A distributed routing method for AGVs under motion delay disturbance

In real transportation environments for semi-conductor manufacturing, unexpected disturbances such as motion delays and/or sudden requests for transportation may cause collisions among AGVs increasing total transportation time. It is required to generate a collision-free routing for multiple automated guided vehicles (AGVs) within a few seconds. In this paper, we propose a distributed routing method under motion delay disturbance for multiple AGVs. The proposed method features a characteristic that each AGV subsystem derives its optimal route to minimize the sum of the transportation time and the penalties with respect to collision probability with other AGVs. The penalties reflect the collision probability distribution function for motion delay disturbances. The proposed method is applied to a routing problem for transportation in the semiconductor fabrication bay with 143 nodes and 20 AGVs. The computational results show that the total transportation time obtained by the proposed method is shorter than that of the conventional method. For dynamic transportation environments, an optimal timing for re-routing multiple AGVs under motion delay disturbance is systematically determined by the tradeoff relationship between the total computation time to derive a solution and the uncertainties for re-routings. Markov chain is used to represent uncertainty distribution for re-routings. The proposed method is implemented in an experimental transportation system with 51 nodes and 5 AGVs. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is applicable to real transportation environments.     

An Analytical Compact Circuit Model for Nanowire FET

In this paper, we propose a quasi-analytical device model of nanowire FET (NWFET) for both ballistic and drift-diffusion current transport, which can be used in any conventional circuit simulator like SPICE. The closed form expressions for current-voltage (I-V) and capacitance-voltage characteristics are obtained by analytically solving device equations with appropriate approximations. The developed model was further verified with the measured I-V characteristics of an NWFET device. Results show a close match of the model with measured data.     

Effective periodic pattern mining in time series databases

The goal of analyzing a time series database is to find whether and how frequent a periodic pattern is repeated within the series. Periodic pattern mining is the problem that regards temporal regularity. However, most of the existing algorithms have a major limitation in mining interesting patterns of users interest, that is, they can mine patterns of specific length with all the events sequentially one after another in exact positions within this pattern. Though there are certain scenarios where a pattern can be flexible, that is, it may be interesting and can be mined by neglecting any number of unimportant events in between important events with variable length of the pattern. Moreover, existing algorithms can detect only specific type of periodicity in various time series databases and require the interaction from user to determine periodicity. In this paper, we have proposed an algorithm for the periodic pattern mining in time series databases which does not rely on the user for the period value or period type of the pattern and can detect all types of periodic patterns at the same time, indeed these flexibilities are missing in existing algorithms. The proposed algorithm facilitates the user to generate different kinds of patterns by skipping intermediate events in a time series database and find out the periodicity of the patterns within the database. It is an improvement over the generating pattern using suffix tree, because suffix tree based algorithms have weakness in this particular area of pattern generation. Comparing with the existing algorithms, the proposed algorithm improves generating different kinds of interesting patterns and detects whether the generated pattern is periodic or not. We have tested the performance of our algorithm on both synthetic and real life data from different domains and found a large number of interesting event sequences which were missing in existing algorithms and the proposed algorithm was efficient enough in generating and detecting periodicity of flexible patterns on both types of data.     

Risk assessment of airborne fine particles and nanoparticles

Pulmonary health effects of fine particles and nanoparticles are overviewed in this paper, mainly based on the researches conducting in our laboratory. For the hazard assessment, we exposed rats to aerosolized asbestos-substitutes or nanoparticles aerosols (nickel oxide and titanium dioxide), and examined the biological and pathological effects of the particle on lung, a major target organ for the particles, and cytokines which are related to inflammation, fibrosis and carcinogenesis in the lung. It is essential to perform comprehensive evaluation of the toxicity of poorly soluble powder samples using the precise characterization data and exposure methods, such as single instillation or aerosol inhalation.     

Direct observation of the differences between Raman scatering and population inversion transition for their emission frequencies and pulse waveforms

In FIR laser emissions optically by a CO₂ laser, it has been reported that there are two different process namely “induced Raman scattering” and “population inversion transition”. In this paper, we show that the two different process have clearly different characteristics in emission frequensies and pulse waveforms in the case of a TEA-CO₂ laser excitation. We used in this work an intra-cavity etalon for the study of the emission frequensies and also we used a MOM point contact diode for the detection of the wavaformes. Especially, we show that the FIR pulse waveformes are able to analyze numerically on the concept of rate equations. In conclusion, we indicate that molecules would be classified into two categories with regard to optically pumping by a TEA-CO₂ laser. One of them produce mainly Raman scattered emissions, and other produce only the FIR emissions from population inversion transition in spite of high power intensity excitation.     

Superconducting critical current in MoN

Journal of Materials Science Letters -     

Assignments of fir laser emissions from CH3OH optically pumped by an intra-cavity etalon tuned TEA-CO2 laser

The author reports that TEA-CO₂ with an intra-cavity etalon is a useful pumping source which can deliver widely tunable beam (tunable range ～1 GHz) with accurate oscillation frequencies and with high power compared to a tunable wave guide laser. The source is applied to the excitations of CH₃OH and the FIR emissions from it are well assigned for there absorption transitions and FIR emissions. This proves that the source display not only usefulness for development of new FIR emissions but also for molecular spectroscopy.     

Broad-passband-width optical filter for multi/demultiplexer using a diffraction grating and a retroreflector prism

The letter describes the experimental results of a novel optical filter for a multi/demultiplexer using a diffraction grating and a retroreflector prism. A broader passband width, which is proportional to the difference between the prism base length and the input fibre core diameter, is obtained. The minimum insertion loss is 2.2 dB.