A property of human language associates words or labels each other according to several arbitrary rules. However, we do not know what cognitive abilities produce this property in humans. Through hierarchical concept acquisition, in this study we investigated the cause of this property in non-human animals, Capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella). First, we trained the subjects to acquire four component concepts with symbolic matching-to-sample (SMTS) procedures. Next, we trained the subjects to acquire two higher-order concepts including four acquired component concepts. The monkeys had to learn the relations between the examples of four component and two higher-order concepts and geometrical figures used as symbols in the SMTS tasks. Thereafter, we tested whether the monkeys spontaneously acquire relations among symbols similar with the hierarchy among concepts without particular training. Test results indicated that the monkeys understood that the symbols associated with component concepts were in relation to the symbols associated with higher-order concepts; on the other hand, they showed no evidence of understanding the opposite relations. It suggests that they could find an association among symbols based on hierarchy among concepts; however, their ability to grasp associations among symbols based on arbitrary rules was limited compared to humans.

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Recently,healing pet robots are developed in application of AI, especially natural language processing. The psychotherapist ELIZA is a famous in early AI research but has not Japanese voice communication as human interface. We developed Japanese ELIZA system without translators,Japanese to English Englist to Japanese and with IBM Via Voice 98,speach recognition and speach synthesis system. Robot chat Eliza system by Peri on the network is discussed.

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In our previous work, robust control structure based on disturbance observer for a fast and precise fine motion mechanism has been proposed. The functionality of the controller was verified using one axis of precise X-Y table combined with-one axis fine motion mechanism. As a further step in this paper, the approach is extended to two-axes fine motion mechanism with a SCARA robot as a real system to realize the final purpose, that is, the development of high-precision mounting robot. First, the paper introduces a high performance robot system based on a SCARA robot coupled with a fine motion mechanism which was developed in our laboratory. Second, the paper presents a control scheme that enables correction of possible offsets of the end-effector relative to the target and compensation of the oscillations at the end-point. Finally, experimental results show significant improvements in end-point accuracy and settling time achieved by the novel configuration of the coarse/fine robotic system. As a result, a repeatability (3σ) less than 2 μm and the CP positioning error (3σ) less than 4.0 μm were achieved by the coarse/fine robotic system.

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OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to develop a system using virtual reality (VR) technology to test the haptic skills of medical students. Currently, surgical skills are learned on live patients in a clinical environment in which the student practices under the close supervision of an experienced surgeon. We are interested in using haptic feedback devices to enhance surgical skills, because simulated touch in a virtual world improves the performance of trainee surgeons. In this study, we evaluated the efficacy of a test that evaluates the surgical skill of medical students by using a VR simulator.
METHODS: We used a microsurgical simulator with a force-feedback system. Its effectiveness in helping 36 medical students to acquire the tactile skills used in microscopic surgery was evaluated experimentally. Operating time and the number of sites of hemorrhage were measured to evaluate surgical aptitude. We also evaluated system performance with respect to reality, immersiveness, and operability as secondary measures. Data were analyzed using descriptive methods.
RESULTS: The operating time and number of hemorrhagic sites were positively correlated. Subject students were clustered into three groups: dexterous, awkward, or clumsy. The relation between the number of hemorrhages in the retina and immersion and operability differed between the group of would-be surgeons and those of would-be internists and pediatricians. All the students commented that the simulator was a useful tool for medical education.
CONCLUSIONS: The VR simulator can be used not only to teach and evaluate subtle tactile and surgical skills relevant to the surgical profession, but also to test the aptitude of medical students. The training transfer from a haptic simulator to actual practice methodology should be quantifiable in the near future. This work has steered medical informatics research into a new type of medical education.

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A flow cytometer is used for rapid analyses of cells or chromosomes. For an optical system of flow cytometer, it is important to adjust the center of illuminating laser beam to a jet-stream. Microspheres or leukocytes are used for focus adjustment. Adjusted best position is the location where fluorescence of standard samples becomes the brightest. Manual adjustment of the optical-axis is not only complicated but also inaccurate. A slit-scan flow cytometer measures the morphological information along the objects being analyzed. The laser beam size of our instrument at the tightly focused position has dimensions of 0.95 in the flow direction by 85.0 across with a depth of focus being only 1. At unfocused position, width of the slit becomes wider and intensity of the peak beam becomes weaker. To guarantee best focusing, we examined a method of opticalaxis adjustment for the slit-scan flow cytometer by controlling position of the jet-stream based on fluorescence intensities of microspheres passed. The computer controlled optical adjustment system ensures stable and reliable measurements by the slit-scan flow cytometer.

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Amperometric analysis of indigo carmine at a bare screen-printed electrode placed in an FIA system is reported. This compound is easily detected at a potential of -0.3 V (vs. Ag pseudo-reference electrode) without observing any fouling of the electrode surface, thus allowing the repetitive use of the same electrode in a reproducible manner (coefficients of variation down to 7% for more than 20 consecutive determinations). A linear range of three orders of magnitude and a limit of detection in the sub-micromolar range were attained for this molecule. Based on these studies, indirect amperometric measurements of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity in solution were easily carried out using 3-indoxyl phosphate substrate. Its hydrolysis catalyzed by ALP gave rise to indigo product. This product is insoluble in aqueous solutions but it was easily converted into its soluble parent compound, indigo carmine, by addition of fuming sulfuric acid to the reaction media. Using this approach, we achieved a linear range of more than one order of magnitude and a limit of detection of 1 U/l ALP, for an enzymatic reaction time of 60 min.

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Embedded cluster processing solutions can be difficult to design if quantity and type of processors, interconnectivity technology and code partitioning are not specified in advance, and yet it may not be possible to determine these without qualitative and quantitative testing which can not be performed until hardware is available. Similar issues are faced in conventional development projects for generic embedded systems, or for generic distributed systems, but the issues are exacerbated when both attributes are combined. This paper considers issues relating to custom embedded cluster processing system development in general, before focussing on a specific example of a space-borne cluster computer using ARM processors running embedded Linux. This early example, which will be shown performing distributed synthetic aperture radar image processing, is representative of a growing number of systems in the pervasive and ambient computing fields. It illustrates many difficulties in co-developing hardware and software for specific tasks. We present one potential solution - the use of distributed virtualization to simulate the final design. An ARM cluster simulator is presented, constructed using QEMU and virtual networking, and shown used for the development and validation of distributed embedded processing tasks on a cluster-type architecture. As clusters of embedded processors, pervasive embedded networks, and the “embedded cloud” become more popular in the near future, such virtualized systems can prove useful for development and testing.

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A new sorbent was synthesized by anchoring 7-amino-4-azaheptyltrimetoxisilane, freshly prepared, to silica gel, producing 7-amino-4-azaheptyl anchored silica gel (AAHSG). This material was characterized by infrared spectroscopy (IR), elemental analysis (CHN), and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. Isotherms of the adsorption of Fe³⁺, Fe²⁺ and Cu²⁺ on AAHSG were recorded, which indicated that Fe³⁺ presents a higher affinity by the sorbent. Therefore, AAHSG was successfully employed as a sorbent in a simple flow system for the preconcentration of Fe³⁺ in natural water samples, such as, river water, lagoonwater, springwater, stream water, well water and two water reference materials (NIST-SRM 1640, NIST-SRM 1643d). The obtained preconcentration factor was 82.2, and the detection limit achieved was 5.9 ng ml^-1. The recovery of spiked water samples ranged from 95.0 - 103.1%.

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In this paper we consider a multiobjective two-level integer programming problem in which there is not cordination between the decision maker at the upper level and the decision maker at the lower level. The decision maker at the upper level has an objective function and the decision maker at the lower level has multiple objective functions. The decision maker at the upper level must take account of multiple rational responses of the decision maker at the lower level in the problem. We examine two kinds of situations based on anticipation of the decision maker at the upper level; an optimistic anticipation and a pessimistic anticipation. Mathematical programming problems for obtaining the Stackelberg solutions based on two kinds of anticipation are formulated and three kinds of computational methods for obtaining the Stackelberg solutions are proposed. We carry out numerical experiments in order to demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed methods.

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This paper describes a pedal mechanism which moves by pedal locomotion like a snail. The pedal mechanism moves forward by propagation of pedal wave which has the contraction to the moving direction. The pedal mechanism was applied with a link mechanism using SMA (Shape Memory Alloy) as an actuator. The experiment for locomotion of the pedal mechanism was carried out. As a result, it was found that the locomotion speed of the pedal mechanism was in proportion to both the propagation speed of a pedal wave and the number of pedal wave passed on the sole per second, and the locomotion speed had the upper limit because of the mechanism friction of the link mechanism.

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This study is an examination about the interaction between molecules for expression about similar phenomenon by a cellular automata method. Generally molecules dynamics is used to compute a molecules motion and property of various materials. This method is used the equation of motion for a computing. On the other hand cellular automata method use interaction of cells for computing, In this study we examine a discretization of LJ potential for application to cellular automata method.

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様々な言語活動を行っている時の脳の活動部位を特定する有力な方法として, 脳血流をPET (positron emission tomography) で計測しSPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping) で解析する手法がある. SPMは脳全体にわたって有意な活動部位を検出する優れた解析方法である. しかし, 従来これらの表示方法は平面スライス, 3方向投影図, 脳表面着色図がほとんどで, これらでは立体的位置関係が分かりにくく読影が困難であった. そこで今回我々は脳機能画像をより分かり易く読影できるよう, これらを3次元再構築した画像作成を試みた.
対象は正常ボランティア12名で, 日常会話文聴取時のPET画像をSPMで解析した後, 1) SPM付属の従来の表示, 2) 3次元静止画像, 3) 3次元動画の作成を試みた. 2), 3) の3次元表示にはVTK (The Visualization Toolkit) のvolume rendering機能を使用したのが特徴である. また, 脳機能画像には元の脳画像が含まれないため, MRI脳画像との合成などを自作C++プログラムによって行った. 3) の動画は2) の静止画で一コマーコマを作成し, 市販ソフトウエアを用いて動画にした. 2), 3) の画像作成はパソコンを用いて行った.
この結果, 従来の表示方法に比べ, 3次元再構築を行うことで脳活動部位の同定がより容易となった.
脳機能画像は従来神経内科, 脳外科などの領分であったが, 耳鼻咽喉科でも言語の聴取, 表出を扱っている点から今後ますます重要な領域になると考えられる. 今回のように, 従来分かりにくかった脳機能画像を正確な3次元表示画像にすることが, 脳機能画像を正確で直感的に読影するのに重要であり, ひいてはこの分野での発展につながると考えられた. また, 3次元表示で一般的に知られている手法はsurface modelであるが, 脳のようなものの表示には今回用いたvolume renderingの方が優れていると考えられた.

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Piecewise quadratic polynomial approximation is a well-established hardware function evaluation technique. In this paper, we demonstrate the analysis and optimization of hardware implementation of sine and cosine through piecewise quadratic polynomial for single-precision floating-point operations. First, detailed approximation error analysis was used to rapidly obtain the non-uniform segmentation and guarantee faithful rounding. Second, theoretical analysis demonstrates that the monotonicity of the algorithm using segmentation is consistent with the original sine and cosine function. Moreover, the bit-width is optimized for the sine and cosine floating-point arithmetic units based on static analysis and dynamic monitoring to reduce the hardware cost. Experimental results show that the implementation for sine and cosine functions meets the requirements of faithful rounding and monotonicity with reasonable hardware cost.

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Electric Vehicles (EVs) are inherently suitable for 2-Dimension vehicle motion control. To utilize EV's advantages, body slip angle β and yaw rate γ play an important role. However, as sensors to measure β are very expensive, we need to estimate β from only variables to be measurable. In this paper, an improved estimation method for body slip angle β for EVs is proposed. This method is based on a linear observer using side acceleration a_y as well as γ information. We especially considered the design of gain matrix and succeeded in exact and robust estimation. We performed experiments by UOT MarchII. This experimental vehicle driven by four in-wheel motors was made for research on advanced control of EVs. Some experimental results are shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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