Application of Ultrasonic Sensors in Road Surface Condition Distinction Methods

The number of accidents involving elderly individuals has been increasing with the increase of the aging population, posing increasingly serious challenges. Most accidents are caused by reduced judgment and physical abilities, which lead to severe consequences. Therefore, studies on support systems for elderly and visually impaired people to improve the safety and quality of daily life are attracting considerable attention. In this study, a road surface condition distinction method using reflection intensities obtained by an ultrasonic sensor was proposed. The proposed method was applied to movement support systems for elderly and visually impaired individuals to detect dangerous road surfaces and give an alarm. The method did not perform well in previous studies of puddle detection, because the alert provided by the method did not enable users to avoid puddles. This study extended the method proposed by previous studies with respect to puddle detection ability. The findings indicate the effectiveness of the proposed method by considering four road surface conditions. The proposed method could detect puddle conditions. The effectiveness of the proposed method was verified in all four conditions, since users could differentiate between road surface conditions and classify the conditions as either safe or dangerous.

Proposal ofWearable Multiremote Controller Using Head-Tracking

Recently, various remote controllers are developed. However the operation of remote controller is very difficult for the physically handicapped persons who cannot move their hand. The wearable multiremote controller we are proposing uses head tracking via a camera and a head-mounted display. It is portable and can operate household appliances. It is also operated intuitively in head tracking.

Niaziminin, a thiocarbamate from the leaves of Moringa oleifera, holds a strict structural requirement for inhibition of tumor-promoter-induced Epstein-Barr virus activation

Three known thiocarbamate (TC)- and isothiocyanate (ITC)-related compounds have been isolated from the leaves of Moringa oleifera, a traditional herb in southeast Asia, as inhibitors of tumor promoter teleocidin B-4-induced Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) activation in Raji cells. Interestingly, only niaziminin among 10 TCs including 8 synthetic ones showed considerable inhibition against EBV activation. The structure-activity relationships indicated that the presence of an acetoxy group at the 4'-position of niaziminin is important and indispensable for inhibition. On the other hand, among the ITC-related compounds, naturally occurring 4-[(4'-O-acetyl-alpha-L-rhamnosyloxy)benzyl]ITC and commercially available allyl- and benzyl-ITC significantly inhibited activation, suggesting that the isothiocyano group is a critical structural factor for activity.