Effect of Rare-Earth Ions on Electrical Conductivity of BaTiO3 Ceramics

Lattice constants, grain size, electrical conductivity, and luminescence were measured for sintered BaTiO₃ ceramics doped with 0 to 1.2 at.% rare-earth ions. BaTiO₃ doped with low levels of rare-earth ions contains grains 10 μm in size and has lattice constants nearly equal to those of undoped ceramics. In this case, rare-earth ions occupy Ba²⁺ sites and yield donors. When grain growth is inhibited by high doping levels or by insufficient sintering, the lattice constants change, the rare-earth ions occupy both Ba²⁺ and Ti⁴⁺ sites, and, consequently, BaTiO₃ becomes insulative because of charge compensation.     

THE THERMAL PROPERTIES OF POTATOES AND CARROTS AS AFFECTED BY THERMAL PROCESSING1

The effects of processing on the thermal properties of white potatoes and carrots were studied. The test samples were blanched, boiled, cooked and canned. Whole potato tubers were baked to study the effects of starch gelatinization. The thermal conductivity (k) and density (ρ) were measured and the specific heat (c_p) and thermal diffusivity (α) were calculated. Results showed that in general, α initially decreased and then increased during processing. Test samples were found to have a gain in α when their moisture content increased by more than 9%. The α of potatoes decreased after canning and increased after boiling. In carrots, a similar trend was also observed but to a lesser degree. The k of potatoes was unaffected after blanching or cooking. In all the processing baking study showed that gelatinization significantly decreased the k of potatoes.     

Effects of Thermal Treatment on Radical-scavenging Activity of Single and Mixed Polyphenolic Compounds

ABSTRACT: Rutin, luteolin, luteolin-7-glucoside, and chlorogenic acid gradually decomposed during heating at 100°C. Even though they rapidly decomposed at 180°C, some decomposition products still had radical-scavenging activity. When rutin was heated in the presence of chlorogenic acid, decomposition of rutin was almost totally inhibited at 100°C, but was reduced at 180°C. These results suggest that the radical-scavenging activity is more stable than the content of original polyphenolic compounds in foods during cooking and processing.     

Transient measurement of temperature oscillation during noisy film boiling in superfluid helium Ⅱ

Noisy film boiling, which is characterized by a loud noise and severe mechanical vibration, is a particular phenomenon of superfluid helium II (He II). Experiments have been conducted under various thermal conditions by varying the heating time th and the heat flux q, and the temperature oscillation during noisy film boiling is measured by the superconductor temperature sensors in order to understand the physical mechanism of noisy film boiling.     

Optimum dynamic design for beam shapes subjected to a moving concentrated load

We are concerned with an optimum dynamic design of beams subjected to a moving concentrated load with constant speed. The influence of the dynamic behaviour of the beams is considered in a proposed optimum design problem. The optimum shapes of beams are determined by the minimization of two kinds of performance indices. The optimization procedure is performed by non-linear programming on the basis of the exterior penalty function and BFGS methods. Optimization is calculated by the modal coordinates transformation and the numerical integration method     

Plasma Fluid Flow Behavior and Power Generation Characteristics in a High‐Temperature Inert Gas Plasma Faraday MHD Generator

The plasma fluid flow behavior and power generation characteristics in a Faraday magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator using a high‐temperature inert gas (argon) plasma have been examined in a time‐dependent two‐dimensional numerical simulation. The inhomogeneous and unstable plasma at an inlet total temperature of 7000 K results in reductions and fluctuations in the output power. The plasma becomes homogeneous and stable as the inlet total temperature increases to 9000 K. One of the reasons for the suppression of ionization instability may be weakness of the dependency of the electrical conductivity on the electron number density, because the Coulomb collision of electrons becomes dominant during deviation from Saha equilibrium.     

PROPOSAL OF AN INTERPOLATIVE FUZZY INFERENCE METHOD

In this paper, we propose an interpolative fuzzy inference method, in which the fuzzy relation is represented by the membership functions of the antecedent and consequent parts. The strong point of this method is that the membership function of an inferred conclusion has a simple shape and thus its meaning can be interpreted easily. Firstly, the proposed method is explained, and then it is applied to fuzzy modeling of distributed data. From the modeling result, it was found that the method performed as a possibility distribution model. The proposed method is expected to be effective on a human supervised system, in which a human being takes any action according to the interpretation of a fuzzy inferred conclusion.