The socio-political economy of nuclear power development in Japan and South Korea

This paper analyzes the socio-cultural, political and economic conditions prevalent during the inception of nuclear power programs in Japan and South Korea in order to identify commonalities which support nuclear power program expansion. The study identifies six factors as having a clear influence on supporting nuclear power development: (1) strong state involvement in guiding economic development; (2) centralization of national energy policymaking and planning; (3) campaigns to link technological progress with national revitalization; (4) influence of technocratic ideology on policy decisions; (5) subordination of challenges to political authority, and (6) low levels of civic activism. The paper postulates that insights from this study can be used to assess the propensity of nations which have the emergent capacity to support nuclear power development to actually embark on such programs.     

Let's inhibit our excitement: The relationships between Stroop, behavioral disinhibition, and the frontal lobes.

Objective: The Stroop (Stroop, 1935) is a frequently used neuropsychological test, with poor performance typically interpreted as indicative of disinhibition and frontal lobe damage. This study tested those interpretations by examining relationships between Stroop performance, behavioral disinhibition, and frontal lobe atrophy. Method: Participants were 112 patients with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, recruited through UCSF's Memory and Aging Center. Participants received comprehensive dementia evaluations including structural MRI, neuropsychological testing, and informant interviews. Freesurfer, a semiautomated parcellation program, was used to analyze 1.5T MRI scans. Behavioral disinhibition was measured using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (Cummings, 1997; Cummings et al., 1994) Disinhibition Scale. The sample (n = 112) mean age was 65.40 (SD = 8.60) years, education was 16.64 (SD = 2.54) years, and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein et al., 1975) was 26.63 (SD = 3.32). Hierarchical linear regressions were used for data analysis. Results: Controlling for age, MMSE, and color naming, Stroop performance was not significantly associated with disinhibition (β = 0.01, ΔR2 = 0.01, p = .29). Hierarchical regressions controlling for age, MMSE, color naming, intracranial volume, and temporal and parietal lobes, examined whether left or right hemisphere regions predict Stroop performance. Bilaterally, parietal lobe atrophy best predicted poorer Stroop (left: β = 0.0004, ΔR2 = 0.02, p = .002; right: β = 0.0004, ΔR2 = 0.02, p = .002). Of frontal regions, only dorsolateral prefrontal cortex atrophy predicted poorer Stroop (β = 0.001, ΔR2 = 0.01, p = .03); left and right anterior cingulate cortex atrophy predicted better Stroop (left: β = ?0.003, ΔR2 = 0.01, p = .02; right: β = ?0.004, ΔR2 = 0.01, p = .02). Conclusion: These findings suggest Stroop performance is a poor measure of behavioral disinhibition and frontal lobe atrophy even among a relatively high-risk population. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Matching Western US electricity consumption with wind and solar resources

The variability of wind and solar is perceived as a major obstacle in employing otherwise abundant renewable energy resources. On the basis of the available geographically dispersed data for the Western USA, we analyze to what extent the geographic diversity of these resources can offset their variability. We determine the best match to loads in the western portion of the USA that can be achieved with wind power and photovoltaics (PV) with no transmission limitations. Without storage and with no curtailment, wind and PV can meet up to 50% of loads in Western USA. It is beneficial to build more wind than PV mostly because the wind contributes at night. When storage is available, the optimal mix has almost 75% as much nominal PV capacity as wind, with the PV energy contribution being 32% of the electricity produced from wind. With only 10 GW of storage (twice the pumped hydro storage capacity that already exists in the Western Electric Coordinating Council), up to 82% of the load can be matched with wind and PV, while in the same time curtailing just 10% of the renewable energy throughout the year. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ion transport properties of porous polybenzimidazole membranes for vanadium redox flow batteries obtained via supercritical drying of swollen polymer films

A novel method of membrane preparation for use in vanadium redox flow batteries by preswelling of poly(2,5‐benzimidazole) films in organic solvent followed by supercritical CO₂ assisted solvent removal is proposed. Influence of the organic solvent type on the morphology, proton, and vanadyl ion transport properties is studied. The performance of the obtained membranes inside single cells of vanadium redox flow batteries is compared to pristine dense poly(2,5‐benzimidazole) and Nafion 115 membranes. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018 , 135, 46262.     

Nearly optimal solution of rational linear systems of equations with symbolic lifting and numerical initialization

Hensel’s symbolic lifting is a highly effective method for the solution of a general or structured (e.g. Toeplitz or Hankel) linear system of equations with integer or rational coefficients of bounded length. It can handle ill conditioned inputs, for which numerical methods become costly. Lifting amounts to recursive multiplications by vectors of the input coefficient matrices and its precomputed inverse modulo a fixed integer s. Such multiplications only involve small numbers of data movements and arithmetic operations with bounded precision. The known methods for precomputation of the inverse are more costly, however; in particular they involve more data movements. As our remedy for this bottleneck stage we create an auxiliary matrix sharing its inverse modulo s with the input matrix, and we readily compute this inverse by applying numerical iterative refinement, which is a numerical counterpart of lifting. In the case of general unstructured as well as Toeplitz, Hankel, and other popular structured inputs our hybrid algorithms involve a small number of data movements and optimal number of Boolean (that is bitwise) operations (up to a logarithmic factor). We extend the algorithms to nearly optimal computation of polynomial greatest common divisors (gcds), least common multiples (lcms) and Padé approximations, as well as the Berlekamp-Massey reconstruction of linear recurrences. We also cover Newton’s lifting for matrix inversion, specialize it to the case of structured input, and combine it with Hensel’s to enhance the overall efficiency. Our initialization techniques work for Newton’s lifting as well. Furthermore we extend all our lifting algorithms to allow their initialization modulo powers of two, thus implementing them in the binary base.     

Electronic Properties and Structure of Assemblies of CdSe Nanocrystal Quantum Dots and Ru‐Polypyridine Complexes Probed by Steady State and Time‐Resolved Photoluminescence

Chemical and electronic interactions between CdSe nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) and Ru‐polypyridine complexes are studied in solution. It is shown that photoluminescence (PL) can be used to effectively monitor the formation of NQD‐complex assemblies in real time. It is also shown that with the aid of Langmuir isotherm modeling, the PL studies can be used to quantitatively characterize the composition of the assemblies and the strength of electronic interactions between their components. The approach demonstrated here is general and can be applied to other systems that combine semiconductor NQDs and appropriately functionalized organometallic or organic molecules interacting with NQDs via energy transfer, charge transfer, or other mechanisms leading to quenching of NQD emission.     

Analysis of broadcasting delays in vehicular ad hoc networks

High mobility of nodes in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) may lead to frequent breakdowns of established routes in conventional routing algorithms commonly used in mobile ad hoc networks. To satisfy the high reliability and low delivery‐latency requirements for safety applications in VANETs, broadcasting becomes an essential operation for route establishment and repair. However, high node mobility causes constantly changing traffic and topology, which creates great challenges for broadcasting. Therefore, there is much interest in better understanding the properties of broadcasting in VANETs. In this paper we perform stochastic analysis of broadcasting delays in VANETs under three typical scenarios: freeway, sparse traffic and dense traffic, and utilize them to analyze the broadcasting delays in these scenarios. In the freeway scenario, the analytical equation of the expected delay in one connected group is given based on statistical analysis of real traffic data collected on freeways. In the sparse traffic scenario, the broadcasting delay in an n‐vehicle network is calculated by a finite Markov chain. In the dense traffic scenario, the collision problem is analyzed by different radio propagation models. The correctness of these theoretical analyses is confirmed by simulations. These results are useful to provide theoretical insights into the broadcasting delays in VANETs. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relaxation behavior of polymers probed by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy

Relaxation behaviors of polyethylene, polypropylene, and polycarbonate have been studied by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS). In PALS positron sources made of radioisotopes are used to inject positrons into polymer as a micro probe. The injected positron probes can induce radiation effect, which plays an important role in detecting the polymer relaxation behavior through electrons trapped in shallow potentials at low temperature. Monitoring the intensity (I₃) of ortho-positronium (o-Ps), transitions of γ and δ relaxation can be measured by PALS as a secondary effect. In this experiment, the change of I₃ below Tg is connected with the number of the trapped electrons, which can be excited from the shallow potential by the thermal motion of polymer structures and visible light irradiation. In the PALS measurements of non-irradiated PP samples, relaxation of methyl groups was observed as low as 50 K, which can be assigned as the δ relaxation. Relaxations of β and γ were also observed for the non-irradiated PP samples between 100–370 K. However for the 3 MGy γ-ray irradiated PP samples, only β relaxation was observed because the large radiation dose caused a large number of scissions of –CH₃ groups from main chains and the characteristics changed. For the irradiated samples, radiation hardening was observed. Electronic Publication