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.     

A demonstrative study for the wind and solar hybrid power system

In March 1995, a small scale wind and solar hybrid power system was installed at Ashikaga Institute of Technology. Until now, the authors have acquired the data of the output of the hybrid power plant along with wind speed, wind direction, and the solar radiation, in order to demonstrate a complementary relationship between solar energy and wind energy.After nine months operation of the system, the authors confirmed that there exists a complementary relationship between solar energy and wind energy. We also found, however, that the power output by wind does not have much prospect compared to that by solar cell especially in summer season in Ashikaga area.     

Formation of low-resistivity poly-Si and SiNx films by Cat-CVD for ULSI application

In this paper, bulk-Si metal–oxide–semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) are fabricated using the catalytic chemical vapor deposition (Cat-CVD) method as an alternative technology to the conventional high-temperature thermal chemical vapor deposition. Particularly, formation of low-resistivity phosphorus (P)-doped poly-Si films is attempted by using Cat-CVD-deposited amorphous silicon (a-Si) films and successive rapid thermal annealing (RTA) of them. Even after RTA processes, neither peeling nor bubbling are observed, since hydrogen contents in Cat-CVD a-Si films can be as low as 1.1%. Both the crystallization and low resistivity of 0.004 Ω·cm are realized by RTA at 1000 °C for only 5 s. It is also revealed that Cat-CVD SiN_x films prepared at 250 °C show excellent oxidation resistance, when the thickness of films is larger than approximately 10 nm for wet O₂ oxidation at 1100 °C. It is found that the thickness required to stop oxygen penetration is equivalent to that for thermal CVD SiN_x prepared at 750 °C. Finally, complementary MOSFETs (CMOSs) of single-crystalline Si were fabricated by using Cat-CVD poly-Si for gate electrodes and SiN_x films for masks of local oxidation of silicon (LOCOS). At 3.3 V operation, less than 1.0 pA μm⁻¹ of OFF leakage current and ON/OFF ratio of 10⁷–10⁸ are realized, i.e. the devices can operate similarly to conventional thermal CVD process.     

Neurotoxic effects of sodium nitroprusside in rat hippocampal slices

The effect of a permanent transection on myelin gene expression in a regenerating sciatic nerve and in an adult sciatic nerve was compared to establish the degree of axonal control exerted upon Schwann cells in each population. First, the adult sciatic nerve was crushed, and the distal segment allowed to regenerate. At 12 days post-crush, the sciatic nerve was transected distal to the site of crush to disrupt the Schwann cell-axonal contacts that had reformed. Messenger RNA (mRNA) levels coding for five myelin proteins were assayed in the distal segment of the crush-transected nerve after 9 days and were compared to corresponding levels in the distal segments of sciatic nerves at 21 days post-crush and 21 days post-transection using Northern blot and slot-blot analysis. Levels of mRNAs found in the distal segment of the transected and crush-transected nerve suggested that Schwann cells in the regenerating nerve and in the mature adult nerve are equally responsive to axonal influences. The crush-transected model allowed the genes that were studied to be classified according to their response to Schwann cell-axonal contact. The levels of mRNAs were 1) down-regulated to basal levels (P0 and MBP mRNAs), 2) down-regulated to undetectable levels (myelin-associated glycoprotein mRNAs), 3) upregulated (mRNAs encoding 2'3'-cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase and beta-actin), or 4) not stringently controlled by the removal of Schwann cell-axonal contact (proteolipid protein mRNAs). This novel experimental model has thus provided evidence that the expression of some of the important myelin genes during peripheral nerve regeneration is dependent on continuous signals from the ingrowing axons.     

Granular Reasoning Using Zooming In & Out: Part 2. Aristotle's Categorical Syllogism

The concept of granular computing is applied to Aristotle's categorical syllogism. Such kind of reasoning is called granular reasoning in this paper. For the purpose, two operations called zooming in & out are introduced to reconstruct granules of possible worlds.     

Skew simulation of a paper transferred by rubber rollers in printers

A skew of a paper transferred by rubber rollers in printers is simulated by FEM software. Effects of an imbalance of preload, an imbalance distribution of coefficient of friction and a front tension on the paper skew are investigated and how to determine the skew direction are shown. A simulation model is composed of a feed roller, a preload roller and a paper. The feed roller is rotated forcibly by a certain degree at every calculation step and a deformation, displacement and strain of the paper and rollers are calculated. A series of calculation results is shown as a motion simulation. The results show that the paper skews to the smaller preload side, to the smaller coefficient of friction side, or to the opposite side of the front tension. Further, effects of a skew prevention guide plate is simulated.     

Heavy arsenic doping of silicon grown by atmospheric pressure selective epitaxial chemical vapor deposition

Selective epitaxial Si with a high arsenic concentration of 2.2×10¹⁹ atoms/cm³ was deposited at a high growth rate of 3.3 nm/min under atmospheric pressure. It was confirmed that this method had excellent selectivity and produced films having good crystalline quality, abrupt dopant profiles at the interfaces, and smooth surfaces. The growth mechanism is discussed in terms of the relationship between the effects of arsenic surface segregation and etching by hydrogen chloride.     

Continuous hydrogen evolution from cyclohexanes over platinum catalysts supported on activated carbon fibers

The continuous production of hydrogen from cyclohexanes is achieved effectively using Pt/ACF (ACF = activated carbon fiber) catalysts in a fixed-bed flow reactor. The Pt catalysts are more effective than a Pd/ACF catalyst for the reaction. Besides cyclohexane, methylcyclohexane, 1,4-dimethylcyclohexane, and p-menthane can also be employed as hydrogen source in the reaction system.     

Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in a band-like arrangement

We report a case of lichen sclerosus et atrophicus (LSA) in a band-like arrangement. The patient had a white atrophic plaque on the left breast which showed the typical histological features of LSA. One month later, the patient had developed multiple, brown-colored plaques from the right breast to the right upper arm following the distribution of the peripheral nerve. These plaques showed the mild histological changes indicative of LSA. This band-like arrangement of LSA appears to be unique.     

Identification of Eucalyptus citriodora clones micropropagated in tissue culture

The extent of genetic identity observed in the young individuals which were micropropagated from a single Eucalyptus individual was analyzed by using DNA-fingerprinting. Among 40,000 tissue-cultured-seedings of E.citriodora, 200 plants were randomly chosen so that each total DNA might be extracted from their leaves. Using these DNAs as template, PCR was performed with some primers we found in advance that leads polymorphism for DNA of E. citriodora. In this study, all over the 200 cases, the band pattern formed cDNA fragment on a gel after electrophoresis was the identical one mutually.