Adsorption characteristics of SO2 on activated carbon prepared from coconut shell with potassium hydroxide activation

The adsorption characteristics of SO2 were studied with KOH-impregnated granular activated carbon (K-IAC). To confirm selective SO2 adsorptivity of K-IAC using a fixed bed adsorption column, experiments were conducted on the effects of KOH and of linear velocity, temperature, and concentration. In addition, changes in features before and after adsorption were observed by utilizing FTIR, XRD, ToF-SIMS, and AES/SAM, examining the surface chemistry. K-IAC adsorbed 13.2 times more SO2 than did general activated carbon (GAC). The amount of SO2 adsorbed increased as linear velocity and concentration increased and as temperature decreased. At lower temperature, the dominant reaction between KOH and SO2 produces K2-SO3 and H2O. Any H2O remaining on the surface is converted into H2SO4 as SO2 and O2 are introduced. Then, the KOH and SO2 reaction produces K2SO4 and H2O. The surface characterization results proved that adsorption occurred through chemical reaction between KOH and SO2. The SO2 adsorbed K-IAC exists in the form of stable oxide crystal, K2SO3 and K2SO4, due to potassium. The basic feature given to the surface of activated carbon by KOH impregnation was confirmed to be acting as the main factor in enhancing SO2 adsorptivity.     

Software sensor for on-line estimation of the microbial activity in activated sludge systems

This paper considers the design of a software sensor (or soft-sensor) for the on-line estimation of the biological activities of a colony of aerobic micro-organisms acting on activated sludge processes, where the carbonaceous waste degradation and nitrification processes are taken into account. These bioactivities are intimately related to the dissolved oxygen concentration. Two factors that affect the dynamics of the dissolved oxygen are the respiration rate or the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) and the oxygen transfer function (K(l)a). These items are challenging topics for the application of recursive identification due the nonlinear characteristic of the oxygen transfer function, and to the time-varying feature of the respiration rate. In this work, OUR and the oxygen transfer function are estimated through a software sensor, which is based on a modified version of the discrete extended Kalman filter. Numerical simulations are carried out in a predenitrifying activated sludge process benchmark and the obtained results demonstrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed methodology, which should provide a valuable tool to supervise and control activated sludge processes.     

Sequencing and functional analysis of the Hansenula polymorpha genomic fragment containing the YPT1 and PMI40 genes

A 6.0 kb genomic DNA segment was isolated by its ability to rescue the temperature-sensitive growth defect and the hypersensitivity to sodium deoxycholate of a spontaneous vanadate-resistant mutant derived from Hansenula polymorpha DL-1. The genomic fragment contains four open reading frames homologous to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genes YPT1 (which codes for a GTP-binding protein; 75% amino acid identity), PMI40 (encoding phosphomannose isomerase; 61% identity), YLR065c (30% identity) and CST13 (28% identity). The H. polymorpha YPT1 homologue (HpYPT1) was found to be responsible for the complementation of the temperature-sensitive phenotype and the sodium deoxycholate sensitivity of the mutant strain. Disruption of the H. polymorpha PMI40 homologue (HpPMI40) resulted in the auxotrophic requirement for D-mannose. The heterologous expressions of HpYPT1 and HpPMI40 were able to complement the temperature-sensitive phenotype of S. cerevisiae ypt1-1 mutant and the mannose auxotrophy of S. cerevisiae pmi40 null mutant, respectively, indicating that the H. polymorpha genes encode the functional homologues of S. cerevisiae YPT1 and PMI40 proteins. The nucleotide sequence has been submitted to GenBank under Accession No. AF454544.     

Novel method for driving the ultrasonic motor

This paper reports a novel driving method for an annular plate-type ultrasonic motor. Instead of the direct current/alternating current (DC/AC) converter type driver using a conventional electromagnetic transformer, a compact disc-type piezoelectric transformer is used to obtain a high voltage output for driving the ultrasonic motor. The piezoelectric transformer is operated in the radial vibration mode at resonance frequency close to the resonance frequency of the ultrasonic motor. Later, it was found that the piezoelectric transformer could drive the ultrasonic motor, even if their resonance frequencies are not exactly the same by incorporating a matching network in the circuit. The maximum speed of the ultrasonic motor obtained by using this driving method is over 300 rpm. It is believed that the results of this study will have impact on the integration and miniaturization of the ultrasonic motor and its driving circuit.     

Hyaluronic acid and silver sulfadiazine-impregnated polyurethane foams for wound dressing application

Five different kinds of PU foam wound dressings were prepared to investigate their wound healing capability. They include (i) PU+silver sulfadiazine (AgSD), (ii) PU+alginate (Al), (iii) PU+Al+AgSD, (iv) PU+hyaluronic acid (HA), and (v) PU+HA+AgSD. Physical properties and in vitro behaviors of AgSD release and fibroblast adhesion on those dressings were evaluated. From the drug release and fibroblast adhesion studies, it was observed that PU foam impregnated with both HA and AgSD shows good drug release behavior and low adhesion of the cells. Furthermore, the HA and AgSD-containing PU foam showed excellent wound healing effect without any inflammation or yellow cluster. The wound size decreased around 77% after 1 week application of that foam dressing onto a rat skin defect.     

Interfacial reactions for the non-stoichiometric TiB x /(100)Si system

In order to evaluate the interfacial reactions in the TiB _x /(100)Si system and the thermal stability of non-stoichiometric TiB _x films (0 B/Ti 2.5), TiB _x /Si samples prepared by a co-evaporation process were annealed in vacuum at temperatures between 300 and 1000°C. The solid phase reactions were investigated by means of sheet resistance, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy, and stress measurement. For TiB _x samples with a ratio of B/Ti 2.0, an apparent structural change is not observed even after annealing at 1000°C for 1 h. For samples with a ratio of B/Ti < 2.0, however, there are two competitive solid phase reactions: the formation of a titanium silicide layer at the interface and the formation of a stoichiometric TiB₂ layer at the surface, indicating the salicide process. The sheet resistance and the film stress in the Ti/Si and TiB _x /Si systems are well explained by the solid phase reactions.     

Development of a kinetic basis for bioavailability of sorbed naphthalene in soil slurries

The degradation of naphthalene in soil-slurry systems was studied using four different organisms and two soils. Organisms with zero-order, first-order, and Michaelis-Menten rates were selected. The soils had substantially different sorption distribution coefficients. Sorption and desorption was evaluated in abiotic soil-slurry systems. The desorption process was described by a model that accounts for equilibrium, rate-limited and non-desorbing sites. Biodegradation parameters were measured in soil-extract solutions. Bioavailability assays, inoculated soil slurries, were conducted and both liquid- and sorbed-phase naphthalene concentrations were measured over time. For the less sorptive soil, the results could be explained by sequential desorption and degradation processes. For the other soil, enhanced degradation was clearly observed for the organisms with first-order and Michaelis-Menten rates. Several explanations are explored for these observations including direct sorbed-phase degradation and the development of elevated substrate concentrations at the organism/sorbent interface. No enhancement was found for the organism with zero-order kinetics.     

Sampling and analysis of particles generated in contact start/stop-mode of a hard disk drive by using a particle sampler

Particle contamination must be controlled to increase the storage capacity of a hard disk drive (HDD) as the flying height of the slider decreases. In the primary steps of particle contamination control, particles are precisely detected and analyzed. To carry out these steps, many researchers have used sampling methods. In this paper, we newly designed a particle sampler and evaluated the performance of the sampler. This sampler can collect particles by the applied electric field, by the impaction of particles, and by Brownian diffusion onto the sampling plate. We tested the performance of our sampler in terms of the parameters that affect the sampling efficiency of the particle sampler; sampling airflow rate, particle size, and externally applied electric field. The maximum sampling efficiency of unipolarly charged particles whose sizes ranged from 50 to 400 nm was about 90%. Also, we sampled particles generated during 20 contact start/stop cycles (CSS) of the HDD by using the particle sampler and analyzed the sampled particles by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The SEM images showed that the sizes of the particles decreased and the number of sampled particles increased as the disk rotational speed increased. The AES spectrum showed that the sampled particles were composed of P, C, Ni and Al, which are the components of the disk materials. Therefore, we believed that the generated particles originated from the disk surface. To determine the overall sampling efficiency of the particle sampler, particles generated in the HDD were counted at the inlet and outlet of the sampler. The overall sampling efficiency increased with increasing applied voltage and disk rotational speed. The maximum overall sampling efficiency of the particles generated in the HDD was about 70% when the applied voltage and disk rotational speed were 0.5 kV and 9,600 rpm, respectively.     

Rollover-free navigation for a mobile agent in an unstructured environment.

This paper introduces a navigation method for a teleoperated mobile agent (or robot) moving in an unstructured environment that includes unknown obstacles and uneven terrain, based on a guided-navigation algorithm (GNA) and a rollover-prevention algorithm (RPA). Although the mobile agent is primarily driven by an operator at a remote site, it reacts autonomously for avoiding collision with obstacles and for preventing rollover when it suspects/detects possible collision or rollover. The autonomous reactive motion is normally unexpected, thus there exists the inconsistency between the intended motion and the controlled motion of the agent from the operator. A force-reflection technique utilizing a force-feedback joystick is developed to manipulate this inconsistency. To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed navigation method, experiments with the Robot for Hazardous Application-Double Tracks (ROBHAZ-DT) (actual mobile agent) are successfully carried out.     

A high performance backoff protocol for fast execution of composite web services

Using web services to expose applications over the Internet is now a widely accepted practice. Currently, there are several ongoing efforts that provide ways to effectively compose web services distributed across different organizations. One of the problems underlying the deployment of such composite services on the web, however, is service co-allocation that arises when a composite service needs to ensure all the required component services to be available for execution at the same time. Motivated by this, this paper presents a new decentralized protocol, named web service co-allocation protocol (WSCP), which can facilitate fast execution of composite web services. The proposed framework is an enhancement of the famous two phase commit protocol through the incorporation of tentative hold phase as well as the employment of a new high performance backoff protocol developed to better address the dynamics of the service co-allocation problem. The simulation results show that the proposed approach yields significant improvements over existing protocols.