Quantitative measurement of hard x-ray spectra for high intensity laser produced plasma

X-ray line spectra ranging from 17 to 77 keV were quantitatively measured with a Laue spectrometer, composed of a cylindrically curved crystal and a detector. Either a visible CCD detector coupled with a CsI phosphor screen or an imaging plate can be chosen, depending on the signal intensities and exposure times. The absolute sensitivity of the spectrometer system was calibrated using pre-characterized laser-produced x-ray sources and radioisotopes. The integrated reflectivity for the crystal is in good agreement with predictions by an open code for x-ray diffraction. The energy transfer efficiency from incident laser beams to hot electrons, as the energy transfer agency for specific x-ray line emissions, is derived as a consequence of this work.     

A theoretical discussion on the foundation of Stone??s blind source separation

This paper discusses the theoretical foundation of Stone’s BSS (Stone in Neural Comput 13:1559–1574, 2001; Stone in Independent Component Analysis: A Tutorial Introduction, A Bradford Book, London, 2004), and it proposes a novel BSS approach based on second-order statistics of the responses of two different linear filters to source signals. The proposed approach which includes Stone’s BSS as a special case helps us to understand how generalized eigenvalue decomposition (GEVD) concludes separating vectors in Stone’s BSS. It obtains the separating vectors by simultaneous diagonalization of covariance matrices of two different linear filters responses to the mixtures. The two employed linear filters are selected dependent on source signals structures under the assumption that they have different responses to source signals. Here, two FIR filters with coefficients selected in an opposite probabilistic way have been suggested for the proposed BSS. The proposed BSS method has been compared with Stone’s BSS, SOBI and AMUSE over speech and image mixtures in different noise levels.     

Effects of coal rank and reaction conditions upon coprocessing coal with waste tyre

It is well known that the amount of waste tyre increases every year, and a numerous amount of waste tyre is landfilled or dumped all over the world, which causes environmental problems, such as destruction of natural places and the risk of fires. Coprocessing waste tyre and coal is considered as one of the effective processing methods of both materials. Upon coprocessing lower rank coal (Wyoming, C; 68%) with waste tyre, the synergistic effects to upgrading, such as the increase of oil yield and the decrease of residue yield, were appeared. However, the synergistic effects were not observed on coprocessing two kinds of higher rank coals with waste tyre. The reactions of coal with benzophenone were carried out to discuss the hydrogen donatability of coal. Conversion of benzophenone to diphenylmethane on the reaction with Wyoming coal was higher than those of higher rank coals. Accordingly, it was considered that the synergistic effects to upgrading upon coprocessing Wyoming coal with waste tyre were obtained owing to the enhancement of stabilization of radicals from tyre and Wyoming coal through the hydrogen donation from both tyre and Wyoming coal. The effects of reaction temperature and the amount of solvent upon coprocessing Wyoming coal with waste tyre were also discussed in this study.     

Improvement of sensing characteristics of self‐sensing active magnetic bearings

A winding‐current interference model of self‐sensing magnetic bearings (AMBs) and an improvement technique of position‐sensing characteristics are proposed. In the self‐sensing AMB systems, the electromagnets work not only as actuators suspending the rotor but also as position sensors. The self‐sensing position signal, however, includes errors because of nonlinearity of the magnetic circuits. In the proposed model, the current is directly transmitted to the self‐sensing position signal. This transmission means degradation of the self‐sensing characteristics. This winding‐current interference to the self‐sensing signal is reduced by the proposed compensation method. The characteristics of the proposed self‐sensing method agree well with a reference sensor signal up to over 1 kHz. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 166(2): 70– 77, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20732 Copyright © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Motion coordination algorithm for distributed agents in the cellular warehouse problem

A distributed approach is shown to coordinate the motions of transport tables for the cellular warehouse problem. In this approach, the tables are considered to be autonomous agents, and a built-in behavior function given by artificial neural networks (ANNs) and the evolved problem-oriented connection weights navigate the agents to their specified goals. To determine the agent to be moved, a measure of the priority to move is introduced. We show that distributed agents with the learned behavior function and the negotiation value perform a similar strategy to a “serializable” solution forN-puzzle problems, which provides a good heuristic strategy for large-scale problems. This work was presented, in part, at the Sixth International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo, Japan, January 15–17, 2001     

Cardiac surgery by the safe and easy insertion method with the J-shaped left ventricular vent catheter

A 24-year-old white man had a six-month history of nontender nodules on the dorsal aspect of the right hand. The lesions were diagnosed as lymphocutaneous sporotrichosis based on clinical appearance, histopathologic examinations, and fungal culture. Therapy with itraconazole was started. Considerable improvement was recorded after two months, when all of the lesions diminished in size and were no longer nodular in appearance.     

A 16-Mb Toggle MRAM With Burst Modes

This paper describes a recently developed 16-Mb toggle magnetic random access memory (MRAM). It has 100-MHz burst modes that are compatible with a pseudo-SRAM even though the toggle cell requires reading and comparing sequences in write modes. To accelerate operating clock frequency, we propose a distributed-driver wide-swing current-mirror scheme, an interleaved and pipelined memory-array group activation scheme, and a noise-insulation switch scheme. These circuit schemes compensate the toggle cell timing overhead in write modes and maintain write-current precision that is essential for the wide operational margin of MRAMs. Because toggle cells are very resistant to write disturbance errors, we designed the 16-Mb MRAM to include a toggle MRAM cell. The MRAM was fabricated with 0.13-mum CMOS and 0.24-mum MRAM processes with five metal layers.     

Oxidative stabilities of triacylglycerol and phospholipid fractions of cooked Japanese sardine meat during low temperature storage

Changes in triacylglycerols (TAG) and phospholipids (PL) compositions of cooked Japanese sardine meats as such or with prior addition of ethylene diaminetetracetic acid (EDTA) or a combination of nitrite and ascorbate were evaluated during chilled storage using gas chromatography and selected ion monitoring gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The TAG molecular species compositions remained unchanged, while certain species of PL molecular species changed during storage at 2 °C for 14 days. The PL containing polyunsaturated fatty acids were highly susceptible to autoxidation. The PL fractions play an important role in oxidative rancidity and development of off-flavor in cooked sardine meat, while TAG fraction plays a minor role in the oxidative deterioration of the meat. Changes in peroxide and thiobarbituric acid values were also monitored. Added EDTA was not effective in controlling the decomposition of lipid hydroperoxide throughout the storage period. However, a combination of NaNO₂ and ascorbate not only suppressed the formation but also the decomposition of the primary oxidation products.