Breakdown of YBCO thin films during current limiting and methods of improving current limiting performance

We performed fault current limiting tests using YBCO thin films and investigated the reasons for their breakdown during current limiting. There were two patterns of film breakdown. One occurred immediately after current limiting and the other occurred during current limiting. In film breakdown, the quench propagation speed showed almost no change with increasing energy consumption per unit time, but the energy consumption per unit area increased with increasing energy consumption per unit time. Therefore, local areas of the film reached the melting point and arcing occurred. It is therefore concluded that the performance of the films can be improved by decreasing the energy consumption per unit time. Connecting a parallel capacitor to the film in order to limit the energy consumption per unit time is proposed and tested as a measure to improve the current limiting performance of thin films. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 166(1): 20–27, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20709     

Carbon oxidation with platinum supported catalysts

The effect of the support oxide, Pt precursor and reactant gas composition on the catalysis of soot oxidation was investigated using carbon black as a model soot and simulated exhaust gases. The Pt precursors used were Pt(NH₃)₄(OH)₂, H₂PtCl₆·6H₂O, Pt(NH₃)₄(NO₃)₂, and Pt(NH₃)₄Cl₂. The support metal oxides used were SiO₂, Al₂O₃, and ZrO₂. Pt/SiO₂ prepared from Pt(NH₃)₄(OH)₂ showed the highest carbon oxidation activity. It had much higher activity in the condition of N₂+O₂+H₂O+NO+SO₂ than without NO and SO₂.     

Burning velocity measurement of fluorinated compounds by the spherical-vessel method

Burning velocity has been measured using the spherical-vessel (SV) method for four hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), i.e., difluoromethane (HFC-32), 1,1,2-trifluoroethane (HFC-143), 1,1,1-trifluoroethane (HFC-143a), and 1,1-difluoroethane (HFC-152a). Experiments were conducted for initial pressures in the range 78-108 kPa and initial temperatures in the range 280-330 K, over wide ranges of HFC-air equivalence ratios. The burning velocities were determined from the rate of pressure increase by applying a spherical-flame propagation model. Flame propagation behavior was observed in a cylindrical vessel equipped with optical windows by employing schlieren photography. It was found that the values of burning velocity derived from the spherical-vessel method are in good agreement with the ones obtained with schlieren method. It is found that the SV method is adequate for determining the burning velocity for weakly flammable HFCs as well as for moderately flammable compounds. The burning velocity of each HFC was obtained as a function of temperature, pressure, and equivalence ratio. The maximum burning velocities of HFC-32, HFC-143, HFC-143a, and HFC-152a were determined to be 6.7, 13.1, 7.1, and 23.6 cm s⁻¹, respectively. The maximum burning velocity occurred for slightly fuel-rich concentrations. The magnitude of the burning velocity is strongly dependent on the ratio of H atoms to F atoms in the HFC molecules.     

Effect of vessel size and shape on experimental flammability limits of gases

The flammability limits of methane and propane have been measured using cylindrical vessels of various sizes and one spherical vessel. An ac discharge ignition method has been employed. For a cylindrical vessel of small diameter with a large height, the flammability limits are primarily determined by the quenching effect of the wall. For cylindrical vessels of smaller heights, the experimental flammability limits are affected by hot gas accumulation at the vessel ceiling, unburned gas heating, self heating of the incipient flame by the reflection both from walls and ceiling, and the quenching effect of the walls. If the vessel size is large enough so that all these effects become negligible, the experimental values of flammability limits may approach to the values that would be obtained in free space. In order to approach this condition for a cylindrical vessel, it is desirable to use a container at least 30 cm in diameter and 60 cm in height. For comparison purpose, the measurement has also been done using ASHRAE type 12l spherical flask.     

A non-blocking locking method and performance evaluation on network of workstations

A network of workstation(NOW) can act as a single and scalable powerful computer by building a paralle and distributed computing platform on top of it.WAKASHI is such a platform system that supports persitent object management and makes full use of resources of NOW for high perforance transaction processing,One of the main difficulties to overcome is the bottleneck caused by concurrency control mechanism.Therefore,a non-bloking locking method is designed,by adopting several novel techniques to make it outperform the other typical locking methods such as 2PL:1) an SDG (Semantic Dependency Graph)based non-blocking locking protocol for fast transaction scheduling;2) a nmassively virtual memory based backup-page undo algorithm for fast restart;and 3) a multi-processor and multi-thread based transaction manager for fast execution.The new mechanisms have been implemented in WAKASHI and the performance comparison experiments have been implemented in WAKASHI and the performance comparison experiments with 2PL and DWDL have been done.The results show that the new method can outperform 2PL and DWDL under certain conditons.This is meaningful for choosing effective concurrency control mechanisms for improving transaction-rpocessing performance in NOW environments.     

A middleware for a tabletop procedure-aware information display

In this article, we propose a middleware that supports a developer to build tabletop information display systems. We focus on an application that projects information close to a particular object on a table. To let a user focus on his/her primary task, the information is presented based on a current phase in a procedure, which we call procedure-awareness. Here, a current phase is recognized through the utilization of objects. The proposed middleware separates information from acquisition and presentation mechanisms: sensors for operational context recognition, sensors for object identification/tracking for “nearby presentation”, and projecting information near an object. A developer just needs to write a set of rules, i.e. application logic, that represent contents for particular operational contexts. Also, by implementing appropriate handlers, any content can be provided. We present the design and the implementation of the middleware and validate the expressiveness of application logics through prototype development.     

Molecular Mechanisms of Succinimide Formation from Aspartic Acid Residues Catalyzed by Two Water Molecules in the Aqueous Phase

Aspartic acid (Asp) residues are prone to nonenzymatic isomerization via a succinimide (Suc) intermediate. The formation of isomerized Asp residues is considered to be associated with various age-related diseases, such as cataracts and Alzheimer’s disease. In the present paper, we describe the reaction pathway of Suc residue formation from Asp residues catalyzed by two water molecules using the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) level of theory. Single-point energies were calculated using the MP2/6-311+G(d,p) level of theory. For these calculations, we used a model compound in which an Asp residue was capped with acetyl and methylamino groups on the N- and C-termini, respectively. In the aqueous phase, Suc residue formation from an Asp residue was roughly divided into three steps, namely, iminolization, cyclization, and dehydration, with the activation energy estimated to be 109 kJ mol⁻¹. Some optimized geometries and reaction modes in the aqueous phase were observed that differed from those in the gas phase.     

Electro-oxidation of N-hydroxy imides for redox mediator in acetonitrile containing lutidine as a base

The electrochemical properties of two N-hydroxy imides, N-hydroxymaleimide and N-hydroxysuccinimide, at a glassy carbon electrode in acetonitrile were examined by cyclic voltammetry. N-hydroxysuccinimide, which contains no olefinic linkage, indicated a chemically reversible redox response, and its ability as a mediator for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol was confirmed by rotating disk electrode voltammetry.     

Adrenergic regulation of bone metabolism: possible involvement of sympathetic innervation of osteoblastic and osteoclastic cells

It has been demonstrated that human osteoblastic as well as osteoclastic cells are equipped with adrenergic receptors and neuropeptide receptors and that they constitutively express diffusible axon guidance molecules that are known to function as a chemoattractant and/or chemorepellent for growing nerve fibers. These findings suggest that the extension of axons of sympathetic and peripheral sensory neurons to osteoblastic and osteoclastic cells is required for the dynamic neural regulation of local bone metabolism. Recently, bone resorption modulated by sympathetic stimulation was demonstrated to be associated with ODF (osteoclast differentiation factor) and OCIF (osteoclastogenesis inhibitory factor) produced by osteoblasts/stromal cells. This review summarizes the evidence implicating sympathetic neuron action in bone metabolism. The possible function of osteoclastogenesis, which could result in the initiation of sympathomimetic bone resorption, is also discussed.     

Use of Double Wash-Coatings of Platinum and Zeolite Catalysts to Improve Selective Reduction of NOx by Hydrocarbons

The selective catalytic reduction by hydrocarbons (HC-SCR) of NO _x under lean conditions has been improved by the use of double-layered catalysts with a lower layer of Pt/SiO₂ and an upper layer of a zeolite such as H-, Ce-, and Cu-ferrierite (-FER). H-FER wash-coated over Pt/SiO₂ (H-FER//Pt/SiO₂) performed best among the samples examined. The promotional effect was attributed to the synergy of the oxidation catalyst (Pt/SiO₂) in converting NO into NO₂, which is more reactive to C₃H₆, and the HC-SCR catalyst (H-FER). Cu-FER//Pt/SiO₂ was also effective at widening the temperature window, but with this combination the performance was attributed to a simple summation of the activity of two HC-SCR catalysts that were active at different temperatures.