Transmission analysis of electromagnetic induction RFID system

The transmission characteristics of the electromagnetic induction RFID systems are greatly influenced by the distance between the primary and secondary antenna coils and by the materials used in their design. In this paper the induced current of the secondary antenna coil is calculated by the 3D finite element method when both the primary and secondary antenna coils are operated in resonant circuits. The influences of the analyzed parameters on the transmission characteristics are demonstrated. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 173(4): 38–45, 2010; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21019     

Production and bond strength of similar-titanium ultrasonic welded joints

The joinability of unalloyed titanium and the bond strength of similar titanium welded joints by ultrasonic welding were investigated. It turned out that sound welded joints of similar titanium were obtained by using the jig for fixing both base metals. In the case of non-fixing and fixing the lower base metal, sound welded joints were not usually obtained due to the slip between the two base metals. Producing welded joints having sufficient bond strength required a certain threshold value of the ultrasonic energy. When the ultrasonic welding was carried out under the condition where the ultrasonic energy was higher than a threshold value (approximately 2000 W s), the welded joints were fractured within the titanium base metal but not at the interface. The values of the bond strength were associated with the fixing method and the surface roughness of the base metals. The bond interface was joined metallurgically for the most part, although some small voids were observed on the bond interface by SEM and EPMA observation.     

Quantifying wind‐driven firebrand production from roofing assembly combustion

Large outdoor fires present a risk to the built environment. Examples often in the international media reports are wildfires that spread into communities, referred to as wildland‐urban interface (WUI) fires. Other examples are large urban fires including those that have occurred after earthquakes. Firebrands are a key mechanism on how rapidly fires spread in urban fires and WUI fires. An experimental protocol has been developed to ignite full‐scale roofing assemblies and quantify the degree of firebrand production during the combustion process. As wind is an important factor in firebrand generation, the experiments were conducted under a range of wind speeds at the Building Research Institute's Fire Research Wind Tunnel Facility. A further unique aspect of this work is that the experimental results are compared to firebrand size and mass distributions collected from an actual large‐scale urban fire in Japan. Results of these experiments demonstrate that when only oriented strand board is applied as sheathing, a significant number of firebrands collected from roofing assemblies were less than 1 g and 10 cm². It was also observed that experiments on individual building component firebrand generation provided useful insights into actual urban fire firebrand generation.     

Bayesian event detection for sport games with hidden Markov model

Event detection can be defined as the problem of detecting when a target event has occurred, from a given data sequence. Such an event detection problem can be found in many fields in science and engineering, such as signal processing, pattern recognition, and image processing. In recent years, many data sequences used in these fields, especially in video data analysis, tend to be high dimensional. In this paper, we propose a novel event detection method for high-dimensional data sequences in soccer video analysis. The proposed method assumes a Bayesian hidden Markov model with hyperparameter learning in addition to the parameter leaning. This is in an attempt to reduce undesired influences from ineffective components within the high-dimensional data. Implemention is performed by Markov Chain Monte Carlo. The proposed method was tested against an event detection problem with sequences of 40-dimensional feature values extracted from real professional soccer games. The algorithm appears functional.     

An efficient execution of Monte Carlo simulation based on delta-tracking method using GPUs

An efficient execution method for Monte Carlo simulation using graphic processing unit (GPU) is proposed. The delta-tracking method is used since the delta-tracking method can reduce conditional branches and complexity of code implementation, which degrade computational performance on GPUs. In order to improve parallel efficiency in the eigenvalue calculation, generated fission neutrons are recorded using the atomic operation which avoids the data race in GPUs. We also propose a method to efficiently tally neutron flux in a region. The present method is based on the atomic operation and use of fixed-point type number instead of common floating-point type number. The verification calculations using the C5G7 benchmark problem show effectiveness of the proposed numerical algorithms on GPUs through comparison with calculations using central processing units.     

Development of optimization model for power system operation,outline of model design and verification of output

Osaka Gas Co., Ltd., jointly with NTT DATA Mathematical Systems Inc., has developed unit‐commitment model for optimizing dispatch of power generation units. Main purpose of this development is to simulate the future world of electric power system in accordance with national energy policy aiming to introduce large amount of renewable energy as well as vitalized cross‐border power exchange via PX market to enhance economically‐efficient power system operation. The model incorporates not only constraints of supply‐demand balance but also constraints of operating reserves, regulation reserves, maximum CO2‐emissions, etc.     

Loading pattern optimization for a PWR using Multi-Swarm Moth Flame Optimization Method with Predator

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to propose a new methodology for optimizing fuel loading pattern in a nuclear reactor which is important for its higher safety and economic efficiency. Previous researches have proposed various methodologies to decide better loading patterns automatically. However, the processes still require manual operations of engineers to automatically design actual loading patterns. Swarm intelligence algorithm has currently gained interest as a solution to seek the patterns. Although these methodologies generate better patterns, they sometimes struggle with getting out from local optima and fails to complete the optimization. Large and multimodal solution space sometimes captures worse solutions due to local optima. The conventional methodologies struggle with setting proper parameters to get out from local optima. This research focuses on Multi-Swarm Moth Flame Optimization with Predator (MSMFO-P), an improved Moth Flame Optimization (MFO) by applying the concepts of predator and multi-swarm, as new methodologies. The method of MSMFO-P was applied to solve a loading pattern problem and compared with the conventional optimization methods such as simulated annealing (SA), Hybrid genetic algorithm (GA), and particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results of our experimental works indicated that MSMO-P generates better loading patterns than the conventional methodologies.     

Development of a Multiphase Inactivation Model for an Advanced Oxidation Process and Uncertainty Analysis in Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment

A multiphase inactivation model of an advanced oxidation process that uses O₃/UV was developed and successfully validated with pilot-scale experiments. Using the inactivation rate constants and dispersion number estimated from the pilot-scale experiments, the inactivation efficacy of O₃/UV under full-scale conditions was predicted. Uncertainty analysis in quantitative microbial risk assessment was performed to examine the impact of the hydraulic conditions of the O₃/UV contactor. It was demonstrated that the estimation of the dispersion number in the full-scale contactor is necessary to improve the accuracy of the risk estimates.     

Influences of repetition rate of laser pulses on growth of crystalline AlN films on sapphire(0001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition

We investigated influences of a repetition frequency of laser pulses on growth of AlN crystalline films by pulsed laser deposition. The structural and morphological properties of the films were studied by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. Employment of high frequency laser pulses not only enhanced the growth of AlN crystallites, but also afforded the crystal growth at higher nitrogen pressures. Growth of α-AlN was dramatically enhanced with an increase in the laser pulse frequency, while β-AlN was grown at the high frequency of laser pulses and high nitrogen pressures.