Electrical Conduction in β-Bi2O3 Doped with Sb2O3

Electrical conduction in tetragonal β-Bi₂O₃ doped with Sb₂O₃ was investigated by measuring electrical conductivity, ionic transference number, and Seebeck coefficient. The β-Bi₂O₃ doped with 1 to 10 mol% Sb₂O₃ was stable up to 600°C and showed an oxygen ionic and electronic mixed conduction, where the electron conduction was predominant at low oxygen pressures. The oxygen-ion conductivity showed a maximum at 4 mol% Sb₂O₃, whereas the activation energy for the ionic conduction remained unchanged for 4 to 10 mol% Sb₂O₃-doped specimens. These results were interpreted in terms of the oxygen vacancy concentration and the distortion of the tetragonal structure. The electron conductivity and its oxygen pressure dependence decreased with increasing Sb₂O₃ content. The fact that Sb⁵⁺ is partially reduced by excess electrons in heavily doped β specimens at low oxygen pressures is explained.     

Gas Sensing Characteristics of Porous ZnO and Pt/ZnO Ceramics

Changes in resistivity and chemical changes in reducing gases were measured for porous zinc oxide ceramics with and without a platinum catalyst at 300° and 400°C to examine the gas sensing mechanism and the effect of platinum additions. Reducing gases were oxidized to CO₂ and Hz₂ on the sensor surfaces. Platinum addition promoted the oxidation of reducing gases but did not lead to an increase in the resistivity change at 400°C. The reaction sequences for the gas sensing process are proposed, taking into account partially oxidized intermediates of hydrocarbons and oxidation on platinum without an electron transfer process.     

An application of Markov potential theory to Markovian decision processes

The aim of this paper is to identify the denumerable stochastic systems which have an optimal strategy, namely, to give general sufficient conditions of the existence of an optimal strategy for denumerable Markovian decision processes. The aim is accomplished by using Markov potential theory and showing the range of the validity of a method to find an optimal strategy called Howard's technique. Since Markov potential theory helps to characterize the properties of evaluations of strategies on such processes, it plays an important role to find the sufficient conditions mentioned above

For Markov potential theory, new concepts are introduced such as absorbable chains, quasi-potentials, etc., and using them, sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution of the equation x = f+Px are generalized to the one's for cyclic chains and multi-chains

The results obtained in this paper are as follows : if a system represents a strong Markov chain for any strategy, then there exists an optimal strategy with respect to the total or the mean expected earnings, and for any stochastic system there exists an optimal strategy with respect to the discounted total expected earnings.     

Two-degrees-of-freedom dead-beat control system with robustness

This paper deals with the design of a two-degrees-of-freedom (TDF) dead-beat controller with both optimal robustness and minimum settling time. Based on the parametrization of all stabilizing TDF controllers, optimal robustness and minimum-time control are achieved simultaneously. The minimum-time dead-beat control is constructed for arbitrary real-rational reference input. At the same time, optimal robustness is achieved under the constraint that the error between reference input and output asymptotically vanishes for any plant perturbation that does not violate the internal stability. It is proved that under the same robustness criterion, irrespective of its length of settling time, the optimal robustness of the TDF system is always superior to that of the one-degree-of-freedom (ODF) system as long as its settling time is finite, and they become identical only when the settling time of the ODF system goes to infinity. A numerical example is given to illustrate the theoretical results.     

Dependence of Grain-Boundary Resistivity on Grain-Boundary Density in Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia

The dependence of grain-boundary resistivity and resistance per square centimeter of grain-boundary surface on grain-boundary density (D) in yttria-stabilized zirconia was investigated using reported data. The grain-boundary resistivity increased with increasing D in the high-D region but was independent of D in the low-D region. These results were interpreted in terms of intrinsic effects such as lattice irregularity and extrinsic effects such as impurity segregation.     

Transformation of a continuous time-invariant linear system into a discrete one

A discrete-time time-invariant linear system (DILS) is considered which has resulted from the discretization of a continuous-time time-invariant linear system (CILS) by the zero order hold. In this system, the system and input matrices are given by exp(AT) and $ where A and B are the system and input matrices of the CILS, and T is a sampling interval. Since they involve the matrix exponential, their computations are not easy.

First, on the assumption that the Kalman canonical form of the CILS is sought, a formal Kalman canonical form of the DILS is determined. Second, with the use of this form and the decomposition of A into the projectors onto the generalized eigenspaces, an algorithm is presented which computes the system and input matrices of the DlLS.     

Optimization of weakly coupled subsystems by a two-level method

A two-level method to find the optimal control of a linear system is presented. We consider that the system is composed of coupled subsystems. And we solve two decoupled first-level problems and one coordinating second-level problem iteratively. When the system can be decoupled into weakly coupled subsystems, the solution fast converges to the optimal.     

KINETICS OF BIOETHANOL PRODUCTION FROM WHEAT MILLING BY-PRODUCTS

An overview of the potential application of wheat milling by‐products as substrate for bioethanol production is presented. In order to select a suitable microorganism, model fermentations were conducted using glucose and dry baker's yeast. The overall ethanol yield was nearly stable (ca. 0.35 g/g), independent of mash glucose concentration; mashes with 100 g glucose/L resulted in an overall ethanol productivity of 3.48 g/L·h. Slurries containing low‐grade wheat flour (LG) (100, 200 or 300 g/L) were used for simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) with Zymomonas mobilis. Fermentation performance was evaluated based on ethanol concentration (P), productivity (Q_v), yield (Y_P/S), production rate (Q_p) and glucose consumption rate (Q_s). Mashes containing 200 g LG/L produced about 52 g ethanol/L, with Q_vof 2.17 g/L·h. Based on the relatively high fermentation rate of LG, reaching peak ethanol productivity within ca. 9 h of SSF, considerable savings on fermentation time was achieved. Using Z. mobilis for LG fermentation, P was about 30% higher than that obtained with Saccharomyces cerevisiae.     

Novel active-R synthesis of a driving-point impedance

A novel active-R synthesis baaed on the single-pole rolloff characteristics of operational amplifiers is described. Various types of driving-point impedance, such as an inductance, frequency-dependent negative-resistance and frequency-dependent negative-inductance are systematically derived by the suitable choice of the amplifier transfer function. It is shown by experiments that the inductance simulator presents reliable high frequency performance.