paperexamined soft – softer handover performance of CDMA in BTS (Base Transceiver Station, BSC, and Sectors inboth sub-urban and rural areas in Denpasar, Bali with area code of 0361.The research has been done in rural and suburban area with call area code ‘0361’. The analyses includedregression and simple linear correlation applications. The results showed that number of call attempts affected thefailure of soft and softer handover technique dominantly. Generally, average level of success both handover in bothrural and suburban area were about 99% which are above KPI (Key Performance Indicator reference at 98.50%.However in rural area, other factors such as blocking called attempt and error called number have caused the softerhandover failure.

Large poroelastic deformation of a soft material

Science.gov (United States)

MacMinn, Christopher W.; Dufresne, Eric R.; Wettlaufer, John S.

2014-11-01

Flow through a porous material will drive mechanical deformation when the fluid pressure becomes comparable to the stiffness of the solid skeleton. This has applications ranging from hydraulic fracture for recovery of shale gas, where fluid is injected at high pressure, to the mechanics of biological cells and tissues, where the solid skeleton is very soft. The traditional linear theory of poroelasticity captures this fluid-solid coupling by combining Darcy's law with linear elasticity. However, linear elasticity is only volume-conservative to first order in the strain, which can become problematic when damage, plasticity, or extreme softness lead to large deformations. Here, we compare the predictions of linear poroelasticity with those of a large-deformation framework in the context of two model problems. We show that errors in volume conservation are compounded and amplified by coupling with the fluid flow, and can become important even when the deformation is small. We also illustrate these results with a laboratory experiment.

A fast novel soft-start circuit for peak current-mode DC—DC buck converters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Jie; Yang Miao; Sun Weifeng; Lu Xiaoxia; Xu Shen; Lu Shengli

2013-01-01

A fully integrated soft-start circuit for DC—DC buck converters is presented. The proposed high speed soft-start circuit is made of two sections: an overshoot suppression circuit and an inrush current suppression circuit. The overshoot suppression circuit is presented to control the input of the error amplifier to make output voltage limit increase in steps without using an external capacitor. A variable clock signal is adopted in the inrush current suppression circuit to increase the duty cycle of the system and suppress the inrush current. The DC—DC converter with the proposed soft-start circuit has been fabricated with a standard 0.13 μm CMOS process. Experimental results show that the proposed high speed soft-start circuit has achieved less than 50 μs start-up time. The inductor current and the output voltage increase smoothly over the whole load range. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

Soft ideal topological space and mixed fuzzy soft ideal topological space

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manash Borah

2019-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we introduce fuzzy soft ideal and mixed fuzzy soft ideal topological spaces and some properties of this space. Also we introduce fuzzy soft $I$-open set, fuzzy soft $\\alpha$-$I$-open set, fuzzy soft pre-$I$-open set, fuzzy soft semi-$I$-open set and fuzzy soft $\\beta$-$I$-open set and discuss some of their properties.

SoftAR: visually manipulating haptic softness perception in spatial augmented reality.

Science.gov (United States)

Punpongsanon, Parinya; Iwai, Daisuke; Sato, Kosuke

2015-11-01

We present SoftAR, a novel spatial augmented reality (AR) technique based on a pseudo-haptics mechanism that visually manipulates the sense of softness perceived by a user pushing a soft physical object. Considering the limitations of projection-based approaches that change only the surface appearance of a physical object, we propose two projection visual effects, i.e., surface deformation effect (SDE) and body appearance effect (BAE), on the basis of the observations of humans pushing physical objects. The SDE visualizes a two-dimensional deformation of the object surface with a controlled softness parameter, and BAE changes the color of the pushing hand. Through psychophysical experiments, we confirm that the SDE can manipulate softness perception such that the participant perceives significantly greater softness than the actual softness. Furthermore, fBAE, in which BAE is applied only for the finger area, significantly enhances manipulation of the perception of softness. We create a computational model that estimates perceived softness when SDE+fBAE is applied. We construct a prototype SoftAR system in which two application frameworks are implemented. The softness adjustment allows a user to adjust the softness parameter of a physical object, and the softness transfer allows the user to replace the softness with that of another object.

Propagation of measurement accuracy to biomass soft-sensor estimation and control quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Steinwandter, Valentin; Zahel, Thomas; Sagmeister, Patrick; Herwig, Christoph

2017-01-01

In biopharmaceutical process development and manufacturing, the online measurement of biomass and derived specific turnover rates is a central task to physiologically monitor and control the process. However, hard-type sensors such as dielectric spectroscopy, broth fluorescence, or permittivity measurement harbor various disadvantages. Therefore, soft-sensors, which use measurements of the off-gas stream and substrate feed to reconcile turnover rates and provide an online estimate of the biomass formation, are smart alternatives. For the reconciliation procedure, mass and energy balances are used together with accuracy estimations of measured conversion rates, which were so far arbitrarily chosen and static over the entire process. In this contribution, we present a novel strategy within the soft-sensor framework (named adaptive soft-sensor) to propagate uncertainties from measurements to conversion rates and demonstrate the benefits: For industrially relevant conditions, hereby the error of the resulting estimated biomass formation rate and specific substrate consumption rate could be decreased by 43 and 64 %, respectively, compared to traditional soft-sensor approaches. Moreover, we present a generic workflow to determine the required raw signal accuracy to obtain predefined accuracies of soft-sensor estimations. Thereby, appropriate measurement devices and maintenance intervals can be selected. Furthermore, using this workflow, we demonstrate that the estimation accuracy of the soft-sensor can be additionally and substantially increased.

Assessment of residual error for online cone-beam CT-guided treatment of prostate cancer patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Letourneau, Daniel; Martinez, Alvaro A.; Lockman, David; Yan Di; Vargas, Carlos; Ivaldi, Giovanni; Wong, John

2005-01-01

Purpose: Kilovoltage cone-beam CT (CBCT) implemented on board a medical accelerator is available for image-guidance applications in our clinic. The objective of this work was to assess the magnitude and stability of the residual setup error associated with CBCT online-guided prostate cancer patient setup. Residual error pertains to the uncertainty in image registration, the limited mechanical accuracy, and the intrafraction motion during imaging and treatment. Methods and Materials: The residual error for CBCT online-guided correction was first determined in a phantom study. After online correction, the phantom residual error was determined by comparing megavoltage portal images acquired every 90 deg. to the corresponding digitally reconstructed radiographs. In the clinical study, 8 prostate cancer patients were implanted with three radiopaque markers made of high-winding coils. After positioning the patient using the skin marks, a CBCT scan was acquired and the setup error determined by fusing the coils on the CBCT and planning CT scans. The patient setup was then corrected by moving the couch accordingly. A second CBCT scan was acquired immediately after the correction to evaluate the residual target setup error. Intrafraction motion was evaluated by tracking the coils and the bony landmarks on kilovoltage radiographs acquired every 30 s between the two CBCT scans. Corrections based on soft-tissue registration were evaluated offline by aligning the prostate contours defined on both planning CT and CBCT images. Results: For ideal rigid phantoms, CBCT image-guided treatment can usually achieve setup accuracy of 1 mm or better. For the patients, after CBCT correction, the target setup error was reduced in almost all cases and was generally within ±1.5 mm. The image guidance process took 23-35 min, dictated by the computer speed and network configuration. The contribution of the intrafraction motion to the residual setup error was small, with a standard deviation of

Soft Neutrosophic Bi-LA-semigroup and Soft Neutrosophic N-LA-seigroup

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mumtaz Ali

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Soft set theory is a general mathematical tool for dealing with uncertain, fuzzy, not clearly defined objects. In this paper we introduced soft neutrosophic biLA-semigroup,soft neutosophic sub bi-LA-semigroup, soft neutrosophic N -LA-semigroup with the discuission of some of their characteristics. We also introduced a new type of soft neutrophic bi-LAsemigroup, the so called soft strong neutrosophic bi-LAsemigoup which is of pure neutrosophic character. This is also extend to soft neutrosophic strong N-LA-semigroup. We also given some of their properties of this newly born soft structure related to the strong part of neutrosophic theory.

In-flight calibration of the Hitomi Soft X-ray Spectrometer. (2) Point spread function

Science.gov (United States)

Maeda, Yoshitomo; Sato, Toshiki; Hayashi, Takayuki; Iizuka, Ryo; Angelini, Lorella; Asai, Ryota; Furuzawa, Akihiro; Kelley, Richard; Koyama, Shu; Kurashima, Sho; Ishida, Manabu; Mori, Hideyuki; Nakaniwa, Nozomi; Okajima, Takashi; Serlemitsos, Peter J.; Tsujimoto, Masahiro; Yaqoob, Tahir

2018-03-01

We present results of inflight calibration of the point spread function of the Soft X-ray Telescope that focuses X-rays onto the pixel array of the Soft X-ray Spectrometer system. We make a full array image of a point-like source by extracting a pulsed component of the Crab nebula emission. Within the limited statistics afforded by an exposure time of only 6.9 ks and limited knowledge of the systematic uncertainties, we find that the raytracing model of 1 {^'.} 2 half-power-diameter is consistent with an image of the observed event distributions across pixels. The ratio between the Crab pulsar image and the raytracing shows scatter from pixel to pixel that is 40% or less in all except one pixel. The pixel-to-pixel ratio has a spread of 20%, on average, for the 15 edge pixels, with an averaged statistical error of 17% (1 σ). In the central 16 pixels, the corresponding ratio is 15% with an error of 6%.

Bilateral, symmetrical soft tissue calcifications in the face

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vazquez, Josue; Rosenthal, Daniel I.

2010-01-01

A 50-year-old woman with jaw pain and a history of bisphosphonate use was shown on radiography to have ill-defined soft tissue calcifications overlying the maxilla, mandible, and zygomatic bones bilaterally. The bones were normal. CT revealed similar findings. Although a broad imaging differential diagnosis was initially considered, further questioning of the patient revealed a history of facial injections with a calcium hydroxylapatite product for cosmetic purposes. The appearance of this increasingly popular treatment should be recognized to avoid errors in interpretation. (orig.)

Bilateral, symmetrical soft tissue calcifications in the face

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vazquez, Josue; Rosenthal, Daniel I. [Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Department of Radiology, Boston, MA (United States)

2010-04-15

A 50-year-old woman with jaw pain and a history of bisphosphonate use was shown on radiography to have ill-defined soft tissue calcifications overlying the maxilla, mandible, and zygomatic bones bilaterally. The bones were normal. CT revealed similar findings. Although a broad imaging differential diagnosis was initially considered, further questioning of the patient revealed a history of facial injections with a calcium hydroxylapatite product for cosmetic purposes. The appearance of this increasingly popular treatment should be recognized to avoid errors in interpretation. (orig.)

A Feasibility Study for Measuring Accurate Chest Compression Depth and Rate on Soft Surfaces Using Two Accelerometers and Spectral Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sofía Ruiz de Gauna

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Background. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR feedback devices are being increasingly used. However, current accelerometer-based devices overestimate chest displacement when CPR is performed on soft surfaces, which may lead to insufficient compression depth. Aim. To assess the performance of a new algorithm for measuring compression depth and rate based on two accelerometers in a simulated resuscitation scenario. Materials and Methods. Compressions were provided to a manikin on two mattresses, foam and sprung, with and without a backboard. One accelerometer was placed on the chest and the second at the manikin’s back. Chest displacement and mattress displacement were calculated from the spectral analysis of the corresponding acceleration every 2 seconds and subtracted to compute the actual sternal-spinal displacement. Compression rate was obtained from the chest acceleration. Results. Median unsigned error in depth was 2.1 mm (4.4%. Error was 2.4 mm in the foam and 1.7 mm in the sprung mattress (p<0.001. Error was 3.1/2.0 mm and 1.8/1.6 mm with/without backboard for foam and sprung, respectively (p<0.001. Median error in rate was 0.9 cpm (1.0%, with no significant differences between test conditions. Conclusion. The system provided accurate feedback on chest compression depth and rate on soft surfaces. Our solution compensated mattress displacement, avoiding overestimation of compression depth when CPR is performed on soft surfaces.

A model for the anisotropic response of fibrous soft tissues using six discrete fibre bundles

KAUST Repository

Flynn, Cormac

2011-06-30

The development of constitutive models of fibrous soft-tissues is a challenging problem. Many consider the tissue to be a collection of fibres with a continuous distribution function representing their orientations. A discrete fibre model is presented consisting of six weighted fibre-bundles. Each bundle is oriented such that it passes through opposing vertices of a regular icosahedron. A novel aspect is the use of simple analytical distribution functions to simulate undulated collagen fibres. This approach yields closed-form analytical expressions for the strain energy of the collagen fibre-bundle that avoids the sometimes costly numerical integration of some statistical distribution functions. The elastin fibres are characterized by a modified neo-Hookean type strain energy function which does not allow for fibre compression. The model accurately simulates biaxial stretching of rabbit-skin (error-of-fit 8.7), uniaxial stretching of pig-skin (error-of-fit 7.6), equibiaxial loading of aortic valve cusp (error-of-fit 0.8), and simple shear of rat septal myocardium (error-of-fit 8.9). It compares favourably with previous soft-tissue models and alternative methods of representing undulated collagen fibres. Predicted collagen fibre stiffnesses range from 8.0thinspaceMPa to 930MPa. Elastin fibre stiffnesses range from 2.0 kPa to 154.4 kPa. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A model for the anisotropic response of fibrous soft tissues using six discrete fibre bundles

KAUST Repository

Flynn, Cormac; Rubin, M. B.; Nielsen, Poul

2011-01-01

The development of constitutive models of fibrous soft-tissues is a challenging problem. Many consider the tissue to be a collection of fibres with a continuous distribution function representing their orientations. A discrete fibre model is presented consisting of six weighted fibre-bundles. Each bundle is oriented such that it passes through opposing vertices of a regular icosahedron. A novel aspect is the use of simple analytical distribution functions to simulate undulated collagen fibres. This approach yields closed-form analytical expressions for the strain energy of the collagen fibre-bundle that avoids the sometimes costly numerical integration of some statistical distribution functions. The elastin fibres are characterized by a modified neo-Hookean type strain energy function which does not allow for fibre compression. The model accurately simulates biaxial stretching of rabbit-skin (error-of-fit 8.7), uniaxial stretching of pig-skin (error-of-fit 7.6), equibiaxial loading of aortic valve cusp (error-of-fit 0.8), and simple shear of rat septal myocardium (error-of-fit 8.9). It compares favourably with previous soft-tissue models and alternative methods of representing undulated collagen fibres. Predicted collagen fibre stiffnesses range from 8.0thinspaceMPa to 930MPa. Elastin fibre stiffnesses range from 2.0 kPa to 154.4 kPa. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Soft, embodied, situated & connected: enriching interactions with soft wearbles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tomico Plasencia, O.; Wilde, D.

2016-01-01

Soft wearables include clothing and textile-based accessories that incorporate smart textiles and soft electronic interfaces to enable responsive and interactive experiences. When designed well, soft wearables leverage the cultural, sociological and material qualities of textiles, fashion and dress;

Soft electronics for soft robotics

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, Rebecca K.

2015-05-01

As advanced as modern machines are, the building blocks have changed little since the industrial revolution, leading to rigid, bulky, and complex devices. Future machines will include electromechanical systems that are soft and elastically deformable, lending them to applications such as soft robotics, wearable/implantable devices, sensory skins, and energy storage and transport systems. One key step toward the realization of soft systems is the development of stretchable electronics that remain functional even when subject to high strains. Liquid-metal traces embedded in elastic polymers present a unique opportunity to retain the function of rigid metal conductors while leveraging the deformable properties of liquid-elastomer composites. However, in order to achieve the potential benefits of liquid-metal, scalable processing and manufacturing methods must be identified.

Surface Slope Metrology on Deformable Soft X-ray Mirrors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, Sheng; Yashchuk, Valeriy V.; Goldberg, Kenneth A.; Celestre, Rich; Church, Matthew; McKinney, Wayne R.; Morrison, Greg; Warwick, Tony

2010-01-01

We report on the current state of surface slope metrology on deformable mirrors for soft x-rays at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). While we are developing techniques for in situ at-wavelength tuning, we are refining methods of ex situ visible-light optical metrology to achieve sub-100-nrad accuracy. This paper reports on laboratory studies, measurements and tuning of a deformable test-KB mirror prior to its use. The test mirror was bent to a much different optical configuration than its original design, achieving a 0.38 micro-radian residual slope error. Modeling shows that in some cases, by including the image conjugate distance as an additional free parameter in the alignment, along with the two force couples, fourth-order tangential shape errors (the so-called bird shape) can be reduced or eliminated.

Surface Slope Metrology on Deformable Soft X-ray Mirrors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, S.; Yashchuk, V.V.; Goldberg, K.A.; Celestre, R.; Church, M.; McKinney, W.R.; Morrison, G.; Warwick, T.

2009-01-01

We report on the current state of surface slope metrology on deformable mirrors for soft x-rays at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). While we are developing techniques for in situ at-wavelength tuning, we are refining methods of ex situvisible-light optical metrology to achieve sub-100-nrad accuracy. This paper reports on laboratory studies, measurements and tuning of a deformable test-KB mirror prior to its use. The test mirror was bent to a much different optical configuration than its original design, achieving a 0.38 micro-radian residual slope error. Modeling shows that in some cases, by including the image conjugate distance as an additional free parameter in the alignment, along with the two force couples, fourth-order tangential shape errors (the so-called bird shape) can be reduced or eliminated.

Soft leptogenesis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

D'Ambrosio, Giancarlo; Giudice, Gian F.; Raidal, Martti

2003-01-01

We study 'soft leptogenesis', a new mechanism of leptogenesis which does not require flavour mixing among the right-handed neutrinos. Supersymmetry soft-breaking terms give a small mass splitting between the CP-even and CP-odd right-handed sneutrino states of a single generation and provide a CP-violating phase sufficient to generate a lepton asymmetry. The mechanism is successful if the lepton-violating soft bilinear coupling is unconventionally (but not unnaturally) small. The values of the right-handed neutrino masses predicted by soft leptogenesis can be low enough to evade the cosmological gravitino problem

Soft Robotics.

Science.gov (United States)

Whitesides, George M

2018-04-09

This description of "soft robotics" is not intended to be a conventional review, in the sense of a comprehensive technical summary of a developing field. Rather, its objective is to describe soft robotics as a new field-one that offers opportunities to chemists and materials scientists who like to make "things" and to work with macroscopic objects that move and exert force. It will give one (personal) view of what soft actuators and robots are, and how this class of soft devices fits into the more highly developed field of conventional "hard" robotics. It will also suggest how and why soft robotics is more than simply a minor technical "tweak" on hard robotics and propose a unique role for chemistry, and materials science, in this field. Soft robotics is, at its core, intellectually and technologically different from hard robotics, both because it has different objectives and uses and because it relies on the properties of materials to assume many of the roles played by sensors, actuators, and controllers in hard robotics. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

LA PLATAFORMA ILIAS COMO APOYO A LA DOCENCIA PRESENCIAL EN INGENIERÍA TÉCNICA (INDUSTRIAL LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ILIAS AS A DIDACTIC INSTRUMENT FOR SUPPORTING FACE-TO-FACE INSTRUCTION ON TECHNICAL INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ramos Tejada, María del Mar

2010-04-01

Full Text Available Resumen:El avance que se ha producido en los últimos tiempos en el área de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación “TIC” supone un reto y una oportunidad en el ámbito educativo. Uno de los aspectos más relevantes de este desarrollo está relacionado con la introducción e implementación de las llamadas plataformas de docencia virtual, basadas en Internet como medio de distribución. En este trabajo describiremos las principales herramientas proporcionadas por “ILIAS”, la plataforma de software libre elegida por la Universidad de Jaén. También se propondrá cómo utilizar “ILIAS” como instrumento didáctico para el apoyo de la docencia presencial. Para ello, pondremos el ejemplo de cómo “ILIAS” es utilizada en las asignaturas de Física Eléctrica y Física Mecánica de la titulación de Ingeniería Técnica Industrial en la Universidad de Jaén. Partiendo de tales asignaturas discutiremos qué beneficios puede la plataforma ILIAS aportar a la docencia presencial, a qué dificultades podemos enfrentarnos al utilizarla, y cómo valora el alumnado el uso de esta herramienta. Como conclusión, las plataformas virtuales aportan nuevos recursos educativos a la docencia presencial en aspectos tales como la comunicación, la difusión de materiales didácticos y la evaluación. Estos recursos, pese a sus limitaciones, enriquecen el proceso de aprendizaje y reciben una valoración muy positiva por parte del alumnado.Abstract:The breakthrough occurred lately in the field of information and communication technologies “ICT” involves a challenge and a chance in the education sphere. One of the most outstanding aspects of this development has to do with the introduction and implementation of the so-called “Learning Management Systems” (LMS based on the Internet as a distribution means. In this paper we will describe the main tools provided by “ILIAS”, the open source e-learning management system chosen by the

Compensating additional optical power in the central zone of a multifocal contact lens forminimization of the shrinkage error of the shell mold in the injection molding process.

Science.gov (United States)

Vu, Lien T; Chen, Chao-Chang A; Lee, Chia-Cheng; Yu, Chia-Wei

2018-04-20

This study aims to develop a compensating method to minimize the shrinkage error of the shell mold (SM) in the injection molding (IM) process to obtain uniform optical power in the central optical zone of soft axial symmetric multifocal contact lenses (CL). The Z-shrinkage error along the Z axis or axial axis of the anterior SM corresponding to the anterior surface of a dry contact lens in the IM process can be minimized by optimizing IM process parameters and then by compensating for additional (Add) powers in the central zone of the original lens design. First, the shrinkage error is minimized by optimizing three levels of four IM parameters, including mold temperature, injection velocity, packing pressure, and cooling time in 18 IM simulations based on an orthogonal array L 18 (2 1 ×3 4 ). Then, based on the Z-shrinkage error from IM simulation, three new contact lens designs are obtained by increasing the Add power in the central zone of the original multifocal CL design to compensate for the optical power errors. Results obtained from IM process simulations and the optical simulations show that the new CL design with 0.1 D increasing in Add power has the closest shrinkage profile to the original anterior SM profile with percentage of reduction in absolute Z-shrinkage error of 55% and more uniform power in the central zone than in the other two cases. Moreover, actual experiments of IM of SM for casting soft multifocal CLs have been performed. The final product of wet CLs has been completed for the original design and the new design. Results of the optical performance have verified the improvement of the compensated design of CLs. The feasibility of this compensating method has been proven based on the measurement results of the produced soft multifocal CLs of the new design. Results of this study can be further applied to predict or compensate for the total optical power errors of the soft multifocal CLs.

SUPRA SOFT SEPARATION AXIOMS AND SUPRA IRRESOLUTENESS BASED ON SUPRA B-SOFT SETS

OpenAIRE

Abd El-latif, Alaa Mohamed; Hosny, Rodyna Ahmed

2016-01-01

This paper introduces supra soft b-separation axioms based on the supra b-open soft sets which are more general than supra open soft sets. We investigate the relationships between these supra soft separation axioms. Furthermore, with the help of examples it is established that the converse does not hold. We show that, a supra soft topological space (X; t;E) is supra soft b-T1-space, if xE is supra b-closed soft set in for each x 2 X. Also, we prove that xE is supra b-closed soft set for each ...

Soft lubrication

Science.gov (United States)

Skotheim, Jan; Mahadevan, Laksminarayanan

2004-11-01

We study the lubrication of fluid-immersed soft interfaces and show that elastic deformation couples tangential and normal forces and thus generates lift. We consider materials that deform easily, due to either geometry (e.g a shell) or constitutive properties (e.g. a gel or a rubber), so that the effects of pressure and temperature on the fluid properties may be neglected. Four different system geometries are considered: a rigid cylinder moving tangentially to a soft layer coating a rigid substrate; a soft cylinder moving tangentially to a rigid substrate; a cylindrical shell moving tangentially to a rigid substrate; and finally a journal bearing coated with a thin soft layer, which being a conforming contact allows us to gauge the influence of contact geometry. In addition, for the particular case of a soft layer coating a rigid substrate we consider both elastic and poroelastic material responses. Finally, we consider the role of contact geometry in the context of the journal bearing, a conforming contact. For all these cases we find the same generic behavior: there is an optimal combination of geometric and material parameters that maximizes the dimensionless normal force as a function of the softness.

Microscope self-calibration based on micro laser line imaging and soft computing algorithms

Science.gov (United States)

Apolinar Muñoz Rodríguez, J.

2018-06-01

A technique to perform microscope self-calibration via micro laser line and soft computing algorithms is presented. In this technique, the microscope vision parameters are computed by means of soft computing algorithms based on laser line projection. To implement the self-calibration, a microscope vision system is constructed by means of a CCD camera and a 38 μm laser line. From this arrangement, the microscope vision parameters are represented via Bezier approximation networks, which are accomplished through the laser line position. In this procedure, a genetic algorithm determines the microscope vision parameters by means of laser line imaging. Also, the approximation networks compute the three-dimensional vision by means of the laser line position. Additionally, the soft computing algorithms re-calibrate the vision parameters when the microscope vision system is modified during the vision task. The proposed self-calibration improves accuracy of the traditional microscope calibration, which is accomplished via external references to the microscope system. The capability of the self-calibration based on soft computing algorithms is determined by means of the calibration accuracy and the micro-scale measurement error. This contribution is corroborated by an evaluation based on the accuracy of the traditional microscope calibration.

Soft Congruence Relations over Rings

Science.gov (United States)

Xin, Xiaolong; Li, Wenting

2014-01-01

Molodtsov introduced the concept of soft sets, which can be seen as a new mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainty. In this paper, we initiate the study of soft congruence relations by using the soft set theory. The notions of soft quotient rings, generalized soft ideals and generalized soft quotient rings, are introduced, and several related properties are investigated. Also, we obtain a one-to-one correspondence between soft congruence relations and idealistic soft rings and a one-to-one correspondence between soft congruence relations and soft ideals. In particular, the first, second, and third soft isomorphism theorems are established, respectively. PMID:24949493

Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Science.gov (United States)

... muscles, tendons, fat, and blood vessels. Soft tissue sarcoma is a cancer of these soft tissues. There ... have certain genetic diseases. Doctors diagnose soft tissue sarcomas with a biopsy. Treatments include surgery to remove ...

Design of a Soft Robot with Multiple Motion Patterns Using Soft Pneumatic Actuators

Science.gov (United States)

Miao, Yu; Dong, Wei; Du, Zhijiang

2017-11-01

Soft robots are made of soft materials and have good flexibility and infinite degrees of freedom in theory. These properties enable soft robots to work in narrow space and adapt to external environment. In this paper, a 2-DOF soft pneumatic actuator is introduced, with two chambers symmetrically distributed on both sides and a jamming cylinder along the axis. Fibers are used to constrain the expansion of the soft actuator. Experiments are carried out to test the performance of the soft actuator, including bending and elongation characteristics. A soft robot is designed and fabricated by connecting four soft pneumatic actuators to a 3D-printed board. The soft robotic system is then established. The pneumatic circuit is built by pumps and solenoid valves. The control system is based on the control board Arduino Mega 2560. Relay modules are used to control valves and pressure sensors are used to measure pressure in the pneumatic circuit. Experiments are conducted to test the performance of the proposed soft robot.

16-bit error detection and correction (EDAC) controller design using FPGA for critical memory applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Misra, M.K.; Sridhar, N.; Krishnakumar, B.; Ilango Sambasivan, S.

2002-01-01

Full text: Complex electronic systems require the utmost reliability, especially when the storage and retrieval of critical data demands faultless operation, the system designer must strive for the highest reliability possible. Extra effort must be expended to achieve this reliability. Fortunately, not all systems must operate with these ultra reliability requirements. The majority of systems operate in an area where system failure is not hazardous. But the applications like nuclear reactors, medical and avionics are the areas where system failure may prove to have harsh consequences. High-density memories generate errors in their stored data due to external disturbances like power supply surges, system noise, natural radiation etc. These errors are called soft errors or transient errors, since they don't cause permanent damage to the memory cell. Hard errors may also occur on system memory boards. These hard errors occur if one RAM component or RAM cell fails and is stuck at either 0 or 1. Although less frequent, hard errors may cause a complete system failure. These are the major problems associated with memories

Soft tissue deformation estimation by spatio-temporal Kalman filter finite element method.

Science.gov (United States)

Yarahmadian, Mehran; Zhong, Yongmin; Gu, Chengfan; Shin, Jaehyun

2018-01-01

Soft tissue modeling plays an important role in the development of surgical training simulators as well as in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgeries. It has been known that while the traditional Finite Element Method (FEM) promises the accurate modeling of soft tissue deformation, it still suffers from a slow computational process. This paper presents a Kalman filter finite element method to model soft tissue deformation in real time without sacrificing the traditional FEM accuracy. The proposed method employs the FEM equilibrium equation and formulates it as a filtering process to estimate soft tissue behavior using real-time measurement data. The model is temporally discretized using the Newmark method and further formulated as the system state equation. Simulation results demonstrate that the computational time of KF-FEM is approximately 10 times shorter than the traditional FEM and it is still as accurate as the traditional FEM. The normalized root-mean-square error of the proposed KF-FEM in reference to the traditional FEM is computed as 0.0116. It is concluded that the proposed method significantly improves the computational performance of the traditional FEM without sacrificing FEM accuracy. The proposed method also filters noises involved in system state and measurement data.

Application of Soft Computing Techniques and Multiple Regression Models for CBR prediction of Soils

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fatimah Khaleel Ibrahim

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The techniques of soft computing technique such as Artificial Neutral Network (ANN have improved the predicting capability and have actually discovered application in Geotechnical engineering. The aim of this research is to utilize the soft computing technique and Multiple Regression Models (MLR for forecasting the California bearing ratio CBR( of soil from its index properties. The indicator of CBR for soil could be predicted from various soils characterizing parameters with the assist of MLR and ANN methods. The data base that collected from the laboratory by conducting tests on 86 soil samples that gathered from different projects in Basrah districts. Data gained from the experimental result were used in the regression models and soft computing techniques by using artificial neural network. The liquid limit, plastic index , modified compaction test and the CBR test have been determined. In this work, different ANN and MLR models were formulated with the different collection of inputs to be able to recognize their significance in the prediction of CBR. The strengths of the models that were developed been examined in terms of regression coefficient (R2, relative error (RE% and mean square error (MSE values. From the results of this paper, it absolutely was noticed that all the proposed ANN models perform better than that of MLR model. In a specific ANN model with all input parameters reveals better outcomes than other ANN models.

Benefits and risks of using smart pumps to reduce medication error rates: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohashi, Kumiko; Dalleur, Olivia; Dykes, Patricia C; Bates, David W

2014-12-01

Smart infusion pumps have been introduced to prevent medication errors and have been widely adopted nationally in the USA, though they are not always used in Europe or other regions. Despite widespread usage of smart pumps, intravenous medication errors have not been fully eliminated. Through a systematic review of recent studies and reports regarding smart pump implementation and use, we aimed to identify the impact of smart pumps on error reduction and on the complex process of medication administration, and strategies to maximize the benefits of smart pumps. The medical literature related to the effects of smart pumps for improving patient safety was searched in PUBMED, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (2000-2014) and relevant papers were selected by two researchers. After the literature search, 231 papers were identified and the full texts of 138 articles were assessed for eligibility. Of these, 22 were included after removal of papers that did not meet the inclusion criteria. We assessed both the benefits and negative effects of smart pumps from these studies. One of the benefits of using smart pumps was intercepting errors such as the wrong rate, wrong dose, and pump setting errors. Other benefits include reduction of adverse drug event rates, practice improvements, and cost effectiveness. Meanwhile, the current issues or negative effects related to using smart pumps were lower compliance rates of using smart pumps, the overriding of soft alerts, non-intercepted errors, or the possibility of using the wrong drug library. The literature suggests that smart pumps reduce but do not eliminate programming errors. Although the hard limits of a drug library play a main role in intercepting medication errors, soft limits were still not as effective as hard limits because of high override rates. Compliance in using smart pumps is key towards effectively preventing errors. Opportunities for improvement include upgrading drug

X-ray scattering of soft matter

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stribeck, N.

2007-01-01

This coherently written volume summarizes the analytical power of modern X-ray scattering in the field of soft matter. Applications of X-ray scattering to soft matter have advanced considerably within recent years, both conceptually and technically. There are now mature high-power X-ray sources, synchrotrons and rotating anodes, as well as high-speed detectors, which have become readily available and which make the whole process more viable. High-quality time-resolved experiments on polymer structure can now be performed with ease, a major advancement due to the genuine power of the scattering method. This manual is a detailed description of simple tools that can elucidate the mechanisms of structure evolution in the studied materials. It is also a step-by-step guide to more advanced methods of the latest X-ray scattering techniques, and breaks down these methods. Data analysis based on clear, unequivocal results is rendered simple and straightforward - with a stress on the careful planning of experiments and adequate recording of all required data. This book, then, serves as a useful ready-reference guide. It has been written for the modern scientist who is a generalist and needs a concise reference, and demonstrates typical errors in data evaluation. (orig.)

Application of multibounce attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and chemometrics for determination of aspartame in soft drinks.

Science.gov (United States)

Khurana, Harpreet Kaur; Cho, Il Kyu; Shim, Jae Yong; Li, Qing X; Jun, Soojin

2008-02-13

Aspartame is a low-calorie sweetener commonly used in soft drinks; however, the maximum usage dose is limited by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance sampling accessory and partial least-squares regression (PLS) was used for rapid determination of aspartame in soft drinks. On the basis of spectral characterization, the highest R2 value, and lowest PRESS value, the spectral region between 1600 and 1900 cm(-1) was selected for quantitative estimation of aspartame. The potential of FTIR spectroscopy for aspartame quantification was examined and validated by the conventional HPLC method. Using the FTIR method, aspartame contents in four selected carbonated diet soft drinks were found to average from 0.43 to 0.50 mg/mL with prediction errors ranging from 2.4 to 5.7% when compared with HPLC measurements. The developed method also showed a high degree of accuracy because real samples were used for calibration, thus minimizing potential interference errors. The FTIR method developed can be suitably used for routine quality control analysis of aspartame in the beverage-manufacturing sector.

A probabilistic model-based soft sensor to monitor lactic acid bacteria fermentations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Spann, Robert; Roca, Christophe; Kold, David

2018-01-01

A probabilistic soft sensor based on a mechanistic model was designed to monitor S. thermophilus fermentations, and validated with experimental lab-scale data. It considered uncertainties in the initial conditions, on-line measurements, and model parameters by performing Monte Carlo simulations...... the model parameters that were then used as input to the mechanistic model. The soft sensor predicted both the current state variables, as well as the future course of the fermentation, e.g. with a relative mean error of the biomass concentration of 8 %. This successful implementation of a process...... within the monitoring system. It predicted, therefore, the probability distributions of the unmeasured states, such as biomass, lactose, and lactic acid concentrations. To this end, a mechanistic model was developed first, and a statistical parameter estimation was performed in order to assess parameter...

Co-operation of digital nonlinear equalizers and soft-decision LDPC FEC in nonlinear transmission.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanimura, Takahito; Oda, Shoichiro; Hoshida, Takeshi; Aoki, Yasuhiko; Tao, Zhenning; Rasmussen, Jens C

2013-12-30

We experimentally and numerically investigated the characteristics of 128 Gb/s dual polarization - quadrature phase shift keying signals received with two types of nonlinear equalizers (NLEs) followed by soft-decision (SD) low-density parity-check (LDPC) forward error correction (FEC). Successful co-operation among SD-FEC and NLEs over various nonlinear transmissions were demonstrated by optimization of parameters for NLEs.

Quality assurance of the international computerised 24 h dietary recall method (EPIC-Soft).

Science.gov (United States)

Crispim, Sandra P; Nicolas, Genevieve; Casagrande, Corinne; Knaze, Viktoria; Illner, Anne-Kathrin; Huybrechts, Inge; Slimani, Nadia

2014-02-01

The interview-administered 24 h dietary recall (24-HDR) EPIC-Soft® has a series of controls to guarantee the quality of dietary data across countries. These comprise all steps that are part of fieldwork preparation, data collection and data management; however, a complete characterisation of these quality controls is still lacking. The present paper describes in detail the quality controls applied in EPIC-Soft, which are, to a large extent, built on the basis of the EPIC-Soft error model and are present in three phases: (1) before, (2) during and (3) after the 24-HDR interviews. Quality controls for consistency and harmonisation are implemented before the interviews while preparing the seventy databases constituting an EPIC-Soft version (e.g. pre-defined and coded foods and recipes). During the interviews, EPIC-Soft uses a cognitive approach by helping the respondent to recall the dietary intake information in a stepwise manner and includes controls for consistency (e.g. probing questions) as well as for completeness of the collected data (e.g. system calculation for some unknown amounts). After the interviews, a series of controls can be applied by dietitians and data managers to further guarantee data quality. For example, the interview-specific 'note files' that were created to track any problems or missing information during the interviews can be checked to clarify the information initially provided. Overall, the quality controls employed in the EPIC-Soft methodology are not always perceivable, but prove to be of assistance for its overall standardisation and possibly for the accuracy of the collected data.

Error-Rate Estimation Based on Multi-Signal Flow Graph Model and Accelerated Radiation Tests.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wei He

Full Text Available A method of evaluating the single-event effect soft-error vulnerability of space instruments before launched has been an active research topic in recent years. In this paper, a multi-signal flow graph model is introduced to analyze the fault diagnosis and meantime to failure (MTTF for space instruments. A model for the system functional error rate (SFER is proposed. In addition, an experimental method and accelerated radiation testing system for a signal processing platform based on the field programmable gate array (FPGA is presented. Based on experimental results of different ions (O, Si, Cl, Ti under the HI-13 Tandem Accelerator, the SFER of the signal processing platform is approximately 10-3(error/particle/cm2, while the MTTF is approximately 110.7 h.

Fully Soft 3D-Printed Electroactive Fluidic Valve for Soft Hydraulic Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Zatopa, Alex; Walker, Steph; Menguc, Yigit

2018-06-01

Soft robots are designed to utilize their compliance and contortionistic abilities to both interact safely with their environment and move through it in ways a rigid robot cannot. To more completely achieve this, the robot should be made of as many soft components as possible. Here we present a completely soft hydraulic control valve consisting of a 3D-printed photopolymer body with electrorheological (ER) fluid as a working fluid and gallium-indium-tin liquid metal alloy as electrodes. This soft 3D-printed ER valve weighs less than 10 g and allows for onboard actuation control, furthering the goal of an entirely soft controllable robot. The soft ER valve pressure-holding capabilities were tested under unstrained conditions, cyclic valve activation, and the strained conditions of bending, twisting, stretching, and indentation. It was found that the max holding pressure of the valve when 5 kV was applied across the electrodes was 264 kPa, and that the holding pressure deviated less than 15% from the unstrained max holding pressure under all strain conditions except for indentation, which had a 60% max pressure increase. In addition, a soft octopus-like robot was designed, 3D printed, and assembled, and a soft ER valve was used to stop the fluid flow, build pressure in the robot, and actuate six tentacle-like soft bending actuators.

Soft matter physics

CERN Document Server

Doi, Masao

2013-01-01

Soft matter (polymers, colloids, surfactants and liquid crystals) are an important class of materials in modern technology. They also form the basis of many future technologies, for example in medical and environmental applications. Soft matter shows complex behaviour between fluids and solids, and used to be a synonym of complex materials. Due to the developments of the past two decades, soft condensed matter can now be discussed on the same sound physical basis as solid condensedmatter. The purpose of this book is to provide an overview of soft matter for undergraduate and graduate students

Multilayer beam splitter used in a soft X-ray Mach-Zehnder interferometer at working wavelength of 13.9 nm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Zhong; Wang Zhanshan; Wang Hongchang; Wang Fengli; Wu Wenjuan; Zhang Shumin; Qin Shuji; Chen Lingyan

2006-01-01

The soft X-ray Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an important tool in measuring the electron densities of laser-produced plasma near the critical surface. The design, fabrication and characterization of multilayer beam splitters at 13.9 nm for soft X-ray Mach-Zehnder interferometer are presented in the paper. The design of beam splitter is completed based on the standard of maximizing product of reflectivity and transmission of the beam splitter at 13.9 nm. The beam splitters, which are Mo/Si multi-layer deposited on 10 mm x 10 mm area, 100 nm thickness Si 3 N 4 membranes, are fabricated using the magnetron sputtering. A method based on extended He-Ne laser beam is developed to analyze the figure error of the beam splitters. The data measured by an optical profiler prove that the method based on visible light is effective to analyze the figure of the beam splitters. The rms figure error of a beam splitter reaches 1.757 nm in the center area 3.82 mm x 3.46 mm and satisfies the need of soft X-ray interference experiment. The product of reflectivity and transmission measured by synchrotron radiation is near to 4%. The Mach-Zehnder interferometer at 13.9 nm based on the multilayer beam splitters is used in 13.9 nm soft X-ray laser interference experiment, in which a clear interferograms of C 8 H 8 laser-produced plasma is got. (authors)

Soft buckling actuators

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yang, Dian; Whitesides, George M.

2017-12-26

A soft actuator is described, including: a rotation center having a center of mass; a plurality of bucklable, elastic structural components each comprising a wall defining an axis along its longest dimension, the wall connected to the rotation center in a way that the axis is offset from the center of mass in a predetermined direction; and a plurality of cells each disposed between two adjacent bucklable, elastic structural components and configured for connection with a fluid inflation or deflation source; wherein upon the deflation of the cell, the bucklable, elastic structural components are configured to buckle in the predetermined direction. A soft actuating device including a plurality of the soft actuators and methods of actuation using the soft actuator or soft actuating device disclosed herein are also described.

Error-related brain activity and error awareness in an error classification paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Di Gregorio, Francesco; Steinhauser, Marco; Maier, Martin E

2016-10-01

Error-related brain activity has been linked to error detection enabling adaptive behavioral adjustments. However, it is still unclear which role error awareness plays in this process. Here, we show that the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN), an event-related potential reflecting early error monitoring, is dissociable from the degree of error awareness. Participants responded to a target while ignoring two different incongruent distractors. After responding, they indicated whether they had committed an error, and if so, whether they had responded to one or to the other distractor. This error classification paradigm allowed distinguishing partially aware errors, (i.e., errors that were noticed but misclassified) and fully aware errors (i.e., errors that were correctly classified). The Ne/ERN was larger for partially aware errors than for fully aware errors. Whereas this speaks against the idea that the Ne/ERN foreshadows the degree of error awareness, it confirms the prediction of a computational model, which relates the Ne/ERN to post-response conflict. This model predicts that stronger distractor processing - a prerequisite of error classification in our paradigm - leads to lower post-response conflict and thus a smaller Ne/ERN. This implies that the relationship between Ne/ERN and error awareness depends on how error awareness is related to response conflict in a specific task. Our results further indicate that the Ne/ERN but not the degree of error awareness determines adaptive performance adjustments. Taken together, we conclude that the Ne/ERN is dissociable from error awareness and foreshadows adaptive performance adjustments. Our results suggest that the relationship between the Ne/ERN and error awareness is correlative and mediated by response conflict. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Extreme Mechanics in Soft Pneumatic Robots and Soft Microfluidic Electronics and Sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Majidi, Carmel

2012-02-01

In the near future, machines and robots will be completely soft, stretchable, impact resistance, and capable of adapting their shape and functionality to changes in mission and environment. Similar to biological tissue and soft-body organisms, these next-generation technologies will contain no rigid parts and instead be composed entirely of soft elastomers, gels, fluids, and other non-rigid matter. Using a combination of rapid prototyping tools, microfabrication methods, and emerging techniques in so-called ``soft lithography,'' scientists and engineers are currently introducing exciting new families of soft pneumatic robots, soft microfluidic sensors, and hyperelastic electronics that can be stretched to as much as 10x their natural length. Progress has been guided by an interdisciplinary collection of insights from chemistry, life sciences, robotics, microelectronics, and solid mechanics. In virtually every technology and application domain, mechanics and elasticity have a central role in governing functionality and design. Moreover, in contrast to conventional machines and electronics, soft pneumatic systems and microfluidics typically operate in the finite deformation regime, with materials stretching to several times their natural length. In this talk, I will review emerging paradigms in soft pneumatic robotics and soft microfluidic electronics and highlight modeling and design challenges that arise from the extreme mechanics of inflation, locomotion, sensor operation, and human interaction. I will also discuss perceived challenges and opportunities in a broad range of potential application, from medicine to wearable computing.

A-Soft Separation Axioms in Soft Topological Space

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luay Abd –Al-Hani Al-Sweedi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The important science tools in a different kinds and  specialties , that considered the basic mainstay of ( the set theory and because of  huge development in all life fields. This causes great problems , that need solution and parallel tools for those developments , so the scientis become responsible to work on the development of number theory and open new horizons , that a new science had appeared  which is  ( soft figures theory which is considered the important tool to solve most difficult problems or overcome them ,in these sciences and their specific life specialization, economy, medicine , geometry and others. Also the theory of soft numbers had entered in general topology in power full and active way. The last years a new science has appeared is (soft topological space.              The main idea of this research is to define the separation axioms in  (soft topological space  and practically in certain point , and to study the most important  properties and results of it .

Random access to mobile networks with advanced error correction

Science.gov (United States)

Dippold, Michael

1990-01-01

A random access scheme for unreliable data channels is investigated in conjunction with an adaptive Hybrid-II Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) scheme using Rate Compatible Punctured Codes (RCPC) Forward Error Correction (FEC). A simple scheme with fixed frame length and equal slot sizes is chosen and reservation is implicit by the first packet transmitted randomly in a free slot, similar to Reservation Aloha. This allows the further transmission of redundancy if the last decoding attempt failed. Results show that a high channel utilization and superior throughput can be achieved with this scheme that shows a quite low implementation complexity. For the example of an interleaved Rayleigh channel and soft decision utilization and mean delay are calculated. A utilization of 40 percent may be achieved for a frame with the number of slots being equal to half the station number under high traffic load. The effects of feedback channel errors and some countermeasures are discussed.

Verifying Stability of Dynamic Soft-Computing Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Wu; Napolitano, Marcello; Callahan, John

1997-01-01

Soft computing is a general term for algorithms that learn from human knowledge and mimic human skills. Example of such algorithms are fuzzy inference systems and neural networks. Many applications, especially in control engineering, have demonstrated their appropriateness in building intelligent systems that are flexible and robust. Although recent research have shown that certain class of neuro-fuzzy controllers can be proven bounded and stable, they are implementation dependent and difficult to apply to the design and validation process. Many practitioners adopt the trial and error approach for system validation or resort to exhaustive testing using prototypes. In this paper, we describe our on-going research towards establishing necessary theoretic foundation as well as building practical tools for the verification and validation of soft-computing systems. A unified model for general neuro-fuzzy system is adopted. Classic non-linear system control theory and recent results of its applications to neuro-fuzzy systems are incorporated and applied to the unified model. It is hoped that general tools can be developed to help the designer to visualize and manipulate the regions of stability and boundedness, much the same way Bode plots and Root locus plots have helped conventional control design and validation.

Design Methodology for Magnetic Field-Based Soft Tri-Axis Tactile Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongbo; de Boer, Greg; Kow, Junwai; Alazmani, Ali; Ghajari, Mazdak; Hewson, Robert; Culmer, Peter

2016-08-24

Tactile sensors are essential if robots are to safely interact with the external world and to dexterously manipulate objects. Current tactile sensors have limitations restricting their use, notably being too fragile or having limited performance. Magnetic field-based soft tactile sensors offer a potential improvement, being durable, low cost, accurate and high bandwidth, but they are relatively undeveloped because of the complexities involved in design and calibration. This paper presents a general design methodology for magnetic field-based three-axis soft tactile sensors, enabling researchers to easily develop specific tactile sensors for a variety of applications. All aspects (design, fabrication, calibration and evaluation) of the development of tri-axis soft tactile sensors are presented and discussed. A moving least square approach is used to decouple and convert the magnetic field signal to force output to eliminate non-linearity and cross-talk effects. A case study of a tactile sensor prototype, MagOne, was developed. This achieved a resolution of 1.42 mN in normal force measurement (0.71 mN in shear force), good output repeatability and has a maximum hysteresis error of 3.4%. These results outperform comparable sensors reported previously, highlighting the efficacy of our methodology for sensor design.

Errors in dual-energy X-ray scanning of the hip because of nonuniform fat distribution.

Science.gov (United States)

Tothill, Peter; Weir, Nicholas; Loveland, John

2014-01-01

The variable proportion of fat in overlying soft tissue is a potential source of error in dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurements of bone mineral. The effect on spine scanning has previously been assessed from cadaver studies and from computed tomography (CT) scans of soft tissue distribution. We have now applied the latter technique to DXA hip scanning. The CT scans performed for clinical purposes were used to derive mean adipose tissue thicknesses over bone and background areas for total hip and femoral neck. The former was always lower. More importantly, the fat thickness differences varied among subjects. Errors because of bone marrow fat were deduced from CT measurements of marrow thickness and assumed fat proportions of marrow. The effect of these differences on measured bone mineral density was deduced from phantom measurements of the bone equivalence of fat. Uncertainties of around 0.06g/cm(2) are similar to those previously reported for spine scanning and the results from cadaver measurements. They should be considered in assessing the diagnostic accuracy of DXA scanning. Copyright © 2014 The International Society for Clinical Densitometry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mappings on Neutrosophic Soft Classes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shawkat Alkhazaleh

2014-03-01

Full Text Available In 1995 Smarandache introduced the concept of neutrosophic set which is a mathematical tool for handling problems involving imprecise, indeterminacy and inconsistent data. In 2013 Maji introduced the concept of neutrosophic soft set theory as a general mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainty. In this paper we define the notion of a mapping on classes where the neutrosophic soft classes are collections of neutrosophic soft set. We also define and study the properties of neutrosophic soft images and neutrosophic soft inverse images of neutrosophic soft sets.

Haptic communication between humans is tuned by the hard or soft mechanics of interaction

Science.gov (United States)

Usai, Francesco; Ganesh, Gowrishankar; Sanguineti, Vittorio; Burdet, Etienne

2018-01-01

To move a hard table together, humans may coordinate by following the dominant partner’s motion [1–4], but this strategy is unsuitable for a soft mattress where the perceived forces are small. How do partners readily coordinate in such differing interaction dynamics? To address this, we investigated how pairs tracked a target using flexion-extension of their wrists, which were coupled by a hard, medium or soft virtual elastic band. Tracking performance monotonically increased with a stiffer band for the worse partner, who had higher tracking error, at the cost of the skilled partner’s muscular effort. This suggests that the worse partner followed the skilled one’s lead, but simulations show that the results are better explained by a model where partners share movement goals through the forces, whilst the coupling dynamics determine the capacity of communicable information. This model elucidates the versatile mechanism by which humans can coordinate during both hard and soft physical interactions to ensure maximum performance with minimal effort. PMID:29565966

SoftLab: A Soft-Computing Software for Experimental Research with Commercialization Aspects

Science.gov (United States)

Akbarzadeh-T, M.-R.; Shaikh, T. S.; Ren, J.; Hubbell, Rob; Kumbla, K. K.; Jamshidi, M

1998-01-01

SoftLab is a software environment for research and development in intelligent modeling/control using soft-computing paradigms such as fuzzy logic, neural networks, genetic algorithms, and genetic programs. SoftLab addresses the inadequacies of the existing soft-computing software by supporting comprehensive multidisciplinary functionalities from management tools to engineering systems. Furthermore, the built-in features help the user process/analyze information more efficiently by a friendly yet powerful interface, and will allow the user to specify user-specific processing modules, hence adding to the standard configuration of the software environment.

Using soft computing techniques to predict corrected air permeability using Thomeer parameters, air porosity and grain density

Science.gov (United States)

Nooruddin, Hasan A.; Anifowose, Fatai; Abdulraheem, Abdulazeez

2014-03-01

Soft computing techniques are recently becoming very popular in the oil industry. A number of computational intelligence-based predictive methods have been widely applied in the industry with high prediction capabilities. Some of the popular methods include feed-forward neural networks, radial basis function network, generalized regression neural network, functional networks, support vector regression and adaptive network fuzzy inference system. A comparative study among most popular soft computing techniques is presented using a large dataset published in literature describing multimodal pore systems in the Arab D formation. The inputs to the models are air porosity, grain density, and Thomeer parameters obtained using mercury injection capillary pressure profiles. Corrected air permeability is the target variable. Applying developed permeability models in recent reservoir characterization workflow ensures consistency between micro and macro scale information represented mainly by Thomeer parameters and absolute permeability. The dataset was divided into two parts with 80% of data used for training and 20% for testing. The target permeability variable was transformed to the logarithmic scale as a pre-processing step and to show better correlations with the input variables. Statistical and graphical analysis of the results including permeability cross-plots and detailed error measures were created. In general, the comparative study showed very close results among the developed models. The feed-forward neural network permeability model showed the lowest average relative error, average absolute relative error, standard deviations of error and root means squares making it the best model for such problems. Adaptive network fuzzy inference system also showed very good results.

Fabrication of the multilayer beam splitters with large area for soft X-ray laser interferometer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Zhanshan; Zhang Zhong; Wang Fengli; Wu Wenjuan; Wang Hongchang; Qin Shuji; Chen Lingyan

2004-01-01

The soft X-ray laser Mach-Zehnder interferometer is an important tool to measure the electron densities of a laser-produced plasma near the critical surface. The design of a multilayer beam splitter at 13.9 nm for soft X-ray laser Mach-Zehnder interferometer is completed based on the standard of maximizing product of reflectivity and transmission of the beam splitter. The beam splitters which is Mo/Si multilayers on 10 mm x 10 mm area Si 3 N 4 membrane are fabricated using the magnetron sputtering. The figure error of the beam splitter has reached the deep nanometer magnitude by using optical profiler and the product of reflectivity and transmission measured by synchrotron radiation is up to to 4%. (authors)

A review of setup error in supine breast radiotherapy using cone-beam computed tomography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Batumalai, Vikneswary, E-mail: Vikneswary.batumalai@sswahs.nsw.gov.au [South Western Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Liverpool and Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centres, New South Wales (Australia); Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Holloway, Lois [South Western Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Liverpool and Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centres, New South Wales (Australia); Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales (Australia); Institute of Medical Physics, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Delaney, Geoff P. [South Western Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia); Liverpool and Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centres, New South Wales (Australia); Ingham Institute of Applied Medical Research, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia)

2016-10-01

Setup error in breast radiotherapy (RT) measured with 3-dimensional cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is becoming more common. The purpose of this study is to review the literature relating to the magnitude of setup error in breast RT measured with CBCT. The different methods of image registration between CBCT and planning computed tomography (CT) scan were also explored. A literature search, not limited by date, was conducted using Medline and Google Scholar with the following key words: breast cancer, RT, setup error, and CBCT. This review includes studies that reported on systematic and random errors, and the methods used when registering CBCT scans with planning CT scan. A total of 11 relevant studies were identified for inclusion in this review. The average magnitude of error is generally less than 5 mm across a number of studies reviewed. The common registration methods used when registering CBCT scans with planning CT scan are based on bony anatomy, soft tissue, and surgical clips. No clear relationships between the setup errors detected and methods of registration were observed from this review. Further studies are needed to assess the benefit of CBCT over electronic portal image, as CBCT remains unproven to be of wide benefit in breast RT.

A review of setup error in supine breast radiotherapy using cone-beam computed tomography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Batumalai, Vikneswary; Holloway, Lois; Delaney, Geoff P.

2016-01-01

Setup error in breast radiotherapy (RT) measured with 3-dimensional cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is becoming more common. The purpose of this study is to review the literature relating to the magnitude of setup error in breast RT measured with CBCT. The different methods of image registration between CBCT and planning computed tomography (CT) scan were also explored. A literature search, not limited by date, was conducted using Medline and Google Scholar with the following key words: breast cancer, RT, setup error, and CBCT. This review includes studies that reported on systematic and random errors, and the methods used when registering CBCT scans with planning CT scan. A total of 11 relevant studies were identified for inclusion in this review. The average magnitude of error is generally less than 5 mm across a number of studies reviewed. The common registration methods used when registering CBCT scans with planning CT scan are based on bony anatomy, soft tissue, and surgical clips. No clear relationships between the setup errors detected and methods of registration were observed from this review. Further studies are needed to assess the benefit of CBCT over electronic portal image, as CBCT remains unproven to be of wide benefit in breast RT.

A framework to estimate probability of diagnosis error in NPP advanced MCR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ar Ryum; Kim, Jong Hyun; Jang, Inseok; Seong, Poong Hyun

2018-01-01

Highlights: •As new type of MCR has been installed in NPPs, the work environment is considerably changed. •A new framework to estimate operators’ diagnosis error probabilities should be proposed. •Diagnosis error data were extracted from the full-scope simulator of the advanced MCR. •Using Bayesian inference, a TRC model was updated for use in advanced MCR. -- Abstract: Recently, a new type of main control room (MCR) has been adopted in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The new MCR, known as the advanced MCR, consists of digitalized human-system interfaces (HSIs), computer-based procedures (CPS), and soft controls while the conventional MCR includes many alarm tiles, analog indicators, hard-wired control devices, and paper-based procedures. These changes significantly affect the generic activities of the MCR operators, in relation to diagnostic activities. The aim of this paper is to suggest a framework to estimate the probabilities of diagnosis errors in the advanced MCR by updating a time reliability correlation (TRC) model. Using Bayesian inference, the TRC model was updated with the probabilities of diagnosis errors. Here, the diagnosis error data were collected from a full-scope simulator of the advanced MCR. To do this, diagnosis errors were determined based on an information processing model and their probabilities were calculated. However, these calculated probabilities of diagnosis errors were largely affected by context factors such as procedures, HSI, training, and others, known as PSFs (Performance Shaping Factors). In order to obtain the nominal diagnosis error probabilities, the weightings of PSFs were also evaluated. Then, with the nominal diagnosis error probabilities, the TRC model was updated. This led to the proposal of a framework to estimate the nominal probabilities of diagnosis errors in the advanced MCR.

Computing in the presence of soft bit errors. [caused by single event upset on spacecraft

Science.gov (United States)

Rasmussen, R. D.

1984-01-01

It is shown that single-event-upsets (SEUs) due to cosmic rays are a significant source of single bit error in spacecraft computers. The physical mechanism of SEU, electron hole generation by means of Linear Energy Transfer (LET), it discussed with reference made to the results of a study of the environmental effects on computer systems of the Galileo spacecraft. Techniques for making software more tolerant of cosmic ray effects are considered, including: reducing the number of registers used by the software; continuity testing of variables; redundant execution of major procedures for error detection; and encoding state variables to detect single-bit changes. Attention is also given to design modifications which may reduce the cosmic ray exposure of on-board hardware. These modifications include: shielding components operating in LEO; removing low-power Schottky parts; and the use of CMOS diodes. The SEU parameters of different electronic components are listed in a table.

A Computing Method to Determine the Performance of an Ionic Liquid Gel Soft Actuator.

Science.gov (United States)

He, Bin; Zhang, Chenghong; Zhou, Yanmin; Wang, Zhipeng

2018-01-01

A new type of soft actuator material-an ionic liquid gel (ILG) that consists of BMIMBF 4 , HEMA, DEAP, and ZrO 2 -is polymerized into a gel state under ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. In this paper, we first propose that the ILG conforms to the assumptions of hyperelastic theory and that the Mooney-Rivlin model can be used to study the properties of the ILG. Under the five-parameter and nine-parameter Mooney-Rivlin models, the formulas for the calculation of the uniaxial tensile stress, plane uniform tensile stress, and 3D directional stress are deduced. The five-parameter and nine-parameter Mooney-Rivlin models of the ILG with a ZrO 2 content of 3 wt% were obtained by uniaxial tensile testing, and the parameters are denoted as c 10 , c 01 , c 20 , c 11 , and c 02 and c 10 , c 01 , c 20 , c 11 , c 02 , c 30 , c 21 , c 12 , and c 03 , respectively. Through the analysis and comparison of the uniaxial tensile stress between the calculated and experimental data, the error between the stress data calculated from the five-parameter Mooney-Rivlin model and the experimental data is less than 0.51%, and the error between the stress data calculated from the nine-parameter Mooney-Rivlin model and the experimental data is no more than 8.87%. Hence, our work presents a feasible and credible formula for the calculation of the stress of the ILG. This work opens a new path to assess the performance of a soft actuator composed of an ILG and will contribute to the optimized design of soft robots.

Action errors, error management, and learning in organizations.

Science.gov (United States)

Frese, Michael; Keith, Nina

2015-01-03

Every organization is confronted with errors. Most errors are corrected easily, but some may lead to negative consequences. Organizations often focus on error prevention as a single strategy for dealing with errors. Our review suggests that error prevention needs to be supplemented by error management--an approach directed at effectively dealing with errors after they have occurred, with the goal of minimizing negative and maximizing positive error consequences (examples of the latter are learning and innovations). After defining errors and related concepts, we review research on error-related processes affected by error management (error detection, damage control). Empirical evidence on positive effects of error management in individuals and organizations is then discussed, along with emotional, motivational, cognitive, and behavioral pathways of these effects. Learning from errors is central, but like other positive consequences, learning occurs under certain circumstances--one being the development of a mind-set of acceptance of human error.

Soft Neutrosophic Loops and Their Generalization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mumtaz Ali

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Soft set theory is a general mathematical tool for dealing with uncertain, fuzzy, not clearly defined objects. In this paper we introduced soft neutrosophic loop,soft neutosophic biloop, soft neutrosophic N -loop with the discuission of some of their characteristics. We also introduced a new type of soft neutrophic loop, the so called soft strong neutrosophic loop which is of pure neutrosophic character. This notion also found in all the other corresponding notions of soft neutrosophic thoery. We also given some of their properties of this newly born soft structure related to the strong part of neutrosophic theory.

SU-E-J-12: An Image-Guided Soft Robotic Patient Positioning System for Maskless Head-And-Neck Cancer Radiotherapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ogunmolu, O; Gans, N; Jiang, S; Gu, X

2015-01-01

Purpose: We propose a surface-image-guided soft robotic patient positioning system for maskless head-and-neck radiotherapy. The ultimate goal of this project is to utilize a soft robot to realize non-rigid patient positioning and real-time motion compensation. In this proof-of-concept study, we design a position-based visual servoing control system for an air-bladder-based soft robot and investigate its performance in controlling the flexion/extension cranial motion on a mannequin head phantom. Methods: The current system consists of Microsoft Kinect depth camera, an inflatable air bladder (IAB), pressured air source, pneumatic valve actuators, custom-built current regulators, and a National Instruments myRIO microcontroller. The performance of the designed system was evaluated on a mannequin head, with a ball joint fixed below its neck to simulate torso-induced head motion along flexion/extension direction. The IAB is placed beneath the mannequin head. The Kinect camera captures images of the mannequin head, extracts the face, and measures the position of the head relative to the camera. This distance is sent to the myRIO, which runs control algorithms and sends actuation commands to the valves, inflating and deflating the IAB to induce head motion. Results: For a step input, i.e. regulation of the head to a constant displacement, the maximum error was a 6% overshoot, which the system then reduces to 0% steady-state error. In this initial investigation, the settling time to reach the regulated position was approximately 8 seconds, with 2 seconds of delay between the command start of motion due to capacitance of the pneumatics, for a total of 10 seconds to regulate the error. Conclusion: The surface image-guided soft robotic patient positioning system can achieve accurate mannequin head flexion/extension motion. Given this promising initial Result, the extension of the current one-dimensional soft robot control to multiple IABs for non-rigid positioning control

SU-E-J-12: An Image-Guided Soft Robotic Patient Positioning System for Maskless Head-And-Neck Cancer Radiotherapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ogunmolu, O; Gans, N [The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX (United States); Jiang, S; Gu, X [UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX (United States)

2015-06-15

Purpose: We propose a surface-image-guided soft robotic patient positioning system for maskless head-and-neck radiotherapy. The ultimate goal of this project is to utilize a soft robot to realize non-rigid patient positioning and real-time motion compensation. In this proof-of-concept study, we design a position-based visual servoing control system for an air-bladder-based soft robot and investigate its performance in controlling the flexion/extension cranial motion on a mannequin head phantom. Methods: The current system consists of Microsoft Kinect depth camera, an inflatable air bladder (IAB), pressured air source, pneumatic valve actuators, custom-built current regulators, and a National Instruments myRIO microcontroller. The performance of the designed system was evaluated on a mannequin head, with a ball joint fixed below its neck to simulate torso-induced head motion along flexion/extension direction. The IAB is placed beneath the mannequin head. The Kinect camera captures images of the mannequin head, extracts the face, and measures the position of the head relative to the camera. This distance is sent to the myRIO, which runs control algorithms and sends actuation commands to the valves, inflating and deflating the IAB to induce head motion. Results: For a step input, i.e. regulation of the head to a constant displacement, the maximum error was a 6% overshoot, which the system then reduces to 0% steady-state error. In this initial investigation, the settling time to reach the regulated position was approximately 8 seconds, with 2 seconds of delay between the command start of motion due to capacitance of the pneumatics, for a total of 10 seconds to regulate the error. Conclusion: The surface image-guided soft robotic patient positioning system can achieve accurate mannequin head flexion/extension motion. Given this promising initial Result, the extension of the current one-dimensional soft robot control to multiple IABs for non-rigid positioning control

Modeling coherent errors in quantum error correction

Science.gov (United States)

Greenbaum, Daniel; Dutton, Zachary

2018-01-01

Analysis of quantum error correcting codes is typically done using a stochastic, Pauli channel error model for describing the noise on physical qubits. However, it was recently found that coherent errors (systematic rotations) on physical data qubits result in both physical and logical error rates that differ significantly from those predicted by a Pauli model. Here we examine the accuracy of the Pauli approximation for noise containing coherent errors (characterized by a rotation angle ɛ) under the repetition code. We derive an analytic expression for the logical error channel as a function of arbitrary code distance d and concatenation level n, in the small error limit. We find that coherent physical errors result in logical errors that are partially coherent and therefore non-Pauli. However, the coherent part of the logical error is negligible at fewer than {ε }-({dn-1)} error correction cycles when the decoder is optimized for independent Pauli errors, thus providing a regime of validity for the Pauli approximation. Above this number of correction cycles, the persistent coherent logical error will cause logical failure more quickly than the Pauli model would predict, and this may need to be combated with coherent suppression methods at the physical level or larger codes.

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Calisti, M; Picardi, G; Laschi, C

2017-05-01

Soft robotics and its related technologies enable robot abilities in several robotics domains including, but not exclusively related to, manipulation, manufacturing, human-robot interaction and locomotion. Although field applications have emerged for soft manipulation and human-robot interaction, mobile soft robots appear to remain in the research stage, involving the somehow conflictual goals of having a deformable body and exerting forces on the environment to achieve locomotion. This paper aims to provide a reference guide for researchers approaching mobile soft robotics, to describe the underlying principles of soft robot locomotion with its pros and cons, and to envisage applications and further developments for mobile soft robotics. © 2017 The Author(s).

Soft-Material Robotics

OpenAIRE

Wang, L; Nurzaman, SG; Iida, Fumiya

2017-01-01

There has been a boost of research activities in robotics using soft materials in the past ten years. It is expected that the use and control of soft materials can help realize robotic systems that are safer, cheaper, and more adaptable than the level that the conventional rigid-material robots can achieve. Contrary to a number of existing review and position papers on soft-material robotics, which mostly present case studies and/or discuss trends and challenges, the review focuses on the fun...

Hardware Implementation of A Non-RLL Soft-decoding Beacon-based Visible Light Communication Receiver

OpenAIRE

Nguyen, Duc-Phuc; Le, Dinh-Dung; Tran, Thi-Hong; Huynh, Huu-Thuan; Nakashima, Yasuhiko

2018-01-01

Visible light communication (VLC)-based beacon systems, which usually transmit identification (ID) information in small-size data frames are applied widely in indoor localization applications. There is one fact that flicker of LED light should be avoid in any VLC systems. Current flicker mitigation solutions based on run-length limited (RLL) codes suffer from reduced code rates, or are limited to hard-decoding forward error correction (FEC) decoders. Recently, soft-decoding techniques of RLL-...

Errors in causal inference: an organizational schema for systematic error and random error.

Science.gov (United States)

Suzuki, Etsuji; Tsuda, Toshihide; Mitsuhashi, Toshiharu; Mansournia, Mohammad Ali; Yamamoto, Eiji

2016-11-01

To provide an organizational schema for systematic error and random error in estimating causal measures, aimed at clarifying the concept of errors from the perspective of causal inference. We propose to divide systematic error into structural error and analytic error. With regard to random error, our schema shows its four major sources: nondeterministic counterfactuals, sampling variability, a mechanism that generates exposure events and measurement variability. Structural error is defined from the perspective of counterfactual reasoning and divided into nonexchangeability bias (which comprises confounding bias and selection bias) and measurement bias. Directed acyclic graphs are useful to illustrate this kind of error. Nonexchangeability bias implies a lack of "exchangeability" between the selected exposed and unexposed groups. A lack of exchangeability is not a primary concern of measurement bias, justifying its separation from confounding bias and selection bias. Many forms of analytic errors result from the small-sample properties of the estimator used and vanish asymptotically. Analytic error also results from wrong (misspecified) statistical models and inappropriate statistical methods. Our organizational schema is helpful for understanding the relationship between systematic error and random error from a previously less investigated aspect, enabling us to better understand the relationship between accuracy, validity, and precision. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Teaching Soft Skills Employers Need

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Maureen; Kisling, Eric; Hackworth, Robbie G.

2014-01-01

This study identifies the soft skills community colleges teach in an office technology course and determines whether the skills taught are congruent with the soft skills employers require in today's entry-level office work. A qualitative content analysis of a community college office technology soft skills course was performed using 23 soft skills…

Spin waves in the soft layer of exchange-coupled soft/hard bilayers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Xiong, Zheng-min; Ge, Su-qin; Wang, Xi-guang; Li, Zhi-xiong; Xia, Qing-lin; Wang, Dao-wei; Nie, Yao-zhuang; Guo, Guang-hua, E-mail: guogh@mail.csu.edu.cn [School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China); Tang, Wei [School of Physics and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha 410083 (China); Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123 (China); Zeng, Zhong-ming [Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou 215123 (China)

2016-05-15

The magnetic dynamical properties of the soft layer in exchange-coupled soft/hard bilayers have been investigated numerically using a one-dimensional atomic chain model. The frequencies and spatial profiles of spin wave eigenmodes are calculated during the magnetization reversal process of the soft layer. The spin wave modes exhibit a spatially modulated amplitude, which is especially evident for high-order modes. A dynamic pinning effect of surface magnetic moment is observed. The spin wave eigenfrequency decreases linearly with the increase of the magnetic field in the uniformly magnetized state and increases nonlinearly with field when spiral magnetization configuration is formed in the soft layer.

Spin waves in the soft layer of exchange-coupled soft/hard bilayers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng-min Xiong

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The magnetic dynamical properties of the soft layer in exchange-coupled soft/hard bilayers have been investigated numerically using a one-dimensional atomic chain model. The frequencies and spatial profiles of spin wave eigenmodes are calculated during the magnetization reversal process of the soft layer. The spin wave modes exhibit a spatially modulated amplitude, which is especially evident for high-order modes. A dynamic pinning effect of surface magnetic moment is observed. The spin wave eigenfrequency decreases linearly with the increase of the magnetic field in the uniformly magnetized state and increases nonlinearly with field when spiral magnetization configuration is formed in the soft layer.

Nasal Soft-Tissue Triangle Deformities.

Science.gov (United States)

Foda, Hossam M T

2016-08-01

The soft-tissue triangle is one of the least areas attended to in rhinoplasty. Any postoperative retraction, notching, or asymmetries of soft triangles can seriously affect the rhinoplasty outcome. A good understanding of the risk factors predisposing to soft triangle deformities is necessary to prevent such problems. The commonest risk factors in our study were the wide vertical domal angle between the lateral and intermediate crura, and the increased length of intermediate crus. Two types of soft triangle grafts were described to prevent and treat soft triangle deformities. The used soft triangle grafts resulted in an excellent long-term aesthetic and functional improvement. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Synergy of modeling processes in the area of soft and hard modeling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sika Robert

2017-01-01

Full Text Available High complexity of production processes results in more frequent use of computer systems for their modeling and simulation. Process modeling helps to find optimal solution, verify some assumptions before implementation and eliminate errors. In practice, modeling of production processes concerns two areas: hard modeling (based on differential equations of mathematical physics and soft (based on existing data. In the paper the possibility of synergistic connection of these two approaches was indicated: it means hard modeling support based on the tools used in soft modeling. It aims at significant reducing the time in order to obtain final results with the use of hard modeling. Some test were carried out in the Calibrate module of NovaFlow&Solid (NF&S simulation system in the frame of thermal analysis (ATAS-cup. The authors tested output values forecasting in NF&S system (solidification time on the basis of variable parameters of the thermal model (heat conduction, specific heat, density. Collected data was used as an input to prepare soft model with the use of MLP (Multi-Layer Perceptron neural network regression model. The approach described above enable to reduce the time of production process modeling with use of hard modeling and should encourage production companies to use it.

Holiday fun with soft gluons

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2017-01-01

Emissions of soft gluons from energetic particles play an important role in collider processes. While the basic physics of soft emissions is simple, it gives rise to a variety of interesting and intricate phenomena (non-global logs, Glauber phases, super-leading logs, factorization breaking). After an introduction, I will review progress in resummation methods such as Soft-Collinear Effective Theory driven by a better understanding of soft emissions. I will also show some new results for computations of soft-gluon effects in gap-between-jets and isolation-cone cross sections.

Fixing soft margins

NARCIS (Netherlands)

P. Kofman (Paul); A. Vaal, de (Albert); C.G. de Vries (Casper)

1993-01-01

textabstractNon-parametric tolerance limits are employed to calculate soft margins such as advocated in Williamson's target zone proposal. In particular, the tradeoff between softness and zone width is quantified. This may be helpful in choosing appropriate margins. Furthermore, it offers

Advances in Soft Matter Mechanics

CERN Document Server

Li, Shaofan

2012-01-01

"Advances in Soft Matter Mechanics" is a compilation and selection of recent works in soft matter mechanics by a group of active researchers in the field. The main objectives of this book are first to disseminate the latest developments in soft matter mechanics in the field of applied and computational mechanics, and second to introduce soft matter mechanics as a sub-discipline of soft matter physics. As an important branch of soft matter physics, soft matter mechanics has developed rapidly in recent years. A number of the novel approaches discussed in this book are unique, such as the coarse grained finite element method for modeling colloidal adhesion, entropic elasticity, meshfree simulations of liquid crystal elastomers, simulations of DNA, etc. The book is intended for researchers and graduate students in the field of mechanics, condensed matter physics and biomaterials. Dr. Shaofan Li is a professor of the University of California-Berkeley, U.S.A; Dr. Bohua Sun is a professor of Cape Peninsula Universit...

Clinical management of soft tissue sarcomas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pinedo, H.M.; Verweij, J.

1986-01-01

This book is concerned with the clinical management of soft tissue sarcomas. Topics covered include: Radiotherapy; Pathology of soft tissue sarcomas; Surgical treatment of soft tissue sarcomas; and Chemotherapy in advanced soft tissue sarcomas

Soft optics in intelligent optical networks

Science.gov (United States)

Shue, Chikong; Cao, Yang

2001-10-01

In addition to the recent advances in Hard-optics that pushes the optical transmission speed, distance, wave density and optical switching capacity, Soft-optics provides the necessary intelligence and control software that reduces operational costs, increase efficiency, and enhances revenue generating services by automating optimal optical circuit placement and restoration, and enabling value-added new services like Optical VPN. This paper describes the advances in 1) Overall Hard-optics and Soft-optics 2) Layered hierarchy of Soft-optics 3) Component of Soft-optics, including hard-optics drivers, Management Soft-optics, Routing Soft-optics and System Soft-optics 4) Key component of Routing and System Soft-optics, namely optical routing and signaling (including UNI/NNI and GMPLS signaling). In summary, the soft-optics on a new generation of OXC's enables Intelligent Optical Networks to provide just-in-time service delivery and fast restoration, and real-time capacity management that eliminates stranded bandwidth. It reduces operational costs and provides new revenue opportunities.

CHARACTERIZATIONS OF FUZZY SOFT PRE SEPARATION AXIOMS

OpenAIRE

El-Latif, Alaa Mohamed Abd

2015-01-01

− The notions of fuzzy pre open soft sets and fuzzy pre closed soft sets were introducedby Abd El-latif et al. [2]. In this paper, we continue the study on fuzzy soft topological spaces andinvestigate the properties of fuzzy pre open soft sets, fuzzy pre closed soft sets and study variousproperties and notions related to these structures. In particular, we study the relationship betweenfuzzy pre soft interior fuzzy pre soft closure. Moreover, we study the properties of fuzzy soft pre regulars...

Error begat error: design error analysis and prevention in social infrastructure projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Love, Peter E D; Lopez, Robert; Edwards, David J; Goh, Yang M

2012-09-01

Design errors contribute significantly to cost and schedule growth in social infrastructure projects and to engineering failures, which can result in accidents and loss of life. Despite considerable research that has addressed their error causation in construction projects they still remain prevalent. This paper identifies the underlying conditions that contribute to design errors in social infrastructure projects (e.g. hospitals, education, law and order type buildings). A systemic model of error causation is propagated and subsequently used to develop a learning framework for design error prevention. The research suggests that a multitude of strategies should be adopted in congruence to prevent design errors from occurring and so ensure that safety and project performance are ameliorated. Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Soft Hair on Black Holes

Science.gov (United States)

Hawking, Stephen W.; Perry, Malcolm J.; Strominger, Andrew

2016-06-01

It has recently been shown that Bondi-van der Burg-Metzner-Sachs supertranslation symmetries imply an infinite number of conservation laws for all gravitational theories in asymptotically Minkowskian spacetimes. These laws require black holes to carry a large amount of soft (i.e., zero-energy) supertranslation hair. The presence of a Maxwell field similarly implies soft electric hair. This Letter gives an explicit description of soft hair in terms of soft gravitons or photons on the black hole horizon, and shows that complete information about their quantum state is stored on a holographic plate at the future boundary of the horizon. Charge conservation is used to give an infinite number of exact relations between the evaporation products of black holes which have different soft hair but are otherwise identical. It is further argued that soft hair which is spatially localized to much less than a Planck length cannot be excited in a physically realizable process, giving an effective number of soft degrees of freedom proportional to the horizon area in Planck units.

Soft Hair on Black Holes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hawking, Stephen W; Perry, Malcolm J; Strominger, Andrew

2016-06-10

It has recently been shown that Bondi-van der Burg-Metzner-Sachs supertranslation symmetries imply an infinite number of conservation laws for all gravitational theories in asymptotically Minkowskian spacetimes. These laws require black holes to carry a large amount of soft (i.e., zero-energy) supertranslation hair. The presence of a Maxwell field similarly implies soft electric hair. This Letter gives an explicit description of soft hair in terms of soft gravitons or photons on the black hole horizon, and shows that complete information about their quantum state is stored on a holographic plate at the future boundary of the horizon. Charge conservation is used to give an infinite number of exact relations between the evaporation products of black holes which have different soft hair but are otherwise identical. It is further argued that soft hair which is spatially localized to much less than a Planck length cannot be excited in a physically realizable process, giving an effective number of soft degrees of freedom proportional to the horizon area in Planck units.

Soft skills and dental education.

Science.gov (United States)

Gonzalez, M A G; Abu Kasim, N H; Naimie, Z

2013-05-01

Soft skills and hard skills are essential in the practice of dentistry. While hard skills deal with technical proficiency, soft skills relate to a personal values and interpersonal skills that determine a person's ability to fit in a particular situation. These skills contribute to the success of organisations that deal face-to-face with clients. Effective soft skills benefit the dental practice. However, the teaching of soft skills remains a challenge to dental schools. This paper discusses the different soft skills, how they are taught and assessed and the issues that need to be addressed in their teaching and assessment. The use of the module by the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya for development of soft skills for institutions of higher learning introduced by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Soft Matter Characterization

CERN Document Server

Borsali, Redouane

2008-01-01

Progress in basic soft matter research is driven largely by the experimental techniques available. Much of the work is concerned with understanding them at the microscopic level, especially at the nanometer length scales that give soft matter studies a wide overlap with nanotechnology. This 2 volume reference work, split into 4 parts, presents detailed discussions of many of the major techniques commonly used as well as some of those in current development for studying and manipulating soft matter. The articles are intended to be accessible to the interdisciplinary audience (at the graduate student level and above) that is or will be engaged in soft matter studies or those in other disciplines who wish to view some of the research methods in this fascinating field. Part 1 contains articles with a largely (but, in most cases, not exclusively) theoretical content and/or that cover material relevant to more than one of the techniques covered in subsequent volumes. It includes an introductory chapter on some of t...

Soft Manipulators and Grippers: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Josie Hughes

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Soft robotics is a growing area of research which utilises the compliance and adaptability of soft structures to develop highly adaptive robotics for soft interactions. One area in which soft robotics has the ability to make significant impact is in the development of soft grippers and manipulators. With an increased requirement for automation, robotics systems are required to perform task in unstructured and not well defined environments; conditions which conventional rigid robotics are not best suited. This requires a paradigm shift in the methods and materials used to develop robots such that they can adapt to and work safely in human environments. One solution to this is soft robotics, which enables soft interactions with the surroundings whilst maintaining the ability to apply significant force. This review paper assess the current materials and methods, actuation methods and sensors which are used in the development of soft manipulators. The achievements and shortcomings of recent technology in these key areas are evaluated, and this paper concludes with a discussion on the potential impacts of soft manipulators on industry and society.

Critical issues in soft rocks

OpenAIRE

Milton Assis Kanji

2014-01-01

This paper discusses several efforts made to study and investigate soft rocks, as well as their physico-mechanical characteristics recognized up to now, the problems in their sampling and testing, and the possibility of its reproduction through artificially made soft rocks. The problems in utilizing current and widespread classification systems to some types of weak rocks are also discussed, as well as other problems related to them. Some examples of engineering works in soft rock or in soft ...

Soft skills and dental education

OpenAIRE

Gonzalez, M. A. G.; Abu Kasim, N. H.; Naimie, Z.

2014-01-01

Soft skills and hard skills are essential in the practice of dentistry. While hard skills deal with technical proficiency, soft skills relate to a personal values and interpersonal skills that determine a person's ability to fit in a particular situation. These skills contribute to the success of organisations that deal face-to-face with clients. Effective soft skills benefit the dental practice. However, the teaching of soft skills remains a challenge to dental schools. This paper discusses ...

MANAGEMENT SOFT-FACTORS IN INDUSTRIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. V. Fatkin

2012-01-01

Full Text Available No proper attention is given in existing management theories and concepts to systematization and analysis of non-material management factors, so-called «soft-factors». In industries, management soft-factors may be treated in a broader way. An example of a broader treatment of management soft-factors is given for the system of state regulation of foreign trade activities in industries along with specification, determination and rating of organizational and administrative management soft-factors.

Translational and rotational intra- and inter-fractional errors in patient and target position during a short course of frameless stereotactic body radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Josipovic, Mirjana; Fredberg Persson, Gitte; Logadottir, Aashildur; Smulders, Bob; Westmann, Gunnar; Bangsgaard, Jens Peter

2012-01-01

Background. Implementation of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) in frameless stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) of lung tumours enables setup correction based on tumour position. The aim of this study was to compare setup accuracy with daily soft tissue matching to bony anatomy matching and evaluate intra- and inter-fractional translational and rotational errors in patient and target positions. Material and methods. Fifteen consecutive SBRT patients were included in the study. Vacuum cushions were used for immobilisation. SBRT plans were based on midventilation phase of four-dimensional (4D)-CT or three-dimensional (3D)-CT from PET/CT. Margins of 5 mm in the transversal plane and 10 mm in the cranio-caudal (CC) direction were applied. SBRT was delivered in three fractions within a week. At each fraction, CBCT was performed before and after the treatment. Setup accuracy comparison between soft tissue matching and bony anatomy matching was evaluated on pretreatment CBCTs. From differences in pre- and post-treatment CBCTs, we evaluated the extent of translational and rotational intra-fractional changes in patient position, tumour position and tumour baseline shift. All image registration was rigid with six degrees of freedom. Results. The median 3D difference between patient position based on bony anatomy matching and soft tissue matching was 3.0 mm (0-8.3 mm). The median 3D intra-fractional change in patient position was 1.4 mm (0-12.2 mm) and 2.2 mm (0-13.2 mm) in tumour position. The median 3D intra-fractional baseline shift was 2.2 mm (0-4.7 mm). With correction of translational errors, the remaining systematic and random errors were approximately 1deg. Conclusion. Soft tissue tumour matching improved precision of treatment delivery in frameless SBRT of lung tumours compared to image guidance using bone matching. The intra-fractional displacement of the target position was affected by both translational and rotational changes in tumour baseline position

Soft-Decision-Data Reshuffle to Mitigate Pulsed Radio Frequency Interference Impact on Low-Density-Parity-Check Code Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Ni, Jianjun David

2011-01-01

This presentation briefly discusses a research effort on mitigation techniques of pulsed radio frequency interference (RFI) on a Low-Density-Parity-Check (LDPC) code. This problem is of considerable interest in the context of providing reliable communications to the space vehicle which might suffer severe degradation due to pulsed RFI sources such as large radars. The LDPC code is one of modern forward-error-correction (FEC) codes which have the decoding performance to approach the Shannon Limit. The LDPC code studied here is the AR4JA (2048, 1024) code recommended by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) and it has been chosen for some spacecraft design. Even though this code is designed as a powerful FEC code in the additive white Gaussian noise channel, simulation data and test results show that the performance of this LDPC decoder is severely degraded when exposed to the pulsed RFI specified in the spacecraft s transponder specifications. An analysis work (through modeling and simulation) has been conducted to evaluate the impact of the pulsed RFI and a few implemental techniques have been investigated to mitigate the pulsed RFI impact by reshuffling the soft-decision-data available at the input of the LDPC decoder. The simulation results show that the LDPC decoding performance of codeword error rate (CWER) under pulsed RFI can be improved up to four orders of magnitude through a simple soft-decision-data reshuffle scheme. This study reveals that an error floor of LDPC decoding performance appears around CWER=1E-4 when the proposed technique is applied to mitigate the pulsed RFI impact. The mechanism causing this error floor remains unknown, further investigation is necessary.

Soft Clouding

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Søndergaard, Morten; Markussen, Thomas; Wetton, Barnabas

2012-01-01

Soft Clouding is a blended concept, which describes the aim of a collaborative and transdisciplinary project. The concept is a metaphor implying a blend of cognitive, embodied interaction and semantic web. Furthermore, it is a metaphor describing our attempt of curating a new semantics of sound...... archiving. The Soft Clouding Project is part of LARM - a major infrastructure combining research in and access to sound and radio archives in Denmark. In 2012 the LARM infrastructure will consist of more than 1 million hours of radio, combined with metadata who describes the content. The idea is to analyse...... the concept of ‘infrastructure’ and ‘interface’ on a creative play with the fundamentals of LARM (and any sound archive situation combining many kinds and layers of data and sources). This paper will present and discuss the Soft clouding project from the perspective of the three practices and competencies...

Soft theorems from conformal field theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lipstein, Arthur E.

2015-01-01

Strominger and collaborators recently proposed that soft theorems for gauge and gravity amplitudes can be interpreted as Ward identities of a 2d CFT at null infinity. In this paper, we will consider a specific realization of this CFT known as ambitwistor string theory, which describes 4d Yang-Mills and gravity with any amount of supersymmetry. Using 4d ambtwistor string theory, we derive soft theorems in the form of an infinite series in the soft momentum which are valid to subleading order in gauge theory and sub-subleading order in gravity. Furthermore, we describe how the algebra of soft limits can be encoded in the braiding of soft vertex operators on the worldsheet and point out a simple relation between soft gluon and soft graviton vertex operators which suggests an interesting connection to color-kinematics duality. Finally, by considering ambitwistor string theory on a genus one worldsheet, we compute the 1-loop correction to the subleading soft graviton theorem due to infrared divergences.

The lucky image-motion prediction for simple scene observation based soft-sensor technology

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yan; Su, Yun; Hu, Bin

2015-08-01

High resolution is important to earth remote sensors, while the vibration of the platforms of the remote sensors is a major factor restricting high resolution imaging. The image-motion prediction and real-time compensation are key technologies to solve this problem. For the reason that the traditional autocorrelation image algorithm cannot meet the demand for the simple scene image stabilization, this paper proposes to utilize soft-sensor technology in image-motion prediction, and focus on the research of algorithm optimization in imaging image-motion prediction. Simulations results indicate that the improving lucky image-motion stabilization algorithm combining the Back Propagation Network (BP NN) and support vector machine (SVM) is the most suitable for the simple scene image stabilization. The relative error of the image-motion prediction based the soft-sensor technology is below 5%, the training computing speed of the mathematical predication model is as fast as the real-time image stabilization in aerial photography.

A Wireless Sensor Network with Soft Computing Localization Techniques for Track Cycling Applications.

Science.gov (United States)

Gharghan, Sadik Kamel; Nordin, Rosdiadee; Ismail, Mahamod

2016-08-06

In this paper, we propose two soft computing localization techniques for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The two techniques, Neural Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN), focus on a range-based localization method which relies on the measurement of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) from the three ZigBee anchor nodes distributed throughout the track cycling field. The soft computing techniques aim to estimate the distance between bicycles moving on the cycle track for outdoor and indoor velodromes. In the first approach the ANFIS was considered, whereas in the second approach the ANN was hybridized individually with three optimization algorithms, namely Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA), and Backtracking Search Algorithm (BSA). The results revealed that the hybrid GSA-ANN outperforms the other methods adopted in this paper in terms of accuracy localization and distance estimation accuracy. The hybrid GSA-ANN achieves a mean absolute distance estimation error of 0.02 m and 0.2 m for outdoor and indoor velodromes, respectively.

Compensation of the Persistent Current Multipoles in the LHC Dipoles by making the Coil Protection Sheet from Soft Magnetic Material

CERN Document Server

Völlinger, C

2000-01-01

This note presents a scheme for compensating the persistent current multipole errors of the LHC dipoles by making the coil protection sheets from soft magnetic material of 0.5 mm thickness. The material properties assumed in this study are those of iron sheets with a very low content of impurities (99.99% pure Fe). The non-linearities in the upramp cycle on the b3 multipole component can be reduced by the factor of four (while decreasing the b5 variation by the factor of two. Using sheets of slightly different thicknesses offers a tuning possibility for the series magnet coils and can compensate deviations arising from cables of different suppliers. The calculation method is based on a semi-analytical hysteresis model for hard superconductors and an M(B) - iteration using the method of coupled boundary elements - finite elements (BEM - FEM). It is now possible to compute persistent current multipole errors of geometries with arbitrarily shaped iron yokes and thin layers of soft magnetic material such as tunin...

The softness of an atom in a molecule and a functional group softness definition; an LCAO scale

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giambiagi, M.; Giambiagi, M.S. de; Pires, J.M.; Pitanga, P.

1987-01-01

We introduce a scale for the softness of an atom in different molecules and we similarly define a functional group softness. These definitions, unlike previous ones, are not tied to the finite difference approximation neither, hence, to valence state ionization potentials and electron affinities; they result from the LCAO calculation itself. We conclude that a) the softness of an atom in a molecule shows wide variations; b) the geometric average of the softnesses of the atoms in the molecule gives the most consistent results for the molecular softnesses; c) the functional group softness is transferable within a homologous series. (Author) [pt

Int-Soft Interior Hyperideals of Ordered Semihypergroups

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asghar Khan

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The main theme of this paper is to study ordered semihypergroups in the context of int-soft interior hyperideals. In this paper, the notion of int-soft interior hyperideals are studied and their related properties are discussed. We present characterizations of interior hyperideals in terms of int-soft interior hyperideals. The concepts of int-soft hyperideals and int-soft interior hyperideals coincide in a regular as well as in intra-regular ordered semihypergroups. We prove that every int-soft hyperideal is an int-soft interior hyperideal but the converse is not true which is shown with help of an example. Furthermore we characterize simple ordered semihypergroups by means of int-soft hyperideals and int-soft interior hyperideals.

Errors, error detection, error correction and hippocampal-region damage: data and theories.

Science.gov (United States)

MacKay, Donald G; Johnson, Laura W

2013-11-01

This review and perspective article outlines 15 observational constraints on theories of errors, error detection, and error correction, and their relation to hippocampal-region (HR) damage. The core observations come from 10 studies with H.M., an amnesic with cerebellar and HR damage but virtually no neocortical damage. Three studies examined the detection of errors planted in visual scenes (e.g., a bird flying in a fish bowl in a school classroom) and sentences (e.g., I helped themselves to the birthday cake). In all three experiments, H.M. detected reliably fewer errors than carefully matched memory-normal controls. Other studies examined the detection and correction of self-produced errors, with controls for comprehension of the instructions, impaired visual acuity, temporal factors, motoric slowing, forgetting, excessive memory load, lack of motivation, and deficits in visual scanning or attention. In these studies, H.M. corrected reliably fewer errors than memory-normal and cerebellar controls, and his uncorrected errors in speech, object naming, and reading aloud exhibited two consistent features: omission and anomaly. For example, in sentence production tasks, H.M. omitted one or more words in uncorrected encoding errors that rendered his sentences anomalous (incoherent, incomplete, or ungrammatical) reliably more often than controls. Besides explaining these core findings, the theoretical principles discussed here explain H.M.'s retrograde amnesia for once familiar episodic and semantic information; his anterograde amnesia for novel information; his deficits in visual cognition, sentence comprehension, sentence production, sentence reading, and object naming; and effects of aging on his ability to read isolated low frequency words aloud. These theoretical principles also explain a wide range of other data on error detection and correction and generate new predictions for future test. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Preparing soft-bodied arthropods for microscope examination: Soft Scales (Insecta: Hemiptera: Coccidae)

Science.gov (United States)

Proper identification of soft scales (Hemiptera:Coccidae) requires preparation of the specimen on a microscope slide. This training video provides visual instruction on how to prepare soft scale specimens on microscope slides for examination and identification. Steps ranging from collection, speci...

Measurement of the refractive index of soft contact lenses during wear.

Science.gov (United States)

Varikooty, Jalaiah; Keir, Nancy; Woods, Craig A; Fonn, Desmond

2010-01-01

To determine whether the refractive index (RI) of a soft contact lens can be evaluated using refractometry while the lens remains on the eye and to compare this with more traditional ex vivo RI measurements. A slitlamp apparatus was modified to incorporate a customized Atago hand refractometer. With a double-masked study design, nine adapted symptomatic soft contact lens wearers wore a contact lens in each eye (lotrafilcon B and etafilcon A) in a randomized order. In vivo RI was determined from the relative Brix scale measurements immediately after lens insertion and after 1 and 10 hr of lens wear. Ex vivo refractometry was performed after 10 hr of lens wear for comparison. Means +/- standard errors of the means are reported. In vivo RI values at baseline were 1.422 +/- 0.0004 (lotrafilcon B) and 1.405 +/- 0.0021 (etafilcon A); after 1 hr of lens wear, values were 1.423 +/- 0.0006 and 1.408 +/- 0.0007, respectively; and after 10 hr of lens wear, values were 1.424 +/- 0.0004 and 1.411 +/- 0.0010, respectively. Ex vivo RI values at the end of the 10 hr wearing period were 1.424 +/- 0.0003 (lotrafilcon B) and 1.412 +/- 0.0017 (etafilcon A). The change in in vivo RI across the day was statistically significant for the etafilcon A lens (repeated-measures analysis of variance, P0.05). This novel adaptation of refractometry was able to measure the RI of soft contact lenses during wear (without lens removal). End of day RI measurements using in vivo and ex vivo refractometry were comparable with each other. Future work is required to determine whether this in vivo method can improve our understanding of the relationships between soft contact lens RI, hydration, on-eye lens performance, and symptomology.

In vitro measurement of CT density and estimation of stenosis related to coronary soft plaque at 100 kV and 120 kV on ECG-triggered scan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Horiguchi, Jun, E-mail: horiguch@hiroshima-u.ac.jp [Department of Clinical Radiology, Hiroshima University Hospital, 1-2-3, Kasumi-cho, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551 (Japan); Fujioka, Chikako, E-mail: fujioka@hiroshima-u.ac.jp [Department of Clinical Radiology, Hiroshima University Hospital, 1-2-3, Kasumi-cho, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551 (Japan); Kiguchi, Masao, E-mail: kiguchi@hiroshima-u.ac.jp [Department of Clinical Radiology, Hiroshima University Hospital, 1-2-3, Kasumi-cho, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551 (Japan); Yamamoto, Hideya, E-mail: hideyayama@hiroshima-u.ac.jp [Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Hiroshima University Hospital, 1-2-3, Kasumi-cho, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551 (Japan); Shen, Yun, E-mail: Yuna.Shen@ge.com [CT Lab of Great China, GE Healthcare, L12 and L15, Office Tower, Langham Place, 8 Argyle Street, Mongkok Kowloon (Hong Kong); Kihara, Yasuki, E-mail: ykihara@hiroshima-u.ac.jp [Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Hiroshima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Hiroshima University Hospital, 1-2-3, Kasumi-cho, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734-8551 (Japan)

2011-02-15

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to compare 100 kV and 120 kV prospective electrocardiograph (ECG)-triggered axial coronary 64-detector CT angiography (64-MDCTA) in soft plaque diagnosis. Materials and methods: Coronary artery models (n = 5) with artificial soft plaques (-32 HU to 53 HU at 120 kV) with three stenosis levels (25%, 50% and 75%) on a cardiac phantom (mimicking slim patient's environment) were scanned in heart rates of 55, 60 and 65 beats per minute (bpm). Four kinds of intracoronary enhancement (205 HU, 241 HU, 280 HU and 314 HU) were simulated. The soft plaque density and the measurement error of stenosis (in percentage), evaluated by two independent observers, were compared between 100 kV and 120 kV. The radiation dose was estimated. Results: Interobserver correlation of the measurement was excellent (density; r = 0.95 and stenosis measure; r = 0.97). Neither the density of soft plaque nor the measurement error of stenosis was different between 100 kV and 120 kV (p = 0.22 and 0.08). The estimated radiation doses were 2.0 mSv and 3.3 mSv (in 14 cm coverage) on 100 kV and 120 kV prospective ECG-triggered axial scans, respectively. Conclusion: The 100 kV prospective ECG-triggered coronary MDCTA has comparable performance to 120 kV coronary CTA in terms of soft plaque densitometry and measurement of stenosis, with a reduced effective dose of 2 mSv.

Optimization of intelligent infusion pump technology to minimize vasopressor pump programming errors.

Science.gov (United States)

Vadiei, Nina; Shuman, Carrie A; Murthy, Manasa S; Daley, Mitchell J

2017-08-01

There is a lack of data evaluating the impact of hard limit implementation into intelligent infusion pump technology (IIPT). The purpose of this study was to determine if incorporation of vasopressor upper hard limits (UHL) into IIPT increases efficacy of alerts by preventing pump programming errors. Retrospective review from five hospitals within a single healthcare network between April 1, 2013 and May 31, 2014. A total of 65,680 vasopressor data entries were evaluated; 19,377 prior to hard limit implementation and 46,303 after hard limit implementation. The primary outcome was the percent of effective alerts. The secondary outcome was the proportional dose increase from the soft limit provided. A reduction in alert rate occurred after incorporation of hard limits to the IIPT drug library (pre-UHL 4.7% vs. post-UHL 4.0%) with a subsequent increase in the number of errors prevented as represented by a higher effective alert rate (pre-UHL 23.0% vs. post-UHL 37.3%; p < 0.001). The proportional dose increase was significantly reduced (pre-UHL 188% ± 380%] vs. post-UHL 95% ± 128%; p < 0.001). Incorporation of UHLs into IIPT in a multi-site health system with varying intensive care unit and emergency department acuity increases alert effectiveness, reduces dosing errors, and reduces the magnitude of dosing errors that reach the patient.

Error-correction coding for digital communications

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, G. C., Jr.; Cain, J. B.

This book is written for the design engineer who must build the coding and decoding equipment and for the communication system engineer who must incorporate this equipment into a system. It is also suitable as a senior-level or first-year graduate text for an introductory one-semester course in coding theory. Fundamental concepts of coding are discussed along with group codes, taking into account basic principles, practical constraints, performance computations, coding bounds, generalized parity check codes, polynomial codes, and important classes of group codes. Other topics explored are related to simple nonalgebraic decoding techniques for group codes, soft decision decoding of block codes, algebraic techniques for multiple error correction, the convolutional code structure and Viterbi decoding, syndrome decoding techniques, and sequential decoding techniques. System applications are also considered, giving attention to concatenated codes, coding for the white Gaussian noise channel, interleaver structures for coded systems, and coding for burst noise channels.

Erratum: Correction to: Long- and Mid-Term Variations of the Soft X-ray Flare Character in Solar Cycles

Science.gov (United States)

Chertok, I. M.; Belov, A. V.

2018-03-01

Correction to: Solar Phys https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-017-1169-1 We found an important error in the text of our article. On page 6, the second sentence of Section 3.2 "We studied the variations in soft X-ray flare characteristics in more detail by averaging them within the running windows of ± one Carrington rotation with a step of two rotations." should instead read "We studied the variations in soft X-ray flare characteristics in more detail by averaging them within the running windows of ± 2.5 Carrington rotations with a step of two rotations." We regret the inconvenience. The online version of the original article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-017-1169-1

Evaluating Six Soft Approaches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup; Valqui Vidal, René Victor

2008-01-01

's interactive planning principles to be supported by soft approaches in carrying out the principles in action. These six soft approaches are suitable forsupporting various steps of the strategy development and planning process. These are the SWOT analysis, the Future Workshop, the Scenario methodology......, Strategic Option Development and Analysis, Strategic Choice Approach and Soft Systems Methodology. Evaluations of each methodology are carried out using a conceptual framework in which the organisation, the result, the process and the technology of the specific approach are taken into consideration. Using...

Evaluating six soft approaches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Lene Tolstrup; Vidal, Rene Victor Valqui

2008-01-01

's interactive planning principles to be supported by soft approaches in carrying out the principles in action. These six soft approaches are suitable forsupporting various steps of the strategy development and planning process. These are the SWOT analysis, the Future Workshop, the Scenario methodology......, Strategic Option Development and Analysis, Strategic Choice Approach and Soft Systems Methodology. Evaluations of each methodology are carried out using a conceptual framework in which the organisation, the result, the process and the technology of the specific approach are taken into consideration. Using...

Applications of Soft Sets in -Algebras

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. O. Alshehri

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In 1999, Molodtsov introduced the concept of soft set theory as a general mathematical tool for dealing with uncertainty and vagueness. In this paper, we apply the concept of soft sets to K-algebras and investigate some properties of Abelian soft K-algebras. We also introduce the concept of soft intersection K-algebras and investigate some of their properties.

CAT & MAUS: A novel system for true dynamic motion measurement of underlying bony structures with compensation for soft tissue movement.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Rui; Monk, Paul; Murray, David; Noble, J Alison; Mellon, Stephen

2017-09-06

Optoelectronic motion capture systems are widely employed to measure the movement of human joints. However, there can be a significant discrepancy between the data obtained by a motion capture system (MCS) and the actual movement of underlying bony structures, which is attributed to soft tissue artefact. In this paper, a computer-aided tracking and motion analysis with ultrasound (CAT & MAUS) system with an augmented globally optimal registration algorithm is presented to dynamically track the underlying bony structure during movement. The augmented registration part of CAT & MAUS was validated with a high system accuracy of 80%. The Euclidean distance between the marker-based bony landmark and the bony landmark tracked by CAT & MAUS was calculated to quantify the measurement error of an MCS caused by soft tissue artefact during movement. The average Euclidean distance between the target bony landmark measured by each of the CAT & MAUS system and the MCS alone varied from 8.32mm to 16.87mm in gait. This indicates the discrepancy between the MCS measured bony landmark and the actual underlying bony landmark. Moreover, Procrustes analysis was applied to demonstrate that CAT & MAUS reduces the deformation of the body segment shape modeled by markers during motion. The augmented CAT & MAUS system shows its potential to dynamically detect and locate actual underlying bony landmarks, which reduces the MCS measurement error caused by soft tissue artefact during movement. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Learning time-dependent noise to reduce logical errors: real time error rate estimation in quantum error correction

Science.gov (United States)

Huo, Ming-Xia; Li, Ying

2017-12-01

Quantum error correction is important to quantum information processing, which allows us to reliably process information encoded in quantum error correction codes. Efficient quantum error correction benefits from the knowledge of error rates. We propose a protocol for monitoring error rates in real time without interrupting the quantum error correction. Any adaptation of the quantum error correction code or its implementation circuit is not required. The protocol can be directly applied to the most advanced quantum error correction techniques, e.g. surface code. A Gaussian processes algorithm is used to estimate and predict error rates based on error correction data in the past. We find that using these estimated error rates, the probability of error correction failures can be significantly reduced by a factor increasing with the code distance.

Transient soft X-ray sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hayakawa, S.; Murakami, T.; Nagase, F.; Tanaka, Y.; Yamashita, K.

1976-01-01

A rocket observation of cosmic soft X-rays suggests the existence of transient, recurrent soft X-ray sources which are found variable during the flight time of the rocket. Some of the soft X-ray sources thus far reported are considered to be of this time. These sources are listed and their positions are shown. (Auth.)

On Neutrosophic Soft Topological Space

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tuhin Bera

2018-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the concept of connectedness and compactness on neutrosophic soft topological space have been introduced along with the investigation of their several characteristics. Some related theorems have been established also. Then, the notion of neutrosophic soft continuous mapping on a neutrosophic soft topological space and it’s properties are developed here.

Enhancing performance of next generation FSO communication systems using soft computing-based predictions.

Science.gov (United States)

Kazaura, Kamugisha; Omae, Kazunori; Suzuki, Toshiji; Matsumoto, Mitsuji; Mutafungwa, Edward; Korhonen, Timo O; Murakami, Tadaaki; Takahashi, Koichi; Matsumoto, Hideki; Wakamori, Kazuhiko; Arimoto, Yoshinori

2006-06-12

The deterioration and deformation of a free-space optical beam wave-front as it propagates through the atmosphere can reduce the link availability and may introduce burst errors thus degrading the performance of the system. We investigate the suitability of utilizing soft-computing (SC) based tools for improving performance of free-space optical (FSO) communications systems. The SC based tools are used for the prediction of key parameters of a FSO communications system. Measured data collected from an experimental FSO communication system is used as training and testing data for a proposed multi-layer neural network predictor (MNNP) used to predict future parameter values. The predicted parameters are essential for reducing transmission errors by improving the antenna's accuracy of tracking data beams. This is particularly essential for periods considered to be of strong atmospheric turbulence. The parameter values predicted using the proposed tool show acceptable conformity with original measurements.

HISTORICAL PARALLELS OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC DOCTRINES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Avtandil SILAGADZE

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Historical experience shows that problems of economic development in certain countries are linked to the rational use of economic resources. It is not accidental that this issue was of high importance as early as in the 19th century in Georgia. An outstanding Georgian writer Ilia Tchavtchavadze (1951-1961 and other researchers (see References dedicated interesting works to studying this problem. Like German national economic doctrines, Ilia Tchavtchavadze was much concerned with the priorities of national economy. Based on the research results, the present work provides conclusions that Ilia Tchavtchavadze’s economic doctrine complies with German as well as classic economic doctrines with the only difference that development of Georgian economy should start with the development of agriculture; complies with free trade policy; gives great importance to building railway network and Batumi-Baku pipeline, development of oil industry, co-existence of private and community ownership and inadmissibility of forceful infringement of such ownership; lays foundation to building of an independent banking system in Georgia.

Evaluating six soft approaches

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Lene; Vidal, Rene Victor Valqui

2006-01-01

’s interactive planning principles to be supported by soft approaches in carrying out the principles in action. These six soft approaches are suitable for supporting various steps of the strategy development and planning process. These are the SWOT analysis, the Future Workshop, the Scenario methodology......, Strategic Option Development and Analysis, Strategic Choice Approach and Soft Systems Methodology. Evaluations of each methodology are carried out using a conceptual framework in which the organisation, the result, the process and the technology of the specific approach are taken into consideration. Using...

Soft, Embodied, Situated & Connected

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tomico, Oscar; Wilde, Danielle

2015-01-01

Soft wearables include clothing and textile-based accessories that incorporate smart textiles and soft electronic interfaces to enable responsive and interactive experiences. When designed well, they leverage the cultural, sociological and material qualities of textiles, fashion and dress; divers...

Soft, embodied, situated & connected

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tomico Plasencia, O.; Wilde, D.

2015-01-01

Soft wearables include clothing and textile-based accessories that incorporate smart textiles and soft electronic interfaces to enable responsive and interactive experiences. When designed well, they leverage the cultural, sociological and material qualities of textiles, fashion and dress; diverse

Soft tissue modelling with conical springs.

Science.gov (United States)

Omar, Nadzeri; Zhong, Yongmin; Jazar, Reza N; Subic, Aleksandar; Smith, Julian; Shirinzadeh, Bijan

2015-01-01

This paper presents a new method for real-time modelling soft tissue deformation. It improves the traditional mass-spring model with conical springs to deal with nonlinear mechanical behaviours of soft tissues. A conical spring model is developed to predict soft tissue deformation with reference to deformation patterns. The model parameters are formulated according to tissue deformation patterns and the nonlinear behaviours of soft tissues are modelled with the stiffness variation of conical spring. Experimental results show that the proposed method can describe different tissue deformation patterns using one single equation and also exhibit the typical mechanical behaviours of soft tissues.

Medication errors: prescribing faults and prescription errors.

Science.gov (United States)

Velo, Giampaolo P; Minuz, Pietro

2009-06-01

1. Medication errors are common in general practice and in hospitals. Both errors in the act of writing (prescription errors) and prescribing faults due to erroneous medical decisions can result in harm to patients. 2. Any step in the prescribing process can generate errors. Slips, lapses, or mistakes are sources of errors, as in unintended omissions in the transcription of drugs. Faults in dose selection, omitted transcription, and poor handwriting are common. 3. Inadequate knowledge or competence and incomplete information about clinical characteristics and previous treatment of individual patients can result in prescribing faults, including the use of potentially inappropriate medications. 4. An unsafe working environment, complex or undefined procedures, and inadequate communication among health-care personnel, particularly between doctors and nurses, have been identified as important underlying factors that contribute to prescription errors and prescribing faults. 5. Active interventions aimed at reducing prescription errors and prescribing faults are strongly recommended. These should be focused on the education and training of prescribers and the use of on-line aids. The complexity of the prescribing procedure should be reduced by introducing automated systems or uniform prescribing charts, in order to avoid transcription and omission errors. Feedback control systems and immediate review of prescriptions, which can be performed with the assistance of a hospital pharmacist, are also helpful. Audits should be performed periodically.

Mapping on complex neutrosophic soft expert sets

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Quran, Ashraf; Hassan, Nasruddin

2018-04-01

We introduce the mapping on complex neutrosophic soft expert sets. Further, we investigated the basic operations and other related properties of complex neutrosophic soft expert image and complex neutrosophic soft expert inverse image of complex neutrosophic soft expert sets.

A Posteriori Error Analysis and Uncertainty Quantification for Adaptive Multiscale Operator Decomposition Methods for Multiphysics Problems

Science.gov (United States)

2014-04-01

Integral Role in Soft Tissue Mechanics, K. Troyer, D. Estep, and C. Puttlitz, Acta Biomaterialia 8 (201 2), 234-244 • A posteriori analysis of multi rate...2013, submitted • A posteriori error estimation for the Lax -Wendroff finite difference scheme, J. B. Collins, D. Estep, and S. Tavener, Journal of...oped over neArly six decades of activity and the major developments form a highly inter- connected web. We do not. ətternpt to review the history of

Soft-tissue tension total knee arthroplasty.

Science.gov (United States)

Asano, Hiroshi; Hoshino, Akiho; Wilton, Tim J

2004-08-01

It is far from clear how best to define the proper strength of soft-tissue tensioning in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We attached a torque driver to the Monogram balancer/tensor device and measured soft-tissue tension in full extension and 90 degrees flexion during TKA. In our surgical procedure, when we felt proper soft-tissue tension was being applied, the mean distraction force was noted to be 126N in extension and 121N in flexion. There was no significant correlation between soft-tissue tension and the postoperative flexion angle finally achieved. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the actual distraction forces in relation to soft-tissue tension in TKA. Further study may reveal the most appropriate forces to achieve proper soft-tissue tension in the wide variety of circumstances presenting at knee arthroplasty.

Planar Elongation Measurements on Soft Elastomers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Mette Krog; Skov, Anne Ladegaard; Rasmussen, Henrik K.

2009-01-01

A new fixture to the filament stretch rheometer (FSR) has been developed to measure planar elongation of soft polymeric networks. To validate this new technique, soft polymeric networks of poly(propyleneoxide) (PPO) were investigated during deformation.......A new fixture to the filament stretch rheometer (FSR) has been developed to measure planar elongation of soft polymeric networks. To validate this new technique, soft polymeric networks of poly(propyleneoxide) (PPO) were investigated during deformation....

Success of Chemotherapy in Soft Matter

OpenAIRE

Trifonova, I.; Kurteva, G.; Stefanov, S. Z.

2014-01-01

The success of chemotharapy in soft matter as a survival is found in the paper. Therefore, it is found the analogous tumor stretching force in soft matter; ultrasonography is performed for this tumor; restoration in soft matter with such a tumor is found; Bayes estimate of the probability of chemotherapy success is derived from the transferred chemical energy and from soft matter entropy; survival probability is juxtaposed to this probability of success.

Vehicular traffic noise prediction using soft computing approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Daljeet; Nigam, S P; Agrawal, V P; Kumar, Maneek

2016-12-01

A new approach for the development of vehicular traffic noise prediction models is presented. Four different soft computing methods, namely, Generalized Linear Model, Decision Trees, Random Forests and Neural Networks, have been used to develop models to predict the hourly equivalent continuous sound pressure level, Leq, at different locations in the Patiala city in India. The input variables include the traffic volume per hour, percentage of heavy vehicles and average speed of vehicles. The performance of the four models is compared on the basis of performance criteria of coefficient of determination, mean square error and accuracy. 10-fold cross validation is done to check the stability of the Random Forest model, which gave the best results. A t-test is performed to check the fit of the model with the field data. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Soft Tissue Sarcoma—Health Professional Version

Science.gov (United States)

Soft tissue sarcomas are malignant tumors that arise in any of the mesodermal tissues of the extremities, trunk and retroperitoneum, or head and neck. Soft tissue sarcomas may be heterogeneous. Find evidence-based information on soft tissue sarcoma treatment and research.

Daily online bony correction is required for prostate patients without fiducial markers or soft-tissue imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Johnston, M L; Vial, P; Wiltshire, K L; Bell, L J; Blome, S; Kerestes, Z; Morgan, G W; O'Driscoll, D; Shakespeare, T P; Eade, T N

2011-09-01

To compare online position verification strategies with offline correction protocols for patients undergoing definitive prostate radiotherapy. We analysed 50 patients with implanted fiducial markers undergoing curative prostate radiation treatment, all of whom underwent daily kilovoltage imaging using an on-board imager. For each treatment, patients were set-up initially with skin tattoos and in-room lasers. Orthogonal on-board imager images were acquired and the couch shift to match both bony anatomy and the fiducial markers recorded. The set-up error using skin tattoos and offline bone correction was compared with online bone correction. The fiducial markers were used as the reference. Data from 1923 fractions were analysed. The systematic error was ≤1 mm for all protocols. The average random error was 2-3mm for online bony correction and 3-5mm for skin tattoos or offline-bone. Online-bone showed a significant improvement compared with offline-bone in the number of patients with >5mm set-up errors for >10% (P20% (Pmarkers or daily soft-tissue imaging. Copyright © 2011 The Royal College of Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Radiosensitivity of soft tissue sarcomas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hirano, Toru; Iwasaki, Katsuro; Suzuki, Ryohei; Monzen, Yoshio; Hombo, Zenichiro

1989-01-01

The correlation between the effectiveness of radiation therapy and the histology of soft tissue sarcomas was investigated. Of 31 cases with a soft tissue sarcoma of an extremity treated by conservative surgery and postoperative radiation of 3,000-6,000 cGy, local recurrence occurred in 12; 5 out of 7 synovial sarcomas, 4 of 9 MFH, one of 8 liposarcomas, none of 4 rhabdomyosarcomas and 2 of 3 others. As for the histological subtyping, the 31 soft tissue sarcomas were divided into spindle cell, pleomorphic cell, myxoid and round cell type, and recurrence rates were 75%, 33.3%, 16.7% and 0%, respectively. From the remarkable difference in recurrent rate, it was suggested that round cell and myxoid type of soft tissue sarcomas showed a high radiosensitivity compared to the spindle cell type with low sensitivity. Clarifying the degree of radiosensitivity is helpful in deciding on the management of limb salvage in soft tissue sarcomas of an extremity. (author)

Soft behavior of a closed massless state in superstring and universality in the soft behavior of the dilaton

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Vecchia, Paolo Di [The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen,Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø (Denmark); Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University, Roslagstullsbacken 23, SE-10691 Stockholm (Sweden); Marotta, Raffaele [Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli,Complesso Universitario di Monte S. Angelo ed. 6, via Cintia, 80126, Napoli (Italy); Mojaza, Matin [Max-Planck-Institut für Gravitationsphysik, Albert-Einstein-Institut, Am Mühlenberg 1, 14476 Potsdam (Germany)

2016-12-06

We consider the tree-level scattering amplitudes in the NS-NS (Neveu-Schwarz) massless sector of closed superstrings in the case where one external state becomes soft. We compute the amplitudes generically for any number of dimensions and any number and kind of the massless closed states through the subsubleading order in the soft expansion. We show that, when the soft state is a graviton or a dilaton, the full result can be expressed as a soft theorem factorizing the amplitude in a soft and a hard part. This behavior is similar to what has previously been observed in field theory and in the bosonic string. Differently from the bosonic string, the supersymmetric soft theorem for the graviton has no string corrections at subsubleading order. The dilaton soft theorem, on the other hand, is found to be universally free of string corrections in any string theory.

Soft behavior of a closed massless state in superstring and universality of the soft behavior of the dilaton

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

di Vecchia, Paolo; Marotta, Raffaele; Mojaza, Matin

2016-01-01

We consider the tree-level scattering amplitudes in the NS-NS (Neveu-Schwarz) massless sector of closed superstrings in the case where one external state becomes soft. We compute the amplitudes generically for any number of dimensions and any number and kind of the massless closed states through...... the subsubleading order in the soft expansion. We show that, when the soft state is a graviton or a dilaton, the full result can be expressed as a soft theorem factorizing the amplitude in a soft and a hard part. This behavior is similar to what has previously been observed in field theory and in the bosonic string....... Differently from the bosonic string, the supersymmetric soft theorem for the graviton has no string corrections at subsubleading order. The dilaton soft theorem, on the other hand, is found to be universally free of string corrections in any string theory....

On single and double soft behaviors in NLSM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Du, Yi-Jian; Luo, Hui

2015-01-01

In this paper, we study the single and double soft behaviors of tree level off-shell currents and on-shell amplitudes in nonlinear sigma model (NLSM). We first propose and prove the leading soft behavior of the tree level currents with a single soft particle. In the on-shell limit, this single soft emission becomes the Adler’s zero. Then we establish the leading and subleading soft behaviors of tree level currents with two adjacent soft particles. With a careful analysis of the on-shell limit, we obtain the double soft behaviors of on-shell amplitudes where the two soft particles are adjacent to each other. By applying Kleiss-Kuijf (KK) relation, we further obtain the leading and subleading behaviors of amplitudes with two nonadjacent soft particles.

Real-time soft tissue motion estimation for lung tumors during radiotherapy delivery

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rottmann, Joerg; Berbeco, Ross; Keall, Paul

2013-01-01

Purpose: To provide real-time lung tumor motion estimation during radiotherapy treatment delivery without the need for implanted fiducial markers or additional imaging dose to the patient.Methods: 2D radiographs from the therapy beam's-eye-view (BEV) perspective are captured at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz with a frame grabber allowing direct RAM access to the image buffer. An in-house developed real-time soft tissue localization algorithm is utilized to calculate soft tissue displacement from these images in real-time. The system is tested with a Varian TX linear accelerator and an AS-1000 amorphous silicon electronic portal imaging device operating at a resolution of 512 × 384 pixels. The accuracy of the motion estimation is verified with a dynamic motion phantom. Clinical accuracy was tested on lung SBRT images acquired at 2 fps.Results: Real-time lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images without fiducial markers is successfully demonstrated. For the phantom study, a mean tracking error <1.0 mm [root mean square (rms) error of 0.3 mm] was observed. The tracking rms accuracy on BEV images from a lung SBRT patient (≈20 mm tumor motion range) is 1.0 mm.Conclusions: The authors demonstrate for the first time real-time markerless lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images alone. The described system can operate at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz and does not require prior knowledge to establish traceable landmarks for tracking on the fly. The authors show that the geometric accuracy is similar to (or better than) previously published markerless algorithms not operating in real-time

Real-time soft tissue motion estimation for lung tumors during radiotherapy delivery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rottmann, Joerg; Berbeco, Ross [Brigham and Women' s Hospital, Dana Farber-Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 (United States); Keall, Paul [Radiation Physics Laboratory, Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006 (Australia)

2013-09-15

Purpose: To provide real-time lung tumor motion estimation during radiotherapy treatment delivery without the need for implanted fiducial markers or additional imaging dose to the patient.Methods: 2D radiographs from the therapy beam's-eye-view (BEV) perspective are captured at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz with a frame grabber allowing direct RAM access to the image buffer. An in-house developed real-time soft tissue localization algorithm is utilized to calculate soft tissue displacement from these images in real-time. The system is tested with a Varian TX linear accelerator and an AS-1000 amorphous silicon electronic portal imaging device operating at a resolution of 512 × 384 pixels. The accuracy of the motion estimation is verified with a dynamic motion phantom. Clinical accuracy was tested on lung SBRT images acquired at 2 fps.Results: Real-time lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images without fiducial markers is successfully demonstrated. For the phantom study, a mean tracking error <1.0 mm [root mean square (rms) error of 0.3 mm] was observed. The tracking rms accuracy on BEV images from a lung SBRT patient (≈20 mm tumor motion range) is 1.0 mm.Conclusions: The authors demonstrate for the first time real-time markerless lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images alone. The described system can operate at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz and does not require prior knowledge to establish traceable landmarks for tracking on the fly. The authors show that the geometric accuracy is similar to (or better than) previously published markerless algorithms not operating in real-time.

Phantom experiments using soft-prior regularization EIT for breast cancer imaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Murphy, Ethan K; Mahara, Aditya; Wu, Xiaotian; Halter, Ryan J

2017-06-01

A soft-prior regularization (SR) electrical impedance tomography (EIT) technique for breast cancer imaging is described, which shows an ability to accurately reconstruct tumor/inclusion conductivity values within a dense breast model investigated using a cylindrical and a breast-shaped tank. The SR-EIT method relies on knowing the spatial location of a suspicious lesion initially detected from a second imaging modality. Standard approaches (using Laplace smoothing and total variation regularization) without prior structural information are unable to accurately reconstruct or detect the tumors. The soft-prior approach represents a very significant improvement to these standard approaches, and has the potential to improve conventional imaging techniques, such as automated whole breast ultrasound (AWB-US), by providing electrical property information of suspicious lesions to improve AWB-US's ability to discriminate benign from cancerous lesions. Specifically, the best soft-regularization technique found average absolute tumor/inclusion errors of 0.015 S m -1 for the cylindrical test and 0.055 S m -1 and 0.080 S m -1 for the breast-shaped tank for 1.8 cm and 2.5 cm inclusions, respectively. The standard approaches were statistically unable to distinguish the tumor from the mammary gland tissue. An analysis of false tumors (benign suspicious lesions) provides extra insight into the potential and challenges EIT has for providing clinically relevant information. The ability to obtain accurate conductivity values of a suspicious lesion (>1.8 cm) detected from another modality (e.g. AWB-US) could significantly reduce false positives and result in a clinically important technology.

Leading multi-soft limits from scattering equations

Science.gov (United States)

Zlotnikov, Michael

2017-10-01

A Cachazo-He-Yuan (CHY) type formula is derived for the leading gluon, bi-adjoint scalar ϕ 3, Yang-Mills-scalar and non-linear sigma model m-soft factors S m in arbitrary dimension. The general formula is used to evaluate explicit examples for up to three soft legs analytically and up to four soft legs numerically via comparison with amplitude ratios under soft kinematics. A structural pattern for gluon m-soft factor is inferred and a simpler formula for its calculation is conjectured. In four dimensions, a Cachazo-Svrček-Witten (CSW) recursive procedure producing the leading m-soft gluon factor in spinor helicity formalism is developed as an alternative, and Britto-Cachazo-Feng-Witten (BCFW) recursion is used to obtain the leading four-soft gluon factor for all analytically distinct helicity configurations.

Soft Space Planning in Cities unbound

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Olesen, Kristian

This paper analyses contemporary experiments of building governance capacity in new soft spaces in Denmark through processes of spatial strategy-making. The paper argues that new soft spaces are emerging in Danish spatial planning, which set out to promote more effective forms of strategic spatial...... planning, and how their obsession with promoting economic development at the expense of wider planning responsibilities support contemporary neoliberal transformations of strategic spatial planning....... planning. The Danish case of soft space planning demonstrates how Danish soft spaces at subnational scales fail to fill in the gaps between formal planning structures and provide the glue that binds formal scales of planning together as promised in the soft space literature. This raises a number...

Small scale soft x-ray lasers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Skinner, C.H.; DiCicco, D.S.; Kim, D.; Voorhees, D.; Suckewer, S.

1990-01-01

The widespread application of soft x-ray laser technology is contingent on the development of small scale soft x-ray lasers that do not require large laser facilities. Progress in the development of soft x-ray lasers pumped by a Nd laser of energy 6-12J is reported below. Application of an existing soft x-ray laser to x-ray microscopy has begun. A soft x-ray laser of output energy 1-3 mJ at 18,2 nm has been used to record high resolution images of biological specimens. The contact images were recorded on photoresist which was later viewed in a scanning electron microscope. The authors present a composite optical x-ray laser microscope design

Soft pneumatic grippers embedded with stretchable electroadhesion

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, J.; Elgeneidy, K.; Xiang, C.; Lohse, N.; Justham, L.; Rossiter, J.

2018-05-01

Current soft pneumatic grippers cannot robustly grasp flat materials and flexible objects on curved surfaces without distorting them. Current electroadhesive grippers, on the other hand, are difficult to actively deform to complex shapes to pick up free-form surfaces or objects. An easy-to-implement PneuEA gripper is proposed by the integration of an electroadhesive gripper and a two-fingered soft pneumatic gripper. The electroadhesive gripper was fabricated by segmenting a soft conductive silicon sheet into a two-part electrode design and embedding it in a soft dielectric elastomer. The two-fingered soft pneumatic gripper was manufactured using a standard soft lithography approach. This novel integration has combined the benefits of both the electroadhesive and soft pneumatic grippers. As a result, the proposed PneuEA gripper was not only able to pick-and-place flat and flexible materials such as a porous cloth but also delicate objects such as a light bulb. By combining two soft touch sensors with the electroadhesive, an intelligent and shape-adaptive PneuEA material handling system has been developed. This work is expected to widen the applications of both soft gripper and electroadhesion technologies.

Soft timing closure for soft programmable logic cores: The ARGen approach

OpenAIRE

Bollengier , Théotime; Lagadec , Loïc; Najem , Mohamad; Le Lann , Jean-Christophe; Guilloux , Pierre

2017-01-01

International audience; Reconfigurable cores support post-release updates which shortens time-to-market while extending circuits’ lifespan. Reconfigurable cores can be provided as hard cores (ASIC) or soft cores (RTL). Soft reconfigurable cores outperform hard reconfigurable cores by preserving the ASIC synthesis flow, at the cost of lowering scalability but also exacerbating timing closure issues. This article tackles these two issues and introduces the ARGen generator that produces scalable...

Neutrosophic Parameterized Soft Relations and Their Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irfan Deli

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of relation on neutrosophic parameterized soft set (NP- soft sets theory. We have studied some related properties and also put forward some propositions on neutrosophic parameterized soft relation with proofs and examples. Finally the notions of symmetric, transitive, reflexive, and equivalence neutrosophic parameterized soft set relations have been established in our work. Finally a decision making method on NP-soft sets is presented.

learning and soft skills

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rasmussen, Lauge Baungaard

2000-01-01

Learning of soft skills are becoming more and more necessary due to the complexe development of modern companies and their environments. However, there seems to be a 'gap' between intentions and reality regarding need of soft skills and the possiblities to be educated in this subject in particular...

Soft Mobility and Urban Transformation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosa Anna La Rocca

2010-04-01

Full Text Available This paper examines some European cases referred to promotion of soft mobility as a new lifestyle aimed to improve benefits on environment and urban liveability. Soft mobility includes any non-motorized transport (human powered mobility. According to this, soft mobility refers to pedestrian, bicycle, roller skate and skateboard transfers. It could be indented as “zeroimpact” mobility too. As a matter of fact, the words to define this way of moving have not been codified yet, therefore mobilitè douce, soft mobility, slow traffic are synonymous in referring mainly to pedestrians and cyclists to indicate alternative to car use. Soft mobility, indeed, can be defined as a special form of sustainable mobility able to optimize urban liveability, by keeping the individual right to move. At present, cities are engaged in defining policies, procedures and interventions to further “slow traffic”, both to relieve the traffic congestion, and to work for regeneration and environmental improvements. This asks for an in-depth cooperation between different political and administrative levels to achieve common objectives of development more attentive to environmental concerns. Despite this increasing attention, the idea of a “network” for soft mobility has not been yet achieved and the supply of integrated facilities and services as an alternative to the car use seems to be still difficult of accomplishment. High disparity characterizes European countries in promoting soft mobility: despite a prolific production of laws and roles referred to emergency of adopting alternative ways of moving to minimize negatives impacts (especially air and noise pollution as very threat to health due to car dependence for urban short distance too. And yet, soft mobility could represent a real occasion of urban and territorial regeneration aimed to rehabilitate some disused paths and routes (greenways. Some successful European cases show how it is possible to

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion

OpenAIRE

Calisti, M.; Picardi, G.; Laschi, C.

2017-01-01

Soft robotics and its related technologies enable robot abilities in several robotics domains including, but not exclusively related to, manipulation, manufacturing, human���robot interaction and locomotion. Although field applications have emerged for soft manipulation and human���robot interaction, mobile soft robots appear to remain in the research stage, involving the somehow conflictual goals of having a deformable body and exerting forces on the environment to achieve locomotion. This p...

Imaging of musculoskeletal soft tissue infections

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Turecki, Marcin B.; Taljanovic, Mihra S.; Holden, Dean A.; Hunter, Tim B.; Rogers, Lee F. [University of Arizona HSC, Department of Radiology, Tucson, AZ (United States); Stubbs, Alana Y. [Southern Arizona VA Health Care System, Department of Radiology, Tucson, AZ (United States); Graham, Anna R. [University of Arizona HSC, Department of Pathology, Tucson, AZ (United States)

2010-10-15

Prompt and appropriate imaging work-up of the various musculoskeletal soft tissue infections aids early diagnosis and treatment and decreases the risk of complications resulting from misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. The signs and symptoms of musculoskeletal soft tissue infections can be nonspecific, making it clinically difficult to distinguish between disease processes and the extent of disease. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the imaging modality of choice in the evaluation of soft tissue infections. Computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, radiography and nuclear medicine studies are considered ancillary. This manuscript illustrates representative images of superficial and deep soft tissue infections such as infectious cellulitis, superficial and deep fasciitis, including the necrotizing fasciitis, pyomyositis/soft tissue abscess, septic bursitis and tenosynovitis on different imaging modalities, with emphasis on MRI. Typical histopathologic findings of soft tissue infections are also presented. The imaging approach described in the manuscript is based on relevant literature and authors' personal experience and everyday practice. (orig.)

Imaging of musculoskeletal soft tissue infections

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Turecki, Marcin B.; Taljanovic, Mihra S.; Holden, Dean A.; Hunter, Tim B.; Rogers, Lee F.; Stubbs, Alana Y.; Graham, Anna R.

2010-01-01

Prompt and appropriate imaging work-up of the various musculoskeletal soft tissue infections aids early diagnosis and treatment and decreases the risk of complications resulting from misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis. The signs and symptoms of musculoskeletal soft tissue infections can be nonspecific, making it clinically difficult to distinguish between disease processes and the extent of disease. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the imaging modality of choice in the evaluation of soft tissue infections. Computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, radiography and nuclear medicine studies are considered ancillary. This manuscript illustrates representative images of superficial and deep soft tissue infections such as infectious cellulitis, superficial and deep fasciitis, including the necrotizing fasciitis, pyomyositis/soft tissue abscess, septic bursitis and tenosynovitis on different imaging modalities, with emphasis on MRI. Typical histopathologic findings of soft tissue infections are also presented. The imaging approach described in the manuscript is based on relevant literature and authors' personal experience and everyday practice. (orig.)

Challenge and Error: Critical Events and Attention-Related Errors

Science.gov (United States)

Cheyne, James Allan; Carriere, Jonathan S. A.; Solman, Grayden J. F.; Smilek, Daniel

2011-01-01

Attention lapses resulting from reactivity to task challenges and their consequences constitute a pervasive factor affecting everyday performance errors and accidents. A bidirectional model of attention lapses (error [image omitted] attention-lapse: Cheyne, Solman, Carriere, & Smilek, 2009) argues that errors beget errors by generating attention…

Error forecasting schemes of error correction at receiver

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bhunia, C.T.

2007-08-01

To combat error in computer communication networks, ARQ (Automatic Repeat Request) techniques are used. Recently Chakraborty has proposed a simple technique called the packet combining scheme in which error is corrected at the receiver from the erroneous copies. Packet Combining (PC) scheme fails: (i) when bit error locations in erroneous copies are the same and (ii) when multiple bit errors occur. Both these have been addressed recently by two schemes known as Packet Reversed Packet Combining (PRPC) Scheme, and Modified Packet Combining (MPC) Scheme respectively. In the letter, two error forecasting correction schemes are reported, which in combination with PRPC offer higher throughput. (author)

Design and simulations of a spectral efficient optical code division multiple access scheme using alternated energy differentiation and single-user soft-decision demodulation

Science.gov (United States)

A. Garba, Aminata

2017-01-01

This paper presents a new approach to optical Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network transmission scheme using alternated amplitude sequences and energy differentiation at the transmitters to allow concurrent and secure transmission of several signals. The proposed system uses error control encoding and soft-decision demodulation to reduce the multi-user interference at the receivers. The design of the proposed alternated amplitude sequences, the OCDMA energy modulators and the soft decision, single-user demodulators are also presented. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme allows achieving spectral efficiencies higher than several reported results for optical CDMA and much higher than the Gaussian CDMA capacity limit.

Not-so-Soft Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Curran, Mary

2010-01-01

Much recent discussion about the skills needed to secure Britain's economic recovery has focused on skills for employability. However, too often, these fundamental skills are understood in narrow functional or vocational terms. So-called "soft skills", what Penelope Tobin, in her 2008 paper "Soft Skills: the hard facts", terms "traits and…

Glass transition in soft-sphere dispersions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

RamIrez-Gonzalez, P E; Medina-Noyola, M

2009-01-01

The concept of dynamic equivalence among mono-disperse soft-sphere fluids is employed in the framework of the self-consistent generalized Langevin equation (SCGLE) theory of colloid dynamics to calculate the ideal glass transition phase diagram of model soft-sphere colloidal dispersions in the softness-concentration state space. The slow dynamics predicted by this theory near the glass transition is compared with available experimental data for the decay of the intermediate scattering function of colloidal dispersions of soft-microgel particles. Increasing deviations from this simple scheme occur for increasingly softer potentials, and this is studied here using the Rogers-Young static structure factor of the soft-sphere systems as the input of the SCGLE theory, without assuming a priori the validity of the equivalence principle above.

Design and fabrication of an active polynomial grating for soft-X-ray monochromators and spectrometers

CERN Document Server

Chen, S J; Perng, S Y; Kuan, C K; Tseng, T C; Wang, D J

2001-01-01

An active polynomial grating has been designed for use in synchrotron radiation soft-X-ray monochromators and spectrometers. The grating can be dynamically adjusted to obtain the third-order-polynomial surface needed to eliminate the defocus and coma aberrations at any photon energy. Ray-tracing results confirm that a monochromator or spectrometer based on this active grating has nearly no aberration limit to the overall spectral resolution in the entire soft-X-ray region. The grating substrate is made of a precisely milled 17-4 PH stainless steel parallel plate, which is joined to a flexure-hinge bender shaped by wire electrical discharge machining. The substrate is grounded into a concave cylindrical shape with a nominal radius and then polished to achieve a roughness of 0.45 nm and a slope error of 1.2 mu rad rms. The long trace profiler measurements show that the active grating can reach the desired third-order polynomial with a high degree of figure accuracy.

Error Analysis of High Frequency Core Loss Measurement for Low-Permeability Low-Loss Magnetic Cores

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niroumand, Farideh Javidi; Nymand, Morten

2016-01-01

in magnetic cores is B-H loop measurement where two windings are placed on the core under test. However, this method is highly vulnerable to phase shift error, especially for low-permeability, low-loss cores. Due to soft saturation and very low core loss, low-permeability low-loss magnetic cores are favorable...... in many of the high-efficiency high power-density power converters. Magnetic powder cores, among the low-permeability low-loss cores, are very attractive since they possess lower magnetic losses in compared to gapped ferrites. This paper presents an analytical study of the phase shift error in the core...... loss measuring of low-permeability, low-loss magnetic cores. Furthermore, the susceptibility of this measurement approach has been analytically investigated under different excitations. It has been shown that this method, under square-wave excitation, is more accurate compared to sinusoidal excitation...

3D printing of soft robotic systems

Science.gov (United States)

Wallin, T. J.; Pikul, J.; Shepherd, R. F.

2018-06-01

Soft robots are capable of mimicking the complex motion of animals. Soft robotic systems are defined by their compliance, which allows for continuous and often responsive localized deformation. These features make soft robots especially interesting for integration with human tissues, for example, the implementation of biomedical devices, and for robotic performance in harsh or uncertain environments, for example, exploration in confined spaces or locomotion on uneven terrain. Advances in soft materials and additive manufacturing technologies have enabled the design of soft robots with sophisticated capabilities, such as jumping, complex 3D movements, gripping and releasing. In this Review, we examine the essential soft material properties for different elements of soft robots, highlighting the most relevant polymer systems. Advantages and limitations of different additive manufacturing processes, including 3D printing, fused deposition modelling, direct ink writing, selective laser sintering, inkjet printing and stereolithography, are discussed, and the different techniques are investigated for their application in soft robotic fabrication. Finally, we explore integrated robotic systems and give an outlook for the future of the field and remaining challenges.

Operator errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Knuefer; Lindauer

1980-01-01

Besides that at spectacular events a combination of component failure and human error is often found. Especially the Rasmussen-Report and the German Risk Assessment Study show for pressurised water reactors that human error must not be underestimated. Although operator errors as a form of human error can never be eliminated entirely, they can be minimized and their effects kept within acceptable limits if a thorough training of personnel is combined with an adequate design of the plant against accidents. Contrary to the investigation of engineering errors, the investigation of human errors has so far been carried out with relatively small budgets. Intensified investigations in this field appear to be a worthwhile effort. (orig.)

Electroroentgenography in diagnosis of soft tissue tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vintergal'ter, S.F.; Vishevnik, B.I.

1989-01-01

Clinical, electroroentgenographic and X-ray studies of soft tissues were carried out in 425 patients with malignant (75), benign (246) soft tissue tumors and in cases of such soft tissue pathologies of the extremities and body (104). The paper discusses the technicalities of electroroentgenography which produces on one roentgenogram separate images of all components of soft tissues and bones in a given segment. A comparions of image quality assured by electroroentgeno- and roentgenography did not establish any significant difference in soft tissue tumor semiotics

Soft Robotics: from scientific challenges to technological applications

Science.gov (United States)

Laschi, C.

2016-05-01

Soft robotics is a recent and rapidly growing field of research, which aims at unveiling the principles for building robots that include soft materials and compliance in the interaction with the environment, so as to exploit so-called embodied intelligence and negotiate natural environment more effectively. Using soft materials for building robots poses new technological challenges: the technologies for actuating soft materials, for embedding sensors into soft robot parts, for controlling soft robots are among the main ones. This is stimulating research in many disciplines and many countries, such that a wide community is gathering around initiatives like the IEEE TAS TC on Soft Robotics and the RoboSoft CA - A Coordination Action for Soft Robotics, funded by the European Commission. Though still in its early stages of development, soft robotics is finding its way in a variety of applications, where safe contact is a main issue, in the biomedical field, as well as in exploration tasks and in the manufacturing industry. And though the development of the enabling technologies is still a priority, a fruitful loop is growing between basic research and application-oriented research in soft robotics.

Windchill-201 - Custom Soft-Type Construction

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Corey; LaPha, Steven

2013-01-01

This presentation will explain Windchill soft-types-what they are, how they work, and how to construct custom ones, configured specifically for your system. The process and particulars of creating and implementing a WTDocument soft-type will be discussed, and the interaction between soft-types and Windchill objects will be shown.

Embodying Soft Wearables Research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tomico, Oscar; Wilde, Danielle

2016-01-01

of soft wearables. Throughout, we will experiment with how embodied design research techniques might be shared, developed, and used as direct and unmediated vehicles for their own reporting. Rather than engage in oral presentations, participants will lead each other through a proven embodied method...... and knowledge transfer in the context of soft wearables....

How Do Simulated Error Experiences Impact Attitudes Related to Error Prevention?

Science.gov (United States)

Breitkreuz, Karen R; Dougal, Renae L; Wright, Melanie C

2016-10-01

The objective of this project was to determine whether simulated exposure to error situations changes attitudes in a way that may have a positive impact on error prevention behaviors. Using a stratified quasi-randomized experiment design, we compared risk perception attitudes of a control group of nursing students who received standard error education (reviewed medication error content and watched movies about error experiences) to an experimental group of students who reviewed medication error content and participated in simulated error experiences. Dependent measures included perceived memorability of the educational experience, perceived frequency of errors, and perceived caution with respect to preventing errors. Experienced nursing students perceived the simulated error experiences to be more memorable than movies. Less experienced students perceived both simulated error experiences and movies to be highly memorable. After the intervention, compared with movie participants, simulation participants believed errors occurred more frequently. Both types of education increased the participants' intentions to be more cautious and reported caution remained higher than baseline for medication errors 6 months after the intervention. This study provides limited evidence of an advantage of simulation over watching movies describing actual errors with respect to manipulating attitudes related to error prevention. Both interventions resulted in long-term impacts on perceived caution in medication administration. Simulated error experiences made participants more aware of how easily errors can occur, and the movie education made participants more aware of the devastating consequences of errors.

Dissecting soft radiation with factorization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, Iain W.; Tackmann, Frank J.; Waalewijn, Wouter J.; Amsterdam Univ.

2014-05-01

An essential part of high-energy hadronic collisions is the soft hadronic activity that underlies the primary hard interaction. It can receive contributions from soft radiation from the primary hard partons, secondary multiple parton interactions (MPI), and factorization violating effects. The invariant mass spectrum of the leading jet in Z+jet and H+jet events is directly sensitive to these effects. We use a QCD factorization theorem to predict the dependence on the jet radius R, jet p T , jet rapidity, and partonic process for both the perturbative and nonperturbative components of primary soft radiation. The nonperturbative contributions involve only odd powers of R, and the linear R term is universal for quark and gluon jets. The hadronization model in PYTHIA8 agrees well with these properties. The perturbative soft initial state radiation (ISR) has a contribution that depends on the jet area in the same way as the underlying event. This degeneracy is broken by the jet p T dependence. The size of this soft ISR contribution is proportional to the color state of the initial partons, yielding the same positive contribution for gg→Hg and gq→Zq, but a negative interference contribution for q anti q→Zg. Hence, measuring these dependencies allows one to separate hadronization, soft ISR, and MPI contributions in the data.

Possibility Fuzzy Soft Set

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shawkat Alkhazaleh

2011-01-01

Full Text Available We introduce the concept of possibility fuzzy soft set and its operation and study some of its properties. We give applications of this theory in solving a decision-making problem. We also introduce a similarity measure of two possibility fuzzy soft sets and discuss their application in a medical diagnosis problem.

Soft computing techniques in engineering applications

CERN Document Server

Zhong, Baojiang

2014-01-01

The Soft Computing techniques, which are based on the information processing of biological systems are now massively used in the area of pattern recognition, making prediction & planning, as well as acting on the environment. Ideally speaking, soft computing is not a subject of homogeneous concepts and techniques; rather, it is an amalgamation of distinct methods that confirms to its guiding principle. At present, the main aim of soft computing is to exploit the tolerance for imprecision and uncertainty to achieve tractability, robustness and low solutions cost. The principal constituents of soft computing techniques are probabilistic reasoning, fuzzy logic, neuro-computing, genetic algorithms, belief networks, chaotic systems, as well as learning theory. This book covers contributions from various authors to demonstrate the use of soft computing techniques in various applications of engineering.  

Energy efficiency of mobile soft robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Shui, Langquan; Zhu, Liangliang; Yang, Zhe; Liu, Yilun; Chen, Xi

2017-11-15

The performance of mobile soft robots is usually characterized by their locomotion/velocity efficiency, whereas the energy efficiency is a more intrinsic and fundamental criterion for the performance evaluation of independent or integrated soft robots. In this work, a general framework is established to evaluate the energy efficiency of mobile soft robots by considering the efficiency of the energy source, actuator and locomotion, and some insights for improving the efficiency of soft robotic systems are presented. Proposed as the ratio of the desired locomotion kinetic energy to the input mechanical energy, the energy efficiency of locomotion is found to play a critical role in determining the overall energy efficiency of soft robots. Four key factors related to the locomotion energy efficiency are identified, that is, the locomotion modes, material properties, geometric sizes, and actuation states. It is found that the energy efficiency of most mobile soft robots reported in the literature is surprisingly low (mostly below 0.1%), due to the inefficient mechanical energy that essentially does not contribute to the desired locomotion. A comparison of the locomotion energy efficiency for several representative locomotion modes in the literature is presented, showing a descending ranking as: jumping ≫ fish-like swimming > snake-like slithering > rolling > rising/turning over > inchworm-like inching > quadruped gait > earthworm-like squirming. Besides, considering the same locomotion mode, soft robots with lower stiffness, higher density and larger size tend to have higher locomotion energy efficiency. Moreover, a periodic pulse actuation instead of a continuous actuation mode may significantly reduce the input mechanical energy, thus improving the locomotion energy efficiency, especially when the pulse actuation matches the resonant states of the soft robots. The results presented herein indicate a large and necessary space for improving the locomotion energy

Wanted: Soft Skills for Today's Jobs

Science.gov (United States)

Hirsch, Barton J.

2017-01-01

Educating high school students for both college and career is difficult. Teaching trade skills seems alien to the academic culture. But new research indicates that soft skills are quite important to judgments of employability and that youth learn many soft skills in traditional academic subjects (e.g., literature). A focus on soft skills allows…

Characterisation of soft magnetic materials by measurement: Evaluation of uncertainties up to 1.8 T and 9 kHz

Science.gov (United States)

Elfgen, S.; Franck, D.; Hameyer, K.

2018-04-01

Magnetic measurements are indispensable for the characterization of soft magnetic material used e.g. in electrical machines. Characteristic values are used as quality control during production and for the parametrization of material models. Uncertainties and errors in the measurements are reflected directly in the parameters of the material models. This can result in over-dimensioning and inaccuracies in simulations for the design of electrical machines. Therefore, existing influencing factors in the characterization of soft magnetic materials are named and their resulting uncertainties contributions studied. The analysis of the resulting uncertainty contributions can serve the operator as additional selection criteria for different measuring sensors. The investigation is performed for measurements within and outside the currently prescribed standard, using a Single sheet tester and its impact on the identification of iron loss parameter is studied.

Impulsive behavior in solar soft X-radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Hudson, H. S.; Strong, K. T.; Dennis, B. R.; Zarro, D.; Inda, M.; Kosugi, T.; Sakao, T.

1994-01-01

The Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope has observed impulsive, thermal, soft X-ray emission at the footpoints of magnetic loops during solar flares. The soft X-ray (thermal) time profiles at the footpoints closely match the hard X-ray (nonthermal) time profiles, directly demonstrating the heating of the lower solar atmosphere on short timescales during the interval of nonthermal energy release. This phenomenon is the rule, rather than the exception, occurring in the majority of flares that we have examined with the Yohkoh data. We illustrate the impulsive behavior with data from the major flare of 1992 January 26. For this flare, the soft X-ray peak times matched the hard X-ray peak times within the time resolution of the soft X-ray measurements (about 10 s), and the soft and hard X-ray locations match within the resolution of the hard X-ray imager. The impulsive soft X-ray emission clearly has a thermal spectral signature, but not at the high temperature of a 'superhot' source. We conclude that the impulsive soft X-ray emission comes from material heated by precipitating electrons at loop footpoints and evaporating from the deeper atmosphere into the flaring flux tube.

Cyclic Soft Groups and Their Applications on Groups

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hacı Aktaş

2014-01-01

Full Text Available In crisp environment the notions of order of group and cyclic group are well known due to many applications. In this paper, we introduce order of the soft groups, power of the soft sets, power of the soft groups, and cyclic soft group on a group. We also investigate the relationship between cyclic soft groups and classical groups.

Statistical errors in Monte Carlo estimates of systematic errors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roe, Byron P. [Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (United States)]. E-mail: byronroe@umich.edu

2007-01-01

For estimating the effects of a number of systematic errors on a data sample, one can generate Monte Carlo (MC) runs with systematic parameters varied and examine the change in the desired observed result. Two methods are often used. In the unisim method, the systematic parameters are varied one at a time by one standard deviation, each parameter corresponding to a MC run. In the multisim method (see ), each MC run has all of the parameters varied; the amount of variation is chosen from the expected distribution of each systematic parameter, usually assumed to be a normal distribution. The variance of the overall systematic error determination is derived for each of the two methods and comparisons are made between them. If one focuses not on the error in the prediction of an individual systematic error, but on the overall error due to all systematic errors in the error matrix element in data bin m, the number of events needed is strongly reduced because of the averaging effect over all of the errors. For simple models presented here the multisim model was far better if the statistical error in the MC samples was larger than an individual systematic error, while for the reverse case, the unisim model was better. Exact formulas and formulas for the simple toy models are presented so that realistic calculations can be made. The calculations in the present note are valid if the errors are in a linear region. If that region extends sufficiently far, one can have the unisims or multisims correspond to k standard deviations instead of one. This reduces the number of events required by a factor of k{sup 2}.

Statistical errors in Monte Carlo estimates of systematic errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roe, Byron P.

2007-01-01

For estimating the effects of a number of systematic errors on a data sample, one can generate Monte Carlo (MC) runs with systematic parameters varied and examine the change in the desired observed result. Two methods are often used. In the unisim method, the systematic parameters are varied one at a time by one standard deviation, each parameter corresponding to a MC run. In the multisim method (see ), each MC run has all of the parameters varied; the amount of variation is chosen from the expected distribution of each systematic parameter, usually assumed to be a normal distribution. The variance of the overall systematic error determination is derived for each of the two methods and comparisons are made between them. If one focuses not on the error in the prediction of an individual systematic error, but on the overall error due to all systematic errors in the error matrix element in data bin m, the number of events needed is strongly reduced because of the averaging effect over all of the errors. For simple models presented here the multisim model was far better if the statistical error in the MC samples was larger than an individual systematic error, while for the reverse case, the unisim model was better. Exact formulas and formulas for the simple toy models are presented so that realistic calculations can be made. The calculations in the present note are valid if the errors are in a linear region. If that region extends sufficiently far, one can have the unisims or multisims correspond to k standard deviations instead of one. This reduces the number of events required by a factor of k 2

Soft-sediment mullions

Science.gov (United States)

Ortner, Hugo

2015-04-01

In this contribution I describe the appearance, formation and significance of soft-sediment mullions. I use several examples from synorogenic turbidites of the Alps and the Pyrenees to show their appearance in the field. Soft-sediment mullions are elongate, slightly irregular bulges at the base of coarse-grained clastic beds (sand to conglomerate), separated by narrow, elongate flames of fine-grained material (mud) protruding into the coarse-grained bed. Various processes may lead to the formation of such structures: (1) longitudinal furrows parallel to the sediment transport direction may form by spiral motion in flow rolls during sediment transport (Dzulinski, 1966; Dzulinski & Simpson, 1966). (2) Loading combined with downslope movement can produce elongate structures parallelling the dowslope direction (Anketell et al., 1970). (3) Soft-sediment mullions are oriented perpendicular or oblique to the downslope direction, and show evidence of bedding-parallel shortening. Thus, they resemble cuspate-lobate folds or mullions, which are well-known in ductile structural geology (e.g. Urai et al., 2001). Soft-sediment mullions have been observed in two cases: Either bedding-parallel shortening can be achieved by slump processes, or by active tectonic shortening. Slumping is characterized by an alternation of stretching and shortening (e.g. Ortner, 2007; Alsop & Marco 2014), and therefore mullions do overprint or are overprinted by normal faults. In active depositional systems that are subject to tectonic shortening growth strata will form, but sediments already deposited will be shortened during lithification. In some cases, the formation of soft-sediment mullions predates folding, but the most widespread expression of syn-lithification shortening seems to be soft-sediment mullions, that form in the inner arcs of fold hinges. In the examples documented so far, the size of soft-sediment mullions is dependent on the grain-size of the coarse-grained layer, in which the

Soft x-ray Planetary Imager

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The project is to prototype a soft X-ray Imager for planetary applications that has the sensitivity to observe solar system sources of soft  X-ray emission. A strong...

Biologically-inspired soft exosuit.

Science.gov (United States)

Asbeck, Alan T; Dyer, Robert J; Larusson, Arnar F; Walsh, Conor J

2013-06-01

In this paper, we present the design and evaluation of a novel soft cable-driven exosuit that can apply forces to the body to assist walking. Unlike traditional exoskeletons which contain rigid framing elements, the soft exosuit is worn like clothing, yet can generate moments at the ankle and hip with magnitudes of 18% and 30% of those naturally generated by the body during walking, respectively. Our design uses geared motors to pull on Bowden cables connected to the suit near the ankle. The suit has the advantages over a traditional exoskeleton in that the wearer's joints are unconstrained by external rigid structures, and the worn part of the suit is extremely light, which minimizes the suit's unintentional interference with the body's natural biomechanics. However, a soft suit presents challenges related to actuation force transfer and control, since the body is compliant and cannot support large pressures comfortably. We discuss the design of the suit and actuation system, including principles by which soft suits can transfer force to the body effectively and the biological inspiration for the design. For a soft exosuit, an important design parameter is the combined effective stiffness of the suit and its interface to the wearer. We characterize the exosuit's effective stiffness, and present preliminary results from it generating assistive torques to a subject during walking. We envision such an exosuit having broad applicability for assisting healthy individuals as well as those with muscle weakness.

Double soft theorems in gauge and string theories

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Volovich, Anastasia [Brown University Department of Physics,182 Hope St, Providence, RI, 02912 (United States); Wen, Congkao [I.N.F.N. Sezione di Roma “Tor Vergata”,Via della Ricerca Scientifica, 00133 Roma (Italy); Zlotnikov, Michael [Brown University Department of Physics,182 Hope St, Providence, RI, 02912 (United States)

2015-07-20

We investigate the tree-level S-matrix in gauge theories and open superstring theory with several soft particles. We show that scattering amplitudes with two or three soft gluons of non-identical helicities behave universally in the limit, with multi-soft factors which are not the product of individual soft gluon factors. The results are obtained from the BCFW recursion relations in four dimensions, and further extended to arbitrary dimensions using the CHY formula. We also find new soft theorems for double soft limits of scalars and fermions in N=4 and pure N=2 SYM. Finally, we show that the double-soft-scalar theorems can be extended to open superstring theory without receiving any α{sup ′} corrections.

Interval-Valued Vague Soft Sets and Its Application

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khaleed Alhazaymeh

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Molodtsov has introduced the concept of soft sets and the application of soft sets in decision making and medical diagnosis problems. The basic properties of vague soft sets are presented. In this paper, we introduce the concept of interval-valued vague soft sets which are an extension of the soft set and its operations such as equality, subset, intersection, union, AND operation, OR operation, complement, and null while further studying some properties. We give examples for these concepts, and we give a number of applications on interval-valued vague soft sets.

Zur Dialektik von Soft Skills und fachlicher Kompetenz

OpenAIRE

Jendrowiak, Hans-Werner

2010-01-01

[Der Autor stellt folgende Thesen zur Dialektik von Soft Skills und fachlicher Bildung auf:] 1. Soft Skills sind normale Bildungskategorien und Teil einer Allgemeinen Bildung. […] 2. Soft Skills sind als personalgebundene Kriterien auch immer schon Gegenstand bildungstheoretischer Debatten. […] 3. Soft Skills ist eine trendorientierte Bezeichnung für Bildung. […] 4. Soft Skills sind Ausdruck von Vorstellungen, Ideen und Theorien (Schulkultur, Unternehmenskultur, Unternehmensphilosophie). 5. S...

Field error lottery

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Elliott, C.J.; McVey, B. (Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)); Quimby, D.C. (Spectra Technology, Inc., Bellevue, WA (USA))

1990-01-01

The level of field errors in an FEL is an important determinant of its performance. We have computed 3D performance of a large laser subsystem subjected to field errors of various types. These calculations have been guided by simple models such as SWOOP. The technique of choice is utilization of the FELEX free electron laser code that now possesses extensive engineering capabilities. Modeling includes the ability to establish tolerances of various types: fast and slow scale field bowing, field error level, beam position monitor error level, gap errors, defocusing errors, energy slew, displacement and pointing errors. Many effects of these errors on relative gain and relative power extraction are displayed and are the essential elements of determining an error budget. The random errors also depend on the particular random number seed used in the calculation. The simultaneous display of the performance versus error level of cases with multiple seeds illustrates the variations attributable to stochasticity of this model. All these errors are evaluated numerically for comprehensive engineering of the system. In particular, gap errors are found to place requirements beyond mechanical tolerances of {plus minus}25{mu}m, and amelioration of these may occur by a procedure utilizing direct measurement of the magnetic fields at assembly time. 4 refs., 12 figs.

Errors in clinical laboratories or errors in laboratory medicine?

Science.gov (United States)

Plebani, Mario

2006-01-01

Laboratory testing is a highly complex process and, although laboratory services are relatively safe, they are not as safe as they could or should be. Clinical laboratories have long focused their attention on quality control methods and quality assessment programs dealing with analytical aspects of testing. However, a growing body of evidence accumulated in recent decades demonstrates that quality in clinical laboratories cannot be assured by merely focusing on purely analytical aspects. The more recent surveys on errors in laboratory medicine conclude that in the delivery of laboratory testing, mistakes occur more frequently before (pre-analytical) and after (post-analytical) the test has been performed. Most errors are due to pre-analytical factors (46-68.2% of total errors), while a high error rate (18.5-47% of total errors) has also been found in the post-analytical phase. Errors due to analytical problems have been significantly reduced over time, but there is evidence that, particularly for immunoassays, interference may have a serious impact on patients. A description of the most frequent and risky pre-, intra- and post-analytical errors and advice on practical steps for measuring and reducing the risk of errors is therefore given in the present paper. Many mistakes in the Total Testing Process are called "laboratory errors", although these may be due to poor communication, action taken by others involved in the testing process (e.g., physicians, nurses and phlebotomists), or poorly designed processes, all of which are beyond the laboratory's control. Likewise, there is evidence that laboratory information is only partially utilized. A recent document from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) recommends a new, broader definition of the term "laboratory error" and a classification of errors according to different criteria. In a modern approach to total quality, centered on patients' needs and satisfaction, the risk of errors and mistakes

Conservative Soft Power: Liberal soft power bias and the ‘hidden’ attraction of Russia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Keating, Vincent Charles; Kaczmarska, Katarzyna

2018-01-01

The study of soft power in international relations suffers from a liberal democratic bias. Throughout the literature, liberal concepts and values are assumed to be universal in their appeal. This bias has led scholars to underestimate Russian soft power by instrumentalizing it, that is, to see it...

Soft tissue tumors - imaging methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arlart, I.P.

1985-01-01

Soft Tissue Tumors - Imaging Methods: Imaging methods play an important diagnostic role in soft tissue tumors concerning a preoperative evaluation of localization, size, topographic relationship, dignity, and metastatic disease. The present paper gives an overview about diagnostic methods available today such as ultrasound, thermography, roentgenographic plain films and xeroradiography, radionuclide methods, computed tomography, lymphography, angiography, and magnetic resonance imaging. Besides sonography particularly computed tomography has the most important diagnostic value in soft tissue tumors. The application of a recently developed method, the magnetic resonance imaging, cannot yet be assessed in its significance. (orig.) [de

Soft Active Materials for Actuation, Sensing, and Electronics

OpenAIRE

Kramer, Rebecca Krone

2012-01-01

Future generations of robots, electronics, and assistive medical devices will include systems that are soft and elastically deformable, allowing them to adapt their morphology in unstructured environments. This will require soft active materials for actuation, circuitry, and sensing of deformation and contact pressure. The emerging field of soft robotics utilizes these soft active materials to mimic the inherent compliance of natural soft-bodied systems. As the elasticity of robot components ...

New Concepts and Applications in Soft Computing

CERN Document Server

Fodor, János; Várkonyi-Kóczy, Annamária

2013-01-01

              The book provides a sample of research on the innovative theory and applications of soft computing paradigms.             The idea of Soft Computing was initiated in 1981 when Professor Zadeh published his first paper on soft data analysis and constantly evolved ever since. Professor Zadeh defined Soft Computing as the fusion of the fields of fuzzy logic (FL), neural network theory (NN) and probabilistic reasoning (PR), with the latter subsuming belief networks, evolutionary computing including DNA computing, chaos theory and parts of learning theory into one multidisciplinary system. As Zadeh said the essence of soft computing is that unlike the traditional, hard computing, soft computing is aimed at an accommodation with the pervasive imprecision of the real world. Thus, the guiding principle of soft computing is to exploit the tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth to achieve tractability, robustness, low solution cost and better rapport with reality. ...

Multiple soft limits of cosmological correlation functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joyce, Austin; Khoury, Justin; Simonović, Marko

2015-01-01

We derive novel identities satisfied by inflationary correlation functions in the limit where two external momenta are taken to be small. We derive these statements in two ways: using background-wave arguments and as Ward identities following from the fixed-time path integral. Interestingly, these identities allow us to constrain some of the O(q 2 ) components of the soft limit, in contrast to their single-soft analogues. We provide several nontrivial checks of our identities both in the context of resonant non-Gaussianities and in small sound speed models. Additionally, we extend the relation at lowest order in external momenta to arbitrarily many soft legs, and comment on the many-soft extension at higher orders in the soft momentum. Finally, we consider how higher soft limits lead to identities satisfied by correlation functions in large-scale structure

ERF/ERFC, Calculation of Error Function, Complementary Error Function, Probability Integrals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vogel, J.E.

1983-01-01

1 - Description of problem or function: ERF and ERFC are used to compute values of the error function and complementary error function for any real number. They may be used to compute other related functions such as the normal probability integrals. 4. Method of solution: The error function and complementary error function are approximated by rational functions. Three such rational approximations are used depending on whether - x .GE.4.0. In the first region the error function is computed directly and the complementary error function is computed via the identity erfc(x)=1.0-erf(x). In the other two regions the complementary error function is computed directly and the error function is computed from the identity erf(x)=1.0-erfc(x). The error function and complementary error function are real-valued functions of any real argument. The range of the error function is (-1,1). The range of the complementary error function is (0,2). 5. Restrictions on the complexity of the problem: The user is cautioned against using ERF to compute the complementary error function by using the identity erfc(x)=1.0-erf(x). This subtraction may cause partial or total loss of significance for certain values of x

3D printing for soft robotics - a review.

Science.gov (United States)

Gul, Jahan Zeb; Sajid, Memoon; Rehman, Muhammad Muqeet; Siddiqui, Ghayas Uddin; Shah, Imran; Kim, Kyung-Hwan; Lee, Jae-Wook; Choi, Kyung Hyun

2018-01-01

Soft robots have received an increasing attention due to their advantages of high flexibility and safety for human operators but the fabrication is a challenge. Recently, 3D printing has been used as a key technology to fabricate soft robots because of high quality and printing multiple materials at the same time. Functional soft materials are particularly well suited for soft robotics due to a wide range of stimulants and sensitive demonstration of large deformations, high motion complexities and varied multi-functionalities. This review comprises a detailed survey of 3D printing in soft robotics. The development of key 3D printing technologies and new materials along with composites for soft robotic applications is investigated. A brief summary of 3D-printed soft devices suitable for medical to industrial applications is also included. The growing research on both 3D printing and soft robotics needs a summary of the major reported studies and the authors believe that this review article serves the purpose.

A methodology for translating positional error into measures of attribute error, and combining the two error sources

Science.gov (United States)

Yohay Carmel; Curtis Flather; Denis Dean

2006-01-01

This paper summarizes our efforts to investigate the nature, behavior, and implications of positional error and attribute error in spatiotemporal datasets. Estimating the combined influence of these errors on map analysis has been hindered by the fact that these two error types are traditionally expressed in different units (distance units, and categorical units,...

Real Time Speed Measure while Automobile Braking on Soft Sensing Technique

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhu, W B; Li, D S; Lu, Y [China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, 310018 (China)

2006-10-15

Because the braking performance of automobile has close relationship to traffic safety, it is important to detect that. Focusing on the problem that the real time speed is difficult to obtain in detection process, soft sensing technique is introduced in this paper. According to analyzing the relationship of the dynamics equation of a moving automobile, a module of real time speed of braking is set up. By using imitation method with experiment data to get the pressure function of cylinder and analyzing the relationship between the trigging moment of a wheel and the pressure function of brake cylinder, the real time speed is confirmed in good precision. The maximal measurement error of real time speed is 8.7% and the precision can satisfy engineering request.

Real Time Speed Measure while Automobile Braking on Soft Sensing Technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu, W B; Li, D S; Lu, Y

2006-01-01

Because the braking performance of automobile has close relationship to traffic safety, it is important to detect that. Focusing on the problem that the real time speed is difficult to obtain in detection process, soft sensing technique is introduced in this paper. According to analyzing the relationship of the dynamics equation of a moving automobile, a module of real time speed of braking is set up. By using imitation method with experiment data to get the pressure function of cylinder and analyzing the relationship between the trigging moment of a wheel and the pressure function of brake cylinder, the real time speed is confirmed in good precision. The maximal measurement error of real time speed is 8.7% and the precision can satisfy engineering request

Dental plaque pH variation with regular soft drink, diet soft drink and high energy drink: an in vivo study.

Science.gov (United States)

Jawale, Bhushan Arun; Bendgude, Vikas; Mahuli, Amit V; Dave, Bhavana; Kulkarni, Harshal; Mittal, Simpy

2012-03-01

A high incidence of dental caries and dental erosion associated with frequent consumption of soft drinks has been reported. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pH response of dental plaque to a regular, diet and high energy drink. Twenty subjects were recruited for this study. All subjects were between the ages of 20 and 25 and had at least four restored tooth surfaces present. The subjects were asked to refrain from brushing for 48 hours prior to the study. At baseline, plaque pH was measured from four separate locations using harvesting method. Subjects were asked to swish with 15 ml of the respective soft drink for 1 minute. Plaque pH was measured at the four designated tooth sites at 5, 10 and 20 minutes intervals. Subjects then repeated the experiment using the other two soft drinks. pH was minimum for regular soft drink (2.65 ± 0.026) followed by high energy drink (3.39 ± 0.026) and diet soft drink (3.78 ± 0.006). The maximum drop in plaque pH was seen with regular soft drink followed by high energy drink and diet soft drink. Regular soft drink possesses a greater acid challenge potential on enamel than diet and high energy soft drinks. However, in this clinical trial, the pH associated with either soft drink did not reach the critical pH which is expected for enamel demineralization and dissolution.

Engineering applications of soft computing

CERN Document Server

Díaz-Cortés, Margarita-Arimatea; Rojas, Raúl

2017-01-01

This book bridges the gap between Soft Computing techniques and their applications to complex engineering problems. In each chapter we endeavor to explain the basic ideas behind the proposed applications in an accessible format for readers who may not possess a background in some of the fields. Therefore, engineers or practitioners who are not familiar with Soft Computing methods will appreciate that the techniques discussed go beyond simple theoretical tools, since they have been adapted to solve significant problems that commonly arise in such areas. At the same time, the book will show members of the Soft Computing community how engineering problems are now being solved and handled with the help of intelligent approaches. Highlighting new applications and implementations of Soft Computing approaches in various engineering contexts, the book is divided into 12 chapters. Further, it has been structured so that each chapter can be read independently of the others.

Theory of electrostatics and electrokinetics of soft particles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hiroyuki Ohshima

2009-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate theoretically the electrostatics and electrokinetics of a soft particle, i.e. a hard particle covered with an ion-penetrable surface layer of polyelectrolytes. The electric properties of soft particles in an electrolyte solution, which differ from those of hard particles, are essentially determined by the Donnan potential in the surface layer. In particular, the Donnan potential plays an essential role in the electrostatics and electrokinetics of soft particles. Furthermore, the concept of zeta potential, which is important in the electrokinetics of hard particles, loses its physical meaning in the electrokinetics of soft particles. In this review, we discuss the potential distribution around a soft particle, the electrostatic interaction between two soft particles, and the motion of a soft particle in an electric field.

PENINGKATAN SOFT SKILLS SISWA SMP MELALUI PEMBELAJARAN GENERATIF

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

La Moma

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Abstrak: Soft skills merupakan faktor yang turut menunjang kesuksesan siswa belajar matematika. Perlu ada upaya untuk menerapkan suatu model pembelajaran yang dapat memicu peningkatan soft skills siswa dalam matematika. Penelitian ini menerapkan model pembelajaran generatif sebagai alternatif pembelajaran yang diperkirakan akan memicu peningkatan ketiga kemampuan tersebut. Tujuan penelitian untuk mengetahui seberapa besar kontribusi penerapan model tersebut terhadap peningkatan kemampuan soft skills pada level sekolah (tinggi, sedang dan rendah. Penelitian menerapkan desain kuasi eksperimen. Sampel terdiri atas 191 orang siswa kelas VIII pada tiga SMP Negeri di Kota Yogyakarta yang mewakili level sekolah. Pengumpulan data dilakukan dengan teknik tes (pretes dan postes, sedang analisis data menggunakan statistik uji-t dan anova dua jalur. Dari hasil analisis data ditemukan bahwa (1 ada perbedaan pencapaian, peningkatan soft skills siswa antara kelas eksperimen dan kelas kontrol; (2 tidak terdapat interaksi antara pembelajaran dan level sekolah terhadap peningkatan soft skills. Kata Kunci: kemampuan soft skills, pembelajaran generatif THE ENHANCEMENT OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SOFT SKILLS THROUGH GENERATIVE LEARNING Abstract: Soft skills are factors that support students success in learning mathematics. The importance of the students soft skills, unfortunately, are not in line with at the students abilities in these competence. Therefore, we have to implemented a learning model that is expected to lead development soft skills of the students in mathematics. Generative learning model is applied in this study as an alternative learning is predicted to stimulate development soft skills of the students. This study is aimed at determining the contribution of generative learning model of the enhancement of soft skills for difference school levels (high, medium, low.This study is quasi-experimental research involving 191 students of eight

Analysis of appearance of softness for interior plastic parts; Naiso jushi buhin no soft kan kaiseki

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kubota, T; Wada, T; Matsuda, M [Toyota Central R and D Laboratories Inc., Aichi (Japan); Nagata, M; Maeda, M [Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd., Aichi (Japan)

1997-10-01

The Appearance of softness was evaluated using the paired comparison method for steering wheel pads. Many kinds of physical quantities of sample pads, such as the depth of wrinkles, surface roughness and gloss, were measured. Correlations between the appearance of softness and the physical quantities were analyzed. As a result, this appearance of softness was found to be characterized by four factors, the depth and slope of wrinkles, gloss and lightness. 3 refs., 4 figs., 4 tabs.

On the possibility of non-invasive multilayer temperature estimation using soft-computing methods.

Science.gov (United States)

Teixeira, C A; Pereira, W C A; Ruano, A E; Ruano, M Graça

2010-01-01

considered, i.e. five 5-mm spaced spatial points and eight therapeutic intensities (I(SATA)): 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.3, 1.5, 1.7 and 2.0W/cm(2). Models were trained and selected to estimate temperature at only four intensities, then during the validation phase, the best-fitted models were analyzed in data collected at the eight intensities. This procedure leads to a more realistic evaluation of the generalisation level of the best-obtained structures. At the end of the identification phase, 82 (preferable) estimator models were achieved. The majority of them present an average maximum absolute error (MAE) inferior to 0.5 degrees C. The best-fitted estimator presents a MAE of only 0.4 degrees C for both the 40 operating conditions. This means that the gold-standard maximum error (0.5 degrees C) pointed for hyperthermia was fulfilled independently of the intensity and spatial position considered, showing the improved generalisation capacity of the identified estimator models. As the majority of the preferable estimator models, the best one presents 6 inputs and 11 neurons. In addition to the appropriate error performance, the estimator models present also a reduced computational complexity and then the possibility to be applied in real-time. A non-invasive temperature estimation model, based on soft-computing technique, was proposed for a three-layered phantom. The best-achieved estimator models presented an appropriate error performance regardless of the spatial point considered (inside or at the interface of the layers) and of the intensity applied. Other methodologies published so far, estimate temperature only in homogeneous media. The main drawback of the proposed methodology is the necessity of a-priory knowledge of the temperature behavior. Data used for training and optimisation should be representative, i.e., they should cover all possible physical situations of the estimation environment.

Statistical errors in Monte Carlo estimates of systematic errors

Science.gov (United States)

Roe, Byron P.

2007-01-01

For estimating the effects of a number of systematic errors on a data sample, one can generate Monte Carlo (MC) runs with systematic parameters varied and examine the change in the desired observed result. Two methods are often used. In the unisim method, the systematic parameters are varied one at a time by one standard deviation, each parameter corresponding to a MC run. In the multisim method (see ), each MC run has all of the parameters varied; the amount of variation is chosen from the expected distribution of each systematic parameter, usually assumed to be a normal distribution. The variance of the overall systematic error determination is derived for each of the two methods and comparisons are made between them. If one focuses not on the error in the prediction of an individual systematic error, but on the overall error due to all systematic errors in the error matrix element in data bin m, the number of events needed is strongly reduced because of the averaging effect over all of the errors. For simple models presented here the multisim model was far better if the statistical error in the MC samples was larger than an individual systematic error, while for the reverse case, the unisim model was better. Exact formulas and formulas for the simple toy models are presented so that realistic calculations can be made. The calculations in the present note are valid if the errors are in a linear region. If that region extends sufficiently far, one can have the unisims or multisims correspond to k standard deviations instead of one. This reduces the number of events required by a factor of k2. The specific terms unisim and multisim were coined by Peter Meyers and Steve Brice, respectively, for the MiniBooNE experiment. However, the concepts have been developed over time and have been in general use for some time.

From Soft Walls to Infrared Branes

CERN Document Server

von Gersdorff, Gero

2010-01-01

Five dimensional warped spaces with soft walls are generalizations of the standard Randall-Sundrum compactifications, where instead of an infrared brane one has a curvature singularity (with vanishing warp factor) at finite proper distance in the bulk. We project the physics near the singularity onto a hypersurface located a small distance away from it in the bulk. This results in a completely equivalent description of the soft wall in terms of an effective infrared brane, hiding any singular point. We perform explicitly this calculation for two classes of soft wall backgrounds used in the literature. The procedure has several advantages. It separates in a clean way the physics of the soft wall from the physics of the five dimensional bulk, facilitating a more direct comparison with standard two-brane warped compactifications. Moreover, consistent soft walls show a sort of universal behavior near the singularity which is reflected in the effective brane Lagrangian. Thirdly, for many purposes, a good approxima...

Soft modes and structural phase transitions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Venkataraman, G [Reactor Research Centre, Kalpakkam (India)

1979-12-01

A survey of soft modes and their relationship to structural phase transitions is presented. After introducing the concept of a soft mode, the origin of softening is considered from a lattice-dynamical point. The Landau theory approach to structural transitions is then discussed, followed by a generalisation of the soft-mode concept through the use of the dynamic order-parameter susceptibility. The relationship of soft modes to broken symmetry is also examined. Experimental results for several classes of crystals are next presented, bringing out various features such as the co-operative Jahn-Teller effect. The survey concludes with a discussion of the central peak, touching upon both the experimental results and the theoretical speculations.

Soft law as a new mode of governance

OpenAIRE

Peters, Anne

2011-01-01

The paper analyses soft law as a mode of EU governance. European soft law can be qualified as a relatively ‘new’ mode, notably due to its dramatic proliferation and the increasing involvement of private actors. The concept of ‘soft law’ is viable on the premiss that normativity may be graduated (‘the continuum view’). Soft law deploys specific legal effects apart from outright legal bindingness, and not merely political or otherwise factual effects. The legal effects of European soft law flow...

Facial soft tissue thicknesses: Noise, signal, and P.

Science.gov (United States)

Stephan, Carl N; Munn, Lachlan; Caple, Jodi

2015-12-01

Facial soft tissue thicknesses (FSTTs) hold an important role in craniofacial identification, forming the underlying quantitative basis of craniofacial superimposition and facial approximation methods. It is, therefore, important that patterns in FSTTs be correctly described and interpreted. In prior FSTT literature, small statistically significant differences have almost universally been overemphasized and misinterpreted to reflect sex and ancestry effects when they instead largely encode nuisance statistical noise. Here we examine FSTT data and give an overview of why P-values do not mean everything. Scientific inference, not mechanical evaluation of P, should be awarded higher priority and should form the basis of FSTT analysis. This hinges upon tempered consideration of many factors in addition to P, e.g., study design, sampling, measurement errors, repeatability, reproducibility, and effect size. While there are multiple lessons to be had, the underlying message is foundational: know enough statistics to avoid misinterpreting background noise for real biological effects. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Toward a soft x-ray Fourier-transform spectrometer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Howells, M.R.; Frank, K.; Hussain, Z.; Moler, E.J.; Reich, T.; Moeller, D.

1993-01-01

The use of Fourier transform spectroscopy (FTS) in the soft x-ray region is advocated as a possible route to spectral resolution superior to that attainable with a grating system. A technical plan is described for applying FTS to the study of the absorption spectrum of helium in the region of double ionization around 60--80 eV. The proposed scheme includes a Mach-Zehnder interferometer deformed into a rhombus shape to provide grazing incidence reflections. The path difference between the interfering beams is to be tuned by translation of a table carrying four mirrors over a range ±1 cm which, in the absence of errors generating relative tilts of the wave fronts, would provide a resolving power equal to the number of waves of path difference: half a million at 65 eV, for example. The signal-to-noise ratio of the spectrum is analyzed and for operation on an Advanced Light Source bending magnet beam line should be about 330

Soft gluon resummation for gluon-induced Higgs Strahlung

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Harlander, Robert; Zirke, Tom [Fachbereich C, Bergische Universitaet Wuppertal (Germany); Kulesza, Anna; Theeuwes, Vincent [Institute for Theoretical Physics, WWU Muenster (Germany)

2015-07-01

We study the effect of soft gluon emission on the total cross section predictions for the gg → HZ associated Higgs production process at the LHC. To this end, we perform resummation of threshold corrections at the NLL accuracy in the absolute threshold production limit and in the threshold limit for production of a ZH system with a given invariant mass. Analytical results and numerical predictions for various possible LHC collision energies are presented. The perturbative stability of the results is verified by including universal NNLL effects. We find that resummation significantly reduces the scale uncertainty of the gg → HZ contribution, which is the dominant source of perturbative uncertainty to ZH production. We use our results to evaluate updated numbers for the total inclusive cross section of associated pp → ZH production at the LHC. The reduced scale uncertainty of the gg → HZ component translates into a decrease of the overall scale error by about a factor of two.

Medication Errors - A Review

OpenAIRE

Vinay BC; Nikhitha MK; Patel Sunil B

2015-01-01

In this present review article, regarding medication errors its definition, medication error problem, types of medication errors, common causes of medication errors, monitoring medication errors, consequences of medication errors, prevention of medication error and managing medication errors have been explained neatly and legibly with proper tables which is easy to understand.

Interaction with Soft Robotic Tentacles

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Jonas

2018-01-01

Soft robotics technology has been proposed for a number of applications that involve human-robot interaction. In this tabletop demonstration it is possible to interact with two soft robotic platforms that have been used in human-robot interaction experiments (also accepted to HRI'18 as a Late...

Mapping quantitative trait loci for a unique 'super soft' kernel trait in soft white wheat

Science.gov (United States)

Wheat (Triticum sp.) kernel texture is an important factor affecting milling, flour functionality, and end-use quality. Kernel texture is normally characterized as either hard or soft, the two major classes of texture. However, further variation is typically encountered in each class. Soft wheat var...

Error Patterns

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hoede, C.; Li, Z.

2001-01-01

In coding theory the problem of decoding focuses on error vectors. In the simplest situation code words are $(0,1)$-vectors, as are the received messages and the error vectors. Comparison of a received word with the code words yields a set of error vectors. In deciding on the original code word,

Scalable manufacturing processes with soft materials

OpenAIRE

White, Edward; Case, Jennifer; Kramer, Rebecca

2014-01-01

The emerging field of soft robotics will benefit greatly from new scalable manufacturing techniques for responsive materials. Currently, most of soft robotic examples are fabricated one-at-a-time, using techniques borrowed from lithography and 3D printing to fabricate molds. This limits both the maximum and minimum size of robots that can be fabricated, and hinders batch production, which is critical to gain wider acceptance for soft robotic systems. We have identified electrical structures, ...

Applications of Soft Union Sets in the Ring Theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongwei Yang

2013-01-01

through discussing quotient soft subsets, an approach for constructing quotient soft union rings is made. Finally, isomorphism theorems of λ,μ-soft union rings related to invariant soft sets are discussed.

The error in total error reduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Witnauer, James E; Urcelay, Gonzalo P; Miller, Ralph R

2014-02-01

Most models of human and animal learning assume that learning is proportional to the discrepancy between a delivered outcome and the outcome predicted by all cues present during that trial (i.e., total error across a stimulus compound). This total error reduction (TER) view has been implemented in connectionist and artificial neural network models to describe the conditions under which weights between units change. Electrophysiological work has revealed that the activity of dopamine neurons is correlated with the total error signal in models of reward learning. Similar neural mechanisms presumably support fear conditioning, human contingency learning, and other types of learning. Using a computational modeling approach, we compared several TER models of associative learning to an alternative model that rejects the TER assumption in favor of local error reduction (LER), which assumes that learning about each cue is proportional to the discrepancy between the delivered outcome and the outcome predicted by that specific cue on that trial. The LER model provided a better fit to the reviewed data than the TER models. Given the superiority of the LER model with the present data sets, acceptance of TER should be tempered. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

(M,N-Soft Intersection BL-Algebras and Their Congruences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xueling Ma

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to give a foundation for providing a new soft algebraic tool in considering many problems containing uncertainties. In order to provide these new soft algebraic structures, we discuss a new soft set-(M, N-soft intersection set, which is a generalization of soft intersection sets. We introduce the concepts of (M, N-SI filters of BL-algebras and establish some characterizations. Especially, (M, N-soft congruences in BL-algebras are concerned.

Characteristics of pediatric chemotherapy medication errors in a national error reporting database.

Science.gov (United States)

Rinke, Michael L; Shore, Andrew D; Morlock, Laura; Hicks, Rodney W; Miller, Marlene R

2007-07-01

Little is known regarding chemotherapy medication errors in pediatrics despite studies suggesting high rates of overall pediatric medication errors. In this study, the authors examined patterns in pediatric chemotherapy errors. The authors queried the United States Pharmacopeia MEDMARX database, a national, voluntary, Internet-accessible error reporting system, for all error reports from 1999 through 2004 that involved chemotherapy medications and patients aged error reports, 85% reached the patient, and 15.6% required additional patient monitoring or therapeutic intervention. Forty-eight percent of errors originated in the administering phase of medication delivery, and 30% originated in the drug-dispensing phase. Of the 387 medications cited, 39.5% were antimetabolites, 14.0% were alkylating agents, 9.3% were anthracyclines, and 9.3% were topoisomerase inhibitors. The most commonly involved chemotherapeutic agents were methotrexate (15.3%), cytarabine (12.1%), and etoposide (8.3%). The most common error types were improper dose/quantity (22.9% of 327 cited error types), wrong time (22.6%), omission error (14.1%), and wrong administration technique/wrong route (12.2%). The most common error causes were performance deficit (41.3% of 547 cited error causes), equipment and medication delivery devices (12.4%), communication (8.8%), knowledge deficit (6.8%), and written order errors (5.5%). Four of the 5 most serious errors occurred at community hospitals. Pediatric chemotherapy errors often reached the patient, potentially were harmful, and differed in quality between outpatient and inpatient areas. This study indicated which chemotherapeutic agents most often were involved in errors and that administering errors were common. Investigation is needed regarding targeted medication administration safeguards for these high-risk medications. Copyright (c) 2007 American Cancer Society.

Soft Thermal Sensor with Mechanical Adaptability.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Hui; Qi, Dianpeng; Liu, Zhiyuan; Chandran, Bevita K; Wang, Ting; Yu, Jiancan; Chen, Xiaodong

2016-11-01

A soft thermal sensor with mechanical adaptability is fabricated by the combination of single-wall carbon nanotubes with carboxyl groups and self-healing polymers. This study demonstrates that this soft sensor has excellent thermal response and mechanical adaptability. It shows tremendous promise for improving the service life of soft artificial-intelligence robots and protecting thermally sensitive electronics from the risk of damage by high temperature. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Analysis of soft-decision FEC on non-AWGN channels.

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Junho; Xie, Chongjin; Winzer, Peter J

2012-03-26

Soft-decision forward error correction (SD-FEC) schemes are typically designed for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. In a fiber-optic communication system, noise may be neither circularly symmetric nor Gaussian, thus violating an important assumption underlying SD-FEC design. This paper quantifies the impact of non-AWGN noise on SD-FEC performance for such optical channels. We use a conditionally bivariate Gaussian noise model (CBGN) to analyze the impact of correlations among the signal's two quadrature components, and assess the effect of CBGN on SD-FEC performance using the density evolution of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. On a CBGN channel generating severely elliptic noise clouds, it is shown that more than 3 dB of coding gain are attainable by utilizing correlation information. Our analyses also give insights into potential improvements of the detection performance for fiber-optic transmission systems assisted by SD-FEC.

Biomineralization of a Self-assembled, Soft-Matrix Precursor: Enamel

Science.gov (United States)

Snead, Malcolm L.

2015-04-01

Enamel is the bioceramic covering of teeth, a composite tissue composed of hierarchical organized hydroxyapatite crystallites fabricated by cells under physiologic pH and temperature. Enamel material properties resist wear and fracture to serve a lifetime of chewing. Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms for enamel formation may allow a biology-inspired approach to material fabrication based on self-assembling proteins that control form and function. A genetic understanding of human diseases exposes insight from nature's errors by exposing critical fabrication events that can be validated experimentally and duplicated in mice using genetic engineering to phenocopy the human disease so that it can be explored in detail. This approach led to an assessment of amelogenin protein self-assembly that, when altered, disrupts fabrication of the soft enamel protein matrix. A misassembled protein matrix precursor results in loss of cell-to-matrix contacts essential to fabrication and mineralization.

Integrating soft sensor systems using conductive thread

Science.gov (United States)

Teng, Lijun; Jeronimo, Karina; Wei, Tianqi; Nemitz, Markus P.; Lyu, Geng; Stokes, Adam A.

2018-05-01

We are part of a growing community of researchers who are developing a new class of soft machines. By using mechanically soft materials (MPa modulus) we can design systems which overcome the bulk-mechanical mismatches between soft biological systems and hard engineered components. To develop fully integrated soft machines—which include power, communications, and control sub-systems—the research community requires methods for interconnecting between soft and hard electronics. Sensors based upon eutectic gallium alloys in microfluidic channels can be used to measure normal and strain forces, but integrating these sensors into systems of heterogeneous Young’s modulus is difficult due the complexity of finding a material which is electrically conductive, mechanically flexible, and stable over prolonged periods of time. Many existing gallium-based liquid alloy sensors are not mechanically or electrically robust, and have poor stability over time. We present the design and fabrication of a high-resolution pressure-sensor soft system that can transduce normal force into a digital output. In this soft system, which is built on a monolithic silicone substrate, a galinstan-based microfluidic pressure sensor is integrated with a flexible printed circuit board. We used conductive thread as the interconnect and found that this method alleviates problems arising due to the mechanical mismatch between conventional metal wires and soft or liquid materials. Conductive thread is low-cost, it is readily wetted by the liquid metal, it produces little bending moment into the microfluidic channel, and it can be connected directly onto the copper bond-pads of the flexible printed circuit board. We built a bridge-system to provide stable readings from the galinstan pressure sensor. This system gives linear measurement results between 500-3500 Pa of applied pressure. We anticipate that integrated systems of this type will find utility in soft-robotic systems as used for wearable

Scaling in soft spheres: fragility invariance on the repulsive potential softness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michele, Cristiano De; Sciortino, Francesco; Coniglio, Antonio

2004-01-01

We address the question of the dependence of the fragility of glass forming supercooled liquids on the 'softness' of an interacting potential by performing numerical simulation of a binary mixture of soft spheres with different power n of the interparticle repulsive potential. We show that the temperature dependence of the diffusion coefficients for various n collapses onto a universal curve, supporting the unexpected view that fragility is not related to the hard core repulsion. We also find that the configurational entropy correlates with the slowing down of the dynamics for all studied n. (letter to the editor)

4th World Conference on Soft Computing

CERN Document Server

Abbasov, Ali; Yager, Ronald; Shahbazova, Shahnaz; Reformat, Marek

2016-01-01

This book reports on advanced theories and cutting-edge applications in the field of soft computing. The individual chapters, written by leading researchers, are based on contributions presented during the 4th World Conference on Soft Computing, held May 25-27, 2014, in Berkeley. The book covers a wealth of key topics in soft computing, focusing on both fundamental aspects and applications. The former include fuzzy mathematics, type-2 fuzzy sets, evolutionary-based optimization, aggregation and neural networks, while the latter include soft computing in data analysis, image processing, decision-making, classification, series prediction, economics, control, and modeling. By providing readers with a timely, authoritative view on the field, and by discussing thought-provoking developments and challenges, the book will foster new research directions in the diverse areas of soft computing. .

Soft Computing Applications : Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop Soft Computing Applications

CERN Document Server

Fodor, János; Várkonyi-Kóczy, Annamária; Dombi, Joszef; Jain, Lakhmi

2013-01-01

                This volume contains the Proceedings of the 5thInternational Workshop on Soft Computing Applications (SOFA 2012).                                The book covers a broad spectrum of soft computing techniques, theoretical and practical applications employing knowledge and intelligence to find solutions for world industrial, economic and medical problems. The combination of such intelligent systems tools and a large number of applications introduce a need for a synergy of scientific and technological disciplines in order to show the great potential of Soft Computing in all domains.                   The conference papers included in these proceedings, published post conference, were grouped into the following area of research: ·         Soft Computing and Fusion Algorithms in Biometrics, ·         Fuzzy Theory, Control andApplications, ·         Modelling and Control Applications, ·         Steps towa...

Q-Neutrosophic Soft Relation and Its Application in Decision Making

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Majdoleen Abu Qamar

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Q-neutrosophic soft sets are essentially neutrosophic soft sets characterized by three independent two-dimensional membership functions which stand for uncertainty, indeterminacy and falsity. Thus, it can be applied to two-dimensional imprecise, indeterminate and inconsistent data which appear in most real life problems. Relations are a suitable tool for describing correspondences between objects. In this study we introduce and discuss Q-neutrosophic soft relations, which can be discussed as a generalization of fuzzy soft relations, intuitionistic fuzzy soft relations, and neutrosophic soft relations. Q-neutrosophic soft relation is a sub Q-neutrosophic soft set of the Cartesian product of the Q-neutrosophic soft sets, in other words Q-neutrosophic soft relation is Q-neutrosophic soft sets in a Cartesian product of universes. We also present the notions of inverse, composition of Q-neutrosophic soft relations and functions along with some related theorems and properties. Reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity as well as equivalence relations and equivalence classes of Q-neutrosophic soft relations are also defined. Some properties of these concepts are presented and supported by real life examples. Finally, an algorithm to solve decision making problems using Q-neutrosophic soft relations is developed and verified by an example to show the efficiency of this method.

Radionuclide imaging of soft tissue neoplasms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chew, F.S.; Hudson, T.M.; Enneking, W.F.

1981-01-01

Two classes of radiopharmaceuticals may be used for imaging tumors of the musculoskeletal system. The first is comprised of soft tissue or tumor specific agents such as gallium-67, bleomycin, and radionuclide-labeled antibodies, which may be useful for detecting and localizing these tumors. The other class of tracer is comprised of those with avidity for bone. The 99mTc-labeled-phosphate skeletal imaging compounds have been found to localize in a variety of soft tissue lesions, including benign and malignant tumors. In 1972, Enneking began to include bone scans in the preoperative evaluation of soft tissue masses. Later, he and his associates reported that these scans were useful in planning operative treatment of sarcomas by detecting involvement of bone by the tumors. Nearly all malignant soft tissue tumors take up bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals, and bone involvement was indicated in two-thirds of the scans we reviewed. About half of benign soft tissue lesions had normal scans, but the other half showed uptake within the lesion and a few also showed bone involvement. Careful, thorough imaging technique is essential to proper evaluation. Multiple, high-resolution static gamma camera images in different projections are necessary to adequately demonstrate the presence or absence of soft tissue abnormality and to define the precise relationship of the tumor to the adjacent bone

An electromechanical based deformable model for soft tissue simulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, Yongmin; Shirinzadeh, Bijan; Smith, Julian; Gu, Chengfan

2009-11-01

Soft tissue deformation is of great importance to surgery simulation. Although a significant amount of research efforts have been dedicated to simulating the behaviours of soft tissues, modelling of soft tissue deformation is still a challenging problem. This paper presents a new deformable model for simulation of soft tissue deformation from the electromechanical viewpoint of soft tissues. Soft tissue deformation is formulated as a reaction-diffusion process coupled with a mechanical load. The mechanical load applied to a soft tissue to cause a deformation is incorporated into the reaction-diffusion system, and consequently distributed among mass points of the soft tissue. Reaction-diffusion of mechanical load and non-rigid mechanics of motion are combined to govern the simulation dynamics of soft tissue deformation. An improved reaction-diffusion model is developed to describe the distribution of the mechanical load in soft tissues. A three-layer artificial cellular neural network is constructed to solve the reaction-diffusion model for real-time simulation of soft tissue deformation. A gradient based method is established to derive internal forces from the distribution of the mechanical load. Integration with a haptic device has also been achieved to simulate soft tissue deformation with haptic feedback. The proposed methodology does not only predict the typical behaviours of living tissues, but it also accepts both local and large-range deformations. It also accommodates isotropic, anisotropic and inhomogeneous deformations by simple modification of diffusion coefficients.

[Soft contactlenses in general practice (author's transl)].

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, B

1975-07-01

In contrast to the hard lenses the soft lens has enough permeability for oxygen and water-soluble substances, whereas high molecular substances, bacteria and virus cannot penetrate the soft lenses, so long as their surfaces are intact. The two principal production methods, the spin cast method and the lathe-turned method are compared. The duration of wearing of the soft lens depends on the deposits of proteins from the tears on the surface of the lens and the desinfection method. The daily boiling of the lenses shortens their useful life, while chemical desinfection causes besides bacteriolysis, damage of the corneal cell protein. The new cleaners on the base of proteolytic plant enzymes promise good results. For the optical correction of astigmatism with more than 1 cyl, soft lenses with conic outer surface are used or combinations of a soft and a hard lens (Duosystem). The therapeutic use of soft lenses has as aim: protection of the cornea against mechanical irritation, release of pain, protracted administration output of medicaments. Further indications for use: aseptic corneal inflammation and corneal defects.

Amplitude of Accommodation and its Relation to Refractive Errors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abraham Lekha

2005-01-01

Full Text Available Aims: To evaluate the relationship between amplitude of accommodation and refractive errors in the peri-presbyopic age group. Materials and Methods: Three hundred and sixteen right eyes of 316 consecutive patients in the age group 35-50 years who attended our outpatient clinic were studied. Emmetropes, hypermetropes and myopes with best-corrected visual acuity of 6/6 J1 in both eyes were included. The amplitude of accommodation (AA was calculated by measuring the near point of accommodation (NPA. In patients with more than ± 2 diopter sphere correction for distance, the NPA was also measured using appropriate soft contact lenses. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in AA between myopes and hypermetropes ( P P P P P P >0.5. Conclusion: Our study showed higher amplitude of accommodation among myopes between 35 and 44 years compared to emmetropes and hypermetropes

Soft Sensors - Modern Chemical Engineering Tool

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Bolf

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Control systems and optimization procedures require regular and reliable measurements at the appropriate frequency. At the same time, legal regulations dictate strict product quality specifications and refinery emissions. As a result, a greater number of process variables need to be measured and new expensive process analyzers need to be installed to achieve efficient process control. This involves synergy between plant experts, system analysts and process operators. One of the common problems in industrial plants is the inability of the real time and continuous measurement of key process variables.Absence of key value measurement in a timely manner aggravates control, but it does not mean that it is always an impossible step. As an alternative, the use of soft sensors as a substitute for process analyzers and laboratory testing is suggested. With the soft sensors, the objective is to develop an inferential model to estimate infrequently measured variables and laboratory assays using the frequently measured variables. By development of soft sensors based on measurement of continuous variables (such as flow, temperature, pressure it is possible to estimate the difficult- -to-measure variables as well as product quality and emissions usually carried by laboratory assays.Software sensors, as part of virtual instrumentation, are focused on assessing the system state variables and quality products by applying the model, thus replacing the physical measurement and laboratory analysis. Multiple linear/nonlinear regression methods and artificial intelligence methods (such as neural network, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms are usually applied in the design of soft sensor models for identification of nonlinear processes.Review of published research and industrial application in the field of soft sensors is given with the methods of soft sensor development and nonlinear dynamic model identification. Based on soft sensors, it is possible to estimate

Soft Active Materials for Actuation, Sensing, and Electronics

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, Rebecca Krone

Future generations of robots, electronics, and assistive medical devices will include systems that are soft and elastically deformable, allowing them to adapt their morphology in unstructured environments. This will require soft active materials for actuation, circuitry, and sensing of deformation and contact pressure. The emerging field of soft robotics utilizes these soft active materials to mimic the inherent compliance of natural soft-bodied systems. As the elasticity of robot components increases, the challenges for functionality revert to basic questions of fabrication, materials, and design - whereas such aspects are far more developed for traditional rigid-bodied systems. This thesis will highlight preliminary materials and designs that address the need for soft actuators and sensors, as well as emerging fabrication techniques for manufacturing stretchable circuits and devices based on liquid-embedded elastomers.

Dynamics of Soft Matter

CERN Document Server

García Sakai, Victoria; Chen, Sow-Hsin

2012-01-01

Dynamics of Soft Matter: Neutron Applications provides an overview of neutron scattering techniques that measure temporal and spatial correlations simultaneously, at the microscopic and/or mesoscopic scale. These techniques offer answers to new questions arising at the interface of physics, chemistry, and biology. Knowledge of the dynamics at these levels is crucial to understanding the soft matter field, which includes colloids, polymers, membranes, biological macromolecules, foams, emulsions towards biological & biomimetic systems, and phenomena involving wetting, friction, adhesion, or micr

Hard and Soft Governance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moos, Lejf

2009-01-01

of Denmark, and finally the third layer: the leadership used in Danish schools. The use of 'soft governance' is shifting the focus of governance and leadership from decisions towards influence and power and thus shifting the focus of the processes from the decision-making itself towards more focus......The governance and leadership at transnational, national and school level seem to be converging into a number of isomorphic forms as we see a tendency towards substituting 'hard' forms of governance, that are legally binding, with 'soft' forms based on persuasion and advice. This article analyses...... and discusses governance forms at several levels. The first layer is the global: the methods of 'soft governance' that are being utilised by transnational agencies. The second layer is the national and local: the shift in national and local governance seen in many countries, but here demonstrated in the case...

Error studies for SNS Linac. Part 1: Transverse errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crandall, K.R.

1998-01-01

The SNS linac consist of a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ), a drift-tube linac (DTL), a coupled-cavity drift-tube linac (CCDTL) and a coupled-cavity linac (CCL). The RFQ and DTL are operated at 402.5 MHz; the CCDTL and CCL are operated at 805 MHz. Between the RFQ and DTL is a medium-energy beam-transport system (MEBT). This error study is concerned with the DTL, CCDTL and CCL, and each will be analyzed separately. In fact, the CCL is divided into two sections, and each of these will be analyzed separately. The types of errors considered here are those that affect the transverse characteristics of the beam. The errors that cause the beam center to be displaced from the linac axis are quad displacements and quad tilts. The errors that cause mismatches are quad gradient errors and quad rotations (roll)

Analytical study of the effects of soft tissue artefacts on functional techniques to define axes of rotation.

Science.gov (United States)

De Rosario, Helios; Page, Álvaro; Besa, Antonio

2017-09-06

The accurate location of the main axes of rotation (AoR) is a crucial step in many applications of human movement analysis. There are different formal methods to determine the direction and position of the AoR, whose performance varies across studies, depending on the pose and the source of errors. Most methods are based on minimizing squared differences between observed and modelled marker positions or rigid motion parameters, implicitly assuming independent and uncorrelated errors, but the largest error usually results from soft tissue artefacts (STA), which do not have such statistical properties and are not effectively cancelled out by such methods. However, with adequate methods it is possible to assume that STA only account for a small fraction of the observed motion and to obtain explicit formulas through differential analysis that relate STA components to the resulting errors in AoR parameters. In this paper such formulas are derived for three different functional calibration techniques (Geometric Fitting, mean Finite Helical Axis, and SARA), to explain why each technique behaves differently from the others, and to propose strategies to compensate for those errors. These techniques were tested with published data from a sit-to-stand activity, where the true axis was defined using bi-planar fluoroscopy. All the methods were able to estimate the direction of the AoR with an error of less than 5°, whereas there were errors in the location of the axis of 30-40mm. Such location errors could be reduced to less than 17mm by the methods based on equations that use rigid motion parameters (mean Finite Helical Axis, SARA) when the translation component was calculated using the three markers nearest to the axis. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Glass transition of soft colloids

Science.gov (United States)

Philippe, Adrian-Marie; Truzzolillo, Domenico; Galvan-Myoshi, Julian; Dieudonné-George, Philippe; Trappe, Véronique; Berthier, Ludovic; Cipelletti, Luca

2018-04-01

We explore the glassy dynamics of soft colloids using microgels and charged particles interacting by steric and screened Coulomb interactions, respectively. In the supercooled regime, the structural relaxation time τα of both systems grows steeply with volume fraction, reminiscent of the behavior of colloidal hard spheres. Computer simulations confirm that the growth of τα on approaching the glass transition is independent of particle softness. By contrast, softness becomes relevant at very large packing fractions when the system falls out of equilibrium. In this nonequilibrium regime, τα depends surprisingly weakly on packing fraction, and time correlation functions exhibit a compressed exponential decay consistent with stress-driven relaxation. The transition to this novel regime coincides with the onset of an anomalous decrease in local order with increasing density typical of ultrasoft systems. We propose that these peculiar dynamics results from the combination of the nonequilibrium aging dynamics expected in the glassy state and the tendency of colloids interacting through soft potentials to refluidize at high packing fractions.

Identification of inhaler technique errors with a routine procedure in Portuguese community pharmacy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Castel-Branco MM

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Background: A correct selection of drugs prescribed, but also the choice of the appropriate inhaler device, is crucial for the control of respiratory diseases. Objective: To evaluate the inhaler technique and identify potential errors of patients when treated with inhalers by testing a routinary procedure to be implemented in any community pharmacy. Methods: Adults with asthma/COPD and under inhalation therapy were invited to demonstrate how they use their inhalers. After direct observation it was registered whether all the sequential steps included in the summary of product characteristics (SmPC were performed. Results: The study involved 67 patients from 4 community pharmacies (Portugal central region: 34 (50.7% males, 65.4 (SD=18.28 years old, 42 (62.7% with COPD, and 23 (34.3% using more than one inhaler. The 67 patients used 95 inhalers, comprising: 57 (60.0% multiple dose DPI (dry powder inhalers, 18 (18.9% single dose DPI, 16 (16.8% pMDI (pressurized metered dose inhalers, 2 (2.1% pMDI+spacer and 2 (2.1% SMI (soft mist inhalers. No errors were made only by 9 (13.4% patients. In the 75 DPIs techniques, the most frequent errors were ‘no previous forced expiration’ (46=61.3% and ‘no 10s apnea after inhalation’ (51=68.0%; in the 16 pMDIs techniques common errors were ‘lack of hand-lung coordination’ (7=43.8 %, ‘no previous forced exhalation’ (8=50.0% and ‘no apnea after inhalation’ (10=62.5%. After inhaling from 56 devices containing corticosteroids, 34 (60.7% of the patients did not wash their mouth. Conclusion: The study demonstrated the possibility of performing this procedure routinely in Portuguese community pharmacies and also its utility, since 58 (87% of patients had at least one error during the inhalers use.

Vibrio cholerae Colonization of Soft-Shelled Turtles.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jiazheng; Yan, Meiying; Gao, He; Lu, Xin; Kan, Biao

2017-07-15

Vibrio cholerae is an important human pathogen and environmental microflora species that can both propagate in the human intestine and proliferate in zooplankton and aquatic organisms. Cholera is transmitted through food and water. In recent years, outbreaks caused by V. cholerae -contaminated soft-shelled turtles, contaminated mainly with toxigenic serogroup O139, have been frequently reported, posing a new foodborne disease public health problem. In this study, the colonization by toxigenic V. cholerae on the body surfaces and intestines of soft-shelled turtles was explored. Preferred colonization sites on the turtle body surfaces, mainly the carapace and calipash of the dorsal side, were observed for the O139 and O1 strains. Intestinal colonization was also found. The colonization factors of V. cholerae played different roles in the colonization of the soft-shelled turtle's body surface and intestine. Mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MSHA) of V. cholerae was necessary for body surface colonization, but no roles were found for toxin-coregulated pili (TCP) or N -acetylglucosamine-binding protein A (GBPA). Both TCP and GBPA play important roles for colonization in the intestine, whereas the deletion of MSHA revealed only a minor colonization-promoting role for this factor. Our study demonstrated that V. cholerae can colonize the surfaces and the intestines of soft-shelled turtles and indicated that the soft-shelled turtles played a role in the transmission of cholera. In addition, this study showed that the soft-shelled turtle has potential value as an animal model in studies of the colonization and environmental adaption mechanisms of V. cholerae in aquatic organisms. IMPORTANCE Cholera is transmitted through water and food. Soft-shelled turtles contaminated with Vibrio cholerae (commonly the serogroup O139 strains) have caused many foodborne infections and outbreaks in recent years, and they have become a foodborne disease problem. Except for epidemiological

Two-dimensional errors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1991-01-01

This chapter addresses the extension of previous work in one-dimensional (linear) error theory to two-dimensional error analysis. The topics of the chapter include the definition of two-dimensional error, the probability ellipse, the probability circle, elliptical (circular) error evaluation, the application to position accuracy, and the use of control systems (points) in measurements

Spectator interactions in soft-collinear effective theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hill, Richard J.; Neubert, Matthias

2003-01-01

Soft-collinear effective theory is generalized to include soft massless quarks in addition to collinear fields. This extension is necessary for the treatment of interactions with the soft spectator quark in a heavy meson. The power counting of the relevant fields and the construction of the effective Lagrangian are discussed at leading order in Λ/m b . Several novel effects occur in the matching of full-theory amplitudes onto effective-theory operators containing soft light quarks, such as the appearance of an intermediate mass scale and large non-localities of operators on scales of order 1/Λ. Important examples of effective-theory operators with soft light quarks are studied and their renormalization properties explored. The formalism presented here forms the basis for a systematic analysis of factorization and power corrections for any exclusive B-meson decay into light particles

Spectator Interactions in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hill, Richard J

2002-01-01

Soft-collinear effective theory is generalized to include soft massless quarks in addition to collinear fields. This extension is necessary for the treatment of interactions with the soft spectator quark in a heavy meson. The power counting of the relevant fields and the construction of the effective Lagrangian are discussed at leading order in Λ/m b . Several novel effects occur in the matching of full-theory amplitudes onto effective-theory operators containing soft light quarks, such as the appearance of an intermediate mass scale and large non-localities of operators on scales of order 1/Λ. Important examples of effective-theory operators with soft light quarks are studied and their renormalization properties explored. The formalism presented here forms the basis for a systematic analysis of factorization and power corrections for any exclusive B-meson decay into light particles

Hard evidence on soft skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Heckman, James J; Kautz, Tim

2012-08-01

This paper summarizes recent evidence on what achievement tests measure; how achievement tests relate to other measures of "cognitive ability" like IQ and grades; the important skills that achievement tests miss or mismeasure, and how much these skills matter in life. Achievement tests miss, or perhaps more accurately, do not adequately capture, soft skills -personality traits, goals, motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains. The larger message of this paper is that soft skills predict success in life, that they causally produce that success, and that programs that enhance soft skills have an important place in an effective portfolio of public policies.

Error-related anterior cingulate cortex activity and the prediction of conscious error awareness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Catherine eOrr

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Research examining the neural mechanisms associated with error awareness has consistently identified dorsal anterior cingulate activity (ACC as necessary but not predictive of conscious error detection. Two recent studies (Steinhauser and Yeung, 2010; Wessel et al. 2011 have found a contrary pattern of greater dorsal ACC activity (in the form of the error-related negativity during detected errors, but suggested that the greater activity may instead reflect task influences (e.g., response conflict, error probability and or individual variability (e.g., statistical power. We re-analyzed fMRI BOLD data from 56 healthy participants who had previously been administered the Error Awareness Task, a motor Go/No-go response inhibition task in which subjects make errors of commission of which they are aware (Aware errors, or unaware (Unaware errors. Consistent with previous data, the activity in a number of cortical regions was predictive of error awareness, including bilateral inferior parietal and insula cortices, however in contrast to previous studies, including our own smaller sample studies using the same task, error-related dorsal ACC activity was significantly greater during aware errors when compared to unaware errors. While the significantly faster RT for aware errors (compared to unaware was consistent with the hypothesis of higher response conflict increasing ACC activity, we could find no relationship between dorsal ACC activity and the error RT difference. The data suggests that individual variability in error awareness is associated with error-related dorsal ACC activity, and therefore this region may be important to conscious error detection, but it remains unclear what task and individual factors influence error awareness.

Musculoskeletal Application of Ultrasound Elastography: Soft Tissue Lipoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Ja Young; Hong, Sung Hwan; Yoo, Hye Jin; Kim, Su Jin

2010-01-01

Real-time freehand elastography. Conventional ultrasonography (US) and real-time freehand US elastography were performed in nine patients (M:F = 4:5: mean age, 53 years: 29-64 years) with soft-tissue lipoma confirmed by surgical resection. The elastogram was color-coded by 256 scales according to the degree of strain induced by light compression. The relative strains for lipoma and surrounding soft tissue were measured and mean strains were examined by using a Wilcoxon signed rank test. The elastograms showed red to sky-blue color in all lipomas and predominantly black in surrounding soft tissue. The mean relative strain (±standard deviation) was 67.9±28.5, 77.1±25.3, 63.3±31.2, and 15.7±18.3 for total, intramuscular, and subcutaneous lipoma, and surrounding soft tissue, respectively. The mean strain of the lipoma was significantly higher than one of surrounding soft tissue (p = .008, Wilcoxon signed rank test). Real-time elastography yields characteristic elastographic features of soft tissue lipoma distinguishing from those of adjacent soft tissues

Computerized tomography magnified bone windows are superior to standard soft tissue windows for accurate measurement of stone size: an in vitro and clinical study.

Science.gov (United States)

Eisner, Brian H; Kambadakone, Avinash; Monga, Manoj; Anderson, James K; Thoreson, Andrew A; Lee, Hang; Dretler, Stephen P; Sahani, Dushyant V

2009-04-01

We determined the most accurate method of measuring urinary stones on computerized tomography. For the in vitro portion of the study 24 calculi, including 12 calcium oxalate monohydrate and 12 uric acid stones, that had been previously collected at our clinic were measured manually with hand calipers as the gold standard measurement. The calculi were then embedded into human kidney-sized potatoes and scanned using 64-slice multidetector computerized tomography. Computerized tomography measurements were performed at 4 window settings, including standard soft tissue windows (window width-320 and window length-50), standard bone windows (window width-1120 and window length-300), 5.13x magnified soft tissue windows and 5.13x magnified bone windows. Maximum stone dimensions were recorded. For the in vivo portion of the study 41 patients with distal ureteral stones who underwent noncontrast computerized tomography and subsequently spontaneously passed the stones were analyzed. All analyzed stones were 100% calcium oxalate monohydrate or mixed, calcium based stones. Stones were prospectively collected at the clinic and the largest diameter was measured with digital calipers as the gold standard. This was compared to computerized tomography measurements using 4.0x magnified soft tissue windows and 4.0x magnified bone windows. Statistical comparisons were performed using Pearson's correlation and paired t test. In the in vitro portion of the study the most accurate measurements were obtained using 5.13x magnified bone windows with a mean 0.13 mm difference from caliper measurement (p = 0.6). Measurements performed in the soft tissue window with and without magnification, and in the bone window without magnification were significantly different from hand caliper measurements (mean difference 1.2, 1.9 and 1.4 mm, p = 0.003, window settings with magnification. For uric acid calculi the measurement error was observed only in standard soft tissue window settings. In vivo 4.0x

Errors in otology.

Science.gov (United States)

Kartush, J M

1996-11-01

Practicing medicine successfully requires that errors in diagnosis and treatment be minimized. Malpractice laws encourage litigators to ascribe all medical errors to incompetence and negligence. There are, however, many other causes of unintended outcomes. This article describes common causes of errors and suggests ways to minimize mistakes in otologic practice. Widespread dissemination of knowledge about common errors and their precursors can reduce the incidence of their occurrence. Consequently, laws should be passed to allow for a system of non-punitive, confidential reporting of errors and "near misses" that can be shared by physicians nationwide.

The decline of soft power?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elena Vladimirovna Pimenova

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the origins and stages of the evolution of the concept of “soft power” in the political practice of the key countries in the world. This concept is both theoretical and practical product since it synthesizes and represents the direction of the application by a state its of social and political resources. It is significant to trace the transformation of the views of the author of the term J. Nye on the essential elements and mechanisms of “soft power”. The author examines the concept of “soft power” as an element of the US strategy to maintain its leadership in the world. In this regard, for other countries the use of “soft power” may be less effective for their own political purposes, because the concept is tuned to the specific characteristics of US policy. Moreover, with change in the international environment, Wash-ington modernizes the concept, of “smart power”. The author draws attention to the fact that the conditions for the use of turning it in “soft power” are likely to have been changed for the other states. The author concludes that there is a need to revise the existing theoretical approaches to the image of the state in the international arena and to develop new tools that can take into account the complex cultural, tourism, educational opportunities and achievements of every state.

3D printing for soft robotics – a review

Science.gov (United States)

Gul, Jahan Zeb; Sajid, Memoon; Rehman, Muhammad Muqeet; Siddiqui, Ghayas Uddin; Shah, Imran; Kim, Kyung-Hwan; Lee, Jae-Wook; Choi, Kyung Hyun

2018-01-01

Abstract Soft robots have received an increasing attention due to their advantages of high flexibility and safety for human operators but the fabrication is a challenge. Recently, 3D printing has been used as a key technology to fabricate soft robots because of high quality and printing multiple materials at the same time. Functional soft materials are particularly well suited for soft robotics due to a wide range of stimulants and sensitive demonstration of large deformations, high motion complexities and varied multi-functionalities. This review comprises a detailed survey of 3D printing in soft robotics. The development of key 3D printing technologies and new materials along with composites for soft robotic applications is investigated. A brief summary of 3D-printed soft devices suitable for medical to industrial applications is also included. The growing research on both 3D printing and soft robotics needs a summary of the major reported studies and the authors believe that this review article serves the purpose. PMID:29707065

The Impact of Error-Management Climate, Error Type and Error Originator on Auditors’ Reporting Errors Discovered on Audit Work Papers

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A.H. Gold-Nöteberg (Anna); U. Gronewold (Ulfert); S. Salterio (Steve)

2010-01-01

textabstractWe examine factors affecting the auditor’s willingness to report their own or their peers’ self-discovered errors in working papers subsequent to detailed working paper review. Prior research has shown that errors in working papers are detected in the review process; however, such

Learning from Errors

OpenAIRE

Martínez-Legaz, Juan Enrique; Soubeyran, Antoine

2003-01-01

We present a model of learning in which agents learn from errors. If an action turns out to be an error, the agent rejects not only that action but also neighboring actions. We find that, keeping memory of his errors, under mild assumptions an acceptable solution is asymptotically reached. Moreover, one can take advantage of big errors for a faster learning.

A Recipe for Soft Fluidic Elastomer Robots.

Science.gov (United States)

Marchese, Andrew D; Katzschmann, Robert K; Rus, Daniela

2015-03-01

This work provides approaches to designing and fabricating soft fluidic elastomer robots. That is, three viable actuator morphologies composed entirely from soft silicone rubber are explored, and these morphologies are differentiated by their internal channel structure, namely, ribbed, cylindrical, and pleated. Additionally, three distinct casting-based fabrication processes are explored: lamination-based casting, retractable-pin-based casting, and lost-wax-based casting. Furthermore, two ways of fabricating a multiple DOF robot are explored: casting the complete robot as a whole and casting single degree of freedom (DOF) segments with subsequent concatenation. We experimentally validate each soft actuator morphology and fabrication process by creating multiple physical soft robot prototypes.

Building China’s soft power for a peaceful rise

OpenAIRE

Li, Xin; Worm, Verner

2009-01-01

With China’s rapid economic progress and steady increase in its international influence, China has gradually embarked on the soft power idea and has made developing its soft power as its national strategy. We argue that China’s soft power strategy is in accordance to Chinese Confucian culture and political value and fits well with its grand strategy of peaceful rise. Based on existing conceptualizations of soft power, we expanded the sources of soft power to six pillars: cul...

A new laser reflectance system capable of measuring changing cross-sectional area of soft tissues during tensile testing.

Science.gov (United States)

Pokhai, Gabriel G; Oliver, Michele L; Gordon, Karen D

2009-09-01

Determination of the biomechanical properties of soft tissues such as tendons and ligaments is dependent on the accurate measurement of their cross-sectional area (CSA). Measurement methods, which involve contact with the specimen, are problematic because soft tissues are easily deformed. Noncontact measurement methods are preferable in this regard, but may experience difficulty in dealing with the complex cross-sectional shapes and glistening surfaces seen in soft tissues. Additionally, existing CSA measurement systems are separated from the materials testing machine, resulting in the inability to measure CSA during testing. Furthermore, CSA measurements are usually made in a different orientation, and with a different preload, prior to testing. To overcome these problems, a noncontact laser reflectance system (LRS) was developed. Designed to fit in an Instron 8872 servohydraulic test machine, the system measures CSA by orbiting a laser transducer in a circular path around a soft tissue specimen held by tissue clamps. CSA measurements can be conducted before and during tensile testing. The system was validated using machined metallic specimens of various shapes and sizes, as well as different sizes of bovine tendons. The metallic specimens could be measured to within 4% accuracy, and the tendons to within an average error of 4.3%. Statistical analyses showed no significant differences between the measurements of the LRS and those of the casting method, an established measurement technique. The LRS was successfully used to measure the changing CSA of bovine tendons during uniaxial tensile testing. The LRS developed in this work represents a simple, quick, and accurate way of reconstructing complex cross-sectional profiles and calculating cross-sectional areas. In addition, the LRS represents the first system capable of automatically measuring changing CSA of soft tissues during tensile testing, facilitating the calculation of more accurate biomechanical properties.

States reducing solar's soft costs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meehan, Chris

2012-07-01

In 2012 the costs of modules will drop below the balance of system costs or 'soft costs' of solar in the US. Federal policy that nationalizes permitting processes could reduce some of the soft costs, but is unlikely. That's why states like California, Colorado, Connecticut and Vermont passed own laws to reduce soft costs by speeding solar permitting and reducing fees. (orig.)

Simulated annealing (SA to vehicle routing problems with soft time windows

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suphan Sodsoon

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The researcher has applied and develops the meta-heuristics method to solve Vehicle Routing Problems with Soft Time Windows (VRPSTW. For this case there was only one depot, multi customers which each generally sparse either or demand was different though perceived number of demand and specific period of time to receive them. The Operation Research was representative combinatorial optimization problems and is known to be NP-hard. In this research algorithm, use Simulated Annealing (SA to determine the optimum solutions which rapidly time solving. After developed the algorithms, apply them to examine the factors and the optimum extended time windows and test these factors with vehicle problem routing under specific time windows by Solomon in OR-Library in case of maximum 25 customers. Meanwhile, 6 problems are including of C101, C102, R101, R102, RC101 and RC102 respectively. The result shows the optimum extended time windows at level of 50%. At last, after comparison these answers with the case of vehicle problem routing under specific time windows and flexible time windows, found that percentage errors on number of vehicles approximately by -28.57% and percentage errors on distances approximately by -28.57% which this algorithm spent average processing time on 45.5 sec/problems.

Bioinspired Soft Actuation System Using Shape Memory Alloys

OpenAIRE

Cianchetti, Matteo; Licofonte, Alessia; Follador, Maurizio; Rogai, Francesco; Laschi, Cecilia

2014-01-01

Soft robotics requires technologies that are capable of generating forces even though the bodies are composed of very light, flexible and soft elements. A soft actuation mechanism was developed in this work, taking inspiration from the arm of the Octopus vulgaris, specifically from the muscular hydrostat which represents its constitutive muscular structure. On the basis of the authors’ previous works on shape memory alloy (SMA) springs used as soft actuators, a specific arrangement of such SM...

Histopathologic and immunohistochemical features of soft palate muscles and nerves in dogs with an elongated soft palate.

Science.gov (United States)

Arai, Kiyotaka; Kobayashi, Masanori; Harada, Yasuji; Hara, Yasushi; Michishita, Masaki; Ohkusu-Tsukada, Kozo; Takahashi, Kimimasa

2016-01-01

To histologically evaluate and compare features of myofibers within the elongated soft palate (ESP) of brachycephalic and mesocephalic dogs with those in the soft palate of healthy dogs and to assess whether denervation or muscular dystrophy is associated with soft palate elongation. Soft palate specimens from 24 dogs with ESPs (obtained during surgical intervention) and from 14 healthy Beagles (control group). All the soft palate specimens underwent histologic examination to assess myofiber atrophy, hypertrophy, hyalinization, and regeneration. The degrees of atrophy and hypertrophy were quantified on the basis of the coefficient of variation and the number of myofibers with hyalinization and regeneration. The specimens also underwent immunohistochemical analysis with anti-neurofilament or anti-dystrophin antibody to confirm the distribution of peripheral nerve branches innervating the palatine myofibers and myofiber dystrophin expression, respectively. Myofiber atrophy, hypertrophy, hyalinization, and regeneration were identified in almost all the ESP specimens. Degrees of atrophy and hypertrophy were significantly greater in the ESP specimens, compared with the control specimens. There were fewer palatine peripheral nerve branches in the ESP specimens than in the control specimens. Almost all the myofibers in the ESP and control specimens were dystrophin positive. These results suggested that palatine myopathy in dogs may be caused, at least in part, by denervation of the palatine muscles and not by Duchenne- or Becker-type muscular dystrophy. These soft palate changes may contribute to upper airway collapse and the progression of brachycephalic airway obstructive syndrome.

Levitation properties of maglev systems using soft ferromagnets

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Chen-Guang; Zhou, You-He

2015-03-01

Soft ferromagnets are widely used as flux-concentration materials in the design of guideways for superconducting magnetic levitation transport systems. In order to fully understand the influence of soft ferromagnets on the levitation performance, in this work we apply a numerical model based on the functional minimization method and the Bean’s critical state model to study the levitation properties of an infinitely long superconductor immersed in the magnetic field created by a guideway of different sets of infinitely long parallel permanent magnets with soft ferromagnets between them. The levitation force, guidance force, magnetic stiffness and magnetic pole density are calculated considering the coupling between the superconductor and soft ferromagnets. The results show that the levitation performance is closely associated with the permanent magnet configuration and with the location and dimension of the soft ferromagnets. Introducing the soft ferromagnet with a certain width in a few configurations always decreases the levitation force. However, for most configurations, the soft ferromagnets contribute to improve the levitation performance only when they have particular locations and dimensions in which the optimized location and thickness exist to increase the levitation force the most. Moreover, if the superconductor is laterally disturbed, the presence of soft ferromagnets can effectively improve the lateral stability for small lateral displacement and reduce the degradation of levitation force.

Positive Implicative Ideals of BCK-Algebras Based on Intersectional Soft Sets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eun Hwan Roh

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to lay a foundation for providing a soft algebraic tool in considering many problems that contain uncertainties. In order to provide these soft algebraic structures, the notion of int-soft positive implicative ideals is introduced, and related properties are investigated. Relations between an int-soft ideal and an int-soft positive implicative ideal are established. Characterizations of an int-soft positive implicative ideal are obtained. Extension property for an int-soft positive implicative ideal is constructed. The ∧-product and ∨-product of int-soft positive implicative ideals are considered, and the soft intersection (resp., union of int-soft positive implicative ideals is discussed.

Error Detection and Error Classification: Failure Awareness in Data Transfer Scheduling

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Louisiana State University; Balman, Mehmet; Kosar, Tevfik

2010-10-27

Data transfer in distributed environment is prone to frequent failures resulting from back-end system level problems, like connectivity failure which is technically untraceable by users. Error messages are not logged efficiently, and sometimes are not relevant/useful from users point-of-view. Our study explores the possibility of an efficient error detection and reporting system for such environments. Prior knowledge about the environment and awareness of the actual reason behind a failure would enable higher level planners to make better and accurate decisions. It is necessary to have well defined error detection and error reporting methods to increase the usability and serviceability of existing data transfer protocols and data management systems. We investigate the applicability of early error detection and error classification techniques and propose an error reporting framework and a failure-aware data transfer life cycle to improve arrangement of data transfer operations and to enhance decision making of data transfer schedulers.

Mütoloogia, ajalugu, kaasaeg : uuskreeka kirjandus eesti keeles Kalle Kasemaa vahendusel / Kaarina Rein

Index Scriptorium Estoniae

Rein, Kaarina

2008-01-01

Käsitletakse Nikos Kazantzakise, Pandelis Prevelakise, Odisseas Elitise, Ilias Venezise, Dido Sotiriu, Manolis Karagatsise, Menis Kumandarease, Aleksandros Papadiamandise, Kostas Asimakopulose, Nikos Kavvadiase loomingut

On Some Nonclassical Algebraic Properties of Interval-Valued Fuzzy Soft Sets

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Interval-valued fuzzy soft sets realize a hybrid soft computing model in a general framework. Both Molodtsov's soft sets and interval-valued fuzzy sets can be seen as special cases of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets. In this study, we first compare four different types of interval-valued fuzzy soft subsets and reveal the relations among them. Then we concentrate on investigating some nonclassical algebraic properties of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets under the soft product operations. We show that some fundamental algebraic properties including the commutative and associative laws do not hold in the conventional sense, but hold in weaker forms characterized in terms of the relation =L. We obtain a number of algebraic inequalities of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets characterized by interval-valued fuzzy soft inclusions. We also establish the weak idempotent law and the weak absorptive law of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets using interval-valued fuzzy soft J-equal relations. It is revealed that the soft product operations ∧ and ∨ of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets do not always have similar algebraic properties. Moreover, we find that only distributive inequalities described by the interval-valued fuzzy soft L-inclusions hold for interval-valued fuzzy soft sets. PMID:25143964

On Some Nonclassical Algebraic Properties of Interval-Valued Fuzzy Soft Sets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaoyan Liu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Interval-valued fuzzy soft sets realize a hybrid soft computing model in a general framework. Both Molodtsov’s soft sets and interval-valued fuzzy sets can be seen as special cases of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets. In this study, we first compare four different types of interval-valued fuzzy soft subsets and reveal the relations among them. Then we concentrate on investigating some nonclassical algebraic properties of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets under the soft product operations. We show that some fundamental algebraic properties including the commutative and associative laws do not hold in the conventional sense, but hold in weaker forms characterized in terms of the relation =L. We obtain a number of algebraic inequalities of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets characterized by interval-valued fuzzy soft inclusions. We also establish the weak idempotent law and the weak absorptive law of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets using interval-valued fuzzy soft J-equal relations. It is revealed that the soft product operations ∧ and ∨ of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets do not always have similar algebraic properties. Moreover, we find that only distributive inequalities described by the interval-valued fuzzy soft L-inclusions hold for interval-valued fuzzy soft sets.

On some nonclassical algebraic properties of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiaoyan; Feng, Feng; Zhang, Hui

2014-01-01

Interval-valued fuzzy soft sets realize a hybrid soft computing model in a general framework. Both Molodtsov's soft sets and interval-valued fuzzy sets can be seen as special cases of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets. In this study, we first compare four different types of interval-valued fuzzy soft subsets and reveal the relations among them. Then we concentrate on investigating some nonclassical algebraic properties of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets under the soft product operations. We show that some fundamental algebraic properties including the commutative and associative laws do not hold in the conventional sense, but hold in weaker forms characterized in terms of the relation = L . We obtain a number of algebraic inequalities of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets characterized by interval-valued fuzzy soft inclusions. We also establish the weak idempotent law and the weak absorptive law of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets using interval-valued fuzzy soft J-equal relations. It is revealed that the soft product operations ∧ and ∨ of interval-valued fuzzy soft sets do not always have similar algebraic properties. Moreover, we find that only distributive inequalities described by the interval-valued fuzzy soft L-inclusions hold for interval-valued fuzzy soft sets.

Nonlinear Properties of Soft Glass Waveguides

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Steffensen, Henrik

-infrared applications and the THz applications. In the mid-infrared, it is investigated whether soft glasses are a suitable candidate for supercontinuum generation (SCG). A few commercially available fluoride fibers are tested for their zero dispersion wavelength (ZDW), a key property when determining the possibility......This thesis builds around the investigation into using soft glass materials for midinfrared and THz applications. Soft glasses is a term that cov ers a wide range of chemical compositions where many are yet to be fully investigated. The work in this thesis is separated in two parts, the mid...... of SCG in a fiber. A group of soft glasses, namely the chalcogenides, are known to display two photon absorption (TPA) which could potentially limit the SCG when this is initiated within the frequency range where this nonlinear process occur. An analytic model is presented to estimate the soliton self...

Strain-accelerated dynamics of soft colloidal glasses

KAUST Repository

Agarwal, Praveen

2011-04-11

We have investigated strain-accelerated dynamics of soft glasses theoretically and experimentally. Mechanical rheology measurements performed on a variety of systems reveal evidence for the speeding-up of relaxation at modest shear strains in both step and oscillatory shear flows. Using the soft glassy rheology (SGR) model framework, we show that the observed behavior is a fundamental, but heretofore unexplored attribute of soft glasses. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Time Dilation and Homogeneous, Soft-Spectrum GRBs

Science.gov (United States)

Norris, J. P.; Bonnell, J. T.; Nemiroff, R. J.; Scargle, J. D.; Pendleton, G. N.; Kouveliotou, C.; Pizzichini, G.

1996-12-01

Recently, BATSE gamma-ray bursts selected for soft average spectra have been shown to follow more nearly a -3/2 power law in their number-intensity relation, indicative of a spatially homogeneous population, unlike the whole BATSE burst sample which deviates significantly from a -3/2 signature. The softer bursts might therefore be closer, and the reported time dilation as a function of peak flux in the whole burst sample (Bonnell et al., ApJ submitted) might be expected to be different for soft bursts. We have investigated this possibility with a sample of 500 long bursts (T_90 > 2 s) from the BATSE 3B catalog, defining soft bursts ( ~ 20% of total) using the three hardness ratios derived from fluences in BATSE's four energy channels (25--55, 55--110, 110--320, > 320 keV). The relative time-dilation factors (TDFs) were calculated using a brightness-independent algorithm for duration. The expected effect is observed: The average log[duration] of soft bursts is significantly lower (factor of ~ 2) than that for harder bursts, or for the whole set, to much dimmer peak fluxes -- consistent with unity TDF (compared to bright bursts in the whole sample) down to peak flux of ~ 1.0 photon cm(-2) s(-1) . Using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we find that T_90 and T_50 duration distributions of soft and hard bursts above this peak flux value are different, with a confidence level > 99%. This result is qualitatively consistent with a GRB luminosity function implied by the apparent homogeneity of the bright-to-intermediate peak-flux soft bursts. However, dimmer soft bursts are time-dilated relative to bright bursts in the whole sample, suggesting that spectral redshift compounds the definition of the soft burst class.

A compact scanning soft X-ray microscope

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trail, J.A.

1989-01-01

Soft x-ray microscopes operating at wavelengths between 2.3 nm and 4.4 nm are capable of imaging wet biological cells with a resolution many times that of a visible light microscope. Several such soft x-ray microscopes have been constructed. However, with the exception of contact microscopes, all use synchrotrons as the source of soft x-ray radiation and Fresnel zone plates as the focusing optics. These synchrotron based microscopes are very successful but have the disadvantage of limited access. This dissertation reviews the construction and performance of a compact scanning soft x-ray microscope whose size and accessibility is comparable to that of an electron microscope. The microscope uses a high-brightness laser-produced plasma as the soft x-ray source and normal incidence multilayer-coated mirrors in a Schwarzschild configuration as the focusing optics. The microscope operates at a wavelength of 14 nm, has a spatial resolution of 0.5 μm, and has a soft x-ray photon flux through the focus of 10 4 -10 5 s -1 when operated with only 170 mW of average laser power. The complete system, including the laser, fits on a single 4' x 8' optical table. The significant components of the compact microscope are the laser-produced plasma (LPP) source, the multilayer coatings, and the Schwarzschild objective. These components are reviewed, both with regard to their particular use in the current microscope and with regard to extending the microscope performance to higher resolution, higher speed, and operation at shorter wavelengths. Measurements of soft x-ray emission and debris emission from our present LPP source are presented and considerations given for an optimal LPP source. The LPP source was also used as a broadband soft x-ray source for measurement of normal incidence multilayer mirror reflectance in the 10-25 nm spectral region

A space-time tomography algorithm for the five-camera soft X-ray diagnostic at RTP

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lyadina, E.S.; Tanzi, C.P.; Cruz, D.F. da; Donne, A.J.H. [FOM-Instituut voor Plasmafysica, Rijnhuizen (Netherlands)

1993-12-31

A five-camera soft x-ray with 80 detector channels has been installed on the RTP tokamak with the object of studying MHD processes with a relatively high poloidal mode number (m=4). Numerical tomographic reconstruction algorithms used to reconstruct the plasma emissivity profile are constrained by the characteristics of the system. Especially high poloidal harmonics, which can be resolved due to the high number of cameras, can be strongly distorted by stochastic and systematic errors. Furthermore, small uncertainties in the relative position of the cameras in a multiple camera system can lead to strong artefacts in the reconstruction. (author) 6 refs., 4 figs.

Generalized Gaussian Error Calculus

CERN Document Server

Grabe, Michael

2010-01-01

For the first time in 200 years Generalized Gaussian Error Calculus addresses a rigorous, complete and self-consistent revision of the Gaussian error calculus. Since experimentalists realized that measurements in general are burdened by unknown systematic errors, the classical, widespread used evaluation procedures scrutinizing the consequences of random errors alone turned out to be obsolete. As a matter of course, the error calculus to-be, treating random and unknown systematic errors side by side, should ensure the consistency and traceability of physical units, physical constants and physical quantities at large. The generalized Gaussian error calculus considers unknown systematic errors to spawn biased estimators. Beyond, random errors are asked to conform to the idea of what the author calls well-defined measuring conditions. The approach features the properties of a building kit: any overall uncertainty turns out to be the sum of a contribution due to random errors, to be taken from a confidence inter...

"Soft Skills": A Phrase in Search of Meaning

Science.gov (United States)

Matteson, Miriam L.; Anderson, Lorien; Boyden, Cynthia

2016-01-01

Soft skills are a collection of people management skills, important to many professions and job positions, including academic librarianship. Yet the concept of soft skills lacks definition, scope, instrumentation, and systematic education and training. This literature review explores the definition of "soft skills"; contrasts skills with…

Hardware for soft computing and soft computing for hardware

CERN Document Server

Nedjah, Nadia

2014-01-01

Single and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Computation (MOEA),  Genetic Algorithms (GAs), Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Fuzzy Controllers (FCs), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant colony Optimization (ACO) are becoming omnipresent in almost every intelligent system design. Unfortunately, the application of the majority of these techniques is complex and so requires a huge computational effort to yield useful and practical results. Therefore, dedicated hardware for evolutionary, neural and fuzzy computation is a key issue for designers. With the spread of reconfigurable hardware such as FPGAs, digital as well as analog hardware implementations of such computation become cost-effective. The idea behind this book is to offer a variety of hardware designs for soft computing techniques that can be embedded in any final product. Also, to introduce the successful application of soft computing technique to solve many hard problem encountered during the design of embedded hardware designs. Reconfigurable em...

Soft physics with a supercollider

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andersson, B.

1984-01-01

I discuss a set of possible, more or less adventurous, physics scenarios for the soft physics of a supercollider of 10-20 TeV cms energy. I also present extrapolations of the sizes of different quantities to these immense energies. One should always note that whether we like it or not, some 95-99% of the cross-section is soft physics at all energies. (orig.)

Mechanics of soft materials

CERN Document Server

Volokh, Konstantin

2016-01-01

This book provides a concise introduction to soft matter modelling. It offers an up-to-date review of continuum mechanical description of soft and biological materials from the basics to the latest scientific materials. It includes multi-physics descriptions, such as chemo-, thermo-, electro- mechanical coupling. It derives from a graduate course at Technion that has been established in recent years. It presents original explanations for some standard materials and features elaborated examples on all topics throughout the text. PowerPoint lecture notes can be provided to instructors. .

Soft Pneumatic Actuators for Rehabilitation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guido Belforte

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Pneumatic artificial muscles are pneumatic devices with practical and various applications as common actuators. They, as human muscles, work in agonistic-antagonistic way, giving a traction force only when supplied by compressed air. The state of the art of soft pneumatic actuators is here analyzed: different models of pneumatic muscles are considered and evolution lines are presented. Then, the use of Pneumatic Muscles (PAM in rehabilitation apparatus is described and the general characteristics required in different applications are considered, analyzing the use of proper soft actuators with various technical properties. Therefore, research activity carried out in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the field of soft and textile actuators is presented here. In particular, pneumatic textile muscles useful for active suits design are described. These components are made of a tubular structure, with an inner layer of latex coated with a deformable outer fabric sewn along the edge. In order to increase pneumatic muscles forces and contractions Braided Pneumatic Muscles are studied. In this paper, new prototypes are presented, based on a fabric construction and various kinds of geometry. Pressure-force-deformation tests results are carried out and analyzed. These actuators are useful for rehabilitation applications. In order to reproduce the whole upper limb movements, new kind of soft actuators are studied, based on the same principle of planar membranes deformation. As an example, the bellows muscle model and worm muscle model are developed and described. In both cases, wide deformations are expected. Another issue for soft actuators is the pressure therapy. Some textile sleeve prototypes developed for massage therapy on patients suffering of lymph edema are analyzed. Different types of fabric and assembly techniques have been tested. In general, these Pressure Soft Actuators are useful for upper/lower limbs treatments

Experimental investigation of halogen-bond hard-soft acid-base complementarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Riel, Asia Marie S; Jessop, Morly J; Decato, Daniel A; Massena, Casey J; Nascimento, Vinicius R; Berryman, Orion B

2017-04-01

The halogen bond (XB) is a topical noncovalent interaction of rapidly increasing importance. The XB employs a `soft' donor atom in comparison to the `hard' proton of the hydrogen bond (HB). This difference has led to the hypothesis that XBs can form more favorable interactions with `soft' bases than HBs. While computational studies have supported this suggestion, solution and solid-state data are lacking. Here, XB soft-soft complementarity is investigated with a bidentate receptor that shows similar associations with neutral carbonyls and heavy chalcogen analogs. The solution speciation and XB soft-soft complementarity is supported by four crystal structures containing neutral and anionic soft Lewis bases.

A Hybrid Unequal Error Protection / Unequal Error Resilience ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The quality layers are then assigned an Unequal Error Resilience to synchronization loss by unequally allocating the number of headers available for synchronization to them. Following that Unequal Error Protection against channel noise is provided to the layers by the use of Rate Compatible Punctured Convolutional ...

Probabilistic soft sets and dual probabilistic soft sets in decision making with positive and negative parameters

Science.gov (United States)

Fatimah, F.; Rosadi, D.; Hakim, R. B. F.

2018-03-01

In this paper, we motivate and introduce probabilistic soft sets and dual probabilistic soft sets for handling decision making problem in the presence of positive and negative parameters. We propose several types of algorithms related to this problem. Our procedures are flexible and adaptable. An example on real data is also given.

A study on generalized hesitant intuitionistic Fuzzy soft sets

Science.gov (United States)

Nazra, A.; Syafruddin; Wicaksono, G. C.; Syafwan, M.

2018-03-01

By combining the concept of hesitant intuitionistic fuzzy sets, fuzzy soft sets and fuzzy sets, we extend hesitant intuitionistic fuzzy soft sets to a generalized hesitant intuitionistic fuzzy soft sets. Some operations on generalized hesitant intuitionistic fuzzy soft sets, such as union, complement, operations “AND” and “OR”, and intersection are defined. From such operations the authors obtain related properties such as commutative, associative and De Morgan's laws. The authors also get an algebraic structure of the collection of all generalized hesitant intuitionistic fuzzy soft sets over a set.

Comparative measurement of intraocular pressure by Icare tonometry and Airpuff tonometry in healthy subjects and patients wearing therapeutic soft contact lenses.

Science.gov (United States)

Anton, Alexandra; Neuburger, Matthias; Böhringer, Daniel; Jordan, Jens F

2013-07-01

The aim of the present study was to compare the measurement of intraocular pressure (IOP) through a therapeutic soft contact lens with the "native" measurement. We additionally investigate whether a rebound tonometer (RT) or non-contact tonometer (NCT) is more suitable to measure IOP through a bandage contact lens. The IOP was determined using each of the two methods, three times successively with (lens measurement) and without (native measurement) a soft contact lens. The Icare tonometer (Icare® TA01i, Icare Finland Oy, 23 subjects) and the Airpuff tonometer (Nidek NT 53OP, Nidek CO., LTD, Hiroishi Gamagori, Aichi, Japan, 16 subjects) were used. We compared the mean values (validity parameter) and standard deviation (precision parameter) of the three individual measurements in each case using the paired t-test. In addition, we conducted a power analysis to estimate the maximum error in the measurement caused by the contact lens (power level set to 0.8). With the Airpuff tonometer we detected no statistically significant between the lens and the native measurement (15.6 ± 2.6 vs. 15.3 ± 2.6 mmHg; p = 0.42). The power analysis revealed that the maximum error caused by the contact lens was 1.2 mmHg. The Icare tonometry, however, trended toward higher values in the contact lens measurements (17.5 ± 4.3 vs. 16.4 ± 3.5 mmHg in the native measurements; p = 0.05). Interestingly, this difference exhibited a statistically significant correlation with the corneal thickness (0.03 mmHg per μm corneal thickness; p = 0.04). The use of NCT and RT for IOP measurement over a soft contact lens is feasible. The accuracy appears to be sufficient for the most common clinical applications.

ON SOFT D2-ALGEBRA AND SOFT D2-IDEALS

OpenAIRE

S. Subramanian; S. Seethalaksmi

2018-01-01

In this paper, we have studied some characterization of soft D2-algebra, kernel, intersection, image, quotient D2-algebra’s and relations ship between D2-algebra and D2-ideals with suitable examples.

High performance soft magnetic materials

CERN Document Server

2017-01-01

This book provides comprehensive coverage of the current state-of-the-art in soft magnetic materials and related applications, with particular focus on amorphous and nanocrystalline magnetic wires and ribbons and sensor applications. Expert chapters cover preparation, processing, tuning of magnetic properties, modeling, and applications. Cost-effective soft magnetic materials are required in a range of industrial sectors, such as magnetic sensors and actuators, microelectronics, cell phones, security, automobiles, medicine, health monitoring, aerospace, informatics, and electrical engineering. This book presents both fundamentals and applications to enable academic and industry researchers to pursue further developments of these key materials. This highly interdisciplinary volume represents essential reading for researchers in materials science, magnetism, electrodynamics, and modeling who are interested in working with soft magnets. Covers magnetic microwires, sensor applications, amorphous and nanocrystalli...

Learning from prescribing errors

OpenAIRE

Dean, B

2002-01-01



 The importance of learning from medical error has recently received increasing emphasis. This paper focuses on prescribing errors and argues that, while learning from prescribing errors is a laudable goal, there are currently barriers that can prevent this occurring. Learning from errors can take place on an individual level, at a team level, and across an organisation. Barriers to learning from prescribing errors include the non-discovery of many prescribing errors, lack of feedback to th...

SOFT SKILLS COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT OF VOCATIONAL TEACHER CANDIDATES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

I Made Sudana

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Vocational education curriculum 2013 that applied nationally in the academic year 2014/2015 mandated that religious subject added character educational in which contactwith aspects of soft skills. This needs to be addressed by LPTK as producer vocational teacher candidate, so that future graduates are able to fulfill the mandate of the curriculum. Curriculum vocational teacher candidates who applied seems also still focused on providing hard skills competencies, so that graduates do not have adequate soft skills competence. On the other hand in the world of work has been going on trend shift in terms of hard skills to soft skills.Research and development is designed to go through stages and multiyear to produce soft skills development strategy for prospective teachers of vocational school. Development strategy departs from theoretical studies and mapping needs soft skills aspects of relevant research, analysis and LPTK vocational curriculum, soft skills needs and job requirements of future trends, soft skills required by vocational teachers, teaching soft skills already there, done to map the needs and later for further development until the hypothetical model generated Late models. Subjects were LPTK lecturers, teachers of vocational productive industrials. Data were obtained by observation and interviews, review of documents that the results were analyzed with descriptive qualitative and quantitative techniques. There are several aspects of the soft skills required candidates vocational school teachers, among others: (1 self-discipline, (2 responsibility, (3 the spirit of the work, (4 problem solving, (5 collaboration, (6 the ability of communication, (7 personality, (8 social attitudes, (9 critical thinking, (10 creative thinking and innovative, (11 confidence and (12 self-motivation. Soft skills development strategy skills prospective teachers through extra-curricular with gradual pattern through four stages, namely: (1 the development of

Overview of the NEES-Soft Experimental Program for Seismic Risk Reduction of Soft-Story Woodframe Buildings

Science.gov (United States)

John W. van de Lindt; Pouria Bahmani; Steven E. Pryor; Gary Mochizuki; Mikhail Gershfeld; Weichiang Pang; Ershad Ziaei; Elaina N. Jennings; Michael D. Symans; Xiaoyun Shao; Jingjing Tian; Doug Rammer

2014-01-01

The existence of thousands of soft-story woodframe buildings in California has been recognized as a disaster preparedness problem resulting in mitigation efforts throughout the state. The considerable presence of these large multi-family buildings in San Francisco prompted the city to mandate their retrofitting over the next seven years. The NEES-Soft project, whose...

MR Histoanatomical Distribution of 290 Soft-tissue Tumors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moon, Tae Yong; Lee, In Sook; Lee, Gee Won; Kim, Jeung Il; Choi, Kyung Un; Kim, Won Taek [Pusan National University Hospital, Busan (Korea, Republic of)

2008-12-15

This study was designed too identify the MR histoanatomical distribution of soft-tissue tumors. A total of 290 soft-tissue tumors of 281 patients were analyzed by the use of MR imaging and were pathologically confirmed after surgical resection or a biopsy. There were 120 malignant soft-tissue tumors including tumors of an intermediate malignancy and 170 benign tumors. The histoanatomical locations were divided into three types: 'type I' with superficial layer tumors that involved the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissue, 'type II' with deep layer tumors that involved the muscle or tendon and 'type III' with soft tissue tumors that involved both the superficial and deep layers. Soft-tissue tumors with more than three cases with a frequency of more than 75% included dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, glomus tumor, angiolipoma, leiomyosarcoma and lymphoma as 'type I' tumors. 'Type II' tumors with more than three cases with a frequency of more than 75% included liposarcoma, fibromatosis, papillary endothelial hyperplasia and rhabdomyosarcoma. 'Type III' tumors with more than three cases with a frequency of more than 50% included neurofibromatosis. The MR histoanatomical distributions of soft tissue tumors are useful in the differential pathological diagnosis when a soft-tissue tumor has a nonspecific MR appearance.

Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma.

Science.gov (United States)

Jaber, Omar I; Kirby, Patricia A

2015-11-01

Alveolar soft part sarcoma is a rare neoplasm usually arising in the soft tissues of the lower limbs in adults and in the head and neck region in children. It presents primarily as a slowly growing mass or as metastatic disease. It is characterized by a specific chromosomal alteration, der(17)t(X:17)(p11:q25), resulting in fusion of the transcription factor E3 (TFE3) with alveolar soft part sarcoma critical region 1 (ASPSCR1) at 17q25. This translocation is diagnostically useful because the tumor nuclei are positive for TFE3 by immunohistochemistry. Real-time polymerase chain reaction to detect the ASPSCR1-TFE3 fusion transcript on paraffin-embedded tissue blocks has been shown to be more sensitive and specific than detection of TFE3 by immunohistochemical stain. Cathepsin K is a relatively recent immunohistochemical stain that can aid in the diagnosis. The recent discovery of the role of the ASPSCR1-TFE3 fusion protein in the MET proto-oncogene signaling pathway promoting angiogenesis and cell proliferation offers a promising targeted molecular therapy.

Random and Systematic Errors Share in Total Error of Probes for CNC Machine Tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adam Wozniak

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Probes for CNC machine tools, as every measurement device, have accuracy limited by random errors and by systematic errors. Random errors of these probes are described by a parameter called unidirectional repeatability. Manufacturers of probes for CNC machine tools usually specify only this parameter, while parameters describing systematic errors of the probes, such as pre-travel variation or triggering radius variation, are used rarely. Systematic errors of the probes, linked to the differences in pre-travel values for different measurement directions, can be corrected or compensated, but it is not a widely used procedure. In this paper, the share of systematic errors and random errors in total error of exemplary probes are determined. In the case of simple, kinematic probes, systematic errors are much greater than random errors, so compensation would significantly reduce the probing error. Moreover, it shows that in the case of kinematic probes commonly specified unidirectional repeatability is significantly better than 2D performance. However, in the case of more precise strain-gauge probe systematic errors are of the same order as random errors, which means that errors correction or compensation, in this case, would not yield any significant benefits.

Quantitative determination of additive Chlorantraniliprole in Abamectin preparation: Investigation of bootstrapping soft shrinkage approach by mid-infrared spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Hong; Song, Xiangzhong; Tian, Kuangda; Chen, Yilin; Xiong, Yanmei; Min, Shungeng

2018-02-01

A novel method, mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy, which enables the determination of Chlorantraniliprole in Abamectin within minutes, is proposed. We further evaluate the prediction ability of four wavelength selection methods, including bootstrapping soft shrinkage approach (BOSS), Monte Carlo uninformative variable elimination (MCUVE), genetic algorithm partial least squares (GA-PLS) and competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS) respectively. The results showed that BOSS method obtained the lowest root mean squared error of cross validation (RMSECV) (0.0245) and root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) (0.0271), as well as the highest coefficient of determination of cross-validation (Qcv2) (0.9998) and the coefficient of determination of test set (Q2test) (0.9989), which demonstrated that the mid infrared spectroscopy can be used to detect Chlorantraniliprole in Abamectin conveniently. Meanwhile, a suitable wavelength selection method (BOSS) is essential to conducting a component spectral analysis.

Soft-Tissue Chondroma of Anterior Gingiva: A Rare Entity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dhana Lakshmi Jeyasivanesan

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Soft-tissue chondroma is a rare, benign, slow-growing tumor made up of heterotopic cartilaginous tissue. It occurs most commonly in the third and fourth decades in the hands and feet. Oral soft-tissue chondromas are uncommon and soft-tissue chondroma of gingiva is extremely uncommon. Here, we report an unusual case of soft-tissue chondroma of gingiva in a 50-year-old woman.

The Beauty Trap: Chinese Theories of “Soft Power”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evgenia Vladimirovna Zhuravleva

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Currently there are a lot of definitions and conceptions of “soft power” in the world’s scientific literature. The English-language works mainly adopted the term “soft power”, terminology is also varied in Chinese historiography: “ruan shili”, “ruan liliang” and “ruan quanli” (软实力, 软力量and 软权力. A variety of terms is reflected in the variety of interpretations of the system or mechanismof “soft power”, that allows us to conclude that at the moment there is noformed unified vision and approach to its study. The subject of this study is the Russian and foreign theories of “soft power” in relation to China's foreign policy. The author raised a number of tasks, among which are: to determine the place a policy of “soft power” in the foreign policy of China, to analyze the existing interpretation of the concept of “soft power with Chinese characteristics”, as well as trace the development of theories of “soft power”. As a result of the research the author comes to the conclusion that despite the difference in interpretations, there are a lot of common aspects, including the idea of the majority of researchers that the concept is directly related to the influence of the subject to the object, and that the main instruments of “soft power” are humanitarian cooperation, investment, dialogue at the highest level, and others. But the combination of numerous non-military elements within the same term “soft power” doesn’t form a unified, approved concept. Different countries have their own unique system of soft power, and its instruments, key elements and basic principles are not the same. For example, talking about “attractiveness” applied to Chinese soft power, we can conclude, that it is only the tip of the iceberg. This study allows not only to form an idea of the “soft power” through the prism of various scientific researches, but also to identify the key elements of the system

Real-time soft tissue motion estimation for lung tumors during radiotherapy delivery.

Science.gov (United States)

Rottmann, Joerg; Keall, Paul; Berbeco, Ross

2013-09-01

To provide real-time lung tumor motion estimation during radiotherapy treatment delivery without the need for implanted fiducial markers or additional imaging dose to the patient. 2D radiographs from the therapy beam's-eye-view (BEV) perspective are captured at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz with a frame grabber allowing direct RAM access to the image buffer. An in-house developed real-time soft tissue localization algorithm is utilized to calculate soft tissue displacement from these images in real-time. The system is tested with a Varian TX linear accelerator and an AS-1000 amorphous silicon electronic portal imaging device operating at a resolution of 512 × 384 pixels. The accuracy of the motion estimation is verified with a dynamic motion phantom. Clinical accuracy was tested on lung SBRT images acquired at 2 fps. Real-time lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images without fiducial markers is successfully demonstrated. For the phantom study, a mean tracking error real-time markerless lung tumor motion estimation from BEV images alone. The described system can operate at a frame rate of 12.8 Hz and does not require prior knowledge to establish traceable landmarks for tracking on the fly. The authors show that the geometric accuracy is similar to (or better than) previously published markerless algorithms not operating in real-time.

Mechanical transduction via a single soft polymer

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Ruizheng; Wang, Nan; Bao, Weizhu; Wang, Zhisong

2018-04-01

Molecular machines from biology and nanotechnology often depend on soft structures to perform mechanical functions, but the underlying mechanisms and advantages or disadvantages over rigid structures are not fully understood. We report here a rigorous study of mechanical transduction along a single soft polymer based on exact solutions to the realistic three-dimensional wormlike-chain model and augmented with analytical relations derived from simpler polymer models. The results reveal surprisingly that a soft polymer with vanishingly small persistence length below a single chemical bond still transduces biased displacement and mechanical work up to practically significant amounts. This "soft" approach possesses unique advantages over the conventional wisdom of rigidity-based transduction, and potentially leads to a unified mechanism for effective allosterylike transduction and relay of mechanical actions, information, control, and molecules from one position to another in molecular devices and motors. This study also identifies an entropy limit unique to the soft transduction, and thereby suggests a possibility of detecting higher efficiency for kinesin motor and mutants in future experiments.

Parental attitudes towards soft drink vending machines in high schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Hendel-Paterson, Maia; French, Simone A; Story, Mary

2004-10-01

Soft drink vending machines are available in 98% of US high schools. However, few data are available about parents' opinions regarding the availability of soft drink vending machines in schools. Six focus groups with 33 parents at three suburban high schools were conducted to describe the perspectives of parents regarding soft drink vending machines in their children's high school. Parents viewed the issue of soft drink vending machines as a matter of their children's personal choice more than as an issue of a healthful school environment. However, parents were unaware of many important details about the soft drink vending machines in their children's school, such as the number and location of machines, hours of operation, types of beverages available, or whether the school had contracts with soft drink companies. Parents need more information about the number of soft drink vending machines at their children's school, the beverages available, the revenue generated by soft drink vending machine sales, and the terms of any contracts between the school and soft drink companies.

A Device and Procedure for Immobilization of Patients Receiving Limb-Preserving Radiotherapy for Soft Tissue Sarcoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dickie, Colleen I.; Parent, Amy; Griffin, Anthony; Craig, Tim; Catton, Charles; Chung, Peter; Panzarella, Tony; O'Sullivan, Brian; Sharpe, Michael

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy and efficiency of a custom-designed immobilization device for patients with extremity soft-tissue sarcoma. The custom device consisted of a thermoplastic shell, vacuum pillow, and adaptable baseplate. The study included patients treated from January 2005 to March 2007, with 92 patients immobilized with the custom device and 98 with an established standard. Setup times for these cohorts were analyzed retrospectively for conformal and intensity modulated radiotherapy techniques (IMRT). Thigh tumor setup times were analyzed independently. A subset of patients treated with IMRT was analyzed for setup error using the radiographically verified isocenter position measured daily with electronic portal imaging and cone-beam computed tomography. Mean setup time was reduced by 2.2 minutes when using the custom device for conformal treatment (p = 0.03) and by 5.8 min for IMRT of thigh tumors (p = 0.009). All other setup time comparisons were not significant. A significant systematic error reduction was seen in all directions using the custom device. Random error standard deviations favored the custom device. The custom device offers immobilization advantages. Patient setup time was reduced for conformal techniques and IMRT of thigh tumors. Positioning uncertainty was improved, permitting a reduction of the planning target volume margin by 2 to 4 mm.

BMS symmetry, soft particles and memory

Science.gov (United States)

Chatterjee, Atreya; Lowe, David A.

2018-05-01

In this work, we revisit unitary irreducible representations of the Bondi–Metzner–Sachs (BMS) group discovered by McCarthy. Representations are labelled by an infinite number of supermomenta in addition to 4-momentum. Tensor products of these irreducible representations lead to particle-like states dressed by soft gravitational modes. Conservation of 4-momentum and supermomentum in the scattering of such states leads to a memory effect encoded in the outgoing soft modes. We note there exist irreducible representations corresponding to soft states with strictly vanishing 4-momentum, which may nevertheless be produced by scattering of particle-like states. This fact has interesting implications for the S-matrix in gravitational theories.

Soft-contact-lenses-induced complications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suvajac Gordana

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Background/Aim. Soft contact lenses occupy significant place in ophthalmology, both in the correction of refraction anomalies and in the treatment of many eye diseases. The number of patients that wear soft contact lenses for the purpose of correcting ametropia is constantly increasing. Due to the increasing number of wearers, the percentage of complications that can lead to serious eye damage and serious vision loss is also increasing. The aim of this study was to point out the most common complications related to soft contact lens use. Methods. In the period from 1995−2004 this prospective study included 510 patients wearing soft contact lenses for correcting ametropia. None of the patients wore contact lenses before and none suffered from any system or local diseases that could affected the development of eventual complications. The study took seven years with the patients who wore conventional lenses and three years with those who wore replacement contact lenses. All the necessary ophthalmologic examinations were done (visual acuity, refractokeratometry, the quantity of tear film, biomicroscopic examination of anterior eye segment. All the complications were filmed by video camera. Results. Of all the patients, 19 had blepharitis, 73 suffered from “dry eye”, 57 had conjunctival hyperemia, 12 had conjunctivitis, 34 had gigantopapillary conjunctivitis (GPC, 93 had punctiform epitheliopathy, 20 had corneal infiltration, one patient had keratitis, 91 had corneal vascularisation, and 95 patients had corneal deposits. Conclusion. Both the type and frequency of complications related to soft contact lens use in our group of patients, proved to be significant. Some of this complications (keratitis can significantly damage vision and lead to loss of vision and sometimes can require operative treatment.

Protocol Processing for 100 Gbit/s and Beyond - A Soft Real-Time Approach in Hardware and Software

Science.gov (United States)

Büchner, Steffen; Lopacinski, Lukasz; Kraemer, Rolf; Nolte, Jörg

2017-09-01

100 Gbit/s wireless communication protocol processing stresses all parts of a communication system until the outermost. The efficient use of upcoming 100 Gbit/s and beyond transmission technology requires the rethinking of the way protocols are processed by the communication endpoints. This paper summarizes the achievements of the project End2End100. We will present a comprehensive soft real-time stream processing approach that allows the protocol designer to develop, analyze, and plan scalable protocols for ultra high data rates of 100 Gbit/s and beyond. Furthermore, we will present an ultra-low power, adaptable, and massively parallelized FEC (Forward Error Correction) scheme that detects and corrects bit errors at line rate with an energy consumption between 1 pJ/bit and 13 pJ/bit. The evaluation results discussed in this publication show that our comprehensive approach allows end-to-end communication with a very low protocol processing overhead.

An Opinion on Soft Power

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Evgeny Mikhailovitch Astakhov

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The article analyzes different aspects of the "soft power" of Russia. The author affirms that in this field the country doesn't have well defined strategies policy. To Russia has the excellent potential for the promotion of its positive image. This potential is primarily due to the famous Russian science, literature, music and art. But this "natural"potential has to be used in the national interests abroad. In recent years the Russian government has made some important steps in cultural diplomacy, in particular for the promotion of Russian language and supporting Russian Diaspora. However, much more has to be done not only in these directions, but also in propaganda and counterpropaganda to meet information pressure against Russia. In this connection, to form properly all directions of the policy of "soft power", is desirable to use the experience of other countries. The states who pretend to have an important place in the world, consider "soft power" as a strategic policy aiming to strengthen their geopolitical positions. In this context the author offers some suggestions concerning different organizational aspects. Special attention is given to the coordination of the activities of all structures involved in the policy of "soft power ".

Exploratory Practice and Soft Systems Methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Tajino, Akira; Smith, Craig

2005-01-01

This paper aims to demonstrate that Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), a soft systems approach developed in management studies (see Checkland, 1981), can be usefully linked with Exploratory Practice (EP), a form of practitioner research for language classrooms. Some compatible SSM and EP characteristics, in tandem, could enhance continual efforts to…

Scalable fabric tactile sensor arrays for soft bodies

Science.gov (United States)

Day, Nathan; Penaloza, Jimmy; Santos, Veronica J.; Killpack, Marc D.

2018-06-01

Soft robots have the potential to transform the way robots interact with their environment. This is due to their low inertia and inherent ability to more safely interact with the world without damaging themselves or the people around them. However, existing sensing for soft robots has at least partially limited their ability to control interactions with their environment. Tactile sensors could enable soft robots to sense interaction, but most tactile sensors are made from rigid substrates and are not well suited to applications for soft robots which can deform. In addition, the benefit of being able to cheaply manufacture soft robots may be lost if the tactile sensors that cover them are expensive and their resolution does not scale well for manufacturability. This paper discusses the development of a method to make affordable, high-resolution, tactile sensor arrays (manufactured in rows and columns) that can be used for sensorizing soft robots and other soft bodies. However, the construction results in a sensor array that exhibits significant amounts of cross-talk when two taxels in the same row are compressed. Using the same fabric-based tactile sensor array construction design, two different methods for cross-talk compensation are presented. The first uses a mathematical model to calculate a change in resistance of each taxel directly. The second method introduces additional simple circuit components that enable us to isolate each taxel electrically and relate voltage to force directly. Fabric sensor arrays are demonstrated for two different soft-bodied applications: an inflatable single link robot and a human wrist.

Soft sensor for real-time cement fineness estimation.

Science.gov (United States)

Stanišić, Darko; Jorgovanović, Nikola; Popov, Nikola; Čongradac, Velimir

2015-03-01

This paper describes the design and implementation of soft sensors to estimate cement fineness. Soft sensors are mathematical models that use available data to provide real-time information on process variables when the information, for whatever reason, is not available by direct measurement. In this application, soft sensors are used to provide information on process variable normally provided by off-line laboratory tests performed at large time intervals. Cement fineness is one of the crucial parameters that define the quality of produced cement. Providing real-time information on cement fineness using soft sensors can overcome limitations and problems that originate from a lack of information between two laboratory tests. The model inputs were selected from candidate process variables using an information theoretic approach. Models based on multi-layer perceptrons were developed, and their ability to estimate cement fineness of laboratory samples was analyzed. Models that had the best performance, and capacity to adopt changes in the cement grinding circuit were selected to implement soft sensors. Soft sensors were tested using data from a continuous cement production to demonstrate their use in real-time fineness estimation. Their performance was highly satisfactory, and the sensors proved to be capable of providing valuable information on cement grinding circuit performance. After successful off-line tests, soft sensors were implemented and installed in the control room of a cement factory. Results on the site confirm results obtained by tests conducted during soft sensor development. Copyright © 2014 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of material properties on soft contact dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khurshid, A.; Malik, M.A.; Ghafoor, A.

2009-01-01

The superiority of deformable human fingertips as compared to hard robot gripper fingers for grasping and manipulation has led to a number of investigations with robot hands employing elastomers or materials such as fluids or powders beneath a membrane at the fingertips. In this paper, to analyze the stability of dynamic control of an object grasped between two soft fingertips through a soft interface using the viscoelastic material between the manipulating fingers and a manipulated object is modeled through bond graph method (BGM). The fingers are made viscoelastic by using springs and dampers. Detailed bond graph modeling (BGM) of the contact phenomenon with two soft-finger contacts considered to be placed against each other on the opposite sides of the grasped object as is generally the case in a manufacturing environment is presented. The stiffness of the springs is exploited in order to achieve the stability in the soft-grasping which includes friction between the soft finger contact surfaces and the object, The paper also analyses stability of dynamic control through a soft interface between a manipulating finger and a manipulated object. It is shown in the paper that the system stability depends on the visco-elastic material properties of the soft interface. Method of root locus is used to analyze this phenomenon. The paper shows how the weight of the object coming downward is controlled by the friction between the fingers and the object during the application of contact forces by varying the damping and the stiffness in the soft finger. (author)

The mechanics of soft biological composites.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nguyen, Thao D. (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA); Grazier, John Mark; Boyce, Brad Lee; Jones, Reese E. (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA)

2007-10-01

Biological tissues are uniquely structured materials with technologically appealing properties. Soft tissues such as skin, are constructed from a composite of strong fibrils and fluid-like matrix components. This was the first coordinated experimental/modeling project at Sandia or in the open literature to consider the mechanics of micromechanically-based anisotropy and viscoelasticity of soft biological tissues. We have exploited and applied Sandia's expertise in experimentation and mechanics modeling to better elucidate the behavior of collagen fibril-reinforced soft tissues. The purpose of this project was to provide a detailed understanding of the deformation of ocular tissues, specifically the highly structured skin-like tissue in the cornea. This discovery improved our knowledge of soft/complex materials testing and modeling. It also provided insight into the way that cornea tissue is bio-engineered such that under physiologically-relevant conditions it has a unique set of properties which enhance functionality. These results also provide insight into how non-physiologic loading conditions, such as corrective surgeries, may push the cornea outside of its natural design window, resulting in unexpected non-linear responses. Furthermore, this project created a clearer understanding of the mechanics of soft tissues that could lead to bio-inspired materials, such as highly supple and impact resistant body armor, and improve our design of human-machine interfaces, such as micro-electrical-mechanical (MEMS) based prosthetics.

Soft tissue deformation for surgical simulation: a position-based dynamics approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Camara, Mafalda; Mayer, Erik; Darzi, Ara; Pratt, Philip

2016-06-01

To assist the rehearsal and planning of robot-assisted partial nephrectomy, a real-time simulation platform is presented that allows surgeons to visualise and interact with rapidly constructed patient-specific biomechanical models of the anatomical regions of interest. Coupled to a framework for volumetric deformation, the platform furthermore simulates intracorporeal 2D ultrasound image acquisition, using preoperative imaging as the data source. This not only facilitates the planning of optimal transducer trajectories and viewpoints, but can also act as a validation context for manually operated freehand 3D acquisitions and reconstructions. The simulation platform was implemented within the GPU-accelerated NVIDIA FleX position-based dynamics framework. In order to validate the model and determine material properties and other simulation parameter values, a porcine kidney with embedded fiducial beads was CT-scanned and segmented. Acquisitions for the rest position and three different levels of probe-induced deformation were collected. Optimal values of the cluster stiffness coefficients were determined for a range of different particle radii, where the objective function comprised the mean distance error between real and simulated fiducial positions over the sequence of deformations. The mean fiducial error at each deformation stage was found to be compatible with the level of ultrasound probe calibration error typically observed in clinical practice. Furthermore, the simulation exhibited unconditional stability on account of its use of clustered shape-matching constraints. A novel position-based dynamics implementation of soft tissue deformation has been shown to facilitate several desirable simulation characteristics: real-time performance, unconditional stability, rapid model construction enabling patient-specific behaviour and accuracy with respect to reference CT images.

The separate universe approach to soft limits

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kenton, Zachary; Mulryne, David J., E-mail: z.a.kenton@qmul.ac.uk, E-mail: d.mulryne@qmul.ac.uk [School of Physics and Astronomy, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS (United Kingdom)

2016-10-01

We develop a formalism for calculating soft limits of n -point inflationary correlation functions using separate universe techniques. Our method naturally allows for multiple fields and leads to an elegant diagrammatic approach. As an application we focus on the trispectrum produced by inflation with multiple light fields, giving explicit formulae for all possible single- and double-soft limits. We also investigate consistency relations and present an infinite tower of inequalities between soft correlation functions which generalise the Suyama-Yamaguchi inequality.

Soft And Hard Skills of Social Worker

OpenAIRE

HANTOVÁ, Libuše

2011-01-01

The work deals with soft and hard skills relevant to the profession of social worker. The theoretical part at first evaluates and analyzes important soft and hard skills necessary for people working in the field of social work. Then these skills are compared. The practical part illustrates the use of soft and hard skills in practice by means of model scenes and deals with the preferences in three groups of people ? students of social work, social workers and people outside the sphere, namely ...

Strain-accelerated dynamics of soft colloidal glasses

KAUST Repository

Agarwal, Praveen; Archer, Lynden A.

2011-01-01

step and oscillatory shear flows. Using the soft glassy rheology (SGR) model framework, we show that the observed behavior is a fundamental, but heretofore unexplored attribute of soft glasses. © 2011 American Physical Society.

Uncorrected refractive errors.

Science.gov (United States)

Naidoo, Kovin S; Jaggernath, Jyoti

2012-01-01

Global estimates indicate that more than 2.3 billion people in the world suffer from poor vision due to refractive error; of which 670 million people are considered visually impaired because they do not have access to corrective treatment. Refractive errors, if uncorrected, results in an impaired quality of life for millions of people worldwide, irrespective of their age, sex and ethnicity. Over the past decade, a series of studies using a survey methodology, referred to as Refractive Error Study in Children (RESC), were performed in populations with different ethnic origins and cultural settings. These studies confirmed that the prevalence of uncorrected refractive errors is considerably high for children in low-and-middle-income countries. Furthermore, uncorrected refractive error has been noted to have extensive social and economic impacts, such as limiting educational and employment opportunities of economically active persons, healthy individuals and communities. The key public health challenges presented by uncorrected refractive errors, the leading cause of vision impairment across the world, require urgent attention. To address these issues, it is critical to focus on the development of human resources and sustainable methods of service delivery. This paper discusses three core pillars to addressing the challenges posed by uncorrected refractive errors: Human Resource (HR) Development, Service Development and Social Entrepreneurship.

Uncorrected refractive errors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kovin S Naidoo

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Global estimates indicate that more than 2.3 billion people in the world suffer from poor vision due to refractive error; of which 670 million people are considered visually impaired because they do not have access to corrective treatment. Refractive errors, if uncorrected, results in an impaired quality of life for millions of people worldwide, irrespective of their age, sex and ethnicity. Over the past decade, a series of studies using a survey methodology, referred to as Refractive Error Study in Children (RESC, were performed in populations with different ethnic origins and cultural settings. These studies confirmed that the prevalence of uncorrected refractive errors is considerably high for children in low-and-middle-income countries. Furthermore, uncorrected refractive error has been noted to have extensive social and economic impacts, such as limiting educational and employment opportunities of economically active persons, healthy individuals and communities. The key public health challenges presented by uncorrected refractive errors, the leading cause of vision impairment across the world, require urgent attention. To address these issues, it is critical to focus on the development of human resources and sustainable methods of service delivery. This paper discusses three core pillars to addressing the challenges posed by uncorrected refractive errors: Human Resource (HR Development, Service Development and Social Entrepreneurship.

Detected-jump-error-correcting quantum codes, quantum error designs, and quantum computation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alber, G.; Mussinger, M.; Beth, Th.; Charnes, Ch.; Delgado, A.; Grassl, M.

2003-01-01

The recently introduced detected-jump-correcting quantum codes are capable of stabilizing qubit systems against spontaneous decay processes arising from couplings to statistically independent reservoirs. These embedded quantum codes exploit classical information about which qubit has emitted spontaneously and correspond to an active error-correcting code embedded in a passive error-correcting code. The construction of a family of one-detected-jump-error-correcting quantum codes is shown and the optimal redundancy, encoding, and recovery as well as general properties of detected-jump-error-correcting quantum codes are discussed. By the use of design theory, multiple-jump-error-correcting quantum codes can be constructed. The performance of one-jump-error-correcting quantum codes under nonideal conditions is studied numerically by simulating a quantum memory and Grover's algorithm

Dimensional soft tissue changes following soft tissue grafting in conjunction with implant placement or around present dental implants: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Poskevicius, Lukas; Sidlauskas, Antanas; Galindo-Moreno, Pablo; Juodzbalys, Gintaras

2017-01-01

To systematically review changes in mucosal soft tissue thickness and keratinised mucosa width after soft tissue grafting around dental implants. An electronic literature search was conducted of the MEDLINE database published between 2009 and 2014. Sequential screenings at the title, abstract, and full-text levels were performed. Clinical human studies in the English language that had reported changes in soft tissue thickness or keratinised mucosa width after soft tissue grafting at implant placement or around a present implant at 6-month follow-up or longer were included. The search resulted in fourteen articles meeting the inclusion criteria: Six of them reported connective tissue grafting around present dental implants, compared to eight at the time of implant placement. Better long-term soft tissue thickness outcomes were reported for soft tissue augmentation around dental implants (0.8-1.4 mm), compared with augmentation at implant placement (-0.25-1.43 mm). Both techniques were effective in increasing keratinised tissue width: at implant placement (2.5 mm) or around present dental implants (2.33-2.57 mm). The present systematic review discovered that connective tissue grafts enhanced keratinised mucosa width and soft tissue thickness for an observation period of up to 48 months. However, some shrinkage may occur, resulting in decreases in soft tissue, mostly for the first three months. Further investigations using accurate evaluation methods need to be done to evaluate the appropriate time for grafting. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Dynamic simulation of the effect of soft toric contact lenses movement on retinal image quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Niu, Yafei; Sarver, Edwin J; Stevenson, Scott B; Marsack, Jason D; Parker, Katrina E; Applegate, Raymond A

2008-04-01

To report the development of a tool designed to dynamically simulate the effect of soft toric contact lens movement on retinal image quality, initial findings on three eyes, and the next steps to be taken to improve the utility of the tool. Three eyes of two subjects wearing soft toric contact lenses were cyclopleged with 1% cyclopentolate and 2.5% phenylephrine. Four hundred wavefront aberration measurements over a 5-mm pupil were recorded during soft contact lens wear at 30 Hz using a complete ophthalmic analysis system aberrometer. Each wavefront error measurement was input into Visual Optics Laboratory (version 7.15, Sarver and Associates, Inc.) to generate a retinal simulation of a high contrast log MAR visual acuity chart. The individual simulations were combined into a single dynamic movie using a custom MatLab PsychToolbox program. Visual acuity was measured for each eye reading the movie with best cycloplegic spectacle correction through a 3-mm artificial pupil to minimize the influence of the eyes' uncorrected aberrations. Comparison of the simulated acuity was made to values recorded while the subject read unaberrated charts with contact lenses through a 5-mm artificial pupil. For one study eye, average acuity was the same as the natural contact lens viewing condition. For the other two study eyes visual acuity of the best simulation was more than one line worse than natural viewing conditions. Dynamic simulation of retinal image quality, although not yet perfect, is a promising technique for visually illustrating the optical effects on image quality because of the movements of alignment-sensitive corrections.

Medication Errors: New EU Good Practice Guide on Risk Minimisation and Error Prevention.

Science.gov (United States)

Goedecke, Thomas; Ord, Kathryn; Newbould, Victoria; Brosch, Sabine; Arlett, Peter

2016-06-01

A medication error is an unintended failure in the drug treatment process that leads to, or has the potential to lead to, harm to the patient. Reducing the risk of medication errors is a shared responsibility between patients, healthcare professionals, regulators and the pharmaceutical industry at all levels of healthcare delivery. In 2015, the EU regulatory network released a two-part good practice guide on medication errors to support both the pharmaceutical industry and regulators in the implementation of the changes introduced with the EU pharmacovigilance legislation. These changes included a modification of the 'adverse reaction' definition to include events associated with medication errors, and the requirement for national competent authorities responsible for pharmacovigilance in EU Member States to collaborate and exchange information on medication errors resulting in harm with national patient safety organisations. To facilitate reporting and learning from medication errors, a clear distinction has been made in the guidance between medication errors resulting in adverse reactions, medication errors without harm, intercepted medication errors and potential errors. This distinction is supported by an enhanced MedDRA(®) terminology that allows for coding all stages of the medication use process where the error occurred in addition to any clinical consequences. To better understand the causes and contributing factors, individual case safety reports involving an error should be followed-up with the primary reporter to gather information relevant for the conduct of root cause analysis where this may be appropriate. Such reports should also be summarised in periodic safety update reports and addressed in risk management plans. Any risk minimisation and prevention strategy for medication errors should consider all stages of a medicinal product's life-cycle, particularly the main sources and types of medication errors during product development. This article

Effective Strategies and Activities for Developing Soft Skills, Part 2

Science.gov (United States)

Green, Diana J.; Blaszczynski, Carol

2012-01-01

Employers seek employees who possess soft skills. Employees who do not have excellent soft skills may not experience success in obtaining and sustaining employment. McEwen's (2010) framework for skill-building--introduce, explain, practice, and reinforce--was used to describe activities for enhancing soft skills. Soft skills building activities…

Effective Strategies and Activities for Developing Soft Skills, Part 1

Science.gov (United States)

Blaszczynski, Carol; Green, Diana J.

2012-01-01

Employers seek employees who possess soft skills. Employees who do not have excellent soft skills may not experience success in obtaining and sustaining employment. McEwen's (2010) framework for skill-building--introduce, explain, practice, and reinforce--was used to describe activities for enhancing soft skills. Assessment of soft skills…

Modern Soft Tissue Pathology | Center for Cancer Research

Science.gov (United States)

This book comprehensively covers modern soft tissue pathology and includes both tumors and non-neoplastic entities. Soft tissues make up a large bulk of the human body, and they are susceptible to a wide range of diseases. Many soft-tissue tumors are biologically very aggressive, and the chance of them metastasizing to vital organs is quite high. In recent years, the outlook

Soft Pneumatic Bending Actuator with Integrated Carbon Nanotube Displacement Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tim Giffney

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The excellent compliance and large range of motion of soft actuators controlled by fluid pressure has lead to strong interest in applying devices of this type for biomimetic and human-robot interaction applications. However, in contrast to soft actuators fabricated from stretchable silicone materials, conventional technologies for position sensing are typically rigid or bulky and are not ideal for integration into soft robotic devices. Therefore, in order to facilitate the use of soft pneumatic actuators in applications where position sensing or closed loop control is required, a soft pneumatic bending actuator with an integrated carbon nanotube position sensor has been developed. The integrated carbon nanotube position sensor presented in this work is flexible and well suited to measuring the large displacements frequently encountered in soft robotics. The sensor is produced by a simple soft lithography process during the fabrication of the soft pneumatic actuator, with a greater than 30% resistance change between the relaxed state and the maximum displacement position. It is anticipated that integrated resistive position sensors using a similar design will be useful in a wide range of soft robotic systems.

Practical applications of soft computing in engineering

CERN Document Server

2001-01-01

Soft computing has been presented not only with the theoretical developments but also with a large variety of realistic applications to consumer products and industrial systems. Application of soft computing has provided the opportunity to integrate human-like vagueness and real-life uncertainty into an otherwise hard computer program. This book highlights some of the recent developments in practical applications of soft computing in engineering problems. All the chapters have been sophisticatedly designed and revised by international experts to achieve wide but in-depth coverage. Contents: Au

Perceptual learning eases crowding by reducing recognition errors but not position errors.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Ying-Zi; Yu, Cong; Zhang, Jun-Yun

2015-08-01

When an observer reports a letter flanked by additional letters in the visual periphery, the response errors (the crowding effect) may result from failure to recognize the target letter (recognition errors), from mislocating a correctly recognized target letter at a flanker location (target misplacement errors), or from reporting a flanker as the target letter (flanker substitution errors). Crowding can be reduced through perceptual learning. However, it is not known how perceptual learning operates to reduce crowding. In this study we trained observers with a partial-report task (Experiment 1), in which they reported the central target letter of a three-letter string presented in the visual periphery, or a whole-report task (Experiment 2), in which they reported all three letters in order. We then assessed the impact of training on recognition of both unflanked and flanked targets, with particular attention to how perceptual learning affected the types of errors. Our results show that training improved target recognition but not single-letter recognition, indicating that training indeed affected crowding. However, training did not reduce target misplacement errors or flanker substitution errors. This dissociation between target recognition and flanker substitution errors supports the view that flanker substitution may be more likely a by-product (due to response bias), rather than a cause, of crowding. Moreover, the dissociation is not consistent with hypothesized mechanisms of crowding that would predict reduced positional errors.

Error suppression and error correction in adiabatic quantum computation: non-equilibrium dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sarovar, Mohan; Young, Kevin C

2013-01-01

While adiabatic quantum computing (AQC) has some robustness to noise and decoherence, it is widely believed that encoding, error suppression and error correction will be required to scale AQC to large problem sizes. Previous works have established at least two different techniques for error suppression in AQC. In this paper we derive a model for describing the dynamics of encoded AQC and show that previous constructions for error suppression can be unified with this dynamical model. In addition, the model clarifies the mechanisms of error suppression and allows the identification of its weaknesses. In the second half of the paper, we utilize our description of non-equilibrium dynamics in encoded AQC to construct methods for error correction in AQC by cooling local degrees of freedom (qubits). While this is shown to be possible in principle, we also identify the key challenge to this approach: the requirement of high-weight Hamiltonians. Finally, we use our dynamical model to perform a simplified thermal stability analysis of concatenated-stabilizer-code encoded many-body systems for AQC or quantum memories. This work is a companion paper to ‘Error suppression and error correction in adiabatic quantum computation: techniques and challenges (2013 Phys. Rev. X 3 041013)’, which provides a quantum information perspective on the techniques and limitations of error suppression and correction in AQC. In this paper we couch the same results within a dynamical framework, which allows for a detailed analysis of the non-equilibrium dynamics of error suppression and correction in encoded AQC. (paper)

3D printing of soft-matter to open a new era of soft-matter MEMS/robotics (Conference Presentation)

Science.gov (United States)

Furukawa, Hidemitsu

2017-04-01

3D printing technology is becoming useful and applicable by the progress of information and communication technology (ICT). It means 3D printer is a kind of useful robot for additive manufacturing and is controlled by computer with human-friendly software. Once user starts to use 3D printing of soft-matter, one can immediately understand computer-aided design (CAD) and engineering (CAE) technology will be more important and applicable for soft-matter systems. User can easily design soft-matter objects and 3D-print them. User can easily apply 3D-printed soft-matter objects to develop new research and application on MEMS and robotics. Here we introduce the recent progress of 3D printing (i.e. additive manufacturing), especially focusing on our 3D gel printing. We are trying to develop new advanced research and applications of 3D gel printer, including GEL-MECHANICS, GEL-PHOTONICS, and GEL-ROBOTICS. In the gel-mechanics, we are developing new gel materials for mechanical engineering. Some gels have high-mechanical strength and shape memory properties. In the gel-photonics. We are applying our original characterizing system, named `Scanning Microscopic Light Scattering (SMILS)', to analyze 3D printed gel materials. In the gel-robotics, we focus on 3D printing of soft parts for soft-robotics made form gel materials, like gel finger. Also we are challenging to apply 3D gel printing to start new company, to innovate new businesses in county side, and to create new 3D-printed foods.

Necrotising soft tissue infection following mastectomy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jackson P

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Necrotising fasciitis is a rare but rapidly progressive soft tissue disease which can lead to extensive necrosis, systemic sepsis and death. Including this case, only 7 other cases have been reported in the world literature with only 2 others affecting the patient post mastectomy.This 59 year old Caucasian lady presented with severe soft tissue infection soon after mastectomy, which was successfully treated with a combination of debridement, triangulation, VAC© dressing and skin grafting.Necrotising soft tissue infections following mastectomy are rapidly progressive and potentially extremely serious. It is essential that a high index of clinical suspicion is maintained together with prompt aggressive treatment in a multidisciplinary environment to prevent worsening physical and psychological sequelae.

The use of soft robotics in cardiovascular therapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Wamala, Isaac; Roche, Ellen T; Pigula, Frank A

2017-10-01

Robots have been employed in cardiovascular therapy as surgical tools and for automation of hospital systems. Soft robots are a new kind of robot made of soft deformable materials, that are uniquely suited for biomedical applications because they are inherently less likely to injure body tissues and more likely to adapt to biological environments. Awareness of the soft robotic systems under development will help promote clinician involvement in their successful clinical translation. Areas covered: The most advanced soft robotic systems, across the size scale from nano to macro, that have shown the most promise for clinical application in cardiovascular therapy because they offer solutions where a clear therapeutic need still exists. We discuss nano and micro scale technology that could help improve targeted therapy for cardiac regeneration in ischemic heart disease, and soft robots for mechanical circulatory support. Additionally, we suggest where the gaps in the technology currently lie. Expert commentary: Soft robotic technology has now matured from the proof-of-concept phase to successful animal testing. With further refinement in materials and clinician guided application, they will be a useful complement for cardiovascular therapy.

Advances in soft computing, intelligent robotics and control

CERN Document Server

Fullér, Robert

2014-01-01

Soft computing, intelligent robotics and control are in the core interest of contemporary engineering. Essential characteristics of soft computing methods are the ability to handle vague information, to apply human-like reasoning, their learning capability, and ease of application. Soft computing techniques are widely applied in the control of dynamic systems, including mobile robots. The present volume is a collection of 20 chapters written by respectable experts of the fields, addressing various theoretical and practical aspects in soft computing, intelligent robotics and control. The first part of the book concerns with issues of intelligent robotics, including robust xed point transformation design, experimental verification of the input-output feedback linearization of differentially driven mobile robot and applying kinematic synthesis to micro electro-mechanical systems design. The second part of the book is devoted to fundamental aspects of soft computing. This includes practical aspects of fuzzy rule ...

Soft hair of dynamical black hole and Hawking radiation

Science.gov (United States)

Chu, Chong-Sun; Koyama, Yoji

2018-04-01

Soft hair of black hole has been proposed recently to play an important role in the resolution of the black hole information paradox. Recent work has emphasized that the soft modes cannot affect the black hole S-matrix due to Weinberg soft theorems. However as soft hair is generated by supertranslation of geometry which involves an angular dependent shift of time, it must have non-trivial quantum effects. We consider supertranslation of the Vaidya black hole and construct a non-spherical symmetric dynamical spacetime with soft hair. We show that this spacetime admits a trapping horizon and is a dynamical black hole. We find that Hawking radiation is emitted from the trapping horizon of the dynamical black hole. The Hawking radiation has a spectrum which depends on the soft hair of the black hole and this is consistent with the factorization property of the black hole S-matrix.

Charge collection control using retrograde well tested by proton microprobe irradiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sayama, Hirokazu; Takai, Mikio; Kimura, Hiroshi; Ohno, Yoshikazu; Satoh, Shinichi; Sonoda, Kenichirou; Katani, Norihiko.

1993-01-01

Soft error reduction by high-energy ion-implanted layers has been investigated by novel evaluation techniques using high-energy proton microprobes. A retrograde well formed by 160 and 700 keV boron ion implantation could completely suppress soft errors induced by the proton microprobes at 400 keV. The proton-induced current revealed the charge collection efficiency for the retrograde well structure. The collected charge for the retrograde well in the soft-error mapping was proved to be lower than the critical charge of the measured DRAMs(dynamic random-access memories). Complementary use of soft-error mapping and ion-induced-current measurement could clarify well structures immune against soft errors. (author)

Soft China: o caráter evolutivo da estratégia de charme chinesa Soft China: the changing nature of china's charm strategy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paulo Duarte

2012-12-01

Full Text Available O presente artigo analisa outra vertente (por vezes ignorada ou subestimada do conceito de poder, o soft power, relacionando-o com o caso concreto de uma potência em ascensão: a China. Inicia-se por definir a noção de soft power, distinguindo-a, para este efeito, dos conceitos de hard power e de smart power. Se, numa primeira fase se recorrerá, sobretudo, à teoria para destacarmos as principais características do soft power, a segunda etapa, essencialmente prática, baseia-se em um estudo de caso: investiga o comportamento da China em matéria de soft power. Desta forma, pretende-se conferir à teoria uma aplicabilidade, sendo ambas duas peças que não se excluem, antes interagem harmoniosamente. Como se concretiza a "ofensiva de charme" chinesa no Sudeste Asiático? Que pontos fortes e pontos fracos tem o soft power chinês? Como se comporta a China perante a questão dos Estados-pária? Como se comporta o soft power chinês no que diz respeito à estratégia marítima da China? Estas e outras questões serão abordadas pelo presente artigo. Na prática, procura-se demonstrar que, ao contrário do passado, o soft power já não é um elemento "estranho" no discurso oficial chinês. Na verdade, a China de hoje parece estar mais preocupada com a imagem que o mundo tem dela.This article examines another aspect (sometimes ignored or underestimated of the concept of power - soft power - relating it to the case of a rising power: China. It begins by defining the notion of soft power, distinguishing it, for this purpose, from the concepts of hard power and smart power. In a first phase, the text brings to bear theory in order to highlight the main features of soft power. The second - essentially practical - phase is based on a case study: the analysis of China's behavior in terms of soft power. The text thus provides the notion of soft power with practical applicability, these two elements being shown to be not mutually exclusive, but rather

Team errors: definition and taxonomy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sasou, Kunihide; Reason, James

1999-01-01

In error analysis or error management, the focus is usually upon individuals who have made errors. In large complex systems, however, most people work in teams or groups. Considering this working environment, insufficient emphasis has been given to 'team errors'. This paper discusses the definition of team errors and its taxonomy. These notions are also applied to events that have occurred in the nuclear power industry, aviation industry and shipping industry. The paper also discusses the relations between team errors and Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs). As a result, the proposed definition and taxonomy are found to be useful in categorizing team errors. The analysis also reveals that deficiencies in communication, resource/task management, excessive authority gradient, excessive professional courtesy will cause team errors. Handling human errors as team errors provides an opportunity to reduce human errors

Design and fabrication of soft x-ray mirrors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kawata, Masaru; Sasai, Hiroyuki; Sano, Kazuo [Shimadzu Corp., Production Engineering Laboratory, Kyoto (Japan)

2000-03-01

Soft x-ray photoelectron spectroscopic technology is important for measuring the chemical status of material surface in the LSI manufacturing process. We report on non-spherical mirrors focusing laser-induced plasma soft x-ray to fine sample surface. We designed toric and ellipsoidal mirror as soft x-ray condensing means, simulated focusing image, manufactured mirror surface on fused quartz substrate, and measured form accuracy. (author)

Experimental studies on pulse soft X-ray generator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Chengrong; Yang Qinchi; Luo Chengmu; Han Min

1990-01-01

Emission sources of soft x rays (2 keV < hv < 6 keV) from hot plasmas have been studied in a small gas-puff Z-pinch. The emission sources are a group of uncontinuous hot spots. The output of soft x rays from the hot spots have been measured and the effect of the initial gas density on the yield of soft x rays has been investigated

Temperature-based estimation of global solar radiation using soft computing methodologies

Science.gov (United States)

Mohammadi, Kasra; Shamshirband, Shahaboddin; Danesh, Amir Seyed; Abdullah, Mohd Shahidan; Zamani, Mazdak

2016-07-01

Precise knowledge of solar radiation is indeed essential in different technological and scientific applications of solar energy. Temperature-based estimation of global solar radiation would be appealing owing to broad availability of measured air temperatures. In this study, the potentials of soft computing techniques are evaluated to estimate daily horizontal global solar radiation (DHGSR) from measured maximum, minimum, and average air temperatures ( T max, T min, and T avg) in an Iranian city. For this purpose, a comparative evaluation between three methodologies of adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), radial basis function support vector regression (SVR-rbf), and polynomial basis function support vector regression (SVR-poly) is performed. Five combinations of T max, T min, and T avg are served as inputs to develop ANFIS, SVR-rbf, and SVR-poly models. The attained results show that all ANFIS, SVR-rbf, and SVR-poly models provide favorable accuracy. Based upon all techniques, the higher accuracies are achieved by models (5) using T max- T min and T max as inputs. According to the statistical results, SVR-rbf outperforms SVR-poly and ANFIS. For SVR-rbf (5), the mean absolute bias error, root mean square error, and correlation coefficient are 1.1931 MJ/m2, 2.0716 MJ/m2, and 0.9380, respectively. The survey results approve that SVR-rbf can be used efficiently to estimate DHGSR from air temperatures.

Experimental and Computational Techniques in Soft Condensed Matter Physics

Science.gov (United States)

Olafsen, Jeffrey

2010-09-01

1. Microscopy of soft materials Eric R. Weeks; 2. Computational methods to study jammed Systems Carl F. Schrek and Corey S. O'Hern; 3. Soft random solids: particulate gels, compressed emulsions and hybrid materials Anthony D. Dinsmore; 4. Langmuir monolayers Michael Dennin; 5. Computer modeling of granular rheology Leonardo E. Silbert; 6. Rheological and microrheological measurements of soft condensed matter John R. de Bruyn and Felix K. Oppong; 7. Particle-based measurement techniques for soft matter Nicholas T. Ouellette; 8. Cellular automata models of granular flow G. William Baxter; 9. Photoelastic materials Brian Utter; 10. Image acquisition and analysis in soft condensed matter Jeffrey S. Olafsen; 11. Structure and patterns in bacterial colonies Nicholas C. Darnton.