Thermal Sweet Taste Machine for Multisensory Internet

This paper presents a new taste interface for multisensory communication called "Thermal Sweet Taste Machine". We developed this interface in order to create sweet sensations, by manipulating the temperature on the tongue, without using chemicals. This device device changes the temperature on the surface of the tongue (from 20°C to 40°C) within a short period of time using a computer controlled circuit. Our preliminary user studies suggested that this device would be effective in two ways; producing the sweet sensations without the aid of chemicals, and enhancing the sweetness of the food and drinks. Here we discuss our concept, development of the interface, and some preliminary studies that has been carried out. We believe our technology would enhance the experiences and capabilities in future multisensory communication in different disciplines such as Human-Computer Interaction, human robot interactions, gaming and interacting with artificial agents

Multivariate Analysis of the Morphological Traits of Female Duck, Muscovy-duck and Mule-duck

The objective of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of morphometrical measurements inthe female waterfowls. The animals used in this research were 90 ducks , 90 muscovy-ducks and 90mule-ducks in Bulukumba district of Brebes regency, Central Java, Indonesia. Parameters measuredwere maxilla length, neck length, body length, chest circumstance, wing length, chest length, femurlength and tibia length. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Analysis System ver. 9.1. Muscovyduckgenerally had the largest of size, followed by mule-duck and then duck. The most discriminantvariables were showed by chest length and chest circumstance. Muscovy-duck and mule-duck hadclosest genetic distance (3.974870) than both of the distance between duck and mule duck (14.10), andmuscovy-duck and duck (24.73). The smallest errorness level in grouping was showed in duck 1%followed by 2% in mule-duck and 3% in muscovy-duck

Local community ecotourism business experiences in Kuala Tahan, Malaysia

Many ecotourism destinations were developed with the dual purpose of resource conservation and local economic well-being. In order to achieve these noble goals, there is a need to incorporate local community participation in ecotourism activity. The vital justification for such participation can be found in the form of linking the economic benefits and conservation. Interest in such linkage was the premise of the present study which was set in Kuala Tahan (Taman Negara National Park), a well known ecotourism destination in Malaysia. The study was designed to examine the experience of the locals in businesses and how they benefited from their participation in ecotourism activities. A census was conducted in Kuala Tahan in 2010 of 69 locals who were involved in businesses providing services to the ecotourists in the park. Results of the study demonstrate an encouraging business atmosphere in Kuala Tahan, and the locals are optimistic about the future of the area. Several changes in business profiles were identified and compared to a previous survey which was conducted in 1993. Although most of the locals are still operating businesses in a conventional manner, some had explored and are thriving in new ventures. A number of problems which could impede the local business growth were also noted and corrective measures suggested

Anisotropic Local Stress and Particle Hopping in a Deeply Supercooled Liquid

The origin of the microscopic motions that lead to stress relaxation in deeply supercooled liquid remains unclear. We show that in such a liquid the stress relaxation is locally anisotropic which can serve as the driving force for the hopping of the system on its free energy surface. However, not all hopping are equally effective in relaxing the local stress, suggesting that diffusion can decouple from viscosity even at local level. On the other hand, orientational relaxation is found to be always coupled to stress relaxation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

New Thermal Taste Actuation Technology for Future Multisensory Virtual Reality and Internet

Today’s virtual reality (VR) applications are mainly based on audio, visual, and haptic interactions between human and virtual world. Integrating the sense of taste into VR is difficult since we are dependent on chemical-based taste delivery systems. Therefore, developing a proper non-chemical digital taste actuation technology can unlock taste experiences in VR applications such as gaming, multisensory entertainment, remote dining, and online shopping. This paper presents the ‘Thermal Taste Machine’, a new digital taste actuation technology that can effectively produce and modify thermal taste sensations on the tongue. This device changes the temperature of the surface of the tongue within a short period of time (from 25 ◦ C to 40 ◦ C while heating and from 25 ◦ C to 10 ◦ C while cooling). We tested this device on human subjects and described the experience of thermal taste using 20 known (taste and non-taste) sensations. Our results suggested that rapidly heating the tongue produce sweetness, fatty/oiliness, electric taste, warmness, and reduced the sensibility for metallic taste. Similarly, participants reported that the cooling the tongue produced mint taste, pleasantness, and coldness. By conducting an another user study on the perceived sweetness of sucrose solutions after the thermal stimulation, we found that heating the tongue significantly enhanced the intensity of sweetness for both thermal tasters and non-thermal tasters. Also, we found that faster temperature rise on the tongue produce more intense sweet sensations for thermal tasters. We believe that this technology will be useful in two ways: First, it can produce taste sensations without using chemicals for the individuals who are sensitive to thermal taste. Second, the temperature rise of the device can be used as a way to enhance the intensity of sweetness. We believe that this technology can be used to digitally produce and enhance taste sensations in future virtual reality applications. The key novelties of this paper are as follows: 1. Development of a thermal taste actuation technology for stimulating the human taste receptors, 2. Characterization of the thermal taste produced by the device based on a set of taste related sensations and non-taste related sensations, 3. Research on enhancing the intensity for sucrose using thermal stimulation, 4. Research on how different speeds of heating affect the intensity of sweetness produced by thermal stimulation

Suplementasi Kurkumin untuk Perbaikan Maturis Oosit dan Hasil in vitro Fertilisasi pada Mencit Model Endometriosis

Endometriosis didefinisikan sebagai adanya jaringan seperti endometrium di luar rahim, yang menginduksi reaksi inflamasi kronis. Hasil pengobatan endometriosis terutama pada infertilitas tetap tidak memuaskan dengan tingkat kehamilan yang rendah. Curcumin, yang berpotensi anti-oksidan dan anti-inflamasi, berperan memperbaiki gangguan folikulogenesis. Namun peran kurkumin pada oosit dan embrio masih belum jelas. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengevaluasi apakah kurkumin berperan pada maturasi oosit dan hasil fertilisasi in vitro. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian eksperimental laboratorium menggunakan hewan coba. Endometriosis diinduksi dengan pemberian siklosporin A, jaringan endometrium manusia oestradiol pada 76 ekor tikus. Subjek penelitian dibagi menjadi 2 kelompok: kurkumin dan suplemen plasebo. Stimulasi ovarium dilakukan dengan menggunakan PMSG dan hCG untuk mengevaluasi pematangan oosit dengan menganalisis GV, GVBD, metafase 1 dan metafase 2. Fertilisasi in vitro dilakukan untuk mengklarifikasi polar body 2 sebagai evaluasi hasil fertilisasi. Data dibandingkan dengan student t -test. Jumlah ovum rata-rata kelompok kurkumin (15,42 ± 3,17) secara signifikan lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan kelompok plasebo (8,21 ± 2,82) (p < 0,0001). Maturasi oosit termasuk GV, GVBD, metaphase I Dan II metafase lebih baik, terutama tingginya jumlah metafase II pematangan (37,2%) pada kelompok kurkumin. Hasil fertilisasi invitro pada kelompok kurkumin (15,26 ± 3,21) secara signifikan lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan kelompok plasebo (5,57 ± 3,18) (p = 0,000). Simpulan, pada percobaan tikus endometriosis, suplemen kurkumin dapat meningkatkan maturasi oosit dan hasil fertilisasi. (MOG 2014;22:53-57

Parameterized Supply Function Bidding: Equilibrium and Efficiency

We consider a model where a finite number of producers compete to meet an infinitely divisible but inelastic demand for a product. Each firm is characterized by a production cost that is convex in the output produced, and firms act as profit maximizers. We consider a uniform price market design that uses supply function bidding: firms declare the amount they would supply at any positive price, and a single price is chosen to clear the market. We are interested in evaluating the impact of price-anticipating behavior both on the allocative efficiency of the market and on the prices seen at equilibrium. We show that by restricting the strategy space of the firms to parameterized supply functions, we can provide upper bounds on both the inflation of aggregate cost at the Nash equilibrium relative to the socially optimal level, as well as the markup of the Nash equilibrium price above the competitive level: as long as N > 2 firms are competing, these quantities are both upper bounded by 1 + 1/(N − 2). This result holds even in the presence of asymmetric cost structure across firms. We also discuss several extensions, generalizations, and related issues.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Graduate Research Fellowship)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (grant ECS-0312921

Energy landscape - a key concept for the dynamics of glasses and liquids

There is a growing belief that the mode coupling theory is the proper microscopic theory for the dynamics of the undercooled liquid above a critical temperature T_c. In addition, there is some evidence that the system leaves the saddlepoints of the energy landscape to settle in the valleys at this critical temperature. Finally, there is a microscopic theory for the entropy at the calorimetric glass transition T_g by Mezard and Parisi, which allows to calculate the Kauzmann temperature from the atomic pair potentials. The dynamics of the frozen glass phase is at present limited to phenomenological models. In the spirit of the energy landscape concept, one considers an ensemble of independent asymmetric double-well potentials with a wide distribution of barrier heights and asymmetries (ADWP or Gilroy-Phillips model). The model gives an excellent description of the relaxation of glasses up to about T_g/4. Above this temperature, the interaction between different relaxation centers begins to play a role. One can show that the interaction reduces the number of relaxation centers needed to bring the shear modulus down to zero by a factor of three.Comment: Contribution to the III Workshop on Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Supercooled Fluids, Glasses and Amorphous Materials, 22-27 September 2002, Pisa; 14 pages, 3 figures; Version 3 takes criticque at Pisa into account; final version 4 will be published in J.Phys.: Condens.Matte

Mechanical Relaxation in Glasses and at the Glass Transition

The Gilroy-Phillips model of relaxational jumps in asymmetric double-well potentials, developed for the Arrhenius-type secondary relaxations of the glass phase, is extended to a formal description of the breakdown of the shear modulus at the glass transition, the flow process.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 49 ref

Crossover behavior and multi-step relaxation in a schematic model of the cut-off glass transition

We study a schematic mode-coupling model in which the ideal glass transition is cut off by a decay of the quadratic coupling constant in the memory function. (Such a decay, on a time scale tau_I, has been suggested as the likely consequence of activated processes.) If this decay is complete, so that only a linear coupling remains at late times, then the alpha relaxation shows a temporal crossover from a relaxation typical of the unmodified schematic model to a final strongly slower-than-exponential relaxation. This crossover, which differs somewhat in form from previous schematic models of the cut-off glass transition, resembles light-scattering experiments on colloidal systems, and can exhibit a `slower-than-alpha' relaxation feature hinted at there. We also consider what happens when a similar but incomplete decay occurs, so that a significant level of quadratic coupling remains for t>>tau_I. In this case the correlator acquires a third, weaker relaxation mode at intermediate times. This empirically resembles the beta process seen in many molecular glass formers. It disappears when the initial as well as the final quadratic coupling lies on the liquid side of the glass transition, but remains present even when the final coupling is only just inside the liquid (so that the alpha relaxation time is finite, but too long to measure). Our results are suggestive of how, in a cut-off glass, the underlying `ideal' glass transition predicted by mode-coupling theory can remain detectable through qualitative features in dynamics.Comment: 14 pages revtex inc 10 figs; submitted to pr