An approach to establishing a method for calculating inventory

In periodic review inventory systems, inventory is classified into cycle stock and safety stock. Cycle stock is defined as inventory that absorbs differences between supply and demand frequencies. It can be calculated without deficiency or excess because a method has been established for ensuring that the minimum on-hand inventory during a periodic review is zero. Safety stock is defined as inventory that absorbs various differences between supply and demand. Unlike for cycle stock, a method for calculating safety stock without deficiency or excess remains to be established. An approach is proposed to establishing a method for calculating inventory in which inventory is classified on the basis of the holding purpose and the calculation factors indicate solutions. This approach was applied to inventory held to absorb, on the basis of fluctuations in demand, the difference in terms of time and quantity between supply and demand. Stock held for this purpose is referred to as ‘fluctuation stock’. The objective is to establish a method for calculating fluctuation stock so that the minimum on-hand inventory during a periodic review is zero and to clarify the relationship between fluctuation stock and safety stock.     

Symbol emergence in robotics: a survey

Humans can learn a language through physical interaction with their environment and semiotic communication with other people. It is very important to obtain a computational understanding of how humans can form symbol systems and obtain semiotic skills through their autonomous mental development. Recently, many studies have been conducted regarding the construction of robotic systems and machine learning methods that can learn a language through embodied multimodal interaction with their environment and other systems. Understanding human?-social interactions and developing a robot that can smoothly communicate with human users in the long term require an understanding of the dynamics of symbol systems. The embodied cognition and social interaction of participants gradually alter a symbol system in a constructive manner. In this paper, we introduce a field of research called symbol emergence in robotics (SER). SER represents a constructive approach towards a symbol emergence system. The symbol emergence system is socially self-organized through both semiotic communications and physical interactions with autonomous cognitive developmental agents, i.e. humans and developmental robots. In this paper, specifically, we describe some state-of-art research topics concerning SER, such as multimodal categorization, word discovery, and double articulation analysis. They enable robots to discover words and their embodied meanings from raw sensory-motor information, including visual information, haptic information, auditory information, and acoustic speech signals, in a totally unsupervised manner. Finally, we suggest future directions for research in SER.     

Terpolymer films having semipolar structure: Preparation,wettability, and mechanical properties

A terpolymer, obtained by the free‐radical terpolymerization of 2‐(N,N‐dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMMA), methyl methacrylate(MMA), and isobutyl methacrylate (IBMA), was allowed to react with hydrogen peroxide, chloroacetic acid, and diethyl sulfate to form the corresponding modified terpolymers: (1) N,N‐dimethyl‐N‐(2‐methacryloyloxyethyl)amine N‐oxide, MMA and IBMA (DMANO series); (2) N‐(carboxymethyl)‐N,N‐dimethyl‐ N‐(2‐methacryloyloxyethyl)ethyl ammonium, MMA and IBMA (CDME series); and (3) N‐(ethyl)‐N,N‐dimethyl‐N‐(2‐methacryloyloxyethyl)ethyl ammonium ethylsulfonate, MMA and IBMA (EDMEES series), respectively. The terpolymer compositions were determined using ¹³C NMR spectrometry. Surface free energies of the terpolymers were estimated by measuring the contact angles of water and methylene iodide on the three series films (DMANO, CDME, and EDMEES), and the effect of the N‐oxide group on wettability was discussed. It was found that the upper surface of the films for the DMANO and CDME series are more hydrophobic than that for the EDMEES series. Notably, elongation to break for the DMANO series was relatively larger than that for the CDME series because of the water bound to the N‐oxide functional group. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 1235–1243, 2005     

Spatial distribution of the charged particles and potentials during beam extraction in a negative-ion source

We report on the characteristics of the electronegative plasma in a large-scale hydrogen negative ion (H(-)) source. The measurement has been made with a time-resolved Langmuir probe installed in the beam extraction region. The H(-) density is monitored with a cavity ring-down system to identify the electrons in the negative charges. The electron-saturation current decreases rapidly after starting to seed Cs, and ion-ion plasma is observed in the extraction region. The H(-) density steps down during the beam extraction and the electron density jumps up correspondingly. The time integral of the decreasing H(-) charge density agrees well with the electron charge collected with the probe. The agreement of the charges is interpreted to indicate that the H(-) density decreasing at the beam extraction is compensated by the electrons diffusing from the driver region. In the plasmas with very low electron density, the pre-sheath of the extraction field penetrates deeply inside the plasmas. That is because the shielding length in those plasmas is longer than that in the usual electron-ion plasmas, and furthermore the electrons are suppressed to diffuse to the extraction region due to the strong magnetic field.     

The Pressure Coefficients of the Superconducting Order Parameters at the Ground State of Ferromagnetic Superconductors

We investigated the pressure coefficients of the superconducting order parameters at the ground state of ferromagnetic superconductors based on the microscopic single band model by Linder et al. The superconducting gaps (i) similar to the ones seen in the thin film of A2 phase in liquid ³He and (ii) with the line node were used. This study shows that we would be able to estimate the pressure coefficients of the superconducting and magnetic order parameters at the ground state of ferromagnetic superconductors.     

Evaluation of the ability of the hydrophobic nanoparticles of SiO2 in the EOR process through carbonate rock samples

More than 50% of oil remains in reservoirs after primary and secondary recovery processes. Consequently, methods of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) should be applied for more recovery from these reservoirs. In this study the ability of hydrophobic nanoparticles of sio₂ in EOR process through carbonate rock samples is studied. By employing hydrophobic nanosilica, we can lower interfacial tension between oil and nanofluid and then reduce the mobility ratio between oil and nanofluid in carbonate reservoirs; however, nanosilica can increase the viscosity of water exponentially. To evaluate this goal, core displacement experiment for carbonate core is conducted. These experiments are performed on the carbonate samples saturated with oil and brine that had got injected with nanosilica with six different concentrations. Investigating the outcomes shows that by rising nanoparticle concentration, the IFT between water and oil phases decreases and yields in decrease the mobility ratio between oil and nanofluid. For this, we measure the recovery level in different states of using 0.05, 0.1, 0.1, 0.15, 0.3, 0.6, 1.0, and 0 concentration of the nanoparticle. The outcomes achieved from our experiments reveals that employing hydrophobic nanosilica could increases the oil recovery factor.     

Importance of Translation–Replication Balance for Efficient Replication by the Self‐Encoded Replicase

In all living systems, the genetic information is replicated by the self‐encoded replicase (Rep); this can be said to be a self‐encoding system. Recently, we constructed a self‐encoding system in liposomes as an artificial cell model, consisting of a reconstituted translation system and an RNA encoding the catalytic subunit of Qβ Rep and the RNA was replicated by the self‐encoded Rep produced by the translation reaction. In this system, both the ribosome (Rib) and Rep bind to the same RNA for translation and replication, respectively. Thus, there could be a dilemma: effective RNA replication requires high levels of Rep translation, but excessive translation in turn inhibits replication. Herein, we actually observed the competition between the Rib and Rep, and evaluated the effect for RNA replication by constructing a kinetic model that quantitatively explained the behavior of the self‐encoding system. Both the experimental and theoretical results consistently indicated that the balance between translation and replication is critical for an efficient self‐encoded system, and we determined the optimum balance.     

Chemical-Labeling-Assisted Detection of Nucleobase Modifications by Quantum-Tunneling-Based Single-Molecule Sensing

Quantum-tunneling-based DNA sensing is a single-molecule technique that promises direct mapping of nucleobase modifications. However, its applicability is seriously limited because of the small difference in conductivity between modified and unmodified nucleobases. Herein, a chemical labeling strategy is presented that facilitates the detection of modified nucleotides by quantum tunneling. We used 5-Formyl-2′-deoxyuridine as a model compound and demonstrated that chemical labeling dramatically alters its molecular conductance compared with that of canonical nucleotides; thus, facilitating statistical discrimination, which is impeded in the unlabeled state. This work introduces a chemical strategy that overcomes the intrinsic difficulty in quantum-tunneling-based modification analysis—the similarity of the molecular conductance of the nucleobases of interest.     

The quadratic finite element thermal analysis of silicon irradiated by a pulsed KrF excimer laser

The melting and solidification process of crystalline silicon (c-Si) sample flashed by a pulsed KrF excimer laser is studied numerically. The dynamics of pulsed nanosecond laser melting process is simulated by the solution of the one-dimensional heat conduction equation. The quadratic finite element method (FEM) is applied to solve the equation. This method is based upon a higher order FEM with a smaller error and allowing faster convergence to the exact solution. The surface temperatures obtained by the quadratic FEM are in good agreement with the exact solutions. In addition to this, the temperature-dependent optical and thermal properties of the irradiated c-Si have been taken into account and the calculated results are compared with the experimental data published.