Voltammetric study of electrocatalysis for dioxygen reduction by trinuclear rutheniumammine complex confined in a polymer membrane

Electrocatalytic O₂ reduction was studied using a modified electrode coated with a Nafion membrane (Nf) dispersing a trinuclear ruthenium ammine complex ([(NH₃)₅Ru^IIIORu^IV(NH₃)₄ORu^III(NH₃)₅]Cl₆, Ru-red). When measuring cyclic voltammogram under O₂ atmosphere (at 0.5 mV s⁻¹), catalytic currents due to O₂ reduction were found to develop below −0.2 V (vs. Ag/AgCl). Since Ru-red undergoes irreversible decomposition into the mononuclear complexes via the reduced state (Ru^III-Ru^III-Ru^III) (∼−0.1 V), it is suggested that the electrocatalysis originates from the decomposed species (initial active species: Ru^II(NH₃)₅(OH₂) and Ru^II(NH₃)₄(OH₂)₂) rather than from the Ru-red. Although the present electrocatalyst was also applied to H₂O₂ reduction system, the catalytic activity was found to be poor from the voltammetric behavior. It appeared that the kinetics of the electrocatalysis is much faster in the O₂ reduction than in the H₂O₂ one. A selective and direct catalysis for O₂ reduction into H₂O was suggested from a ring-disk voltammogram to take place by an aggregate of the mononuclear ruthenium complexes in the polymer matrix. In addition, it was found that electrocatalytic O₂ reduction involves a slow kinetic process, so that factors affecting the overall kinetics were discussed in terms of the catalysis mechanism.     

Dependence of self-heating effects on operation conditions and device structures for polycrystalline silicon TFTs

Self-heating, a degradation mechanism of n-channel poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) due to bias stress, has been investigated. The aim of this work is to study this effect in depth to be able to propose a device structure designed to reduce it. The variation of the threshold voltage (V/sub t/) shift with the stress-pulsewidth is related to the temperature rise due to the self-heating effect that depends on the stress-pulsewidth. Electron trapping in the oxide caused by the bias stress is considered to be enhanced by the TFT temperature rise owing to the self-heating. We show that copper-film-based TFTs, which have a substrate made of an extremely thin glass layer and a copper film exhibit much reduced self-heating and thus a decrease of V/sub t/ shift caused by the bias stress. These observations are interpreted using numerical simulations to estimate the temperature rise in the poly-Si channel region due to Joule heating.     

Novel screen technology for high‐contrast front‐projection display by controlling ambient‐light reflection

Abstract— One problem with front‐projection displays is that the screen contrast ratio decreases in bright ambient light. In this paper, we propose a new front‐projection display system that incorporates the control of reflection of ambient light in the screen design, providing a high contrast ratio even in a brightly lit room.     

Role of number of consecutive voltage zero-crossings in propagation of water trees in polyethylene

Effects of superposition of a low-frequency (0.1 to 50 Hz) voltage and a high-frequency 2 kHz voltage on the growth of water trees in polyethylene are examined. It has become clear that both the number of total voltage zero-crossings during the whole voltage application period and the number of consecutive voltage zero-crossings in the instant of the polarity reversal of the low-frequency voltage play important roles in the length and shape of water trees. Namely, the water tree length becomes longer as the number of total zero-crossings increases. Furthermore, among the voltages with the same number of total zero-crossings, the length becomes even longer with a prolonged shape in the direction of electric field as the number of consecutive zero-crossings increases. Effects of superposition of a high-frequency voltage onto a dc voltage are also examined. In this case, the dc voltage seems not to have any influence to the tree growth. By assuming the presence of space charge around the water-tree tip, the effective zero-crossings become only sensitive to the high-frequency component. Therefore, this result also indicates that the number of voltage reversals at the tree tip plays a crucial role in the growth of water trees.     

Bending Behavior of Steel Pipe Girders Filled with Ultralight Mortar

Bending behavior of steel pipes filled with ultralight mortar was studied by bending tests using a steel pipe, steel pipes filled with ultralight mortar, and steel pipes filled with light aggregate concrete and normal concrete. The steel pipe model filled with normal concrete had 1.8 times higher bending strength than the steel pipe model. The bending behavior of the steel pipe filled model with ultralight mortar was not improved when the compressive strength of the ultralight mortar was less than 1 MPa. However, ductility was much improved when the compressive strength was over 5 MPa, and the ultimate steel strain was more than double of the steel pipe model. The strains of steel and concrete in all the models were proportional to the distance from the neutral axis until the steel plate yielded. A simple analytical method was proposed to calculate the bending moments of the ultralight mortar filled steel pipes. The calculated values agreed very well with the test results.     

Frequency characteristics of stiffness and damping effect of ferro fluid bearing

Damping characteristics and frequency characteristics of ferro fluid bearing (FFB) spindles were measured using a high-frequency vibration base driven by a piezo actuator. Using the high-frequency vibration base, high-frequency excitation was added to ferro fluid bearing spindles mounted on the vibration base, and it was proved that ferro fluid bearing spindles have effective damping. And the damping effect became larger with higher spindle rotational speed. Also we have measured spindle runout of a ferro fluid bearing spindle using a lock-in amplifier to increase S/N ratio and succeeded to measure nano meter order displacements.     

Phase transformation and interface segregation behavior in Si3N4 ceramics sintered with La2O3–Lu2O3 mixed additive

Microstructure and mechanical property of silicon nitride (Si₃N₄) ceramic are strongly dependent on the selection of sintering additives. When rare‐earth (RE) oxide is used as the sintering additive, segregation of RE ions at interface between Si₃N₄ grain and intergranular glassy film (IGF) is believed to play a critical role. Although the ionic radius of RE ion is known to be an empirical parameter to modify the mechanical property, the correlation between the segregated ions and their ionic radii is still under controversy. In order to address this issue, (i) rate of α‐β phase transformation and (ii) segregation behavior at the interface were studied for Si₃N₄ ceramics sintered using mixture of La₂O₃ and Lu₂O₃ as additives in this study. Specimens of Lu content 30% and higher exhibited lower activation energies for the α‐β phase transformation as compared with those of Lu content 20% and lower. In terms of the segregation behavior, La was preferably segregated at one site and Lu at the other site along β‐Si₃N₄/IGF interface in the specimens of Lu content 30% and higher. It is understood from these results that Lu segregation site should be more closely related with grain growth.     

Attribute-based quality classification of academic papers

Investigating the relevant literature is very important for research activities. However, it is difficult to select the most appropriate and important academic papers from the enormous number of papers published annually. Researchers search paper databases by combining keywords, and then select papers to read using some evaluation measure—often, citation count. However, the citation count of recently published papers tends to be very small because citation count measures accumulated importance. This paper focuses on the possibility of classifying high-quality papers superficially using attributes such as publication year, publisher, and words in the abstract. To examine this idea, we construct classifiers by applying machine-learning algorithms and evaluate these classifiers using cross-validation. The results show that our approach effectively finds high-quality papers.