Extending transmission bandwidth of air-core photonic bandgap fibers

Air-core photonic bandgap fibers offer many unique properties and are critical to many emerging applications. A notable property is the high nonlinear threshold which provides a foundation for applications at high peak powers. The strong interaction of light and air is also essential for a number of emerging applications, especially those based on nonlinear interactions and spectroscopy. For many of those applications, much wider transmission bandwidths are desired to accommodate a wider tuning range or the large number of optical wavelengths involved. Presently, air-core photonic bandgap fibers have a cladding of hexagonal lattice. The densely packed geometry of hexagonal stacking does not allow large nodes in the cladding, which would provide a further increase of photonic bandgaps. On the other hand, a photonic cladding with a square lattice can potentially provide much larger nodes and consequently wider bandgap. In this work, the potentials of much wider bandgap with square lattice cladding is theoretically studied and experimentally demonstrated.     

EACLE : Energy-Aware Clustering Scheme with Transmission Power Control for Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a new energy efficient clustering scheme with transmission power control named “EACLE” (Energy-Aware CLustering scheme with transmission power control for sEnsor networks) for wireless sensor networks, which are composed of the following three components; “EACLE clustering” is a distributed clustering method by means of transmission power control, “EACLE routing” builds a tree rooted at a sink node and sets the paths from sensor nodes taking energy saving into consideration, and “EACLE transmission timing control” changes the transmission timing with different levels of transmission power to avoid packet collisions and facilitates packet binding. With an indoor wireless channel model which we obtained from channel measurement campaigns in rooms and corridors and an energy consumption model which we obtained from a measurement of a chipset, we performed computer simulations to investigate the performance of EACLE in a realistic environment. Our simulation results indicate that EACLE outperforms a conventional scheme such as EAD (Energy-Aware Data-centric routing) in terms of communication success rate and energy consumption. Furthermore, we fully discuss the impact of transmission power and timing control on the performance of EACLE.     

Daily concentrations of trace metals in aerosols in Beijing, China, determined by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry equipped with laser ablation analysis, and source identification of aerosols

This paper describes the daily concentrations of trace metals and ionic constituents in the aerosol of Beijing, China from March 2001 to August 2003. Daily PM10 concentrations were also measured from September 2001 to August 2003. The daily average PM10 concentration at Beijing, China from September 2001 to August 2003 was 171+/-117 microg m(-3) (n = 673), which is 5-fold higher than at Yokohama, Japan. Trace metal concentrations were analyzed by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry equipped with a laser ablation sample introduction (LA/ICP-MS), which is a rapid and simultaneous method for multi-element analysis. The daily average metal concentrations in TSP in Beijing from March 2001 to August 2003 were: Al: 3.5+/-2.4 (n = 727), Ti: 0.47+/-0.35 (n = 720), V: 0.013+/-0.010 (n = 716), Cr: 0.019+/-0.015 (n = 618), Mn: 0.24+/-0.16 (n = 730), Fe: 5.5+/-3.9 (n = 728), Co: 0.0046+/-0.0055 (n = 629), Ni: 0.022+/-0.024 (n = 680), Cu: 0.11+/-0.11 (n = 660), Zn: 0.77+/-0.60 (n = 726), As: 0.048+/-0.047 (n = 731), Se: 0.010+/-0.010 (n = 550), Cd: 0.0068+/-0.0082 (n = 709), Sb: 0.033+/-0.036 (n = 687), and Pb: 0.43+/-0.50 (n = 728) (unit, microg m(-3)). All the metal concentrations in TSP in Beijing, China were 1.7-21.8 times higher than those in TSP in the center of Tokyo, Japan. Notably, As concentrations in TSP in Beijing were 20-fold higher than those in Tokyo. Source identification of aerosols in Beijing was carried out by using the chemical mass balance (CMB) receptor model, with the daily concentration of metals in the aerosol. The major primary sources of the aerosol of Beijing were considered to be soil dust and coal combustion. Vehicle exhaust contribution tended to increase.     

Adaptive set‐point regulation of discrete‐time nonlinear systems

In this paper, adaptive set‐point regulation controllers for discrete‐time nonlinear systems are constructed. The system to be controlled is assumed to have a parametric uncertainty, and an excitation signal is used in order to obtain the parameter estimate. The proposed controller belongs to the category of indirect adaptive controllers, and its construction is based on the policy of calculating the control input rather than that of obtaining a control law. The proposed method solves the adaptive set‐point regulation problem under the assumption that the target state is reachable for each fixed parameter value. Additional feature of the proposed method is that Lyapunov‐like functions have not been used in the construction of the controllers. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effect of Non-Equilibrium Condensation of Moist Air on Flow Field in Ludwieg Tube

The time-dependent behavior of non-equilibrium condensation of moist air through a Ludwieg tube with a diaphragm downstream is investigated by using a computational fluid dynamics work. The two-dimensional, compressible, Navier-Stokes equations, fully coupled with the condensate droplet growth equations, are numerically solved by a third-order MUSCL type TVD finite-difference scheme with a second-order fractional time step. Baldwin-Lomax turbulence model is employed to close the governing equations. The present computations represent the experimental flows well. The results obtained show that for an initial relative humidity over 40 %, the periodic excursions of the condensation shock occurs in the Ludwieg tube, and the frequency increases with the initial relative humidity. It is also found that total pressure loss due to non-equilibrium condensation in the Ludwieg tube should not be ignored even for a very low initial relative humidity. Furthermore, the variations of condensation properties are also di     

Moving pick‐up‐type contactless power transfer systems and their efficiency using series and parallel resonant capacitors

The equivalent circuit, the efficiency, and the important characteristics of moving pick‐up type contactless power transfer systems are described. If the primary series capacitor and the secondary parallel capacitors are chosen correctly and the winding resistances are ignored, the equivalent circuit of the transformer with these capacitors becomes the same as an ideal transformer at the resonant frequency. This simple approximation helps to understand the phenomena occurring with load changes. Because the circuit analysis becomes simple, the approximate value of the power transfer efficiency can be derived. This paper describes the determination of the capacitor values, the derivation of the equivalent circuit and the efficiency, and test results. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 172(2): 47–54, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20970     

Influence of phosphate species on green rust I transformation and local structure and morphology of γ-FeOOH

To clarify the role of phosphate in the formation of corrosion products, the transformation of GRI(Cl⁻) with the addition of phosphate was characterized through XRD, TEM, and solution analysis. Electrochemical analysis showed that the transformation of GRI(Cl⁻) was delayed and the size of the final products, i.e., γ-FeOOH was reduced in the phosphate added case. X-ray absorption spectroscopy indicated that the neighboring Fe–Fe coordination number of FeO₆ octahedral unit in γ-FeOOH was decreased. These effects of phosphate are attributed to its adsorption on GRI(Cl⁻) and nucleated γ-FeOOH that prevented particle growth during oxidation process.     

Improvement of bitumen-waste product in leachability—Leachability of bitumen product containing BWR's evaporator concentrate

The method has been developed to improve the bitumen product which incorporates an evaporator concentrate from a BWR, with respect to the swelling and leaching. The leachability of the product has been measured by the method recommended by the IAEA. The swelling of the product is successfully prevented by the addition of calcium chloride. The specimen containing the waste up to Wa/B (Weight ratio of Na₂SO₄ + CaCl₂ and bitumen) = 60:40 shows no pronounced swelling, when it is immersed in water. The cumulative fractions of ¹³⁷Cs and ⁶⁰Co leached from a specimen which does not contain CaCl₂ are 0.65 and 0.2 at the leaching time of 30 days. On the hand, the corresponding value at 100 days for the specimen with calcium chloride addition is 5 × 10^?4 for ¹³⁷Cs and 1 × 10^?4 for ⁶⁰Co. The coating of the specimen surface with a fresh bitumen (5 mm thickness) reduces the leachability further. These results indicate that this method is effective to improve the bitumen product incorporating BWR's evaporator concentrate.