Binary Adsorption Isotherms of Water and Ethyl Acetate Vapor for Materials Contained in a Box of a Tobacco Product

An experimental study has been carried out on the characteristics of binary adsorption isotherms of water and volatile flavor for typical materials used in a box of a tobacco product or cigarettes. Ethyl acetate chosen as a model for water-soluble volatile flavor. Binary adsorption isotherms for the tobacco, papers, filters, and activated carbons were measured with a flow-type multi-component adsorption system under the canstant conditions of temperature a t 303 K and vapor pressure of water a t 2.5 kPain the vapor pressure range of ethyl acetate from 0 to 4.2 kPa. A linear equation was applied to express the binary adsorption isotherms for the tobacco, papers and filters, while a Dubinin-Astakhov equation was applied for the activated carbons. The binary adsorption was characterized into three groups, depending on the selectivity as well as the mechanism of adsorption; i.e.(l) for tobacco and papers, water was adsorbed much greater rather than ethyl acetate, (2) for filters, ethyl acetate was adsorbed on the surface as great as water, (3) for activated carbons, ethyl acetate was adsorbed much greater onto their micropores rather than water. The results showed that ethyl     

Measurements of distribution of self-bias potential on an RF-plane electrode in plasma etching devices

The self-bias potential (V_dc) induced on an RF-powdered electrode (153 mm Ø) in a plasma is measured using electrical probes which are buried in, de-insulated from, and RF-connected to the electrode. The configuration of the probes allows to study the distribution of V_dc discretely on the electrode. The potential is homogeneous in the absence of external magnetic field. In the presence of a homogeneous magnetic field parallel to the electrode, it is reduced and a monotonous gradient takes place in its distribution due to the plasma shift induced by E × B drift. When the magnetic field is rotated along the axis of the RF-electrode at a frequency less than 50 Hz, the distribution, which is almost identical to the one in a static field, rotates with the magnetic field. On the coordinate system rotating with the magnetic field, the probes are regarded to be rotating. The potential distribution is obtained as a continuous function of the azimuthal angle. Thus the rotation of the field provides information for the experimental interpolation.     

The Gmicro/500 superscalar microprocessor with branch buffers

The Gmicro/500, which features a RISC-like dual-pipeline structure for high-speed execution of basic instructions and represents a significant advance for the TRON architecture, is presented. Upwardly-object-compatible with earlier members of the Gmicro series, this microprocessor uses resident dedicated branch buffers to greatly enhance branch instruction execution speed. Its microprograms simultaneously use dual execution blocks to execute high-level language instructions effectively. Fabricated with a 0.6-μm CMOS technology on a 10.9-mm×16-mm die, the chip operates at 50/66 MHz and achieves a processing rate of 100/132 MIPS     

Three replacement models with two kinds of damage

This paper proposes three replacement policies for a modified cumulative damage model. An item receives shocks and suffers two kinds of damage: one is produced by shocks and the other increases with time at constant rate a. It fails only when the total damage exceeds a failure level K at some shock and is replaced before failure at time T, at shock N, or at damage k. The expected cost rates of three replacement policies are obtained. When shocks occur in a Poisson process, optimal T^*, N^* and k^* which minimize them are computed numerically. Finally, two extended cases where a is a function of time and K is a random variable are also considered.     

High-Temperature Formation Phases and Crystal Structure of Hot-Pressed Thermoelectric CuGaTe<Subscript>2</Subscript> with Chalcopyrite-Type Structure

Polycrystalline CuGaTe₂ with a chalcopyrite-type structure consolidated by hot-pressing is a potential candidate as a medium-temperature thermoelectric (TE) material. However, its high-temperature formation phases have rarely been reported to date. Here, we investigated the temperature-dependent formation phases and crystal structure at 300–800 K of hot-pressed CuGaTe₂. From synchrotron x-ray diffraction data and crystal structure analysis of the heating and cooling processes, it was clarified that a certain amount of impurity phases, such as Te and CuTe, precipitated from the CuGaTe₂ matrix when the temperature was increased (to 500–650 K). This is the temperature range where CuGaTe₂ has been reported to show high TE performance. After CuGaTe₂ was heated to 800 K, such impurity phases remained, even when cooled to room temperature. They also affected the tetragonal distortion and the x-coordinate of Te in the CuGaTe₂ matrix, probably due to deficiencies of Cu and Te in the matrix. Our results reveal detailed information on the formation phases of CuGaTe₂ at high temperature and thus provide insight for evaluation of its high-temperature stability and transport properties.     

Reliability of rare-earth-doped fluoride fibers for optical fiberamplifier application

We have clarified the strength and estimated lifetime of fluoride fibers for optical amplifier use. We fabricated a UV-curable epoxy-acrylate coated fluoride fiber with a strength of 542 MPa. We estimated the lifetime of the fluoride fiber to be longer than 25 years at 80°C and 50% RH     

A rod matrix compensator for small-field intensity modulated radiation therapy: a preliminary phantom study

A compensator made of a tungsten-based rod matrix has been proposed for small-field intensity modulated radiation therapy. The compensator was attached to a 6 MV linac gantry head. The proposed compensator could modulate the X-ray intensity with a step of 10% and a minimum transmission of 2.5%.     

Insolation forecasting by a multi-stage neural network

A single-stage neural network has been proposed to forecast next day insolation. In this paper, a multi-stage neural network is developed to reduce forecasting error further. A first-stage neural network forecasts average atmospheric pressure for the next day from atmospheric pressure data of the previous day. A second-stage neural network forecasts insolation level for the next day from the average atmospheric pressure and weather data of the previous day. A third-stage neural network forecasts next day insolation from the insolation level and weather data of the previous day. Meteorological data of Omaezaki, Shizuoka at April 1994 were chosen as input data. The insolation values forecasted by the multi-stage and the single-stage neural networks are compared with the measurement values. The results show that the forecasting error is reduced to 24% (by the multi-stage) from 33% (by the single-stage). © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 125(4): 26–33, 1998     

A 98 mm2 die size 3.3-V 64-Mb flash memory with FN-NORtype four-level cell

In order to realize high-capacity and low-cost flash memory, we have developed a 64-Mb flash memory with multilevel cell operation scheme. The 64-Mb flash memory has been achieved in a 98 mm² die size by using four-level per cell operation scheme, NOR type cell array, and 0.4-μm CMOS technology. Using an FN type program/erase cell allows a single 3.3 V supply voltage. In order to establish fast programming operation using Fowler-Nordheim (FN)-NOR type memory cell, we have developed a highly parallel multilevel programming technology. The drain voltage controlled multilevel programming (DCMP) scheme, the parallel multilevel verify (PMV) circuit, and the compact multilevel sense-amplifier (CMS) have been implemented to achieve 128 b parallel programming and 6.3 μs/Byte programming speed