Effects of Zn addition to AuCu on age-hardening behaviors at intraoral temperature

The effect of Zn addition to AuCu on the age-hardening rate at the intraoral temperature was investigated to find out the proper condition for high age-hardening rate. The increase in hardness of Zn-added alloys during aging at 37 °C was due to the atomic ordering. With an increase in Zn concentration, hardness of a sample under the as-quenched condition decreased, but the age-hardening rate obviously increased. When Zn content was fixed, a higher solution treatment temperature was more effective for the age-hardening at 37 °C. It was suggested that the formation energy of a vacancy considerably decreased with an increase in Zn content. It is reasonable to consider that the amount of quenched-in excess vacancies are markedly increased with an increase in Zn content when the solution treatment temperature was fixed. By transmission electron microscopic observations, it was revealed that the formation of the AuCu II superstructure contributed to the age-hardening at 37 °C in the high zinc content alloy.     

Full-color imaging through a turbid medium by use of photorefractive coherence gating and a technique to separate the recording spaces

We demonstrate full-color imaging through a turbid medium by use of photorefractive coherence gating and a technique to separate the recording space of each color from those of the other colors. We found that the recording spaces must be separate when a multicolor image is recorded in a photorefractive crystal to prevent the interference of the holograms with one another. For full-color imaging we used a He-Cd white-light laser, which is compact and useful for full-color holography. Full-color-image retrieval is demonstrated through five mean free paths of a turbid medium.     

A Simple Stereo Algorithm to Recover Precise Object Boundaries and Smooth Surfaces

For recovering precise object boundaries in area-based stereo matching, there are two problems. One is the so-called occlusion problem. This can be avoided if we can select only visible cameras among many cameras used. Another one is the problem called boundary overreach, i.e. the recovered object boundary turns out to be wrongly located away from the real one due to the window's coverage beyond a boundary. This is especially harmful to segmenting objects using depth information. A few approaches have been proposed to solve this problem. However, these techniques tend to degrade on smooth surfaces. That is, there seems to be a trade-off problem between recovering precise object edges and obtaining smooth surfaces.In this paper, we propose a new simple method to solve these problems. Using multiple stereo pairs and multiple windowing, our method detects the region where the boundary overreach is likely to occur (let us call it BO region) and adopts appropriate methods for the BO and non-BO regions. Although the proposed method is quite simple, the experimental results have shown that it is very effective at recovering both sharp object edges at their correct locations and smooth object surfaces. We also present a sound analysis of the boundary overreach which has not been clearly explained in the past.     

Kima: An Automated Error Correction System for Concurrent Logic Programs

We have implemented Kima, an automated error correction system for concurrent logic programs. Kima corrects near-misses such as wrong variable occurrences in the absence of explicit declarations of program properties.Strong moding/typing and constraint-based analysis are turning out to play fundamental roles in debugging concurrent logic programs as well as in establishing the consistency of communication protocols and data types. Mode/type analysis of Moded Flat GHC is a constraint satisfaction problem with many simple mode/type constraints, and can be solved efficiently. We proposed a simple and efficient technique which, given a non-well-moded/typed program, diagnoses the reasons of inconsistency by finding minimal inconsistent subsets of mode/type constraints. Since each constraint keeps track of the symbol occurrence in the program, a minimal subset also tells possible sources of program errors.Kima realizes automated correction by replacing symbol occurrences around the possible sources and recalculating modes and types of the rewritten programs systematically. As long as bugs are near-misses, Kima proposes a rather small number of alternatives that include an intended program. Search space is kept small because the minimal subset confines possible sources of errors in advance. This paper presents the basic algorithm and various optimization techniques implemented in Kima, and then discusses its effectiveness based on quantitative experiments.     

Dissolution of malachite in aqueous ethylenediaminetetraacetate solution

The kinetics of malachite dissolution in aqueous ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA) solution has been investigated in the temperature range of 298 to 318 K. The dissolution rate of malachite determined under the present set of experimental conditions was found to be independent of agitation speed. The dissolution rate increased with increasing EDTA concentration, but leveled off at higher concentrations. At constant EDTA concentration, an increase in dissolution rate was detected at higher temperatures. A dissolution mechanism involving Langmuir-type EDTA adsorption was proposed, in which the dissolution rate of malachite is controlled by the removal of Cu(II)-EDTA complex from the malachite lattice. The proposed mechanism can explain the dependency of the dissolution rate on EDTA concentration. The activation energies determined at pHs 5, 7.5, and 10 were found to be 51.4, 50.2, and 57.5 kJ mol⁻¹, respectively. The calculated enthalpy changes of EDTA adsorption equilibrium were −43.2, −35.2, and −45.0 kJ mol⁻¹ for pHs 5, 7.5, and 10, respectively. These values are in agreement with the proposed mechanism. Formerly Graduate Student, Department of Metallurgy, Kyoto University, is Formerly Professor, is Professor Emeritus, Department of Metallurgy, Kyoto University.     

Water and solute activities of the solution systems of H2So4-Cuso4-H2O and Hci-Cuci2-H2O

The activities of water, α(H₂O), in the solution system of H₂SO₄-CuSO₄-H₂O were determined by an isopiestic method and those in the solution system of HCl-CuCl₂-H₂O by a transpiration method, both at 298 K. The activities of H₂SO₄ and H⁺ in the solution system of H₂SO₄-CuSO₄-H₂O were also determined at 298 K by the emf method. The water activities in both systems obeyed the Zdanovskii rule relatively well. The α(H₂O) experimentally determined in the sulfate system showed a satisfactory agreement with those calculated from the Robinson-Bower equation, assuming the complete dissociations of H₂SO₄ and CuSO₄, whereas a good agreement between the calculated and experimentally determined α(H₂O) for the chloride system was obtained when the formation of Cu(II) chloro-complexes was taken into consideration. The mean activity coefficients, γ_±, of solutes, including H₂SO₄, HC1, and CuCl₂ in these solution systems, were calculated at 298 K by the McKay-Perring method using the activity data. The γ_±(H₂SO₄) values in the solution system of H₂SO₄-CuSO₄-H₂O were in good agreement with those determined by the emf method. On the other hand, the γ_±(CuSO₄) were calculated at the same temperature based upon the Gibbs-Duhem equation using both measured α(H₂O) and calculated γ_±(H₂SO₄) values, because of solubility limitations.     

Preparation of Monolithic Porous Titania-Silica Ceramics

Monolithic porous ceramics composed of TiO₂ (67 mol%) and SiO₂ (33 mol%) were prepared via casting a melt in the Na₂O-CaO-TiO₂-P₂O₅-SiO₂ system and subsequent acid leaching of the resultant ceramics which are constituted of NaCaPO₄, TiO₂, and amorphous SiO₂. The median pore diameter and specific surface area of the resulting porous ceramics are approximately 1 μm and 40 m², respectively. Amorphous silica surrounds the submicrometer-sized particles of TiO₂ acting as a binder and retaining monolithic forms. No significant shrinkage in the pore size occurred upon heating up to 1000°C.     

Zinc Oxide Varistor Gas Sensors: I, Effect of Bi2O3 Content on the H2-Sensing Properties

Current ( I )-voltage ( V ) characteristics of porous ZnO varistors with different Bi₂O₃ content have been investigated in air as well as in H₂-air mixtures in the temperature range room temperature (RT)-600°C. The I-V characteristics measured at RT remained unchanged in the presence of H₂, but the breakdown voltage clearly shifted to a lower electric field in the temperature range 400–600°C. The breakdown voltage decreased with increasing H₂ concentration in air. The optimum amount of Bi₂O₃ for the largest decrease was found to be 1.0 mol%. Thus, ZnO varistors can be used as a new type of H₂ sensor. The results presented in this study also suggest the important role of excess oxygen ions existing at the ZnO-ZnO grain boundaries in developing the Schottky barrier as well as in the H₂-sensing mechanism of the varistors.