"Accounting Behavior of Firms Recognizing Impairment Losses"(in Japanese)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the accounting performance of the firms recognizing impairment losses and analyze the accounting behavior of those firms. We focus on two performance measures, i.e. sales margin and earnings to average total asset (ROA). Firms recognizing impairment losses experienced the decrease in ROA before. After the recognition of impairment losses, ROA was improved. That time-series movement is consistent with the conventional view. However, profit margin did not change in such a clear manner. Although, some firms with impairment losses smoothed earnings, we can find only weak evidence on earnings increasing management. On the other hand, we detect the strong evidence of "big bath" accounting. Our results imply the defects in accounting standards of impaired assets, which permits the large room of managerial discretion.

Reflection of Metastable Atoms by a Glass Wall in a Positive Column Discharge Plasma

The leser-induced-fluorescence-spectroscopy (LIFS) method has been applied to a dc discharge plasma, and the radial density distribution of metastable ( 2 ¹S) helium atoms has been measured. It was found that the density did not tend to zero at the discharge tube wall. Rather, the density was about 20-30% of the value on the tube axis. By using the collisional-radiative model, we interpreted the result. As the origin of this finite population at the wall we considered two possibilities, namely, 1 ) the helium ions which recombine at the wall converted partly into the metastable atoms and 2 ) the metastable atoms were not quenched completely at the wall, but were reflected by a certain amount. We found that the first process could not reproduce the experimental population distribution, and that the second process with the reflection coefficient of the metastable atoms of 80-90% accounted for the experiment

Prediction of restriction in output current by reactant flow in redox flow battery for compensating load variations

Redox flow batteries (RFBs) connected to the power grid can absorb load variations which appear in several time scales. An RFB consists of a cell stack as the chemical reaction element and tanks as the storage element. Electrolytes are pumped and circulated between them. The cell stack can supply power as long as reactants are supplied to the stack. The slow velocity of the reactant flow to the cells restricts the output current, and the RFB can not supply the requested power under the current restriction. The reactant flow should be considered for confirming whether the RFB can supply the requested power at load variations. This paper proposes the method to predict the current restriction by the reactant flow through simulations. The method is based on a chemical reaction model. The model enables us to simulate the time evolution of the reactant concentration, which governs the electrical behavior and the reactant flow of the RFB. The current available from the reactant flow is introduced to estimate the current restriction by the slow velocity of the reactant flow. The proposed method predicts well the current restriction of the prototype RFB, which is integrated into a 300-A class discharging circuit

Experimental and numerical analyses on the characteristics of twin skew rolling

Elastic-plastic FEA was carried out on the rolling process of twin skew rolling for a blooming mill to evaluate the influences of roll diameter, skew angle, and coefficient of friction on the suppression effect of porosities in the vicinity of centre axis of the material. Rolling by using a proto-type mill and modelling clay was then carried out to verify the validity of numerical analysis. Both results showed that the larger the roll diameter, and also the larger the coefficient of friction, the higher the suppression effect of porosities

Model for charging/discharging dynamics of cells in redox flow battery with transport delay

A redox flow battery (RFB) is an energy storage capable of contributing to grid balancing under the fluctuation of renewable power sources and loads. An RFB consists of reaction cells and tanks containing electrolytes that are pumped to the cells. Modeling of the charging/discharging dynamics is necessary for controlling the flows of the electrolytes and the current. The previous researches have assumed that the transport delay is small and negligible. However, when the transport delay appears, it affects the performance of the control systems. This paper aims to propose a model for considering charging/discharging dynamics with transport delay. The delay appears in the voltages of the cells in the tested system, and a model is introduced to simulate the delay. The model is represented by delay differential equations (DDEs) of the ion concentration in the cells with the Nernst relationship. The DDEs are derived from the mass balance equation including the transport delay translated to the time delay. The simulation result excellently agrees well with the experiment at results. In other words, the model can predict the dynamics governed by the transport delay accurately

Tripraseodymium penta­iron(III) dodeca­oxide, Pr3Fe5O12: a synchrotron radiation study

The title compound, penta­iron tripraseodymium dodeca­oxide (PrIG), has an iron garnet structure. There are two Fe site symmetries. One of the Fe atoms is coordinated by six O atoms, forming a slightly distorted octa­hedron, and has site symmetry. The other Fe atom is coordinated by four O atoms, forming a slightly distorted tetra­hedron, and has site symmetry. FeO6 octa­hedra and FeO4 tetra­hedra are linked together by corners. The Pr atom is coordinated by eight O atoms, forming a distorted dodeca­hedron, and has 222 site symmetry. The O atoms occupy the general positions