Balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese

The balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese (BCCWJ) is Japan’s first 100 million words balanced corpus. It consists of three subcorpora (publication subcorpus, library subcorpus, and special-purpose subcorpus) and covers a wide range of text registers including books in general, magazines, newspapers, governmental white papers, best-selling books, an internet bulletin-board, a blog, school textbooks, minutes of the national diet, publicity newsletters of local governments, laws, and poetry verses. A random sampling technique is utilized whenever possible in order to maximize the representativeness of the corpus. The corpus is annotated in terms of dual POS analysis, document structure, and bibliographical information. The BCCWJ is currently accessible in three different ways including Chunagon a web-based interface to the dual POS analysis data. Lastly, results of some pilot evaluation of the corpus with respect to the textual diversity are reported. The analyses include POS distribution, word-class distribution, entropy of orthography, sentence length, and variation of the adjective predicate. High textual diversity is observed in all these analyses.     

Thraustochytrid as a potential source of carotenoids

Thraustochytrids, marine protists whose dominant genera are Thraustochytrium and Schizochytrium, belong to the kingdom Chromista and are known as an industrial source of DHA. We describe here that thraustochytrid strain KH105, isolated as a DHA producer, also accumulates significant levels of β-carotene and xanthophylls including canthaxanthin and astaxanthin. A4-d cultivation using a medium composed of 10% glucose and less than 0.3% of nitrogen sources in a half-concentration of seawater gave an astaxanthin production up to 6.1 mg/L, and canthaxanthin content reached more than 10 mg/L under conditions where a higher concentration of nitrogen sources (6%) was employed. It might be advantageous in mass production systems for these carotenoids to be extracted readily by simply suspending the cells with organic solvents such as acetone and chloroform. Analyses on the morphological and life history features of the KH105 strain revealed that it belongs to the genus Schizochytrium. This particular species of thraustochytrids is thus considered to be a promising source of xanthophylls as well as DHA for use in the food industry.     

An Advanced Oscillation Mixing Method for Improving the Cooling Uniformity in Quenching

In quenching, the cooling uniformity is most important to diminish distortion occurring on work pieces. As a trial to accomplish uniform cooling, therefore, there exist various mixing methods of a quenchant and the quenchant circulation with an external pump has so far been the well accepted mixing method. However, this study proposes an advanced oscillation mixing method that can improve more the cooling uniformity in quenching. The proposed method includes a stirrer in oscillating motion, so that the simultaneous oscillating and mixing movements of the stirrer are considered to provide efecfively the uniform cooling characteristics for the quenchant. In comparison with the case of the circulation pump mixing, the investigation using the oscillation mixing method has demonstrated the following two experimental facts:(1) the short vapor blanket stage caused by the quick breakage of the oil vapor blanket and (2) the reduced variation of the quenching distortion.     

Superconductivity in the tetragonal phase of La1.9Bi0.1CuO4+δ annealed under high oxygen pressure

We have investigated the relation between the crystal structure and superconductivity in La_1.9Bi_0.1CuO₄₊ , in which the phase separation observed in La₂CuO₄₊ is suppressed. A phase diagram in theT– plane is given for La_1.9Bi_0.1CuO₄₊ with excess oxygen. For very small values, the crystal structure is orthorhombic, and an orthorhombic-tetragonal phase transition occurs markedly at 0.03 in the measured temperature range between 13 and 293 K. Superconductivity is observed in the range of 0.04<<0.11. This is clear evidence thathigh-T _c superconductivity also appears in the tetragonal phase.     

Development of fault cause estimation method for distribution line

We are planning to develop the new Advanced Distribution Automation System (ADAS) equipped with optical communication network and sectionalizer with sensor for more grid reliability and efficiency on maintenance operation. The new system is featured with the function of fault cause or damaged part estimation. The new sectionalizer captures the waveform of electrical line surge originated by fault and the system analyzes the waveform for this function. This paper mainly introduces the system configuration of ADAS and an early stage examination of fault cause estimation technology.     

Origin of Hole-Trapping States in Solution-Processed Copper(I) Thiocyanate and Defect-Healing by I2 Doping

Solution-processed copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) typically exhibits low crystallinity with short-range order; the defects result in a high density of trap states that limit the device's performance. Despite the extensive electronic applications of CuSCN, its defect properties are not understood in detail. Through X-ray absorption spectroscopy, pristine CuSCN prepared from the standard diethyl sulfide-based recipe is found to contain under-coordinated Cu atoms, pointing to the presence of SCN⁻ vacancies. A defect passivation strategy is introduced by adding solid I₂ to the processing solution. At small concentrations, the iodine is found to exist as I⁻ which can substitute for the missing SCN⁻ ligand, effectively healing the defective sites and restoring the coordination around Cu. Computational study results also verify this point. Applying I₂-doped CuSCN as a p-channel in thin-film transistors shows that the hole mobility increases by more than five times at the optimal doping concentration of 0.5 mol.%. Importantly, the on/off current ratio and the subthreshold characteristics also improve as the I₂ doping method leads to the defect-healing effect while avoiding the creation of detrimental impurity states. An analysis of the capacitance-voltage characteristics corroborates that the trap state density is reduced upon I₂ addition.     

Self-generation of reward by logarithmic transformation of multiple sensor evaluations

Artificial Life and Robotics - Although the design of the reward function in reinforcement learning is important, it is difficult to design a system that can adapt to a variety of environments and...     

Magnetically coupled oscillators applicable to high-sensitivity mass detection

Microsystem Technologies - In this paper, a system of magnetically coupled oscillators consisting of a Π-shaped horizontal cantilever and a rectangular vertical cantilever with a frequency...     

Mobility and Localization of Carriers in a Quasi-One-Dimensional Electron System over Liquid Helium

The properties of a quasi-one-dimensional (Q1D) electron system on liquid helium are considered and the experiments on the carrier transport are presented. It has been shown that the electron mobility changes from high values close to that for bulk helium to very small values as a function of the Q1D channel width. Such a behaviour of is connected to a gradual transition from the regime of the quasi-free movement of the carriers in a Q1D system to the conditions of strong localization of the electrons. In the last case depends on temperature exponentially with the activation energy of a few degrees. It is predicted that in Q1D channels in regime of the localization two optical plasmon branches can exist. One of them (a high frequency branch) is connected with the oscillations of electrons in potential wells and another one has lower frequency and is due to the oscillations of dimples, which are created by localized electrons on the liquid helium surface, in the potential wells. Possible new experiments on study of magnetotransport, plasma oscillations and phase diagram of ordered-disordered states in a Q1D electron system of a finite length over liquid helium are proposed and discussed.     

Effect of poly(acrylic acid) on the preparation of thick silica films by electrophoretic sol–gel deposition of re-dispersed silica particles

Thick silica films were prepared by the electrophoretic sol–gel deposition technique in the presence of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) using monodispersed silica particles; the particles were prepared by the sol–gel method, pre-heat treated and then re-dispersed in the mixture of H2O and ethanol. The weight of deposited silica films was maximized when 0.2 mass % of PAA against the whole amount of sol was added. The particles constructing the thick silica films were packed densely when the amount of added PAA was less than 0.2 mass%. The weight of the film increased with decrease in the content of H2O in the sol when a fixed amount of PAA was added. After the heat treatment of deposited films at 800 °C, crack-free silica films of about 30 m thickness were prepared. © 1998 Chapman & Hall