To monitor the progress of organic matter degradation in a large-scale composting facility, the percentage of organic matter degradation was determined by measuring CO(2) evolution during recomposting of compost samples withdrawn from the facility. The percentage of organic matter degradation was calculated as the ratio of the amount of CO(2) evolved from compost raw material to that evolved from each sample during recomposting in the laboratory composting apparatus. It was assumed that the difference in the cumulative emission of CO(2) between the compost raw material and a sample corresponds to the amount of CO( 2) evolved from the sample in the composting facility. Using this method, the changes in organic matter degradation during composting in practical large-scale composting facilities were estimated and it was found that the percentage of organic matter degradation increased more vigorously in the earlier stages than in the later stages of composting. The percentage of organic matter degradation finally reached 78 and 55% for the compost produced from garbage-animal manure mixture and distillery waste (shochu residue), respectively. It was thus ascertained that organic matter degradation progressed well in both composting facilities. Furthermore, by performing a plant growth assay, it was observed that the compost products of both the facilities did not inhibit seed germination and thus were useful in promoting plant growth.

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This paper is concerned with an experimental Investigation of the effect of guide vanes on dust collection efficiency for a straight-through cyclone, with the suction of dust-laden air by means of a secondary rotational air charge. Four kinds of dusts were used for the experiments of dust collection efficiency. It was found that the present type of straight-through cyclone is capable of achieving a comparable performance with the reverse-flow cyclone and Is especially suited to removing dust from the hot exit gas from furnaces.

Abstract-In the present paper, we propose a highperformance, ultrasonic sensor-based head movement detection system, which can be easily applied as an eye tracking device by rotating a mirror set in front of a video camera in a head-free video-based eye-gaze detection system. We propose a simple distance measurement method that uses an A-D converter and an envelope detection method. Experimental results indicate small standard deviations of less than 0.9 mm when the distance between transmitter and receiver is within the range of 40 -80 cm. In addition, we arranged three transmitters on the apices of a triangle to simulate the head of the user. The receivers were arranged on the apices of a larger triangle. The coordinates of each transmitter were determined using the measured distances from the transmitter to the three receivers. The center of gravity of the three transmitters and the normal vector of the plane that includes the three transmitters were calculated based on the estimated coordinates of the three transmitters. The results indicate sufficiently high precision and measuring frequency for our purpose. The proposed method would be useful for adjusting the focus of a zoom lens to the eye, as well as adjusting the direction of the mirror to the eye. keywords -distance measurement, tracking, eyegaze detection, man-machine interface

In our video-based eye-gaze detection method, which was made for communicators for the physically disadvantaged, before starting eye gaze detection, a tending person had to manually adjust the direction of the mirror in front of the camera so that the camera would get the user's eye. To remove this burden, we designed an automatic eye searching technique.In our system, the eye image is zoomed in for high eyegaze resolution. In the procedure of the search, first, to quickly find the eye, which determines the eye gaze, the eye image was zoomed out so that the camera visual field would become wide. Second, while the mirror was rotated stepwise in a rectangular region near the subject's face, it was judged whether both of the two pupils existed in the camera frame. If they were judged to exist, the mirror was rotated the only one pupil would come to the image center. Finally, the pupil image was zoomed in.The result showed that the search for the eye is possible. Although the time necessary for the search was long in the present stage of this study, the other strategies for searching would make it much shorter.