The strong winds and heavy rainfall of tropical cyclones (TCs) pose a serious threat to human life and property. Accurate and rapid TC positioning is crucial for the precise prediction of TC landfall locations, facilitating timely disaster warnings and strategic responses. Here, a novel cross correlation based on particle image velocimetry (PIVC) method is proposed to determine TC center using Himawari-8. The rotation and divergence characteristics of the entire TC lifecycle for TC positioning can be obtained using infrared brightness temperature data at a 10-min interval over Western North Pacific (WNP) in 2016–2022. The positioning results are validated against best-track (BT) datasets of China Meteorological Administration (CMA), U.S. Department of Defense Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), and the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre-Tokyo (RSMC). The mean median error of the PIVC method validated against CMA, JTWC, and RSMC BT datasets is 32.36, 39.19, and 36.53 km, respectively. The PIVC method results are also compared with the advanced Dvorak technique (ADT) track product and Automated Rotational Center Hurricane Eye Retrieval used in the ADT (ARCHER-ADT) track product. The results show that the accuracy of PIVC positioning center is better than ADT and ARCHER-ADT validated against CMA and RSMC BT datasets. Utilizing only the infrared cloud imagery from geostationary satellites, the PIVC method can achieve positioning performances that are comparable to those achieved by methods integrating microwave data. The PIVC method utilizes temporal information to quantify novel TC characteristics and can also be used to locate other vortex systems.

This paper presents a sensor-guided gait-synchronization system to help potential unilateral knee-injured people walk normally with a weight-supported lower-extremity-exoskeleton (LEE). This relieves the body weight loading on the knee-injured leg and synchronizes its motion with that of the healthy leg during the swing phase of walking. The sensor-guided gait-synchronization system is integrated with a body sensor network designed to sense the motion/gait of the healthy leg. Guided by the measured joint-angle trajectories, the motorized hip joint lifts the links during walking and synchronizes the knee-injured gait with the healthy gait by a half-cycle delay. The effectiveness of the LEE is illustrated experimentally. We compare the measured joint-angle trajectories between the healthy and knee-injured legs, the simulated knee forces, and the human-exoskeleton interaction forces. The results indicate that the motorized hip-controlled LEE can synchronize the motion/gait of the combined body-weight-supported LEE and injured leg with that of the healthy leg.

In this letter, the surface climate temperature trends for the land and the oceans (land-ocean warming contrast) have been examined and compared based on five data sets. The five data sets included three reconstructed data sets of surface temperature observations and two data sets derived using the satellite microwave sounding unit retrieval products in the lower troposphere (LT) for the period from January 1980 to December 2014. Unlike previous studies, the current study shows that the warming trends significantly decreased over both the land and ocean since 1992 and reached their minimum (near zero) in the early 2000s, which is consistent with the occurrence of the warming hiatus. However, due to the sharp decrease in the surface warming trend over the land (1992 to 2007) in conjunction with an increase in the ocean surface warming trend after 2002, the combined trend carries an overall positive sign (between 2005 and 2007) due to the greater ocean warming trend. The rate of warming increase in the ocean, which began in 2002, is surprisingly fast and is approaching the highest warming trends observed over the land since 1980. These basic land and ocean trend results are confirmed by all five data sets with slightly different values due to the various techniques used in compiling the data sets. However, there is consistency in the overall trend pattern results.

Positive environmental emotion feedback is important to influence the brain and behaviors. By measuring emotional signals and providing affective neurofeedback, people can be better aware of their emotional state in real time. However, such direct mapping does not necessarily motivate people's emotion regulation effort. We introduce two levels of emotion feedback: an augmentation level that indicates direct feedback mapping and an intervention level which means feedback output is dynamically adapted with the regulation process. For the purpose of emotion regulation, this research summarizes the framework of emotion feedback design by adding new components that involve feature wrapping, mapping to output representation and interactive interface representation. By this means, the concept of intelligent emotion feedback is illustrated that not only enhances emotion regulation motivation but also considers subject and trial variability based on individual calibration and learning. An affective Brain-computer Interface technique is used to design the prototype among alternatives. Experimental tests and model simulation are planned for further evaluation.

A motor-less fast climbing robot driven by fluid is introduced in this study. Designed with a simple five-linkage and one-piston mechanism, the robot has kinematics similar to a gecko's motion. Due to bionic design of gecko, the robot has an advantage of climbing fast on flat surfaces with any slope angles, even overhanging surfaces. Applied with fluid driven and fluidic vacuuming, the robot can carry twice extra weight as its bodyweight on vertical climbing. As a result of motor-less design, the robot owns a unique benefit to get almost all power from the pressure of fluid working medium like water, compressed air, oil and etc., regardless of little energy supplied by internal batteries for low-power control circuit and solenoid valves. Especially for home application, the robot can get power from the pressure of tap water to finish a high-rise glass window cleaning by water-washing. This robot has potential applications to cleaning, fire lighting, painting, and repairing.