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Although information technology (ICT) education is being strengthened based on the national context, there are reports suggesting a decline in young people's communication skills. This phenomenon can be attributed to the rapid development of informatisation, which includes the diversification and spread of information tools, as well as the prevalence of nonverbal communication, such as pictograms in social networking services. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced face-to-face communication opportunities, making interactive communication in on-demand classes challenging. Even in assignments and short tests completed during class, many instances of content being copied and pasted from the web or written in a disorganized manner have been observed. For instance, students entering ICT-related careers, particularly those graduating from the faculty of informatics, must possess the ability to communicate with engineers and clients while implementing ICT advancements. Alongside programming skills, strong communication abilities are essential. Moreover, the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT and Bing AI, has considerably diminished the opportunities for independent thinking. In the current era of enhanced ICT education, AI, and IoT, the Faculty of Informatics at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology has been engaged in discussions regarding learning materials that aim to strengthen students' ability to think and communicate in their own words, preventing the mechanisation of individuals. This paper presents the development and implementation of learning materials designed to enhance students' verbal communication skills through the description and re-production of mathematical graphs. [For the full proceedings, see ED636095.]

The authors are developing and using a fill-in workbook system that allows faculty members to ascertain the attitude of all students to classes including students who are not active, and to improve lectures through well-timed and appropriate actions. In this paper, in order to help teachers improve lessons and teaching materials, and to help students review their own learning attitude, we propose functions for retrospective review. We focus on unfocused time, page transitions, number of keyboard operations and number of mouse clicks to extract the learning attitude of each student during the class. This function divides student's learning attitude into five categories, i.e. following the class and concentrated on it, following but not concentrated, jumping ahead, falling behind, and not participating. The system also provides visualization of changes in learning attitude during the class. It can be used for teacher's and students' retrospective review after the lecture.

The generator coordinate method (GCM) has been a well-known method to describe nuclear collective motions. In this method, one a priori specifies collective degrees of freedom as inputs of the method based on empirical and/or phenomenological assumptions. We here present an extension of the GCM, in which both the basis Slater determinants and weight factors are optimized in a non-empirical manner. The result for 16O nucleus with the Skyrme functional suggests that a collective coordinate should be determined in a more complex way than what has been assumed so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined various aspects of the development of learners' fluency in Japanese using a large set of speech samples collected over a long period, using an online speaking practice/assessment system called "Speak Everywhere." The purpose of the present study was to examine: (1) how the fluency related measures changed over time, and (2) which linguistic factors were correlated with each fluency measure. This study used oral production of English-speaking learners enrolled in the first year Japanese courses at a university in the U.S. The students submitted two types of speaking assignments using Speak Everywhere: (1) sentence-level oral reading and (2) short Q&A. The assignments were collected at the end of each chapter for two quarters. The study used speech rate and pause related fluency measures adapted from Ginther, Dimova, and Yang (2010). For the data analysis, we used Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2011) for acoustic analysis and Mecab (Kudo, 2011) for morphological analysis. The results of one-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed that several measures of fluency deteriorated in both oral reading and Q&A tasks as expected from the previous research (Segalowitz & Freed, 2004). This study then examined what complexity factors affected these measures, using the mixed model approach. Overall, it was found that because various factors influence the development of fluency, temporal measures alone cannot explain fluency development. [For the complete volume, see ED574893.]

The proceedings include the following papers: "Why We Study Child Language"; "Children's Use of Information in Word Learning"; "An Examination of the Initial Mapping of Verb Meanings"; "Evidence for the VP Constituent from Child Korean"; "The Role of Stress, Position, and Intonation in the Representation and Identification of Early Words"; "Nonegocentric Uses of 'Big' and 'Little' by Preschool Children"; "Texts within Texts: A Developmental Study of Children's Play Narratives"; "Another Look at Children's Interpretation of Complements to 'Be Easy'"; "Precocious Passives (and Antipassives) in Quiche Mayan"; "Encounters with Japanese Verbs: Categorization into Transitive and Intransitive Classes"; "Language Learnability and Empirical Plausibility"; "The Acquisition of Reflexives and Pronouns by Icelandic Children"; "Linguistic Representation of Children's Wh-Questions"; "Word Learning Strategies in Two-Year-Old Children: Evidence for Category Hierarchies"; "Iconicity in Semantics: A Case of Suprasegmental Marking in the Acquisition of the English Plural"; and five presentations for a panel on future directions: "Confessions of a Wayward Chomskyan"; "What Is Functionalism?"; "A Principles-and-Parameters Approach"; "Theory and Explanation in Language Acquisition"; and "The Connectionist Approach to Language". (MSE)

A shielding benchmark experiment has been performed using a quasi-monoenergetic 7Li(p,n) neutron source with the peak energies of 244 and 387 MeV at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) of Osaka University, in order to assess the accuracy of nuclear data and calculation codes used in high-energy accelerator shielging design. Energy spectra behind bulk shields of 10- to 100-cm-thick iron, 25- to 300-cm-thick concrete and their composite are measured using a NE213 organic liquid scintillator with a diameter and thickness of 25.4 cm each with a time-of-flight and an unfolding method. The neutron attenuation lengths are illustared for iron and concrete as a function of the incident energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rheology of two-dimensional crushable granular materials under shear is numerically studied using the discrete element method. We find that the mean fragment size changes as the shear strain increases while the shear stress is almost independent of this mean size. The fragment size distribution is found to follow a power law. In particular, the exponent in the intermediate fragment size regime becomes approximately – 11/6, which is almost independent of the shear rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shielding benchmark experiments are useful to verify the accuracy of calculation methods for the radiation shielding designs of high-energy accelerator facilities. In the present work, the benchmark experiments were carried out for 244- and 387-MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutron field at RCNP of Osaka University. Neutron dose rates through the test shields, 100-300 cm thick concrete and 40-100 cm thick iron, were measured by four kinds of neutron dose equivalent monitors, three kinds of wide-energy range monitors applied to high-energy neutron fields above 20 MeV and a conventional type rem monitor for neutrons up to 20 MeV, placed behind the test shields. Measured dose rates were compared one another. Measured results with the wide-energy range monitors were in agreement one another for both the concrete and the iron shields. For the conventional type rem monitor, measured results are smaller than those with the wide-energy range monitors for the concrete shields, while that are in agreements for the iron shields. The attenuation lengths were obtained from the measurements. The lengths from all the monitors are in agreement on the whole, though some differences are shown. These results are almost same as those from others measured at several hundred MeV neutron fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compact EAS Extensive Air Shower (EAS) array (200 m2) and the Linsley method have been used with the aim to observe the primary energy spectrum. The spectral indexes αproton and αiron are obtained as -2.46 ± 0.17 and -3.08 ± 0.24, respectively, in the primary energy region of 1016 eV - 1018.5 eV in the single observation of the compact EAS array. Additionally, αproton and αiron are obtained as -3.12 ± 0.13 and -3.52 ± 0.17, respectively, in the same primary energy region in the observation by restricting the zenith angle of EAS events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The H-dibaryon (uuddss) is studied in holographic QCD for the first time. In holographic QCD, four-dimensional QCD, i.e., SU(Nc) gauge theory with chiral quarks, can be formulated with S1-compactified D4/D8/D8-brane system. In holographic QCD with large Nc, all the baryons appear as topological chiral solitons of Nambu-Goldstone bosons and (axial) vector mesons, and the H-dibaryon can be described as an SO(3)-type topological soliton with B = 2. We derive the low-energy effective theory to describe the H-dibaryon in holographic QCD. The H-dibaryon mass is found to be twice of the B = 1 hedgehog-baryon mass, MH ≃ 2.00MHHB=1, and is estimated about 1.7GeV, which is smaller than mass of two nucleons (flavor-octet baryons), in the chiral limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To develop the 100-400 MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutron field, we measured neutron and unexpected gamma-ray energy spectra of the 7Li(p,n) reaction with 80-389 MeV protons in the 100-m time-of-flight (TOF) tunnel at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) cyclotron facility. Neutron energy spectra with energies above 3 MeV were measured by the TOF method, which had been reported in our previous papers, and photon energy spectra with energies above 0.1 MeV were measured by the automatic unfolding function of the radiation dose monitor DARWIN. For neutron spectra, the contribution of peak intensity to the total intensity integrated with energies above 3 MeV varied between 0.38 and 0.48 in the proton energy range of 80-389 MeV. For gamma-ray spectra, highenergetic gamma-rays at around 70 MeV originated from the decay of π0 were observed with proton energies higher than 200 MeV. For the 246-MeV proton incident reaction, the contribution of gamma-ray dose to neutron dose is negligible because the ratio of gamma-ray dose to neutron dose is 0.014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To develop the 100-400 MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutron field, we measured neutron and unexpected gamma-ray energy spectra of the 7Li(p,n) reaction with 80-389 MeV protons in the 100-m time-of-flight (TOF) tunnel at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) cyclotron facility. Neutron energy spectra with energies above 3 MeV were measured by the TOF method, which had been reported in our previous papers, and photon energy spectra with energies above 0.1 MeV were measured by the automatic unfolding function of the radiation dose monitor DARWIN. For neutron spectra, the contribution of peak intensity to the total intensity integrated with energies above 3 MeV varied between 0.38 and 0.48 in the proton energy range of 80–389 MeV. For gamma-ray spectra, highenergetic gamma-rays at around 70 MeV originated from the decay of π0 were observed with proton energies higher than 200 MeV. For the 246-MeV proton incident reaction, the contribution of gamma-ray dose to neutron dose is negligible because the ratio of gamma-ray dose to neutron dose is 0.014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nucleon (N) and triton production from nucleon-induced reactions on 7Li at an incident energy of 14 MeV are analyzed by using three-body continuum discretized coupled channels method (CDCC), final state interaction (FSI) model, and sequential decay (SD) model. The CDCC is used to describe nucleon and triton production via breakup continuum channels, 7Li(N,N')7Li* → t + α. Triton production from p(n) + 7Li → t + 5Li(5He) channel and nucleon production from sequential decay of the groundstate 5Li(5He) are calculated by the FSI model and the SD model, respectively. The calculated double differential cross sections for both nucleon and triton production are in good agreement with experimental ones except at relatively low nucleon emission energies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some recent activities with the microscopic effective reaction theory (MERT) on elastic, inelastic, breakup, transfer, and knockout processes are reviewed briefly. As a possible alternative to MERT, a description of elastic and inelastic scattering with the continuum particle-vibration coupling (cPVC) method is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate breakup dynamics in 6Li elastic scattering on heavy targets (T = 209Bi or 208Pb) near the Coulomb barrier energy. Since the subsystem of 6Li has a bound state as deuteron (n + p = d), a four-body channel (6Li + T → n + p + α + T) and a three-body channel (6Li + T → d + α + T) get entangled during scattering as a breakup channel. Both channels are precisely treated with the four-body version of the continuum-discretized coupled-channels method (four-body CDCC). Four-body CDCC well reproduces measured elastic cross sections with no adjustable parameter. We then estimate the channel coupling effects by dividing the breakup channel into four-and three-body channels. It is found that 6Li breakup is mainly induced by a three-body channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear emulsion plates for studying elementary particle physics as well as cosmic ray physics are very powerful tracking tools with sub-micron spatial resolutions of charged particle trajectories. Even if gamma rays have to be detected, electron-positron pair tracks can provide precise information to reconstruct their direction and energy with high accuracy. Recent developments of emulsion analysis technology can digitally handle almost all tracks recorded in emulsion plates by using the Hyper Track Selector of the OPERA group at NAGOYA University. On the other hand, the potential of time resolutions have been equipped by emulsion multilayer shifter technology in the GRAINE (Gamma Ray Astro-Imager with Nuclear Emulsion) experiments, the aims of which are to detect cosmic gamma rays such as the Vela pulsar stellar object by precise emulsion tracking analysis and to study cosmic ray particle interactions and chemical compositions. In this paper, we focus on the subject of cosmic ray nuclei detection in the GRAINE balloon flight experiments launched at Alice Springs, Australia in May 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the solar flare observed on June 3, 2012, high energy gamma-rays and neutrons were observed. The event includes a remarkable feature of a high neutron/gamma-ratio in the secondary particles. We have examined whether this high n/γ-ratio can be explained by simulation. As a result of simulations using the GEANT4 program, the high n/γ-ratio may be reproduced for the case that helium and other heavy ions were dominantly accelerated in the flare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the stability of relativistic jets using three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. The propagation of relativistic flow that is continuously injected from the boundary of computational domain into a uniform ambient medium is solved. An intriguing finding in our study is that Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov type instabilities grow at the interface between the jet and surrounding medium as a result of spontaneously induced radial oscillating motion. It is powered by in situ energy conversion between the thermal and bulk kinetic energies of the jet. From complementary two-dimensional simulations of transverse structure of the jet, we find the effective inertia ratio of the jet to the surrounding medium determines a threshold for the onset of instabilities. The mixing between light faster jet and slow heavier external matters due to these instabilities causes the deceleration of the jet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to test theoretical frameworks of the baryon-baryon interactions and to confirm the "Pauli effect between quarks" for the first time, we propose an experiment to measure low-energy hyperon proton scattering cross sections in the following channels with high statistics, 1. Σ- p elastic scattering, 2. Σ- p → Λn inelastic scattering, 3. Σ+ p elastic scattering. According to theoretical models based on quark-gluon picture for the short range part of the baryon-baryon interactions, the Σ+ p channel is expected to have an extremely repulsive core due to the Pauli effect between quarks, which leads a Σ+ p cross section twice as large as that predicted by conventional meson exchange models with a phenomenologically treated short range repulsive core. In addition, measurement of the Σ- p channel where the quark Pauli effect is not effective is also necessary to test the present theoretical models based on meson exchange picture with the flavor SU(3) symmetry. Thus this experiment will provide essential data to test the frameworks of the theoretical models of the baryon-baryon interactions and to investigate the nature of the repulsive core which has not been understood yet. In order to overcome the experimental difficulties in measuring low-energy hyperon proton scattering, we will use a new experimental technique in which a liquid H2 target is used as hyperon production and hyperon scattering targets with a detector system surrounding the LH2 target for detection of a scattered proton and a decay product from a hyperon. The hyperon scattering event is kinematically identified. Because imaging detectors used in past experiments are not employed, high intensity π beam can be used, allowing us to take high statistics data of 100 times more than the previous experiments. We have proposed an experiment of Σp scattering at the K1.8 beam line by utilizing the K1.8 beam line spectrometer and the SKS spectrometer. A high intensity π beams of 2×107/spill at 1.32 GeV/c and 1.42 GeV/c for the Σ- and Σ+ productions, respectively, are used to produce as many hyperon beam as possible.With 16×106 Σ- beam and 55×106 Σ+ beam around 500 MeV/c which are tagged by the spectrometers, we will detect ~10,000 Σ- p and Σ+ p scattering events and ~6,000 Σ- p → ⋀n inelastic reaction events in 60 days beam time in total. In this proceedings, we will present the experimental plan of the scattering experiment and results of the detailed simulation studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the results of neutron spectrometry and dosimetry measurements using an extended range Bonner Sphere Spectrometer (ERBSS) with ³He proportional counter performed in quasi-mono-energetic neutron fields at the ring cyclotron facility of the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University, Japan. Using 100 MeV and 296 MeV proton beams, neutron fields with nominal peak energies of 96 MeV and 293 MeV were generated via 7Li(p,n)7Be reactions. Neutrons produced at 0° and 25° emission angles were extracted into the 100 m long time-of-flight (TOF) tunnel, and the energy spectra were measured at a distance of 35 m from the target. To deduce the corresponding neutron spectra from thermal to the nominal maximum energy, the ERBSS data were unfolded using the MSANDB unfolding code. At high energies, the neutron spectra were also measured by means of the TOF method using NE213 organic liquid scintillators. The results are discussed in terms of ambient dose equivalent, H *(10), and compared with the readings of other instruments operated during the experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on a study which examined the water quality threshold and generation mechanism inducing mussel drop-off in Amagasaki Port, a semi-enclosed port in the Osaka Bay, Japan. It discusses variation of mussel biomass as well as the relationship between temperature variation and mussel drop-off. Water quality loggers were used to measure the time-series of water temperature and salinity.

The article discusses research on the development higher toughness class steel plate which can be used efficiently for large container ships. The researchers examined the advantages of using YP47 class steel plates developed by Nippon Steel Corp. They found that the use of this steel is important to avoid problems like an increase in hull weight when the size of container ships is increased.

The article highlights the impact of structural discontinuities to brittle cracked welded joints. Brittle fracture is essential in ship design as it can be the start of a serious structural and environmental damage. The authors used model experiments in their study to test the effect of structural discontinuities on a brittle crack propagation behavior in the cruciform joint and on the brittle crack that has undergone linear propagation in a weld. According to them, steel plates with heavier thickness need higher values for crack arrest.

The article discusses a study on the development of brittle crack arrest design for large container ships. It reviews several wide plate test methods for determining arrest toughness. The study investigated the effects of several testing conditions, including thickness and width of tab plate, distance between pins, temperature gradient and crack length, on the evaluated brittle crack arrest toughness test methods.

The article discusses a study that investigated the hydroelastic response estimation of ultra-large container ships. The study has been performed with comparative verification between numerical and experimental results to accurately estimate the hull structural strength due to springing and whipping. It concluded that applied nonlinear strip method is an applicable way for hydroelastic responses estimation such as springing and whipping on ultra-large container ships.

The article discusses a study proposing a design of armor block and foot-protection block covering rubble mound of composite breakwaters. Wave forces were studied and hydraulic stability tests for the proposed design of foot-protection blocks were conducted. Results show that both conventionally-designed blocks without opening and blocks with opening half the size of a conventional foot-protection block are stable for the wave forces used.

Hyper-Kamiokande, the next-generation neutrino observatory in Japan, evolves from its predecessors, Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande and T2K, with a significant upgrade to a 258-kton water Cherenkov detector equipped with 20,000 PMTs. Hyper-Kamiokande will host an extremely rich and broad physics program, covering areas from neutrino astrophysics to nucleon decay searches and precision neutrino oscillation measurements. Positioned as the far detector for the JPARC neutrino beam, with a baseline of 295 km, and utilizing near detectors such as the upgraded ND280 detector and INGRID currently used by the T2K experiment, Hyper-Kamiokande will have excellent sensitivity to CP violation signatures in neutrino oscillations. Set to be completed in 2027, we summarize Hyper-Kamiokande's status and physics program, with an emphasis on its CP violation searches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]