In a badminton game, dexterous fine hand movements are essential for the player to perform with extraordinary skill. Thus, this paper proposes a smart glove with proper sensing functions for finger pressures and bending angles for this sport to measure the kinematics and kinetics during the forehand grip and backhand grip. Twenty-one pressure sensors and eleven flex sensors are employed to construct the smart glove, and the measured parameters are then visualized to analyze different grip movements. An athlete and an amateur were selected for the gripping experiments and the measurements was recorded by the smart glove. During forehand gripping, although the total power generated by the amateur (33 N) was higher than for the athlete (29 N), the final shot strength was still unsatisfactory due to the disorderly arranged finger flex angle. In backhand gripping, the incorrectly laid index finger reduced the thumb power of the amateur to 3 N, which weakened the control ability and led to a distorted flying trajectory of the shuttlecock. The differences in kinematics and kinetics between the athlete and the amateur can provide a reference for the badminton learners to perform the correct technical movements. By use of this approach, the proposed system may grant trainers and trainees a better approach to analyze the grip movement.

A full-flow butanol-based condensation particle counter (CPC) with a concentration range from 0 to 2 × 105 particles/cm3 was developed to measure nanoparticles down to 4.5 nm. Good single-particle counting performance was achieved by developing a high-speed optical particle detection module. The pulse width of single particle was approximately 1.2 μs at a flow rate of 0.3 L/min. By establishing a heat and mass transfer model using the COMSOL simulation software, the effects of temperature and aerosol sampling flow on the condensation growth of nanoparticles were studied. The performance of developed condensation particle counter was evaluated through a series of experiments to determine the coincidence probability, concentration range, and detection efficiency (cutoff diameter). At concentrations of 1.5 × 104 particles/cm3 and 2 × 105 particles/cm3, the coincidence probabilities of the developed condensation particle counter were 9.5% and 55%, respectively. A 99.9% (R2) statistical correlation was obtained between the pulse-time corrected concentration of the developed condensation particle counter and the standard reference concentration. Finally, the experimental results showed that the developed condensation particle counter cutoff diameter, at which the detection efficiency was 50%, for sucrose aerosol particles was 4.5 nm.

Electrochemical noise of a commercial Li-ion battery was measured during the charging process. Statistical analysis was applied to show that measured noise possesses normal distribution without any peaks or transients. Skewness and kurtosis values were calculated to quantitatively describe distribution diagrams. Power spectral density frequency dependencies were calculated as well. They demonstrated the linear frequency dependence with the slope value close to –1.2 during the whole charge process and even during some overcharge. Electrochemical noise behavior under different charge currents was investigated for the first time. It was shown that the power spectral density level is proportional to the square of the charge current.

Korea’s rural communities suffer from serious health issues from a rise in fall accidents due to an aging population. This study proposes a real-time fall detection system using an insole-integrated sensor device that detects fall accidents during farming activities and enables rapid responses to these emergencies. This study developed an insole-integrated fall detection device comprising a three-axial accelerometer and force sensitive resistor pressure sensors. Threshold values were set using data captured by the sensors to distinguish fall and emergency situations from other normal activities. In addition, a real-time monitoring system was implemented so that accident-related information may be automatically communicated to a third party or the monitoring center when a fall or emergency is recognized. A reliability test of the system showed 94.8% accuracy, 98.9% sensitivity, and 91.3% specificity. Furthermore, the detection rate for emergency conditions showed a high accuracy of 100%. Based on the results of this study, the fall detection system based on the insole-integrated sensor device may be implemented as a useful tool to address the issue of fall accidents involving elderly farmers in agricultural activities.

Mesocellular foam silica was prepared by a hydrothermal synthesis protocol. The surface and pore structure of mesocellular foam silica were characterized by low temperature nitrogen adsorption isotherms, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The methylene blue was adsorbed by the synthetic mesocellular foam silica; the optimized adsorption conditions were evaluated and the maximum adsorption capacity of methylene blue by mesocellular foam silica was determined to be 215.5 mg g−1. The kinetics of the adsorption of methylene blue by mesocellular foam silica were in accordance with a quasi-second-order kinetic equation. The results were analyzed by Langmuir and Freundlich adsorption isotherm models. The adsorption of methylene blue on mesocellular foam silica was shown to follow the Freundlich adsorption isotherm model. The Gibbs free energy change during adsorption showed that this process was spontaneous. The enthalpy change in the process was –28.868 J·mol−1 K−1, indicating that the adsorption is exothermic. The negative value of entropy –49.296 J·mol−1 K-1 shows that the system disorder decreases due to adsorption.

A time-of-flight neutron total scattering instrument for the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) was designed. The instrument is designed for disordered macromolecular systems with characteristic lengths below 10 nm. The coupled hydrogen moderator of CSNS was selected to ensure the favorable statistics at the smallest scattering vector of 0.01 Å−1. The optics and geometry of the instrument were optimized to cover a wide range of scattering vectors from 0.01 to 70 Å−1. The performance of the instrument was examined using a series of Monte Carlo simulations, which demonstrate that the flux on the sample, the resolution, and the range of the scattering vectors are comparable to those of other advanced neutron total instruments. Finally, a virtual experiment was performed with silica powder. The resulting scattering pattern is consistent with both the numeric calculation and the estimated resolution of the instrument. The designed total scattering instrument at CSNS allows the simultaneous observation of both atomic and nanometer scale structures, having the potential to become a powerful tool for studying the structure of disordered materials in the fields of polymers, biology, and condensed matter physics.

Dual-energy material decomposition (DEMD) is a well-established theoretical x-ray technique that uses low- and high-kilovoltage radiographs to separate soft tissue and bone in radiography and computed tomography (CT). However, it requires double exposures that result in increased patient radiation doses, causes increases in the execution time, and generates errors due to misregistration attributed to the patient motion between two scans. In this study, we investigated a low-dose, single-energy material decomposition (LSEMD) method in radiography using a sparse-view CT scan where the attenuation length in the object was estimated from the CT image. We performed a systematic simulation and an experiment to demonstrate the feasibility of use of the LSEMD method in radiography. Only 60 projections, far fewer than those required by the Nyquist sampling theory, were acquired at an x-ray tube voltage of 80 kVp, and were used to reconstruct a sparse-view CT image with a state-of-the-art dictionary-learning (DL) algorithm. We investigated the image performance of the LSEMD and compared the elicited results with those obtained with the use of DEMD (80 kVp and 120 kVp were used). Our results indicate that the DL algorithm produced high-quality sparse-view CT images. Accordingly, the LSEMD method yielded material decomposition results that were very similar to the results elicited by the conventional DEMD method in radiography.

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful technique for the structure elucidation of organic molecules and significantly important in the pharmaceutical industry supporting the discovery and development of drug substances or active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Following an initial study and assessment of a prototype NMR instrument with a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) power-driven magnet of 9.4 T (400 MHz for 1H observation) operating with standard commercial electronics and probes, we tested the instrument with three compounds representing typical pharmaceutical drugs. We compared results from two probes and shimstacks with different geometries (broadband fluorine observe (BBFO) with Bruker orthogonal shim system-3 (BOSS3) and Bruker quattro nucleus probe (QNP) with BOSS1 shims) testing standard one-dimensional (1D) NMR experiments including selective excitation experiments, and two-dimensional (2D) homonuclear and heteronuclear experiments for the purposes of evaluating the equipment for structure elucidation capabilities. In our initial study on cinacalcet HCl, only the 1D 1H experiment showed a loss of resolution when using the longer coiled BBFO probe with the BOSS3 shims compared to the shorter coiled QNP probe with BOSS1 shims. The selective excitation experiments using the cinacalcet HCl were successful. Our characterization of 1D (1H, 13C, 19F) and 2D (1H-1H and 1H-13C) NMR experiments for compounds I and II with the two probes and shimstacks indicated no significance differences. Overall, these results are satisfactory with the HTS magnet at the field of 9.4 T for the structural elucidation work of standard pharmaceutical compounds. This new technology has the advantage of being able to locate the HTS NMR magnet system in any chemistry or analytical laboratory where the samples are produced, facilitating rapid analysis with minor needs from the facilities and without cryogenic liquids.

ABSTRACTFlavonoids are compounds which provide many pharmacological activities. In this paper, the literature with regard to the determination of flavonoids using capillary electrophoresis (CE) during 2008–2017 has been reviewed. The aim of the review is to overview the modes and specific determination conditions of CE for flavonoids. The advantages and disadvantages of CE in the determination of flavonoids are analyzed. The applications of the modes of CE for determination of flavonoids are introduced. Capillary zone electrophoresis, micelle electrokinetic capillary chromatography, microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography, and capillary electrochromatography are considered. Specific determination conditions including the pH, buffer, additive, capillary, voltage, temperature, injection, analysis time, detection, and online concentration methods are summarized. Flavonoids were generally separated in alkaline conditions at pH 8–10 in borate buffer. The advantages of CE are the short analysis time and low solvent consumption compared with the most popular high-performance liquid chromatography protocols. CE can be combined with a variety of detectors including ultraviolet spectrophotometry, mass spectrometry, chemiluminescence, electrochemical, potential gradient, dual opposite carbon fiber microdisk electrodes, and laser-induced fluorescence. In CE, short-light path length results in relative low sensitivity when combined with the most widely used ultraviolet spectrophotometry detector. The combination with more sensitive detectors and online concentration methods such as gradient elution, large volume sample stacking, sweeping, and electrokinetic supercharging alleviates this problem and improves the sensitivity. Capillary electrophoresis is an efficient, green, and valuable tool for the determination of flavonoids.

ABSTRACTA general virtual experiment for the time-of-flight neutron reflectometer is introduced to simulate the experimental data collection and processing, including instrument simulation, sample modeling, detector simulation, and data reduction. The process mimics the experimental data processing and reduction routines. The reduced data agree well with the theoretical calculation, confirming the reliability of the data reduction algorithms. The methodology and algorithms developed in this study pave the way for the future development of data processing and data reduction software for the time-of-flight neutron reflectometer of China Spallation Neutron Source.