The World robot summit disaster robotics category – achievements of the 2018 preliminary competition

The World Robot Summit is a robot Olympics and aims to be held in a different country every four years from 2020. The concept of the Plant Disaster Prevention challenge is daily inspections, checks, and emergency response in industrial plants, and in this competition, robots must carry out these types of missions in a mock-up plant. The concept of the Tunnel Disaster Response and Recovery challenge is emergency response to tunnel disasters, and is a simulation competition whereby teams compete to show their ability to deal with disasters, by collecting information and removing debris. The Standard Disaster Robotics challenge assesses, in the form of a contest, the standard performance levels of a robot that are necessary for disaster prevention and emergency response. The World Robot Summit Preliminary Competition was held at Tokyo Big Sight in October 2018, and 36 teams participated in the Disaster Robotics Category. UGVs and UAVs contended the merits of new technology for solving complex problems, using core technologies such as mobility, sensing, recognition, performing operations, human interface, autonomous intelligence etc., as well as system integration and implementation of strategies for completing missions, gaining high-level results.     

1-GHz-spaced 16-channel arrayed-waveguide grating for a wavelength reference standard in DWDM network systems

We fabricated a 1-GHz-spaced 16-channel arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) by using a new AWG configuration where the path of each arrayed waveguide winds backward and forward across a 4-in diameter wafer without crossing any other waveguides. The ultra-narrow (< 1 GHz) and stable transmission bands of this AWG can be used to construct a wavelength reference standard covering the S, C, and L bands in the dense wavelength-division-multiplexing network systems whose frequency deviation is /spl plusmn/160 MHz.     

Cover Picture: UV‐Light‐Induced Swelling and Visible‐Light‐Induced Shrinking of a TiO2‐Containing Redox Gel (Adv. Mater. 9/2007)

Polyacrylate gels containing Ag⁺ and TiO₂ nanoparticles are shown to swell under UV light and shrink under visible light in water. In work reported by Tetsu Tatsuma and co‐workers on p. 1249, the TiO₂ absorbs UV light and reduces the Ag⁺, whereas the deposited Ag absorbs visible light and dissolves itself. These redox reactions change the interactions between the polymer chains and eventually the volume of the gel, as shown on the cover.     

Generation of gas bubbles in microflow using micropipette with ultrasound

Ultrasound was applied to a micropipette micromixer to improve dispersion of gas and liquid in a microchannel. Flow visualization using a high-speed camera was performed to examine the effect of ultrasonic irradiation on bubble generation in the microchannel. Basically, nitrogen gas was injected using a (0.5 µm ID) glass micropipette into ethanol flowing in a rectangular (100 µm×200 µm) microchannel on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Gas and liquid flow rates were regulated using mass flow controllers. At aflow condition that is typical of bubbly flow, ultrasound was transmitted into the microchannel using a piezo-electric (PZT) transducer over a range of operating voltages (2 to 200 Vp-p) and frequencies (50 to 60 kHz). Images captured during the action of the PZT transducer indicate that bubble formation is influenced by ultrasound. When subjected to ultrasound above 50 Vp-p and at the resonant frequency of the PZT transducer, bubbles formed that were smaller and closer together, signifying enhanced shearing of the gas at the micropipette tip by the liquid. The observation of gas slugs occurring sooner might be attributed to the coalescence of gas bubbles that became closely spaced.     

Lack of carcinogenicity of medium-viscosity liquid paraffin given in the diet to F344 rats

The carcinogenicity of medium-viscosity liquid paraffin was examined in Fischer 344 rats. Groups of 50 males and 50 females were given the material at dietary doses of 0 (control), 2.5 or 5% for 104 wk. Slight increases in food consumption and body weight were observed in both sexes of the 5% group. However, no significant differences between the control and treated groups were noted with regard to clinical signs, mortality and haematology findings. A variety of tumours developed in all groups, including the control group, but all the neoplastic lesions were histologically similar to those known to occur spontaneously in F344 rats, and no statistically significant increase in the incidence of any tumour type was found for either sex in the treated groups. Granulomatous inflammation in the mesenteric lymph nodes, considered to be a reaction to paraffin absorption, was observed with similar incidence and severity in both sexes of the 2.5 and 5% groups. Thus, it is concluded that under the present experimental conditions, the high dose, about 2000-200,000 times higher than the current temporary acceptable daily intake, does not have any carcinogenic potential in F344 rats. Furthermore, granulomatous inflammation observed in mesenteric lymph nodes were not associated with any development of neoplastic lesions.     

Involvement of brain serotonergic function in lidocaine-induced convulsions in mice

Influences of drug-induced manipulations of central serotonergic function on lidocaine- and pentylenetetrazol (PTZ)-induced convulsions were examined in mice. Agents that suppressed serotonergic transmission increased, whereas drugs that facilitated serotonin (5-HT) function decreased the incidence of lidocaine-induced convulsions. These treatments had similar influences on the incidence of PTZ-induced convulsions. Lidocaine (10(-5)-10(-3) M) reduced the stimulation evoked [3H]5-HT release from cortical slices, followed with an increased spontaneous [3H] overflow at higher concentrations. These results may suggest that brain 5-HT neurons are causally involved as inhibitory neurons in lidocaine-induced convulsions as in the case of PTZ-induced convulsions.     

A 6-ns ECL 100 K I/O and 8-ns 3.3-V TTL I/O 4-Mb BiCMOS SRAM

The authors report a 4 M word×1 b/1 M word×4 b BiCMOS SRAM that can be metal mask programmed as either a 6-ns access time for an ECL 100 K I/O interface to an 8-ns access time for a 3.3-V TTL I/O interface. Die size is 18.87 mm×8.77 mm. Memory cell size is 5.8 μm×3.2 μm. In order to achieve such high-speed address access times the following technologies were developed: (1) a BiCMOS level converter that directly connects the ECL signal level to the CMOS level; (2) a high-speed BiCMOS circuit with low threshold voltage nMOSFETs; (3) a design method for determining the optimum number of decoder gate stages and the optimum size of gate transistors; (4) high-speed bipolar sensing circuits used at 3.3-V supply voltage; and (5) 0.55-μm BiCMOS process technology with a triple-well structure     

An ESR study of the film formation steps of vapor deposition polymerization of polyamic acid

A film of polyamic acid is formed by vapor deposition polymerization of pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and 4,4′-diaminodiphenyl ether (ODA). We have taken ESR spectrum during the polymerization process and compared it with the ESR spectrum of films obtained from solution polymerization. In the intermediate polymers during vapor deposition polymerization, the amide bond (? CONH? ) is coplanar with the benzene ring and two protons in the PMDA molecule. This intermediate polymer has one unpaired electron that interacts with the two nitrogen nuclei equally. On the other hand, in the polymer obtained by solution polymerization, the amide bond and the benzene ring of PMDA are not coplanar. In this polymer, too, some of the molecules have an unpaired electron that seems to have almost no coupling with NH groups. These results imply that the polymer formation via vapor deposition proceeds through different intermediates and different molecular configurations from that via the solution process.     

A 1.8 Gb/s GaAs optoelectronic universal switch LSI withmonolithically integrated photodetector and laser driver

A high-speed monolithic optical interface switch LSI is developed using a GaAs MSM photodetector and large-scale integrated electric circuits. This LSI operates universally as a 1.8 Gb/s optical-input/optical-output four-channel time-division switch, a 1.8 Gb/s optical-input/electrical-output 1:4 demultiplexer, a 2.0 Gb/s electrical-output 4:1 multiplexer, and a 2.8 Gb/s electrical-input/electrical-output 4×4 space-division switch. It uses a new multistage 2×2 switch block with small hardware and high-speed operation. It can be expanded to a 16×16 optical-input/optical-output time-division switch operating at up to 1.8 Gb/s for broadband-ISDN