The Effectiveness of Latent Semantic Analysis for Building Up a Bottom-up Taxonomy from Folksonomy Tags

In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of a semantic smoothing technique to organize folksonomy tags. Folksonomy tags have no explicit relations and vary because they form uncontrolled vocabulary. We discriminates so-called subjective tags like “cool” and “fun” from folksonomy tags without any extra knowledge other than folksonomy triples and use the level of tag generalization to form the objective tags into a hierarchy. We verify that entropy of folksonomy tags is an effective measure for discriminating subjective folksonomy tags. Our hierarchical tag allocation method guarantees the number of children nodes and increases the number of available paths to a target node compared to an existing tree allocation method for folksonomy tags.     

Purification and characterization of a novel glutamyl aminopeptidase from chicken meat

A novel glutamyl aminopeptidase (aminopeptidase A, EC 3.4.11.7) was purified from chicken meat by ammonium sulfate fractionation, ethanol fractionation, heat treatment, and successive column chromatographies of DEAE-Sepharose CL-6B and Sephadex G-200. The purified enzyme migrated as a single band on SDS-PAGE. The molecular weight of this enzyme was found to be 55,000 and 550,000 by SDS-PAGE and Sephadex G-200 column chromatographies, respectively. This enzyme hydrolyzed Glu- and Asp-, but not Leu-, Arg-, and Ala-2-naphthylamide (-2NA) at all. The optimum pH and temperature for hydrolysis of Glu-2NA was 7.5. and 70°C, respectively. Reducing agents such as cysteine and dithiothreitol inhibited the activity of this enzyme at concentrations of 1 mM. However, the activation by Ca(2+) and the inhibition by amastatin were not observed.     

Abnormality of electric field at a wedgelike edge of a conductor or a dielectric interface and methods for its relaxation

Abnormal electric field appears at a wedgelike edge of a conductor (electrode) or a dielectric interface, which usually becomes infinitely high. This paper analyzes the electric field near such an edge by the analytical variable separation method and by the numerical one of the charge simulation method. The analysis focuses on the special conditions where the electric field becomes zero at an edge. These conditions are important for the insulation design to suppress the discharge inception at such edges of conductors and dielectric interfaces. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 159(1): 1–8, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20280     

Triple‐junction effect and its electric field relaxation in three dielectrics

This paper analyzes the electric field distribution near a wedge‐like edge in arrangements consisting of three dielectrics using analytical and numerical methods. The electric potential behaves exponentially as rⁿ (r is the distance from the edge) near the edge, leading to an infinitely high field with decreasing r for all cases. The value of the analytically derived exponent n agreed well with that obtained from the numerical field calculations. It has also been demonstrated that rounded contact of the spacer with a zero contact angle can make the electric field constant without showing an exponential rise near the edge. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(1): 1– 8, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20670     

Electric field calculation in composite dielectrics by surface charge method based on electric flux continuity condition

We propose a new surface charge method based on the continuity of electric flux passing through each partial area on the dielectric boundary. N partial areas divided on the boundary give the boundary equations for solving N unknown variables representing the surface charge density distribution. The electric flux is numerically calculated by integrating the normal component of electric flux density on each partial area. This method permits us to exclude the singularity of edge parts from the boundary equations because these parts do not contribute to the integration area. In this paper, we apply first‐order functions to simulate both triangular surface shape and charge density distribution on its surface as well. First, we have computed the electric field for a spherical dielectric under a uniform field. The calculated results show that the accuracy of the electric field at the spherical center is almost equal to the accuracy of the total surface area of the polygon which represents the sphere. Furthermore, this method has improved the accuracy of the field by about one order compared with the conventional surface charge methods. Second, we have computed the electric field for a dielectric human model under a uniform field. The calculated results demonstrates that the proposed method works well for a complicated shaped object with a dielectric constant greatly different from that of an ambient medium. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 138(4): 10–17, 2002; DOI 10.1002/eej.1133     

Pulsed laser annealing of GaAs in a high-pressure argon gas ambience

Pulsed laser annealing was carried out for n-type semiconducting GaAs in air, 1 bar nitrogen, 1 bar argon, and 100 bar argon gas ambiences. Depth profiles of the atomic ratio measured by SIMS indicate that pulse annealing in air results in As loss and penetration of oxygen into the crystal, both of which affect dopant redistribution and deteriorate electrical properties of the annealed layer. High electrical activity (100%) and electron mobilities were achieved for high-dose implants of Si⁺ (1 × 10¹⁵ cm⁻²) by pulsed laser annealing in the high-pressure ambience.     

A new psychophysical method: Method of transposition or equal-appearing relations.

"In many experiments dealing with perceptual phenomena, investigators try to find a stimulus which appears equal to a standard stimulus. It often happens, however, that the procedure involved in finding the equivalent stimulus alters the stimulus pattern so that the measurement is not made on the original stimulus pattern. To avoid this difficulty, a new psychophysical method, which is named the method of transposition or the method of equal-appearing relations, was proposed. The major advantage of this method over the traditional ones is that it leaves the original stimulus pattern intact." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Charge injection and decay of nanoscale dielectric films resolved via dynamic scanning probe microscopy

To satisfy continual demands for higher performance dielectrics in multi-layer ceramic capacitors and related microelectronic devices, novel characterization methods are necessary for mapping materials properties down to the nanoscale, where enabling materials developments are increasingly relevant. Accordingly, an atomic force microscopy-based approach is implemented for characterizing insulator performance based on the mapping of discharging dynamics. Following surface charging by biasing a conducting tip contacting a dielectric surface, consecutive non-contact Kelvin force surface potential mapping (KPFM) reveals charge dissipation via exponential decay. In barium titanate (BTO) thin films engineered with distinct microstructures but identical thicknesses, discharging rates vary by up to a factor of 2, with smaller grain size correlating to longer dissipation times, providing insight into optimal microstructures for improved capacitor performance. High-resolution potential mapping as a function of time thereby provides a route for directly investigating charge injection and discharging mechanisms in dielectrics, which are increasingly engineered down to the nanoscale and have global implications given the trillions of such devices manufactured each year.     

Chromatic adaptation on the minimally distinct border and brightness matching in color-normals and deuteranopes

We examined the effect of monochromatic adapting lights on minimally distinct border (MDB) settings and brightness matching (BM) between monochromatic test and reference fields by using three color-normals and three deuteranopes as observers. In the case of MDB, for color-normal observers chromatic adaptation appeared prominetly in the wavelength regions near the test and reference wavelengths in the corresponding field, when either the test or reference field was in the long-wavelenth region. No differential effect was found for deuteranopic observers. Using BM instead of MDB, the differential effects of chromatic adaptation appeared more prominently in the short-wavelength region for both types of observers (especially for color-normals) and in the middle-wavelength region for color-normal observers. The results indicate that the blue-sen-sitive mechanisms make either little or no contribution to the MDB criterion, or the distinctness of borders.     

Electric field calculation in composite dielectrics by a curved triangular surface charge method

This paper describes a triangular surface charge method (TSCM) called (3,1)‐TSCM, which uses curved surface elements for calculating electric fields in composite dielectrics. The boundary element utilizes a cubic shape function with nine degrees of freedom and a linear function for representing the charge density on its surface. Conventional SCMs, including the (3,1)‐TSCM, show a very large relative error in the composite dielectrics where the permittivity is much higher in one medium than in the other. A modified method called the β method can suppress such relative errors, which expresses electric fields by surface charges without subtraction causing large relative errors. We have applied the β method to the (3,1)‐TSCM and calculated electric fields for a spherical dielectric under a uniform field. The calculated results show that the (3,1)‐TSCM improves the accuracy of the electric field by more than one order compared with the method using flat surface elements with constant charge density on each element. Furthermore, the β method completely suppresses the divergence of relative errors even when the ratio of the permittivity of two media reaches 10¹⁰. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 136(1): 1–8, 2001