Effect of axial reflector on radial uniformity in neutron transmutation doping of silicon

Significant axial variation of radial uniformity is observed in Si-ingot neutron transmutation doping in the flux screening method, and leads to non-uniform resistivity distribution for a certain part of Si-ingot. This axial variation of radial uniformity is caused by the installation of a partial neutron screen which decreases the reaction rates differently in the center and surface at the region not surrounded by the partial neutron screen. For the improvement of the specific distribution of radial uniformity in the axial direction, a new concept of axial reflector is introduced to partly change the reaction rate at a certain region of Si-ingot, and neutron irradiation experiments are carried out at the heavy water neutron irradiation facility in the Kyoto University Research Reactor. Based on the experimental and numerical results, the new axial reflector is proved to be effective for improving the axial variation of radial uniformity.     

Preparation of Ultrafine SiC Particles by Gas Evaporation

A new method for preparing ultrafine powder of SiC is proposed. A carbon rod is mounted vertically with a block of silicon at the bottom of the system. The apparatus is held in rarefied inert gas and heated by an electric current. The SiC produced by the heating then evaporates forming a smoke, the particles of which are β–SiC <100 nm in diam.     

Experiments and Predictions of Soil Desaturation by Air-Injection Technique and the Implications Mediated by Multiphase Flow Simulation

Measures preventing an earthquake-induced soil liquefaction are of significant importance to mitigate the liquefaction hazards. An air-injection technique may be a simple, inexpensive method - this leads the saturated soils to the desaturated by injecting pressurized air, resulting in a higher liquefaction strength and lower susceptibility. The objective of this study is to investigate the evolution of desaturation process during air injection into saturated soil deposits and verify the validity of a multiphase flow simulator if it is capable of being applied for predicting the process as well as the distribution of degree of saturation after the air injection ceased. In this study simplified model tests that simulate the air injection into saturated soils using air-injection probes, are conducted using two different sizes of soil containers. The experiments using the small container are aimed to examine the nominal rates and magnitudes of the soil desaturation driven by air injection, whilst those with the large container are performed to obtain not only the rates and magnitudes but also the distributions of the desaturated zones within the soil. The results obtained indicate, although clearly depending on the physical properties of targeted soils, that the evolution of desaturation is strongly controlled by the air pressures injected and the soil permeabilities. Numerical analyses are also conducted using a multiphase flow simulator to describe the evolution of the soil desaturation, and to examine the applicability of the model as a prediction tool enabling an evolution of desaturation in situ to be followed with time and space. Predictions show a relatively good agreement with the experimental measurements regarding the rates, magnitudes, and distribution of desaturation specifically for the small-container experiments although predictions of desaturated domain slightly overestimate the measurements for the large-container experiments. Thus, this study indicates that the numerical model described is applicable to field problems when the soil properties in terms of flow transport are well-constrained.     

Large-Scale Shake Table Experiment and Numerical Simulation on the Nonlinear Behavior of Pile-Groups Subjected to Large-Scale Earthquakes

This paper describes the results of large-scale shake-table experiments involving a 3×3 pile-group. The pile-group was embedded in dry sand and subjected to sinusoidal waves and an earthquake motion recorded from the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake. The load transfer between soil and pile was derived and the group effect was captured. Numerical simulations were also performed using a Beam-on-Nonlinear-Winkler-Foundation approach with a new hysteretic p-y curve. A comparison of the experimental and numerical results revealed that the numerical simulation is capable of accounting for the soil-pile interaction observed in the experiment.     

Detection of moving object by mobile stereo omnidirectional system (SOS)

Moving object detection with a mobile image sensor is an important task in robotics and computer vision, when considering the practical use of robotics in human environments. In this paper, we propose a robust method that detects moving objects in the environment using the omnidirectional depth information obtained by a mobile Stereo Omnidirectional System (SOS). In order to detect only the moving objects within the depth image that are obtained by a sensor in motion, we first estimate the ego‐motion of the sensor, and generate a predicted depth image for the current time from the depth obtained at the previous time by only considering the ego‐motion of the sensor. Then the predicted depth image is compared with the actual one obtained at the current time, and the inconsistent regions are detected as moving objects. When the sensor moves, occlusions will occur in the scene and they will cause false detections. However, these false detections can be suppressed by estimating the occlusion regions using the ego‐motion parameters of the sensor and the jump edges in the depth image. The effectiveness of the method is shown with experimental results for a real environment. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 152(3): 29–38, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20155     

Feature extraction of one‐step‐ahead daily maximum load with regression tree

In this paper, a new efficient feature extraction method is proposed to handle the one‐step‐ahead daily maximum load forecasting. In recent years, power systems become more complicated under the deregulated and competitive environment. As a result, it is not easy to understand the cause and effect of short‐term load forecasting with a bunch of data. This paper analyzes load data from the standpoint of data mining. By it we mean a technique that finds out rules or knowledge through large database. As a data mining method for load forecasting, this paper focuses on the regression tree that handles continuous variables and expresses a knowledge rule as if‐then rules. Investigating the variable importance of the regression tree gives information on the transition of the load forecasting models. This paper proposes a feature extraction method for examining the variable importance. The proposed method allows to classify the transition of the variable importance through actual data. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 156(2): 43–51, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20104     

Ring-chain competition kinetics in the system glycerol/adipic acid

The spanning tree model' (utilising Gaussian-flight statistics) for the kinetics of simultaneous ring-chain competition in linear and branched polycondensation reactions has been extended by the use of the path weighting method of cascade statistics to the system glycerol/adipic acid. In this system there is no single fixed increment in ring sizes as more units are added to the ring-closing path, since a glycerol unit incorporated through the reaction of its two primary hydroxyls contributes a longer increment to the path length than when one primary and one secondary hydroxyl are involved. A computational method has been developed to count, as the reaction proceeds, the mean number of paths of all lengths available for forming a cycle back to a given root functionality, with each path receiving the correct Gaussian weight according to its length.