Low-cost, open-source contact angle analyzer using a mobile phone, commercial tripods and 3D printed parts

Measurement of contact angle is important in many areas of science and engineering research. Contact angle analyzers are however not easily accessible due to their expensive cost, which hinders their use in research and also in education. In this study we propose a low-cost contact angle analyzer that can be assembled with 3D printed parts. Mobile phone is used for imaging, and the image is analyzed using an open-source ImageJ plugin. Commercial camera tripods are used as platform that provides movement in many degrees of freedom, which are important in leveling of the substrate and proper imaging of droplets. We utilize the tripods to build imaging modules, sample plate module and volume metering module, each of which perform distinct tasks. Especially, we characterize the usefulness of the volume metering module, which helps users dispense same volume of liquid to reduce human error during measurement. The cost of an analyzer is $255.10, which is an order of magnitude lower compared to commercial products. With the advancement in open source software and upgrades in the hardware modules, we expect that the proposed contact angle analyzer to have a positive impact in resource limited research labs and educational environments

Research notes: Preliminary studies for screening techniques on shade tolerance of soybean

Soybean intercropping with other crops usually causes poor yield, mainly by light reduction . Sometimes, a continuous rainfall during the growing season in the area of monsoon is a major factor for yield reduction in soybean by insufficient sunlight as well as shading by intercropping. Recently our laboratory has collected over 1500 lines as germplasm for Korean native soybean lines and has conducted tests for evaluation of various agronomic characters

Value Discount of Business Groups Surrounding the Asia Financial Crisis: Evidence from Korean Chaebols

Asian Financial Crisis, Business Group, Chaebol, Diversification, Firm Value

AD-YOLO: You Look ONly Once in Training Multiple Sound Event Localization and Detection

Sound event localization and detection (SELD) combines the identification of sound events with the corresponding directions of arrival (DOA). Recently, event-oriented track output formats have been adopted to solve this problem; however, they still have limited generalization toward real-world problems in an unknown polyphony environment. To address the issue, we proposed an angular-distance-based multiple SELD (AD-YOLO), which is an adaptation of the "You Look Only Once" algorithm for SELD. The AD-YOLO format allows the model to learn sound occurrences location-sensitively by assigning class responsibility to DOA predictions. Hence, the format enables the model to handle the polyphony problem, regardless of the number of sound overlaps. We evaluated AD-YOLO on DCASE 2020-2022 challenge Task 3 datasets using four SELD objective metrics. The experimental results show that AD-YOLO achieved outstanding performance overall and also accomplished robustness in class-homogeneous polyphony environments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in IEEE ICASSP 202

Improvement of Information Transfer Rates Using a Hybrid EEG-NIRS Brain-Computer Interface with a Short Trial Length: Offline and Pseudo-Online Analyses

Electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) are non-invasive neuroimaging methods that record the electrical and metabolic activity of the brain, respectively. Hybrid EEG-NIRS brain-computer interfaces (hBCIs) that use complementary EEG and NIRS information to enhance BCI performance have recently emerged to overcome the limitations of existing unimodal BCIs, such as vulnerability to motion artifacts for EEG-BCI or low temporal resolution for NIRS-BCI. However, with respect to NIRS-BCI, in order to fully induce a task-related brain activation, a relatively long trial length (≥10 s) is selected owing to the inherent hemodynamic delay that lowers the information transfer rate (ITR; bits/min). To alleviate the ITR degradation, we propose a more practical hBCI operated by intuitive mental tasks, such as mental arithmetic (MA) and word chain (WC) tasks, performed within a short trial length (5 s). In addition, the suitability of the WC as a BCI task was assessed, which has so far rarely been used in the BCI field. In this experiment, EEG and NIRS data were simultaneously recorded while participants performed MA and WC tasks without preliminary training and remained relaxed (baseline; BL). Each task was performed for 5 s, which was a shorter time than previous hBCI studies. Subsequently, a classification was performed to discriminate MA-related or WC-related brain activations from BL-related activations. By using hBCI in the offline/pseudo-online analyses, average classification accuracies of 90.0 ± 7.1/85.5 ± 8.1% and 85.8 ± 8.6/79.5 ± 13.4% for MA vs. BL and WC vs. BL, respectively, were achieved. These were significantly higher than those of the unimodal EEG- or NIRS-BCI in most cases. Given the short trial length and improved classification accuracy, the average ITRs were improved by more than 96.6% for MA vs. BL and 87.1% for WC vs. BL, respectively, compared to those reported in previous studies. The suitability of implementing a more practical hBCI based on intuitive mental tasks without preliminary training and with a shorter trial length was validated when compared to previous studies

Incipient piezoelectrics and electrostriction behavior in Sn-doped Bi-1/2( Na0.82K0.18)(1/2) TiO3 lead-free ceramics

Dielectric, ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and strain properties of lead-free Sn-doped Bi-1/2(Na0.82K0.18)(1/2)TiO3 (BNKT) were investigated. A crossover from a nonergodic relaxor to an ergodic relaxor state at room temperature, accompanied by a giant electric-field-induced strain, was observed at 5 at. % Sn doping. Switching dynamics monitored during a bipolar poling cycle manifested that the observed giant strain originates from incipient piezoelectricity. When Sn doping level reached 8 at. %, BNKT exhibited an electrostrictive behavior with a highly temperature-insensitive electrostrictive coefficient of Q(11) = 0.023 m(4)open3

Simultaneous Acquisition of EEG and NIRS during Cognitive Tasks for an Open Access Dataset

We provide an open access multimodal brain-imaging dataset of simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) recordings. Twenty-six healthy participants performed three cognitive tasks: 1) n-back (0-, 2- and 3-back), 2) discrimination/selection response task (DSR) and 3) word generation (WG) tasks. The data provided includes: 1) measured data, 2) demographic data, and 3) basic analysis results. For n-back (dataset A) and DSR tasks (dataset B), event-related potential (ERP) analysis was performed, and spatiotemporal characteristics and classification results for “target” vs. “non-target” (dataset A) and symbol “O” vs. symbol “X” (dataset B) are provided. Time-frequency analysis was performed to show the EEG spectral power to differentiate the task-relevant activations. Spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are also shown. For the WG task (dataset C), the EEG spectral power and spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses are analyzed, and the potential merit of hybrid EEG-NIRS BCIs was validated with respect to classification accuracy. We expect that the dataset provided will facilitate performance evaluation and comparison of many neuroimaging analysis techniques

trans-{1,8-Bis[(R)-α-methyl­benz­yl]-1,3,6,8,10,13-hexa­azacyclo­tetra­deca­ne}dithio­cyanato­nickel(II)

The title compound, [Ni(NCS)2(C24H38N6)], is a thio­cyanate-coordinated aza­macrocyclic nickel(II) complex. There are two independent mol­ecules in the asymmetric unit and their bond lengths and angles are similar. Both Ni atoms have a tetra­gonally distorted octa­hedral geometry, in which the NiII ion is coordinated by the four secondary N atoms of the aza­macrocyclic ligand and by two N atoms of the thio­cyanate ions. The average equatorial Ni—N bond lengths are shorter than the average axial Ni—N bond lengths [2.071 (1) and 2.115 (2) Å, respectively]. N—H⋯S hydrogen-bonding inter­actions between a secondary amine N atom and the adjacent thio­cyanate ion leads to a polymeric chain along [100]

Differentially altered social dominance- and cooperative-like behaviors in Shank2- and Shank3-mutant mice

Background: Recent progress in genomics has contributed to the identification of a large number of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk genes, many of which encode synaptic proteins. Our understanding of ASDs has advanced rapidly, partly owing to the development of numerous animal models. Extensive characterizations using a variety of behavioral batteries that analyze social behaviors have shown that a subset of engineered mice that model mutations in genes encoding Shanks, a family of excitatory postsynaptic scaffolding proteins, exhibit autism-like behaviors. Although these behavioral assays have been useful in identifying deficits in simple social behaviors, alterations in complex social behaviors remain largely untested. Methods: Two syndromic ASD mouse models—Shank2 constitutive knockout [KO] mice and Shank3 constitutive KO mice—were examined for alterations in social dominance and social cooperative behaviors using tube tests and automated cooperation tests. Upon naïve and salient behavioral experience, expression levels of c-Fos were analyzed as a proxy for neural activity across diverse brain areas, including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and a number of subcortical structures. Findings: As previously reported, Shank2 KO mice showed deficits in sociability, with intact social recognition memory, whereas Shank3 KO mice displayed no overt phenotypes. Strikingly, the two Shank KO mouse models exhibited diametrically opposed alterations in social dominance and cooperative behaviors. After a specific social behavioral experience, Shank mutant mice exhibited distinct changes in number of c-Fos+ neurons in the number of cortical and subcortical brain regions. Conclusions: Our results underscore the heterogeneity of social behavioral alterations in different ASD mouse models and highlight the utility of testing complex social behaviors in validating neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorder models. In addition, neural activities at distinct brain regions are likely collectively involved in eliciting complex social behaviors, which are differentially altered in ASD mouse models. © 2020, The Author(s).1