Here, we describe a novel synthetic method of PEDOT-PSS (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate))-protected Ag, Au and Pd nanoparticles(NPs) by a simple procedure, and thermoelectric properties of the PEDOT-PSS films doped with these NPs. Interestingly, PEDOT-PSS films containing small amount of PEDOT-PSS-protected Ag NPs showed a higher electrical con- ductivity than that of pure PEDOT-PSS. As a result, the PEDOT-PSS protected Ag NPs system showed a high in-plane power factor (35.2 μW m-1 K-2), which was relatively superior to that of conventional metal nanomaterial systems. Thus, we have succeeded in development of high performance organic-inorganic thermoelectric conversion films.

View full abstract

We prepared silver iodobromide double-structured grains with different iodide content in the core and the shell, and determined their ionic conductivities by measuring their dielectric loss responses. The responses were reproduced quantitatively by the calcula- tions based on Pauly-Schwan/Hanai (PS/H) theory, which is therefore proved to be an effective means for designing the silver iodo- bromide double-structured grains suitable for latent image formation.

View full abstract

This paper aims to apply nonlinear estimation of chromophore concentrations: melanin, oxy-hemoglobin, deoxy-hemoglobin and shading to the real hyperspectral image of skin. Skin reflectance is captured in the wavelengths between 400nm and 700nm by hy- perspectral scanner. Five-band wavelengths data are selected from skin reflectance. By using the cubic function which obtained by Monte Carlo simulation of light transport in multi-layered tissue, chromophore concentrations and shading are determined by min- imize residual sum of squares of reflectance. The dark circles are analyzed by the proposed method, and dominant component of the dark circles is found by the subjective evaluation for the modulated images.

View full abstract

Our earlier study demonstrated that the subjective sharpness of blurred images is improved by superimposing granular noise on it. We proposed that we have memory of textures of certain familiar objects encountered in daily life, similar to memory color. As de- scribed herein, for five objects, we used sample images of six kinds: the original image, a white-noise-added original image, a 1/ f-noise-added original image, a blurred original image, a white-noise-added blurred image, and a 1/f-noise-added blurred image. First, observers were asked to recall an object’s texture without seeing the real object and to sort the images in descending order, starting with the one closest to the recalled texture. While viewing the actual object, observers were asked to rearrange the images in descending order, starting with the one closest to the actual texture. Finally, observers were asked to rearrange the images in descend- ing order of subjective sharpness. Correlation analysis, partial analysis, and path analysis were conducted for this reported ordering. Correlation was found between the memory texture and subjective sharpness. Results demonstrate that subjective sharpness im- proved when the texture of the objects in images came to approximate the remembered texture.

View full abstract