The rise of community wind power in Japan: Enhanced acceptance through social innovation

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the socio-economic dynamics that are brought about by renewable energy technologies. We call this dynamic “Social Innovation” as it changes the rules of risk–benefit distribution and the roles of social actors. For this purpose, we take up a typical case in Japan, community wind power in which the initial cost is funded by the investment of citizens. Through this case study, we examine how the citizens’ initiative can affect the social acceptance of renewable energy as well as social change. Based on interviews with those involved in these projects, we analyze the interests of the various actors involved in community wind power projects in a framework of “actor network theory”, which enables us to understand the detail of each actor's position. This study also involved a quantitative survey of investors. The case study clarified that there was a remarkable difference in the interests of the main actors in the community wind power projects, the networks are complex and actors share various interests such as economic interests and a sense of social commitment, participation and contribution. These incentives are also clarified in quantitative data. However, the variety of incentives differs in each project.     

Bird detection and species classification with time‐lapse images around a wind farm: Dataset construction and evaluation

Collisions of birds, especially endangered species, with wind turbines is a major environmental concern. Automatic bird monitoring can be of aid in resolving the issue, particularly in environmental risk assessments and real‐time collision avoidance. For automatic recognition of birds in images, a clean, detailed, and realistic dataset to learn features and classifiers is crucial for any machine‐learning‐based method. Here, we constructed a bird image dataset that is derived from the actual environment of a wind farm and that is useful for examining realistic challenges in bird recognition in practice. It consists of high‐resolution images covering a wide monitoring area around a turbine. The birds captured in these images are at relatively low resolution and are hierarchically labeled by experts for fine‐grained species classification. We conducted evaluations of state‐of‐the‐art image recognition methods by using this dataset. The evaluations revealed that a deep‐learning‐based method and a simpler traditional learning method were almost equally successful at detection, while the former captures more generalized features. The most promising results were provided by the deep‐learning‐based method in classification. The best methods in our experiments recorded a 0.98 true positive rate for bird detection at a false positive rate of 0.05 and a 0.85 true positive rate for species classification at a false positive rate of 0.1.     

Carbon-13 NMR spectroscopic analysis of 24-methyl-Δ5,22-sterols in rape and mustard seed oils

24-Methylcholesta-5,E-22-dien-3β-ol (C₂₈ Δ^5,22-sterol) was separated from the unsaponifiable matters of the following eight seed oils of Brassica species:Brassica campestris (candle I and II and torch),B. napus (tower and midas),B. juncea (brown and oriental mustards), andB. alba (yellow mustard). The configuration at C-24 methyl group of the respective sterols was evaluated by¹³C NMR spectroscopy. All the C₂₈ Δ^5,22-sterols in the Brassica seed oils were found to contain the C-24 epimer of brassicasterol,trans-22-dehydrocampesterol, in the range of ca. 10–30%.     

Safety and Environmental Activities for ITER

This paper will summarize highlights of the safety approach and discuss the ITER EDA safety activities. The ITER safety approach is driven by three major objectives: (1) Enhancement or improvement of fusion's intrinsic safety characteristics to the maximum extent feasible, which includes a minimization of the dependence on dedicated safety systems; (2) Selection of conservative design parameters and development of a robust design to accommodate uncertainties in plasma physics as well as the lack of operational experience and data; and (3) Integration of engineered mitigation systems to enhance the safety assurance against potentially hazardous inventories in the device by deploying well-established nuclear safety approaches and methodologies tailored as appropriate for ITER.     

Preparation of CdS thin films by electrodeposition: effect of colloidal sulfur particle stability on film composition

CdS thin films of about 1 m thickness were deposited from an aqueous solution containing Cd²⁺, Na₂S₂O₃ and gelatin as the protective colloid to stabilize the size of colloidal sulfur at from 30 to 40 nm and keep the concentration to an appropriate value during electrolysis. The effects of concentrations of Cd²⁺ and S₂O₃ ^2– ions and the deposition potential on the composition of CdS films were studied. The reaction mechanism of CdS film formation on the electrode is discussed. CdS film, whose composition is uniform across the film and which does not contain excess metallic cadmium, can be deposited from a solution containing 0.50 to 2.00 mM Cd(NO₃)₂, 1.00 to 5.00 mM Na₂S₂O₃ and 1.0 × 10^–7 to 1.0 × 10^–3 wt % gelatin.     

New Thermodynamic Data for Liquid Aluminum-Magnesium Alloys from emf,Vapor Pressures,and Calorimetric Studies

Experimental thermodynamic studies of liquid Al-Mg alloys have been performed by several methods resulting in: (1) Mg activities from galvanic cells with liquid electrolytes at temperatures from 910 to 1070 K, at X_Mg = 0.1 to 0.7 and for the dilute range when X_Mg = 0.0126 to 0.1430 at 927 K; (2) Mg activities from the emf method with solid CaF2 electrolyte at temperatures 921 to 1093 K, with concentrations XMg = 0.05 to 0.9; (3) Mg activities from vapor pressure measurements (Knudsen effusion method) at temperatures ranging from 722 to 1188 K, at X_Mg = 0.0424 to 0.8885. Vapor pressures of pure solid Mg at temperatures 674 to 851 K. In addition, liquidus temperatures for Mg- and Al-rich alloys were obtained; and (4) Partial and integral enthalpies from reaction calorimetry at 1023 K, starting from pure Mg bath at concentrations, X_Al = 0.066 to 0.499, and starting from pure Al bath at X_Mg = 0.522 to 0.906. The mutual consistency of these four sets of data was analyzed. New results together with the selected thermodynamic information reported in literature were optimized to describe the liquid phase with the Redlich-Kister equation, as a preliminary step for phase diagram calculations of the Al-Mg system.     

Nucleotide sequences and characterization of genes encoding naphthalene upper pathway of pseudomonas aeruginosa PaK1 and Pseudomonas putida OUS82

A 12,808-nucleotide containing DNA fragment cloned from naphthalene-utilizing (Nah+) Pseudomonas aeruginosa PaK1 was analyzed and compared with the genes (pah(OUS)) of a 14,462-nucleotide DNA fragment from Pseudomonas putida OUS82. The DNA sequence analyses demonstrated that the naphthalene upper-pathway genes and their deduced enzymes were very similar between the two bacteria: nucleotide similarities, 83-93%; amino acid similarities, 79-95%. These genes were also similar to those of the nah operon of plasmid NAH7; in particular, the OUS82 genes were similar to the nah genes, whereas the PaK1 genes were almost identical to the dox genes of Pseudomonas sp. C18. A region homologous with the 84-bp repeated sequence that Eaton (J. Bacteriol., 176, 7757-7762, 1994) has found at a site upstream of he nah operon was found only in a region downstream of the pah(PaK) gene cluster in PaK1 and on both sides of the pah(OUS) gene cluster in OUS82. A PaK1 gene, corresponding to an unknown gene (nahQ) in the nah operon, is located between the 1,2-dihydroxynaphthalene dioxygenase gene and the trans-o-hydroxybenzylindenepyruvate (tHBP A) hydratase-aldolase gene (nahE), and was suggested to be involved in the conversion of naphthalene to salicylate. Just downstream of the pah(PaK) gene cluster, a portion of a region was identical to one-third of the transposase gene (tnpA) in a phenol-catabolic plasmid pEST1226.     

Stabilization of entrapped catalase using photo‐crosslinked resin gel for use in wastewater containing hydrogen peroxide

Catalase immobilized using photo‐crosslinkable resin was applied to treatment of wastewater containing a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide. The structure of photo‐crosslinked resin gel was stable even in the acceleration test of concentrated hydrogen peroxide for a long period. Accordingly, the most important subject of this process was maintaining long term catalase activity. The stabilization of immobilized catalase was investigated by modifying gel carriers with some prepolymers and functional monomers, and adding some stabilizing materials without modification of catalase itself. But these gel carriers did not improve the stability beyond 20%. Addition of Tween 80, polyoxyethylene (5) sorbitan monooleate (hydrophilic/lipophilic balance, HLB: 10.0), to catalase was most effective for maintenance of the activity when the enzyme was immobilized in hydrophilic photo‐crosslinked resin, resulting in 80% of its initial activity. It was assumed that this surfactant did not influence the permeation of hydrogen peroxide into gel, but acted as a stabilizer for catalase in the gel carrier. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry     

Tensile test of poly(vinyl chloride) filled with ground calcium carbonate particles

The fracture behavior of poly(vinyl chloride) filled with ground calcium carbonate particles during a tensile test was studied. The particles were prepared by crushing natural raw crystalline limestone. For this purpose, 10–50 parts of the particles having two different mean sizes (2 and 8 μm) without further surface treatment were mixed with 100 parts of poly(vinyl chloride) and 3 parts of lead stearate as a stabilizer using a mixing roll. A tensile test was carried out using a dumbbell specimen. As a result, the yield stress decreased with increase in the particle content; however, there was no significant influence of particle size. From scanning electron microscopic observations of the specimen's surfaces during the tensile test, it was found that the particle/matrix interfaces were delaminated and formed voids around the particles when the applied stress approached the yield stress, that is, the particles acted as voids and the matrix around the voids was plastically deformed effectively. These observations appear to be the reason for the decrease of yield stress by the incorporation of the particles. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 70: 311–316, 1998     

A three-phase voltage-source neutral-point-clamped converter with divided capacitors

A new method for reducing harmonics involved in ac line currents of a three-phase voltage-source converter is proposed. It is applied to the conventional neutral-point-clamped inverter. By dividing a smoothing capacitor into four elements and adding four auxiliary switching devices, the input line-to-line voltages of the proposed converter can be made to have almost the same waveforms as a conventional 18-phase rectifier with 18 devices and three input transformers. In this paper, circuit performance and input voltage waveforms are discussed, and the optimum parameters are determined. Effects of harmonic reductions can be clarified by theoretical results. We suggest several output voltage adjustment methods. Characteristics of power factors and distortion factors in these methods are theoretically and experimentally investigated. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 121(2): 72–82, 1997