The collision test is an important statistical test for rejecting poor random number generators. The test simulates the throwing of balls randomly into urns. A problem in applying this test is to determine the number of urns, m, and the number of balls, n, so that the test is among the most powerful possible on a computer. The problem was tackled empirically. A set of canonical congruential gen...

We examine multistability of several coexisting bursting patterns in a central pattern generator network composed of three Hodgkin-Huxley type cells coupled reciprocally by inhibitory synapses. We establish that the control of switching between bursting polyrhythms and their bifurcations are determined by the temporal characteristics, such as the duty cycle, of networked interneurons and the co...

Nuclear energy is one of the most important clean energy on earth presently. The steam generator secondary side is the key device of nuclear power station. As an important branch of special robot, nuclear robot is the most convenient and effective mean to inspect the steam generator. This paper describes one robot system which could help users inspecting tubes and locating the robot inside the ...

In this paper we report on a thermoelectric generator (TEG) using thermal isolation provided by a thick porous Si layer locally formed on the Si wafer and thermocouples composed of p-doped polycrystalline Si/Al. The "hot" contacts of the thermocouples lie on the porous Si layer, while the "cold" contacts lie on bulk crystalline Si. A housing was also designed and fabricated in order to transfer...

The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. Recent advances in solar thermoelectric generator (STEG) performance have raised their prospect as a potential technology to convert solar energy into electricity. This paper presents an analysis of thin-film STEGs. Properties and geometries of the devices are lumped into two p...

We present a tool for the automatic procedural generation of a single-string Chinese-style knot that resembles any arbitrary input 3D model. We call this tool Knotty.

A strategy to control the electrical charge is developed to achieve high energy density of soft dielectric elastomer generators for energy harvesting. The strategy is analytically shown and experimentally demonstrated to produce the highest energy density ever reported for a soft generator.