Generation of 1 T, 0.5 Hz alternating magnetic field in room temperature bore of cryocooler-cooled Bi-2212 superconducting magnet

Alternating magnetic fields have been stably generated at frequencies up to 0.5 Hz in a room temperature (RT) bore of a Bi-2212 superconducting magnet cooled by a Gifford-McMahon (G-M) cryocooler. The magnet has generated alternating magnetic fields with peak magnetic fields up to 1.0 T. The present Bi-2212 superconducting coil heat-treated in an oxygen partial pressure (pO₂) of 1 atm has shown an alternating current (a.c.) loss characteristic, reducing the intergranular hysteresis loss compared with the heat treatment in pO₂ of 0.2 atm.     

A novel process for the formation of poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) film from liquid crystalline solutions

A novel process for the formation of biaxially balanced films of poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) was developed. The liquid crystalline sulphuric acid solution is extruded through a slit die on a flat plate. The optically anisotropic to isotropic transition is generated by controlling the temperature and/or the water content in sulphuric acid before coagulation. The wet gel films are dried while holding their width and length constant. The films thus produced are transparent and biaxially oriented. Young's modulus of 12 GPa, tensile strength of 450 MPa, and elongation at break of 25% were obtained in the plane of the film. Such films which possess high dimensional and thermal stabilities are expected to be useful for new practical uses under severe conditions.     

Evaluating uncertainty in accident rate estimation at hydrogen refueling station using time correlation model

Hydrogen, as a future energy carrier, is receiving a significant amount of attention in Japan. From the viewpoint of safety, risk evaluation is required in order to increase the number of hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) implemented in Japan. Collecting data about accidents in the past will provide a hint to understand the trend in the possibility of accidents occurrence by identifying its operation time However, in new technology; accident rate estimation can have a high degree of uncertainty due to absence of major accident direct data in the late operational period. The uncertainty in the estimation is proportional to the data unavailability, which increases over long operation period due to decrease in number of stations. In this paper, a suitable time correlation model is adopted in the estimation to reflect lack (due to the limited operation period of HRS) or abundance of accident data, which is not well supported by conventional approaches. The model adopted in this paper shows that the uncertainty in the estimation increases when the operation time is long owing to the decreasing data.     

Generation of tree movement sound effects

This paper presents a method for automatically generating sound effects for an animation of branches and leaves moving in the wind. Each tree is divided into branches and leaves, and an independent sound effect generation process is employed for each element. The individual results are then compounded into one sound effect. For the branches, we employ an approach based on the frequencies of experimentally obtained Karman vortex streets. For the leaves, we use the leaf blade state as the input and assume a virtual musical instrument that uses wave tables as the sound source. All computations can be performed independently for each frame step. Therefore, each frame step can be executed on completion of the animation step. The results of the implementation of the approach are presented and it is shown that the process offers the possibility of real‐time operation through the use of parallel computing techniques. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Digestibility of Sweet Potato Raw Starches by Glucoamylase

Three crude glucoamylase preparations from Rhizopus sp., Chalara paradoxa and Aspergillus sp. K-27 were used to determine the digestibility of raw starches from eight sweet potato varieties. Granule sizes and amylose contents were also measured. The average granule sizes ranged between 10.5 and 14.2 μm. The amylose contents varied between 18.2 and 21.8%. The hydrolysis rates for the raw starches by any of the three glucoamylases were similar. However, starch of the variety Hi-starch had a slightly lower hydrolysis rate than other starches when Rhizopus sp, enzyme was used.     

Chemical Composition of Cell Wall Material from Sweet Potato Starch Residue

Cell wall material was isolated from the residue obtained after the extraction of sweet potato starch by treatment with the α-amylase. The wall material was fractionated by successive extraction with various reagents. The pectic substance was mainly composed of uronic acid (47.1%) residues and contained galactose as the predominant neutral sugar residues. The hemicellulosic fraction was further fractionated by precipitation with iodine in the presence of calcium chloride to give two fractions, a iodine precipitatable-iodine complex (HC-IP) and a supernatant solution (HC-IS). The HC-IS fraction had a higher glucose content (53.4%), whereas the HC-IP fraction had a high content of xylose residues (35.1%). The HC-IP fraction consisted mainly of xylan, as judged by the degradation with purified xylanase.