Anti‐Sway Crane Control Considering Wind Disturbance and Container Mass

A method for estimating the sway angle using an observer has already been proposed. The state observer estimates the sway angle accurately and must use the detected sway angle value. However, the estimated sway angle has an error owing to rope length error, friction force, and wind. Moreover, the container mass cannot be determined, and therefore the observer parameter is not suitable. We already proposed robust antisway control for overcoming rope length error without adding a new sensor. Further, we designed a friction disturbance observer to cancel out the influence of the friction force. In this paper, we first propose a container mass estimation method when a crane system performs rolling up control. The observer parameter can be selected using the estimated mass value. Second, in crane parallel shift control, we propose a robust antisway control even when there is a wind disturbance. We design a wind disturbance observer and propose a wind disturbance estimator to separate the friction observer output from the wind disturbance observer output. We confirm through experiments that the proposed method can reduce vibration.     

10-Gb/s error-free transmission under optical reflection using isolator-free 1.3- /spl mu/m InP-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

Error-free transmission through 10-km single-mode fiber at 10 Gb/s under -13-dB optical reflections has been demonstrated for the first time using a directly modulated 1.3-/spl mu/m InP-based VCSEL without any optical isolator. The 13-GHz relaxation oscillation frequency and stable polarization suppresses relative intensity noise degradation under optical reflection. Only 1-dB error-free power penalty has been observed with optical reflection set with the worst polarization direction.     

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Structural Relaxation of Asphaltene Aggregates

For asphaltene obtained from vacuum residue of Khafji crude oil, the energy-minimum conformation calculated by molecular mechanics-dynamics simulations showed that aggregated structures of asphaltene molecules through noncovalent interactions are more stable. Changes induced in aggregated structures by pretreatment with solvents were investigated using molecular dynamics calculations. The simulation showed that in quinolin at 573 K, some staking interactions could be disrupted, while, in 1-methylnaphthalene it was not observed. Autoclave experiments showed that the coke yield after pyrolysis at 713 K was decreased when the asphaltene was pretreated with quinoline at 573 K for 1 h, compared to the yield without the pretreatment. While, in the case of pretreatment in 1-methylnaphthalene, the coke yield did not change significantly. The simulation's results above can be related to the difference in coke yield between two solvents; in quinoline some aromatic-aromatic stacking interactions could be disrupted and mobility of molecules was increased. This resulted in prevention of the asphaltenes from polymerizing, as in condensation reactions among aromatic rings. Consequently, the coke yield after the pretreatment with quinoline was decreased.     

Mechanical properties of sinter-forged Al2O3-ZrO2 ceramics

Two kinds of composites, Al₂O₃-25 wt% ZrO₂(2 mol% Y₂O₃) (Y-ZTA), Al₂O₃-25 wt% ZrO₂(8 mol% CeO₂) (Ce-ZTA) were produced by the sinter-forging process. The effect of presintering temperature on the mechanical properties of the composites was examined. The sinter-forging process increased the room-temperature bending strength in comparison with pressureless sintering, owing to the smaller grain size in sinter-forged bodies than in pressureless sintered ones. It was found necessary to keep the presintering temperature considerably lower than sinter-forging temperature in order to improve the room-temperature strength. The strength of sinter-forged Ce-ZTA was higher than that of sinter-forged Y-ZTA. The residual surface compressive stress induced by the phase transition during grinding in Ce-ZTA was found to be effective to further improve the strength and fracture toughness.     

Analysis of the IgE-epitope of Der f 2, a major mite allergen, by in vitro mutagenesis

Der f 2 is a major mite allergen composed of 129 amino acid residues. To determine the major epitopes on Der f 2 recognized by human IgE antibodies, artificial mutations were introduced to Der f 2 protein. The IgE-binding activity of Der f 2 was significantly decreased by deletion of 10 amino acids at the N-terminus or nine amino acids at the C-terminus. Site-directed mutagenesis with a single amino acid replacement by Ala or Leu in both N- and C-terminal regions as well as a central portion was performed to generate 42 single-site mutations. Amino acid replacement around a disulfide bond of Cys8-Cys119 caused a marked decrease in IgE-binding activity. Furthermore, a distinct decrease in IgE-binding was also caused by Ala-substitution close to a disulfide bond of Cys73-Cys78 and by mutations of a few charged residues. From these results, it was concluded that the two disulfide-forming regions of Der f 2 and several charged residues are important for forming major epitope structures recognized by human IgE antibodies.     

A comparison of the grade of laryngeal visualisation;--the McCoy compared with the Macintosh and the Miller blade in adults

Effectiveness in visualization of the vocal cord during orotracheal intubation with McCoy (McC) compared with Macintosh (Min) and Miller (Mil) blades were investigated. After an institutional review board approval, 117 patients for elective surgery under general anesthesia requiring tracheal intubation were investigated. Five board certified anesthesiologists tried to visualize the vocal cord of a patient three times with the three different types of laryngoscope. Total of 351 intubation attempts were studied. The view obtained at laryngoscopy with each of the three blades was recorded as follows. Grade 1. If most of the glottis is visible. Grade 2. If only the posterior extremity of the glottis is visible. Grade 3. If no part of the glottis can be seen. Grade 4. If not even the epiglottis can be exposed. Eight-two Grade 1 views were obtained with McC, 72 with Mil and 47 with Min, respectively. Thirty-three Grade 2 views were obtained with McC, 36 with Min and 24 with Mil. Two Grade 3 views with McC, 34 with Min and 14 with Mil were obtained. Seven Grade 4 views were obtained with Mil. The grades of laryngeal visualization with McC were significantly lower than those with Min and Mil.     

Deposition of carbon and its hydrogenation catalyzed by nickel

Formation of carbon on nickel sheet from benzene vapor carried by hydrogen was studied at a temperature range from 520 to 730°C. A maximum rate was observed at about 630°C, above which the deposition rate decreased rapidly. The carbon formed was hydrogenated in situ. Methane was the main gaseous product and a maximum rate was observed at about 670°C. Very high reactivity of deposited carbon toward hydrogenation was ascribed to the catalytic action of nickel particles dispersed in the carbon. The hydrogenation rates were divided into three zones and possible interpretations are discussed. A mechanism which is a reverse process to deposition was suggested. The decrease of the hydrogenation rate at higher temperatures was due to the equilibrium among carbon, hydrogen and methane, where carbon was more reactive than graphite.     

Augmenting Edge-Connectivity between Vertex Subsets

Given a directed or undirected graph G=(V,E), a collection ${\mathcal{R}}=\{(S_{i},T_{i}) \mid i=1,2,\ldots,|{\mathcal{R}}|, S_{i},T_{i} \subseteq V, S_{i} \cap T_{i} =\emptyset\}$ of two disjoint subsets of V, and a requirement function $r: {\mathcal{R}} \to\mathbb{R}_{+}$ , we consider the problem (called area-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation problem) of augmenting G by a smallest number of new edges so that the resulting graph $\hat{G}$ satisfies $d_{\hat{G}}(X)\geq r(S,T)$ for all X?V, $(S,T) \in{\mathcal{R}}$ with S?X?V?T, where d _G (X) denotes the degree of a vertex set X in G. This problem can be regarded as a natural generalization of the global, local, and node-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation problems. In this paper, we show that there exists a constant c such that the problem is inapproximable within a ratio of $c\log{|{\mathcal{R}}|}$ , unless P=NP, even restricted to the directed global node-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation or undirected local node-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation. We also provide an ${\mathrm{O}}(\log{|{\mathcal{R}}|})$ -approximation algorithm for the area-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation problem, which is a natural extension of Kortsarz and Nutov’s algorithm (Kortsarz and Nutov, J. Comput. Syst. Sci., 74:662–670, 2008). This together with the negative result implies that the problem is ${\varTheta}(\log{|{\mathcal{R}}|})$ -approximable, unless P=NP, which solves open problems for node-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation in Ishii et al. (Algorithmica, 56:413–436, 2010), Ishii and Hagiwara (Discrete Appl. Math., 154:2307–2329, 2006), Miwa and Ito (J. Oper. Res. Soc. Jpn., 47:224–243, 2004). Furthermore, we characterize the node-to-area and area-to-area edge-connectivity augmentation problems as the augmentation problems with modulotone and k-modulotone functions.     

Microstructure of TiO2 and ZnO Films Fabricated by the Sol-Gel Method

Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide films were fabricated by spin-on and dip-coating methods. Both types of films exhibited columnar grains when the single coating was thin, ∼10 nm. The columnar TiO₂ films were dense, as confirmed by their density values calculated from the refractive index and TEM results. The addition of Al cations into the ZnO suppressed grain growth, because Zn had a lower diffusivity in the doped films. The doped ZnO films had nearly the same electrical resistivity as that of the undoped films.