Three cases of primary lung cancer unexpectedly discovered during the operation of pneumothorax

It is well known that emphysematous bulla is thought to be often associated with lung cancer. However, it is very rare that lung cancer predisposing to pneumothorax as initial manifestation. We performed surgical operations of four hundred and one cases of spontaneous pneumothorax, and discovered three cases of lung cancer during the operation. However, these three cases occupied the 30% of the patients with pneumothorax who were older than 65 years. The two of them were adenocarcinomas which were situated in the wall of bullae, but did not perforated the bullous wall. The other one was squamous cell carcinoma which was apart from the bullous lesion. This shows that we should always be careful of the associated lung cancer when we care elderly patients with pneumothorax.     

Sorption and recovery of heavy oils using carbonized fir fibers and recycling

Fibers extracted from fir trees (Abis sachalinensis Fr. Schm) and carbonized at either 380 or 900°C were found to have a high performance for sorption, recovery and recycling of heavy oils, even the viscous ones. Sorption capacity showed strong dependence on bulk density of carbonized fibers, suggesting the importance of the space formed among entangled fibers: 60-80 g/g for bulk density of ca. 6 kg/m³ and 10-20 g/g for density of ca. 40 kg/m³. The sorption capacity of carbonized fir fibers for a less viscous heavy oil was almost comparable to that of exfoliated graphite which was also reported to have high capacity. For viscous oil, however, carbonized fir fibers had higher sorption capacities than exfoliated graphite, particularly when the bulk densities are high. Less viscous heavy oil could be recovered by simple filtration under suction and the fibers could be reused for the sorption of oil, although the sorption capacity decreased with recycling. Their recycling performance was also strongly dependent on their bulk density: the sorption capacity of 6 kg/m³ fibers after the eighth cycle became less than 60% from that of the first cycle, but for 35 kg/m³ fibers it was more than 90%. Viscous oil could be recovered only by washing with n-hexane and also with less viscous oil. After washing the fir fibers could be reused for the sorption of oil.     

Temperature dependence of birefringence for strained natural rubber vulcanizates

The birefringence for uniaxially extended DCP-cured natural rubber was measured in the temperature range of 213K–353K. The variation of birefringence reflected the changes of the network structure, i.e. the development and disappearence of strain-induced crystals, and the degree of the orientation of amorphous network chains. It became clear from the variation of birefringence that the nucleation condition which is required to allow growth of an extended chain crystal occurred at extension ratio of 2.5–3.5.     

Tolerance analysis based on Monte Carlo simulation: a case of an automotive water pump design optimization

Successful products are those presenting the highest quality at a fair cost. Although different approaches can be used to define the concept of quality, functional reliability is always a major requirement, due to implications such as safety and user losses regarding maintenance expenses, and product availability. Intelligent designs are robust and result in a fair cost. Robust designs are those insensitive to sources of variation occurring during the product life, keeping their performance under variable use conditions, like thermal and stress effects. The robustness approach is a function of two main design criteria: low complexity and tolerance design. Design for manufacture and assembly is closely related to decreasing complexity. Tolerance design is a tool in which the unavoidable manufacturing variations are considered during product development. This work presents a proposal for an intelligent design in an actual application by considering design simplification through the reduction of parts for an automotive water pump. The tolerance analysis is performed by means of a powerful statistical approach—a Monte Carlo simulation—in which process behavior is randomly simulated representing a high production volume. Additionally, service thermal effects are also contemplated, and assembly tests are proposed for automatic rejection of non-conforming parts, assuring high reliability and full compliance with functional requirements. This is an example of integrated design–manufacturing work aiming at both cost saving and improved reliability.

     

Editorial: intelligent manufacturing systems towards industry 4.0 era

Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing -     

A 5.8‐in. phosphorescent color AMOLED display fabricated by ink‐jet printing on plastic substrate

Abstract— A flexible phosphorescent color active‐matrix organic light‐emitting‐diode (AMOLED) display on a plastic substrate has been fabricated. Phosphorescent polymer materials are used for the emitting layer, which is patterned using ink‐jet printing. A mixed solvent system with a high‐viscosity solvent is used for ink formulation to obtain jetting reliability. The effects of evaporation and the baking condition on the film profile and OLED performances were investigated. An organic thin‐film‐transistor (OTFT) backplane, fabricated using pentacene, is used to drive the OLEDs. The OTFT exhibited a current on/off ratio of 10⁶ and a mobility of 0.1 cm²/V‐sec. Color moving images were successfully shown on the fabricated display.     

A design of generalized minimum-state-change FSSP algorithms and their implementations

The firing squad synchronization problem (FSSP) on cellular automata has been studied extensively for more than 50 years, and a rich variety of FSSP algorithms has been proposed. Here we consider the FSSP from a view point of state-change complexity that models the energy consumption of SRAM-type storage with which cellular automata might be built. In the present paper, we propose minimum-state-change generalized FSSP (GFSSP) algorithms for synchronizing any one-dimensional (1D) cellular automaton, where the initial synchronization operation is started by any cell in the array. First, we construct two minimum-time, minimum-state-change GFSSP implementations on finite state automata: one is based on Goto’s algorithm, known as the first minimum-time FSSP algorithm that was reconstructed again recently in Umeo et al. (A new reconstruction and the first implementation of Goto’s FSSP algorithm, 2017), and the other is based on Gerken’s (Diplomarbeit, Institut für Theoretische Informatik, Technische Universität Braunschweig, pp 1–50, 1987) one. These implementations are optimal not only in time but also in the state-change complexity. The implementations of the minimum-time GFSSP algorithms are the first ones having the minimum-state-change complexity. In addition, we also present a six-state 145-rule non-minimum-time, minimum-state-change GFSSP implementation. The implemented GFSSP algorithm is the smallest one, known at present, in number of states of the finite state automaton.