Self-Calibrating Enabled Low Cost, Two Channel Type K Thermocouple Interface for Microcontrollers

The present study presents the author's modification of the method, which aims to create proper parameters of the treatment. The selected group consisted of 15 women and eight men, with a mean age of 57.2 years (range from 26 to 72 years). The patients were divided into two groups, depending on whether they were given epidural bupivacaine (group I - 13 patients treated between the years 2001 and 2004) or not [group II (control) - 10 patients treated earlier, between the years 1997 and 2000]. We observed a significant change in the temperature of thigh muscles (P=0.009) and shank muscles (P=0.006). In the control group II, there was a statistically significant difference (P=0.048) in the temperatures between the muscles and subcutaneous tissue on the one hand and the shank skin on the other. That difference was mean 0.67 degrees Celsius (from 0.4 to 0.9) during the perfusion after applying the cytostatic. The temperature of the skin was lower than the temperature of the deeper tissues of the shank and did not exceed 39.9 degrees Celsius. Such a difference in the temperatures was not observed in case of the group I patients who were given bupivacaine into the extrameningeal space before applying the cytostatic. The difference in the temperatures was on average 0.26 degrees Celsius and was not statistically significant (P=0.99), whereas the shank skin temperature was 40.0-40.6 degrees Celsius. The attained results imply that despite the noticeable improvement in the heating of the limb muscles after application of bupivacaine, the improvement in the heating of the skin and subcutaneous tissue is still not satisfactory, although the growing tendency implies such a possibility.

The deployment and application of large-scale Internet of Things require a large number of 13.56-MHz radio-frequency identification (RFID) reader chips with lower cost. The existing RFID reader module needs to integrate multiple chips, such as microcontroller and high-frequency (HF) RFID reader IC on a single printed circuit board (PCB), which has the bottleneck of cost, power consumption, stability, and reliability. In order to adapt to the development trend of high integration, miniaturization, and low-power consumption of RFID reader, this article proposes a fully integrated low-cost RFID reader System-on-a-Chip (SoC), which integrates RF transceiver and analog circuit, baseband protocol processing, microcontroller, memory, and interface circuit into a single chip. The proposed reader IC supports communication protocols, such as ISO/IEC 14443 Type A and Type B, ISO/IEC 15693, and ISO/IEC 7816. The reader can communicate with contact and contactless IC cards. The modulation depth of the transmitter circuit ranges from 1% to 100%, and the maximum transmitting current is 126 mA. The receiver circuit is composed of I/Q clock generation, switched capacitor sampling circuit, variable gain amplifier (VGA) with filter, comparator, and pulse shaping circuit, which has good anti-noise performance. This 13.56-MHz RFID reader SoC is fabricated in a 180-nm CMOS process and is housed in a 64-pin QFP package. The total area is 8.75 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , including 1.47 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> for analog and RF circuits.

Measuring the temperature of a sample is a fundamental need in many biological and chemical processes. When the volume of the sample is on the microliter or nanoliter scale (e.g., cells, microorganisms, precious samples, or samples in microfluidic devices), accurate measurement of the sample temperature becomes challenging. In this work, we demonstrate a technique for accurately determining the temperature of microliter volumes using a simple 3D-printed microfluidic chip. We accomplish this by first filling “microfluidic thermometer” channels on the chip with substances with precisely known freezing/melting points. We then use a thermoelectric cooler to create a stable and linear temperature gradient along these channels within a measurement region on the chip. A custom software tool (available as online Supporting Information) is then used to find the locations of solid-liquid interfaces in the thermometer channels; these locations have known temperatures equal to the freezing/melting points of the substances in the channels. The software then uses the locations of these interfaces to calculate the temperature at any desired point within the measurement region. Using this approach, the temperature of any microliter-scale on-chip sample can be measured with an uncertainty of about a quarter of a degree Celsius. As a proof-of-concept, we use this technique to measure the unknown freezing point of a 50 microliter volume of solution and demonstrate its feasibility on a 400 nanoliter sample. Additionally, this technique can be used to measure the temperature of any on-chip sample, not just near-zero-Celsius freezing points. We demonstrate this by using an oil that solidifies near room temperature (coconut oil) in a microfluidic thermometer to measure on-chip temperatures well above zero Celsius. By providing a low-cost and simple way to accurately measure temperatures in small volumes, this technique should find applications in both research and educational laboratories.

In practice, temperature measurement in large combustion systems is very difficult due to its large size and environmental conditions. At present, accurate temperature measurements are still nearly impossible. Temperature is often measured with thermocouples, which are of low accuracy and reliability and limited in reaching acceptable results, likewise, the method of sampling has many limitations. Because of the difficulty of the measurement methods used, this paper will be a way to overcome these limitations by using the real-time and laser measurement method. Laser based measurement methods are midline measurement methods, applied to temperature analysis in a wide range within a large combustion system. With regard to concentration analysis, it has excellent representativeness and accuracy, and is useful for large combustion systems. In this study, the focus was on measuring the temperature using water vapor, oxygen, and carbon dioxide generated during combustion by means of a diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS). As a result of the measurement, the average temperature inside the combustion system was around 1100 degrees Celsius, and the average concentration of the three compounds is 2.8 %, and compared with data obtained in previous researches using the same method.

A new microcomputer based air temperature measurement system is presented. An accurate temperature measurement is derived from the measurement of sound velocity by using an ultrasonic time-of-flight (TOF) technique. The study proposes a novel algorithm that combines both amplitude modulation (AM) and phase modulation (PM) to get the TOF measurement. The proposed system uses the AM and PM envelope square waveform (APESW) to reduce the error caused by inertia delay. The APESW ultrasonic driving waveform causes an envelope zero and phase inversion phenomenon in the relative waveform of the receiver. To accurately achieve a TOF measurement, the phase inversion phenomenon was used to sufficiently identify the measurement pulse in the received waveform. Additionally, a counter clock technique was combined to compute the phase shifts of the last incomplete cycle for TOF. The presented system can obtain 0.1% TOF resolution for the period corresponding to the 40 kHz frequency ultrasonic wave. Consequently, with the integration of a humidity compensation algorithm, a highly accurate and high resolution temperature measurement can be achieved using the accurate TOF measurement. Experimental results indicate that the combined standard uncertainty of the temperature measurement is approximately 0.39 degrees C. The main advantages of this system are high resolution measurements, narrow bandwidth requirements, and ease of implementation.

In the present work, a special microcontroller-based data acquisition and control system was designed and fabricated, for fast and accurate flow measurements with programmable modes of operation. The system can apply predetermined power to the heater and simultaneously is able of monitoring both the thermopile signal and the heater current. An RS232 connection was also implemented for the communication with the outside world. The interface circuit was adapted to the micromechanical flow sensor for evaluation. Various sensor parameters were extracted in both laminar and turbulent flow conditions. The sensor responses with three operation modes (constant voltage, power and temperature) were also obtained.

Owing to the superior energy density, rechargeable Li-ion batteries (LIBs) have been used as a major power source of portable electric devices such as cell phones and lap-top computers. In addition to small-scale applications, LIBs are also installed in recently developed large scale systems such as electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy storage systems, and smart grids. In commercially available LIBs, rare metal oxides, such as LiCoO2 and LiMnO4 are used for the cathode material. However, the capacity of LIB is not large enough for EV with long driving range. Furthermore, rare metals used in the present LIB such as Co, Ni and Li raise the cost of LIB. Therefore, we have to explore new electrode materials having high ion adsorption capacity and available at low cost so as to develop long driving range EV. Phosphorus is a candidate for such an electrode materials, because phosphorus is one of the ubiquitous elements and can adsorb much alkali metal ions. However, most of the polymorphs of phosphorus except for black phosphorus, which is prepared by high pressure and high temperature treatment, are electric insulators. We also take large volume change of phosphorus electrode with ion adsorption into account. Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) has good electric conductivity and huge hollow core space in which some molecules can be encapsulated. Therefore, if we input phosphorus molecules into the hollow core of SWCNT, the materials would work as a good electrode. In fact, it was found by our preliminary experiments that phosphorus encapsulated in SWCNT (P@SWCNT) can adsorb and desorb alkali metal ions such as Li and Na [1]. However, since the experiments were performed under limited conditions, we should perform more sophisticated experiments to examine the electrode properties of P@SWCNT more precisely. In this study, we discuss how the electrode property of P@SWCNT changes with different kinds of electrolytes. In the previous work, we used mixture of Ethylene Carbonate and Diethyl Carbonate (EC/DEC) as an electrolyte. In the present study, we prepared two different kinds of electrolytes: Propylene Carbonate (PC) and polyethyleneoxide based composite polymer electrolyte (PEO). The former has wide liquid temperature range and shows very good low temperature performance than EC/DEC solvent and high conductivity thus we can try to evaluate electrode material at low temperature. The latter is known for one of the solid electrolyte and show from 10-3 to 10-4 S/cm at over 60 degrees Celsius. In the symposium, we’ll discuss the electrode properties of P@SWCNT with different kinds of electrolyte and also talk about the possibility of all solid state battery using P@SWCNT.

Mineral oil has long been utilized in transformers due to its low cost and suitable qualities. Alternative liquid insulations with great characteristics have recently been presented, and natural ester was considered. Pressboard is a type of cellulose insulation used for electrical insulation and mechanical support. This paper intends to study pressboard impregnated with natural ester under thermal stress. The pressboards and the natural ester were prepared for the experiment. Vacuum ovens were used for moisture elimination of materials and the impregnation process. The test specimens consisted of impregnated pressboards for 0, 8, 16, and 24 hours with thermal stress by heating at 150 degrees Celsius in a vacuum oven for 0, 30, and 90 days. Polarization and depolarization current (PDC) of the test specimens were investigated in each period by PDC-Analyser 1MOD. The test cell for PDC measurement was designed according to JIS C2111, and it was clean before the experiment. The PDC characteristics of the pressboard that had been subjected to thermal stress were discovered to be slightly different when compared with the same impregnation time of the pressboard.

지구 온난화로 인해 2020년 여름 54일간의 긴 장마와 38∼40℃에 이르는 고온다습한 날씨는 가락시장에 출하된 배추&#8901;양배추&#8901;파&#8901;피망&#8901;딸기&#8901;버섯 등 청과물이 쉽게 짓무르거나 부패되어 손실 피해가 늘어날 수 있다. 반대로 &#8211;15∼-20℃로 하강하는 혹한의 날씨는 가림막 시설이 설치된 청과물 경매장의 내부 온도가 &#8211;5℃ 이하로 떨어져 상품이 어는 피해가 발생한다. 이외에도 가락시장은 오픈한지 35년 이상 경과되어 시설이 노후화되었음은 물론, 사방이 오픈된 개방형 시설로 각종 해충과 쥐 및 먼지 등을 통제할 수 없어, 품질&#8901;위생관리 측면에서 시장은 여러 문제와 한계가 있었다. 그러므로 농산물의 저온(정온)관리가 가능한 폐쇄형 시설을 도입하는 등의 가락시장 도매권역 시설현대화사업추진(2021∼31년)에 따른 “가락시장 청과물 저온유통체계 선진화 과제와 발전 방안”에 대하여 고찰하는 것이 본 연구의 목적이다. 산지는 지난 ‘10년부터 현재까지 저온저장시설과 저온차량의 구입을 지원하는 저온유통체계구축사업의 추진으로 비교적 양호한 저온시설 확충을 보이고 있다. 그러나 농산물의 절반 이상이 도매시장을 통해 유통되는 현실에서 가락시장의 저온유통체계 미비는 품질하락과 안전성을 떨어뜨리고 식품손실을 유발하여 높은 유통비용의 원인이 되고 있다. 도매시장이 저온유통체계를 구축해야 하는 이유는 첫째 산지와 도매시장간(경매장→중매인점포→소매상) 상호연계성 없는 콜드체인 추진은 일관된 온도관리의 실효성을 떨어뜨리기 때문이며, 둘째 도매시장의 취급량 감소에 대비한 산지 조달처 개발 및 납품처 다양화가 필요하며, 셋째 일관된 저온유통으로 품질ㆍ위생관리를 위한 유통주체들의 노력이 절실함은 물론, 온ㆍ오프라인 유통업체들 간 신선식품의 판매경쟁이 벌어지고 있는 시대에 고품질ㆍ안심할 수 있는 차별화된 농산품을 공급하는 스마트 시장으로 활성화가 필요하기 때문이다. 도매시장의 저온유통시설 확충을 위한 설비도입의 과제는 공통과제와 경매장 공조 효율화를 위한 과제<표 10> 및 저온화ㆍICT기술 고도화 과제에 대하여 살펴보았다. 나아가 가락시장의 저온유통체계 구축 고도화 방안으로 HACCPㆍISO22000 인증제도 도입으로 신선식품의 품질ㆍ위생관리에 대한 인식 제고와 교육ㆍ훈련이 필요함과 일관된 선도(온도)관리를 위해 유통주체들 간 긴밀한 협업이 중요하다는 점을 지적하였다. 전국 최대의 도매시장인 가락시장은 신선도(≒시간)라는 제약 속에 수급균형을 통해 거래를 실현하는 운영상의 어려움이 있다. 가락시장 청과물의 저온유통 고도화 방안을 4가지로 요약하면 다음과 같다. 첫째 저온유통 시스템 기술(H/WㆍS/W)의 고도화 방안, 둘째 신선식품 저온유통은 3가지의 운영조건에서 운용될 필요가 있으며<표 17>, 셋째 상온품 대비 저온품 차별화로 저온품의 가격보상제 추진의 필요성ㆍ한국 실정에 적합한 에너지 저감형 저온유통체계의 도입ㆍ저온물류비 저감화(low cost operations of cold chain)목표의 실현 및 신선식품 저온유통비용 산정을 위한 통계DB 정비가 필요, 넷째 지속가능 발전 목표(SDGs)가 국내외적으로 중시되는 환경에서 가락시장은 친환경에 대한 배려(에너지 사용 저감, CO2 배출ㆍ쓰레기 발생억제)가 그 어느 때보다 요청됨을 살펴보았다. 가락시장의 저온유통체계 선진화를 통해 기대되는 효과는 <표 18>에서 보듯이 유통기한 연장에 따른 기존 10∼35%의 식품손실 감소와 공급가능 시장범위 확장에 따른 판매기회 증대, 생산지와 소비지간 연계 역할의 수행으로 가치창출 및 품질관리의 강화로 위험회피를 통한 거래처로부터 신뢰확보 등을 들 수 있다. 이상으로 살펴본 본 연구의 주요 성과를 토대로 향후 과제에서 연구의 저변이 확대된다면, 국내 공영도매시장의 시설현대화사업과 관련해 정비계획수립의 가이드 역할을 할 것으로 기대된다.Due to global warming, long rainy season and hot humid summer of South Korea can cause fruits and vegetables to rot. Furthmore, in winter, the product freezes due to cold weather, which can drop to -15 to -20 degrees Celsius, resulting in lower value. Garak Wholesale Market has limitations in terms of quality and hygiene, such as an open system without control over infectious sources as well as old facilities. The purpose of this research is to examine the challenges and development of the cold chain system of fresh products in the Garak Wholesale Market by modernizing the wholesale area facilities. The market has shown relatively good expansion of cold chain system. However, since more than half of agricultural products are distributed through the Garak wholesale market, it is still insufficient to meet the expectation. In order to increase the effectiveness of offline temperature management, the development and diversification of suppliers is necessary. This study explained the common issues of equipment installation to expand cold chain system in the market and sophistication of ICT technology. Through this study, it was confirmed that the introduction the HACCPㆍISO22000 certification system for education and training, and raising awareness on the quality and hygiene management of fresh food is essential. In addition, it pointed out the importance of close collaboration between distribution entities for consistent freshness management. Garak Wholesale Market, the largest one in Korea, has several operational challenges to maintain freshness of the product. First, the cold chain logistics technology (H/WㆍS/W) must be advanced. Second, the cold chain logistics of fresh food must meet strict operating condition. Third, it is necessary to promote a price compensation system for the products to differentiate from ordinary ones. Fourth, it is also necessary to maintain a statistical database for realization of the goal of low cost cold chain system. Finally, energy saving approaches and eco-friendly facilities which are suitable for the domestic circumstances should be introduced. As shown in <Table 18>, the cold chain system in the Garak wholesale market is expected to reduce food loss by 10 to 35 percent. At the same time, it increases sales opportunities by expanding the range of supply markets and strengthening quality control by avoiding risks. The result of this study is expected to serve as a guide for the establishment of maintenance plans for facility modernization projects in the domestic public wholesale market.

We considered the issue of increasing the operational life of ball and roller bearings. Having studied the known tribomaterials to increase the resource of worn friction joints in terms of efficiency, environmental friendliness, low cost, ease of preparation and application, it was found that the introduction of friction surface geomodifiers from a mixture of serpentines, highly dispersed powders of layered hydrosilicates Mg, Al, Ni, Fe into their oils and lubricants, provides a sufficiently effective increase in the life of rolling bearings during maintenance machine and tractor park in the agro-industrial complex. (Research purpose) The research purpose is identifying the least abrasive geomodifier powder from five samples of different deposits and its optimal concentration in Litol-24 grease. (Materials and methods) Conducted standard tests of the roller-by-roller tribocouple for abrasive wear spots of bearing rollers. They were injected into Litol-24 grease in the same concentration. An assessment of the abrasiveness of powders by excision of wear spots was carried out visually and with photography on microscopes. Tribo-tests were performed with the least abrasive powder at a powder concentration in the range of 0.5-3.0 percent. The optimal concentration of the powder was revealed by the size of the wear spot areas, friction moments, and temperatures in the contact of the rollers. (Results and discussion) It was found that the least abrasive powder was N4. When its concentration in the lubricant was up to 0.5 percent, the tribological indicators corresponded to the base lubricant, with an increase in concentration to 1.0 percent, the friction moment and the wear spot decreased while maintaining the temperature in contact. With an increase in concentration to 1.5 percent, mechanical losses increased with a slight increase in wear, at concentrations of 2.5-3.0 percent, the temperature increased from 111 to 133.4 degrees Celsius, which negatively affects bearings and lubrication. (Conclusions) It was found that the optimal concentration of powder N4 in Litol-24 grease should be 1.0-1.5 percent.

Polymer photonic modulators and switches offer several attractive features for space systems, including rf bandwidth of 50 GHz or higher, and the potential for high sensitivity and low cost. We have shown that polymer modulators experience little if any degradation (less than 2%) in the half-wave voltage due to total dose exposure of up to 5 MRad from a Co-60 source. An outgassing test at 125 degrees Celsius in vacuum for 24 hr resulted in a mass loss of less than 0.2% of the polymer material.

This topic is an attempt to develop an open source vehicle simulator for use by anyone needing realistic vehicle data delivered as it would be in a real vehicle. As you probably know, most vehicles nowadays have an On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) connector which is wired up to the car’s internal computer. It is used in many garages where the mechanic can probe the car through the OBD connector and read out parameters onto a display. In an Internet of Things (IoT ) world where the car can be easily connected to the Internet (perhaps via Bluetooth to a smart phone), it could automatically search an online knowledge base and not only report a fault code but also let you know the most likely cause either based on the car’s personal history or on the environment (an expert system could conclude “it is minus 15 degrees Celsius outside, and there is a water leak, and it is likely to be a cracked hose due to the cold temperature – and there was a manufacturer recall notice concerning this hose”). There will be whole sectors of applications such as, safer driver operation of the vehicle, fewer distractions, more automation, safer mechanical performance, better &amp; more timely maintenance warnings, lower cost operation and lower maintenance costs.

A generic integrated optoelectronic-to-VLSI packaging technology using silicon substrate and etched silicon optical submount has been developed and demonstrated. The miniature silicon submount that interfaces optical fiber with the optoelectronic component and the silicon substrate containing VLSI circuits is fabricated with double-sided nonplanar photolithography and anisotropic etching techniques. The advantages of this technology are: ability to interface optical information and circuits with VLSI in a single package; precision controlled capacitive, resistive, and inductive loading; minimized distance between optoelectronic components and electronic ICs, and between decoupling capacitors and active circuits; self-aligned fiber insertion; and highly automated manufacturing. These advantages translate to higher functional density and performance at a lower cost than conventional optoelectronic packaging technologies. >

In order to meet the needs of high-resoluti on seismic data acquisition, a kind of 24-bit high performance digital geophone was designed. The digital geophone was designed with a low-power, high-integration FPGA as the acquisition controller, and SOPC embedded system was established to control the whole collection station. This paper gives the overall architecture of the geophone and concrete design and implementation of the system's main peripheral circuits, including the sensor's self-test circuit, preamplifier filter circuit, 24-bit analog-to-digital conversion circuit and communication interface circuit. Each of these parts was optimally designed for low power. The system is controlled based on Verilog HDL and Nios II soft core. In this way, the area of circuit board is reduced efficiently, and high speed acquisition and high precision measurement can be realized. Finally, with the use of simulated seismic waves generated by the vibration table, we completed the data acquisition and transmission experiment of the acquisition system containing three collection nodes. The results show that this system is of high precision, high reliability, low power, low cost and it is easy to be upgraded and maintained.

Accurate efficiency prediction, improved reliability, and extended lifetime of solar modules are the key driving factors for investment and research in photovoltaic (PV) systems. Enhanced performance and more refined models are realized by incorporating data derived from localized monitoring of solar modules. This work combines interface circuits designed in flexible thin-film transistors (TFTs) with distributed temperature sensors integrated into solar cell lamination enabling in-module within-cell PV monitoring. A TFT multiplexer selects between sensors and is commanded through a serial peripheral interface (SPI) to reduce the IO connections, while the low offset unity-gain TFT buffer enables precise signal transfer. The in-cell sensors together with TFT read-out circuitry demonstrate accurate outdoor temperature monitoring, comparable to silicon integrated circuits.