Phase-shifting digital holography with a phase difference between orthogonal polarizations

Phase-shifting digital holography with a phase difference between orthogonal polarizations is proposed. The use of orthogonal polarizations can make it possible to record two phase-shifted holograms simultaneously. By combining the holograms with the distributions of a reference wave and an object wave, the complex field of the object's wavefront can be obtained. Preliminary experimental results are shown to confirm the proposed method.     

Boundary Lubrication Properties of Nanoperiod Solid Lubricant Multilayer Films Composed of Diamond-Like Carbon and Gold Layers

To develop electroconductive and high-endurance solid lubricant nanoperiod multilayer (DLC/Au)_n films, diamond-like carbon (DLC) and gold layers were deposited while controlling the time the substrate was exposed graphite and gold targets. The electrical resistivity of the (DLC/Au)_n multilayer films was ~12.4 Ω cm. The hardness of the (DLC/Au)_n multilayer films was similar to that of DLC films and much higher than that of gold monolayer films. According to the results of oscillating sliding tests under water boundary lubrication and dry conditions, (DLC/Au)_n multilayer films exhibited the low friction coefficient, little damage, and high sliding durability than the monolayer films. (DLC/Au)_n films also have a lower friction coefficient and exhibit less damage than a Au monolayer under polyalphaolefin boundary lubrication.     

Structural optimization methods of nonlinear static analysis with contact and its application to design lightweight gear box of automatic transmission of vehicles

In this paper, we consider lightweight design methods for gear box of automatic transmission of vehicles with contact constraints. Lightweight design is a fundamental requirement for protecting the environment and improving fuel economy. In addition, durability is another important requirement for safe driving. However, in the design of automatic transmissions, these two requirements are usually in a trade-off relationship and engineers spend a long design study time. This paper deals with design approaches using structural optimization method to design lightweight structures and to minimize stress with contact constraints. Stress with contact constraints is solved using the finite element method. Three different structural optimization methods, topometry, topography and freeform optimization, are applied for the design of a lightweight gear box of an automatic transmission. The optimization results show that the optimization methods successfully found the lightweight gear box design and can be used at the early stage of the design process of automatic transmissions.     

Dimension-reduced cross-section adjustment method based on minimum variance unbiased estimation

A new formulation of the cross-section adjustment methodology with the dimensionality-reduction technique has been derived in the light of the fact that it is often used under the condition of ill-posed problem, where the number of integral experimental quantities is less than the number of adjusted nuclear data parameters. This new formulation is proposed as the dimension-reduced conventional cross-section adjustment method (DRCA). The derivation of DRCA is based on the minimum variance unbiased estimation (MVUE), and the assumption of normal distribution is not used. The result of DRCA depends on a user-defined matrix that determines the dimension-reduced feature subspace. We examined three variations of DRCA, namely, DRCA1, DRCA2, and DRCA3, which employ (1) the nuclear data covariance matrix as the user-defined matrix, (2) the sensitivity coefficient matrix postmultiplied by the nuclear data covariance matrix, and (3) the sensitivity coefficient matrix, respectively. Mathematical investigation and numerical verification revealed that DRCA2 is equivalent to the currently widely used cross-section adjustment method. Moreover, DRCA3 is found to be identical to the cross-section adjustment method based on MVUE, which has been proposed in the previous study.     

Self-Assembling Properties and Recovery Effects on Damaged Skin Cells of Chemically Synthesized Mannosylerythritol Lipids

Mannosylerythritol lipids (MELs), which are one of the representative sugar-based biosurfactants (BSs) produced by microorganisms, have attracted much attention in various fields in the sustainable development goals (SDGs) era. However, they are inseparable mixtures with respect to the chain length of the fatty acids. In this study, self-assembling properties and structure-activity relationship (SAR) studies of recovery effects on damaged skin cells using chemically synthesized MELs were investigated. It was revealed, for the first time, that synthetic and homogeneous MELs exhibited significant self-assembling properties to form droplets or giant vesicles. In addition, a small difference in the length of the fatty acid chains of the MELs significantly affected their recovery effects on the damaged skin cells. MELs with medium or longer length alkyl chains exhibited much higher recovery effects than that of C18-ceramide NP.