Abstract: Apparatus, systems, and methods for monitoring head acceleration and/or forces acting thereon are disclosed. A device for monitoring an acceleration or a force acting on the head of a user includes a flexible article adapted to be worn on the head of the user; and a monitoring assembly coupled to the flexible article. The monitoring assembly includes a sensor for measuring a force on the head and transmitting data relating to the force, the sensor disposed proximate to the head, a processor adapted to receive the force data from the sensor, and a flexible strip operatively connecting the sensor and the processor.

Abstract: The disclosed invention provides a method that exploits the correlations in the statistical properties of one inertial sensor to another. Among the dominant noise sources, the additive noise terms for different sensors are uncorrelated, however, there may be correlations between the random drift of different sensors. The method of the present invention estimates these correlations from a finite amount of calibration data in order to calculate coefficients for the optimal linear combination of multiple sensor signals. The method is a means of combining the multiple sensor outputs to obtain a virtual sensor signal with reduced drift, and in a far more time efficient and less processor intensive way than the prior art.

Abstract: Embodiments of a nanotip sensor for detecting and identifying chemical or biological particulates in a sample are disclosed. The nanotip sensor may include a plurality of nanotips, each with a cathode, an anode, and a gap between the cathode and the anode. An adsorbed particulate from the sample may bridge the gap between the cathode and the anode, forming an electrical circuit. A conductive spectrum of the particulates in the sample that are adsorbed onto the nanotips of the sensor may be determined, and by comparing the conductive spectrum of the sample with conductive spectrums of known particulates, one or more specific particulates contained in the sample may be detected and identified. Techniques to augment the specificity of the sensor and to clean the sensor for re-use are disclosed. Embodiments of systems and methods that use the nanotip sensor to detect chemical and biological particulates are disclosed.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an individualized self-monitoring system for transformers (31, 33) in a electric power measurement installation that comprises at least a transformer (31, 33) and at least a time-integrated electrical quantity meter (3, 4, 13), directly coupled to one of the windings of the transformer (31, 33), the meter (3, 4, 13) being capable of measuring and recording the electrical quantity of said winding. The present invention also relates to a method of monitoring and diagnosing transformers (31, 33) in a power measurement installation that comprises the steps of measuring the values of at least a directly measured time-integrated electrical in at least a winding of at least one transformer (31, 33), performing comparisons between the measured and generating diagnostic results with the compared data.

Abstract: A method is disclosed for detecting power interruption duration of an electronic device. The method can include establishing a curve model of linearly synthesized values of temperature sensor readings versus time; after power-on, acquiring each of the initial temperature values by respective temperature sensors mounted on the electronic device, and transmitting the temperature initial values to a microprocessor; calculating a linearly synthesized value of the temperature sensor readings of the electronic device according to a power-on duration for this time and a stored curve model, and storing the linearly synthesized value of the temperature sensor readings as a basis for calculating the power interruption duration thereafter. When the electronic device is powered on again after power interruption, a linearly synthesized value of the temperature sensor readings according to the power-on time for this time can be calculated, and used for calculating the power interruption duration thereafter.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to diagnostic apparatus and method for home appliance which make it easy to diagnose a breakdown of a home appliance, using a signal including product information and outputted from the home appliance, in which a signal is converted in accordance with signal distortion generated in the process of transmitting the output signal or in a terminal, so that the product information of the home appliance is easily extracted, accuracy of a diagnosis result is improved, an after-sales service for a breakdown of the home appliance is easily provided, and reliability of the product is improved by the improvement of accuracy of the diagnosis result.

Abstract: A method for monitoring degradation of a flashlamp including triggering the flashlamp to produce a light pulse, monitoring at least one parameter as a function of time to obtain a pulse waveform of the light pulse, comparing the pulse waveform to at least one reference pulse waveform to determine a difference therebetween, and flagging an end-of-lamp-life condition when the difference exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Abstract: A method for predicting remaining life of electromigration failure is disclosed. The methods includes: establishing an electromigration life model of a MOS device; acquiring a normal electromigration failure lifetime ?1, based on a current density and a first environment temperature under a preset normal operating condition and the electromigration life model; acquiring a current density stress, based on a target prognostic point ?2, a second environment temperature and the electromigration life model; inputting the current density stress into a MOS device electromigration failure warning circuit based on a prognostic cell; and if the prognostic circuit of EM failure for a MOS device outputs a high level after a time ?3, acquiring a remaining life of electromigration failure corresponding to ?2? based on ?1, ?2 and ?3. A device for remaining life prediction for electromigration failure is also disclosed.

Abstract: An objective is to identify the health state of mechanical equipment and provide information usable for determining maintenance work timing or the like. A health management system includes a time-series data acquisition unit configured to acquire multi-dimensional sensor data and environmental data from mechanical equipment; a first discrimination unit configured to quantify the equipment state of the mechanical equipment by a statistical method using normal data as learning data; a second discrimination unit configured to quantify the health state indicating the performance or quality of the mechanical equipment by a statistical method using normal data; and an output unit configured to display and/or output to the outside the quantified equipment state and health state.

Abstract: In one implementation, an apparatus estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point is described, estimates temperature from a digital infrared sensor and determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer, or determines vital signs from a solid-state image transducer and estimates body core temperature from an infrared measurement of an external source point using a cubic relationship between the body core temperature and the measurement of an external source point; after which the estimated and/or determined information is transmitted to an external database.

Abstract: A vibration analysis system including a sensor to be coupled to a machine to measure vibration data, a data acquisition and processing unit to communicate with the sensor to receive the measured vibration data from the sensor and to perform test operations on the received vibration data to calculate vibration parameters, and at least one control unit to transmit operation requests instructing the data acquisition and processing unit to start receiving the vibration data from the sensor, to perform test operations, and to transmit corresponding vibration parameters over a wireless communication link to the control unit. The data acquisition and processing unit includes a data management unit such that when the communication link is broken, the data acquisition and processing unit continues to perform the test operations, and when the communication link is reestablished, the data management unit transmits the vibration parameters to the control unit.

Abstract: A calibration curve creating method includes: (a) acquiring observation data of a plurality of samples of a test object; (b) acquiring content of a target component of each sample; (c) estimating a plurality of independent components when the observation data of each sample is separated into the plurality of independent components, and acquiring a mixing coefficient corresponding to the target component for each sample; and (d) acquiring a regression equation of a calibration curve. (c) includes acquiring an independent component matrix by performing a first preprocessing including normalization of the observation data, a second preprocessing including whitening, and an independent component analysis process in this order. ? divergence is used as an independence index of the independent component analysis process, and a robust regression method is used in (d).

Abstract: Methods and calibrations modules are provided, for calibrating a pupil center in scatterometry overlay measurements. The calibration comprises calculating fluctuations from a first statistical figure of merit such as an average of an overlay signal per pixel at the pupil and significantly reducing, for example minimizing, the fluctuations with respect to a second statistical figure of merit thereof, such as a pupil weighted variance of the fluctuations.

Abstract: Provided is a wireless measuring system based on a cochlea principle for acquiring a dynamic response of a constructional structure and capable of monitoring and controlling health of the constructional structure in real time by acquiring the dynamic response of the constructional structure in which irregular random vibrations occur, effectively compressing the acquired data, wirelessly transmitting a signal, and analyzing the transmitted signal.

Abstract: A method for estimating at least one geophysical property is disclosed. The method includes using a plurality of transmitter electrodes distributed in a conductive medium, periodically passing rectangular current impulses through the media; collecting a sequence of sounding data between each of the impulses with a receiver electrode disposed between the plurality, determining a first difference and a second difference of the electric potential between points of the collected data; when each of the transmitters is excited, acquiring a focused measurement by simultaneously calculating a combination of at least one orthogonally weighted measurement and at least one axially weighted measurement obtained by the receiver, wherein the weighting is obtained from a condition of equipotentiality in four outer electrodes of the receiver; and, applying a time-differentiation technique to obtain deep measurements that exhibit low noise contribution from shallow features. An apparatus is also disclosed.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method of measuring radioactive material of an ingot, in which an ingot having a volume produced by subjecting metal waste generated in nuclear fuel processing or production facilities to melting decontamination undergoes gamma spectroscopy using a HPGe detector to measure gamma rays of U-235 (185.72 keV, 57.2%) among uranium isotopes, followed by performing detector calibration using a certified reference material and self-absorption correction depending on the density of a medium using MCNP computer code, and which enables rapid determination of whether the ingot subjected to melting decontamination may be self-disposed of or not.

Abstract: The internal temperature of an electrochemical device may be probed without a thermocouple, infrared detector, or other auxiliary device to measure temperature. Some methods include exciting an electrochemical device with a driving profile; acquiring voltage and current data from the electrochemical device, in response to the driving profile; calculating an impulse response from the current and voltage data; calculating an impedance spectrum of the electrochemical device from the impulse response; calculating a state-of-charge of the electrochemical device; and then estimating internal temperature of the electrochemical device based on a temperature-impedance-state-of-charge relationship. The electrochemical device may be a battery, fuel cell, electrolytic cell, or capacitor, for example. The procedure is useful for on-line applications which benefit from real-time temperature sensing capabilities during operations. These methods may be readily implemented as part of a device management and safety system.

Abstract: Input sequence information may be analyzed and quantified using n-gram analysis of inputs received by an application. The sequences of inputs may be represented by n-grams, and the frequency of the various n-grams may indicate the ‘real world’ uses of the application in production, which may be compared to a test suite whose coverage may be quantified using a similar n-gram analysis. A coverage factor may compare the observed inputs to the application in production to the test suite for the application. The n-grams may be further quantified or prioritized by resource utilization and several visualizations may be generated from the data.

Abstract: A computer-implemented system and method for inferring operational specifications of a photovoltaic power generation system using net load is provided. Photovoltaic plant configuration specifications can be accurately inferred with net load data and measured solar resource data. A time series of net load data is evaluated to identify, if possible, a time period with preferably minimum and consistent power consumption. Power generation data is simulated for a range of hypothetical photovoltaic system configurations based on a normalized solar power simulation model. Net load data is estimated based on a base load and, if applicable, any binary loads and any variable loads. The set of key parameters corresponding to the net load estimate that minimizes total squared error represents the inferred specifications of the photovoltaic plant configuration.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method of measuring radioactive material of an ingot, in which an ingot having a volume produced by subjecting metal waste generated in nuclear fuel processing or production facilities to melting decontamination undergoes gamma spectroscopy using a NaI detector to measure gamma rays of U-235 (185.72 keV, 57.2%) among uranium isotopes, followed by performing detector calibration using a certified reference material and self-absorption correction depending on the density of a medium using MCNP computer code, and which enables rapid determination of whether the ingot subjected to melting decontamination may be self-disposed of or not.