Decorrelation of SAR data by urban damages caused by the 1995 Hyogoken-nanbu earthquake

Large part of urban area of around Kobe city were damaged by the 1995 Hyogoken-nanbu earthquake. For detecting the damaged area, the authors computed correlation coefficients from single-look complex ERS-1/SAR data. Two types of correlations, intensity correlation and coherence were computed. Decorrelation was found in the damaged urban built-up area in the data pair of which interval included the earthquake occurrence. The similarity of the decorrelation between the intensity correlation and the coherence indicated that major factor of the decorrelation is closely related to interferometric processes, which results in the change of speckle patterns in the single-look intensity images. A normalized difference was calculated from the correlation coefficients between the data pair including the earthquake occurrence and the pair before the earthquake. The distribution patterns of the pixels for which normalized difference was higher than a threshold showed good correspondence with the result of the ground survey. The result of this study indicates the possibility of detecting urban disasters using the decorrelation of SAR data.     

Radiation distribution sensing with normal optical fiber

The purpose of this study is to develop a radiation distribution monitor using a normal plastic optical fiber. The monitor has a long operating length and can obtain continuous radiation distributions. A principle of the position sensing is based on a time-of-flight technique. The monitor is sensitive to beta rays or charged particles, gamma rays, and fast neutrons. The spatial resolutions for beta-rays ( ⁹⁰Sr-⁹⁰Y), gamma-rays (¹³⁷Cs), and D-T neutrons are 30, 37, and 13 cm, respectively. The detection efficiencies for the beta-rays, gamma-rays, and D-T neutrons are 0.11%, 1.6×10 ^-5% and 1.2×10^-4%, respectively. The effective attenuation length of the detection efficiency is 18 m. In this paper, we describe the basic characteristics of this monitor     

A negative Vth cell architecture for highly scalable,excellently noise-immune, and highly reliable NAND flash memories

A new, negative V_th cell architecture is proposed where both the erased and the programmed state have negative V_th. This architecture realizes highly scalable, excellently noise-immune, and highly reliable NAND flash memories. The program disturbance that limits the scaling of a local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS) width in a conventional NAND-type cell is drastically reduced. As a result, the scaling limit of the LOCOS width decreases from 0.56 to 0.45 μm, which leads to 20% isolation width reduction. The proposed cell is essential for the future scaled shallow trench isolated cells because improved program disturb characteristics can be obtained irrespective of the process technology or feature size. New circuit techniques, such as a PMOS drive column latch and a V_cc-bit-line shield sensing method are also utilized to realize the proposed cell operation. By using these novel circuit technologies, array noise, such as a source-line noise and an inter bit line capacitive coupling noise, are eliminated. Consequently, the V_th fluctuation due to array noise is reduced from 0.7 to 0.1 V, and the V_th distribution width decreases from 1.2 to 0.6 V. In addition to the smaller cell size and the high noise immunity, the proposed cell improves device reliability. The read disturb time increases by more than three orders of magnitude, and a highly reliable operation can be realized     

Ion-implanted and permalloy hybrid magnetic bubble memory devices

Hybrid bubble memory devices have been proposed and operated with the memory density of 4 Mbit/cm². In the hybrid bubble memory devices, minor loops are composed of ion-implanted tracks with 4-µm period, and major lines and functional parts including block-replicate and swap gates are composed of Permalloy tracks with a longer period of 12 µm. Passive junctions between ion-implanted and Permalloy tracks have been developed, introducing the tapered ion-implantation technique. Improving the characteristics of the functional parts composed of Permalloy tracks, the hybrid bubble memory devices with block-replicate and swap gates have been operated, and the feasibility of the devices has been confirmed. In addition, the possibility of higher memory density has been shown.     

Forecasting electric power generation in a photovoltaic power system for an energy network

Recently, there has been an increase in concern about the global environment. Interest is growing in developing an energy network by which new energy systems such as photovoltaic and fuel cells generate power locally and electrical power and heat are controlled with a communication network. We developed the power generation forecast method for photovoltaic power systems in an energy network. The method makes use of weather information and regression analysis. We carried out forecasting power output of the photovoltaic power system installed in Expo 2005, Aichi Japan. As a result of comparing measurements with prediction values, the average prediction error per day was about 26% of the measured power. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(4): 16–23, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20755     

In vivo immunological toxicity in mice of carbon nanotubes with impurities

The longstanding question as to whether carbon nanotubes are intrinsically toxic hinders their widespread industrial application. Here, we clarify the effect of impurities within such tubes through systemic studies of immunological responses in mice by monitoring and examining changes in peripheral T-cell subset and peripheral cytokine levels and histology. Contaminated and clean tubes were subcutaneously implanted in mice. The implanted tubes with impurities clearly induced immunological toxicity and localized alopecia, whereas extremely pure implanted tubes showed good biocompatibility. Our studies suggest that such high-temperature thermal treatment is an effective way to improve the biocompatibility of carbon nanotube.     

In Situ Observation of Deformation in Semi-solid Fe-C Alloys at High Shear Rate

Synchrotron X-ray radiography at 125 frames per second was used to study deformation mechanisms in semi-solid Fe-C alloys at high solid fraction and shear strain rates of 10^?1/s. An image correlation approach was also used to quantify the shear strain fields and study shear-induced dilation and the origin of shear cracking. It was shown that, at high solid fraction (90 to 93 pct solid), rearrangement including rotation and translation of solid particles became restricted and shear strain localized into narrow liquid-filled channels/fissures. Shear cracking was shown to originate from inadequate liquid flow into the expanding spaces between solid particles caused by shear-induced dilation. At lower solid fraction (~85 pct solid), solid particles rearranged with a significantly higher component of rotation leading to more shear-induced dilation and a wider shear band.     

Acid catalytic hydrothermal conversion of carbohydrate biomass into useful substances

Acidic hydrothermal degradation of glucose was examined in the presence of HCl, H₂SO₄, and H₃PO₄ with pH varying from 1.5 to 2.5 and reaction time varying from 1 to 10 min at 523 K, to investigate the effect of different acid catalysts and acid concentration on the production of 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furaldehyde (HMF) and levulinic acid from glucose. At lower acidities of pH 2.5, a considerably higher amount of HMF was produced. The increase in acid concentration accelerated the conversion of HMF to levulinic acid. The order for the production of HMF using the three acids is in the sequence of H₃PO₄ > H₂SO₄ > HCl. On the contrary, the order for production of levulinic acid follows HCl > H₂SO₄ > H₃PO₄. In the experimental conditions used in this study, the highest yield of levulinic acid is about 55%, which was obtained at pH 1.5 for 5 min in the case of HCl as an acid catalyst, and the total highest yields of HMF and levulinic acid are about 50%, which occurred at pH 2.0 for 5 min in the case of H₃PO₄ as an acid catalyst.