Single-mode optical waveguides fabricated from fluorinated polyimides

Buried channel optical waveguides were fabricated from fluorinated polyimides. They operated in single mode and showed an optical loss of less than 0.3 and 0.7 dB/cm for TE and TM polarizations, respectively, at a wavelength of 1.3 mum. Moreover, these waveguides had high heat and moisture resistance; the optical loss did not significantly change after heating at 380 degrees C for 1 h or after exposure to 85% relative humidity at 85 degrees C for over 200 h.     

Control of three-link underactuated manipulators using a switching method of fuzzy energy regions

In general, manipulators used for industry and in academic laboratories have actuators to drive each joint. On the other hand, underactuated manipulators handled by our research have some passive or free joints without actuators and brakes. We recently developed a switching method of fuzzy energy regions to control such manipulators. In such a method, it is necessary to design parameters related to energy regions and the gains of some partly stable controllers based on the computed torque method. Here, the switching method is applied for a three-link underactuated manipulator. We optimize such design parameters related to fuzzy energy regions by a genetic algorithm. The effectiveness of the present method is illustrated with some simulations. This work was presented in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007     

An application of the 2-nitrobenzenesulfenyl method to proteomic profiling of human colorectal carcinoma: A novel approach for biomarker discovery

In the development of novel biomarkers, the proteomic approach is advantageous because using it the cancer-associated proteins can be directly identified. We previously developed a 2-nitrobenzenesulfenyl (NBS) method to improve quantitative proteome analysis. Here, we applied this method to proteomic profiling of colorectal carcinoma (CRC) to identify novel proteins with altered expression in CRC. Each pair of tumor and normal tissue specimens from 12 CRC patients was analyzed, and approximately 5000 NBS-labeled paired peaks were quantified. Peaks with altered signal intensities (>1.5-fold) and occurring frequently in the samples (>70%) were selected, and 128 proteins were identified by MS/MS analyses as differentially expressed proteins in CRC tissues. Many proteins were newly revealed to be CRC related; 30 were reported in earlier studies of CRC. Six proteins that were up-regulated in CRC (ZYX, RAN, RCN1, AHCY, LGALS1, and VIM) were further characterized and validated by Western blot and immunohistochemistry. All six were found to be CRC-localized, either in cancer cells or in stroma cells near the cancer cells. These results indicate that the proteins identified in this study are novel candidates for CRC markers, and that the NBS method is useful in proteome mining to discover novel biomarkers.     

Evolutionary Learning of a Fuzzy Behavior Based Controller for a Nonholonomic Mobile Robot in a Class of Dynamic Environments

This paper presents an approach for evolving optimum behaviors for a nonholonomic mobile robot in a class of dynamic environments. A new evolutionary algorithm reflecting some powerful features in the natural evolutionary process to have flexibility to deal with changes in the environment is used to evolve optimum behaviors. Furthermore, a fuzzy set based multi-objective fitness evaluation function is adopted in the evolutionary algorithm. The multi-objective evaluation function is designed so that it allows incorporating complex linguistic features that a human observer would desire in the behaviors of the mobile robot movements. To illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, simulation results are compared using a conventional evolutionary algorithm.     

Modular fuzzy-neuro controller driven by spoken language commands.

We present a methodology of controlling machines using spoken language commands. The two major problems relating to the speech interfaces for machines, namely, the interpretation of words with fuzzy implications and the out-of-vocabulary (OOV) words in natural conversation, are investigated. The system proposed in this paper is designed to overcome the above two problems in controlling machines using spoken language commands. The present system consists of a hidden Markov model (HMM) based automatic speech recognizer (ASR), with a keyword spotting system to capture the machine sensitive words from the running utterances and a fuzzy-neural network (FNN) based controller to represent the words with fuzzy implications in spoken language commands. Significance of the words, i.e., the contextual meaning of the words according to the machine's current state, is introduced to the system to obtain more realistic output equivalent to users' desire. Modularity of the system is also considered to provide a generalization of the methodology for systems having heterogeneous functions without diminishing the performance of the system. The proposed system is experimentally tested by navigating a mobile robot in real time using spoken language commands.     

An interval algorithm for finding all solutions of non‐linear resistive circuits

In this letter, an efficient algorithm is proposed for finding all solutions of non‐linear (not piecewise‐linear) resistive circuits. This algorithm is based on interval analysis, the dual simplex method, and the contraction methods. By numerical examples, it is shown that the proposed algorithm could find all solutions of systems of 500–700 non‐linear circuit equations in acceptable computation time. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Structural approach to nanoscience: a case study of complex and cluster formation in ZnBr2–ZnCl2 melts

Although the melt structure of glass-forming ZnCl₂ has so far been well studied, there exists quite little information on the structural change due to anion-substitution. In the present work, the short-range structure of ZnCl₂–ZnBr₂ mixture melts was analyzed systematically by time-of-flight pulsed neutron diffraction techniques, Raman spectroscopy, molecular orbital calculations, and molecular dynamics simulations. According to radial distribution analysis, it was found that there were tetrahedral structural units of ligand-substituted [ZnCl_nBr_4−n]²⁻ (n=0–4) in these melts, not implying the simple mixing of [ZnCl₄]²⁻ and [ZnBr₄]²⁻ units. Further detailed estimation indicated that the ligand-substituted complex anions were linked with each other by sharing a common anion.     

Impact of Membrane Surface Modification on the Treatment of Surface Water

New polyethersulfone (PES) based membranes for ultrafiltration (UF) were developed by blending a surface-modifying macromolecule (SMM) in the casting solution, in an attempt to minimize the impact of fouling. Fouling was evaluated using concentrated Ottawa River water (CORW), either unfractionated or fractionated via UF. These membranes also included some polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), a pore forming additive. A statistical analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of some variables on the treatment of the surface water. The independent variables included PVP/PES ratio in the casting solution, with and without SMM, and the nature of the feed CORW [low molecular weight (LMW) fraction, unfractionated, high molecular weight (HMW) fraction]. The performance variables studied were total organic carbon (TOC) removal, the foulant accumulation at the membrane surface after filtration, the flux reduction, and the final permeate flux. The most important variable was the feed water. Filtration of LMW had a higher final flux, less fouling, but slightly lower TOC removal. The SMM did not significantly impact the membrane performance. TOC removal was high, compared with results reported in the literature for UF membranes.     

Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy Analysis of Effect of Molecular Crowding on Self-Assembly of β-Annulus Peptide into Artificial Viral Capsid

Recent progress in the de novo design of self-assembling peptides has enabled the construction of peptide-based viral capsids. Previously, we demonstrated that 24-mer β-annulus peptides from tomato bushy stunt virus spontaneously self-assemble into an artificial viral capsid. Here we propose to use the artificial viral capsid through the self-assembly of β-annulus peptide as a simple model to analyze the effect of molecular crowding environment on the formation process of viral capsid. Artificial viral capsids formed by co-assembly of fluorescent-labelled and unmodified β-annulus peptides in dilute aqueous solutions and under molecular crowding conditions were analyzed using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS). The apparent particle size and the dissociation constant (K_d) of the assemblies decreased with increasing concentration of the molecular crowding agent, i.e., polyethylene glycol (PEG). This is the first successful in situ analysis of self-assembling process of artificial viral capsid under molecular crowding conditions.     

Optimal operation of cogeneration system coordinated by aggregator for providing the demand and supply regulation capacity

Recent growth of renewable energy generations with natural variability, such as photovoltaic generation and wind turbine generation, would make the demand and supply control in a whole power system more difficult, and therefore, alternatives for demand and supply regulation resources would be required. The authors focus on cogeneration system (CGS) as one of regulation resources. In order to procure adequate volume of regulation capability, an aggregator coordinates a number of CGSs efficiently and flexibly considering the wide variety of electricity/thermal demands of CGS owners. This paper proposes a novel optimal operation strategy of CGS coordinated by the aggregator considering the energy balance and operation cost of individual CGS owner. This paper also demonstrates the availability of CGSs for regulation capability by numerical case studies in which the actual consumption profile is employed.