Effects of Surface Concentration on Drying Behavior of Carbohydrate Solutions

As the surface properties of the drying materials are very important not only for the drying rate but also for the quality change during drying, the effects of surface concentration on the drying behavior of liquid foods (sugar solutions) were investigated by isothermal drying experiments and by numerical calculation experiments. The isothermal drying experiments with gelled sugar solution systems (sucrose and maltodextrin) were carried out at various relative humidity (RH) values (RH = 0 to 84%). Separate experiments were carried out for determination of the desorption isotherms.

The isothermal drying curves of sugar solutions at RH = 0 to 51% were very similar. Numerical simulations also showed that the drying curves of these sugars at the surface concentration = 0 and 0.1 are almost the same, although the concentration distributions are different.

When a small amount of gelatin was added to sugar solutions, the drying rate decreased remarkably as the gelatin might form a thin film (skin) near the surface, and consequently the retention of ethanol increased.     

Impulse breakdown voltages of triggered multistage vacuum gap

Several sealed-off triggered vacuum gaps are connected in series to improve hold-off voltage. The characteristics of impulse breakdown voltage of these series-connected gaps are investigated experimentally. The sum hold-off voltage of series-connected gaps decreases to a unit hold-off voltage when the maximum value of voltage division ratio across the gaps increases to unity. Self-breakdown probability of the series-connected gaps is always higher than that of a single gap under the same conditions. Hence, stage efficiency of the multistage gap decreases with increasing number of stages. Its value is 90 percent with 2-stage gap and 75 percent with 5-stage gap, respectively, under the same voltage division ratio and the same gap length (2.0 mm) in each stage. Triggered breakdown voltage of 2- or 3- stage gap is several hundred volts when all gaps are triggered simultaneously at the peak of the main impulse wave and a working voltage range is nearly 100 percent in this case. The working voltage range decreases with number of stages. Its value is 45 percent with 3-stage gap and 15 percent with 5-stage gap, respectively, when one triggered gap is fired for switching.     

H∞ control versus disturbance-observer-basedcontrol

In the motion control field, a disturbance observer-based disturbance canceling control is often used as a robust control methodology. However, this method is nothing more than an alternative design of an integral controller, and the robust stability issue cannot be directly accounted for. In this paper, an extended H_∞ control scheme is proposed as a new robust motion control method which achieves the disturbance cancellation ability and guarantees robust stability automatically     

Visualizing the structure of Web communities based on data acquired from a search engine

Discovery of Web communities, groups of Web pages sharing common interests, is important for assisting users' information retrieval from the Web. This paper describes a method for visualizing Web communities and their internal structures. visualization of Web communities in the form of graphs enables users to access related pages easily, and it often reflects the characteristics of the Web communities. Since related Web pages are often co-referred from the same Web page, the number of co-occurrences of references in a search engine is used for measuring the relation among pages. Two URLs are given to a search engine as keywords, and the value of the number of pages searched from both URLs divided by the number of pages searched from either URL, which is called the Jaccard coefficient, is calculated as the criteria for evaluating the relation between the two URLs. The value is used for determining the length of an edge in a graph so that vertices of related pages will be located close to each other. Our visualization system based on the method succeeds in clarifying various genres of Web communities, although the system does not interpret the contents of the pages. The method of calculating the Jaccard coefficient is easily processed by computer systems, and it is suitable for visualization using the data acquired from a search engine.     

Far-Infrared Reflection Spectra of Dielectric Ceramics for Microwave Applications

Far-infrared reflection spectra of dielectric ceramics, BaSm₂Ti₅O₁₄, BaTi₄O₉, and some pcrovskites such as Ba(Zn_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃, have been measured at room temperature using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer in order to investigate the effect of the crystal structure on the dielectric properties. As for perovskites, Sr(Zn_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃ and Sr(Mg_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃, in which B site ions are ordered, were also measured. Reflectance data were analyzed by means of a factorized form of dielectric functions instead of the classical dispersion theory, and all of the spectra were well fitted. The values of dielectric constants and tan δ calculated from the reflectance data were in good agreement with resonant cavity measurements at 5 GHz. Furthermore, results of this study have shown that the main contribution to the microwave dielectric properties is caused by low-frequency optically active modes located at 50 to about 300 cm⁻¹, and for perovskite structures it is suggested that the ordering of B site ions is significant in obtaining low dielectric losses.     

New coprimeness over multivariable polynomial matrices and its application to control delay systems

This paper presents a new notion of coprimeness over multivariable polynomial matrices, where a single variable is given priority over the remaining variables. From a characterization through a set of common zeros of the minors, it is clarified that the presented coprimeness is equivalent to weakly zero coprimeness in the particular variable. An application of the presented coprimeness to control systems with non-commensurate delays and finite spectrum assignment is also presented. Because the presented coprimeness is stronger than minor coprimeness, non-commensurate delays are difficult to deal with in algebraic control theory. The “rational ratio condition” between delays, which can reduce non-commensurate delays to commensurate delays, proves to be both powerful and practical concept in algebraic control theory for delay systems.     

Martensitic stabilization and defects induced by deformation in TiNi shape memory alloys

Martensitic stabilization caused by deformation in a TiNi shape memory alloy was studied.Special attention was paid to the deformed microstructures to identify the cause of martensitic stabilization.Martensitic stabilization was demonstrated by differential scanning calorimetry for the tensioned TiNi shape memory alloy.Transmission electron microscopy revealed that antiphase boundaries were formed because of the fourfold dissociation of[110]B19'super lattice dislocations and were preserved after reverse transformation due to the lattice correspondence.Martensitic stabilization was attributed to dislocations induced by deformation,which reduced the ordering degree of the microstructure,spoiled the reverse path from martensite to parent phase compared with thermoelastic transformation,and imposed resistance on phase transformation through the stress field.