Construction of High-Precision Adiabatic Calorimeter and Thermodynamic Study on Functional Materials

In this chapter, a high-precision fully automated adiabatic calorimeter for heat capacity measurement of condensed materials in the temperature range from 80 to 400 K was described in detail. By using this calorimeter the heat capacity and thermodynamic properties of two kinds of function materials, ionic liquid and nanomaterials, were investigated. The heat capacities of IL [EMIM][TCB] were measured over the temperature range from 78 to 370 K by the high-precision-automated adiabatic calorimeter. Five kinds of nanostructured oxide materials, Al2O3, SiO2, TiO2, ZnO2, ZrO2, and two kinds of nanocrystalline metals: nickel and copper were investigated from heat capacity measurements. It is found that heat capacity enhancement in nanostructured materials is influenced by many factors, such as density, thermal expansion, sample purity, surface absorption, size effect, and so on

Parametric editing of clothed 3D avatars

Easy editing of a clothed 3D human avatar is central to many practical applications. However, it is easy to produce implausible, unnatural looking results, since subtle reshaping or pose alteration of avatars requires global consistency and agreement with human anatomy. Here, we present a parametric editing system for a clothed human body, based on use of a revised SCAPE model. We show that the parameters of the model can be estimated directly from a clothed avatar, and that it can be used as a basis for realistic, real-time editing of the clothed avatar mesh via a novel 3D body-aware warping scheme. The avatar can be easily controlled by a few semantically meaningful parameters, 12 biometric attributes controlling body shape, and 17 bones controlling pose. Our experiments demonstrate that our system can interactively produce visually pleasing results

The swimming behavior of the aquatic larva of Neoneuromus ignobilis (Megaloptera: Corydalidae: Corydalinae).

In order to explore the pattern and significance of swimming, through photos and videos we observed and recorded the swimming behavior of the aquatic larvae of Megaloptera in detail for the first time using the endemic Chinese species Neoneuromus ignobilis Navas, 1932 as the test insect, which were collected from the Dadu River and reared in nature-simulated environments. Four swimming postures are recognized and described herein in detail, i. e., vertical, parallel, back and side swimming, and these postures were used by the larvae disproportionately, with a frequency of 89.08%, 5. 49%, 4. 40% and 0. 61% , respectively. The swimming larvae tend to pose their body into an S-shape, with various degree of sinuation. By changing the directions of the head and tail, they can easily rise up or sink and change swimming postures. The propulsion was generated by the wriggling of the body while the legs were mostly held close to the body. Larvae of different instars varied greatly in swimming ability, the 6th ins tar larvae being the best and most active swimmer compared to the 2nd and final instars. The larvae may also employ complex defense behaviors not often known from relatively ancient insect groups, like chemical defense as secretion from the end of abdomen

Downlink Channel Covariance Matrix Reconstruction for FDD Massive MIMO Systems with Limited Feedback

The downlink channel covariance matrix (CCM) acquisition is the key step for the practical performance of massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) systems, including beamforming, channel tracking, and user scheduling. However, this task is challenging in the popular frequency division duplex massive MIMO systems with Type I codebook due to the limited channel information feedback. In this paper, we propose a novel formulation that leverages the structure of the codebook and feedback values for an accurate estimation of the downlink CCM. Then, we design a cutting plane algorithm to consecutively shrink the feasible set containing the downlink CCM, enabled by the careful design of pilot weighting matrices. Theoretical analysis shows that as the number of communication rounds increases, the proposed cutting plane algorithm can recover the ground-truth CCM. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm over the existing benchmark in CCM reconstruction

Thermodynamic Property Study on the Complexes of Rare- Earth Elements with Amino Aids

In this chapter, the following three rare-earth complexes with amino acids, Eu(Glu)(Im)5(ClO4)3⋅3HClO4⋅6H2O, Nd(Gly)2Cl3⋅3H2O, and La(Glu)(Im)6(ClO4)3⋅4HClO4⋅4H2O, are synthesized and characterized by element analysis, infrared (IR) spectrum, and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The thermodynamic property studies on these complexes are performed. For the first one, Eu(Glu)(Im)5(ClO4)3⋅3HClO4⋅6H2O, the low temperature heat capacity, phase transition, and thermodynamic functions are determined by adiabatic calorimetry. For the second one, Nd(Gly)2Cl3⋅3H2O, the molar dissolution enthalpy and standard molar enthalpy of formation are determined by isoperibol solution reaction calorimetry. For the third one, La(Glu)(Im)6(ClO4)3⋅4HClO4⋅4H2O, the microcalorimetry is used to investigate the interaction between the complex and the Escherichia coli DH5α to elucidate the biological effects of the complex

Realtime reconstruction of an animating human body from a single depth camera

We present a method for realtime reconstruction of an animating human body, which produces a sequence of deforming meshes representing a given performance captured by a single commodity depth camera. We achieve realtime single-view mesh completion by enhancing the parameterized SCAPE model. Our method, which we call Realtime SCAPE, performs full-body reconstruction without the use of markers. In Realtime SCAPE, estimations of body shape parameters and pose parameters, needed for reconstruction, are decoupled. Intrinsic body shape is first precomputed for a given subject, by determining shape parameters with the aid of a body shape database. Subsequently, per-frame pose parameter estimation is performed by means of linear blending skinning (LBS); the problem is decomposed into separately finding skinning weights and transformations. The skinning weights are also determined offline from the body shape database, reducing online reconstruction to simply finding the transformations in LBS. Doing so is formulated as a linear variational problem; carefully designed constraints are used to impose temporal coherence and alleviate artifacts. Experiments demonstrate that our method can produce full-body mesh sequences with high fidelity

Fast capture of textured full-body avatar with RGB-D cameras

We present a practical system which can provide a textured full-body avatar within three seconds. It uses sixteen RGB-depth (RGB-D) cameras, ten of which are arranged to capture the body, while six target the important head region. The configuration of the multiple cameras is formulated as a constraint-based minimum set space-covering problem, which is approximately solved by a heuristic algorithm. The camera layout determined can cover the fullbody surface of an adult, with geometric errors of less than 5 mm. After arranging the cameras, they are calibrated using a mannequin before scanning real humans. The 16 RGB-D images are all captured within 1 s, which both avoids the need for the subject to attempt to remain still for an uncomfortable period, and helps to keep pose changes between different cameras small. All scans are combined and processed to reconstruct the photo-realistic textured mesh in 2 s. During both system calibration and working capture of a real subject, the high-quality RGB information is exploited to assist geometric reconstruction and texture stitching optimization