Effects of water-soluble carbohydrate content on silage fermentation of wheat straw

To determine a suitable initial water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) content to make wheat straw natural fermentation successful and to study fermentation characteristics, glucose was used to adjust the initial WSC content to 1.4%, 4.0%, 5.0%, 6.0%, 7.0%, 8.0%, 9.0%, and 10.0% dry matter (DM) in the wheat straw. At 30 d of fermentation, there were three pHs: when the initial WSC content was 1.4%, the pH was 5.5; when the initial WSC contents were 4.0%, 5.0% and 6.0%, the pHs were near 5.1; and when the initial WSC contents were 7.0%, 8.0%, 9.0% and 10.0%, the pHs were near 4.0. The pattern of changes in WSC content during the fermentation was similar to that in pH. At 30 d of fermentation, there existed a dividing line in WSC remnants between the initial 6.0% WSC treatment and the initial 7.0% WSC treatment. When the initial WSC content was more than 7.0%, the remaining WSC content was more than 23.7 g/kg DM. When the initial WSC content was less than 6.0%, the remaining WSC content was less than 13.6 g/kg DM. Particularly for the 1.4% WSC treatment, the remaining WSC content was 2.1 g/kg DM. The results of the microbiological enumeration showed that with the increase in initial WSC content, the numbers of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and other bacteria generally decreased. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) results showed that when the initial WSC content was beyond 7.0%, the LAB of the fermentation system were detected.     

A miniaturized methanol reformer with Si-based microreactor for a small PEMFC

A miniaturized methanol reformer with Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ catalyst-based microreactor suitable for the supply of hydrogen for a small proton exchange membrane fuel cell is designed and fabricated using microfabrication techniques. The microreactor () is constructed from glass and silicon substrates to form a serpentine catalyst-coated microchannel of 333 mm in length and cross-section of , designed based on mass and heat balance analyses using a one-dimensional model. The use of the high-performance Cu/ZnO/Al₂O₃ catalyst allows for higher hydrogen production rates than possible using a commercial Cu/ZnO catalyst. The microreactor is demonstrated to be capable maintaining a hydrogen production rate suitable for powering 1 W-class devices such as cellular phones.     

EvIcon: Designing High-Usability Icon with Human-in-the-loop Exploration and IconCLIP

Interface icons are prevalent in various digital applications. Due to limited time and budgets, many designers rely on informal evaluation, which often results in poor usability icons. In this paper, we propose a unique human-in-the-loop framework that allows our target users, that is novice and professional user interface (UI) designers, to improve the usability of interface icons efficiently. We formulate several usability criteria into a perceptual usability function and enable users to iteratively revise an icon set with an interactive design tool, EvIcon. We take a large-scale pre-trained joint image-text embedding (CLIP) and fine-tune it to embed icon visuals with icon tags in the same embedding space (IconCLIP). During the revision process, our design tool provides two types of instant perceptual usability feedback. First, we provide perceptual usability feedback modelled by deep learning models trained on IconCLIP embeddings and crowdsourced perceptual ratings. Second, we use the embedding space of IconCLIP to assist users in improving icons' visual distinguishability among icons within the user-prepared icon set. To provide the perceptual prediction, we compiled IconCEPT10K, the first large-scale dataset of perceptual usability ratings over 10,000 interface icons, by conducting a crowdsourcing study. We demonstrated that our framework could benefit UI designers' interface icon revision process with a wide range of professional experience. Moreover, the interface icons designed using our framework achieved better semantic distance and familiarity, verified by an additional online user study.     

Antioxidant and hepatoprotective activity of kaempferol 3-O-β-d- (2,6-di-O-α-l-rhamnopyranosyl)galactopyronoside against carbon tetrachloride-induced liver injury in mice

Food Science and Biotechnology - This study aims to investigate the antioxidant and hepatoprotective effects of kaempferol 3-O-β-d- (2,6-di-O-α-l-rhamnopyranosyl)galactopyronoside (KG)...     

Temperature dependence of the yield strain of a Zr-based metallic glass at the glassy state

In the glassy temperature region from the ambient to glass transition temperature, an apparent Young's modulus (E_ap), the slope of the initial linear part on the stress–strain curve, in a Zr-based metallic glass clearly depends on both temperature and strain rate, indicating that viscous contribution is included in the elastic response. Because the yield stress depends on temperature and strain rate as the same manner with E_ap, the yield strain was found to keep the “universal” critical strain 0.020 for many metallic glasses at the ambient temperature. This suggests that the yield phenomenon is simply dominated by E_ap.     

Path planning of a mobile robot by optimization and reinforcement learning

At AROB5, we proposed a solution to the path planning of a mobile robot. In our approach, we formulated the problem as a discrete optimization problem at each time step. To solve the optimization problem, we used an objective function consisting of a goal term, a smoothness term, and a collision term. While the results of our simulation showed the effectiveness of our approach, the values of the weights in the objective function were not given by any theoretical method. This article presents a theoretical method using reinforcement learning for adjusting the weight parameters. We applied Williams' learning algorithm, episodic REINFORCE, to derive a learning rule for the weight parameters. We verified the learning rule by some experiments. This work was presented, in part, at the Sixth International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Tokyo, Japan, January 15–17, 2001     

Novel three-phase SMR converter with inherent snubber energyrecovery capability

This paper describes the switch mode rectifier (SMR) having a quite new circuit configuration, which has been developed by the authors and given the name “DC clamped type SMR” (DCC-SMR). The DCC-SMR is unique in that no bilateral switching device is used in the frequency conversion circuit. Therefore, the authors have used a DC snubber circuit in conjunction with the switching device of the DCC-SMR. This DC snubber circuit features a very simple structure consisting only of a capacitor with no need for a discharge resistance or for a complicated regenerative circuit for snubber energy. This is because snubber energy is regenerated on the primary side of the high frequency (HF) transformer by the main switch. Furthermore, an innovative method has been applied for magnetic saturation-preventive control of the HF transformer. The authors carried out operational checks on the main circuit and the snubber circuit of the DCC-SMR as well as on the magnetic saturation-preventive control circuit, and through experiments confirmed a satisfactory result. We manufactured an industrial DC power supply prototype of the DCC-SMR system having a DC output of 100 kW (100 V, 1000 A), with which input/output conversion efficiency 91.6%, input power factor 0.99 and input current total harmonic distortion factor 4.6% were obtained     

Data‐pulse‐voltage reduction of AC‐PDPs by using metastable‐particle priming

Abstract— It is shown that space charges dominate the build‐up of an address discharge when it is preceded by a priming discharge in less than 32 μsec. When the separation of these discharges (cease period) exceeds 32 μsec, the space charges diffuse away and the metastable particles start playing the role of priming. The priming effect of the metastable particles is not too strong, which is desirable for adopting a data‐pulse‐voltage reduction technique for PDPs. By choosing the length of the cease period to be between 32 and 80 μsec in the Address‐While‐Display drive scheme, the data pulse voltage was reduced to 20 V. This leads to a considerable cost reduction of data driver ICs.