The purpose of this research is to verify the necessity to control indoor humidity in Southeast Asia, while the setting temperature of indoor air is increased for energy-saving. Therefore, ...physiological and psychological responses to ambient humidity were studied using subject experiments in a climate chamber where indoor air condition can be controlled at discretion. For easily finding the characteristics of Southeast Asians, two subject groups, hot humid and temperate natives, participated in the test. As a result, this study revealed an existence of the variation in the physiological and the psychological reactions to a change in ambient humidity, regarding hot humid natives. In particular, a surrounding with high humidity tend to reduce heat flux on forehead and humidity acceptability. These circumstances could not be found in the temperate natives. The conclusion drawn from our experiments is that it is necessary to control not only indoor temperature but also humidity in the case of a building where there are occupants coming from hot humid locations. However, it remains a challenge for future researches to investigate the amount of sweating, physiological and psychological responses of the whole body and the influence of long-term acclimatization for artificial environment upon physical and mental well-being.
The RIKEN accelerator complex started feeding the next-generation exotic beam facility radioisotope beam factory (RIBF) with heavy-ion beams from 2007 after the successful commissioning of RIBF at ...the end of 2006. Many improvements made from 2007 to 2010 were instrumental in increasing the intensity of various heavy-ion beams. However, the available beam intensity of very heavy ion beams, especially uranium beams, is far below our goal of 1pμA (6×1012particles/s ). In order to achieve this goal, upgrade programs are already in progress; the programs include the construction of a new 28-GHz superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source and a new injector linac. However, the most serious problem, that of a charge stripper for high-power uranium beams, still remains unsolved, despite extensive research and development work using large foils mounted on a rotating cylinder and a N2 gas stripper. A gas stripper is free from problems related to lifetime, though the equilibrium charge state in this stripper is considerably lower than that in a carbon foil, owing to the absence of the density effect. Nevertheless, the merits of gas strippers motivated us to develop a low-Z gas stripper to achieve a higher equilibrium charge state even in gases. We measured the electron-loss and electron-capture cross sections of uranium ions in He gas as a function of their charge state at 11, 14, and 15MeV/nucleon . The equilibrium charge states extracted from the intersection of the lines of the two cross sections were promisingly higher than those in N2 gas by more than 10. Simple simulations of charge development along the stripper thickness were performed by assuming the measured cross sections. The simulation results show that about 1mg/cm2 of He gas should be accumulated to achieve a charge state higher than that of N2 gas, notwithstanding the difficulty in accumulation of this helium amount owing to its fast dispersion. However, we now believe that the following two solutions can overcome this difficulty: a gas cell with a very large differential pumping system and a gas cell with a plasma window. Their merits and demerits are discussed in the paper.
The Radioactive Isotope Beam Factory (RIBF) is a cyclotron-based accelerator facility that is used for nuclear science studies and was completed at the end of 2006. RIBF can produce the most intense ...RI beams using fragmentation or fission of high speed heavy ion beams. Ever since the first beam was produced, effort has focused on increasing the intensity of uranium beams. Ions beams with high intensity and high availability have been used to produce many important scientific achievements. Upgrade programs have been proposed to further expand scientific opportunities. These programs have two goals. The first goal is to find heavier elements than element 118, which is already named. The upgrade program for the heavy ion linac (RILAC), including installation of a superconducting linac, has been funded and is under construction. The second goals is to increase the intensity of uranium ion beams up to 1 pµA, thus facilitating further investigations into the physics of unstable nuclei. This program for uranium beams is still been unfunded. We are pursuing a budget-friendly version without changing the project goals.
A photoalignment technique used in preparation of fringe-field-switching (FFS) mode cells is presented. The azimuthal anchoring energy (AAE) of photoalignment is controllable by tuning the UV ...exposure and if the value of AAE is as strong as that of the rubbing method. The electro-optical properties of FFS cells are optimized with different electrode configurations and high quality dark states of various types of cells are achieved to create the high contrast ratio. The great thermal stability shown after applying voltage and heat confirms that photoalignment is suitable for FFS mode applications.
Development of a nondestructive, efficient electric-charge-stripping method is a key requirement for next-generation high-intensity heavy-ion accelerators such as the RIKEN Radioactive-Isotope Beam ...Factory. A charge stripper employing a low-Z gas is an important candidate applicable to high-intensity uranium beams for replacing carbon-foil strippers. In this study, a high-beam-transmission charge-stripping system employing helium gas for U238 beams injected at 10.8MeV/u was developed and demonstrated for the first time. The charge-state evolution measured using helium in a thickness range of 0.24–1.83mg/cm2 is compared with theoretical predictions. Energy attenuation and energy spread due to the helium stripper are also investigated.
A genome-wide scan for QTL affecting economically important traits in beef production was performed using an F₂ resource family from a Japanese Black x Limousin cross, where 186 F₂ animals were ...measured for growth, carcass, and meat-quality traits. All family members were genotyped for 313 informative microsatellite markers that spanned 2,382 cM of bovine autosomes. The centromeric region of BTA2 contained significant QTL (i.e., exceeding the genome-wide 5% threshold) for 5 carcass grading traits LM area, beef marbling standards (BMS) number, luster, quality grade, and firmness), 8 computer image analysis (CIA) traits LM lean area, ratio of fat area (RFA) to LM area, LM area, RFA to musculus (M.) trapezius area, M. trapezius lean area, M. semispinalis lean area, RFA to M. semispinalis area, and RFA to M. semispinalis capitis area, and 5 meat quality traits (contents of CP, crude fat, moisture, C16:1, and C18:2 of LM). A significant QTL for withers height was detected at 80.3 cM on BTA5. We detected significant QTL for the C14:0 content in backfat and C14:0 and C14:1 content in intermuscular fat around the 62.3 to 71.0 cM region on BTA19 and for C14:0, C14:1, C18:1, and C16:0 content and ratio of total unsaturated fatty acid content to total SFA content in intramuscular fat at 2 different regions on BTA19 (41.1 cM for C14:1 and 62.3 cM for the other 4 traits). Overall, we identified 9 significant QTL regions controlling 27 traits with genome-wide significance of 5%; of these, 22 traits exceeded the 1% genome-wide threshold. Some of the QTL affecting meat quality traits detected in this study might be the same QTL as previously reported. The QTL we identified need to be validated in commercial Japanese Black cattle populations.
The accelerator complex at the RIKEN Radioisotope Beam Factory accelerates heavy ions ranging from oxygen to uranium using triple stripping system to provide the beams at required charge. In many ...cases, the charge strippers cause problems during high-intensity beams accelerator operation. The charge stripper problem has been most significant during uranium beam acceleration because the lifetimes of the conventional carbon foils are extremely short. We conducted extensive R&D on the first stripper and found a solution using a low-Z gas stripper. We also plan to modify a second stripper operating recently with short-lifetime carbon foils. The stripper with better parameters will be needed when the beam intensity is increased by a new injector system for acceleration of uranium beam with higher charge.
A differential pumping system with a Plasma Window (PW) has been developed for an application to a window-less He gas charge stripper. A PW with Southern Methodist University design was newly ...fabricated and tested off-line for evaluation of differential pumping efficiency. Switching gases for plasma seed from Ar to He was tested. It was found that the PW reduced the pressure at the first differential pumping section to 1/13 for Ar and to 1/17 for He, comparing with differential pumping without PW. At the second pumping section, the pressures were drastically reduced to 1/160 and to 1/4,520 for Ar and He, respectively. These pressure reduction factors indicate that one differentially pumped stage could be removed from a conventional differential pumping system.
The Superconducting Ring Cyclotron in RIKEN Okuno, H.; Ohnishi, J.; Yamada, K. ...
IEEE transactions on applied superconductivity,
06/2007, Letnik:
17, Številka:
2
Journal Article, Conference Proceeding
Recenzirano
RIKEN Nishina Center for accelerator-based science in RIKEN is constructing the radioactive isotope beam factory (RIBF), which is capable of providing the world's most intense RI beams over the whole ...range of atomic masses. The world's first superconducting ring cyclotron (SRC) is the final booster in the RIBF accelerator complex which is able to accelerate all-element heavy ions to a speed of about 70% of the velocity of light. Assembling of six superconducting sector magnets in the SRC vault was completed in August 2005. This paper describes results of their cool-down and excitation tests, which were performed to check the magnet system from the various points of views: magnetic force, coil protection, magnetic field and operation of their cryogenic cooling system.