Noninvasive online measurement of particle size and concentration in liquid–particle mixture by estimating equivalent circuit of electrical double layer

ABSTRACT

Three electrical elements (i.e., resistance, capacitance, and relaxation frequency) of electrical double layer (EDL) formed around particles have been extracted by a measuring–fitting combination for a novel noninvasive online measurement technique of particle size and concentration in a liquid–particle mixture. The measuring–fitting combination means measuring the impedances with electrical-impedance spectroscopy (EIS) method, and fitting the equivalent circuit with Levenberg–Marquardt method. The liquid–particle mixture in the impedance measurement is made of sodium chloride solution and stainless particles; the equivalent circuit is established corresponding to the contents in the liquid–particle mixture. As a result, the influence of the particle size and concentration on the electrical elements in the EDL which are the resistance, capacitance, and relaxation frequency in the EDL are clarified and discussed. This method is useful for determination of the particle size and concentration in liquid–particle mixture.     

Addition of Aliskiren to Angiotensin Receptor Blocker Improves Ambulatory Blood Pressure Profile and Cardiorenal Function Better than Addition of Benazepril in Chronic Kidney Disease

An altered ambulatory blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) profile is related to chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiorenal syndrome. In this study, we examined the effects of aliskiren, when added to angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers, on ambulatory BP and cardiorenal function in CKD. Thirty-six hypertensive CKD patients were randomly assigned to the aliskiren add-on group (n = 18) or the benazepril add-on group (n = 18). Ambulatory BP and cardiorenal function parameters were measured at baseline and 24 weeks after treatment. Compared with the benazepril group, nighttime systolic BP variability in the aliskiren group was lower after treatment. Albuminuria was decreased in the aliskiren group, but not in the benazepril group. In addition, left ventricular mass index (LVMI) was significantly lower in the aliskiren group than in the benazepril group after treatment. In the aliskiren group, multivariate linear regression analysis showed an association between changes in albuminuria and changes in nighttime systolic BP. Furthermore, there were associations between changes in LVMI and changes in daytime HR variability, as well as between changes in LVMI and changes in plasma aldosterone concentration. These results suggest that aliskiren add-on therapy may be beneficial for suppression of renal deterioration and pathological cardiac remodeling through an improvement that is effected in ambulatory BP and HR profiles.     

SOME CRITERIA OF SPRAY DRYER DESIGN FOR FOOD LIQUID

Abstract

Spray drying has many applications for a wide variety of dried food powders. The quality of spray dried food is quite dependent on the atomization characteristics and the heat and mass transfer on drops inside the spray dryer. This paper deals with some design criteria of the spray dryer such as the atomizer, the drop trajectory and the heat/mass transfer between the drop and the drying air.     

A Room‐Temperature Ferroelectric Ferromagnet in a 1D Tetrahedral Chain Network

Ferroelectricity occurs in crystals with broken spatial inversion symmetry. In conventional perovskite oxides, concerted ionic displacements within a 3D network of transition‐metal–oxygen polyhedra (MO_x) manifest spontaneous polarization. Meanwhile, some 2D networks of MO_x foster geometric ferroelectricity with magnetism, owing to the distortion of the polyhedra. Because of the fundamentally different mechanism of ferroelectricity in a 2D network, one can further challenge an uncharted mechanism of ferroelectricity in a 1D channel of MO_x and estimate its feasibility. Here, ferroelectricity and coupled ferromagnetism in a 1D FeO₄ tetrahedral chain network of a brownmillerite SrFeO_2.5 epitaxial thin film are presented. The result provides a new paradigm for designing low‐dimensional MO_x networks, which is expected to benefit the realization of macroscopic ferro‐ordering materials including ferroelectric ferromagnets.     

Linear Thermal Expansion Coefficient of Silicon from 293 to 1000 K

As a part of the program to establish a thermal expansion standard, the linear thermal expansion coefficients of single-crystal silicon have been determined in the temperature range 293 to 1000 K using a dilatometer which consists of a heterodyne laser Michelson interferometer and gold versus platinum thermocouple. The relative standard deviation of the measured values from those calculated from the best least-squares fit was 0.21%. The relative expanded uncertainty in the measurement was estimated to be 1.1 to 1.5% in the temperature range, based upon an analysis of thirteen standard uncertainties. The present data are compared with the data previously obtained by similar dilatometers and the standard reference data for the thermal expansion coefficient of silicon, recommended by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA). The present data are in good agreement with the most recently reported data but not with the earlier high-temperature data used to evaluate the standard reference data, which suggests a need for the reevaluation of the standard reference data for the thermal expansion coefficient of silicon at temperatures above 600 K.     

Extended SPRT for structural change detection of time series based on a multiple regression model

It is important to detect a structural change in a time series quickly as a trigger to remodeling the forecasting model. The well-known Chow test has been used as the standard method for detecting change, especially in economics. However, we have proposed the application of the sequential probability ratio test (SPRT) for detecting the change in single-regression modeled time-series data. In this article, we show experimental results using SPRT and the Chow test when applied to time-series data that are based on multiple regression models. We also clarify the effectiveness of SPRT compared with the Chow test in its ability to detect change early and correctly, and its computational complexity. Moreover, we extend the definition of the point at which structural change is detected with the SPRT method, and show an improvement in the accuracy of change detection.     

Transverse zero sound in superfluid3He-B

The dispersion of the transverse zero sound in superfluid³He-B in the colisionless limit is studied theoretically. The dispersion is most easily understood as due to strong coupling between two distinct modes; the original zero-sound mode which is present in normal liquid and the collective mode with energy gap _t (T) proportional to (T), the temperature-dependent energy gap.Work supported by the National Science Foundation.     

Handwritten digit recognition: benchmarking of state-of-the-art techniques

This paper presents the results of handwritten digit recognition on well-known image databases using state-of-the-art feature extraction and classification techniques. The tested databases are CENPARMI, CEDAR, and MNIST. On the test data set of each database, 80 recognition accuracies are given by combining eight classifiers with ten feature vectors. The features include chaincode feature, gradient feature, profile structure feature, and peripheral direction contributivity. The gradient feature is extracted from either binary image or gray-scale image. The classifiers include the k-nearest neighbor classifier, three neural classifiers, a learning vector quantization classifier, a discriminative learning quadratic discriminant function (DLQDF) classifier, and two support vector classifiers (SVCs). All the classifiers and feature vectors give high recognition accuracies. Relatively, the chaincode feature and the gradient feature show advantage over other features, and the profile structure feature shows efficiency as a complementary feature. The SVC with RBF kernel (SVC-rbf) gives the highest accuracy in most cases but is extremely expensive in storage and computation. Among the non-SV classifiers, the polynomial classifier and DLQDF give the highest accuracies. The results of non-SV classifiers are competitive to the best ones previously reported on the same databases.