Design of plant safety model in plant enterprise engineering environment

Plant enterprise engineering environment (PEEE) is an approach aiming to manage the plant through its lifecycle. In such environment, safety is considered as the common objective for all activities throughout the plant lifecycle. One approach to achieve plant safety is to embed safety aspects within each function and activity within such environment. One ideal way to enable safety aspects within each automated function is through modeling. This paper proposes a theoretical approach to design plant safety model as integrated with the plant lifecycle model within such environment. Object-oriented modeling approach is used to construct the plant safety model using OO CASE tool on the basis of unified modeling language (UML). Multiple views are defined for plant objects to express static, dynamic, and functional semantics of these objects. Process safety aspects are mapped to each model element and inherited from design to operation stage, as it is naturally embedded within plant's objects. By developing and realizing the plant safety model, safer plant operation can be achieved and plant safety can be assured.     

Interfacial spectroscopic studies of UV cured urethane acrylate coatings

Interfacial structural changes of UV cured urethane acrylate coating films were investigated using ATR FTIR spectroscopy. These studies show that at the film–air (F–A) interface, when photo-initiator levels do not exceed 0.1% w/w, the band area ratio of H-bonding to non-H-bonding carbonyl stretching vibrations is proportional to UV energy density. However, when the initiator level is increased to 5% w/w, an increase of up to 200 mJ/cm² UV power is required in order to achieve a similar band ratio, and at higher photo-initiator levels, the amount of energy levels off. Analysis of the H-bonded to non-H-bonded band ratio near the film–substrate (F–S) interface shows that the band area ratio increases further away from the interface. At shallower depths, around 0.84 μm from the F–S interface, the magnitude of the H-bonding/non-H-bonding is smaller than that observed for the same penetration depths before UV exposure for lower photo-initiator concentration or lower energy UV exposure.     

UV-induced switching behavior of novel fluoroalkyl end-capped vinyltrimethoxysilane oligomer/titanium oxide nanocomposite between superhydrophobicity and superhydrophilicity with good oleophobicity

Fluoroalkyl end-capped vinyltrimethoxysilane oligomer suffered the sol–gel reaction under alkaline conditions in the presence of titanium oxide nanoparticles in tetrahydrofuran to afford the corresponding fluorinated oligomer/titanium oxide nanocomposites[R_F-(VM-SiO₂)_n-R_F/TiO₂] in excellent to moderate isolated yields. These fluorinated composites thus obtained were nanometer size-controlled fine particles, and exhibited good dispersibility and stability in traditional organic solvents except for water. These fluorinated nanocomposites were applied to the surface modification of glass to exhibit not only a completely superhydrophobic characteristic (a water contact angle: 180°) with a non-wetting property against water droplets but also a good oleophobicity imparted by fluoroalkyl segments in the composites on their surface. Of particular interest, we have found that the wettability for water can be switched between superhydrophobicity and superhydrophilicity by alternation of ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and dark storage with keeping a good oleophobicity on the modified surface treated with the anatase-type titanium oxide composite.     

Helical Pore Alignment on Cylindrical Carbon

Interest in chiral substances has mainly focused on the substances themselves, but not on the accompanying space, especially regarding the pore alignment. As a method to form both the chiral substance and the accompanying space, cylindrical self‐assembly of uniform polystyrene nanoparticles with fructose is carried out in the presence of both carbon and sodium alginate, which is followed by heat treatment in an inert atmosphere. The carbonization generates fructose‐derived honeycomb‐like carbon walls with helically aligned nanopores left after the polystyrene decomposition. The diffuse reflectance circular dichroism measurements give peaks with opposite signs for the d ‐ and l ‐fructose‐derived cylindrical carbons. Circularly polarized light sensitivity in transient photoconductivity is confirmed apparently in the carbon‐based helical structures. This sensitivity as well as straightforward formation of composites with another component to give helicity shows potential applications of the helically aligned pores.     

Improving cache attacks by considering cipher structure

A concrete attack using side channel information from cache memory behaviour was proposed for the first time at ISITA 2002. The attack uses the difference between execution times associated with S-box cache-hits and cache-misses to recover the intermediate key. Recently, a theoretical estimation of the number of messages needed for the attack was proposed and it was reported that the average method obtains key information with fewer messages than maximum threshold or intermediate threshold method. Taking the structure of cipher into account, this paper provided the cache attack in which the average method is embodied, and provides improved key estimation. This paper includes the study on the attack that exploits internal collision. Yukiyasu Tsunoo received his BE degree from Waseda University in 1982, MS degree from JAIST, Dr.Eng from Chuo University. He joined NEC Software Hokuriku, Ltd. in 1985. He is now a research fellow of NEC Internet Systems Research Laboratories. He is engaged in the designing of common key ciphers and the study of evaluation technique. Dr. Tsunoo is a member of the Expert Commission of Information Security Research, The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers, the Information Processing Society of Japan, the Japan Society for Security Management and the Atomic Energy Society of Japan. Etsuko Tsujihara received her BS degree from Aoyama Gakuin University in 1983. She joined NEC in 1983. She developed the VLSI automatic layout system. She joined NEC Software Hokuriku Ltd. in 1986 and Y.D.K. Co. Ltd. in 2004. She is engaged in the designing of common key ciphers and the study of evaluation technique. Maki Shigeri received her BE degree from University of Tsukuba in 1992. She joined NEC Software Hokuriku Ltd. in 1992. She is engaged in the designing of common key ciphers and the study of evaluation technique. Hiroyasu Kubo received his BE degree from Kanazawa Institute of Technology in 1990. He joined NEC Software Hokuriku Ltd. in 1990. He is engaged in the designing of common key ciphers and the study of evaluation technique. Kazuhiko Minematsu received his BS degree from Waseda University in 1996, MS degree in 1998 and joined NEC in 1998. He is engaged in the designing of common key ciphers and research on block cipher modes of operations. He is a member of the Information Processing Society of Japan, the Society of Information Theory and Its Applications.     

Deformation of the foundation and structure of Tomioka Silk Mill’s East Cocoon Warehouse

The East Cocoon Warehouse of the Tomioka Silk Mill was constructed in Japan in the Meiji era using technology introduced from abroad. Deformation of its foundation stones and the building as a whole was measured as part of a civil heritage geotechnical study. The maximum differential settlement among the 92 foundation stones of the warehouse spanning a total wall length of 233.4 m was 44 mm. The distance between the foundation stones of the eastern and western walls was 12.5 m, and the maximum differential settlement among the four foundation stones along the southern and northern walls was 13 and 19 mm, respectively. The measurement results indicate that the inclinations of the pillars were not influenced by changes in the elevation of the foundation stones or the presence of gaps in the continuous stone rows. The difference between the maximum and minimum elevations in the silk reeling mill was 33 mm for the 71 foundation stones along the total 325-m wall length. These results illustrate that the level of geotechnology at the beginning of the Meiji era was similar to that of recent technology, and the East Cocoon Warehouse has remained in its original state and location, standing on its simply and suitably built foundation for 145 years.     

Orientation control of regioregular‐poly(3‐dodecylthiophene) films formed by the friction‐transfer method and the performance of organic photovoltaic devices based on these films

Control of the molecular orientation of regioregular poly(3‐alkylthiophene)s (RR‐P3ATs) improves the performance of field‐effect transistors and organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs). However, most thiophene ring planes of the RR‐P3AT molecules (except RR‐poly(3‐butylthiophene)) in films formed by the conventional spin‐coating method stand on the substrate, that is, edge‐on orientation. Orientation control of RR‐poly(3‐dodecylthiophene) (RR‐P3DDT) molecules in films formed by the friction transfer method is reported and the performance of OPVs based on friction‐transferred RR‐P3DDT films is compared to that of OPVs based on spin‐coated films. The films are investigated by polarized ultraviolet–visible light absorption spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and grazing‐incidence X‐ray diffraction measurement. For friction‐transferred films, the RR‐P3DDT molecular chain is uniaxially aligned parallel to the substrate plane. In addition, the thiophene ring planes of the RR‐P3DDT molecules are also oriented parallel to the substrate plane, that is, face‐on orientation. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) and fill factor of the RR‐P3DDT/C₆₀ bilayer OPVs based on the friction‐transferred RR‐P3DDT films are higher than those of devices based on spin‐coated films. The PCE and photocurrent of the device based on the friction‐transferred film are larger under irradiation with polarized light parallel to the RR‐P3DDT molecular chain direction than with polarized light orthogonal to the chain direction. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40136.     

Computer-aided RCM-based plant maintenance management system

In most of the industries, classical reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) is employed to decide the maintenance strategies using reliability data without having adequate interaction with the design and operational systems. This means that the RCM process will be conducted with no or limited access to the design and operational data/knowledge. Commonly, the developed maintenance strategies are implemented and managed within the computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), which is usually separate from the RCM automated environment. This paper presents the detailed system design and mechanism of improved RCM process as integrated with CMMS. The proposed solution is integrated with design and operational systems and consolidates some successful maintainability approaches to formulate an effective solution for optimized plant maintenance. The major components of the enhanced RCM process are identified and a prototype system is implemented as integrated with the various modules of the adopted CMMS (MAXIMO™). A case study is used to show the effectiveness of the proposed RCM-based CMMS solution in optimizing plant maintenance over the traditional approaches.