Fundamental Behavior of Direct-Coupled Submicrosecond Pulse Energization in Electrostatic Precipitators

The fundamental characteristics of the direct-coupled pulse energization in electrostatic precipitators (EP's) are investigated in a test rig comprised of a coal pulverizing facility, a furnace, a gas cooling system, and an EP. The EP consisted of a corona electrode with barbed wires and a collection electrode with 300-mm duct spacing. This simulates the type of EP normally used in a coal-fired power station. The pulse-energized collection field shows a very high collection performance of more than 99 percent collection efficiency and the performance enhancement compared to the conventional dc energization, causing very severe back corona, becomes as large as H = 2.50.H is the enhancement factor in terms of the Deutsch migration velocity in the case of the very high resistivity dust of rd = 2 x 1013 ?cm at the gas temperature of Tg = 150°C. Even at the lower level of the dust resistivity at Tg = 110°C, where no back corona occurs in the dc-energized collection field, the performance enhancement is as large as H = 1.21. The mechanism of such great performance enhancement is likely to be the result of the very uniform and very intense formation of corona plasmas on the wires as a result of the very fast rise in the pulse voltage applied and a special sawtooth waveform of the operating voltage between the corona and collection electrodes.     

Spatial indexing of high-dimensional data based on relative approximation

We propose a novel index structure, the A-tree (approximation tree), for similarity searches in high-dimensional data. The basic idea of the A-tree is the introduction of virtual bounding rectangles (VBRs) which contain and approximate MBRs or data objects. VBRs can be represented quite compactly and thus affect the tree configuration both quantitatively and qualitatively. First, since tree nodes can contain a large number of VBR entries, fanout becomes large, which increases search speed. More importantly, we have a free hand in arranging MBRs and VBRs in the tree nodes. Each A-tree node contains an MBR and its children VBRs. Therefore, by fetching an A-tree node, we can obtain information on the exact position of a parent MBR and the approximate position of its children. We have performed experiments using both synthetic and real data sets. For the real data sets, the A-tree outperforms the SR-tree and the VA-file in all dimensionalities up to 64 dimensions, which is the highest dimension in our experiments. Additionally, we propose a cost model for the A-tree. We verify the validity of the cost model for synthetic and real data sets. Edited by T. Sellis. Received: December 8, 2000 / Accepted: March 20, 2002 Published online: September 25, 2002     

A case of biliary cystadenoma with obstructive jaundice

Biliary cystadenoma is a rare cause of obstructive jaundice. We report a case of a 78-year-old Japanese man with biliary cystadenoma presenting repetitive abdominal pain and jaundice. Ultrasound sonography revealed a hyperechoic mass in the left lateral lobe of the liver. Histological examination revealed a biliary cystadenoma. Intracystic hemorrhage was assumed to be the cause of obstruction of the bile ducts.     

Changes in vasoactive intestinal peptide mRNA levels in the rat suprachiasmatic nucleus following p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA) treatment under light/dark conditions

Photic stimulus and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) are two factors known to regulate vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) synthesis in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). To explore the role of 5-HT in the photic stimulus-induced change in VIP synthesis, we investigated the changes in level of VIP mRNA under a 12 h light/12 h dark cycle following depletion of 5-HT by intraperitoneal administration of p-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA) methyl ester (200 mg/kg concentration) for 3 successive days. To estimate VIP mRNA expression, we performed in situ hybridization using imaging plates combined with microcomputer-based imaging analysis. In light-phase, total signals of VIP mRNA from the PCPA-treated rats showed a significant decrease compared with those from the saline-treated control rats. However, in dark-phase, there were no significant decreases between the PCPA-treated rats and the saline-control rats. The present results strongly suggest that 5-HT neuronal inputs to the SCN interfere with the effect of photic stimulus on VIP synthesis at the mRNA level.     

Diameter and Density Control of Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotube Forests by Modulating Ostwald Ripening through Decoupling the Catalyst Formation and Growth Processes

A continuous and wide range control of the diameter (1.9?3.2 nm) and density (0.03?0.11 g cm^?3) of single‐walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) forests is demonstrated by decoupling the catalyst formation and SWNT growth processes. Specifically, by managing the catalyst formation temperature and H₂ exposure, the redistribution of the Fe catalyst thin film into nanoparticles is controlled while a fixed growth condition preserved the growth yield. The diameter and density are inversely correlated, where low/high density forests would consist of large/small diameter SWNTs, which is proposed as a general rule for the structural control of SWNT forests. The catalyst formation process is modeled by considering the competing processes, Ostwald ripening, and subsurface diffusion, where the dominant mechanism is found to be Ostwald ripening. Specifically, H₂ exposure increases catalyst surface energy and decreases diameter, while increased temperature leads to increased diffusion on the surface and an increase in diameter.     

Diffusion-limited characteristics of mechanically induced currents in polypyrrole/Au-membrane composites

A mechanically induced current (MIC) in a polypyrrole/Au-coated membrane (PPy/Au-membrane) composite with various surface morphologies was investigated, and the electrolyte conditions were determined in an electrochemical cell. A MIC was induced on porous PPy/Au-membranes with a thin layer of PPy. Conversely, relatively small MICs were observed in non-highly porous films such as freestanding films and PPy/Au-membranes with thick PPy deposits. A MIC smaller by one order of magnitude was also observed in a Au-membrane without PPy. These results indicated that the MICs was due to a charging phenomenon in both the redox and the double layer capacitances. The MIC also varied with supporting electrolyte and their concentration. The MIC was strongly reduced in solutions with diluted electrolytes and with bulky cationic electrolytes, indicating that the number and the penetration speed of mobile ions limited the magnitude of the MIC. These characteristics indicated that the MIC was essentially a diffusion limited current. A two-electrode MIC cell was also configured to investigate a power generation film in a normal saline solution, which can possibly be utilized for biomedical applications.     

Photosensitized hydrogen evolution from water using a single-walled carbon nanotube/fullerodendron/SiO2 coaxial nanohybrid

A coaxial nanohybrid consisting of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT), fullerodendron, and SiO(2) shows high-efficiency light-driven hydrogen evolution from water. Upon visible light irradiation, SWCNT/fullerodendron/SiO(2) coaxial nanohybrid shows hydrogen evolution activity in the presence of methyl viologen (MV(2+)), benzyldihydronicotinamide (BNAH), and a colloidal polyvinyl alcohol(PVA)-Pt.     

Pollution control of actual flue gas using pulsed power at a thermal power plant

There are several important environmental problems in the world. One of them is acid rain caused by combustion flue gases from thermal power plants, factories, and automobiles. Different kinds of gas discharges, such as surface discharge, dc and ac corona discharge, silent discharge, and electron beam controlled discharge, have been studied for the removal of NO_x and SO₂ from flue gases. The recent development of repetitive pulsed power generators gives the pulsed steamer corona discharges a chance of success in the removal of NO_x and SO₂. In this paper, the experimental results of NO_x and SO₂ removal by a repetitive pulse power generator are described. The actual flue gas at a thermal power plant was used. It is shown that about 90% of the NO was removed at a flow rate of 0.8 liters/min and a repetition rate of 7 pps. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 134(4): 28–35, 2001     

Clinical application of single-shot echo-planar diffusion-weighted imaging with compressed SENSE in prostate MRI at 3T: preliminary experience

Magnetic Resonance Materials in Physics, Biology and Medicine - Image quality (IQ) of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with single-shot echo-planar imaging (ssEPI) suffers from low signal-to-noise...     

Temporal-Talbot-effect-based preprocessing for pattern-effect reduction in all-optical clock recovery using a semiconductor-optical-amplifier-based fiber ring laser

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the temporal-Talbot-effect (TTE)-based preprocessing for the pattern-effect reduction in the all-optical clock recovery using a semiconductor-optical-amplifier (SOA)-based fiber ring laser (SOA-FRL). The TTE-based preprocessing successfully reduced the pattern effects of the recovered clock pulses, so that the 10-GHz clear optical clock pulses were recovered from a 10-Gbit/s return-to-zero on–off keying (RZ-OOK) pseudo-random bit sequence (PRBS) optical signal. “Peak variation” and “Pattern-dependent intensity noise (PDIN)” were proposed and were utilized as parameters to quantitatively evaluate the pattern effects, from which recovered clock pulses suffer, in the temporal domain and the frequency domain, respectively. Peak variation was reduced from 77.2% to 36.2%, and PDIN was improved from ?103 dBc/Hz to ?110 dBc/Hz with the aid of the TTE-based preprocessing. Furthermore, we examined the tolerance of the proposed technique by intentionally deviating the input signal’s bit-rate by ±190 Mbit/s (±2% of the bit-rate) from the optimum condition for the TTE. As compared with the PDIN value for the pulse train obtained by the direct injection of the non-processed signal into the SOA-FRL, the PDIN of the recovered clock pulses using the preprocessed signal indicated improvements over the entire measurement range of ±190 Mbit/s, which corresponds to the wavelength-dispersion deviation of ±56 ps/nm (±4% of the wavelength-dispersion applied to the input signal) from the optimum value.