Non-destructive testing

Takashi Nakai and Toshinari Tanaka of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in Japan present the results of tests, using the easy handling and reasonable cost technique of fundamental vibration frequency measurement, on larger than usual cross-sections. Modulus of elasticity measurements showed this method to have high possibilities for stress grading, overcoming the size limitations of existing commercial equipment at the saw mill or lumber yard. This paper was first presented at CIB Working Commission W18a in Vancouver in September 1988.     

Scattering characteristics in reheated fluorozirconate glasses

The relation between the scattering intensity and reheating conditions in fluorozirconate glasses was studied precisely to clarify the effect of devitrification induced by fiber drawing using the preform method. The drawing-induced scattering is substantially caused by the nucleation of microcrystallites and begins to increase at a temperature lower than that predicted by DTA or DSC measurements. Nevertheless, it is revealed that ultralow-loss fluoride glass fibers can be drawn without excess loss increase by the perform method under optimized glass compositions and reheating conditions.     

Retraction Note: Relationship between water content,shear deformation,and elastic wave velocity through unsaturated soil slope

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment -     

Syntheses of alpha-arbutin-alpha-glycosides and their inhibitory effects on human tyrosinase

Alpha-arbutin is a tyrosinase inhibitor. We synthesized alpha-arbutin-alpha-glycosides by the transglycosylation reaction of cyclomaltodextrin glucanotransferase from Bacillus macerans using alpha-arbutin and starch as acceptor and donor molecules, respectively. We isolated and characterized two major products from the reaction mixture. The structural analyses using 13C- and 1H-NMR spectroscopy proved that they were 4-hydroxyphenyl alpha-maltoside (alpha-Ab-alpha-G1) and 4-hydroxyphenyl alpha-maltotrioside (alpha-Ab-alpha-G2). Both alpha-Ab-alpha-G1 and alpha-Ab-alpha-G2 exhibited competitive-type inhibition on human tyrosinase as alpha-arbutin does. Their K(i) values were calculated to be 0.6 mM and 2.8 mM, respectively, which is slightly and significantly higher than that of alpha-arbutin (0.2 mM).     

Batch estimation of statistical errors in the Monte Carlo calculation of local powers

Batch methodology is among the techniques for computing the standard deviation of sample mean and is applicable to any output series from stationary iteration cycles. In the present article, three forms of the methodology are investigated: non-overlapping batch means (NBM), which dates back to Conway (1963), overlapping batch means (OBM) by Meketon and Schmeiser (1984), and standardized time series (STS) by Schruben (1983). In particular, they are applied to the MC calculation of local powers of a pressurized water reactor. The numerical results reveal that the performance of NBM is equivalent to that of OBM, whereas STS performs poorly for small batch sizes. It is also shown that OBM can be improved based on the method of autocovariance bias correction. For a computational condition leading to 0.5–1.5% statistical errors, the improved OBM for a batch size of 10% of the stationary iteration cycle length yields 88–103% of the reference value of standard deviation at tally cells where the sample standard deviation yields 22–36% of the same reference value.     

Brownian bridge and statistical error estimation in Monte Carlo reactor calculation

Brownian bridge (BB) is an effective vehicle in processing an output series in Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. However, most estimators based on BB cost the capability of on-the-fly monitoring. Here, on-the-fly implies that statistical error can be computed at every generation except some initial generations. In this work, on-the-fly estimation of standard deviation by the way of BB, which maintains a fixed storage size of tallies, has been investigated within a framework of the iterated integration of simulation output (IISO). Numerical tests on the MC power distribution calculation of a pressurized water reactor core reveal that the IISO approach with a relatively few number of integrations performs fairly well on average. The bias of statistical error can be managed to be about 10% or less.     

Monolithic four-channel photodiode/amplifier receiver array integrated on a GaAs substrate

A four-channel optoelectronic integrated receiver array operating at the wavelength near 850 nm has been fabricated on a single GaAs substrate by using metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodiodes (PD's) and metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFET's). The largest integration scale for a monolithic receiver and uniform characteristics among circuit channels have been achieved due to the structural simplicity and the process-compatibility of this array. Also, an extremely small capacitance of MSM-PD, 0.10 pF, has lead us to obtain a high-speed operation up to a bit rate of 1.5 Gbit/s, NRZ, and a low noise characteristic exhibiting an equivalent input noise current as small as 5 pA/Hz^1/2. These results have indicated the suitability of MSM-PD/MESFET's circuits for large-scale multichannel optoelectronic integration of receivers.     

A comparison of the hydrolysis of sweet potato starch with β-amylase and infrared radiation allows prediction of reducing sugar production

The apparent reaction rate constants (k) of the reaction that generates reducing sugar (presented as mg maltose equivalents) from raw sweet potato starch by using β‐amylase were determined by varying enzyme concentration, starch concentration and pH. The Arrhenius plot of the k‐value reached a peak at approximately 86 °C; the activation energy and frequency factor were also determined. Moreover, the amount of reducing sugar produced in sweet potato heated by infrared irradiation was estimated by using the values of k and the kinetic parameters. The calculated amounts of reducing sugar produced generally agreed with the experimental values. These results indicate that the amount of reducing sugar produced in heat‐treated sweet potato can be predicted by the methodology described in this study.     

A new superleak to remove He for UCN experiments

The production of superleaks to remove He³ in helium for UCN experiments is described. Using one of these superleaks, He³/He⁴ ratio was found to be less than 3 × 10⁻⁹ as indicated by the UCN storage lifetime.