A new recovery process of carbon dioxide from alkaline carbonate solution via electrodialysis

Bipolar membrane electrodialysis is applied to CO₂ recovery from alkaline carbonate solution. CO₂ in flue gas is captured by an alkaline hydroxide absorbing solution to form an alkaline carbonate solution. The captured CO₂ is recovered from the alkaline carbonate solution via bipolar membrane electrodialysis, and the alkaline solution is regenerated simultaneously. To reduce the power requirement for CO₂ recovery, this study considers optimal design and operation. Three membrane arrangements were compared, and the results indicate the membrane arrangement comprising a bipolar membrane and cation exchange membrane is the most energy saving. With further optimization of operation conditions, the minimum power requirement for CO₂ recovery was reduced to 2.1 MJ/kg‐CO₂ (or 2.1 GJ/t‐CO₂). © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009     

One-Dimensional Phonon State of 4He Films Adsorbed in Straight Nanopores

We have studied heat capacities of ⁴He adsorbed in straight nanopores 1.8, 2.2, and 2.8 nm in diameter. Heat capacities of the ⁴He fluid film on the solid layer at 0.08–0.4 K show power laws close to T in 1.8 nm pores, close to T ² in 2.8 nm pores, and a crossover from T to T ² with increasing temperature in 2.2 nm pores. These heat capacities are explained by a model assuming a phonon dispersion with continuous one-dimensional (1D) states in the axial direction and discrete energy levels in the azimuthal direction. By fitting experimental data to the model, the phonon velocity along the pore axis and the energy gap for propagation in the cross section are derived. At temperatures sufficiently lower than the energy gap, where the thermal wave length of phonons is much longer than the effective pore diameter, the ⁴He fluid films show a T-linear heat capacity of 1D phonons propagating only along the pore axis. At higher temperatures, a 1D-2D crossover of phonons occurs.      

On the pseudo-freeness and the CDH assumption

The notion of pseudo-free group was first introduced by Hohenberger (Master’s thesis, EECS Dept., MIT, 2003). Rivest (TCC 2004. LNCS 2951, 505–521, 2004) formalized it and showed that several standard cryptographic assumptions hold on pseudo-free groups, such as the RSA assumption, the strong RSA assumption and the discrete logarithm assumption. Rivest (TCC 2004. LNCS 2951, 505–521, 2004) also proposed some variations of pseudo-free group, and those were formalized by Hirano and Tanaka (Research Reports, Series C: Computer Science, C-239, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2007). In this paper, we study the relationships among such variations of pseudo-free group. We show that the pseudo-freeness implies the weak pseudo-freeness, and that the pseudo-freeness is equivalent to the pseudo-freeness with generalized exponential expressions. We also show that the computational Diffie-Hellman assumption holds on pseudo-free groups in a slightly varied form.     

Feature extraction by supervised independent component analysis based on category information

Independent component analysis (ICA) is a technique of transforming observation signals into their unknown independent components; hence, ICA has often been applied to blind signal separation problems. In this application, it is expected that the obtained independent components extract essential information of independent signal sources from input data in an unsupervised fashion. Based on such characteristics, ICA is currently utilized as a feature extraction method for images and sounds for recognition purposes. However, since ICA is an unsupervised learning, the obtained independent components are not always useful in recognition. To overcome this problem, we propose a supervised approach to ICA using category information. The proposed method is implemented in a conventional three‐layered neural network, but its objective function to be minimized is defined not only for the output layer but also for the hidden layer. The objective function consists of the following two terms: one evaluates the kurtosis of hidden unit outputs and the other evaluates the error between output signals and their teacher signals. The experiments are performed using several standard datasets to evaluate performance of the proposed algorithm. It is confirmed that a higher recognition accuracy is attained by the proposed method as compared with a conventional ICA algorithm. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 161(2): 25–32, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20522     

A new blind deconvolution algorithm based on the probability distribution method

Blind deconvolution is a method of recovering transmitted signals from only received signals. The probability distribution method is one of the blind deconvolution methods. This method has two problems: it has slower convergence and its reliability is lower. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm for solving these two problems. The proposed algorithm is as follows. (1) It is based on the adaptive processing with each sample. (2) Kurtosis is adaptively estimated by recovered signals with each sample. (3) Cost function is decided by kurtosis. (4) Transmitted signals are recovered by received signals using decided cost function on the sample time. We confirm the validity of the new algorithm by computer simulation. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 162(1): 56–65, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20317     

Synthesis of soluble poly(9,10-dihydrophenanthrene-2,7-diyl)s. A new class of luminescent poly(p-phenylene)s with ethylene type bridges

Poly(9,10-dihydrophenanthrene-2,7-diyl)s with -OSi(R)₂(R′) groups at the 9,10-positions were synthesized by dehalogenative polycondensation of the corresponding monomers by using a zerovalent nickel complex. They showed number average molecular weights (M_n's) of 9800-69,000 and high quantum yields (62%-quantitative) in photoluminescence. Palladium catalyzed copolymerization of 2,7-dibromo-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene having -OCH₃ or -OSi(R)₂(R′) groups at the 9,10-positions with diethynyl- or diboronic-aromatic compounds also gave photoluminescent polymers with high quantum yields.     

Stochastic model predictive braking control for heavy-duty commercial vehicles during uncertain brake pressure and road profile conditions

When heavy-duty commercial vehicles (HDCVs) must engage in emergency braking, uncertain conditions such as the brakepressure and road profile variations will inevitably affect braking control. To minimize these uncertainties, we propose acombined longitudinal and lateral controller method based on stochastic model predictive control (SMPC) that is achieved viaChebyshev–Cantelli inequality. In our method, SMPC calculates braking control inputs based on a finite time prediction thatis achieved by solving stochastic programming elements, including chance constraints. To accomplish this, SMPC explicitlydescribes the probabilistic uncertainties to be used when designing a robust control strategy. The main contribution of thispaper is the proposal of a braking control formulation that is robust against probabilistic friction circle uncertainty effects.More specifically, the use of Chebyshev–Cantelli inequality suppresses road profile influences, which have characteristicsthat are different from the Gaussian distribution, thereby improving both braking robustness and control performance againststatistical disturbances.Additionally, since theKalman filtering (KF) algorithm is used to obtain the expectation and covarianceused for calculating deterministic transformed chance constraints, the SMPC is reformulated as a KF embedded deterministicMPC. Herein, the effectiveness of our proposed method is verified via a MATLAB/Simulink and TruckSim co-simulation.     

3He Melting Pressure Measurements in High Magnetic Fields

Experimental methods and preliminary results of high-precision measurements of the ³ He melting curve in high magnetic fields have been described. The purpose of this work is twofold. One is to establish a reliable millikelvin temperature scale in high fields (T 10 mK, B 15 T), The other is to investigate a high field region of the magnetic phase diagram of solid ³ He by measuring the melting pressure down to temperatures below 1 mK. Besides the two superfluid transitions, the phase transition temperatures between the spin ordered solid and the paramagnetic solid, T _HFP , were determined at B = 12 and 10 T with good accuracy, which is an extension of previous measurements up to 8 T. The present T _HFP (B) line can not be scaled to that at a higher density with a single Grüneisen parameter, indicating a variation of density dependencies of the multiple-spin exchange interactions.