Development of an efficient page-turning mechanism for automated teller machines

 This paper describes an efficient page-turning mechanism for automated teller machines (ATMs). Conventional page-turning mechanisms are more complicated than the new mechanism that we have developed. The validity of the concept was confirmed using a newly-developed simulator the new mechanism. The mechanism concept is that a friction roller with a hollow elastic structure absorbs considerable structure deformation and produces optimal page turning force as a result. The simulation results we obtained demonstrated that the concept was good enough to provide an efficient page-turning mechanisms, and consequently designed a prototype of the mechanism and conducted experiments on it. The experimental results showed that the new page-turning mechanism is three times as fast as and has one twenty-fifth the failure rate of a conventional page-turning mechanism. Received: 14 November 2001/Accepted: 26 March 2002     

Confidence Limits for Redundant-System Availability

s-Confidence limits are established for the Availability of a standby redundant system (1-out-of-N:G system) for both hot and cold spares consisting of several identical units and repair facilities. The failure and repair rates of the units are s-independent, constant, and estimated from test data.     

Distribution and structures of nanopores in YSZ-TBC deposited by EB-PVD

Distribution and arrangement of nanopores in an YSZ (7 wt% Y₂O₃–ZrO₂)-thermal barrier coating (TBC) deposited by an electron beam-physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) have been investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy. The YSZ-TBC deposited by the EB-PVD showed a typical columnar structure normal to the bond coat surface on the substrate. It has been generally believed that one column is a single crystal and grows continuously from the substrate. In the present study, however, it was found that each column consisted of a number of subcolumns with different misorientations and contained nanopores at the subcolumn boundaries. In addition to the nanopores at the subcolumn boundaries, nanopores with smaller size were observed within subcolumns, and were arranged periodically perpendicular to the growth direction of the subcolumns. Such arrangement and distribution of nanopores may be due to the misorientation of YSZ plate-like grains in the formation and coalescence processes of the YSZ subcolumns.     

Spin Wave Resonances in GaMnAs

Ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements were carried out on a series of GaMnAs thin films with different thicknesses grown by low temperature molecular beam epitaxy. Clear spin wave resonances were observed in addition to FMR when the applied magnetic field was perpendicular to the film plane. The spin wave spectra show a nearly linear dependence of the resonance mode positions on the mode number, suggesting that the magnetization profile of the GaMnAs films is not uniform in the growth direction. A first-order analysis of these effects is presented along with the experimental data.     

Characteristics of phase-matched sum-frequency light in optical fibres

Characteristics of phase-matched sum-frequency light in optical fibres is investigated to determine the input power dependence and fibre length dependence. The output power at 0.54 ?m increases in proportion to the square root of the input power, increasing almost exponentially with increases in the fibre length from 4 m to 17 m and becoming nearly constant above 17 m.     

Intergranular lithium penetration of low-Ni,Cr-Mn Austenitic stainless steels

Several commercial low-Ni, Cr-Mn austenitic stainless steels containing nitrogen as austenite stabilizer were exposed in static tests to pure Li at 873 K for times up to 6000 hours. All materials showed a penetration of high-angle grain boundaries by Li. The phenomenon was studied by secondary ion mass spectrometry and Auger electron analysis. Carbides which formed at the grain boundaries were examined by transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction and X-ray microanalysis.     

10 Gbit/s, 100 km nonrepeatered fibre transmission experiment using a high-sensitivity semiconductor optical preamplifier

10 Gbit/s, 100 km nonrepeated fibre transmission has been demonstrated using a high-sensitivity receiver with two-stage cascade-connected semiconductor optical amplifiers and a pin PD front end. The sensitivity and its improvement were -23.5 dBm and 12.2 dB respectively, resulting in the allowable span-loss of 24.5 dB.<>     

ZnO/SiO2-diaphragm composite resonator on a silicon wafer

We report on a thickness-extensional-mode piezoelectric resonator consisting of a ZnO/SiO2 diaphragm supported by a silicon wafer. It is found that the temperature coefficient of frequency can be reduced to zero by adjusting the ZnO/SiO2 thickness ratio. A temperature coefficient of frequency as low as 10 ppm/°C was experimentally obtained.     

Supersolidity and Disorder in Solid Helium 4

Supersolidity is a rather controversial issue which has been revived recently by a number of torsional oscillator (ac-rotation) experiments with solid helium 4. One possibility would be that the ground state of helium 4 crystals contains a Bose-Einstein condensate of mobile vacancies. However, the supersolid signal was shown to depend on sample history. In addition, dc-flow experiments show that superfluid transport of mass does not occur in solid helium, except if it contains appropriate grain boundaries. As a consequence, we believe that supersolidity is not an intrinsic property of helium single crystals, but that it is due to quenched disorder. We report experiments on pressure relaxation in and light scattering from solid samples, that give additional evidence for the existence of disorder in helium crystals. We also describe our recent study of the wetting properties of grain boundaries.