An informationally structured room for robotic assistance.

The application of assistive technologies for elderly people is one of the most promising and interesting scenarios for intelligent technologies in the present and near future. Moreover, the improvement of the quality of life for the elderly is one of the first priorities in modern countries and societies. In this work, we present an informationally structured room that is aimed at supporting the daily life activities of elderly people.

Floor sensing system using laser reflectivity for localizing everyday objects and robot.

This paper describes a new method of measuring the position of everyday objects and a robot on the floor using distance and reflectance acquired by laser range finder (LRF). The information obtained by this method is important for a service robot working in a human daily life environment. Our method uses only one LRF together with a mirror installed on the wall.

Theoretical characterization of the "ridge" in the supercritical region in the fluid phase diagram of water.

The density fluctuation of water in the supercritical region was investigated theoretically using the reference interaction site model theory combined with the Kovalenko-Hirata closure relation, the so-called RISM-KH theory. The density fluctuation was evaluated by the numerical differentiation of density with respect to pressure at constant temperature. The density fluctuations plotted against density show finite maxima along a line slightly off from the critical isochore, in accordance with experimental results.

Specific solvation of benzyl methacrylate in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide ionic liquid.

It has been established that poly(benzyl methacrylate) in a room-temperature ionic liquid, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide ([C2mIm(+)][TFSA(-)]), exhibits lower critical solution temperature (LCST)-type phase separation. In this work we investigated the solvation structure of benzyl methacrylate monomer in the ionic liquid by using high-energy X-ray diffraction with the aid of a molecular dynamics simulation. It was found that the C2mIm cation orderly distributes above and below a benzyl group within benzil methacrylate (BnMA), while the TFSA anion distributes around the equatorial position of the benzyl group where no cation distribution is found, with a weak interaction between TFSA and BnMA.

Gastrulation and pre-gastrulation morphogenesis, inductions, and gene expression: similarities and dissimilarities between urodelean and anuran embryos.

Studies of meso-endoderm and neural induction and subsequent body plan formation have been analyzed using mainly amphibians as the experimental model. Xenopus is currently the predominant model, because it best enables molecular analysis of these induction processes. However, much of the embryological information on these inductions (e.

Numerical analysis of plasmon-resonance absorption in bisinusoidal metal gratings.

We numerically investigate plasmon-resonance absorption of incident light energy by a bisinusoidal metal grating, i.e., one whose surface profile is sinusoidally corrugated in two orthogonal directions with a common period.

Electronic circuit model of retina in color vision.

Based on previous works, outer retinal cell network is modeled with a simplified electronic circuit. Gap junction is represented by conductance, chemical synaptic junction is by trans-admittance. Results of simulations are appropriate to physiological responses of retina.