Software development productivity of Japanese enterprise applications

To clarify the relationship between software development productivity and the attributes of a software project, such as business area, programming language and team size, this paper analyzed 211 enterprise application development projects in Japan using a software engineering data repository established by the Software Engineering Center (SEC), Information-Technology Promotion Agency, Japan. In the analysis, we first identified factors that related to productivity based on a parallel coordinate plot (PCP) and a one-way ANOVA. An in-depth analysis on each productivity factor was then conducted by selecting a project subset for each factor so that the effect of other factors is minimized. Our findings include that the average team size was the strongest attribute relating to productivity. The outsourcing ratio (percentage), which can be controlled by software development companies, and the business sector both showed a moderate relationship to productivity. Finally, product size (FP), the duration of development and the programming language were only weakly related to productivity.     

Cleaning technology for EUV multilayer mirror using atomic hydrogen generated with hot wire

A method of removing contaminants from Ru-capped Mo/Si multilayer mirrors for extreme ultraviolet lithography has been developed. It employs atomic hydrogen generated by a heated catalyzer consisting of a W wire. A new experimental system was designed and constructed to examine the cleaning capability of atomic hydrogen transported through a quartz tube. The chemical state of an oxidized Ru surface was investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy before and after cleaning; and it was found that transported hydrogen radicals deoxidized the surface and reduced the amount of oxide to the level before oxidation. Although the time needed was longer, transported atomic hydrogen was found to be capable of deoxidizing an oxidized Ru surface. The dependence of the density of atomic hydrogen on W catalyzer temperature and hydrogen gas pressure was measured by a vacuum ultraviolet absorption technique; and the potential to increase the density, and thereby to reduce the treatment time, was demonstrated.     

“CANDLE” burnup regime after LWR regime

CANDLE (Constant Axial shape of Neutron flux, nuclide densities and power shape During Life of Energy producing reactor) burnup strategy can derive many merits. From safety point of view, the change of excess reactivity along burnup is theoretically zero, and the core characteristics, such as power feedback coefficients and power peaking factor, are not changed along burnup. Application of this burnup strategy to neutron rich fast reactors makes excellent performances. Only natural or depleted uranium is required for the replacing fuels. About 40% of natural or depleted uranium undergoes fission without the conventional reprocessing and enrichment.

If the LWR produced energy of X Joules, the CANDLE reactor can produce about 50X Joules from the depleted uranium left at the enrichment facility for the LWR fuel. If we can say LWRs have produced energy sufficient for full 20 years, we can produce the energy for 1000 years by using the CANDLE reactors with depleted uranium. We need not mine any uranium ore, and do not need reprocessing facility. The burnup of spent fuel becomes 10 times. Therefore, the spent fuel amount per produced energy is also reduced to one-tenth.

The details of the scenario of CANDLE burnup regime after LWR regime will be presented at the symposium.     

真实产品验证IC封装系统联合设计的价值

目前,电子系统的设计流程还是传统模式:在整个设计进程中,不同的工程组(硅芯片、IC封装和印刷电路板的设计者)在相对隔绝的环境中按部就班地工作.     

Diagnostic value of atypical lymphocytes in cerebrospinal fluid from adults with enteroviral meningitis

We have noted two morphologically distinct types of atypical lymphocytes (AL) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of adult patients with meningitis: one, which we designate type-I AL, with multilobulated nuclei resembling those of the abnormal cells in adult T-cell leukaemia (ATL); and another, type-II AL, characterized by large lymphocytes with basophilic cytoplasm and nuclei containing coarse chromatin. Type-I AL were detected in 25 of 39 patients (64%) with enteroviral and in 11 of 109 (11%) with aseptic meningitis presumed to be caused by other viruses, but not in meningitis resulting from Cryptococcus neofirmans (n = 14), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (n = 19) or acute bacterial infection (n = 49). Type-I AL were not seen in herpes zoster (n = 15) aseptic meningeal reactions (n = 15), or in leptomeningeal carcinomatosis (n = 14). Type-II AL were often present in meningitis of various aetiologies and in aseptic meningeal reactions, but not in leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. The presence of type-I AL in the CSF was found to be indicative of enteroviral meningitis with the highest predictive value (69%), while type-II AL had a lower diagnostic positive predictive value in meningitis of the five aetiologies above. Type-I AL immunostained for CD4, while type-II AL were stained for CD8. The presence of type-I AL in CSF strongly suggests enteroviral meningitis, which warrants careful follow-up without antifungal, antituberculous or antibacterial agents. However, type-I AL, which are likely to be virally transformed lymphocytes, must be distinguished from ATL cells, which frequently involve the meninges.     

Synthesis and characterization of monodispersed polymer/polydiacetylene nanocrystal composite particles

Monodispersed polymer/polydiacetylenecomposite particles were synthesized by soap-free seeded emulsion polymerization of styrene andmethyl methacrylate; the products were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, UV-visible spectroscopy, and single particle scattering spectroscopy. In the synthesis process, polydiacetylene nanocrystals were found to act as inhibitor, and consequently a relatively low concentration was necessary. Different monomers lead to the differences in reaction condition and particle morphology; the PMMA composite particles were simpler in preparation than polystyrene particles, but the latter havebetter spherical morphology. The composite particles were composed of polymer shells and polydiacetylene cores, which kept their crystal structure and optical properties. A high percentage of cored particles could be achieved with optimized reaction conditions where the amount of seed was sufficient and the oily oligomer by-product was suppressed.     

Development of soft x-ray time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy system with a two-dimensional angle-resolved time-of-flight analyzer at SPring-8 BL07LSU

We have developed a soft x-ray time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy system using synchrotron radiation (SR) at SPring-8 BL07LSU and an ultrashort pulse laser system. Two-dimensional angle-resolved measurements were performed with a time-of-flight-type analyzer. The photoemission spectroscopy system is synchronized to light pulses of SR and laser using a time control unit. The performance of the instrument is demonstrated by mapping the band structure of a Si(111) crystal over the surface Brillouin zones and observing relaxation of the surface photo-voltage effect using the pump (laser) and probe (SR) method.     

Development of a wavelength-stabilized distributed bragg reflector laser diode to the Cs-D2 line for field use in accurate geophysical measurements

We have developed a wavelength-stabilized laser diode (LD) for geophysical measurement devices, which benefit from the uniformity of laser light. Regarding this purpose, a system that has such characteristics as low power consumption, sturdiness against mechanical disturbances, and a long life with long-term frequency stability is especially required. Therefore, we adopt as the light source a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) LD because it has various advantages concerning such properties. This paper describes the durable and compact wavelength-stabilized laser system. Since our DBR-LD oscillates at 852 nm, we selected the Cs-D2 line (6 2S1/2-6 2P3/2 transition) as a frequency reference to obtain a long-term stability in wavelength. Stabilization is performed by a feedback system using a modulation transfer (MT) method, which is a kind of Doppler-free saturated absorption spectroscopy, to acquire a saturated absorption signal with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Using this system, we could continuously lock the laser frequency to the hyperfine component of the Cs-D2 line for more than one week. By an Allan standard deviation measurement, the uncertainty of the stabilized laser frequency was found to be better than 1 x 10(-10) (<40 kHz) in a Gatetime region longer than 100 s.     

Cellulose–chitin hybrids: synthesis of branched amino polysaccharides by regioselective introduction of (N-acetyl-)d-glucosamine branches into cellulose

Cellulose–chitin hybrid-type branched polysaccharides, β-1,4-d-glucans having amino sugar branches at the C-6 position, have been synthesized through a series of site-specific modification reactions. Cellulose was first transformed to two kinds of acceptors having a reactive group only at C-6. Glycosylation reactions of these acceptors with an oxazoline donor derived from d-glucosamine resulted in the introduction of amino sugar branches into cellulose. An acceptor carrying the O-trimethylsilyl group at C-6 was particularly suitable for glycosylation in solution to form branched celluloses with various degrees of substitution up to about 0.5 per pyranose unit in a controlled manner. Deprotection of the product afforded the cellulose having N-acetyl-d-glucosamine or d-glucosamine branches depending on the reaction conditions. The deprotected nonnatural branched polysaccharides were readily soluble in neutral water as well as common organic solvents and would be promising as a new type of water-soluble amino polysaccharides.     

Vision‐based automated bridge component recognition with high‐level scene consistency

This research investigates vision‐based automated bridge component recognition, which is critical for automating visual inspection of bridges during initial response after earthquakes. Semantic segmentation algorithms with up to 45 convolutional layers are applied to recognize bridge components from images of complex scenes. One of the challenges in such scenarios is to get the recognition results consistent with high‐level scene structure using limited amount of training data. To impose the high‐level scene consistency, this research combines 10‐class scene classification and 5‐class bridge component classification. Three approaches are investigated to combine scene classification results into bridge component classification: (a) naïve configuration, (b) parallel configuration, and (c) sequential configuration of classifiers. The proposed approaches, sequential configuration in particular, are demonstrated to be effective in recognizing bridge components in complex scenes, showing less than 1% of accuracy loss from the naïve/parallel configuration for bridge images, and less than 1% false positives for the nonbridge images.