DC interruption characteristic of vacuum circuit breaker

A high‐speed vacuum circuit breaker (HSVCB) has been investigated. HSVCB makes high‐frequency current superimposed on a fault current so that the current is forced to be zero and is interrupted. Its interruption performance is considered to be dependent on the rate of change of the current (di/dt). As a fundamental research, we investigated the di/dt– dv/dt characteristics and the insulation recovery characteristic after interrupting the counter‐pulse current for various contact materials of AgWC, CuW, and CuCr. The results revealed that the case where the gap length is larger is better in a current interruption performance. Moreover, it was found that di/dt is not dependent on the insulation recovery characteristics, but the magnitude of interruption current is of great influence. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 161(1): 17– 25, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20362     

Current reliability issues and future technologies for systems on silicon – processes, circuits, chip architecture, and design

The progress of silicon technology is opening the era of “systems on silicon” in which a large-scale memory, a CPU, and other logic macros will be integrated on a single chip. These kinds of chips, called system LSIs, have an especially promising future in mobile and multimedia applications but face inherent technical problems related to the reliability of ultrathin oxide film, conflict in the processing of different components, increased gate and subthreshold leakage currents, memory bottlenecks, and design complexity. This paper reviews the system LSIs and then introduces related technologies in processing, circuits, chip architecture, and design. It also discusses the influence of the system LSIs on business strategies.     

Antioxidant activity of Japanese pepper (Zanthoxylum piperitum DC.) fruit

Antioxidants were extracted from Japanese pepper (Zanthoxylum piperitum DC.) fruit and characterized. The antioxidant activity of the methanol extract from Japanese pepper fruit was found to be equal to that of α-tocopherol and stable under heat treatment. The main compounds that gave a significant antioxidant activity from the methanol extract were identified to be hyperoside (quercetin-3-O-galactoside) and quercitrin (quercetin-3-O-rhamnoside) as determined by HPLC, mass spectrometry, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and TLC. Radical-scavenging activities of hyperoside and quercitrin from Japanese pepper fruit were evaluated using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. As a result, hyperoside and quercitrin scavenged DPPH radical strongly with IC₅₀ values of 16 and 18 μM, respectively. These observations show the presence of strong antioxidants, namely hyperoside and quercitrin in Japanese pepper fruit.     

Development of an indoor navigation system for a monocular-vision-based autonomous mobile robot

We have developed a technology for a robot that uses an indoor navigation system based on visual methods to provide the required autonomy. For robots to run autonomously, it is extremely important that they are able to recognize the surrounding environment and their current location. Because it was not necessary to use plural external world sensors, we built a navigation system in our test environment that reduced the burden of information processing mainly by using sight information from a monocular camera. In addition, we used only natural landmarks such as walls, because we assumed that the environment was a human one. In this article we discuss and explain two modules: a self-position recognition system and an obstacle recognition system. In both systems, the recognition is based on image processing of the sight information provided by the robot’s camera. In addition, in order to provide autonomy for the robot, we use an encoder and information from a two-dimensional space map given beforehand. Here, we explain the navigation system that integrates these two modules. We applied this system to a robot in an indoor environment and evaluated its performance, and in a discussion of our experimental results we consider the resulting problems.     

Sedimentation study on the binding of fibrinogen or of antithrombin III with acidic polysaccharides including heparin

Summary The binding of fibrinogen with heparin and dextran sulfates, and of antithrombin III with heparin and dextran sulfate were investigated by sedimentation velocity method. From the measurement of fibrinogen-acidic polysaccharide systems, it was confirmed that heparin and low molecular weight dextran sulfate(DSC) forms soluble complexes with fibrinogen, though the amount bound of the latter was rather small compared with high molecular weight dextran sulfate(DSD). Antithrombin III was also found to be bound by heparin and DSC. The numbers of heparin molecules bound to one molecule of fibrinogen and antithrombin III were estimated to be 4.2 and 0.3, respectively.     

Design of robotic behavior that imitates animal consciousness

A 6-degrees-of-freedom serial arm hand is controlled to move toward an object in an unseen environment. We developed a consciousness-based architecture (CBA), which is a hierarchical human development model representing the relationship between consciousness and behavior and is used for imitating a human groping action. During forward motion toward the object, a robot arm hand can help to avoid obstacles from which the robot collects contact information. The CBA organizes such information to learn a path plan for backward motion to the origin without contact with the obstacles. Experimental results show that the CBA successfully extends the hand to the goal while avoiding any obstacle. This work was presented in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007     

Interfacial Electrical Properties of Nanodiamond Colloidal Species in Aqueous Medium as Examined by Acid-Base Indicator Dyes

This study was aimed at further examining of a detonated nanodiamond hydrosol, produced by the NanoCarbon Research Institute, Japan. In the concentrated solution, this colloidal system consists mainly of 3 nm-sized primary particles. These particles are positively charged and tend to associate into larger colloidal species on dilution. The species adsorb, first of all, the anionic dyes and readily coagulate on adding electrolytes. Some properties of the sol are changed during prolonged ageing but may be restored by adding small HCl amounts. Besides measuring the electrokinetic potential, the interfacial electrical potential was estimated by using acid-base indicators.     

Improved heat and solvent resistance of a pressure‐sensitive adhesive thermally processable by isocyanate dimer dissociation

Methods that do not involve use of an organic solvent are being considered for manufacturing environmental‐friendly pressure‐sensitive adhesive tapes. Among these methods, the hot‐melt method exhibits high productivity but is somewhat limited in terms of performance. Hot‐melt‐fabricated pressure‐sensitive adhesives require heating fluidization and cooling solidification, and it is extremely difficult to improve their heat resistance. We examine thermally processable pressure‐sensitive adhesives with a completely new structure, fabricated based on the thermal dissociation of the isocyanate dimer. This enables thermal processing of materials softened by thermal dissociation. Fabrication of crosslinkable pressure‐sensitive adhesive becomes possible through a reaction of isocyanate caused by dissociation of its dimer. It is found that improving thermal and solvent resistances, which are disadvantages associated with conventional hot‐melt pressure‐sensitive adhesives, is potentially possible with the pressure‐sensitive adhesive reported here. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 41444.     

Measurement Scheme for One‐Way Delay Variation with Detection and Removal of Clock Skew

One‐way delay variation (OWDV) has become increasingly of interest to researchers as a way to evaluate network state and service quality, especially for real‐time and streaming services such as voice‐over‐Internet‐protocol (VoIP) and video. Many schemes for OWDV measurement require clock synchronization through the global‐positioning system (GPS) or network time protocol. In clock‐synchronized approaches, the accuracy of OWDV measurement depends on the accuracy of the clock synchronization. GPS provides highly accurate clock synchronization. However, the deployment of GPS on legacy network equipment might be slow and costly. This paper proposes a method for measuring OWDV that dispenses with clock synchronization. The clock synchronization problem is mainly caused by clock skew. The proposed approach is based on the measurement of inter‐packet delay and accumulated OWDV. This paper shows the performance of the proposed scheme via simulations and through experiments in a VoIP network. The presented simulation and measurement results indicate that clock skew can be efficiently measured and removed and that OWDV can be measured without requiring clock synchronization.     

采用无偏振片反射式LCD及超低功耗驱动技术制造移动显示器件

我们通过对材料和制备条件的精细化处理,生产出一种在低刷新频率下无闪烁和图像迟滞现象的反射式显示器。该显示器的功耗非常低,且可在宽温度范围内工作,是未来移动显示器件的潜力平台。