Benchmark experiment of large-angle scattering reaction cross section of iron at 14 MeV using two shadow bars – Comparison of experimental results with ENDF/B-VIII –

ABSTRACT

It is important to perform neutron transport simulations with accurate nuclear data in the neutronics design of a fusion reactor. However, absolute values of large-angle scattering cross sections vary among nuclear data libraries even for well-examined nuclide of iron. Benchmark experiments focusing on large-angle scattering cross sections were thus performed to confirm the correctness of nuclear data libraries. The series benchmark experiments were performed at a DT neutron source facility, OKTAVIAN of Osaka University, Japan, by the unique experimental system established by the authors’ group, which can extract only the contribution of large-angle scattering reactions. This system consists of two shadow bars, target plate (iron), and neutron detector (niobium). Two types of shadow bars were used and four irradiations were conducted for one experiment, so that contribution of room-return neutrons was effectively removed and only large-angle scattering neutrons were extracted from the measured four Nb reaction rates. The obtained experimental results were compared with calculations for five nuclear data libraries including JENDL-4.0, JEFF.-3.3, FENDL-3.1, ENDF/B- VII, and recently released ENDF/B-VIII. It was found from the comparison that ENDF/B-VIII showed the best result, though ENDF/B-VII showed overestimation and others are in large underestimation at 14 MeV.     

Biotransformation of three aromadendrane‐type sesquiterpenoids by Aspergillus wentii

BACKGROUND: The biotransformation of sesquiterpenoids, which are a large class of naturally occurring compounds, using microorganisms as a biocatalyst to produce useful novel organic compounds was investigated. The biotransformation of sesquiterpenoids, (+)‐aromadendrene ( 1 ), (−)‐alloaromadendrene ( 2 ) and (+)‐ledene ( 3 ) has been investigated using Aspergillus wentii as a biocatalyst. Results: Compound 1 was converted to (−)‐(10S,11S)‐10,13,14‐trihydroxyaromadendrane ( 4 ). Compound 2 was converted to (+)‐(1S,11S)‐1,13‐dihydroxyaromadendrene ( 5 ) and (−)‐5,11‐epoxycadin‐1(10)‐en‐14‐ol ( 6 ). Compound 3 was converted to compound 6 , (+)‐(10R,11S)‐10,13‐dihydroxyaromadendr‐1‐ene ( 7 ) and (+)‐(10S,11S)‐10,13‐dihydroxyaromadendr‐1‐ene ( 8 ). The structure of the metabolic products has been elucidated on the basis of their spectral data. CONCLUSION: Compound 1 gave only one product that was hydroxylated at C‐10, C‐13 and C‐14. By contrast, compounds 2 and 3 gave a number of products, one of which was common. The differences in oxidation of 1–3 are due to the configuration of the C‐1 position. Compounds 4–8 were new compounds. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Boron removal by titanium addition in solidification refining of silicon with Si-Al melt

In order to effectively remove B from Si for its use in solar cells, a process involving B removal by solidification refining of Si using a Si-Al melt with Ti addition was investigated. For clarifying the effect of Ti addition on B removal from the Si-Al melt, TiB₂ solubilities in Si-64.6 at. pct Al melt at 1173 K and Si-60.0 at. pct Al melt at 1273 K were determined by measuring the equilibrium concentrations of B and Ti in the presence of TiB₂ precipitates. The small solubilities of TiB₂ in the Si-Al melt indicate the effective removal of B from the Si-Al melt by Ti addition. Further, solidification experiments of Si-Al alloys containing B by Ti addition were performed, and the effect of Ti addition on the solidification refining of Si with the Si-Al melt was successfully confirmed.     

Evolutionary design of dynamic neural networks for evaporator control

This paper presents a novel neural network (NN) to control an ammonia refrigerant evaporator. Inspired by the latest findings on the biological neuron, a dynamic synaptic unit (DSU) is proposed to enhance the information processing capacity of artificial neurons. Treating the dynamic synaptic activity after the nonlinear somatic activity helps to capture the dynamics demarcated by the Gaussian activation pertaining to the input space. This practice leads to a remarkable reduction in curse of dimensionality. The proposed NN architecture has been compared with two other conventional architectures; one with dynamic neural units (DNUs) and the other with nonlinear static functions as perceptrons. The objective is to control evaporator heat flow rate and secondary fluid outlet temperature while keeping the degree of refrigerant superheat in the range 4–7 K at the evaporator outlet by manipulating refrigerant and evaporator secondary fluid flow rates. The drawbacks of conventional approaches to this problem are discussed, and how the novel method can overcome them are presented. An evolutionary approach is adopted to optimize the parameters of the NN controllers. Then evaporator process model is accomplished as a combination of governing equations and a sub NN resulting in a simple and sufficiently accurate model. The effectiveness of the proposed dynamic NN controller for the evaporator system model is validated using experimental data from the ammonia refrigeration plant.     

Pixel design of pulsed CMOS image sensor for retinal prosthesis with digital photosensitivity control

A newly designed pulse frequency modulation photosensor for use in retinal prosthesis is proposed and demonstrated. The pixel converts the intensity of incident light into biphasic current pulses at frequencies suitable for the electrical stimulation of retinal neurons. Experimental results showed that the device was sensitive over a dynamic range of input light of about 120 dB, and that photosensitivity could be varied from 0 dB to around -40 dB.     

Excessive closure of the right eye: a new sign of infarction in the territory of the ipsilateral right middle cerebral artery

In right middle cerebral territory infarction a new sign, excessive closure of the right eye ipsilateral to the lesion and mild closure of the left eye on command, was noted. The excessive ipsilateral eye closure was not observed on spontaneous eye closure.     

Hybrid negative example selection using visual and conceptual features

An application of Query-By-Example (QBE) is presented where shots that are visually similar to provided example shots are retrieved. To implement QBE, counter-example shots are required to accurately distinguish shots that are relevant to the query from those that are not (Li and Snoek (2009), Yu et al. (2004)). However, there are usually a huge number of shots, not relevant to a particular query, which can serve as counter-example shots. It is difficult for a user to provide counter-example shots that would aid retrieval. Thus, we developed a QBE method based on partially supervised learning where a retrieval model is constructed by selecting counter-example shots from shots without user supervision. To ensure the speed and accuracy of the QBE method, we select a small number of counter-example shots that are visually similar to given example shots but irrelevant to the query. Such shots are useful for characterizing the boundary between relevant and irrelevant shots. For our method, we first filter shots that are visually dissimilar to example shots based on SVMs on a visual feature. Then we filter shots relevant to the query based on concept detection results from pre-constructed classifiers. Shots that pass the above two tests are considered as counter-example shots. Experimental results obtained using TRECVID 2009 video data validate the effectiveness of our method.     

LC GRIN lens mode with wide viewing angle for rotatable 2D/3D tablet

To widen the vertical and horizontal angular ranges where the lens performs well, the off‐axis performance of a liquid crystal gradient index (LC GRIN) lens is analyzed by the combined simulation system of an LC director simulator and a ray‐tracing simulator. We found that the angular difference between an LC alignment direction and an electrode array direction of the LC GRIN lens is one of significant parameters, and detailed conditions of structure are established. The measurement result shows that the developed structure reduces the degradation ratio in a luminance profile from 61% to 3.2%. We have applied a user tracking system for the rotatable 3D display, equipped with a detection of a panel orientation and a face position. As a result, we have developed a rotatable 2D/3D tablet whose 3D viewing azimuth angle is over 30° in both landscape and portrait orientations.