Selective conversion of propane to propene by the catalytic oxidative dehydrogenation over cobalt and magnesium molybdates

Catalytic performances of various metal molybdates were tested in the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane to propene with molecular oxygen under an atmospheric pressure. Most of the molybdates tested promoted the selective oxidative conversion of propane to propene and among them cobalt and magnesium molybdates were found highest in the activity and selectivity. It was also found that their catalytic activities were highly sensitive to the catalyst composition, and it turned out that Co_0.95MoO _x and Mg_0.95MoO _x catalysts which have slightly excess molybdenum showed the highest activity in the oxidative dehydrogenation of propane. Under the optimized reaction conditions, higher reaction temperatures and lower partial pressures of oxygen, these catalysts gave 60% selectivity to propene at 20% conversion of propane. Since the molybdates having the surface enriched with molybdenum oxide tended to show high activity for the propane oxidation, surface molybdenum oxide clusters supported on metal molybdate matrix seem to be the active sites for the selective oxidative dehydrogenation of propane.     

Preparation and structural characterization of perovskite-type LaxLn1−x″CoO3 by the thermal decomposition of heteronuclear complexes, LaxLn1−x″| Co(CN)6| · nH2O (Ln″ = Sm and Ho)

Perovskite-type La_xLn_1−x″CoO₃ oxides are prepared by the thermal decomposition of La_xLn_1−x″ [Co(CN)₆] · nH₂O hetero-nuclear complexes. Except for LaCoO₃ (hexagonal), the structures observed for La_xSm_1−xCoO₃ are othorhombic. While the perovskite-type oxide HoCoO₃ is not formed by decomposition at 1000°C of the corresponding hexacyano complex, the partial replacing of Ho with La is effective in forming the pervoskite-type oxide having an orthorhombic structure containing Ho even at 800°C. A monotonous correlation (quasi-linear relationship) was found between the b- and c-lattice constants of the orthorhombic structures of the perovskite-type oxides and the effective radii of Ln ions, defined as r_eff = xr_1.a + (1 − x)r_1.0″. The distortion parameter for the orthorhombie cell (3″a/b−1) increaseswith decrease in r_eff and is expected to be 0.270 for perovskite-type HoCoO₃. The crystal structure of the La_xLn_1−x″, CoO₃ oxides is mainly controlled by the effective radii of Ln ions.     

The effect of small dose of topiroxostat on serum uric acid in patients receiving hemodialysis

Introduction : Topiroxostat, a recently developed xanthine oxidase inhibitor, is expected to have fewer adverse effects than allopurinol because it has different mechanism of action from alloprinol. However, its dosage, usage and safety have not been established in patients with impaired renal function or those undergoing dialysis at the development since no studies was conducted in these patients. Methods : Cross over clinical trial using 3 months of allopurinol and topiroxostat on 27 maintain Japanese HD patients were carried out. The effects on oxidative stress status of both drugs were also evaluated by measuring oxidation reduction potential. Findings : Twenty‐five of twenty‐seven patients completed study. The mean serum uric acid levels in the topiroxostat‐treated arm was significantly lower than it in the allopurinol‐treated arm time‐dependently (P < 0.0001). Corrected oxidative stress ratio defined as biological antioxidant potential/diacron reactive oxygen metabolites was significantly increased in topiroxostat‐arm (*P = 0.0035), but not in allopurinol‐arm (P = 0.1429). No significant difference was seen in diacron reactive oxygen metabolites, biological antioxidant potential, static oxidation‐reduction potential, and capacity oxidation‐reduction potential between pre and post treatment of both drugs. Discussion : It is suggested that a low dose of topiroxostat decreased serum uric acid sufficiently to maintain it below 7.0 mg/dL in patients receiving hemodialysis.     

Human motion database with a binary tree and node transition graphs

Database of human motion has been widely used for recognizing human motion and synthesizing humanoid motions. In this paper, we propose a data structure for storing and extracting human motion data and demonstrate that the database can be applied to the recognition and motion synthesis problems in robotics. We develop an efficient method for building a human motion database from a collection of continuous, multi-dimensional motion clips. The database consists of a binary tree representing the hierarchical clustering of the states observed in the motion clips, as well as node transition graphs representing the possible transitions among the nodes in the binary tree. Using databases constructed from real human motion data, we demonstrate that the proposed data structure can be used for human motion recognition, state estimation and prediction, and robot motion planning.     

A robust automatic crack detection method from noisy concrete surfaces

In maintenance of concrete structures, crack detection is important for the inspection and diagnosis of concrete structures. However, it is difficult to detect cracks automatically. In this paper, we propose a robust automatic crack-detection method from noisy concrete surface images. The proposed method includes two preprocessing steps and two detection steps. The first preprocessing step is a subtraction process using the median filter to remove slight variations like shadings from concrete surface images; only an original image is used in the preprocessing. In the second preprocessing step, a multi-scale line filter with the Hessian matrix is used both to emphasize cracks against blebs or stains and to adapt the width variation of cracks. After the preprocessing, probabilistic relaxation is used to detect cracks coarsely and to prevent noises. It is unnecessary to optimize any parameters in probabilistic relaxation. Finally, using the results from the relaxation process, a locally adaptive thresholding is performed to detect cracks more finely. We evaluate robustness and accuracy of the proposed method quantitatively using 60 actual noisy concrete surface images.     

Hypothesis testing in rank-size rule regression

This note examines testing methods for Paretoness in the framework of rank-size rule regression. Rank-size rule regression describes a relationship found in the analysis of various topics such as city population, words in texts, scale of companies and so on. In terms of city population, it is basically an empirical rule that log?(_S(i))$\log ?(S_{(i)})$ is approximately a linear function of log?(i)$\log ?(i)$ where _S(i)$S_{(i)}$ is the number of population of i  th largest city in a country. This is closely related to the so-called Zipf’s law. It is known that this kind of empirical observation is found when the city population is a random variable following a Pareto distribution. Thus one may be willing to test if city size has a Pareto distribution or not. Rosen and Resnick [K.T. Rosen, M. Resnick, The size distribution of cities: an explanation of the Pareto law and primacy, Journal of Urban Economics 8 (1980), 165–186] and Soo [K.T. Soo, Zipf’s law for cities: a cross country investigation, Regional Science and Urban Economics (35) 2005, 239–263] regress log?(_S(i))$\log ?(S_{(i)})$ on log?(i)$\log ?(i)$ and log?²(i)${\log ?}^2(i)$ and test the null of Paretoness by standard t-test for the latter regressor. It is found that t-statistics take large values and the Paretoness is rejected in many countries. We study the statistical properties of the t-statistic and show that it explodes asymptotically, in fact, by simulation and thus the t-test does not provide a reasonable testing procedure. We propose an alternative test statistic which seems to be asymptotically normally distributed. We also propose a test with the null hypothesis that the city size distribution is Pareto with exponent unity, which is a modification of the F-test.     

The motion capturing of female divers under water and the trial production of motion viewers for developing a virtual diving experience learning system

The virtual diving experience learning system of “Ama”, Japanese traditional female divers, has been developed to simulate how divers move in a virtual space using the diving interface and utilizing an accelerometer and a gyroscope. This interface not only detects the diving motion but also outputs the movement. Diving motion is shown in the ways of hand motion while standing. Although this makes it possible for a learner to understand the divers’ actions more clearly, this system’s difficulty is in visualizing a divers’ actions including their hands or bodies. Therefore, our study focuses on developing the operation system to reproduce actual ways of Amas’ diving with a virtual human body in a virtual space. First, the motion capture was done in an underwater condition. In the next process, the virtual human body was created. Finally, with the motion viewer, the more vivid actions of the Ama were successfully reproduced much more than in previous attempts. Using this system, the effectiveness of the Amas’ movement learning was confirmed, because a learner practices Amas’ movement.     

Te concentration dependent photoemission and inverse-photoemission study of FeSe1?xTex

We have characterized the electronic structure of FeSe_1−xTe_x for various x values using soft x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (SXPES), high-resolution photoemission spectroscopy (HRPES) and inverse photoemission spectroscopy (IPES). The SXPES valence band spectral shape shows that the 2 eV feature in FeSe, which was ascribed to the lower Hubbard band in previous theoretical studies, becomes less prominent with increasing x. HRPES exhibits systematic x dependence of the structure near the Fermi level (E_F): its splitting near E_F and filling of the pseudogap in FeSe. IPES shows two features, near E_F and approximately 6 eV above E_F; the former may be related to the Fe 3d states hybridized with chalcogenide p states, while the latter may consist of plane-wave-like and Se d components. In the incident electron energy dependence of IPES, the density of states near E_F for FeSe and FeTe has the Fano lineshape characteristic of resonant behavior. These compounds exhibit different resonance profiles, which may reflect the differences in their electronic structures. By combining the PES and IPES data the on-site Coulomb energy was estimated at 3.5 eV for FeSe.     

Friction Powder Compaction for Fabrication of Open-Cell Aluminum Foam by the Sintering and Dissolution Process Route

A new friction powder compaction (FPC) process by the sintering and dissolution process (SDP) route for fabricating open-cell aluminum (Al) foam, which requires no external heat sources, was developed. Foams with porosities of 74 and 83 pct were successfully fabricated and their compressive responses were investigated. The sintered mixture during the removal process was observed nondestructively by X-ray computed tomography (CT) to reveal the progress of the removal of soluble particles and to confirm that they were completely dissolved.     

Test bed for characterization and predistortion of power amplifiers

A platform of high accuracy and reliability is crucial for power amplifier (PA) designers to assess the characteristics of the PA prototype, and for the digital predistorter engineers to validate their models and algorithms. Digital processing techniques for building a test bed of high performance for PA characterization and predistortion (PD) are discussed in this article. We also proposed a novel technique to characterize the frequency responses of the vector signal generator and vector signal analyzer independently without using any other instrument. The techniques described in this article are quite useful, especially for narrowband vector transmitters and receivers, to improve their performance. These techniques were experimentally evaluated, both for characterization and PD of a class‐F PA. Test results show that using such techniques can successfully build a test bed of high accuracy and wide bandwidth. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2013.