Feasibility of palm‐biodiesel fuel for a direct internal reforming solid oxide fuel cell

The feasibility of a direct internal reforming (DIR) solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) running on wet palm‐biodiesel fuel (BDF) was demonstrated. Simultaneous production of H₂‐rich syngas and electricity from BDF could be achieved. A power density of 0.32 W cm^?2 was obtained at 0.4 A cm^?2 and 800 °C under steam to carbon ratio of 3.5. Subsequent durability testing revealed that a DIR‐SOFC running on wet palm‐BDF exhibited a stable voltage of around 0.8 V at 0.2 A cm^?2 for more than 1 month with a degradation rate of approximately 15 % / 1000 h. The main cause of the degradation was an increase in the ohmic resistance. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Polymerization of β-lactoglobulin and bovine serum albumin at oil-water interfaces in emulsions by transglutaminase

Polymerization of β-lactoglobulin and bovine serum albumin at the oil—water interfaces in n-tetradecane-in-water emulsions induced by the transglutaminase reaction was studied. The emulsions were incubated with transglutaminase for various times, and adsorbed and unadsorbed protein fractions at the oil—water interfaces were analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate—polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. While only monomers were detected in the unadsorbed fractions, polymers were observed in the adsorbed fractions of the both proteins. The sizes and amounts of the polymers increased with incubation time. The incubation with transglutaminase caused much flocculation of the emulsion stabilized by β-lactoglobulin. An increase in viscosity was also observed with the flocculation. The flocculation was probably initiated by the formation of ε-(γ-glutamyl)-lysyl isopeptide bonds between β-lactoglobulin molecules adsorbed on different oil droplets. In the case of the emulsion stabilized by bovine serum albumin, however, the flocculation and the increase in viscosity occurred to only limited extents by the transglutaminase reaction. This suggests that ε-(γ-glutamyl)-lysyl isopeptide bonds induced by the transglutaminase reaction were formed only between neighboring molecules of bovine serum albumin on the same droplet.     

Noncentrosymmetric phase of submicron NaNbO<Subscript>3</Subscript> crystallites

The temperature and pressure characteristics of a noncentrosymmetric crystal modification of NaNbO₃ were studied by Raman spectroscopy. A transition towards the bulk-like structure of NaNbO₃ occurs in the temperature range from 280 to 360 °C. High-pressure Raman spectroscopy revealed successive pressure-induced phase transitions at around 2, 6.5 and 10 GPa. Raman scattering profiles recorded above 7 GPa correspond to those reported for the bulk. The temperature-induced spectral changes were completely reversible between −150 and 450 °C. Those induced by pressure were almost reversible from ambient pressure up to 15.9 GPa. Piezoresponse force microscopy demonstrated the occurrence of piezoelectric activity for submicron NaNbO₃ crystals with particle size ranging from 200 to 400 nm. The noncentrosymmetric crystallographic structure plays a critical role for the enhancement of piezoelectricity.     

Recent Advances in Communication and Internet Technology

Telecommunication Systems -     

A Small-Corpus-Based Approach to Alice's Roles

This paper is a case study for examining how a small-corpus-basedapproach can contribute to research in stylistics. Specifically,we have built small corpora of the two Alice books and retrieved,using WordSmith Tools suite, first, verbs of saying and theiradverbials to elucidate how Alice speaks to others in the stories,and secondly, modifiers of ‘Alice’ to get the imagesof the main character. An analysis of these data reveals thatAlice's role in each book is quite distinct: an unexpected visitorthrown into the passive state in Wonderland and an active explorerin Looking-Glass. These findings objectively serve to reinforceour argument over what Alice is called through the perusal ofthe texts. Alice's roles in the two books are thus interactivelysupported by the small-corpus-based approach and the non-corpus-basedapproach, which may explore the validity of the interfaced approach,the collaborative work of quantitative processing and qualitativespeculation.     

A dynamic multicast routing satisfying multiple QoS constraints

In this paper we propose a QoS‐based routing algorithm for dynamic multicasting. The complexity of the problem can be reduced to a simple shortest path problem by applying a Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) service discipline. Using a modified Bellman–Ford algorithm, the proposed routing builds a multicast tree, where a node is added to the existing multicast tree without re‐routing and satisfying QoS constraints. With user defined life‐time of connection this heuristic algorthm builds multicast tree which is near optimum over the whole duration of session. Simulation results show that tree costs are nearly as good as other dynamic multicast routings that does not consider QoS. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Identifying rotation and oscillation in surface tension measurement using an oscillating droplet method

We proposed a new approach to identify the frequencies of droplet rotation and m=±2 oscillation that degrade the accuracy of surface tension measurement by an oscillating droplet method. Frequencies of droplet rotation and m=±2 oscillation can be identified by a phase unwrapping analysis of time dependence of the deflection angle for the maximum diameter of the droplet image observed from above. The present method was validated, using test data with given frequencies. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 37(7): 421–430, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20214     

A Study on the Distances of Small Mobile Robot Moves towards Infants

In recent years, it is remarkable that various robots are being developed, and the development of robot technology is beginning to be taken into an actual living space. There are still many questions that we will have to answer for the harmonization of living together with a robot. This study is focused on ＂the study of how to plan and design a living space in harmonizing with robots＂, and focused on the effects of infants （subjects） along with the distance between robots and themselves. The study is to seek for the minimum distance for the subjects who felt that ＂I do not want a robot to be any closer being approached to me＂. This experiment was conducted among 30 infants at the kindergarten, utilizing a small experimental robot. A small robot whose dimension is 120 mm （W） ×130 mm （D） × 70 mm （H）, approaching infants as is to see if it would make any differences to the infant＇s reactions.