Daily Commodities Research Articles

Performance characterization of screen printed radio frequency identification antennas with silver nanopaste

The era of wireless communication has come and it is going to flourish in the form of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The employment of RFID tags in daily commodities, however, is constrained due to the manufacturing cost. Therefore, industries in the field have sought for alternative manufacturing methods at an ultra low cost and various printing processes have been considered such as inkjet, gravure, flexo, off-set and screen. Although such printing processes are age-old, their applications have been mainly limited to graphic arts and design rules for electronic appliances have not been fully established yet. In this paper, the selection of ink and printing process to fabricate RFID antennas is discussed. The developed silver nanopaste in the range of 20 to 50 nm without the inclusion of microparticles and flakes was sintered at 120 °C for 1 min, which is lower than that of conventional silver paste with microparticles and flakes, and its resistivity was found to be approximately 3 μΩ cm. The radiation performances of various screen printed RFID antennas with silver nanopaste were found comparable to those of copper etched ones.

HRP-2W: A humanoid platform for research on support behavior in daily life environments

We introduce a concept of a real-world-oriented humanoid robot that can support humans’ activities in daily life. In such environments, robots have to watch humans, understand their behavior, and support their daily life tasks. In particular, these robots must be capable of such real-world behavior as handling tableware and delivering daily commodities by hand. We developed a humanoid robot, HRP-2W, which has an upper body of HRP-2 [K. Kaneko, F. Kanehiro, S. Kajita, H. Hirukawa, T. Kawasaki, M. Hirata, K. Akachi, T. Isozumi, Humanoid Robot HRP-2, in: Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, 2004, pp. 1083–1090] and a wheel module instead of legs, as a research platform to fulfill this aim. We also developed basic software configuration in order to integrate our platform with other research groups. Through experiments, we demonstrated the feasibility of the humanoid robot platform and the potential of the software architecture.

XAFS and XRF studies of anti-bacterial ceramics using synchrotron radiation

Recently anti-bacterial techniques have been spread into daily commodities with improving consciousness of health. Silver is most common anti-bacterial chemicals for anti-bacterial consumers in Japan, however, the resource of silver is limited and it became so expensive to be used for daily commercial item. In addition, the anti-bacterial effects on silver have not been elucidated because of difficulties of in-situ chemical state analyses for these systems. In this study, XAFS and XRF analyses using Synchrotron Radiation were applied for Ag in the sanitary wares and Zn in anti-bacterial tiles which are the products of INAX co. in order to elucidate the anti bacterial mechanism of these elements and develop new anti-bacterial material instead of limited silver. Each specimen was cut into 1cm x 1cm blocks to be used for XAFS measurements. The glaze of these specimens were examined with XRD, however, no crystalline materials was detected. From elemental analyses using EPMA, a content of silver was about 0.08wt% in sanitary ware and that of zinc was about 15wt% in anti-bacterial tiles. XAFS spectra of the silver in sanitary ware measured in fluorescence mode at AR-NW10A with MSSD for K-edge, and at BL9A with Lytle type detector at SX-mode for L-edge in Photon Factory. XAFS spectra for zinc were measured at BL12C and BL9A with Lytle type detector. The Ag LIII-XANES spectra of the sanitary indicated that chemical state of the silver was mono-valent similar to Ag2O, however, EXAFS spectra of the sanitary ware was different from crystalline Ag2O but amorphous without 2 neighbor interactions. The Ag ion was coordinated with about two oxygens in 2.22A. On the other hands, zinc in the anti-bacterial tile was divalent and the local structure was similar to Zn2SiO4 which is coordinated with four oxygens in 1.96A. Zinc in the anti-bacterial tiles should be cooperated with SiO4 network but its crystalinty was low. Fig. 1 Ag LIII-XANES spectra of the sanitary ware

Production of Thermal Insulation Composites Containing Bamboo Charcoal

Currently, various products containing bamboo charcoal are popular. In this study, thermal insulation composites were manufactured with PET non-woven fabrics and bamboo charcoal woven fabrics. Bamboo charcoal can radiate far infrared rays and absorb smells, so it is used for textiles, deodorant materials, bedding, pillows, and so on. Non-woven fabrics were made with hollow and spiral polyester staple fibers, and had superior thermal insulation. The mechanical properties, thermal conductivity, and air permeability of the composites were evaluated. When the ratio of the low melting point fibers was 30%, the maximum breaking strength of the thermal insulation composites exceeded that in any other ratio conditions. Moreover, the thermal insulation of the composites was superior when the ratio of the low melting point fibers decreased. The air permeability of the thermal insulation composites increased with decreasing ratios of the low melting point fibers. The thermal insulation composites can be used in daily commodities and industrial products.

Making of a Balance Utilizing Daily Commodities and Its Application

Making of a Balance Utilizing Daily Commodities and Its Application

The History of Surgical Anesthesia in Korea ( 1910 ~ 1945 )

The Oriental countries have had long histories and large populations. While they were the civilized country with the profound culture and thoughts, they were backward in material civilization bacause of their delayed development of science. Extending from the end of the 18th century to the 19th century the Western countries perturbed the Eastern countries with their sudden appearance. The Western countries visited the East with their threatening attitudes by giant war vessels and guns. They also strongly demanded to import their advanced daily commodities and the studies including the medical science. Since the most of the Eastern countries were too conservative, they resisted and rejected the Western forces at first. At that time, most Eastern countries located in the southern region of Asian continent were colonized by the West. The other countries in the nortern region came to realize that they were behind the West in material civilization, so had to open their door to the West through the foreign contact. China, Japan and Korea had to accept the Western culture and urged the civilization. Especially Japan adapted herself to new circumstances before others. She accepted the Western culture, thoughts and all studies actively with even reforming her political system. Starting from the yesr of 1868, Japan not only was reborn and formed independent position in the cultural region of China and Korea but also succeeded to construct the first westernized country among the Eastern countries and weekened the influence of China and Russia. Japan provoked and won wars such as the Sino-Japanese War {1894} and the Russia-Japanese War (1904). Follwing up these victories, Japan also occupied Korea in 1910, and the period of colonization had continued for 35 years until 1945 when Japan surrendered to the Allies at the end of the World War II. With these historical cirumstances, the purpose of this research paper is to collect the medical data, especially that of the anesthesia, and show its historical contributions through the documents. The long history of Korea had developed with the traditional and peculiar medical science, such as a herb medical science and a medical science in acupuncture and moxibustion. Korean medical science, however, has been greatly changed since 1876, the year of opening her door to Japan. There were two ways of introducing the Western medical science in Korea. As the indirect import, the japanese Western medical scince through the city of Busan was one. As the direct imports, the American medical science by an American missionary, Allen through the city of Incheon was the other. In these two currents of the Western medical science, it was natural that the Japanese one formed the main stream after 1910, the year of japanese occupation. The field of anestheia science was not an exception. Its developing process was no better than following the path of Japanese anesthesia science history. Comparing the Western developing history of anesthesia to that of Japan in general, there were a few years difference in the level of quality between the East and the West until about 1930. Japanese anesthesia, however, fell behind over 20 years, comparing to the Western one, in the period from the late of 1930s to 1945. I believe that it is beyond the scope of this paper to explain and it leaves us with meaningful lessons.