Bonding properties of epoxy resins containing two mesogenic groups

Liquid‐crystalline epoxy resins, with introduced aliphatic chains between two mesogenic groups, were synthesized and their adhesive bonding properties were compared to those of the bisphenol‐A–type epoxy resin and the liquid‐crystalline epoxy resin, previously reported. The bonding strength of the former resin system was higher than that of the two later systems. We suggest that the high bonding strength of the twin mesogenic epoxy resins, cured with an aromatic amine, was attributable to the large plastic deformation of the adhesive layer in the fracturing process. We also investigated the effects of the aliphatic chain length in the twin mesogenic epoxy resin on their dynamic mechanical and bonding properties. The bonding strength of the cured twin mesogenic epoxy resins increased with an increase in the aliphatic chain length. We suggest that the high bonding strength of the system introduced by the long aliphatic chain was attributable to the large plastic deformation of the adhesive layer because of the higher network mobility. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 92: 3721–3729, 2004     

PACKTER: implementation of internet traffic visualizer and extension for network forensics

Traffic visualization tools help network operators to maintain awareness of the status of a network, including anomalous activities. Unfortunately, the network operator may look away from the visualizer when beginning network forensics, such as launching a terminal application, logging into a server, and analyzing log files. Thus, the eyesight of the network operator will move from the visual screen even if valuable information is displayed. Our motivation is to develop the ability to use visualization tools as a network operation console. Whereas previous tools focused on outputting packet information, we herein extend the visualizer to accept inputting for operators to start their operations. Since little such software exists for our intent, we develop PACKTER, which is able to visualize traffic based on per-packet information in real time. We also extend PACKTER to have a function of negotiating to a network forensic system, which allows the operator to select an individual packet using a mouse, to start network forensics using a keyboard, and to receive results without looking away from the PACKTER viewer.     

Finding peculiar compositions of two frequent strings with background texts

We consider mining unusual patterns from a set  \(T\) of target texts. A typical method outputs unusual patterns if their observed frequencies are far from their expectation estimated under an assumed probabilistic model. However, it is difficult for the method to deal with the zero frequency and thus it suffers from data sparseness. We employ another set  \(B\) of background texts to define a composition  \(xy\) to be peculiar if both \(x\) and  \(y\) are more frequent in  \(B\) than in  \(T\) and conversely \(xy\) is more frequent in  \(T\) . \(xy\) is unusual because \(x\) and  \(y\) are infrequent in  \(T\) while \(xy\) is unexpectedly frequent compared to  \(xy\) in  \(B\) . To find frequent subpatterns and infrequent patterns simultaneously, we develop a fast algorithm using the suffix tree and show that it scales almost linearly under practical settings of parameters. Experiments using DNA sequences show that found peculiar compositions basically appear in rRNA while patterns found by an existing method seem not to relate to specific biological functions. We also show that discovered patterns have similar lengths at which the distribution of frequencies of fixed length substrings begins to skew. This fact explains why our method can find long peculiar compositions.     

Development of oriented morphology and tensile properties upon superdawing of solution-spun fibers of ultra-high molecular weight poly(acrylonitrile)

The uniaxial drawing of UHMW-PAN fibers spun from a dilute solution into methanol coagulation baths at different temperatures and the resultant structure and tensile properties of the drawn products were studied. Although the initial morphology of the fibers and the deformation mode in a lower draw ratio (DR_t) range were significantly dependent on the temperatures of the coagulation bath, the tensile properties at a given DR_t, as well as the maximum achieved ones, were comparable. Both the tensile modulus and strength increased steadily with the DR_t and reached 35 and 1.8 GPa, respectively, at the highest DR_t of ∼80. These tensile properties are among the highest ever reported for PAN fibers. The achievement of such high tensile properties for extremely drawn fibers is ascribed to the conformational changes of crystalline chains from the 3/1 helix to the planar-zigzag with increasing DR_t, the improvement in the uniformity of the fiber diameter along the fiber axis, and the decrease in fiber diameter. Indeed, the tensile strength of fibers prepared from a dilute solution and having comparable moduli increased with a decrease in the fiber diameters. The reciprocal of the strength was proportional to the square root of the diameter as suggested by the Griffith theory. Extrapolation to a zero diameter yielded an ultimate tensile strength of 2.4±0.1 GPa for a fiber having a maximum achieved tensile modulus of 35±1 GPa.     

Latex produced with carboxylic acid comonomer for waterborne coatings: Particle morphology variations with changing pH

Carboxylic acid comonomers are often added to latex formulations to improve colloidal stability and to help control the physical structure of composite (core-shell type) particles. We have performed a systematic study of the incorporation of methacrylic acid (MAA) within styrene/butyl acrylate copolymer seed latices, and determined the eventual effect on the morphology of the composite particles when using a second-stage monomer that is either polar (MMA) or nonpolar (BMA). These latices have been produced in batch and semibatch reactions in the pH range of 3–7. At low pH, the MAA groups are not ionized, but at the higher pH they may be nearly completely ionized. Here, we report that for batch reactions carried out within the above pH range, the latex particle morphologies of the PMMA second-stage systems change dramatically with increasing pH, while those for the PBMA system do not change at all. These results show that one cannot easily generalize the effect of acid comonomers on the morphology of composite latex particles, as this depends upon the choice of the copolymers in the latex and the process characteristics of the polymerization reaction. Presented at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Federation of Societies for Coatings Technology, on October 27–29, 2004, in Chicago, IL.     

Vibration suppression for mass‐spring‐damper systems with a tuned mass damper using interconnection and damping assignment passivity‐based control

This paper considers a vibration suppression control method using feedback for a mass‐spring‐damper system with a tuned mass damper. For vibration suppression, we adopt the interconnection and damping assignment passivity‐based control, whereby the system is transformed to a system with a skyhook damper with an artificial structure matrix. The feedback law includes no accelerometer signal and uses only information on relative displacements and velocities. The proposed control method can simultaneously suppress the influences of the floor vibration and the disturbance force acting on the main body. A guideline for choosing parameters of the desired system is shown. The proposed method can be easily extended to nonlinear cases, which is demonstrated for a nonlinear‐spring case. We also show the input‐to‐state stability property of closed‐loop systems for linear cases and nonlinear cases. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reflective LCD with high reflectance and color reproducibility for reduced eye strain

We fabricated a prototype of a 434‐ppi 5.9‐in reflective liquid crystal display for use as an e‐book reader. With high‐level optical characteristics with a reflectance of 28.7% and an NTSC ratio of 37%, we achieved eye‐friendly reflective liquid crystal display.     

Two design methods of hyperparameters in variational Bayes learning for Bernoulli mixtures

Variational Bayes learning or mean field approximation is widely used in statistical models which are made of mixtures of exponential distributions, for example, normal mixtures, binomial mixtures, and hidden Markov models. To derive variational Bayes learning algorithm, we need to determine the hyperparameters in the a priori distribution; however, the design method of hyperparameters has not yet been established. In the present paper, we propose two different design methods of hyperparameters which are applied to the different purposes. In the former method, the hyperparameter is determined for minimization of the generalization error. In the latter method, it is chosen so that candidates of hidden structure in training data are extracted. It is experimentally shown that the optimal hyperparameters for two purposes are different from each other.     

Median Photometric Stereo as Applied to the Segonko Tumulus and Museum Objects

One of the necessary techniques for constructing a virtual museum is to estimate the surface normal and the albedo of the artwork which has high specularity. In this paper, we propose a novel photometric stereo method which is robust to the specular reflection of the object surface. Our method can also digitize the artwork arranged inside a glass or acrylic display case without bringing the artwork out of the display case. Our method treats the specular reflection at the object surface or at the display case as an outlier, and finds a good surface normal evading the influence of the outliers. We judiciously design the cost function so that the outlier will be automatically removed under the assumption that the object’s shape and color are smooth. At the end of this paper, we also show some archived 3D data of Segonko Tumulus and objects in the University Museum at The University of Tokyo that were generated by applying the proposed method.     

Flow control valve for pneumatic actuators using particle excitation by PZT vibrator

This paper reports a new flow control valve for pneumatic actuators that has a lightweight and simple structure and uses particle excitation by PZT vibrator. The flow control valve in this report consists of an orifice plate which has plural orifices, PZT vibrator which is adhered on the orifice plate and iron particles. The valve is normally closed, because air flow carries the particles on to the orifice and particles seal the air flow. Because the orifice plate excitation by the PZT vibrator works to make the particles away from the orifice plate, the air flows through the orifices. It is driven at resonance mode and can be used as a variable speed controller for pneumatic actuators. The new flow control valve avoids the stopping shock of pneumatic actuators at the stroke ends while retaining the advantages of pneumatic actuators.