Mesoporous electrodes having tight agglomeration of single-phase anatase TiO2 nanocrystallites: Application to dye-sensitized solar cells

Single-phase anatase nanocrystalline HyCOM-TiO₂ (Hydrothermal Crystallization in Organic Media) to label this method was synthesized by high-temperature hydrolysis of titanium tetrabutoxide in toluene. The resulting HyCOM-TiO₂ nanocrystallites were found to be covered by n-butoxide, yielding mesoporous, transparent anatase films with a narrow pore size distribution and good electron transport characteristic when sintered at 350–550°C on optically transparent conducting glass. Dye-sensitized solar cells made of the Ru-dye-adsorbed mesoporous HyCOM films as photoanodes achieved better photo-energy conversion efficiency as compared to those prepared using commercially available Degussa P25 films.     

Reconfiguration management of remanufactured products for responding to varied user needs

In the face of worsening environmental problems, the manufacturing industry is required to reduce resource consumption and environmental loads during product life cycles while responding to diversified user needs without cost increases. In this paper, we propose a reconfiguration method to remanufacture a variety of products using modules extracted from returned products of multiple generations for responding to varied user needs. With this method, we can maximize the sales amount of remanufactured products, which meet the performance requirements of each user group. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method by applying it to photocopiers.     

阵列式布设内栓钉的钢管混凝土K型节点足尺模型疲劳性能研究

为研究阵列式布设内栓钉的钢管混凝土K型(CFST KS)节点疲劳性能,进行CFST KS节点和不布设内栓钉的钢管混凝土K型节点(CFST K)足尺模型的疲劳试验和有限元研究,对比分析了2种节点的热点应力分布、疲劳裂纹扩展过程和疲劳破坏模式,研究了内栓钉布设区域与排布方式对热点应力的影响,采用基于热点应力的S-N曲线探讨疲劳寿命的判定标准与疲劳寿命评价方法。结果表明：CFST KS节点的热点应力宜采用3点外插法计算,最大热点应力位于冠点处;CFST KS节点的疲劳性能演化过程可以分为疲劳裂纹的萌生、扩展和破坏三个阶段,CFST KS节点较CFST K节点在裂纹扩展阶段荷载反复次数更高,在裂纹破坏阶段疲劳裂纹的扩展速率更低,由于布设了内栓钉,疲劳裂纹扩展至鞍点附近后不再继续沿着相贯线方向扩展,而往主管环向且与主管轴线呈一定角度发展;建议采用CFST K节点冠点应变峰值变化15%对应的荷载反复次数作为疲劳破坏的判定基准;提出了基于热点应力的CFST K节点疲劳设计S-N曲线,并依据S-N曲线预测在同等热点应力幅下,布设内栓钉可以使CFST K节点的疲劳寿命提高45%;减少支管侧内栓钉的轴向间距和径向间距可以提高节点的疲劳性能,非支管侧的栓钉布置、栓钉的尺寸以及栓钉的轴向布置范围对疲劳性能的影响较小,栓钉的轴向布置范围对栓钉自身的受力状态有所影响;基于CFST KS节点静力与疲劳性能提出了内栓钉的合理布置形式。     

Role of systemic T-cells and histopathological aspects after subcutaneous implantation of various carbon nanotubes in mice

We have evaluated the biological responses to four different types of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), by measuring CD4⁺ and CD8⁺ T-cells in peripheral blood, and by the histopathological study on tissues surrounding subcutaneously implanted CNTs for up to 3 months. All mice survived, and no large changes in their weights were observed within our experimental period. After 1 week, only single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) activated major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I pathway of antigen-antibody response system (higher CD4⁺/CD8⁺ value), resulting in the appearance of an edematous aspect. After 2 weeks, significantly high values in CD4⁺ and CD4⁺/CD8⁺ without change in CD8⁺ signified an activated MHC class II for all samples. It is worth noting that the toxicological response of CNTs was absolutely lower than that of asbestos. As a result, we envisaged that our result (relatively low toxicity of CNTs) will spur the mass-production, as well widespread application of CNTs in the near future.     

Angiogenesis in pituitary adenomas

Angiogenesis, which is the formation of new blood vessels from preexisting capillaries, plays an important role in tumor growth and metastasis. In this review, the focus is on angiogenesis in pituitary adenomas. Angiogenesis of pituitary adenomas has been assessed by studying tumor microvessel density using specific immunohistochemical markers to clarify the relationship between angiogenesis and tumor behavior. Unlike other organs, pituitary adenomas have significantly lower vascular densities as compared to nontumorous adenohypophysis, suggesting that the lack of significant angiogenesis may play a role in the slow pace of pituitary tumor growth and rarity of metastases. In addition, the relationship between microvessel density and various factors in pituitary adenomas is reviewed, including tumor types, age and sex, invasiveness, malignancy, several proliferative markers (MIB-1 or Ki-67). However, further studies will be needed, since many studies have reached opposite conclusions. Angiogenesis is a complex multistep process and several factors are found to be involved in each step of neovascularization, such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), and various other cytokines. VEGF and bFGF (or FGF-2), which are the most potent angiogenesis inducers among them, have been studied by immunohistochemistry, in situ hybridization, or in vitro studies in normal or adenomatous pituitaries and these results are also discussed in this review.     

Cylindrical film deposition system for three-dimensional titanium-nickel shape memory alloy microstructure

We have designed and developed a sputtering deposition apparatus to fabricate a cylindrical spring-like microstructure for a titanium-nickel (Ti-Ni) shape memory alloy (SMA) film-actuated micro-catheter. The developed apparatus that mainly consists of gearboxes to transform rotation of a stage into rotation of a shaft specimen is mounted on a ternary-source sputtering system. By using this system, a Ti-Ni SMA film with the controlled composition has been successfully deposited around a copper (Cu) shaft surface and the annealed film has possessed the shape memory characteristics evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD). A spring shape of the film has been capably patterned by photolithography and wet etching, so the developed deposition apparatus with a specimen rotation unit would be useful for fabricating a three-dimensional (3D) microstructure towards the active micro-catheter.     

Effects of magnetic field on the carrier density distribution of semiconductor power device operated in pulsed power conditions

Turn‐on characteristics of semiconductor power devices are evaluated under external magnetic field to study the effects of external magnetic field generated in a pulsed power circuit. Two pin diodes that have a basic structure of power devices are connected in parallel and driven by a pulsed voltage source. It was found the magnetic field applied to one diode in the perpendicular direction of current‐flow changed the current balance between the diodes. Besides the on‐resistance of a diode was increased under external magnetic field. The carrier‐density distribution inside of the diodes was measured by using a free carrier absorption method. The data show that the carrier‐density distribution changes from nearly the uniform one to the one‐sided one. It can be concluded that the effects of magnetic‐field have to be considered for the evaluation of switching characteristic in pulsed power operations. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 147(1): 10–16, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10271     

Mobility-aware timeout medium access control protocol for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs), has been under development for a while by the academia and industry. Due to limited computational power, a typical sensor node may experience operational challenges. Moreover, mobility has become an important feature since emergency and healthcare related applications are evolving in WSNs. Consideration of mobile nodes in WSNs introduce new challenges for the designers. In this paper, an enhanced version of T-MAC protocol (a well-known medium access control protocol in WSNs) known as MT-MAC is proposed. Using the capturing fluctuation in RSSI and LQI values of the received SYNC packets, MT-MAC solves high packet drop ratio in T-MAC. By detecting the mobility, a mobile node softly handover to a new virtual cluster without losing connection with other nodes. The performance of the proposed solution is then compared with T-MAC, S-MAC as well as other well-known mobility-aware MAC (MS-MAC) protocol. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol significantly increases the throughput and packet delivery ratio of T-MAC in exchange for a small increase in power consumption. Compared to MS-MAC protocol, the proposed approach can reduce power consumption by 20–65%, and achieve slightly higher packet delivery ratio.     

Preparation and Electrical Resistance Characteristics of Electroless Copper-Nickel Alloy Deposits

Studies have been made of an electroless copper-nickel-phosphorus alloy from a citrate complex bath using hypophosphite as reducing agent and electroless copper-nickel binary alloy from a triethanolamine complex bath using formaldehyde as reducing agent. With an increase in copper content of alloy, the specific resistance of deposit decreased. The TCR of copper-nickel-phosphorus alloy increased remarkably because of the crystallization of Ni₃P after heat treatment. But the increase in TCR of copper-nickel binary alloy was moderate and not so striking as for the phosphorus containing alloy.     

Giant magnetoresistance due to electron-hole pair mechanism in poly(N-vinylcarbazole)

An amorphous molecular semiconductor, poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVCz), exhibits negative giant magnetoresistance (MR) under ambient conditions. The application of a weak magnetic field of 10 mT to PVCz films doped with lumichrome, in which light excitation immediately creates triplet electron-hole (e-h) pairs that are precursors of photocarriers, causes a steep decrease in resistivity by more than 20% at ambient temperature. Further, the resistivity of the doped film gradually reduces by approximately one-half under a field of 1 T, equivalent to an MR ratio of ?55%. In addition, anomalous spikes are also detected at 0.07, 0.30, and 9.0 T, indicative of an exponential dependence with a decay distance of 0.1 nm in the exchange interaction of the e-h pair. A quantum mechanical calculation based on the density operator formalism clarifies that the observed MR effect can be comprehensively understood by the spin-selective charge dynamics and the coherent and incoherent spin dynamics of the e-h pair in a quasi-one-dimensional lattice for photocarrier generation. Model calculations also indicate the importance of the spin-lattice relaxation for the giant MR effect in organic molecular semiconductors.