The Japanese experiences with national PV system programmes

The paper summarises Japanese activities concerning photovoltaic systems including those for residential use, which is one of the major targets for a domestic alternative energy supply. Fiscal year 1999 marked the 25th anniversary of the Sunshine Project that was initiated in July 1974. The Sunshine Project was subsequently reorganised into the New Sunshine Program to include renewable energy, energy conservation and environmental technology. The major target of the Photovoltaic Technology Development Project in the Programme, from an early stage of R&D, has been focused on utility-connected, residential applications mounted on roofs. Recently, it can be considered that technologies for the target have been fundamentally established and a series of new activities have been introduced to promote the commercialisation and diffusion of PV systems. To review those activities, several condensed tables are presented, i.e., R&D history of residential applications, recent trends in regulation and code improvements, and new institutional activities to disseminate PV systems. The authors also present performance results collected from a large number of PV systems by using a very effective evaluation method called the ‘SV method’. The paper finishes by introducing a good example of simple system monitoring with good verification that can establish a knowledge circle from a variety of PV fields, including to factories, engineers, owners and investors, and it seems to be quite cost-effective.     

Present status and future prospects of PV activities in Japan

The photovoltaic (PV) power systems in Japan made great strides in the past decade. The PV industry in the 1990s greatly depended on the research projects and dissemination programs carried out by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. However, the industrial structure for full-scale deployment of the PV system is currently being established by the manufacturers’ continuous efforts to reduce the PV system cost and the government’s consecutive supports to create the initial market. It is expected that the synergetic effect of the cost reduction and incentives for introduction will activate the PV industry and its market more and more toward achieving 5000 MW of the capacity in FY 2010.     

Indirect photocatalytic reduction of arsenate to arsenite in aqueous solution with TiO2 in the presence of hole scavengers

The indirect photocatalytic reduction of arsenate to arsenite in aqueous solution with titanium dioxide(TiO_2)was investigated with various hole scavengers such as methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, formaldehyde, acetone,formic acid and acetic acid. Although the direct photocatalytic reduction of arsenate to arsenite with TiO_2 was impossible, an indirect reduction of As(V) was possible in the presence of sacrificial electron donors to form strongly reductive radicals. The addition of ethanol was very effective for indirect photocatalytic reduction of As(V) in aqueous solution with TiO_2 photocatalyst. The indirect photocatalytic reduction rate of As(V) may be related with both the reaction rate constants of reaction of hydroxyl radicals with hole scavenger and the reactivities for the radicals M· which are produced by the reaction of ·OH with hole scavenger.     

Performance Analysis of Cooperative Diversity Wireless Networks over Nakagami-m Fading Channel

This letter analyzes the performance of cooperative diversity wireless networks using amplify-and-forward relaying over independent, non-identical, Nakagami-m fading channels. The error rate and the outage probability are determined using the moment generating function (MGF) of the total signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) at the destination. Since it is hard to find a closed form for the probability density function (PDF) of the total SNR, we use an approximate value instead. We first derive the PDF and the MGF of the approximate value of the total SNR. Then, the MGF is used to determine the error rate and the outage probability. We also use simulation to verify the analytical results. Results show that the derived error rate and outage probability are tight lower bounds particularly at medium and high SNR     

Multilingual author matching across different academic databases: a case study on KAKEN,DBLP, and PubMed

Scientometrics - Researchers often use their native languages to present and exchange ideas. To construct an individual author’s complete profile, a list of their English and non-English...     

Performance of cooperative diversity using Equal Gain Combining (EGC) over Nakagami-m fading channels

Cooperative diversity is a promising technology for future wireless networks. In this paper, we derive exact closed-form expressions for the average bit error rate (BER) and outage probability (Pout) for differential equal gain combining (EGC) in cooperative diversity networks. The considered network uses amplify-and-forward relaying over independent non-identical Nakagami-m fading channels. The performance metrics (BER and Pout) are derived using the moment generating function (MGF) method. Furthermore, we found (in terms of MGF) the SNR moments, the average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and amount of fading. Numerical results show that the differential EGC can bene?t from the path-loss reduction and outperform the traditional multiple-input single output (MISO) system. Also, numerical results show that the performance of the differential EGC is comparable to the maximum ratio combining (MRC) performance.     

Solar photocatalytic decomposition of Probenazole in water with TiO2 in the presence of H2O2

The photocatalytic decomposition of Probenazole in water using TiO₂/H₂O₂ under sunlight illumination is studied. The addition of H₂O₂ is effective for the improvement of photocatalytic decomposition of Probenazole with TiO₂. Furthermore, the operating conditions, such as photocatalyst dosage, temperature, pH, sunlight intensity and illumination time are also optimized. The kinetics of photocatalytic decomposition follow a pseudo–first–order kinetic law, and the rate constant is 0.129 min^?1. The activation energy (E_a) is 11.34 kJ/mol. The photocatalytic decomposition mechanism is discussed on the basis of molecular orbital (MO) simulation for frontier electron density.