50 results about "Empty nest" patented technology

The invention discloses an intelligent monitoring system and method for health of empty-nest aged people. The intelligent monitoring system comprises a multi-mode real-time detection module, a big data analysis module and a 4G network response module, wherein the multi-mode real-time detection module is used for collecting multi-mode health data of the empty-nest aged people and judging an urgent abnormal event; the big data analysis module is used for analyzing the health data, establishing a health state model and pre-warning an abnormal state; and the 4G network response module is used for pushing the urgent abnormal event and the abnormal state in real time and realizing interactive operation with a user operation terminal. Meanwhile, the intelligent monitoring system adopts a dual-warning mechanism, so that accurate and comprehensive intelligent monitoring of the physical state and mental state of the empty-nest aged people can be realized; and by utilizing the operation terminal, a guardian and a medical worker can timely obtain corresponding warning information and selectively check the health state of the empty-nest aged people at any time, and the monitoring manner is changed from a traditional passive accepting form into an automatic query form.

The invention relates to an automatic alarming device for unusual conditions of daily routine of the empty nest elderly and an alarming method. The automatic alarming device comprises at least a group of collecting units in signal connection sequentially, a judging unit, a control unit and an alarming unit. The judging unit comprises a threshold register, a current value register connected with the collecting unit, and a comparator respectively connected with the current value register and the threshold register. The comparison result of the comparator is output to the control unit which transfers the operational result judged as an alarm to the alarming device after receiving the comparison signals of the at least a group of the collecting units and the judging unit. The automatic alarming device provided by the invention is not needed to be controlled by a person to be monitored, and completely automatically senses and judges time, position, frequency and intensity and the like of events in a house to alarm automatically so as to automatically send SOS (Save Our Souls) alarming information to the outside world for the person to be monitored in an emergency that the person to be monitored is unable to alarm autonomously.

The invention discloses a family affection sharing system of photos, videos and congratulation cards based on a cloud platform. The family affection sharing system comprises a user access layer, a comprehensive application layer and a cloud platform storage layer. The user access layer is used for directly providing links for users or accessing network; the comprehensive application layer is used for remotely calling various service functions through a data transform technology and processing the recourses in a webdav release directory on a server through a WEBDAV protocol; the cloud platform storage layer is used for managing data storage. By using the family affection sharing system provided by the invention, mobile phone numbers are adopted as a link, multiple members of a family are invited at the same time, the members can edit the photos or congratulation cards through own mobile phone clients and upload the edited photos or cards to the cloud server, and then the photos of the relatives are shown in a cloud photo frame at home; the members can timely update dynamic states, actually concern and love the empty-nest elderly to increase happiness.

Belonging to the technical field of entry-access control, the invention discloses an empty-nest elderly entry-access control system. The system includes a cloud service terminal, a plurality of guardian mobile phone APP terminals, and an indoor host corresponding to the guardian mobile phone APP terminals. The guardian mobile phone APP terminals and the indoor host are respectively connected to the cloud service terminal. The elderly send entry information and exit information to the cloud service terminal through the indoor host, and the cloud service terminal stores the entry information and exit information and sends the information to the guardian mobile phone APP terminals. The system monitors the exit time, exit duration, return time and duration at home to effectively grasp the time anomaly of the elderly, and can effectively prevent the elderly from having accidents. Also the system has the advantages of simplicity, convenience and easy operation.

The invention provides a housebound elder intelligence video surveillance system. An embedded intelligent camera installed in a household is composed of a video camera, a processing module and a communication module, achieves judging whether an elder tumbles and identifying abnormal life behaviors by analyzing behaviors of a moving target in the shooting range of the video camera, and achieves remote surveillance for an empty nest elder by sending the information to a mobile terminal device of a guardian through short message or multimedia message mode. By connecting a wireless fidelity (WiFi) network on the intelligent video camera with a household wireless router, the guardian can use the mobile terminal device to watch video streams shot by the video camera. The housebound elder intelligence video surveillance system can be used in places of nursing homes, hospitals and the like.

The invention discloses an intelligent vital signs monitoring and safety protection wearing system. The intelligent vital signs monitoring and safety protection wearing system comprises a voice communication module, a navigation module, a positioning module, an interactive helping module, an alarm module, a searching module, a temperature module, a main controller, a storage, a communication module, a display screen, a monitoring terminal, an alarm centre and a data centre; the voice communication module, navigation module, positioning module, interactive helping module, alarm module, searching module, temperature module, storage, communication module and the display screen are respectively connected with the main controller, the monitoring terminal is connected with the main controller in a wireless mode through a network module, and the alarm centre and the data centre are connected with the monitoring terminal. The intelligent vital signs monitoring and safety protection wearing system is used for intelligently alarming according to the temperature change, used in the emergency incident and used for offering the reference reminding for the vital signs for empty-nest elderly.

The invention discloses an indoor monitoring system for an empty-nested elderly person, which comprises an environment monitoring module, a fall pre-analysis module, a ZigBee network module, a home gateway and a GSM module, wherein the fall pre-analysis module comprises a pressure sensor attached to the foot of the elderly person, an acceleration sensor attached to the waist and a central microprocessor connected with the output end of the acceleration sensor; the ZigBee network module comprises a ZigBee coordinator and a ZigBee terminal; the environment monitoring module and the fall pre-analysis module are connected with the input end of the ZigBee terminal; the home gateway judges whether a hidden risk exists in the current living environment of the elderly person through analysis by an information fusion algorithm; and the GSM module is used for information notification for family members of the elderly person. The monitored data precision can be improved, fault and environment interference are avoided, the family members can be timely informed according to the judged risks, and a polling cycle can be dynamically corrected according to the judged risk degree.

The invention relates to an old people accompany method based on family affection network, which establishes a family affection network system so that children can publish and share the life state ofthe old people. And an elderly care system is provided, including a networked mobile terminal, a server and a device end, the mobile end of the networking is connected with the server through the network, and the server is connected with the device end through the network, the mobile end and the device end of the networking are provided with corresponding client software, the server comprises a WEB server, a SIP server and a streaming media server, the WEB server interacts with the mobile end and the device end through HTTP protocol, the SIP signaling server interacts with the mobile end and the device end through SIP protocol, and the streaming media server interacts with the device end and the mobile end through UDP protocol. The invention effectively solves the problems of the old requirement of the empty nest eldly and the accompanying protection in the safety aspect.

The invention belongs to the technical field of services for the empty-nest elderly, and discloses an intelligent care system for the empty-nest elderly. The system includes a cloud service terminal, a guardian's mobile APP terminal, and an indoor host corresponding to the guardian's mobile APP terminal, an elderly mobile APP terminal and intelligent hardware; the intelligent hardware is connected to the indoor host, and the guardian's mobile APP terminal, the elderly mobile APP The terminal and the indoor host are respectively connected to the cloud service terminal; the system has a perfect and reliable information management and early warning mechanism for family visitors; it has a simple, feasible and reliable information management mechanism for empty-nest elderly entering and leaving the house; it has a simple, convenient and easy-to-operate system Empty-nest elderly personalized behavior safety control mechanism; a convenient and practical indoor and outdoor emergency response control mechanism for empty-nest elderly; a mechanism for improving the daily life of the elderly that makes children feel safe and reliable; a safe system information independent transmission system, Ensure family privacy information is thoroughly protected.

The invention discloses an empty nester life monitoring system based on water and electric quantity distribution, which overcomes the difficulty in accurately and comprehensively grasping the living conditions of the elderly and the incapability of providing advice to guardians and the medical staffs and protecting the elderly in time in the event of an accident of the elderly. The system includesan indoor part and an outdoor part; the indoor part includes a water flow monitoring device, an electric quantity monitoring device and a main transmission device; the outdoor part includes a smart phone and a community monitoring service platform; the water flow monitoring device, the electric quantity monitoring device and the main transmission device are installed Indoors; the smart phone is placed at a guardian, and the community monitoring service platform is placed outdoors; the water flow monitoring device, the electric quantity monitoring device and the main transmission device are connected indoors through a Zigbee network to realize information transmission; the main transmission device passes short messages through a No. 1 SIM300 device to the smart phone of the guardian and the community monitoring service platform, and the smart phone and the community monitoring service platform are connected by the short messages.

The invention discloses an intelligent health management system for empty-nest elderly people, and relates to the technical field of health management of empty-nest elderly people. The system comprises an image acquisition module which communicates with a data management control center through a wireless transmission communication network and is used for acquiring behavior pictures of the elderlypeople, capturing facial expressions of the elderly people and transmitting the acquired information to the data management control center; and a biological signal acquisition module, mounted on the body of the elder, communicates with the data management control center through a wireless transmission communication network and is used for acquiring a biological signal of the elder. The beneficialeffects of the system are that: facial expression information, bioelectricity signals and the like, collected by the intelligent camera and the intelligent bracelet, of the old people are sent to thehome gateway, the emotion, health and indoor activity conditions of the empty-nest elderly are monitored in real time in an omnibearing mode, the emotion of the empty-nest elderly is effectively judged, a guardian is informed to carry out corresponding soothing and the like, and intelligent health management on the elderly can be achieved.

The present invention provides a home care wisdom cloud system based on the internet of things. The system comprises a system core module, a system cloud platform calculation service center and a platform user. The system core module is configured to collect and integrate an intelligent monitoring device and social multiple resources and provide the integration information to the system cloud platform calculation service center, and the system cloud platform calculation service center is configured to allow the information to serve the platform users. The home care wisdom cloud system takes construction of a home care system as a target and takes the empty-nest elderly as main service objects so as to solve the problems that the ole men's children cannot timely grasp the physical conditions of the old men, it is difficult for self monitoring operation of the old men, the old men need service but the children are unreachable, there is barriers in the communication of family doctors andthe old men and the health supervision cannot be converted to chronic disease rehabilitation.

The invention discloses a household early warning system for small watershed mountain torrents, and achieves accurate and in-time transmission of disaster warning information into home and the personfor the remote scattered households, the "empty-nest" family, the widowed elderly and some audio-visual disabled farmers in the remote mountainous areas for the first time. The system comprises a monitoring station, a county-level monitoring and early warning platform and an early warning terminal, realizes an early warning function of the household sound and light alarm via multiple channels andmultiple methods, and simultaneously supports a county-level management platform to remotely issue an early warning, so as to inform every home about early warning information, and to release the early warning information to the village and the person in time. The system has the advantages of household alarm, automatic and artificial early warning and ad hoc network early warning, and can work normally under the condition of network disconnection and power failure.

The invention discloses a method and system for improving work and rest health of old people on the basis of an intelligent terminal and relates to the technical field of human body behavior monitoring. According to the method and system provided by the embodiment of the invention, a background server is used for evaluating the behavior rules or wearing habits of the old people and rewarding the entrusting reward service charge paid by the sons and daughters to the old people, so as to improve the intelligent terminal wearing enthusiasm of the old people through the reward mechanism, promote the sons and daughters to better play attention to the work and rest of the old people, guide the old people to better work and rest to obtain healthier body and ensure the empty-nest elderly to get assistance timely when encountering hazardous conditions.

The invention discloses an empty-nest elderly positioning-based personalized topic template corpus recommendation method. The method comprises the following steps of: correlating track information with important probability to a specific basic topic through analyzing a relationship between track information of elderly and probability topic distribution vectors, so as to establish a habit / interest model of the elderly; substituting position information of the elderly into the habit / interest model; and recommending topic template corpuses according to a habit / interest recommendation rule. The invention furthermore discloses a system applying the topic template corpus recommendation method, and the system comprises a data acquisition module, a database module, a content analysis module, a topic template corpus recommendation module and a message push module. According to the method and the system, the communication awkwardness and obstacles and emotional problems of the empty-nest elderly as the empty-nest elderly live in relatively closed spaces for a long time and the children cannot know the living habits and emotional states of the elderly are solved, so that topic template corpuses suitable for the chat with the elderly are provided for the children while the safety of the elderly is monitored.

The invention discloses a multi-person all-weather elderly people nursing and assisting comprehensive service system, which comprises a cloud data storage server, an intelligent terminal and a peripheral camera. The intelligent terminal is provided with an APP; the APP is at least provided with four functional modules, namely a medical module, a food module, a living module and a walking module; and the peripheral camera records the surrounding environment of the elderly in 24 hours at the visual angle of the elderly, is connected with the APP, and uploads the shot video to the cloud data storage server in real time. The APP is established on a platform with calendar layout, children order medical, food, living and office nursing services through the platform, and the APP automatically generates a management log according to the ordered nursing services. The system focuses on solving the problem of looking after the elderly living away from children, achieves multifunctional integration by absorbing high-quality resources in all the fields, improves the service quality for the empty-nest elderly, and reflects more children care and social care.

The invention discloses a hand-wearing type intelligent terminal which comprises a positioning system, a health management system, an emergency linkage system, a fall-down detection system, an intelligent home control system and an intelligent old-age care system. The invention further discloses a hand-wearing intelligent terminal application system. The method is suitable for various user groups;empty-nest elderly people or elderly people whose children are not always around the elderly people are more prone to the elderly people with empty nests. A user knows real-time physical conditions such as blood pressure, blood oxygen and heart rate of the elderly through the mobile phone APP, when the smart watch detects that physical indexes of the elderly are abnormal, an emergency call function can be started to automatically contact an emergency contact person, and the elderly can be guaranteed to be rescued at the first time when the body is uncomfortable; the conversation function of the smart watch ensures that family members can contact wearers in time, especially the elderly who are not used for carrying mobile phones; the intelligent elderly care platform connected with the hand-worn intelligent terminal realizes an intelligent elderly care function, and further promotes the development of the intelligent elderly care industry.

The invention discloses an intelligent robot with a man-machine interaction function, and relates to the technical field of intelligent robots. The intelligent robot comprises a robot body, a sessionconnection module, an information querying module, a relative voice collecting module and a central processing module; a man-machine interaction display screen is fixedly connected to one side of thesurface of the robot body, and a voice broadcaster is fixedly connected to the portion, located on the upper portion of the man-machine interaction display screen, of the surface of the robot body. According to the intelligent robot with a man-machine interaction function, the robot can have a dialogue with the elderly very well, the voice of the robot can simulate the voice of relatives of the elderly, the cordial feeling of the dialogue is achieved, the lonely problem of the empty-nest elderly is solved very well, before use, hobbies of a user can be asked, the interface of the man-machine interaction display screen can be made according to the hobbies of the user automatically, and questions raised in the dialog of the elderly and the robot are well stored.

The invention provides a washing machine capable of achieving an automatic lubrication function and for the elderly. The washing machine comprises a washing machine body, a garment storage cage, a garment lifting channel, a garment conveying cart, a garment conveying channel, a rail automatic lubrication device and a control system; the washing machine body is internally provided with a drum innercontainer and a garment storage cage fixing groove, and a second-level hydraulic cylinder is arranged at the bottom of the washing machine body; the garment lifting channel is formed in the center ofthe upper portion of the washing machine body and internally provided with a lower rail plate, an upper rail plate, a lifting hydraulic cylinder and a garment lifting rail; a garment lifting guide wheel is arranged on the garment storage cage; the garment lifting guide wheel is matched with the garment lifting rail; the garment conveying channel is communicated with the garment lifting channel; the garment conveying cart and a garment conveying rail are arranged in the garment conveying channel; the garment conveying cart sleeves the garment conveying rail; the rail automatic lubrication device is arranged on the garment conveying cart; the garment conveying channel is communicated with the interiors of an area where garments are aired, a bedroom and a bathroom through a furcation mode, and a fan and an operation control panel are arranged at an outlet. According to the washing machine, the garments are automatically conveyed for washing and airing, ventilation and odor prevention canbe conducted, and the washing machine is suitable for being independently used by the empty nest elderly.

The invention discloses an intelligent monitoring system for empty nesters, which comprises an environment monitoring assembly, an intelligent home assembly, a human body monitoring assembly, an intelligent loudspeaker box, a cloud server and an intelligent terminal, and is characterized in that families are combined into a mutual-aid group through the intelligent loudspeaker box, and mutual-aid group data are uploaded to the cloud server regularly; children, communities and hospitals read data of the cloud server through the intelligent terminal, and the system can automatically dial a call for help and give an alarm, so that daily monitoring of the old is completed; the intelligent sound box is a control center, starts the intelligent household assembly to adjust the indoor environment according to the data returned by the environment monitoring assembly, calculates the level corresponding to the health state of the elderly according to the data returned by the human body monitoring assembly, and automatically gives a telephone alarm to children, communities and hospitals according to the level. By adopting the intelligent monitoring system, real-time monitoring and timely rescue of the empty nesters are realized based on artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and Internet technologies.

The invention discloses an empty-nest elderly home living condition monitoring and inquiring system and method. The system comprises a monitoring end and an inquiring end. The monitoring end comprisesa coordinating unit and more than one terminal end units. The inquiring unit comprises a cloud server and a far end inquiring system. Each terminal end unit is connected with an electric appliance. All terminal end units in one monitoring area are connected with the coordinating unit in the monitoring area. The coordinating units in the areas are connected with the cloud server. The far end inquiring system is connected with the cloud server. The electric appliances in the house of the empty-nest elderly are subjected to networking by the Internet of Things and an embedded single chip microcomputer. Power consumption is detected and uploaded to the cloud end, and therefore children can know all the electricity consumption information to empty-nest elderly remotely to known whether the daily life of parents is normal or not, abnormal condition of parents can be found early, and greater loss can be reduced and event prevented.

The invention discloses a homing or leaving device. The homing or leaving device comprises an injector conveying mechanism, an injector loading and transporting area, a nest box nest plate conveying mechanism and a storage area. A second transferring mechanism is arranged between the injector loading and transporting area and the nest box nest plate conveying mechanism. The injector loading and transporting area is provided with an empty nest recycling opening. An empty nest recycling mechanism is arranged between the empty nest recycling opening and the storage area. A first transferring mechanism is arranged between the injector conveying mechanism and the injector loading and transporting area. An injector jacking mechanism is arranged between the injector conveying mechanism and the injector loading and transporting area or below the injector conveying mechanism. The homing or leaving device has the advantages that time and labor are saved, and the production efficiency can be improved.

The invention provides an Internet of Things virtual APP intelligent home-based care combination one-key innovative mode, and belongs to the technical field of care management systems. The mode aims to change and solve the problem that an existing old traditional old-age care system cannot meet the actual requirements of home-based care services in China in the new era. According to the invention,through using various induction sensors of each virtual APP intelligent terminal, through the Internet of Things, a cloud server, a database, a processor and an intelligent central control platform terminal, information sensed, collected, identified and positioned is distributed and transmitted through an intelligent terminal of a comprehensive service mechanism, various information service items, contents and the like are identified, analyzed, processed and fed back, and the individual or family of the elderly clicks related keys of the intelligent terminal APP, so that the daily life needsof the elderly can be met at home, and the pension burden of children, women and the society is reduced. Empty-nest elderly people do not need to enter a nursing home and enjoy full-automatic intelligent one-key elderly people nursing service without going out. The mode is an inevitable trend and a new trend for developing the home-based care industry of the modern society.

The invention discloses a neighborhood mutual assistance system. The system comprises a first user terminal for receiving a voice instruction, a guarding platform receives the voice instruction and issues a mutual assistance message, meanwhile, service providing confirmation information of the second equipment terminal is received and sent back to the first user terminal, the second equipment terminal transmits the mutual assistance message to a second user, and the second user confirms providing service information and sends the service information to the guarding platform. Corresponding to the system, the invention also provides a neighborhood mutual assistance method. According to the system and the method provided by the invention, tedious operation can be avoided, the empty-nest elderly and the elderly living alone are directly helped to send help information through the voice instruction, resource optimization configuration can be integrated, the optimal scheme can be screened, crowds are accurately matched, meanwhile, communication between neighbors is also increased, and interactive experience of mutual help and mutual assistance of communities is improved.

The invention discloses a living auxiliary platform for home isolation of empty-nest elderly patients during new coronal pneumonia. The platform comprises an intelligent terminal, an information processing module and a data center module; the intelligent terminal, the information processing module and the data center module are connected through a network. The intelligent terminal comprises an e-commerce platform module, an epidemic situation window module, a personal center module and a medical service module. The intelligent terminal is used for inputting user information and demands and feeding back processing results to a user; the information processing module receives and processes the demand requests of the intelligent terminal and feeds back the processing results of the requests to the intelligent terminal, and the data center stores the processing results of the user demand requests and the information processing module corresponding to the requests input by the intelligent terminal. During home isolation of the elderly patients, medical consultation can be sought more quickly and conveniently, and healthy eating life, safe entertainment and physical and psychological health of the elderly patients in daily life are guaranteed, and the invention is high in practicability and wide in application range in the scene that the current social aging becomes more and more obvious.

The invention relates to a method and an instrument for improving the sexual quality of a man and a woman and belongs to the field of sexual physical-therapy and healthcare instruments for man and woman, wherein the method and the instrument are physically therapeutic for frigidity, impotence, prospermia and sexual function enhancement and is healthcare for both the man and woman in harmonizing the sex life of a couple, exciting the man or woman with frigidity and enabling an impotent man to regain the potency. The instrument is a physical-therapy and healthcare instrument which is developed to have the functions of excitation, massage and petting by adopting electronic and electric technologies according to Chinese and western medical science and sexology, the principles of acupuncture points, parts, nerves and the like, and digital frequency modulating display of the modern science and technology. The invention has the characteristics of fast effect, adjustable sexual speed, arbitrary hardness and softness, and can harmonize the sex life of a couple, excite the person with frigidity, enable the impotent man to regain the potency, cause the woman to be more beautiful and the man to be more energetic and improve the sexual happiness of the man and the woman. The sex life has ten incredible effects, such curing illnesses, delaying aging, and the like. In addition, the spread of AIDS and the divorce rate of couples resulted from inharmonious sex life can be reduced.

The invention relates to a method for manufacturing intermediate-aperture empty nest bricks, and belongs to the technical field of chemical artificial stone. The method for manufacturing the bricks comprises the following steps that (1) burdening is carried out; (2) above raw materials are put into a stirring machine to be stirred for 5 min to 7 min; (3) the mixed raw materials are directly conveyed to a vacuum extruder through a rubber belt conveyor for extrusion forming; (4) semi-finished green bricks are formed after the raw materials pass through an automatic green brick cutting machine; (5) the semi-finished green bricks are stacked on a drying vehicle and fed into a drying chamber to be dried; and (6) an energy-saving annular kiln is adopted for carrying out roasting, and the sintering temperature ranges from 950 DEG C to 1,100 DEG C. According to the method for manufacturing the bricks, the light bricks can be made by comprehensively utilizing building rubbish and waste polystyrene.

The invention discloses an empty-nest elderly positioning-based personalized topic template corpus recommendation method. The method comprises the following steps of: correlating track information with important probability to a specific basic topic through analyzing a relationship between track information of elderly and probability topic distribution vectors, so as to establish a habit / interest model of the elderly; substituting position information of the elderly into the habit / interest model; and recommending topic template corpuses according to a habit / interest recommendation rule. The invention furthermore discloses a system applying the topic template corpus recommendation method, and the system comprises a data acquisition module, a database module, a content analysis module, a topic template corpus recommendation module and a message push module. According to the method and the system, the communication awkwardness and obstacles and emotional problems of the empty-nest elderly as the empty-nest elderly live in relatively closed spaces for a long time and the children cannot know the living habits and emotional states of the elderly are solved, so that topic template corpuses suitable for the chat with the elderly are provided for the children while the safety of the elderly is monitored.

The invention discloses an empty-nest elderly safety notification controller. A power supply module is powered by a solar cell panel. The power supply module supplies power to a long-time no-activity notification time-base circuit chip IC1, a function analysis control integrated circuit chip and a person activity condition detection circuit through a chip voltage regulator. The power supply module is connected with a long-time no-activity notification execution and relay J1 circuit, a combustible gas exceeding notification execution and relay J2 circuit, an antitheft alarm notification execution and relay J3 circuit and a door magnet sensor disconnection and line break alarm and relay J4 circuit and supplies power to the J1 circuit, the J2 circuit, the J3 circuit and the J4 circuit. The invention solves the problem that the elder who lives alone and has children working outside cannot timely contact the children in case of uncertain things.

The invention relates to a large-aperture empty nest brick manufacturing method, belonging to the technical field of artificial stones in chemistry. The brick manufacturing method comprises the following steps: (1) batching; (2) putting the raw materials into a stirrer and stirring for 5-7 minutes; (3) directly conveying the mixed raw materials to a vacuum extruder for extrusion molding by using a rubber belt conveyor; (4) forming semi-finished green bricks after the raw materials pass through an automatic brick cutter; (5) stacking the semi-finished green bricks on a drying vehicle and putting the semi-finished green bricks into a drying chamber for drying; and (6) carrying out calcinations by adopting an energy-saving annular kiln, and maintaining the sintering temperature to be 950-1,100 DEG C. The brick manufacturing method can comprehensively used for building rubbish and wasted polystyrene to prepare light-weight bricks.