The V-grooved single-mode fiber in which a surface part of the core was removed was investigated as a quasi-distributed water detection sensor. In the normal state, the V-grooved region is filled and covered with a specific RI (Refractive Index)-matched medium, and the sensor experiences minimal optical loss. As water invades the V-grooved region, the material is dissolved and removed, and a considerable optical loss occurs owing to the large RI difference between the fiber core and water. The experimental results showed the feasibility of the device as a sensor element of the quasi-distributed water detection sensor system based on general optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR).

Conventional leak detectors are widely based on helium gas sensors. However, the usage of hydrogen sensors in leak detectors has increased because of the high prices of helium leak detectors and the dearth in the supply of helium gas. In this study, a hydrogen leak detector was developed using solid-state hydrogen sensors. The hydrogen sensors are based on Park-Rapp probes with heterojunctions made by oxygen-ion conducting Yttria-stabilized zirconia and proton-conducting In-doped $CaZrO_3$. The hydrogen sensors were used for determining the potential difference between air and air balanced 5 ppm of $H_2$. Even though the Park-Rapp probe shows an excellent selectivity for hydrogen, the sensitivity of the sensor was low because of the low concentration of hydrogen, and the oxygen on the surface of the sensor. In order to increase the sensitivity of the sensor, the sensors were connected in series by Pt wires to increase the potential difference. The sensors were tested at temperatures ranging from $500-600^{\circ}C$.

This paper reports the results of a study on the optimization of the etching profile, which is an important factor in deep-reactive-ion etching (DRIE), i.e., dry etching. Dry etching is the key processing step necessary for the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and various microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS). Large-area etching (open area > 20%) under a high-frequency (HF) condition with nonoptimized processing parameters results in damage to the etched sidewall. Therefore, in this study, optimization was performed under a low-frequency (LF) condition. The HF method, which is typically used for through-silicon via (TSV) technology, applies a high etch rate and cannot be easily adapted to processes sensitive to sidewall damage. The optimal etching profile was determined by controlling various parameters for the DRIE of a large Si wafer area (open area > 20%). The optimal processing condition was derived after establishing the correlations of etch rate, uniformity, and sidewall damage on a 6-in Si wafer to the parameters of coil power, run pressure, platen power for passivation etching, and $SF_6$ gas flow rate. The processing-parameter-dependent results of the experiments performed for optimization of the etching profile in terms of etch rate, uniformity, and sidewall damage in the case of large Si area etching can be summarized as follows. When LF is applied, the platen power, coil power, and $SF_6$ should be low, whereas the run pressure has little effect on the etching performance. Under the optimal LF condition of 380 Hz, the platen power, coil power, and $SF_6$ were set at 115W, 3500W, and 700 sccm, respectively. In addition, the aforementioned standard recipe was applied as follows: run pressure of 4 Pa, $C_4F_8$ content of 400 sccm, and a gas exchange interval of $SF_6/C_4F_8=2s/3s$.

Transparent and conductive multilayer thin films consisting of three alternating layers FZTO/Ag/$WO_3$ have been fabricated by radio-frequency (RF) sputtering for the applications as transparent conducting oxides and the structural and optical properties of the resulting films were carefully studied. The single layer fluorine doped zinc tin oxide (FZTO) and tungsten oxide ($WO_3$) films grown at room temperature are found to have an amorphous structure. Multilayer structured electrode with a few nm Ag layer embedded in FZTO/Ag/$WO_3$ (FAW) was fabricated and showed the optical transmittance of 87.60 % in the visible range (${\lambda}=380{\sim}770nm$), quite low electrical resistivity of ${\sim}10^{-5}{\Omega}cm$ and the corresponding figure of merit ($T^{10}/R_s$) is equivalent to $3.0{\times}10^{-2}{\Omega}^{-1}$. The resultant power conversion efficiency of 2.50% of the multilayer based OPV is lower than that of the reference commercial ITO. Asymmetric D/M/D multilayer is a promising transparent conducting electrode material due to its low resistivity, high transmittance, low temperature deposition and low cost components.

This study demonstrates a polyimide nerve cuff electrode with a conductive polymer for improving recording signal quality at peripheral nerve. The nerve cuff electrodes with platinum (Pt), iridium oxide (IrOx), and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): p-toluene sulfonate (PEDOT:pTS) were fabricated and investigated their electrical characteristics for improving recorded nerve signal quality. The fabricated nerve cuff electrodes with Pt, IrOx, and PEDOT:pTS were characterized their impedance and CDC by using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry. The impedance of PEDOT:pTS measured at 1 kHz was $257{\Omega}$, which was extremely lower than the value of the nerve cuff electrodes with IrOx ($15897{\Omega}$) and Pt ($952{\Omega}$), respectively. Furthermore, the charge delivery capacity (CDC) of the nerve cuff electrode with PEDOT:pTS was dramatically increased to 62 times than the nerve cuff electrode with IrOx. In ex-vivo test using extracted sciatic nerve of spaque-dawley rat (SD rat), the PEDOT:pTS group exhibited higher signal-to-interference ratio than IrOx group. These results indicated that the nerve cuff electrode with PEDOT:pTS is promising for effective implantable nerve signal recording.

This study aimed to evaluate the characterization of a metal oxide semiconductor and electrochemical gas sensor array for measuring wastewater odor. The sensitivity of all gas sensors observed in sampling method by stripping was 6.7 to 20.6 times higher than that by no stripping, except sensor D (electrochemical gas sensor). The average reduction ratio of sensor signal as a function of initial dilution rate of wastewater was in the order of food plant > food waste reutilization facility > plating plant. The sensitivity of gas sensors was dependent on both the type of wastewater and the dilution rate. The sensor signals observed by the gas sensor array were correlated with the dilution factor (OU) calculated by the air dilution sensory test with several wastewater ($r^2=0.920{\sim}0.997$), except the sensor signals of sensor D measured in the plating plant wastewater. It seems likely that the gas sensor array plays a role in the evaluation of odor in wastewater and is useful tool for on-site odor monitoring in the wastewater facilities.

Electrospinning method has easy preparation of nanofibers with a simple and versatile technique. Electrospun nanofiber is widely used by the simple approach and have great potentials in the numerous applicaitons of medicine, photonics, catalysts, sensors, etc. including advantage of their specific characteristics such as large surface to volume ratio. This paper focused on the fabrication of cobalt electrospun nanofibrer for applications such as electronic, optical and mechanical devices by metal based material. We fabricated cobalt nanofibers on aluminum foil by an electrospinning method. The electrospinning process was performed at a high voltage, 8 kV. The distance between the needle tip and the solution surface in the bath was 5 cm. The PVB - cobalt based nitrate solution was filled in a 10 mL syringe connected to a 22 gauge needle. We confirmed electrospun cobalt nanofiber after annealing process by SIMS (Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry) analysis. The concept design, fabrication and results of mapping measurements are reported.

In this work, pure hierarchical ZnO structure was prepared using a simple hydrothermal method, and Ag nanoparticles doped hierarchical ZnO structure was synthesized uniformly through photochemical route. The reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has been synthesized by typical Hummer's method and reduced by hydrazine. Prepared Ag/ZnO nanostructures are uniformly dispersed on the surface of rGO sheets using ultrasonication process. The synthesized samples were characterized by SEM, TEM, EDS, XRD and PL spectra. The average size of prepared ZnO microspheres was around $2{\sim}3{\mu}m$ and showed highly uniform. The average size of doped-Ag nanoparticles was 50 nm and decorated into ZnO/rGO network. The $C_2H_2$ gas sensing properties of as-prepared products were investigated using resistivity-type gas sensor. Ag/ZnO-rGO based sensors exhibited good performances for $C_2H_2$ gas in comparison with the Ag/ZnO. The $C_2H_2$ sensor based on Ag/ZnO-rGO had linear response property from 3~1000 ppm of $C_2H_2$ concentration at working temperature of $200^{\circ}C$. The response values with 100 ppm $C_2H_2$ at $200^{\circ}C$ were 22% and 78% for Ag/ZnO and Ag/ZnO-rGO, respectively. In additions, the sensor still shows high sensitivity and quick response/recovery to $C_2H_2$ under high relative humidity conditions. Moreover, the device shows excellent selectivity towards to $C_2H_2$ gas at optimal working temperature of $200^{\circ}C$.

Fall-related injuries in elderly people are a major health care problem. This paper introduces determination of fall direction before impact using support vector machine (SVM). Once a falling phase is detected, dynamic characteristic parameters measured by the accelerometer and gyroscope and then processed by a Kalman filter are used in the SVM to determine the fall directions, i.e., forward (F), backward (B), rightward (R), and leftward (L). This paper compares the determination sensitivities according to the selected parameters for the SVM (velocities, tilt angles, vs. accelerations) and sensor attachment locations (waist vs. chest) with regards to the binary classification (i.e., F vs. B and R vs. L) and the multi-class classification (i.e., F, B, R, vs. L). Based on the velocity of waist which was superior to other parameters, the SVM in the binary case achieved 100% sensitivities for both F vs. B and R vs. L, while the SVM in the multi-class case achieved the sensitivities of F 93.8%, B 91.3%, R 62.3%, and L 63.6%.

In recent years, there has been increasing use of automatic surveillance and monitoring systems based on vision sensors. Humans are often the most important target in the systems, but processing human images is difficult due to the small sizes and flexible motions. Particularly, occlusion among pedestrians in camera images brings practical problems. In this paper, we propose a novel method to separate image regions of occluded pedestrians. A camera equipped with a wide angle lens is attached to the ceiling of a building corridor for sensing pedestrians with a wide field of view. The output images of the camera are processed for the human detection, tracking, identification, distortion correction, and occlusion handling. We resolve the occlusion problem adaptively depending on the angles and positions of their heads. Experimental results showed that the proposed method is more efficient and accurate compared with existing methods.

The MPEG user description (MPEG-UD) which is a standard under exploration to ensure interoperability among customized recommendation services has been contributed since MPEG $104^{th}$ meeting at 2013. Twenty-two use cases that were divided into different applications have been proposed in the MEPG meetings. Most of use cases were referred to specific and restricted regarding to applications, it appears to miss an overall and explicit infra-structure. In this paper we describe a reference model, namely methodology to overcome aforementioned problems. Thereafter, we have applied reference model to context-based recommendation system to demonstrate the methodology and MPEG-UD schemas. In addition, we propose a development process of recommendation system in compliance with MPEG-UD.

The Microsoft Kinect is a motion sensing input device which is widely used for many motion recognition applications such as fitness, sports, and rehabilitation. Until now, most of remote rehabilitation systems with the Microsoft Kinect have allowed the user or patient to do rehabilitation or fitness by following the motion of a video screen. However in this paper we propose a smart remote rehabilitation system with the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor and a wearable ECG sensor which can allow patients to offer monitoring of the individual's performance and personalized feedback on rehabilitation exercises. The proposed noble smart remote rehabilitation is able to monitor and measure the state of the patient's condition during rehabilitation exercise, and transmits it to the prescriber. This system can give feedback to a prescriber, a doctor and a patient for improving and recovering motor performance. Thus, the efficient rehabilitation training service can be provided to patient in response to changes of patient's condition during exercise.