A Collaborative Authoring Workspace and Script-Based Control Platform for Heterogeneous Robots

A collaborative script authoring and control platform for multiple heterogeneous robots is developed. The developed platform consists of a remote sever providing a graphic user interface (GUI) authoring tool, and a local control platform controlling a group of heterogeneous robots by interpreting the designated scripts. Designed to encourage impromptu creativity among programming students in class, this Web-based authoring tool fosters collaborative creativity in the authorship of command scripts. The architecture of the local controller is composed of an embedded system for controlling the movement of robotic puppets, and a management server for the synchronization of live shows. Post-activity assessment indicates that the proposed platform provides strong support and encouragement for interactive robot learning in curriculum training and evaluation

Thermal Decomposition Kinetics of Cumene Hydroperoxide

The thermal decomposition and runaway reaction of cumene hydroperoxide (CHP) in cumene were studied by thermal analysis and by using the VSP-II adiabatic calorimeter. Decomposition kinetics were determined in various CHP concentrations in cumene. The reaction order of 20wt%, 35wt%, 50wt%, 65wt%, and 80wt% was determined to be 0.5, and the Arrhenius parameters were measured as Ea (kJmol−1) = 122.0 ± 3.0 and ln A (min−1 M1/2) = 30.0 ± 1.2. This new determination of the reaction order as equal to one half implies the same mechanism of decomposition regardless of CHP concentration. Chromatography and IR spectroscopy was combined with calorimetry data to determine the thermal decomposition kinetics. The preliminary rate determining step was considered to be the decomposition of CHP by dimer association. A reaction mechanism for CHP thermal decomposition is proposed

Intelligent synthesis of hyperspectral images from arbitrary web cameras in latent sparse space reconstruction

Synthesizing hyperspectral images (HSI) from an ordinary camera has been accomplished recently. However, such computation models require detailed properties of the target camera, which can only be measured in a professional lab. This prerequisite prevents the synthesizing model from being installed on arbitrary cameras for end-users. This study offers a calibration-free method for transforming any camera into an HSI camera. Our solution requires no controllable light sources and spectrometers. Any consumer installing the program should produce high-quality HSI without the assistance of optical laboratories. Our approach facilitates a cycle-generative adversarial network (cycle-GAN) and sparse assimilation method to render the illumination-dependent spectral response function (SRF) of the underlying camera at the first part of the setup stage. The current illuminating function (CIF) must be identified for each image and decoupled from the underlying model. The HSI model is then integrated with the static SRF and dynamic CIF in the second part of the stage. The estimated SRFs and CIFs have been double-checked with the results by the standard laboratory method. The reconstructed HSIs have errors under 3% in the root mean square

Lobocrassins A–E: New Cembrane-Type Diterpenoids from the Soft Coral Lobophytum crassum

Five new cembrane-type diterpenoids, lobocrassins A–E (1–5), were isolated from the soft coral Lobophytum crassum. The structures of cembranes 1–5 were established by spectroscopic and chemical methods and by comparison of the spectral data with those of known cembrane analogues. Lobocrassin A (1) is the first cembranoid possessing an α-chloromethyl-α-hydroxy-γ-lactone functionality and is the first chlorinated cembranoid from soft corals belonging to the genus Lobophytum. Lobocrassins B (2) and C (3) were found to be the stereoisomers of the known cembranes, 14-deoxycrassin (6) and pseudoplexaurol (7), respectively. Lobocrassin B (2) exhibited modest cytotoxicity toward K562, CCRF-CEM, Molt4, and HepG2 tumor cells and displayed significant inhibitory effects on the generation of superoxide anion and the release of elastase by human neutrophils

The Number of Students Needed for Undecided Programs at a College from the Supply-Chain Viewpoint

The objective of this study is to determine how to do forward-looking analysis to determine the future need for various professionals, so that educational institutes can produce an appropriate labor force for national development. The concept of component part commonality, which derives from research on effective inventory management using material resource planning (MRP), can also be applied to human resource planning and educational resource management in higher education systems. Therefore, this paper proposed a systematic method to analyze student recruitment numbers for future needs, based on the concept of MRP. The research studied the relationship between a curricular structure tree and the associated commonalities. It explored the relationship between the commonality of students and the aggregated level of student replenishment. Based on that, systematic guidelines for curriculum design can be established for undeclared programs at collages. Two simple examples were used to illustrate the implementation of MRP in analysis of the replenishment levels (necessary safety stock levels) in an education system such as an engineering college