Pulsed field loss characteristics of the Japanese test coil for the large coil task

This paper describes some results of an analytical calculation and the measurements of a pulsed field loss on the Japanese LCT conductor. The conductor, whose aspect ratio is around 2.5, is wound edge wise to reduce the pulsed field loss. The Japanese LCT coil, with the conductor thus designed, was evaluated to have a pulsed field loss of about 19W. This includes the loss of the helium vessel under the normal LCT test with a pulsed field of 0 to 0.14T. In addition, the loss measurement has been carried out up to 25 T/s. Measured results on the relation between the loss of a single strand and that of a whole strand pack well supports the validity of the loss analysis which includes a newly arranged set of analytical equations.     

Application of a novel polypropylene to the insulation of an electric power cable

Cross‐linked polyethylene (XLPE) has been widely adopted as insulating material for high‐voltage power cables up to 500 kV. Further improvement of electrical and thermal properties on insulating material is required in order to increase cable operation efficiency. Therefore, the development of novel insulating material possessing high thermal properties will be necessary. Recent progress of catalysis technology contributes to obtain new polymeric materials which may be applied to electrical insulation. The authors investigated the basic properties of newly developed stereoregular syndiotactic polypropylene (s‐PP) which is synthesized with homogeneous metallocene catalyst. Though recycling of cross‐linked polymers such as conventionally used XLPE may be difficult because of their poor heat deformation, the s‐PP which is not cross‐linked must be suitable for recycling. A series of experiments on its physical and electrical properties gave the following results.

• (1) s‐PP has sufficient flexibility compared with isotactic polypropylene (i‐PP ).
• (2) Both AC and lightning impulse breakdown strength of s‐PP in spite of no cross‐linking are superior to those of XLPE in the temperature range from 25 to 90 °C.
• (3) Degradation by copper of s‐PP is less than that of i‐PP.
• (4) s‐PP/VLDPE blend shows sufficient brittleness temperature for use.

These results suggested that s‐PP should serve as insulating material for power cables at higher‐temperature operation. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 146(1): 18–26, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002//eej.10210     

Acidophilic xylanase from Aureobasidium pullulans: efficient expression and secretion in Pichia pastoris and mutational analysis

A yeast-like fungus Aureobasidium pullulans var. melanigenum strain ATCC 20524 produces an extracellular acidophilic endo-1,4-beta-xylanase with an optimum pH of 2.0 [Ohta et al., J. Biosci. Bioeng., 92, 262-270 (2001)]. The xynI cDNA encoding the precursor protein (XynI) was expressed in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris under the control of the alcohol oxidase I gene promoter. The 34 amino acid prepro-signal peptide of the A. pullulans XynI directed the efficient secretion of 178 mg of active xylanase per liter of the culture medium. The secretion level of the xylanase with its own signal peptide was comparable to that of the mature protein fused to the prepro leader from Saccharomyces cerevisiae alpha-mating factor and twofold higher than that of the mature protein fused to the pre-type signal peptide from P. pastoris acid phosphatase. The N-terminal amino acid sequence and the apparent M(r) of 24 kDa of the secreted recombinant protein indicated the native-like processing of the A. pullulans XynI signal sequence in P. pastoris. The three-dimensional model and mutational analysis of the xynI gene product showed that Asp-73 and Glu-157 residues located at the upper and lower edges of the active site cleft, respectively, play a significant role in its low pH optimum.     

Utilization of sludge in building material.

Several thermal solidification processes have been developed mainly in Japan. They are lightweight aggregates, brick, interlocking tile, char, and slag. A full-scale plant of them has been successfully operated for more than 10 years. The quality of the end products is better than the traditional ones. They are all substitutive to existing ones. The Japanese experience proves that all the processes are technically feasible, but not economically. Their manufacturing cost is always higher than market price. In addition, they consume large amounts of energy. However, if they are identified for a process of sludge disposal, all of them are worth considering for a big city where there is no place for the sludge to go. The end products can be reused inside the city. A new alternative is "Portland cement". A Portland cement manufacturer accepts sewage sludge, if being paid some amount of money. An average payment is US$100 each 1,000 kg of ash or sludge cake. The Portland cement manufacturer accepts either cake or ash at the same price. It is about 50 to 30% of the energy cost of thermal solidification. The question is which is the better, dewatered cake or incinerated ash, for the Portland cement application. The answer is "it depends on the distance between the sewage plant and the Portland cement plant."     

Synthesis of Hadamard transformers by use of multimode interference optical waveguides

We propose a synthesis method of optical Hadamard transformer using multimode interference (MMI) couplers. By using the signal transfer matrix of 2 x 2, 4 x 4, and 8 x 8 MMI couplers, we show that sum and difference units of input signals can be synthesized. An interchange unit of two signals can also be synthesized. One synthesis method of Hadamard transformers is a combination of only 2 x 2 units, and the other is a combination of N x N(N > or = 4) units as well as 2 x 2 units. The design examples of operation units are shown, and the size and the output power of Hadamard transformers are estimated.     

Sonochemical degradation of chlorinated hydrocarbons using a batch and continuous flow system

The sonochemical degradation of chlorinated hydrocarbons such as 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in aqueous solution was carried out in the batch and continuous flow systems at an ultrasonic frequency of 100kHz under an air atmosphere. In the batch experiment, the rate of degradation follows the order 1,1,1-trichloroethane>tetrachloroethylene>trichloroethylene, and the chlorinated hydrocarbon were readily degraded by ultrasonic irradiation. The experiments in the continuous flow system were performed in the range of volumetric flow rate from 7 to 30 x 10(-3)lmin(-1). The conversion of the chlorinated hydrocarbons at a steady-state of reactor depended on the volumetric flow rate. The yield of Cl(-) (as a measurement of mineralization of chlorinated hydrocarbons) was 70-90% of the chlorine atoms in the parent chlorinated hydrocarbon molecules. From the viewpoint of the scale-up process, the sonochemical degradation of trichloroethylene was simulated in a three stage reactor, and the conversion (>99%) in a third stage reactor was showed the good results that can be satisfied a desired water quality standard.     

Lipid analog with 2-nitrophenol trigger designed for liposome fusion at physiological pH

A novel lipid analog with two long alkyl (C₁₆) chains, an aspartate skeleton, a connecting alkyl (C₈) chain, and 2-nitrophenol trigger group is synthesized by an efficient synthetic route, which can induce liposome fusion at physiological pH.     

EACLE : Energy-Aware Clustering Scheme with Transmission Power Control for Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a new energy efficient clustering scheme with transmission power control named “EACLE” (Energy-Aware CLustering scheme with transmission power control for sEnsor networks) for wireless sensor networks, which are composed of the following three components; “EACLE clustering” is a distributed clustering method by means of transmission power control, “EACLE routing” builds a tree rooted at a sink node and sets the paths from sensor nodes taking energy saving into consideration, and “EACLE transmission timing control” changes the transmission timing with different levels of transmission power to avoid packet collisions and facilitates packet binding. With an indoor wireless channel model which we obtained from channel measurement campaigns in rooms and corridors and an energy consumption model which we obtained from a measurement of a chipset, we performed computer simulations to investigate the performance of EACLE in a realistic environment. Our simulation results indicate that EACLE outperforms a conventional scheme such as EAD (Energy-Aware Data-centric routing) in terms of communication success rate and energy consumption. Furthermore, we fully discuss the impact of transmission power and timing control on the performance of EACLE.     

ADAPTIVE CONTROL DESIGN FOR NONLINEARLY PARAMETERIZED SYSTEMS WITH A TRIANGULAR STRUCTURE

A novel adaptive backstepping design for a class of nonlinearly parameterized systems with a triangular structure is proposed. Under the Lipschitz condition with respect to unknown parameters of the system, an effective adaptive controller is designed without the requirement on the compactness of the unknown parametric set. Especially, the proposed adaptive control enables the advantage of “tuning function concept”, which results in only one estimation law for the unknown parameters. Our simulation with induction motor model particularly shows the viability of the obtained results.     

Development of spectral band cloning techniques for soil nutrients estimation

Satellite‐based monitoring is an indispensable tool to guide soil‐specific crop management. However, it has attained little success in the estimation of soil nutrients due to the limitations incurred from inherent spectral characteristics. In this study, spectral band cloning (SBC) is developed and proposed to augment the soil nutrient predictive capabilities of broadband satellite data. Fine‐spectral channels of spectrometers were synchronized with coarse resolution of IRS satellite data to generate nutrient‐sensitive cloned IRS bands. Soil samples, collected at the time of satellite image acquisition in Lop Buri, Thailand, were analyzed both spectrally and chemically, viz., soil organic matter (OM), phosphorus, potassium and iron. The resulting SBC‐based models showed acceptable correlations, which otherwise were unattainable from raw IRS bands through prevailing models. Accuracy and validation measures showed good agreements between the measured and estimated nutrient surfaces. It is concluded that the SBC is a promising method of quantitative soil nutrient mapping, and could further be used for identification and mapping of other indiscernible biophysical parameters.