Results
- Showing results for:
- Reset all filters
Search results
-
Journal articleZhou Y, Sun Y, Li Y, et al., 2024,
A highly durable and UV‐resistant graphene‐based knitted textile sensing sleeve for human joint angle monitoring and gesture differentiation
, Advanced Intelligent Systems, Vol: 6, ISSN: 2640-4567Flexible strain sensors based on textiles have attracted extensive attention owing to their light weight, flexibility, and comfort when wearing. However, challenges in integrating textile strain sensors into wearable sensing devices include the need for outstanding sensing performance, long-term monitoring stability, and fast, convenient integration processes to achieve comprehensive monitoring. The scalable fabrication technique presented here addresses these challenges by incorporating customizable graphene-based sensing networks into knitted structures, thus creating sensing sleeves for precise motion detection and differentiation. The performance and real-world application potential of the sensing sleeve are evaluated by its precision in angle estimation and complex joint motion recognition during intra- and intersubject studies. For intra-subject analysis, the sensing sleeve only exhibits a 2.34° angle error in five different knee activities among 20 participants, and the sensing sleeves show up to 94.1% and 96.1% accuracy in the gesture classification of knee and elbow, respectively. For inter-subject analysis, the sensing sleeve demonstrates a 4.21° angle error, and it shows up to 79.9% and 85.5% accuracy in the gesture classification of knee and elbow, respectively. An activity-guided user interface compatible with the sensing sleeves for human motion monitoring in home healthcare applications is presented to illustrate the potential applications.
-
Journal articleRatcliffe E, Baxter W, Aurisicchio M, et al., 2024,
The role of ritual communication in consumption: a consumer coffee experience
, International Journal of Food Design, Vol: 9, Pages: 219-243, ISSN: 2056-6522Rituals are part of the consumer experience of goods, especially food and drink, and can contribute to consumer enjoyment of and fidelity to a specific product. However, we lack detailed description of food/beverage-related rituals and their potential impact on consumer perceptions, in particular whether and how communicating those rituals to consumers influences their attitudes. Here we use coffee as an example of a ritualized product within the UK market to explore this potential relationship and identify opportunities for design. In Study 1, we identified rituals associated with coffee preparation and consumption. In Study 2, we found that several procedural aspects of the rituals identified in Study 1 were not consistently conveyed in coffee advertising, indicating a potential gap in communication with consumers. In Study 3, we showed that communicating such rituals to consumers resulted in significantly greater willingness to pay for coffee, mediated by perceptions of social attention. This work connects growing interest in the psychological mechanisms of ritual with work on consumer perceptions and behaviour and carries significant implications for the design of messaging around food experience.
-
Journal articleYu X, Baker CE, Ghajari M, 2024,
Head impact location, speed and angle from falls and trips in the workplace
, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Vol: 52, Pages: 2687-2702, ISSN: 0090-6964Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common injury in the workplace. Trips and falls are the leading causes of TBI in the workplace. However, industrial safety helmets are not designed for protecting the head under these impact conditions. Instead, they are designed to pass the regulatory standards which test head protection against falling heavy and sharp objects. This is likely to be due to the limited understanding of head impact conditions from trips and falls in workplace. In this study, we used validated human multi-body models to predict the head impact location, speed and angle (measured from the ground) during trips, forward falls and backward falls. We studied the effects of worker size, initial posture, walking speed, width and height of the tripping barrier, bracing and falling height on the head impact conditions. Overall, we performed 1692 simulations. The head impact speed was over two folds larger in falls than trips, with backward falls producing highest impact speeds. However, the trips produced impacts with smaller impact angles to the ground. Increasing the walking speed increased the head impact speed but bracing reduced it. We found that 41% of backward falls and 19% of trips/forward falls produced head impacts located outside the region of helmet coverage. Next, we grouped all the data into three sub-groups based on the head impact angle: [0°, 30°], (30°, 60°] and (60°, 90°] and excluded groups with small number of cases. We found that most trips and forward falls lead to impact angles within the (30°, 60°] and (60°, 90°] groups while all backward falls produced impact angles within (60°, 90°] group. We therefore determined five representative head impact conditions from these groups by selecting the 75th percentile speed, mean value of angle intervals and median impact location (determined by elevation and azimuth angles) of each group. This led to two representative head impact conditions for trip
-
Journal articleLou Z, Min X, Li G, et al., 2024,
Advancing sensing resolution of impedance hand gesture recognition devices
, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, Vol: 28, Pages: 5855-5864, ISSN: 2168-2194Gestures are composed of motion information (e.g. movements of fingers) and force information (e.g. the force exerted on fingers when interacting with other objects). Current hand gesture recognition solutions such as cameras and strain sensors primarily focus on correlating hand gestures with motion information and force information is seldom addressed. Here we propose a bio-impedance wearable that can recognize hand gestures utilizing both motion information and force information. Compared with previous impedance-based gesture recognition devices that can only recognize a few multi-degrees-of-freedom gestures, the proposed device can recognize 6 single-degree-of-freedom gestures and 20 multiple-degrees-of-freedom gestures, including 8 gestures in 2 force levels. The device uses textile electrodes, is benchmarked over a selected frequency spectrum, and uses a new drive pattern. Experimental results show that 179 kHz achieves the highest signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reveals the most distinct features. By analyzing the 49,920 samples from 6 participants, the device is demonstrated to have an average recognition accuracy of 98.96%. As a comparison, the medical electrodes achieved an accuracy of 98.05%.
-
Journal articleChen L, Cai Z, Jiang Z, et al., 2024,
AskNatureNet: a divergent thinking tool based on bio-inspired design knowledge
, Advanced Engineering Informatics: the science of supporting knowledge-intensive activities, Vol: 62, ISSN: 0954-1810Divergent thinking is a process in design by exploring multiple possible solutions, is crucial in the early stages of design to break fixation and expand the design ideation. Design-by-Analogy promotes divergent thinking, by studying solutions have solved similar problems and using this knowledge to make inferences and solve problems in new and unfamiliar situations. Bio-inspired design (BID) is a form of design by analogy and its knowledge provides diverse sources for analogy, making BID knowledge as a potential source for divergent thinking. Existing BID database has focused on collecting BID cases and facilitating the retrieval of biological knowledge. Despite its success, applying BID knowledge into divergent thinking still encounters challenge, as the association between source domain and target domain are always limited within a single case. In this work, a novel approach is proposed to support divergent thinking from three subsequent phases: encoding, retrieval and mapping. Specifically, biological knowledge is encoded in a triple form by employing a large language model (LLM) to extract key information from a well-known BID knowledge base. The created triples are implemented in a semantic network to facilitate bidirectional retrieval modes: problem-driven and solution-driven, as well as mapping for divergent thinking. The mapping algorithm calculates the semantic similarity between nodes in the semantic network based on their attributes in three progressive steps by following the paradigm of divergent thinking. The proposed approach is implemented as tool called AskNatureNet,1 which supports divergent thinking by retrieving and mapping knowledge in a visualized interactive semantic network. An ideation case study on evaluating the effectiveness of AskNatureNet shows that our tool is capable of supporting divergent thinking efficiently.
-
Journal articleZou Y, Zhao C, Childs P, et al., 2024,
Cross-cultural design in costume: case study on totemic symbols of China and Thailand
, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Vol: 11, ISSN: 2662-9992Cross-cultural design has emerged as a pivotal domain of significance within the context of globalization. In the field of cross-cultural design, designers are tasked with addressing user requirements and identity characteristic contexts across diverse cultural backgrounds, aiming to achieve enhanced service delivery and cultural dissemination outcomes. Nonetheless, the landscape of contemporary fashion design research exhibits a noticeable dearth in studies that effectively integrate with cross-cultural design. This study selects the iconic cultural symbols of the Chinese loong (dragon) and Thai naga as case subjects, embarking upon research that employs costume design as a medium and bridge for cross-cultural design and communication. The research methodology integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches, including field investigations, participatory research, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis, thereby substantiating theoretical constructs through empirical investigation. The study proposes that cross-cultural costume design, undertaken with the purpose of cross-cultural communication, can be conceptualized as a cyclical process involving multiple encoding and decoding iterations. The research elaborates on how costume, functioning as a non-verbal language, serve as a medium for facilitating cross-cultural interactions. Furthermore, the design extraction of cultural symbols is approached through a four-tiered framework. By articulating its research perspective, methodologies, and design cases, this study contributes valuable insights to researchers and practitioners engaged in cross-cultural design and related fields.
-
Journal articleAunger R, Deterding S, Zhao X, et al., 2024,
Applying the Barker School concept of 'behaviour settings' to virtual contexts
, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol: 379, ISSN: 0962-8436People are spending more and more time interacting with virtual objects and environments. We argue that Roger Barker's concept of a 'behaviour setting' can be usefully applied to such experiences with relatively little modification if we recognize subjective aspects of such experiences such as presence and immersion. We define virtual behaviour settings as virtual environments where the partly or fully digital milieu is synomorphic with and circumjacent to embodied behaviour, as opposed to the fragmented behaviour settings of much-mediated interaction. We present two tools that can help explain and predict the outcomes of virtual experiences-the behaviour setting canvas (BSC) and model-and demonstrate their utility through examples. We conclude that the behaviour setting concept is helpful in both designing virtual environments and understanding their impact, while virtual environments offer a powerful new methodological paradigm for studying behaviour settings. This article is part of the theme issue 'People, places, things, and communities: expanding behaviour settings theory in the twenty-first century'.
-
Journal articleLin L, Hamedmoghadam H, Shorten R, et al., 2024,
Quantifying indirect and direct vaccination effects arising in the SIR model
, JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY INTERFACE, Vol: 21, ISSN: 1742-5689 -
Journal articleYu Z, Childs P, Ge Y, et al., 2024,
Whisker sensor for robot environments perception: a review
, IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol: 24, Pages: 28504-28521, ISSN: 1530-437XNocturnal mammals such as rats heavily depend onwhisker based tactile perception to find their way through burrows and to identify objects. There is diversity in the whiskers in terms of the physical structure and nervous innervation. The robotics community has developed many different whisker sensors inspired by this biological basis. They take diverse mechanical, electronic, andcomputational approaches to use whiskers to identify the geometry, mechanical properties, and texture of objects. Some work address specific object features and some others address multiple features. Therefore, it is vital to have a comprehensive discussion of the literature and to understand the merits of both bio-inspired and pureengineered approaches to whisker based tactile perception. In this paper we report and discuss the progress in following areas: The body of mammalian whisker follicle, unimodal whiskered sensors, multimodal whiskered sensors with variable stiffness that can capture tactile sensory stimuli of different frequencies, obstacles detection, shape detection, texture classification and robot navigation using whiskers.
-
Conference paperHu X, Li J, Picinali L, et al., 2024,
HRTF spatial upsampling in the spherical harmonics domain employing a generative adversarial network
, 27th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx24), Publisher: University of Surrey, Pages: 396-403A Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) is able to capture alterations a sound wave undergoes from its source before it reaches the entrances of a listener’s left and right ear canals, and is imperative for creating immersive experiences in virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR). Nevertheless, creating personalized HRTFs demands sophisticated equipment and is hindered by time-consuming data acquisition processes. To counteract these challenges, various techniques for HRTF interpolation and up-sampling have been proposed. This paper illustrates how Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) can be applied to HRTF data upsampling in the spherical harmonics domain. We propose using Autoencoding Generative Adversarial Networks (AE-GAN) to upsample low-degree spherical harmonics coefficients and get a more accurate representation of the full HRTF set. The proposed method is bench-marked against two baselines: barycentric interpolation and HRTFselection. Results from log-spectral distortion (LSD) evaluation suggest that the proposed AE-GAN has significant potential for upsampling very sparse HRTFs, achieving 17% improvement over baseline methods.
-
Journal articleWang K, Hu ZJ, Tisnikar P, et al., 2024,
When and where to step: terrain-aware real-time footstep location and timing optimization for bipedal robots
, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Vol: 179, ISSN: 0921-8890Online footstep planning is essential for bipedal walking robots, allowing them to walk in the presence ofdisturbances and sensory noise. Most of the literature on the topic has focused on optimizing the footstepplacement while keeping the step timing constant. In this work, we introduce a footstep planner capable ofoptimizing footstep placement and step time online. The proposed planner, consisting of an Interior PointOptimizer (IPOPT) and an optimizer based on Augmented Lagrangian (AL) method with analytical gradient descent, solves the full dynamics of the Linear Inverted Pendulum (LIP) model in real time to optimize for footstep location as well as step timing at the rate of 200 Hz. We show that such asynchronous real-time optimization with the AL method (ARTO-AL) provides the required robustness and speed for successful online footstep planning. Furthermore, ARTO-AL can be extended to plan footsteps in 3D, allowing terrain-aware footstep planning on uneven terrains. Compared to an algorithm with no footstep time adaptation, our proposed ARTO-AL demonstrates increased stability in simulated walking experiments as it can resist pushes on flat ground and on a 10◦ ramp up to 120 N and 100 N respectively. Videos2 and open-source code3 are released.
-
Journal articleFerraro P, Yu JY, Ghosh R, et al., 2024,
On unique ergodicity of coupled AIMD flows
, International Journal of Control, Vol: 97, Pages: 2151-2161, ISSN: 0020-7179The AIMD algorithm, which underpins the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) for transporting data packets in communication networks, is perhaps the most successful control algorithm ever deployed. Recently, its use has been extended beyond communication networks, and successful applications of the AIMD algorithm have been reported in transportation, energy, and mathematical biology. A very recent development in the use of AIMD is its application in solving large-scale optimisation and distributed control problems without the need for inter-agent communication. In this context, an interesting problem arises when multiple AIMD networks are coupled in some sense (usually through a nonlinearity). The purpose of this note is to prove that such systems in certain settings inherit the ergodic properties of individual AIMD networks. This result has important consequences for the convergence of the aforementioned optimisation algorithms. The arguments in the paper also correct conceptual and technical errors in Alam et al. (2020, The convergence of finite-averaging of AIMD for distributed heterogeneous resource allocations. arXiv:2001.08083 [math.OC].).
-
Journal articleEspinoza F, Re MD, Calvo RA, 2024,
Designing with community health workers in Latin America
, Interactions, Vol: 31, Pages: 55-57, ISSN: 1072-5520Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole.
-
Journal articleHeath BE, Suzuki R, LePenru NP, et al., 2024,
Spatial ecosystem monitoring with a Multichannel Acoustic Autonomous Recording Unit (MAARU)
, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Vol: 15, Pages: 1568-1579, ISSN: 2041-210X1. Multi-microphone recording adds spatial information to recorded audio with emerging applications in ecosystem monitoring. Specifically placing sounds in space can improve animal count accuracy, locate illegal activity like logging and poaching, track animals to monitor behaviour and habitat use and allow for ‘beamforming’ to amplify sounds from target directions for downstream classification. Studies have shown many advantages of spatial acoustics, but uptake remains limited as the equipment is often expensive, complicated, inaccessible or only suitable for short-term deployments.2. With an emphasis on enhanced uptake and usability, we present a low-cost, open-source, six-channel recorder built entirely from commercially available components which can be integrated into a solar-powered, online system. The MAARU (Multichannel Acoustic Autonomous Recording Unit) works as an independent node in long-term autonomous, passive and/or short-term deployments. Here, we introduce MAARU's hardware and software and present the results of lab and field tests investigating the device's durability and usability.3. MAARU records multichannel audio with similar costs and power demands to equivalent omnidirectional recorders. MAARU devices have been deployed in the United Kingdom and Brazil, where we have shown MAARUs can accurately localise pure tones up to 6 kHz and bird calls as far as 8 m away (±10° range, 100% and >60% of signals, respectively). Louder calls may have even further detection radii. We also show how beamforming can be used with MAARUs to improve species ID confidence scores.4. MAARU is an accessible, low-cost option for those looking to explore spatial acoustics accurately and easily with a single device, and without the formidable expenses and processing complications associated with establishing arrays. Ultimately, the added directional element of the multichannel recording provided by MAARU allows for enhanced recording
-
Journal articleWu B, 2024,
Addressing the battery talent shortage with interdisciplinarity
, Nature Energy, Vol: 9, Pages: 1044-1045, ISSN: 2058-7546 -
Thesis dissertationHewitt S, 2024,
Emotions and Exercise: Mapping Emotions through Exercise to Design for a Healthier Lifestyle
This thesis details an investigation of the relationship between human emotions and exercise. A new understanding of the emotional experiences resulting from taking part in exercise is reported and used to inform the development of visualisations and tools to support those seeking to design new exercise interventions. The key argument of this research is that if we can understand fully the emotional drivers for, and barriers against exercise, we can inform exercisers and designers alike how to best navigate an active lifestyle and the connected emotional experience. Analysis and synthesis of previous literature across the fields of public health, exercise psychology and sports science highlighted that emotions are both barriers and benefits to exercise. This led to an exploration of emotions and emotion models used within the fields of design, behavioural science and emotion psychology and, an investigation into existing design solutions to determine their efficacy and what makes them successful or unsuccessful. The interest then shifts to the specific relationship between emotions and exercise leading to a systematic literature review which discovers a lack of focused understanding of emotions and exercise types across the published research. Two user focused studies are presented, each exploring this relationship in breadth and depth to help understand better the link between emotions and exercise and build a more comprehensive map of their relationship. The first study, a quantitative exploration, presents an overview of the emotion and exercise relationship and identifies eight key emotions: calmness, excitement, interest, joy, pride, relief, satisfaction and, triumph. Each emotion is experienced differently depending on five variables: participant sex, time of elicitation, level of athlete, number of participants, and exercise type. The findings give a greater understanding of how different variables can affect individual’s emotional experiences and all
-
Journal articlePan Y, Ruan H, Wu B, et al., 2024,
A machine learning driven 3D+1D model for efficient characterization of proton exchange membrane fuel cells
, Energy and AI, Vol: 17, ISSN: 2666-5468The computational demands of 3D continuum models for proton exchange membrane fuel cells remain substantial. One prevalent approach is the hierarchical model combining a 2D/3D flow field with a 1D sub-model for the catalyst layers and membrane. However, existing studies often simplify the 1D domain to a linearized 0D lumped model, potentially resulting in significant errors at high loads. In this study, we present a computationally efficient neural network driven 3D+1D model for proton exchange membrane fuel cells. The 3D sub-model captures transport in the gas channels and gas diffusion layers and is coupled with a 1D electrochemical sub-model for microporous layers, membrane, and catalyst layers. To reduce computational intensity of the full 1D description, a neural network surrogates the 1D electrochemical sub-model for coupling with the 3D domain. Trained by model-generated large synthetic datasets, the neural network achieves root mean square errors of less than 0.2%. The model is validated against experimental results under various relative humidities. It is then employed to investigate the nonlinear distribution of internal states under different operating conditions. With the neural network operating at 0.5% of the computing cost of the 1D sub-model, the hybrid model preserves a detailed and nonlinear representation of the internal fuel cell states while maintaining computational costs comparable to conventional 3D+0D models. The presented hybrid data-driven and physical modeling framework offers high accuracy and computing speed across a broad spectrum of operating conditions, potentially aiding the rapid optimization of both the membrane electrode assembly and the gas channel geometry.
-
Journal articleLi H, Zhou H, Li N, 2024,
An integrated convolutional neural network-based surrogate model for crashworthiness performance prediction of hot-stamped vehicle panel components
, MATEC Web of Conferences, Vol: 401, ISSN: 2261-236XDuring the structural design of vehicle components, Finite Element (FE) modelling has been extensively used for simulations of physical experiments. A typical design optimisation task requires iterative simulations to identify the optimum design, where FE simulations can be too time-consuming. Surrogate models have been developed to approximate complex simulations, which can reduce computational time and improve the efficiency of the design cycle. This paper presents a novel application of convolutional neural network (CNN) on rapid predictions of crashworthiness performance of vehicle panel components considering manufacturability. The dataset for training the model was generated based on the FE results of hot-stamped ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) B-pillar components. The formed components were analysed with a simplified lateral crash test to evaluate the deformation under impact. The trained model can instantly predict the deformation of the designed component with high accuracy compared to the FE results. Due to its high computational efficiency and precision, the surrogate model enables faster and more extensive design evaluations.
-
Journal articleWu H, Tian F, Tang C, et al., 2024,
Novel Heat Stamping of Ti6Al4V panels with high drawability and low springback
, MATEC Web of Conferences, Vol: 401, ISSN: 2261-236XConventional commonly used titanium stamping techniques like hot forming and superplastic forming each have distinct disadvantages. Hot forming usually leads to limited formability and significant springback, whilst superplastic forming often results in long cycle times, high energy use, and costly tooling. A novel, energy-efficient, and cost-effective Heat Stamping process emerges as a promising solution. Two types of Ti6Al4V components, cup-shaped and U-shaped, were produced using the novel Heat Stamping process, and their properties were examined. A defect-free cup-shaped component achieving a considerably high draw ratio of up to 1.8, was successfully fabricated. A moderate enhancement in the hardness of the component indicated a superior post-form strength achieved by Heat Stamping. Further analysis of the U-shaped components shows that the one produced using the novel method demonstrated a notable reduction in springback angle, from 4.8° to 0.7°, highlighting the potential of H eat Stamping in achieving high shape accuracy for near-net-shape forming.
-
Journal articleHair SW, Cooper SJ, Shaffer MSP, 2024,
Beyond slurry cast: patterning of a monolithic active material sheet to form free-standing, solvent-free, and low-tortuosity battery electrodes
, Cell Reports Physical Science, Vol: 5, ISSN: 2666-3864Commercial lithium-ion battery electrodes today are manufactured by slurry casting active material powder onto a metal current collector foil. This manufacturing process has become embedded over recent decades but limits commercial cell performance. This paper presents patterning of a monolithic active material sheet as an alternative to slurry casting. The concept is proven experimentally by laser drilling a pyrolytic graphite sheet to increase the gravimetric active material capacity from 10 mA h g−1 to 450 mA h g−1, when used as a negative lithium-intercalation electrode. Cell-level calculations show that, without changing the chemistry, a pyrolytic graphite sheet electrode with a hexagonal array of 5 μm diameter, 20 μm pitch channels could increase the gravimetric energy density of a LGM50 cell by 22% to 322 W h kg−1. By moving beyond slurry casting, patterned monolithic electrodes could enable batteries with lower cost, reduced energy intensity, and enhanced performance.
-
Journal articleHuang Q, Daubner S, Schneider D, et al., 2024,
Multiphase transformation and mechanical analysis of polycrystalline Cu x Li y Sn nanoparticle during lithiation via phase diagram-guided phase-field approach
, ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA, Vol: 495, ISSN: 0013-4686- Cite
- Citations: 2
-
Journal articleTu Y, Wu B, Ai W, et al., 2024,
Mechanical Failure of Core-Shell Cathode Particles: The Effects of Concentration-Dependent Material Properties and Phase Field Fracture Modelling
, ECS Meeting Abstracts, Vol: MA2024-01, Pages: 488-488<jats:p> The use of core-shell cathode particles in lithium-ion batteries is an attractive approach to enhancing energy density whilst retaining lifetime, through reducing undesired reactions at the electrode-electrolyte interface and limiting the volume change of the electrode particles. However, mechanical failure through the fracture and debonding of the core-shell interface is a major challenge. In this work, we employ a coupled finite-element model to predict and mitigate the mechanical failure of core-shell cathode structures, taking as example a particle of NMC811 (core) coated with NMC111 (shell). In particular, we focus on two aspects:</jats:p> <jats:p>The first one involves the assumptions of material properties as inputs of the model. The material properties are often considered constant by battery modelling researchers, yet these parameters can vary significantly during charge/discharge. For example, experiments have unveiled a three-orders-of-magnitude drop in the diffusion coefficient of NMC materials during discharge [1]. Here, we incorporate material properties obtained from experimental data, including concentration-dependent diffusion coefficient obtained from GITT measurement and partial molar volume derived from in situ X-ray diffraction data. Our results indicate that when assuming a concentration-dependent partial molar volume, the maximum values of tensile hoop stress in the shell are nearly three times lower than those predicted with constant average properties, diminishing the likelihood of fracture.</jats:p> <jats:p>When accounting for concentration-dependent diffusion coefficient, large concentration gradient is observed near the outer surface of the core due to reduced lithium mobility at high states of lithiation, hindering full electrode capacity utilisation. The significant concentration gradient and capacity underutilisation align with direct observations from experiments [2]
-
Conference paperDaugintis R, Alary B, Geronazzo M, et al., 2024,
Effects of binaural rendering personalisation and reverberation on speech-on-speech masking
, AES 5th International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality, Publisher: Audio Engineering SocietyThis study investigates the effect of head-related transfer function (HRTF) personalisation on understanding binaurally rendered target speech masked by interfering speakers in reverberant conditions. During a listening test, participants had to identify a correct colour-number combination from a virtual talker rendered in front of them while ignoring two interfering talkers positioned either in front or at the back. The sound was rendered with either an individual HRTF or one of two non-individual ones. These were selected for each participant as the best or the worst–matching from the same HRTF dataset, based on predictions of a computational auditory model for sound localisation. Two types of reverb from measured spatial room impulse responses (SRIRs) were applied to the speech: realistic dichotic reverberation decoded from 4th-order Ambisonic SRIRs or diotic reverb based on the omnidirectional Ambisonic channel IR as a baseline. Preliminary results show that realistic dichotic reverb improves speech perception when interfering speech is co-located with the target. No significant differences were observed across HRTF conditions on a group level, but individual HRTF-related performance differences exist, requiring further intra-subject analyses and data collection to characterise the individual results.
-
Journal articleFerraro P, Penzkofer A, King C, et al., 2024,
Feedback control for distributed ledgers: an attack mitigation policy for DAG-based DLTs
, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Vol: 69, Pages: 5492-5499, ISSN: 0018-9286In this paper we present a feedback approach to the design of an attack mitigation policy for DAG-based Distributed Ledgers. We develop a model to analyse the behaviour of the ledger under the so called Tips Inflation Attack , which endangers the liveness of transactions, and we design a control strategy to counteract this attack strategy. The efficacy of this approach is showcased through a theoretical analysis, in the form of two theorems about the stability properties of the ledger with and without the controller, and extensive Monte Carlo simulations of an agent-based model of the distributed ledger.
-
Journal articleBallou N, Denisova A, Ryan R, et al., 2024,
The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS): A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences
, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMAN-COMPUTER STUDIES, Vol: 188, ISSN: 1071-5819 -
Journal articleEwers RM, Orme CDL, Pearse WD, et al., 2024,
Thresholds for adding degraded tropical forest to the conservation estate
, Nature, Vol: 631, Pages: 808-813, ISSN: 0028-0836Logged and disturbed forests are often viewed as degraded and depauperate environments compared with primary forest. However, they are dynamic ecosystems1 that provide refugia for large amounts of biodiversity2,3, so we cannot afford to underestimate their conservation value4. Here we present empirically defined thresholds for categorizing the conservation value of logged forests, using one of the most comprehensive assessments of taxon responses to habitat degradation in any tropical forest environment. We analysed the impact of logging intensity on the individual occurrence patterns of 1,681 taxa belonging to 86 taxonomic orders and 126 functional groups in Sabah, Malaysia. Our results demonstrate the existence of two conservation-relevant thresholds. First, lightly logged forests (<29% biomass removal) retain high conservation value and a largely intact functional composition, and are therefore likely to recover their pre-logging values if allowed to undergo natural regeneration. Second, the most extreme impacts occur in heavily degraded forests with more than two-thirds (>68%) of their biomass removed, and these are likely to require more expensive measures to recover their biodiversity value. Overall, our data confirm that primary forests are irreplaceable5, but they also reinforce the message that logged forests retain considerable conservation value that should not be overlooked.
-
Conference paperWang Y, Qian Q, Boyle D, 2024,
Probabilistic constrained reinforcement learning with formal interpretability
, International Conference on Machine Learning, Publisher: MLResearchPress, Pages: 51303-51327, ISSN: 2640-3498Reinforcement learning can provide effective reasoning for sequential decision-making problems with variable dynamics. Such reasoning in practical implementation, however, poses a persistent challenge in interpreting the reward function and the corresponding optimal policy. Consequently, representing sequential decision-making problems as probabilistic inference can have considerable value, as, in principle, the inference offers diverse and powerful mathematical tools to infer the stochastic dynamics whilst suggesting a probabilistic interpretation of policy optimization. In this study, we propose a novel Adaptive Wasserstein Variational Optimization, namely AWaVO, to tackle these interpretability challenges. Our approach uses formal methods to achieve the interpretability for convergence guarantee, training transparency, and intrinsic decision-interpretation. To demonstrate its practicality, we showcase guaranteed interpretability with a global convergence rate Θ(1/√T) in simulation and in practical quadrotor tasks. In comparison with state-of-the-art benchmarks, including TRPO-IPO, PCPO, and CRPO, we empirically verify that AWaVO offers a reasonable trade-off between high performance and sufficient interpretability.
-
Journal articleLei G, Docherty R, Cooper SJ, 2024,
Materials science in the era of large language models: a perspective
, Digital Discovery, Vol: 3, Pages: 1257-1272, ISSN: 2635-098XLarge Language Models (LLMs) have garnered considerable interest due to their impressive natural language capabilities, which in conjunction with various emergent properties make them versatile tools in workflows ranging from complex code generation to heuristic finding for combinatorial problems. In this paper we offer a perspective on their applicability to materials science research, arguing their ability to handle ambiguous requirements across a range of tasks and disciplines means they could be a powerful tool to aid researchers. We qualitatively examine basic LLM theory, connecting it to relevant properties and techniques in the literature before providing two case studies that demonstrate their use in task automation and knowledge extraction at-scale. At their current stage of development, we argue LLMs should be viewed less as oracles of novel insight, and more as tireless workers that can accelerate and unify exploration across domains. It is our hope that this paper can familiarise materials science researchers with the concepts needed to leverage these tools in their own research.
-
Journal articleLiu H, You SS, Gao Z, et al., 2024,
Next generation of gastrointestinal electrophysiology devices
, Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Vol: 21, Pages: 457-458, ISSN: 1759-5053This Comment reviews the evolution from early electrophysiological studies to advanced diagnostic tools, highlighting the challenges and innovations shaping the future of gastrointestinal diagnostics.
-
Conference paperWang M, Zhou Y, Stewart R, 2024,
Soft wearable robotics: innovative knitting-integrated approaches for pneumatic actuators design
, DIS '24: Designing Interactive Systems Conference, Publisher: ACM, Pages: 234-238Soft wearable robotics presents an opportunity to bridge robotics and textiles, offering lightweight, flexible, and ergonomic solutions for human-robot interaction, but previous studies on wearable soft robotics primarily focus on actuator performance without also considering wearability and interactivity. A rudimentary attachment method is usually adopted using external fixation devices such as straps to attach actuators to the user’s body, resulting in a poor wearing experience. This study focus on compatible and compact textile architectures to support actuators to be seamlessly integrated into daily wearing. It presents a research-through-design method to propose innovative knitting-integrated approaches for pneumatic actuator design to provide soft wearable robots with both aesthetic and functional values. Through a series of tests in which various knitting techniques and parameters are used to create sleeves that house silicone actuators, it explores design possibilities and understands the complex relationships between textiles and actuators. The findings contribute to advancing soft wearable robotics by offering practical solutions for integrating pneumatic actuators seamlessly into wearable textiles, thereby unlocking new possibilities for human-centered robotic systems.
This data is extracted from the Web of Science and reproduced under a licence from Thomson Reuters. You may not copy or re-distribute this data in whole or in part without the written consent of the Science business of Thomson Reuters.
Contact us
Dyson School of Design Engineering
Imperial College London
25 Exhibition Road
South Kensington
London
SW7 2DB
design.engineering@imperial.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7594 8888