Unusual effects of catechol upon the hydroliquefaction of coal

The effect of catechol on coal hydrogenolysis was studied using tetralin as a solvent vehicle. A constant high liquefaction yield was observed when the amount of catechol added was reduced from 10 to 0.1 % based on the weight of coal. Under the same hydrogenolysis conditions, identical conversion yields were observed even when no catechol was added. Separate experiments were carried out, using a new internal vessel and the original stirrer, to examine the effect of the stirrer on liquefaction yield. Improved liquefaction yields were achieved in these experiments (an increase from 31 to 64% at 400 °C and from 46 to 78% at 420 °C for Miike coal; from 26 to 48% at 400 °C and from 36 to 73% at 420 °C for Wandowan coal; and from 16 to 34% at 400 °C and 21 to 55% at 420 °C for Lithgow coal). This suggests that an active catalytic species is formed on the surface of the stirrer and the internal surface of the autocalve.     

Automatic welding of pipeline in Japan: Part 2—The development of a method for the branch pipe joint in ship pipeline

The pipelines used in a ship amount to tens of thousands of metres per ship, and so automatic welding of the pipelines has been widely applied from the viewpoint of saving labour. In most cases the automatic welding process has been used for the welding of butt-joints which can be applied to the pipes in rotary motion, and it has also been used for fillet-welding of the connection between flange and piping. In the butt-welding of fixed pipings, automatic welding processes are now being partly used for position welding but up to the present time automatic welding has seldom been applied to the various types of branch pipe joints in which the welded lines form three-dimensional curves.In recent years, great progress has been made in the technique of constructing steel pipe structures and in the development of practical gas cutting processes to prepare the curves needed for the various welded joints used in piping. This paper deals with various conditions and performance requirements needed for automatic welding, such as the selection of shapes of prepared edges of pipings to be welded, the control of welding positions, the control of welding torches in operation, and the solution and control of other production variables.     

Nitrogen Doping Effect in a-Ge: H Films Due To High Hydrogen Dilution

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Sludge depositions in a long tube-high flow MSF test plant

During the operation of a multistage flash (MSF) evaporation plant, a rather rapid decrease was observed in the economy ratio of the plant when the dissolved oxygen (DO) content of the circulating brine was at a high level. This phenomenon was brought about by the reduction of heat transfer coefficients of condenser tubes due to sludge formation on the inside tube surface by the co-precipitation of ferric hydrous oxide with silica, alumina, and organic materials. The chemical analysis of the sludge and circulating brine showed a close relationship to DO values in the brine, the concentration of iron in the sludge, and the decreasing value of the heat transfer coefficient. The lowering of DO was found very effective for avoiding the sludge trouble.     

Phase transitions in U3O8−z: I, heat capacity measurements

The heat capacity of U₃O_8−z with various O/U ratios was measured in the range from 250 to 750 K, and λ-type heat capacity anomalies were found in each sample. The transition temperatures were 487 and 573 K for UO_2.663, 490 and 576 K for UO_2.656 and 508, 562 and 618 K for UO_2.640. The entropy changes of the transitions were 0.44 and 0.39 J K⁻¹mol⁻¹ for UO_2.663, 0.58 and 0.47 J K⁻¹mol⁻¹ for UO_2.656 and 0.62, 0.51 and 0.25 J K⁻¹mol⁻¹ for UO_2.640, increasing as O/U decreases. The enthalpy change due to the transition varied linearly with the transition temperature except for UO_2.640, showing the presence of the same mechanism of phase transition among the samples with various O/U ratios. The mechanism of the phase transition was discussed on the assumption that the transition is originated from the order-disorder rearrangement of U⁵⁺ and U⁶⁺ with a consequent displacement of atoms, similarly to the case of U₄O_9−y.     

Decarboxylation of the 6-nitrobenzisoxazole-3-carboxylate anion catalyzed by cross-linked poly(4-vinylpyridinium) salts

Summary Catalysis of cationic polyelectrolytes for the decarboxylation of 6-nitrobenzisoxazole-3-carboxylate anion was studied in a buffer solution (pH=9.0). Cross-linked poly (4-vinylpyridinium) salts prepared from 4-vinylpyridine and , -dibromides were used as cationic catalysts. The cross-linked catalysts were found to accelerate markedly the decarboxylation in comparison with the linear water-soluble analogues. Effect of the polymer structure such as the length of (CH₂)_x linkages between positive charges on the catalytic activity was examined. It was suggested that the acceleration by the cross-linked polymer catalysts would be due to the hydrophobic microenvironment around the catalytic sites.     

The Application of Marginal Analysis to the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem

Application of marginal analysis to the Economic Lot Scheduling Problem reduces the solution search to a simple systematic calculation and feasibility check. Compared with mathematical programming methods and heuristic approaches advocated previously, marginal analysis results in lower optimum cost solution with shorter optimum basic period lengths. For comparative purposes, data are included which allow evaluation of marginal analysis results with dynamic programming results of previous researchers.     

Characterization of interfacial reaction and chemical bonding features of LaOx/HfO2 stack structure formed on thermally-grown SiO2/Si(1 0 0)

A stack structure consisting of ～1.5 nm-thick LaO_x and ～4.0 nm-thick HfO₂ was formed on thermally grown SiO₂ on Si(1 0 0) by MOCVD using dipivaloymethanato precursors, and the influence of N₂ annealing on interfacial reaction for this stack structure was examined by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflection. We found that compositional mixing between LaO_x and HfO₂ becomes significant from 600 °C upwards and that interfacial reaction between HfLa_yO_z and SiO₂ proceeds consistently at 1000 °C in N₂ ambience.     

Modeling of diffusive mass transport in micropores in cement based materials

In order to predict long-term leaching behavior of cement constituents for safety assessments of radioactive waste disposal, we modeled diffusive mass transport in micropores in cement based materials. Based on available knowledge on the pore structure, we developed a transport porosity model that enables us to estimate effective porosity available for diffusion (transport porosity) in cement based materials. We microscopically examined the pore structure of hardened cement pastes to partially verify the model. Effective diffusivities of tritiated water in hardened cement pastes were also obtained experimentally, and were shown to be proportional to the estimated transport porosity.     

FDCNet: filtering deep convolutional network for marine organism classification

Convolutional networks are currently the most popular computer vision methods for a wide variety of applications in multimedia research fields. Most recent methods have focused on solving problems with natural images and usually use a training database, such as Imagenet or Openimage, to detect the characteristics of the objects. However, in practical applications, training samples are difficult to acquire. In this study, we develop a powerful approach that can accurately learn marine organisms. The proposed filtering deep convolutional network (FDCNet) classifies deep-sea objects better than state-of-the-art classification methods, such as AlexNet, GoogLeNet, ResNet50, and ResNet101. The classification accuracy of the proposed FDCNet method is 1.8%, 2.9%, 2.0%, and 1.0% better than AlexNet, GooLeNet, ResNet50, and ResNet101, respectively. In addition, we have built the first marine organism database, Kyutech10K, with seven categories (i.e., shrimp, squid, crab, shark, sea urchin, manganese, and sand).