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

Microwave plasma is one of the high-density plasmas and has been extensively used for the growth of diamond and aligned carbon nanotubes for more than a decade. However, the conventional microwave plasma of the cylindrical resonant cavity type is not suitable for the synthesis of graphene. The plasma ball produced in the resonant cavity provides a number of important species as well as ions, while deposits are damaged by the excess ion bombardment since the substrate is exposed to the plasma ball. To simply control the position of the plasma ball and reduce the ion bombardment on the substrate surface, a grounded molybdenum mesh was installed over the substrate plate to realize a remote plasma configuration. As a result, the distance between the plasma ball and the copper substrate was increased, and few-layer graphene-based films were successfully synthesized in 1 min on copper substrates placed on the entire region of a substrate holder 10 cm in diameter by using conventional microwave-plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.7567/JJAP.52.01AK04/pdf

Fabrication of Graphene-Based Films Using Microwave-Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

When the temperature of operating fluid of an actuator is low, a target input rotation speed lower limit value (NinL) is set. The lower limit value (NinL) is greater than a lower limit value set for a normal temperature of operating fluid. A target input rotation speed (Nint) is calculated from the state of running of a vehicle, such as the amount of operation of an accelerator, the vehicle speed, etc. If the target input rotation speed is lower than the lower limit value (NinL), the target input rotation speed is reset to the lower limit value (NinL). As a result of a control that includes the above-described steps, the speed ratio γ becomes relatively high before the vehicle stops. Therefore, even if the speed ratio-changing rate is low, the speed ratio (γ) can be brought to or near a maximum value (γmax) before the vehicle stops. Thus, reductions in the speed ratio-changing rate caused by low temperature of the operating fluid of the actuator can be curbed.

Shift control apparatus and shift control of continuously variable transmission

The key issue in GaN growth by radio-frequency plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy is the low growth rate compared with that obtained using an ammonia source. To reduce the processing time and to improve the crystalline quality of the epilayer, a high-density radical source (HDRS) with high stability has been developed. The growth rate of the GaN epilayer was improved using the HDRS rather than a conventional radical source. During the growth, a sharp streak pattern obtained by reflection high-energy electron diffraction was maintained. An atomically smooth surface was confirmed by atomic force microscopy observation (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Achieving high‐growth‐rate in GaN homoepitaxy using high‐density nitrogen radical source

Silicide and germanide technology for contacts and gates in MOSFET applications

The nanocrysialline FeCo alloy dispersed MgO nanocomposites were fabricated by the reduction and sintering of mixtures. The powder mixtures of nano-sized FeCo alloy and MgO were obtained by the solution chemical processes and hydrogen reduction of MgO, Fe- and Co-nitrates powders. Fully densitified MgO/FeCo alloy nanocomposites were fabricated by a pulse electric current sintering (PECS) method. The fracture toughness increased with increasing volume fraction of FeCo alloy. Moreover, an inverse magnetostrictive response to applied stress was obserserved, because of the FeCo alloy dispersions, which indicates promise for incorporating multifunctions such as stress sensing into the structural ceramics with high fracture toughness.

Hiroki Kondo

Papers

Fabrication of Graphene-Based Films Using Microwave-Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Shift control apparatus and shift control of continuously variable transmission

Achieving high‐growth‐rate in GaN homoepitaxy using high‐density nitrogen radical source

Silicide and germanide technology for contacts and gates in MOSFET applications

Fabrication of MgO based nanocomposites with multifunctionality