Vapor absorption by LiBr aqueous solution in vertical smooth tubes

Heat and mass transfer in a falling film vertical in-tube absorber was studied experimentally with LiBr aqueous solution. The presented results include the effect of solution flow rate, solution subcooling and cooling water temperature on the absorption in a smooth copper tube 16.05 mm I.D. and 400 mm long. The experimental data in the previous report for a 1200-mm-long tube was also re-examined and compared. It was demonstrated by the observation of the flow in the tube that the break down of the liquid film into rivulets leads to deterioration of heat and mass transfer at lower film Reynolds number or in longer tubes. An attempt to evaluate physically acceptable heat and mass transfer coefficients that are defined with estimated temperature and concentration at the vapor–liquid interface was also presented.     

Application of microwaves and millimeter waves for thecharacterization of teeth for dental diagnosis and treatment

This paper presents applications of microwaves and millimeter waves for the characterization of teeth. This is done by measuring the complex permittivity over the frequency range from 0.04 to 40 GHz. These measurements have revealed that dental caries are significantly more lossy to microwaves and millimeter waves than the healthy tooth, and this difference can be used for dental diagnosis. The experimental results have been confirmed by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. In addition, millimeter-wave heating of the lossy dental caries can be used as a sterilization treatment. It is concluded that millimeter waves can be used for dental medical diagnosis as well as dental medical treatment     

Prognostic factors in radiation-treated esophageal carcinoma

Prognostic factors in esophageal carcinoma treated with irradiation were examined. The prognosis of 111 patients without metastasis who had received more than 60 Gy was analyzed. Significant associations were found between survival rates and tumor length, stage, radioresponse of the primary tumor and the s.c. X-P classification based on barium contrast radiography; superficial type (tumor limited to the surface of the esophageal wall), tumorous type (solid mass without ulceration), Ul-A type (tumor with shallow ulceration with regular margin), Ul-B type (tumor with deep ulceration or irregular ulcer margin), and funneled type (tumor invading the esophageal wall in a scirrhous pattern). In multiple regression analysis, the X-P classification had the strongest correlation with survival and the survival rates of patients with the superficial type, the tumorous type and the s.c. Ul-A type were significantly higher than those of patients with the other tumor types (p < 0.001).     

Suppression of photo-induced dilation in cyanide treated hydrogenated amorphous silicon films

Effects of cyanide (CN) treatment with hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) films have been investigated. The decrease of ΔV/V was observed in cyanide treated a-Si:H films and the successive thermal annealing at 200°C after CN treatment induced the further reduction of the ΔV/V. XPS spectra show the indirect evidence that the cyanide species is present within 10 nm from the hydrogenated amorphous silicon surface. The results of CN treatment with a-Si:H solar cells are demonstrated.     

Conductivity of the one-dimensional quantum sine-gordon system (g 2 = 4π) with impurities

We have considered the behavior of the conductivity or the dielectric function of the one-dimensional (1-D) quantum sine-Gordon system (g² = 4) for two models of impurities. We have used a Fermi-Bose relation and a self consistent t-matrix approximation. As for the conductivity at zero temperature, it appears when the concentration of impurities becomes larger than the critical concentration of impurities. It shows the linear increase near the critical concentration. As for the dielectric constant, its behavior is model dependent. We have numerically calculated the frequency dependence of the conductivity at zero temperature. The real part shows the second order increase near the critical frequency. The imaginary part shows the linear decrease from the origin.     

Model-less visual servoing using modified simplex optimization

This article describes a robot positioning task with respect to a static target by visual servoing. The vision system is uncalibrated, and the kinematic model of the robot may be totally unknown. The displacements of the robot at joint level are generated in real time in order to minimize the objective function. The objective function includes the quadratic error between the current and the desired target images. A simplex method is used to minimize the objective function, and a Newton-like method is also used near convergence. We successfully validated this method with simulations under the graphic library OpenGL. This work was presented in part at the 10th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, February 4–6, 2005