Nissan (Japan)

Tian et al. (2025) have made a valuable contribution to dairy science by investigating strain-level variation in diacetyl production by Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, a key bacterium influencing dairy flavor. Their study revealed substantial phenotypic diversity among 351 isolates and identified strain WJ108 as a particularly high producer, highlighting the potential for targeted strain selection. However, their conclusion regarding distinct volatile signatures, based on principal component analysis (PCA), warrants further discussion.

Motion sickness is critical in automated vehicle design, particularly as horizontal accelerations become more variable and pronounced. However, even within horizontal translation, whether sickness sensitivity differs between longitudinal and lateral directions remains unclear. To investigate this, we conducted a within-subjects experiment with 21 participants exposed to repeated sinusoidal accelerations while seated in a car seat without visual cues, restrained by seat belt and neck brace. Each participant experienced one combination of two acceleration levels and multiple frequencies (0.15, 0.20, 0.25, or 0.40Hz for 3.0m/s2; 0.15, 0.25, or 0.40 for 0.65m/s2). Symptoms were assessed using the Motion Illness Symptoms Classification at 1-min intervals. Results revealed significantly greater symptom progression in longitudinal motion (adjusted-mean: 3.0, max: 4.75) than lateral motion (adjusted-mean: 1.67, max: 2.65), despite smaller head angular velocities. These findings provide empirical evidence for direction-specific sickness sensitivity and underscore the need to consider motion direction in vehicle design.

Abstract An improvement in the performance of gears in the drive train is required due to the recent shift to electric vehicles. In this study, directed energy deposition (DED), a type of additive manufacturing, was utilized as a coating technology to get higher-performance gears. However, the mechanical properties of coating layers and heat-affected zone (HAZ) depend on the thermal histories. Therefore, a liquid cooling system consisting of a heatsink and a chiller which can adjust water temperature and flow rate was developed to improve the hardness of gear teeth by coating with DED. The performance of the liquid cooling system was evaluated by the temperature transition during the coating process and by measuring the hardness of the coating layer. The combination of the developed liquid cooling system and thermal conduction grease reduced the maximum temperature and exhibited a higher cooling rate during the process. As a result, the hardness of the gear teeth was successfully increased.

Correction for ‘Reinforcing biofiller “Lignin” for high performance green natural rubber nanocomposites’ by Yuko Ikeda et al., RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 5222–5231, https://doi.org/10.1039/C6RA26359C.

Accurate online monitoring of the permanent magnet (PM) temperature is highly desirable in variable-leakage-flux permanent magnet synchronous machines (VLF-PMSMs), as it directly affects their variable leakage flux capability. Existing PM temperature estimation techniques rely on precise rotor position knowledge, but the impact of rotor position measurement/estimation errors has not been previously analyzed. This paper evaluates the effect of rotor position measurement errors on VLF-PMSM PM temperature estimation and proposes a compensation high-frequency (HF) signal injection-based self-sensing rotor position estimation technique to enhance PM temperature estimation accuracy. Experimental results are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup>.

In this study, a magnetization state (MS) manipulation method for a variable magnetic bias (VMB) reactor, tailored for bi-directional DC-DC converters, is proposed to reduce the MS manipulation duration. In contrast to conventional approaches that control magnetizing current and require complex circuit calculations, involving voltage fluctuations and inductance changes, the proposed method controls the time integral of the applied voltage (volt-sec) to achieve the desired flux linkage level during magnetization. It precisely controls the actual coil flux linkage by accounting for factors, such as the voltage drop caused by smoothing capacitor discharge, winding resistance, and the time resolution limits of discrete-time control. Additionally, the proposed method applies a low voltage at the end of the control duration to compensate for the remaining error in magnetizing current. The effectiveness of the method is evaluated using a scaled-down VMB reactor, demonstrating an 80% reduction in MS manipulation duration compared to conventional methods.

Power electronics converters have been required to achieve high efficiency and high power density. Magnetic components which occupy a significant volume in converters have been miniaturized to satisfy the requirements. One approach to realize the miniaturization is to reduce the number of magnetic components through the integration of multiple windings within a single magnetic core. This study proposes a leakage inductance integrated transformer with interleaved windings. This structure integrates both a transformer and an inductor connected in series. The series inductance value can be designed based on the number of turns of the interleaved windings placed on the outer legs. The feasibility of the proposed magnetic component is verified through impedance measurements and a 48 V-12 V 50W LLC resonant converter prototype.