Domain Adaptation for Structured Regression

Discriminative regression models have proved effective for many vision applications (here we focus on 3D full-body and head pose estimation from image and depth data). However, dataset bias is common and is able to significantly degrade the performance of a trained model on target test sets. As we show, covariate shift, a form of unsupervised domain adaptation (USDA), can be used to address certain biases in this setting, but is unable to deal with more severe structural biases in the data. We propose an effective and efficient semi-supervised domain adaptation (SSDA) approach for addressing such more severe biases in the data. Proposed SSDA is a generalization of USDA, that is able to effectively leverage labeled data in the target domain when available. Our method amounts to projecting input features into a higher dimensional space (by construction well suited for domain adaptation) and estimating weights for the training samples based on the ratio of test and train marginals in that space. The resulting augmented weighted samples can then be used to learn a model of choice, alleviating the problems of bias in the data; as an example, we introduce SSDA twin Gaussian process regression (SSDA-TGP) model. With this model we also address the issue of data sharing, where we are able to leverage samples from certain activities (e.g., walking, jogging) to improve predictive performance on very different activities (e.g., boxing). In addition, we analyze the relationship between domain similarity and effectiveness of proposed USDA versus SSDA methods. Moreover, we propose a computationally efficient alternative to TGP (Bo and Sminchisescu 2010), and it’s variants, called the direct TGP. We show that our model outperforms a number of baselines, on two public datasets: HumanEva and ETH Face Pose Range Image Dataset. We can also achieve 8–15 times speedup in computation time, over the traditional formulation of TGP, using the proposed direct formulation, with little to no loss in performance.     

Development of large-scale stacked-type electrostatic actuators for use as artificial muscles

Electrostatic actuators have the advantages of light weight, flexibility, and high energy efficiency, which make them suitable for use as artificial muscles. However, a traditional electrostatic actuator cannot generate long strokes and a high force density at the same time because such actuator would excessively widen the gap between the electrodes because of its structure. This paper presents a newly developed large-scale stacked-type electrostatic actuator (LSEA) intended for use as an artificial muscle for robots. LSEA is a multi-stacked electrostatic actuator that can be linearly contracted by the application of a voltage. It has a unique structure that prevents overextension of the gap between the electrodes. It can therefore generate a large force. The spring characteristics and the relationship between the contractive force and the stroke were experimentally determined. The findings showed that LSEA prevents the overextension of the gap between the electrodes and has a high contraction ratio that is equivalent to that of a mammalian skeletal muscle.     

Fate of the chlorine and fluorine in a sub-bituminous coal during pyrolysis and gasification

The fate of the chlorine and fluorine present in a sub-bituminous coal from Indonesia during pyrolysis and gasification has been studied with fixed and entrained bed reactors. The rate profile for HCl evolved in the temperature programmed pyrolysis exhibits the main and shoulder peaks at 480 and 600 °C, respectively. Model experiments and subsequent Cl 2p XPS measurements show that HCl reacts with metal impurities and carbon active sites at 500 °C to be retained as inorganic and organic chlorine forms, from which HCl evolves again at elevated temperatures. It is suggested that the HCl observed in the coal pyrolysis may originate from the above-mentioned chlorine functionalities formed by secondary reactions involving the nascent char. In the CO₂ gasification of the 900 °C char at 1000 °C and 2.5 MPa, any measurable amounts of HCl and HF could not be detected even at a high conversion of 75 wt% (daf), suggesting the accumulation of these halogens in the residual char. When the coal is injected into an O₂-blown, entrained bed gasifier at 1200-1400 °C under 2.6 MPa, the partial oxidation proceeds to a larger extent at a higher O₂/coal ratio, whereas the chlorine and fluorine are enriched in the remaining char, and the extent of the enrichment at the latter stage of gasification is larger with the fluorine. The XPS measurements of the chars reveal the presence of the broad F 1 s peak, which can cover a wide range of binding energies attributable to inorganic and organic fluorine. The halogen enrichment during gasification is discussed in terms of secondary reactions of HCl and HF with char.     

Influence of ash composition on heavy metal emissions in ash melting process

Two kinds of fly ash, discharged in the combustion of either refused derived fuel (RDF) or car shredder dust (SD), were examined for the emission of heavy metals in melting process under oxidizing and reducing conditions. The residual fractions of heavy metal in slag were experimentally estimated. As a result, it was confirmed that several volatile heavy metals were readily emitted during melting process. The type of atmosphere provided for the melting process was found to affect the emission of some volatile metals in RDF ash, but not in SD ash. The emission of volatile heavy metals in RDF ash under oxidizing conditions was lower than under any other conditions in this study. The emission behavior of iron and heavy metals in RDF ash under reducing conditions was similar to that in SD ash. These facts indicated that phosphorous in RDF ash had the property of fixing the volatile metals in the slag only under oxidizing conditions. Then the mixture of SD ash with phosphorous oxide powder was also tested in a melting process, and the result was consistent with the above inference of the effect of phosphorous.     

Immobilization of glucose oxidase on nonwoven fabrics with bombyx mori silk fibroin gel

The enzyme glucose oxidase (GOD) was immobilized on the nonwoven fabrics, which have excellent properties in diffusivity of substrates, mechanical strength, and handling, with Bombyx mori silk fibroin gel. The nonwoven fabrics of silk fibroin, viscose rayon, poly-ethyleneterephthalate, 6-nylon, and polypropylene with activated surface by fluoline treatment were used. The stabilities of GOD to heat or pH changes were much improved by the immobilization as well as the case of the GOD immobilized in the silk fibroin membrane. Among nonwoven fabrics, silk fibroin was the most excellent support material for the immobilization of GOD although all nonwoven fabrics used here are able to be used as the support materials. The increase of the sensitivity was observed when the glucose sensor was made with the GOD immobilized on nonwoven silk fabrics as four times compared with the case of the GOD immobilized in the silk fibroin membrane.     

Iodine reaction of vinyl acetate/vinyl propionate copolymers. III. Iodine affinities of the radically polymerized copolymers and the copolymers derived from partially saponified polyvinyl acetate

The minimum sequence lengths (n_c) of vinyl acetate (VAc) units necessary to form a colored iodine complex were determined to be 4 and 17 for radically polymerized VAc/vinyl propionate (VPr) and VAc/isopropenyl acetate (IPAc) copolymers, respectively. The iodine affinities (I/VAc) of VAc/VPr copolymers (SP-series) obtained by propionylation of partially saponified polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) were remarkably affected by the saponification conditions. An increase of the water content in acetone/water mixture as saponification solvent brought about a decrease of the iodine affinities of the SP-series. The dependence of the iodine affinity on the saponification of monomer units in the SP-series was compared with that in the radically polymerized VAc/VPr copolymers by taking the sequence probability as the measure of monomer unit distribution. The results strongly supported an occurence of the slide fastener reaction at high degrees of saponification, which was well-known in the saponification of PVAc. Furthermore, it was found that the saponification mode of PVAc at low degrees of saponification was influenced uniquely by the water content in saponification solvents and the saponification temperature.     

Preparation of superacid of iron-supported zirconia for reaction of butane to isobutane

A highly active superacid of 2 wt% Fe-supported ZrO₂ for the skeletal isomerization of butane to isobutane was obtained by sfexposing Fe₂O₃/ZrO₂ to 1 N H₂SO₄ followed by calcining in air at 700°C for more than 24 h; the Fe₂O₃/ZrO₂ was prepared by impregnating zirconia gel with a solution of Fe(NO₃)₃ followed by drying at 300°C (2 wt% Fe). A much lower activity was observed with the opposite procedure, where the first impregnation was sulfation of the gel, followed by a second impregnation with the iron compound. It was proved from analysis of the sulfur content in the catalysts that residual sulfur species were not related with generation of the superacidic sites. XPS showed the catalyst to be Fe₂O₃ supported on ZrO₂.Superacids by metal oxides, VIII. For previous publications VI and VII in this series see refs. [10,11].     

Chaos in parametric resonance flow at water-mercury interface

In the electrochemical system with liquid-liquid interface, intense local convections by the resonance with potential pulses take place. Therefore, with laser beam scattering, temporal movement of the water-mercury interface was observed. As a result, the scattering efficiency showed non-linear oscillation.

Such non-linear response could be controlled by potential pulse height. As the potential height was increased, new scattering peaks in the oscillation emerged, which was expected of a kind of bifurcation phenomenon. From these results, phase portrait, Poincarè section, correlation dimension of the strange attractor and the largest Lyapunov exponent of the trajectories were obtained. Consequently, it was concluded that all the parameters indicate chaotic behavior of the resonance flow.