Tohoku University

About: Tohoku University is a education organization based out in Sendai, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Magnetization & Population. The organization has 72116 authors who have published 170791 publications receiving 3941714 citations. The organization is also known as: Tōhoku daigaku.

Progress and prospects of the human---robot collaboration

Abstract: Recent technological advances in hardware design of the robotic platforms enabled the implementation of various control modalities for improved interactions with humans and unstructured environments. An important application area for the integration of robots with such advanced interaction capabilities is human---robot collaboration. This aspect represents high socio-economic impacts and maintains the sense of purpose of the involved people, as the robots do not completely replace the humans from the work process. The research community's recent surge of interest in this area has been devoted to the implementation of various methodologies to achieve intuitive and seamless human---robot-environment interactions by incorporating the collaborative partners' superior capabilities, e.g. human's cognitive and robot's physical power generation capacity. In fact, the main purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-the-art on intermediate human---robot interfaces (bi-directional), robot control modalities, system stability, benchmarking and relevant use cases, and to extend views on the required future developments in the realm of human---robot collaboration.

Measurement of the differential branching fraction and forward-backward asymmetry for B --> K(*)l+l-.

Abstract: We study B -> Kd(*)l(+)l(-) decays (l = e,u) based on a data sample of 657 x 10(6) B (B) over bar pairs collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB e(+)e(-) collider. We report the differential branching fraction, isospin asymmetry, K* polarization, and the forward-backward asymmetry (A(FB)) as functions of q(2) = M(ll)(2)c(2). The fitted A(FB) spectrum exceeds the standard model expectation by 2.7 standard deviations. The measured branching fractions are B(B -> K*l(+)l(-)) = (10: 7(-1.0)(+1.1)) x 10(-7) and B(B -> Kl(+)l(-)) = (4.8 (+0.5)(-0.4) +/- 0.3) x 10(-7), where the first errors are statistical and the second are systematic, with the muon to electron ratios R-K* = 0.83 +/- 0: 17 +/- 0.08 and R-K = 1.03 +/- 0.19 +/- 0.06.

Laser-induced gene expression in specific cells of transgenic zebrafish

Abstract: Over the past few years, a number of studies have described the generation of transgenic lines of zebrafish in which expression of reporters was driven by a variety of promoters. These lines opened up the real possibility that transgenics could be used to complement the genetic analysis of zebrafish development. Transgenic lines in which the expression of genes can be regulated both in space and time would be especially useful. Therefore, we have cloned the zebrafish promoter for the inducible hsp70 gene and made stable transgenic lines of zebrafish that express the reporter green fluorescent protein gene under the control of a hsp70 promoter. At normal temperatures, green fluorescent protein is not detectable in transgenic embryos with the exception of the lens, but is robustly expressed throughout the embryo following an increase in ambient temperature. Furthermore, we have taken advantage of the accessibility and optical clarity of the embryos to express green fluorescent protein in individual cells by focussing a sublethal laser microbeam onto them. The targeted cells appear to develop normally: cells migrate normally, neurons project axons that follow normal pathways, and progenitor cells divide and give rise to normal progeny cells. By generating other transgenic lines in which the hsp70 promoter regulates genes of interest, it should be possible to examine the in vivo activity of the gene products by laser-inducing specific cells to express them in zebrafish embryos. As a first test, we laser-induced single muscle cells to make zebrafish Sema3A1, a semaphorin that is repulsive for specific growth cones, in a hsp70-sema3A1 transgenic line of zebrafish and found that extension by the motor axons was retarded by the induced muscle.