The present and future status of Japanese foundry industry

An introduction is given in detail about the current situation of Japanese foundry industry in 2006 from aspects such as the delivery structure of castings, scale and numbers of foundries, current profit of foundry industry as well as the background of lower profitability, etc. The development trend of Japanese foundry industry was also predicted, such as the transition of foundries from family business to modern company business, the improvement of rejection ratio and yield, application of IT to production and management, human resources and the challenge for zero emission and so on.     

INFORMATION FILTERING FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Information filtering is an intelligent function that selects the relevant messages and items of use or interest to the user from a large amount of incoming information. This function has become very important for the rapid development of network technology. This article focuses on information filtering for the management of emergency situations. We believe that special purpose-built "information filtering systems" should be developed to cope with the problem of information overload in emergency management. In this article, we first investigated features of information in emergent situations and then proposed an information filtering system for emergency management. The proposed system is composed of two parts: causal analysis and information classification. A prototype system has been developed and its effectiveness was evaluated by experiments.     

A New Aroma-Bearing Substance from Shiitake, an Edible Mushroom

SUMMARY— Investigations on the physico-chemical properties and a sensory evaluation as a component of Shiitake flavor were carried out with lenthionine, a substance which was isolated from dried Shiitake mushroom. Lenthionine is practically insoluble in water but soluble in non-polar solvents. Its stability in an aqueous solution changes greatly with the pH of the solution.
Lenthionine was identified as a significant component in the aroma of Shiitake mushroom and its detectable threshold level is at a concentration between 0.27 and 0.53 porn in water. This new aroma-bearing substance will be used as a flavor additive in various foods.     

Interlayer couplings and magnetoresistance effects of Fe/Cr/Fe/Ni-Fe/NiO sandwiches

Interlayer coupling between Fe layers and magnetoresistance effect have been investigated in Fe/Cr/Fe/Ni-Fe/NiO sandwiches. The interlayer coupling between two Fe layers oscillates as the thickness of Cr layer changes. The strongest antiferromagnetic coupling is observed when the thickness of the Cr layer is 1.2 nm. The highest magnetoresistance ratio due to spin-dependent scattering is only 0.13%. The low magnetoresistance ratio is thought to be caused by high resistivity of the Cr layer. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A new methodology to guarantee the structural integrity of Al2O3/SiC composite using crack healing and a proof test

Structural ceramics are brittle and sensitive to flaws. As a result, the structural integrity of a ceramic component may be seriously affected by inherent flaws. Self-crack-healing is an excellent answer to this problem. At the moment, however, there is no technique to heal embedded flaws. Therefore, a technique to guarantee the reliability of ceramic components is demanded, and thus a technique using crack healing followed by proof test was developed by K. Ando et al. to accomplish this. With this technique, testing the mechanical behaviour of the crack-healed zone is very important for ensuring the structural integrity of a ceramic component. In this study, first Al₂O₃/SiC composite with an excellent crack-healing ability was sintered. Second, a crack was introduced on the sample (3 mm × 4 mm × 36 mm), which reduced the bending strength by about 80%, and subsequently the crack was healed. Third, a proof test was carried out on the crack-healed sample. Last, using the crack-healed and proof-tested sample, a fracture test was carried out up to 1373 K. The measured minimum fracture stress (σ_Fmin) was compared with the theoretical minimum strength (σ_G) from room temperature (R.T.) to 1373 K. It was concluded that σ_G showed good agreement with σ_Fmin up to 1373 K and that the crack healing followed by proof test was an excellent technique to increase the survival probability by administering a proof test and to guarantee the reliability of Al₂O₃/SiC composite.     

INHIBITION STUDIES ON BURDOCK POLYPHENYL OXIDASE (PPO) ACTIVITY

The inhibitory effect of 4-hexylresorcinol (HR), ascorbic acid (AA), citric acid (CA), and bisulfites on polyphenol oxidase (PPO) of burdock roots was studied. HR was an effective inhibitor at low concentrations used in this study for crude PPO from root slices. A binary mixture of HR and AA at 1.0% concentration for 5 min achieved more than 90% inhibition of crude PPO. AA also showed high antibrowning activity for the purified PPO comparable to that of bisulfites, whereas its activity was much lower than that of HR in the crude extract. The inhibitory effect of the combined use of inhibitors was overall in the decreasing order of HR+AA, HR+CA and AA+CA, irrespective of the crude PPO or the purified PPO from burdock slices.     

Mix design procedure for recycled aggregate concrete

Conservation of natural resources and preservation of environment is the essence of any development. Use of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) is one such attempt and is an answer to some of the problems in constructional engineering. The concept of using RAC is now gaining popularity and research in this direction has gained momentum. In this paper, the authors have identified the most suitable method of mix design for RAC, from amongst the available conventional methods of mix design. An influencing parameter is identified and an empirical relation is suggested to modify the influencing parameter. Mix design parameters thus obtained, enable RAC to attain the desired and designed target strength without attempting any trial mixes. The suggested modified procedure, however, demands 10% more cement which is considered quite reasonable and acceptable in view of the inferior quality of recycled aggregate.     

自适应Web站点设计中变色龙算法研究及实现

本文把变色龙(Chmeleon)算法应用于自适应网站的设计中,通过对算法的分析具体给出了算法在聚类过程中的实现细节,并按数据挖掘的过程对自适应Web站点设计中的关键问题进行了介绍.     

Use of Cement Kilns in Managing Solid and Hazardous Wastes: Implementation in Australia

The use of cement kilns for managing solid and hazardous wastes is facilitated by the high temperature, long gas retention periods, natural alkaline environment, minimum amount of waste produced and high thermal capacity. The main benefits include energy recovery, conservation of fossil fuels, reduction in cement production costs and the use of already existing facilities.
The test burns conducted in cement kilns worldwide have demonstrated very high destruction efficiencies for most stable organic compounds, with toxic contaminants barely above the background levels.
There are several cement plants in the US and Europe presently using solid and hazardous wastes as supplementary fuel. The application of this technology in Australia has been ignored in the past. An international conference (Kilnburn'92) on the role of cement kilns in waste management was held recently in Australia and has enhanced the implementation of this technology in Australia.