Applying heat integration total site based pinch technology to a large industrial area in Japan to further improve performance of highly efficient process plants

“Area-wide pinch technology” which consists of R-curve analysis and Site Source Sink Profile (SSSP) analysis, was applied to Kashima industrial area, one of the biggest heavy chemical complexes in Japan. This case study demonstrates that despite the very high efficiency of the individual sites in the complex, there is a huge amount of energy saving potential through energy sharing among the various sites. In addition it was found that appropriate use of the available pinch technology tools and techniques allows an industrial area of enormous scale and complexity to be analysed conveniently. This has resulted in practical area-wide energy saving projects being proposed and implemented.     

Determination of potent odorants in apple by headspace gas dilution analysis

Gas chromatography-olfactometry with headspace gas dilution analysis was used to evaluate the odor potencies of volatile compounds in Fuji apple. To improve the resolution of volatile compounds, the dilution analysis was conducted on two types of capillary columns with different polarities. Thirty three and 20 compounds were identified on DB-WAX and DB-5 columns, respectively. Methyl 2-methylbutanoate, isobutyl acetate, ethyl butanoate, ethyl 2-methylbutanoate, isopentyl formate, butyl acetate and hexyl acetate as well as hexanal were important odor contributors in the headspace gas of apple on the basis of high Flavor Dilution (FD) factors. Threshold values-in-air of these compounds were also estimated from the relationships between their FD factors and concentrations. Methyl 2-methylbutanoate and ethyl 2-methylbutanote were considered as the most potent odorants because of their lowest threshold values. In addition, the threshold values-in-air of isopentyl formate, isopentyl acetate and butyl isobutanoate, which have never been reported, were estimated at 0.149, 1.95 and 0.00607 μl/l, respectively.     

Reference values for bisphosphoglycerate mutase protein content and specific activity in human erythrocytes

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) gastritis has been reported in transplant patients. Symptoms are considered nonspecific, and gastroscopy with biopsy is usually performed to establish the diagnosis. Three patients are described here 1 to 3 months after solid organ transplantation, with primary CMV gastritis, confirmed by gastroscopy, histopathologic examination and cultures. The clinical presentation in all three cases was sharp epigastric pain that decreased in a supine position, increased while sitting and further increased when standing or walking. The epigastric pain completely resolved after treatment with ganciclovir. To the best of our knowledge, such postural epigastric pain has not been described as a specific symptom in any other clinical entity and may be a unique sign of primary CMV gastritis.     

Operation of power distribution systems by using a section management method

High-voltage power distribution systems are connected in a branch configuration so as to meet the need for highly reliable power service. When service is interrupted the faulty section is automatically isolated and the power supply is rerouted from an adjacent power distribution system thereby minimizing the service interruption area. The faulty section in the power distribution system is quickly located by means of time relays installed in the switchgears. The settings of those time relays, however, must be monitored constantly. For this reason, we have proposed a “section management method” which can supervise each section of the power distribution system. From this method, we developed a prototype automated distribution system for overall management of time relays through the use of internal software, facilities and customer feedback. This paper describes the section management of power distribution systems.     

Reconstruction of a high-resolution image on a compound-eye image-capturing system

The authors have proposed an architecture for a compact image-capturing system called TOMBO (thin observation module by bound optics), which uses compound-eye imaging for a compact hardware configuration [Appl. Opt. 40, 1806 (2001)]. The captured compound image is decomposed into a set of unit images, then the pixels in the unit images are processed with digital processing to retrieve the target image. A new method for high-resolution image reconstruction, called a pixel rearrange method, is proposed. The relation between the target object and the captured signals is estimated and utilized to rearrange the original pixel information. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. In the experimental TOMBO system, the resolution obtained is four times higher than that of the unit image that did not undergo reconstruction processing.     

Performance evaluation system for probabilistic neural network hardware

The probabilistic neural network (PNN) is one of the most promising neural networks, and is now applied to some real-world applications. In order to speed up the PNN calculation considerably, we have developed a PNN hardware system for video image recognition. The performance of the PNN hardware cannot be evaluated precisely until the evaluation system is completed. In this study, we developed a performance evaluation system for the PNN hardware and demonstrated it using the developed evaluation system.This work was presented, in part, at the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 24–26, 2003     

A novel anionic surfactant templating route for synthesizing mesoporous silica with unique structure

Anionic surfactants are used in greater volume than any other surfactants because of their highly potent detergency and low cost of manufacture. However, they have not been used as templates for synthesizing mesoporous silica. Here we show a templating route for preparing mesoporous silicas based on self-assembly of anionic surfactants and inorganic precursors. We use aminosilane or quaternized aminosilane as co-structure-directing agent (CSDA), which is different from previous pathways. The alkoxysilane site of CSDA is co-condensed with inorganic precursors; the ammonium site of CSDA, attached to silicon atoms incorporated into the wall, electrostatically interacts with the anionic surfactants to produce well-ordered anionic-surfactant-templated mesoporous silicas (AMS). These have new structures with periodic modulations as well as two-dimensional hexagonal and lamellar phases. The periodic modulations may be caused by the coexistence of micelles that differ in size or curvature, possibly owing to local chirality. These mesoporous silicas provide a new family of mesoporous materials as well as shedding light on the structural behaviour of anionic surfactants.     

Stress intensity factor analysis of a three-dimensional interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic materials

A new numerical method to calculate the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of a three-dimensional interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic materials was developed. In this study, the M-integral method was employed for mode separation of the SIFs. The moving least-square method was utilized to calculate the M-integral. Using the M-integral with the moving least-square method, SIFs can be automatically calculated with only the nodal displacements from the finite element method (FEM). Here, SIFs analyses of some typical three-dimensional problems are demonstrated. Excellent agreement was achieved between the numerical results obtained by the present method and the corresponding results proposed by other researchers. In addition, the SIFs of a single-edge crack, a through crack, and a semi-circular crack between two anisotropic solids in three-dimensional structures were analyzed.     

Catalytic Activities of Alcohol Transformations Over 8-Ring Zeolites

Aluminosilicate H/CHA and H/MTF zeolites show remarkably different catalytic activities in the methanol and ethanol transformations although they have similar pore size of 8-membered ring structures. Moreover, the produced ethylene is further converted on H/CHA, but H/MTF is not active for the ethylene transformation. The correlations between the distinct catalytic differences and their intrinsic structural properties, including topology and acidity, are discussed.