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In this paper, we report the design of a system equipped with a multielement thermopile for monitoring the temperature of indoor objects. We evaluate the performance of our measurement system, which comprises two microcontrollers, an analog-to-digital converter, two stepping motors, and four microswitches. We use an RS-232 or a wireless RS-232 interface that transmits temperature values and uses colors to indicate the temperature range on a PC screen. The system is inexpensive and can be used for three-dimensional temperature measurements. The effective detection range of this system is from -20°C to 120°C or 180°C; the measurement error is within ±1°C. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the system for monitoring temperatures of remote indoor objects. Hence, it is possible to identify a hot spot in electrical heating equipment, a smoldering source hidden in upholstery, or the activities of a person in a room. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes an accurate distance measurement system which has self-temperature-compensation (STC) with the environmental average temperature in space, rather than a single point temperature. This system combines both the amplitude modulation (AM) and the phase modulation (PM) of the pulse-echo technique. The proposed system can reduce error caused by inertial delay and the amplitude attenuation effect when using the AM and PM envelope square waveform (APESW). The proposed system adopts two identical measurement hardware sets using the APESW ultrasonic driving waveform. The first set measures the sound velocity (the environmental average temperature information is also involved) as the result of the temperature compensation data for the second distance measuring set. Without using a temperature sensor, experimental results indicate that the proposed STC distance measurement system can accurately measure the distance. The experimental standard deviation of the linearity with respect to the distance is found to be 0.21 mm at a range of 50 to 500 mm. Moreover, the proposed system's temperature uncertainty effect produced a standard deviation of 0.093 mm, while the temperature sensor system's uncertainty effect produced a standard deviation of 0.68 mm. The STC manner is simple and can be easily adapted for robotic applications for which the temperature sensors can not easily be set up and placed. The main advantages of this STC distance measurement system are: high resolution, low cost, and ease of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to illustrate the interconnections between the different phases (or tools) within the cognitive work analysis framework; the benefits of extending an analysis across each of the five phases are highlighted through these interconnections. The paper uses a command and control micro-world example to describe how each of the five phases can be used to describe the constraints within the micro-world domain from a different perspective. Based upon the social organisation and cooperation analysis, design requirements are extracted in order to develop role specific customisable interfaces for use within the micro-world. The interfaces have been specifically developed to communicate real time reconfiguration of the network through each of the individual interfaces; the reallocations of functions or roles are communicated to the actors through changes to the interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last decade, progressive achievements in haemodynamics have shown that radial artery pulse pressure can be used to estimate the vascular properties of the internal organs. Clinical experiments have shown that slow and regular respiration has a large effect on the heart rate variability (HRV). This phenomenon is called respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). It is known that respiration-related oscillations in venous return cause oscillations in stroke volume and blood pressure. It also can be inferred from cardiac output that systemic blood pressure has a similar respiration-related cycle. Moreover we found that the fluctuations of harmonics of arterial pulse are consistent with the fluctuation of HRV. This means that the whole cardiovascular system (CVS) makes rapid adaptation during respiration, and the harmonic proportions of arterial pulse were modified during different breath rates. This result shows that the regular respiration also has a large effect upon Windkessel properties of CVS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle automation is highly likely to be in service by the end of this century. While there are undoubtedly some benefits associated with such systems, there are some concerns also. This paper presents a review of studies addressing adaptive cruise control and active steering systems. These studies suggest that there may be some cause for concern. They show a reduction in mental workload, within a secondary task paradigm, associated with some forms of automation and some problems with reclaiming control of the vehicle in failure scenarios. It is suggested that more research and development effort needs to be spent on looking at vehicle automation and driving performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]