The World robot summit disaster robotics category – achievements of the 2018 preliminary competition

The World Robot Summit is a robot Olympics and aims to be held in a different country every four years from 2020. The concept of the Plant Disaster Prevention challenge is daily inspections, checks, and emergency response in industrial plants, and in this competition, robots must carry out these types of missions in a mock-up plant. The concept of the Tunnel Disaster Response and Recovery challenge is emergency response to tunnel disasters, and is a simulation competition whereby teams compete to show their ability to deal with disasters, by collecting information and removing debris. The Standard Disaster Robotics challenge assesses, in the form of a contest, the standard performance levels of a robot that are necessary for disaster prevention and emergency response. The World Robot Summit Preliminary Competition was held at Tokyo Big Sight in October 2018, and 36 teams participated in the Disaster Robotics Category. UGVs and UAVs contended the merits of new technology for solving complex problems, using core technologies such as mobility, sensing, recognition, performing operations, human interface, autonomous intelligence etc., as well as system integration and implementation of strategies for completing missions, gaining high-level results.     

Electrochemical growth and characterization of iron doped cadmium sulfide thin films

Cadmium Sulfide and Ferrous doped Cadmium Sulfide thin films have been prepared on different substrates using an electrodeposition technique. Linear sweep voltammetric analysis has been carried out to determine deposition potential of the prepared films. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the prepared films possess polycrystalline nature with hexagonal structure. Surface morphology and film composition have been analyzed using Scanning electron microscopy and Energy dispersive analysis by X-rays. Optical absorption analysis showed that the prepared films are found to exhibit Band gap value in the range between 2.3, 2.8 eV for Cadmium Sulfide and Ferrous doped Cadmium Sulfide.     

Marginal cost and congestion in the Italian electricity market: An indirect estimation approach

In this paper we construct an indirect measure of the supply marginal cost function for the main generators from the observed bid data in the Italian electricity market in the period 2004–2007. We compute the residual demand function for each generator, taking explicitly into account the issue of transmission line congestion. This procedure allows recovering correct zonal Lerner index and the implied measure of the marginal cost function. We find evidence of a stable U-shaped marginal cost function for three main Italian generators, but a flat function for ENEL, the former national monopolist. The policy relevance of our approach lies in the possibility to offer some empirical knowledge of the marginal cost function of each generator to the regulator to design appropriate policy measures geared to the promotion of competitive market conditions. We propose a new market surveillance mechanism, which is based on the principle of sanctioning excessive deviations from the estimated measure of the marginal cost function presented in this work.     

Study on metamerism degree evaluation based on wavelength sensitive cone weighting algorithm

Metamerism phenomenon can be used in illuminant detection to ensure the accuracy of light source. A method based on Long‐, Middle‐, Short‐ wavelength cones(LMS) weighting algorithm to evaluate metamerism degree is proposed. The chromatic relationship between the degree of metamerism mismatch and the light source is studied. Herein, the consistency between the metameric indices (MIs) and CIE1976 L*a*b* color difference ranking is analyzed by SRCC, KRCC, PLCC and RMSE. A statistically sampling method to obtain practical LMS cone fundamentals to evaluate metamerism degree is employed. The analysis results obtained show that the method based on LMS weighting algorithm has good evaluation ability and stability in simulation experiments and statistically sampling experiments, which are in line with visual characteristics of human. Proposed method meets the requirements of selecting metameric pairs used in light source detection. The analysis results have certain guiding significance.     

An ideal host-guest system to accomplish high-performance greenish yellow and hybrid white organic light-emitting diodes

Greenish yellow organic light-emitting diodes (GYOLEDs) have steadily attracted researcher's attention since they are important to our life. However, their performance significantly lags behind compared with the three primary colors based OLEDs. Herein, for the first time, an ideal host-guest system has been demonstrated to accomplish high-performance phosphorescent GYOLEDs, where the guest concentration is as low as 2%. The GYOLED exhibits a forward-viewing power efficiency of 57.0 lm/W at 1000 cd/m², which is the highest among GYOLEDs. Besides, extremely low efficiency roll-off and voltages are achieved. The origin of the high performance is unveiled and it is found that the combined mechanisms of host-guest energy transfer and direct exciton formation on the guest are effective to furnish the greenish yellow emission. Then, by dint of this ideal host-guest system, a simplified but high-performance hybrid white OLED (WOLED) has been developed. The WOLED can exhibit an ultrahigh color rendering index (CRI) of 92, a maximum total efficiency of 27.5 lm/W and a low turn-on voltage of 2.5 V (1 cd/m²), unlocking a novel avenue to simultaneously achieve simplified structure, ultrahigh CRI (>90), high efficiency and low voltage.     

Study on wax precipitation characteristics of wax deposit in pipes

Wax deposit properties are a significant concern in pipeline pigging during waxy crude oil transportation. In the present work, the impacts of flow conditions and oil properties on the wax precipitation characteristics of wax deposits are investigated. A flow loop apparatus was developed to conduct wax deposition experiments using four crude oils collected from different field pipes. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique was employed to observe the wax precipitation characteristics of crude oil and wax deposit. The results show that the wax content and the wax appearance temperature (WAT) of the deposits increase with shear stress and radial temperature gradient, and decrease with radial wax molecule concentration gradient near the pipe wall. The DSC tests on the wax deposits revealed that the deposit wax content is strongly correlated to the oil wax content. Furthermore, an empirical correlation was developed to predict the wax content and the WAT of the wax deposit. Verification of the empirical correlation using the different oils indicated that the average relative error of the wax content prediction and average absolute error of WAT prediction were 13.2% and 3.6°C, respectively.     

气压仪器检定装置的升级改造

文章针对气压检定装置在使用中存在的一些问题,会同厂家对其进行了升级改造。介绍了改造后的气压检定装置的设计原理、软件和硬件设计以及技术指标等,新装置集成了目前先进的计量设备及技术,编写相应的程序软件升级改造而成。可广泛适用于气象部门空盒气压表、自动站气压传感器以及部分数字压力计的计量检定工作,实现气压检定工作的自动化,提高检定数据的准确性和可靠性,并有效提高检定的工作效率。     

酸性废水中As(Ⅲ)、Cu(Ⅱ)与铁粉的反应行为

在Fe-As(Ⅲ)-Cu(Ⅱ)-H₂O体系中, 研究了酸性废水中As(Ⅲ)、Cu(Ⅱ)与金属铁粉的反应行为, 考察了反应过程中As在气、液、固三相中的分配比。结果表明, As(Ⅲ)和Cu(Ⅱ)离子被Fe还原为单质As和Cu后, As、Cu进一步结合成Cu₅As₂等金属间化合物, 从而促进As(Ⅲ)沉淀反应的发生, 且无AsH3生成。在反应时间40min、铁粉过量系数1.2、溶液初始pH=0.0、温度40 ℃、Cu/As摩尔比1.0条件下, As在气、液、固三相中的分配比分别为0、20.7%和79.3%, 沉砷率为79.3%。