Lithium silicate based membranes for high temperature CO2 separation

Processing and characterisation of a novel membrane system for CO2 separation is detailed. The membrane was made of Lithium Orthosilicate (Li4SiO4), which has potential to react with CO2 molecules reversibly at high temperature. Using the membrane, a separation factor of 5.5 was measured between CO2 and N2 gas molecules at a temperature of 525C. The gas permeance value through the membrane at 525C was around 10-8 mol/m2 s Pa. Ionic diffusion through the liquid phase electrolyte and solid phase skeleton, produced by the reaction between CO2 and Li4SiO4,was suggested to assist the selective permeance of CO2. This facilitation effect was experimentally identified by examining the variation in CO2 flux with partial pressure. Oxygen ion conductivity through the skeleton material, Li2SiO3, is reportedly very high and therefore charge balance should have been achieved by O2- transfer through the skeleton

Engineering validation for lithium target facility of the IFMIF under IFMIF/EVEDA project

The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF), presently in the Engineering Validation and Engineering Design Activities (EVEDA) phase was started from 2007 under the frame of the Broader Approach (BA) agreement. In the activities, a prototype Li loop with the world's highest flow rate of 3000L/min was constructed in 2010, and it succeeded in generating a 100mm wide and 25mm thick with a free-surface lithium flow along a concave back plate steadily at a high-speed of 15m/s at 250°C for 1300h. In the demonstration operation it was needed to develop the Li flowing measurement system with precious resolution less than 0.1mm, and a new wave height measuring method which is laser-probe method was developed for measurements of the 3D geometry of the liquid Li target surface. Using the device, the stability of the variation in the Li flowing thickness which is required in the IFMIF specification was ±1mm or less as the liquid Li target, and the result was satisfied with it and the feasibility of the long-term stable liquid Li flow was also verified. The results of the other engineering validation tests such as lithium purification tests of lithium target facility have also been evaluated and summarized

Potential risk factors associated with human encephalitis: application of canonical correlation analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Infection of the CNS is considered to be the major cause of encephalitis and more than 100 different pathogens have been recognized as causative agents. Despite being identified worldwide as an important public health concern, studies on encephalitis are very few and often focus on particular types (with respect to causative agents) of encephalitis (e.g. West Nile, Japanese, etc.). Moreover, a number of other infectious and non-infectious conditions present with similar symptoms, and distinguishing encephalitis from other disguising conditions continues to a challenging task.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to assess associations between set of exposure variable and set of symptom and diagnostic variables in human encephalitis. Data consists of 208 confirmed cases of encephalitis from a prospective multicenter study conducted in the United Kingdom. We used a covariance matrix based on Gini's measure of similarity and used permutation based approaches to test significance of canonical variates.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Results show that weak pair-wise correlation exists between the risk factor (exposure and demographic) and symptom/laboratory variables. However, the first canonical variate from CCA revealed strong multivariate correlation (ρ = 0.71, se = 0.03, p = 0.013) between the two sets. We found a moderate correlation (ρ = 0.54, se = 0.02) between the variables in the second canonical variate, however, the value is not statistically significant (p = 0.68). Our results also show that a very small amount of the variation in the symptom sets is explained by the exposure variables. This indicates that host factors, rather than environmental factors might be important towards understanding the etiology of encephalitis and facilitate early diagnosis and treatment of encephalitis patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>There is no standard laboratory diagnostic strategy for investigation of encephalitis and even experienced physicians are often uncertain about the cause, appropriate therapy and prognosis of encephalitis. Exploration of human encephalitis data using advanced multivariate statistical modelling approaches that can capture the inherent complexity in the data is, therefore, crucial in understanding the causes of human encephalitis. Moreover, application of multivariate exploratory techniques will generate clinically important hypotheses and offer useful insight into the number and nature of variables worthy of further consideration in a confirmatory statistical analysis.</p

Multimodal Human-Robot Interface with Gesture-Based Virtual Collaboration

This paper proposes an intuitive teleoperation scheme by using human gesture in conjunction with multimodal human-robot interface. Further, in order to deal with the complication of dynamic daily environment, the authors apply haptic point cloud rendering and the virtual collaboration to the system. all these functions are achieved by a portable hardware that is proposed by authors newly, which is called “the mobile iSpace”. First, a surrounding environment of a teleoperated robot is captured and reconstructed as the 3D point cloud using a depth camera. Virtual world is then generated from the 3D point cloud, which a virtual teleoperated robot model is placed in. Operators use their own whole-body gesture to teleoperate the humanoid robot. The Gesture is captured in real time using the depth camera that was placed on operator side. The operator recieves both the visual and the vibrotactile feedback at the same time by using a head mounted display and a vibrotactile glove. All these system components, the human operator, the teleoperated robot and the feedback devices, are connected with the Internet-based virtual collaboration system for a flexible accessibility. This paper showcases the effectiveness of the proposed scheme with experiment that were done to show how the operators can access the remotely placed robot in anytime and place

Characterization of p-n junction formed at the boundary of facets in cubic-BN using scanning electron microscope

For the application of ultraviolet light emitting diodes, self-organized p–n junctions were formed at the boundaries of facets in cubic boron nitride. The optical and electrical characteristics of these junctions were studied using cathodoluminescence (CL) and electron-beam-induced current (EBIC) in a scanning electron microscope. The p and n regions were clearly distinguished by the variation of CL spectra and monochromatic CL images. A broad band with a peak at 4.0 eV (310 nm) was observed in p-region, but not in n-region. Monochromatic CL image at 4.0 eV showed that the Be impurity distribution in p-region was not uniform. Variation of EBIC profiles indicated the inhomogeneity of diffusion length along p-n junction. The inhomogeneous electroluminescence along the p–n junction under the reverse current condition was clarified by the inhomogeneities revealed by EBIC and CL characterizations