Search

Pyrolysis of Douglas fir with metal compounds has been carried out to examine the effect of metal compounds on the pyrolysis profiles. The profiles dramatically shifted into lower or higher temperatures by adding some metal compounds. On the other hand, the presence of metal chlorides promoted the decomposition of Douglas fir at low temperature. The metal compounds having high hydrophilicity, by which Douglas fir decomposition was shifted toward lower temperatures, caused an increase in char and a decrease in tar through promoting the cross-linking reaction at low temperature. From these results, it can be said that the control of dehydration at low temperature is an essential factor to achieve high char yield with minimizing tar formation.

Pyrolysis of NaOH-loaded Douglas fir and cellulose has been carried out to determine the effect of sodium hydroxide on the pyrolysis profile. A tar yield of 0 wt% and the char yield of 32 wt% were obtained at a final pyrolysis temperature of 500°C. It was revealed that the amount of hydroxyl groups in the residue significantly decreased at 200°C and that the structure of cellulose was distorted via cross-linking at the same temperature through spectroscopic analyses and diffraction patterns. The cross-linking led to the increase in char yield at 500°C. A detailed analysis showed that char yield from cellulose at 500°C correlated linearly with the degree of cross-linking calculated from the amount of dehydration at 200°C. These results showed a possibility that the pyrolysis profile of biomass may be controlled through an appropriate pretreatment to change the structure of the intermediate.

Clowse et al 1 have reported minimal to no transfer of certolizumab pegol (CZP) into breast milk, and their findings have supported the continuation of CZP treatment during breast milk feeding. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often develops in women of childbearing age. It is generally difficult to treat these patients with methotrexate, which is the anchor drug for RA. Therefore, biologics, such as tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors, are often considered for active RA during pregnancy. However, the biologics cross the placenta from mother to fetus and transfer into breast milk during lactation. Although a meta-analysis report indicated that anti-TNF-α therapy did not increase the risks, such as congenital malformation or abortion during pregnancy, in patients with inflammatory …

Pedestrians have difficulty noticing hybrid vehicles (HVs) and electrical vehicles (EVs) quietly approaching from behind. We propose a vehicle detection scheme using a smartphone carried by a pedestrian. A notification of a vehicle approaching can be delivered to wearable devices such as Google Glass. We exploit the high-frequency switching noise generated by the motor unit in HVs and EVs. Although people are less sensitive to these high-frequency ranges, these sounds are prominent even on a busy street, and it is possible for a smartphone to detect these signals. The ambient sound captured at 48 kHz is converted to a feature vector in the frequency domain. A J48 classifier implemented on a smartphone can determine whether an EV or HV is approaching. We have collected a large amount of vehicle data at various locations. The false-positive and false-negative rates of our detection scheme are 1.2% and 4.95%, respectively. The first alarm was detected as early as 11.6 s before the vehicle approached the observer. The scheme can also determine the vehicle speed and vehicle type.

Carrier injection rate in tunnel injection quantum well structures used in semiconductor lasers was investigated through theoretical analysis. Carrier capture time from 3D-state to 2D-state in a conventional quantum well was several ten picoseconds and it is almost uncontrollable characteristics. The tunnel injection structure can be designed to control the carrier injection rate. The carrier transition time from carrier reservoir-region of the tunnel injection structure to the active well was a few picoseconds when the structure was designed for high speed transition. As results, carrier injection to ground state of the active well takes less than 10 picoseconds. The change of the radiative recombination rate in the active well also defines the optimal design of the tunnel injection structure. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Aiming at developing a methodology for constructing continuous-time chaotic dynamical systems as flexible pattern generators, this paper discusses a strategy for binding desired unstable periodic orbits into a chaotic attractor. The strategy is comprised of the following two stages: constructing an interim “chaos-generating template”, and deforming the template according to the specifically desired orbits. INTRODUCTION Chaos is a fascinating phenomenon arising from nonlinearities in dynamical systems, and investigations on its applications to intelligent and flexible systems have appeared in many fields. An important aspect of chaos is that chaotic attractors embed or “host” an infinite number of unstable periodic orbits (UPO’s) bifurcated from prechaotic states (Ott, 2002). Among them, some distinctive orbits can be used for characterization or control purposes. For example, a variety of chaos control methods (Ott et al., 1990; Pyragas, 1992; Zhang et al., 2009) can stabilize UPO’s embedded in chaotic attractors, enlarging the operation range and/or enhancing the functionality of the system. In more recent years, the synthesis of chaos from various approaches (Chen and Ueta, 2002; Zelinka et al., 2008; Munoz-Pacheco and Tlelo-Cuautle, 2009) has been an active direction of research along the line of exploiting chaos. Primary concerns of these efforts include statistical and topological characteristics (e.g., invariant measure, Lyapunov spectrum, novel scrolling behaviors) that would be important in designing chaos-based information processing and communication applications. While the present study share some common motivation with the above-mentioned studies, we have put more focus on the geometrical shape and dynamical properties of UPO’s themselves from the viewpoint of the adaptive generation of periodic behaviors. Here our intention lies in extending the functionality of (stable) periodic pattern generators based on function approximation of vector fields, e.g., polynomial approximation (Okada and Nakamura, 2002) and neural network learning (Kuroe and Miura, 2006). In this paper, we consider continuous-time chaotic attractors as a container of UPO’s (patterns) where they can be stabilized, entrained, or targeted by external inputs into the dynamical system. In what follows, we propose a design strategy for binding desired UPO’s into a chaotic attractor governed by a polynomial vector field. The strategy is comprised of the following two stages: constructing an interim “chaos-generating template”, and deforming the template according to the specifically desired orbits. POLYNOMIAL VECTOR FIELDS We consider polynomial dynamical systems of the form ẋ = f(x)(x ∈ R ) where the vector field f(x) is represented as f(x) = [f1(x) · · · fN (x)] T = Φ(a(p1p2···pN ))θ(x), (1) θ(x) = [x1 · · · x ` N x `−1 1 x2 · · · 1] T . (2) Here, ` denotes the maximum degree of the polynomials, and the matrix Φ is comprised of the coefficients a(p1p2···pN ) of the polynomials. For example, with 3rdorder polynomials, the first element of a two-dimensional vector field is represented as f1(x) = a1(30)x 3 1 + a1(21)x 2 1x2 + a1(12)x1x 2 2 + a1(03)x 3 2 + a1(20)x 2 1 + a1(11)x1x2 + a1(02)x 2 2 + a1(10)x1 + a1(01)x2 + a1(00).(3) In our design process of the dynamical system, the coefficients are obtained by least-square fitting. To this end, we set up target vectors f(ηi) (i = 1, 2, · · · , L) at design points ηi on and in the vicinity of the target orbits, and construct matrices F = [f(η1) f(η2) · · · f(ηL)], (4) Θ = [θ(η1) θ(η2) · · · θ(ηL)]. (5) With these matrices, the least-square solution for Φ is given by Φ(a(p1 p2 ··· pN )) = FΘ # (6) where Θ is the Moore-Penrose pseudo inverse of Θ. Proceedings 24th European Conference on Modelling and Simulation ©ECMS Andrzej Bargiela, Sayed Azam Ali David Crowley, Eugene J.H. Kerckhoffs (Editors) ISBN: 978-0-9564944-0-5 / ISBN: 978-0-9564944-1-2 (CD)

We propose a SOA with a tunnel injection structure and analyze the operation properties. High-speed carrier recovery was suggested in the tunnel-injection SOA. The results indicate tunnel-injection SOAs have a potential of high-speed operation.

The intestinal cell types responsible for defense against pathogenic organisms remain incompletely characterized. Here we identify a subset of CD11c(hi)CD11b(hi) lamina propria dendritic cells (LPDCs) that expressed Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) in the small intestine. When stimulated by the TLR5 ligand flagellin, TLR5(+) LPDCs induced the differentiation of naive B cells into immunoglobulin A-producing plasma cells by a mechanism independent of gut-associated lymphoid tissue. In addition, by a mechanism dependent on TLR5 stimulation, these LPDCs promoted the differentiation of antigen-specific interleukin 17-producing T helper cells and type 1 T helper cells. Unlike spleen DCs, the LPDCs specifically produced retinoic acid, which, in a dose-dependent way, supported the generation and retention of immunoglobulin A-producing cells in the lamina propria and positively regulated the differentiation interleukin 17-producing T helper cells. Our findings demonstrate unique properties of LPDCs and the importance of TLR5 for adaptive immunity in the intestine.

The invention relates to a vibration wave driving apparatus which comprises a vibration member in which an electro-mechanical energy conversion element is fixed to the elastic member, and a contact member pressed against a sliding part provided in the vibration member, so as to be kept in contact therewith, and which is configured to supply alternating signals in a predetermined driving frequency band to the electro-mechanical energy conversion element, thereby generating a predetermined natural vibration mode in the elastic member to drive the contact member. In the apparatus, the natural vibration mode is generated in the elastic member, a natural frequency of another vibration mode different from the natural vibration mode is detected, and a stiffness of the support member is altered if the natural frequency of the other vibration mode detected is included in the driving frequency band.