A novel spacer‐free panel structure and glass for FEDs

Abstract— A new design for an FED envelope, composed of box‐shaped front glass, sheet‐like rear glass, and metal members, has been devised. This design structure is effective in reducing tensile stress induced by vacuum at the sealing points. Also, a new glass composition, a new physical tempering method, and a lead‐free hermetic sealing material have been developed. As a result, a novel lightweight spacer‐free panel structure for FEDs has been developed by integrating these new technologies. It will assist in maximizing the essential advantages of FED such as high image quality, high reliability, and low cost.     

Fast and selective cell isolation from blood sample by microfiber fabric system with vacuum aspiration

Since circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are tumor cells which are found in the blood of cancer patients, CTCs are potential tumor markers, so a rapid isolation of CTCs is desirable for clinical applications. In this paper, a three-dimensional polystyrene (PS) microfiber fabric with vacuum aspiration system was developed for capturing CTCs within a short time. Various microfiber fabrics with different diameters were prepared by the electrospinning method and optimized for contact frequency with cells. Vacuum aspiration utilizing these microfiber fabrics could filter all cells within seconds without mechanical damage. The microfiber fabric with immobilized anti-EpCAM antibodies was able to specifically capture MCF-7 cells that express EpCAM on their surfaces. The specificity of the system was confirmed by monitoring the ability to isolate MCF-7 cells from a mixture containing CCRF-CEM cells that do not express EpCAM. Furthermore, the selective capture ability of the microfiber was retained even when the microfiber was exposed to the whole blood of pigs spiked with MCF-7 cells. The specific cell capture ratio of the vacuum aspiration system utilizing microfiber fabric could be improved by increasing the thickness of the microfiber fabric through electrospinning time.     

A large discrepancy between CPM and ESR defect densities in light-soaked a-Si:H

A large discrepancy between defect densities evaluated by constant photocurrent method (CPM) and electron spin resonance (ESR) is investigated for hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) with various thicknesses in the process of light soaking (LS). It is shown by a computer simulation that the inhomogeneous defect distribution across the film thickness caused by a rather small penetration depth of the white light in the thick film is one of the possible origins of the discrepancy. But various other causes should also bring about the discrepancy, and the problem is still a puzzling one.     

Development and experimental study of a novel pruning robot

This article presents the development of a timberjack-like pruning robot. The climbing principal is an imitation of the climbing approach of timberjacks in Japan. The robot’s main features include having its center of mass outside the tree, and an innovative climbing strategy fusing straight and spiral climbs. This novel design brings both lightweight and high climbing speed features to the pruning robot. We report our progress in developing the robot, focusing on straight climbing, behavior on uneven surfaces, and pruning.     

Highly conductive alumina/NCN composites electrodes fabricated by gelcasting and reduction-sintering—An electrochemical behavior study in aggressive environments

A novel highly conductive alumina/nano-carbon network composites (alumina/NCN composites) was fabricated by gelcasting and reduction-sintering method under argon atmosphere. The electrochemical behaviors of the alumina/NCN composites were studied systematically in some aggressive solutions (HCl, H₂SO₄, HNO₃, NaOH, and KOH), using potentiodynamic polarization and chronoamperometry and X-ray diffraction and SEM observations. The results showed that the electrochemical stability and reproducibility of the composite electrodes in these diluted acids and alkalis were very good and had, in some extent, an electro-catalytic activity toward formation of hydrogen evolution and reduction of dissolved oxygen in aqueous solutions in comparison with a commercial graphite electrode. In addition, the pyrolyzed nano-carbon contents, size, and shape in the alumina matrix, have greatly effects on the electrochemical performances and electrode reactions in these solutions. It is found that the minimal residual carbon content of 0.62 wt.% in the matrix is enough to improve electrochemical performances and avoid to loss the ceramics physical properties at the same time. When the additional potential in all the tested electrolytes was at +1700 mV (vs. SCE), alumina particles at the electrode surface were not observed to dissolve into solution in this case, indicating the material being suitable for electrodes in aggressive solutions.     

Characteristics of porous polymer composite columns prepared by radiation cast-polymerization

Porous polymer composite columns having porous structure were prepared by radiation cast-polymerization of hydrophilic monomers at low temperature and their characteristics were studied. The porosity of the polymer increased with decreasing monomer concentration. The elution time of water in the polymer column increased with increasing monomer concentration and with decreasing irradiation temperature. The elution time was dependent on the degree of hydration of the polymer. The polymer with a degree of hydration of 0.2 to 0.4 gave the minimum elution time. The elution time decreased with the addition of porous inorganic substances.     

Growth of emerald crystals from PbO · V2O5 flux

The flux growth of emerald crystals by slow cooling in the PbO · V₂O₅ flux is reported. The crystals exhibited the typical emerald-green colour, were up to 1.8 mm in size and transparent. Their form was a regular hexagonal rod bounded by the well-developed {0001} and {10ˉ10} faces. The solubility of emerald in PbO · V₂O₅ was also investigated; about 9.0 g emerald was dissolved in 100 g PbO · V₂O₅ at 1200 °C. The solubility decreased gradually with decreasing temperature. Taking the solubility data into account, the presence of undissolved particles in the solution was found to be a necessary condition for the growth of large emerald crystals. Unsaturated solution at a soak temperature produced good and relatively small emerald crystals in a subsequent cooling experiment. Advantages of the PbO · V₂O₅ flux are also mentioned. Emerald crystals showing various kinds of imperfections, and even good crystals, were also present.     

2D Model-Following Servo System

This paper gives, in view of the feature of practical 2D (2-dimensional) systems, a formulation of the 2D model-following servo problem for the case where one of the independent variables of the considered 2D systems is unbounded and the other one is bounded. That is, to determine a control input such that the outputs of a given 2D plant asymptotically track, with tracking error as small as possible, the (step) response of a given 2D model system as the unbounded variable approaches infinite. It is shown that this problem under a specified quadratic performance index can be transformed into a 1D LQR problem, and thus can be solved by the well-known 1D approaches. The relation between the solvability condition obtained for the equivalent 1D LQR problem and the practical stabilizability and detectability of the original 2D plant is clarified. Its application to the design of non-unit memory linear multipass processes is also shown. Finally, a numerical example for metal rolling process is given to verify the effectiveness.     

A Microcomputer System for Spatiotemporal Visual Receptive Field Analysis

A microcomputer system was developed to measure visual spatiotemporal receptive fields. The system performs three functions: 1) generation of a binary spatiotemporal white-noise stimulus, 2) acquisition of spike discharges from retinal ganglion cells, and 3) extraction of the linear part of the spatiotemporal receptive flelds by cross correlating the input against the output. We have applied this system to the measurement of the spatiotemporal receptive fields of cat and catfish retinal ganglion cells.