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The technique of moving-window two-dimensional heterospectral (MW2DHetero) correlation spectroscopy is proposed. This computational method is based on the ideas of perturbation-correlation moving-window two-dimensional (PCMW2D) correlation spectroscopy and two-dimensional heterospectral correlation analysis. Not only small spectral variations, but also detailed bands assignments were captured using the analysis. This method was applied to near-infrared (NIR) spectra in the 10 000–4000 cm−1 region and mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectra in the 5000–1200 cm−1 region, which were simultaneously detected using a dual-region spectrometer. Near-infrared and mid-IR spectra collected during an alcoholic fermentation process using a solution containing glucose and fructose were reported. Slight time differences for the consumption of sugars compared with the production of ethanol were found between 50 and 150 min. It was concluded that these slight time differences are evidence for different consumption times between glucose and fructose during the fermentation process. The result proved a possibility of the selective monitoring of the simultaneous reaction processes between productive and consumptive components.

A balance between industrial pollution and economic growth becomes a major policy issue to attain a sustainable society in the world. To discuss the problem from economics and business perspectives, this study proposes a new use of DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) as a methodology for unified (operational and environmental) assessment. A unique feature of the proposed approach is that it separates outputs into desirable and undesirable categories. Such separation is important because energy industries usually produce both desirable and undesirable outputs. This study discusses how to unify the two types of outputs under natural and managerial disposability. The proposed DEA approach evaluates various organizations by the three efficiency measures such as OE (Operational Efficiency), UEN (Unified Efficiency under Natural disposability) and UENM (Unified Efficiency under Natural and Managerial disposability). An important feature of UENM is that it separates inputs into two categories and unifies them under the two disposability concepts in addition to the proposed output separation and unification. This study incorporates an amount of capital assets for technology innovation, as one of the two input group, into the measurement of UENM. Then, it compares UENM with the other two efficiency measures. This study is the first research effort in which DEA has an analytical capability to quantify the importance of investment on capital assets for technology innovation. To confirm the practicality of the proposed approach, this study applies the three efficiency measures to a data set regarding manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries of 47 prefectures in Japan. This study empirically confirms the validity of Porter hypothesis in Japanese manufacturing industries, so implying that environmental regulation has been effective for betterment on the performance of Japanese manufacturing industries. Another important finding is that the emission of greenhouse gases is a main source of unified inefficiency in the two groups of industries. Therefore, Japanese industries, examined in this study, need to make their efforts to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution substances by investing in capital assets for technology innovation.

The concept of resilience is a crucial part in crafting visions of desirable futures designed to withstand the widest variety of external shocks to the system. Backcasting scenarios are widely used to envision desirable futures with a discontinuous change from the present in mind. However, less effort has been devoted to developing theoretical frameworks and methods for building backcasting scenarios with a particular focus on resilience, although resilience has been explored in related sustainability fields. This paper proposes a method that helps design backcasting scenarios for resilient futures. A characteristic of the method is to delineate “collapse” futures, based upon which resilient futures are described to avoid the various collapsed states. In the process of designing backcasting scenarios, fault tree analysis (FTA) is used to support the generation of various risk factors and countermeasures to improve resilience. In order to test the effectiveness of the proposed method, we provide a case study to describe resilient energy systems for a Japanese community to 2030. Four expert workshops involving researchers from different disciplines were organized to generate diversified ideas on resilient energy systems. The results show that three scenarios of collapsed energy systems were described, in which policy options to be taken toward achieving resilient energy systems were derived.

Stereographs of magnetic flux lines or magnetic flux density vectors are effective for clearly showing the results of analyses of three dimensional magnetic fields. In this paper, an algorithm is suggested for obtaining the magnetic flux lines from the potential data calculated by the three dimensional finite element method, and also techniques displaying the magnetic flux lines and the magnetic flux density vectors by means of a stereoimage are suggested. The perspective views from the position of one's right eye and left eye are displayed on a color CRT or drawn by an X-Y plotter, and the pictures are given as a stereograph by using stereoglasses or a stereoscope,, respectively.

Abstract A novel process for carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) separation, which was named a membrane flash process, was developed to realize an energy-saving technology and to substitute it for a conventional regenerator. The electric energy for CO 2 recovery in a membrane flash process using aluminum oxide and diethanolamine was lower than the thermal energy of the conventional chemical absorption process. Flashing at elevated temperature by the low temperature energy significantly reduced the electric energy and required much less membrane area. This process has potentiality of low cost capture of CO 2 when the low temperature energy, which is not available for other purposes, can be utilized to elevate flashing temperature.

Abstract The drive to achieve low emissions from gas turbines has been an ongoing challenge for over 30 years with the reduction of NO x levels representing the most difficult issue. Catalytic combustion represents the technological approach that can achieve the lowest level of NO x , in the range of 3 ppm and lower depending on the combustion system design. The program to develop a catalytic combustion technology that can achieve ultra low levels of NO x , CO and unburned hydrocarbons (UHCs), applicable to a wide range of gas turbine systems and with long term durability is described. The technological approach is to combust only a portion of the fuel within the catalyst with the remaining fuel combusted downstream of the catalyst allowing the catalyst to operate at a low temperature and thus obtaining good long term catalyst durability. This catalytic combustion approach is then applied to a 1.4 MW gas turbine to demonstrate feasibility and to obtain real field experience and to identify issues and areas needing further work. The success of this demonstration lead to a commercial combustor design. This combustor and the final commercial package is described and the performance specifications discussed.

Frosting on a cooling surface causes serious damage as well as economic losses. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the mechanism of frosting on a cooling surface both scientifically and technologically. In addition, taking the size of frost crystals into account requires nano-micro-scale investigation. However, there have been few such studies. Thus, the focus of the present study is methods of measuring frost crystal dimensions/structure and frost scraping force in nano-micro-scale fields. In the present study, methods by which to measure frost crystal dimensions/structure, such as diameter, height, number of frost crystals, and interval between adjoining frost crystals, as well as the force required to scrape frost from a cooling surface using a scanning probe microscope (SPM) are proposed, and the effectiveness of these methods is investigated. With the exception of the frost crystal height, the feasibility of these measurements was demonstrated, and examples of the correlation of frost dimensions/structure and frost scraping force could are presented.

Bifunctional star-burst amorphous molecular materials displaying both efficient solid-state luminescence and high hole-transport properties are developed in this study. A high external electroluminescence quantum efficiency up to 5.9% is attained in OLEDs employing the developed amorphous materials. It is revealed that the spontaneous horizontal orientation of these light-emitting molecules in their molecular-condensed states leads to a remarkable enhancement of the electroluminescence efficiencies and carrier-transport properties.