There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The lithium metal battery is strongly considered to be one of the most promising candidates for high-energy-density energy storage devices in our modern and technology-based society. However, uncontrollable lithium dendrite growth induces poor cycling efficiency and severe safety concerns, dragging lithium metal batteries out of practical applications. This review presents a comprehensive overview of the lithium metal anode and its dendritic lithium growth. First, the working principles and technical challenges of a lithium metal anode are underscored. Specific attention is paid to the mechanistic understandings and quantitative models for solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation, lithium dendrite nucleation, and growth. On the basis of previous theoretical understanding and analysis, recently proposed strategies to suppress dendrite growth of lithium metal anode and some other metal anodes are reviewed. A section dedicated to the potential of full-cell lithium metal batteries for practical applicatio...

Toward Safe Lithium Metal Anode in Rechargeable Batteries: A Review.

The author's preface gives an outline: "This book is about weakconvergence methods in metric spaces, with applications sufficient to show their power and utility. The Introduction motivates the definitions and indicates how the theory will yield solutions to problems arising outside it. Chapter 1 sets out the basic general theorems, which are then specialized in Chapter 2 to the space C[0, l ] of continuous functions on the unit interval and in Chapter 3 to the space D [0, 1 ] of functions with discontinuities of the first kind. The results of the first three chapters are used in Chapter 4 to derive a variety of limit theorems for dependent sequences of random variables. " The book develops and expands on Donsker's 1951 and 1952 papers on the invariance principle and empirical distributions. The basic random variables remain real-valued although, of course, measures on C[0, l ] and D[0, l ] are vitally used. Within this framework, there are various possibilities for a different and apparently better treatment of the material. More of the general theory of weak convergence of probabilities on separable metric spaces would be useful. Metrizability of the convergence is not brought up until late in the Appendix. The close relation of the Prokhorov metric and a metric for convergence in probability is (hence) not mentioned (see V. Strassen, Ann. Math. Statist. 36 (1965), 423-439; the reviewer, ibid. 39 (1968), 1563-1572). This relation would illuminate and organize such results as Theorems 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4 which give isolated, ad hoc connections between weak convergence of measures and nearness in probability. In the middle of p. 16, it should be noted that C*(S) consists of signed measures which need only be finitely additive if 5 is not compact. On p. 239, where the author twice speaks of separable subsets having nonmeasurable cardinal, he means "discrete" rather than "separable." Theorem 1.4 is Ulam's theorem that a Borel probability on a complete separable metric space is tight. Theorem 1 of Appendix 3 weakens completeness to topological completeness. After mentioning that probabilities on the rationals are tight, the author says it is an

Convergence of probability measures

Naphthalenesulfonamides such as N-(6-amino-hexyl)-5-chloro-1-naphthalenesulfonamide (W-7) are potent calmodulin (CaM) antagonists and act upon several protein kinases at higher concentration. When the naphthalene ring was replaced by isoquinoline, the derivatives were no longer CaM antagonists but retained the ability to inhibit protein kinases, and some of the derivatives exhibited selective inhibition toward a certain protein kinase. cAMP-dependent, cGMP-dependent, and Ca2+-phospholipid-dependent (protein kinase C) protein kinases were inhibited significantly by addition of 10(-6) M N-[2-(methylamino)ethyl]-5-isoquinoline-sulfonamide (H-8) and 1-(5-isoquinolinylsulfonyl)-2-methylpiperazine (H-7). H-8 was the most active of the inhibitors in this series and inhibited more markedly cyclic nucleotide dependent protein kinases, than other kinases, while the derivative with the sulfonylpiperazine residue (H-7) was the most potent in inhibiting protein kinase C. Apparent Ki values of H-8 were 0.48 and 1.2 microM for cGMP-dependent and cAMP-dependent protein kinases, respectively, and the Ki value of H-7 for protein kinase C was 6 microM. Both the holoenzyme and the catalytic subunit (or fragment), which is active without an enzyme activator, are susceptible to these compounds with a similar concentration dependency, thereby indicating that the inhibitory effect is attributed to the direct interaction of the compound with the active center of the enzyme but not with the enzyme activator. The inhibitions were freely reversible and of the competitive type with respect to ATP and of the noncompetitive type with respect to the phosphate acceptor.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Isoquinolinesulfonamides, novel and potent inhibitors of cyclic nucleotide dependent protein kinase and protein kinase C.

Metal Oxides and Oxysalts as Anode Materials for Li Ion Batteries

Carbon nanowalls (CNWs), vertically standing graphene sheets, grown by the radical injection plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition system were analyzed by spectroscopic ellipsometry. The refractive indexes (n), extinction coefficients (k), and optical band gaps (Eg) of evolutionary growth layers were evaluated using the Tauc–Lorentz model with the effective medium approximation. It was observed that an amorphous carbon interfacial layer with n of 1.9–2.0 was formed prior to the growth of CNWs with n of 1.2–1.5. Moreover, the imaginary parts of complex dielectric functions analyzed using the Tauc–Lorentz model indicate the possibility that the CNWs have semiconducting features.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1143/JJAP.49.060220/pdf

Optical Properties of Evolutionary Grown Layers of Carbon Nanowalls Analyzed by Spectroscopic Ellipsometry

Giant graphene flakes on the micron scale were synthesized and grown in plasmas in liquid-phase pure ethanol with added iron phthalocyanine (FePc) in a solvent. At atmospheric pressure, plasmas were generated in the gas phase filled with Ar and in the liquid phases comprising bubbles and liquid solutions. In the mixture of FePc in ethanol, nanographene sheets aggregated to form giant graphene flakes, as confirmed by the D, G, and 2D bands in the corresponding Raman spectra. Therefore, a bottom-up approach of graphite synthesis from pure ethanol with additives and a catalyst was realized by in-liquid plasma processing.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/APEX.11.015102/pdf

Rapid growth of micron-sized graphene flakes using in-liquid plasma employing iron phthalocyanine-added ethanol

In this letter, we have investigated the structural properties of thick InGaN layers grown on GaN by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy, using two growth rates of 1.0 and 3.6 A/s. A highly regular superlattice (SL) structure is found to be spontaneously formed in the film grown at 3.6 A/s but not in the film grown at 1.0 A/s. The faster grown film also exhibits superior structural quality, which could be due to the surface roughness suppression caused by kinetic limitation, and the inhibition of the Frank–Read dislocation generation mechanism within the spontaneously formed SL structure.

Spontaneous formation of highly regular superlattice structure in InGaN epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To precisely conduct learning control for oil pressure over the whole range of the oil pressure used in a transmission. SOLUTION: This controller for outputting an indication signal for the oil pressure to a pressure governing mechanism and for controlling the oil pressure generated in a hydraulic pump to the oil pressure in response to the siganl so as to be supplied to a transmission is provided with a rotational speed increasing means (step S6) for increasing a rotational speed of a power source in the condition where the transmission is not rotated by the power source, an oil pressure indicating means (step S9) for detection for outputting plural indication signals different in pressure indicating values to the pressure governing mechanism in the condition where a delivery amount of the hydraulic pump is inceased, an oil pressure detecting means (step S10) for detecting the oil pressure controlled to be supplied to the transmission in plural pressure levels, and a learning correcting means (step S11) for conducting learning correction for the indication signal based on the output pressure indication value and the detected oil pressure.

Hydraulic controller for transmission

An aqueous secondary battery 10 according to the present invention includes a positive electrode containing a NASICON-type positive-electrode active material that can insert and extract sodium as a positive-electrode active material 12, a negative electrode containing a negative-electrode active material 17 that can insert and extract sodium, and an electrolyte solution 20 disposed between the positive electrode and the negative electrode, the electrolyte solution 20 being an aqueous solution in which sodium is dissolved. The NASICON-type positive-electrode active material is, for example, Na3V2(PO4)3, and the electrolyte solution 20 is an aqueous solution in which sodium is dissolved. The negative-electrode active material 17 is preferably a NASICON-type negative-electrode active material (for example, LiTi2(PO4)3 or NaTi2(PO4)3).

Hiroki Kondo

Papers

Optical Properties of Evolutionary Grown Layers of Carbon Nanowalls Analyzed by Spectroscopic Ellipsometry

Rapid growth of micron-sized graphene flakes using in-liquid plasma employing iron phthalocyanine-added ethanol

Spontaneous formation of highly regular superlattice structure in InGaN epilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Hydraulic controller for transmission

Aqueous secondary battery