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The global warming is one of the most serious problems. The decrease of CO2 emissions in our daily life is an important subject today. Recently, an application of water retentive materials as a paving material has attracted a great deal of attention in Japan. This material is effective for reducing heat island phenomenon, which is also a recent problem in many cities in Japan. Water retained in the material during rainfall evaporates when heated by sunshine. The latent heat absorbed by evaporating water works to cool the surroundings. The water retentive ceramic products are expected to be useful for building materials as well as pavements. Several performances are required on the water retentive ceramics when it is used as building materials. Its cost and quality are the important factors. Porous ceramic materials formed by pressing without firing is one of ideal low cost and eco-friendly candidates. The porous ceramics is also expected to be produced from recycled ceramic materials. By optimizing its composition and forming method, a water retentive material with high performance was developed. The trial product had the properties as follows; fracture toughness: 1300N, bending strength: 175N/cm, water absorption: larger than 30%, and precision in size (length): +-0.5mm for 150mm. The product showed also enough frost resistance. In this paper, the fundamental properties of the porous ceramics prepared without firing are discussed with referring to the results of the field experiments.Another subject recently studied by several tile manufactures in Japan is the glazed tile with high solar reflectance. The exterior walls covered with such a high solar reflectance tile keeps the surface temperature of the wall lower under the strong sunshine of summer. It is effective against heat-island phenomenon. In this paper, the outline of the research results on visible and infrared reflectance of many kinds of glazes is also discussed.

This paper discusses the core ambient sensor network (ASN) technologies in view of their support for global connectivity. First, we enumerate ASN services and use cases and then discuss the underlying core technologies, in particular, the importance of the RESTful approach for ensuring global accessibility to sensors and actuators. We also discuss several profile-handling technologies for context-aware services. Finally, we envisage the ASN trends, including our current work for cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) in mental healthcare. We strongly believe that ASN services will become widely available in the real world and an integral part of daily life and society in the near future. key words: sensor network, sensor, actuator, RESTful, CBT

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are widely deployed recently. But many basic service sets (BSSs) nearby have to share a common channel due to the limitation in the spectrum resource. To get higher throughput with newly deployed access points (APs), it is necessary to improve spatial reuse of the channels by transmit power control (TPC). The achievable throughput, however, heavily depends on other factors such as rate adaptation (RA). Moreover, TPC without careful design may lead to asymmetric links and degrade fairness. In this paper, we jointly design TPC and RA to further improve total throughput of WLANs, and suggest (i) choosing power for each BSS by maximizing throughput which takes tradeoff between transmit rate and spatial reuse of channels, and, (ii) avoiding potential asymmetric links by explicit coordination among APs: each BSS uses almost the same power as its co-channel neighbors while BSSs far from each other may use different power levels as required. Extensive simulation evaluations confirm that the proposed scheme can greatly improve total throughput of dense WLANs, meanwhile fairness is retained.

Ceramic catalysts for the integration of the combustor patterns onto microdevices have been prepared. The catalyst powder of 40 wt% Pt-loaded on alumina was mixed with the organic vehicle of terpineol and ethyl cellulose, to make various paste compositions of different particle concentration and ethyl cellulous. The pastes with 5 wt% and 10 wt% ethyl cellulous have enhanced the linear Newtonian regions of the viscosity down to the shear rate about 5 s-1 and 0.1 s-1, respectively. For the dispensing the paste of 5 wt% ethyl cellulous and 13.7 vol% particle, the shear rate within the nozzle of 0.1 mm was calculated from the dispensed volume and speed to be 357 1/s and the viscosity data and yield stress data have been analyzed to be reasonable 0.3 Pa·s, and 100 Pa, approximately. The performance of the catalyst combustors dispensed on the microdevices have been carried out by the hydrogen mixed air gas flow, changing the catalyst temperature from 10 to 120°C.

It is necessary for encapsulants to have not only a suitable coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) compatible to IC devices and a low dielectric constant to reduce the device propagation delay, but also a high thermal conductivity to dissipate large amounts of heat from power-hungry, high-speed IC and high-density packages. Fillers such as silica have been mixed with polymers to improve their properties. Aluminum nitride (AlN) is considered as an alternative one, because it has a higher theoretical thermal conductivity of ∼320 W/mK 1 , a compatible CTE with silicon chips and a low dielectric constant. Commercial AlN fillers are angular in shape, because they are prepared via grinding coarse AlN powders synthesized by direct nitridation of aluminum metal and classification. The angular AlN are not expected to have high fluidity when mixed with polymers and hence low packing density. Recently, we successfully obtained single-crystalline spherical AlN fillers. Furthermore, polymer composites filled with the spherical AlN showed excellent thermal conductivity (>8 W/mK) as encapsulants for dissipating the heat generated in electronic devices.

Retention behavior of C1-C6, aliphatic monoamines (methylamine, ethylamine, propylamine, butylamine, amylamine and hexylamine) on columns (150 mm x 6 mm i.d.) packed with various anion-exchange resins (styrene-divinylbenzene (PS-DVB) copolymer-based strongly basic anion-exchange resin: TSKgel SAX, polymethacrylate-based strongly basic anion-exchange resin: TSKgel SuperQ-5PW and polymethacrylate-based weakly basic anion-exchange resin: TSKgel DEAE-5PW) and unfunctionized polymethacrylate resins (TSKgel G5000PW and TSKgel G3000PWXL) was investigated with basic solutions (sodium hydroxide and heptylamine) as the eluents. Due to strongly electrostatic repulsion (ion-exclusion effect) between these anion-exchange resins and these amines, peak resolution between these amines on these anion-exchange resin columns was unsatisfactory with both sodium hydroxide and heptylamine as the eluents. In contrast, these polymethacrylate resins were successfully applied as the stationary phases for the separation of these C1-C6 amines with heptylamine as eluent, because of both small hydrophobicity and small cation-exchange ability of these resins. Excellent simultaneous separation, highly sensitive conductimetric detection and symmetrical peaks for these C1-C6 amines were achieved on the TSKgel G3000PWXL column in 35 min with 5 mM heptylamine at pH 11.1 as the eluent.

Pure silica gel (Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL) has been investigated as a cation-exchange stationary phase for ion chromatography of common monovalent and divalent cations (Li+, Na+, NH4 +, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+) with conductimetric detection; dilute oxalic acid (0.05 mm oxalic acid, pH 4.1, to 1 mm oxalic acid, pH 3.0) was used as mobile phase. The Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL silica gel acted as a cation-exchange stationary phase for these cations when 0.2 mm oxalic acid at pH 3.6 was used as the mobile phase. Excellent simultaneous separation and highly sensitive indirect conductimetric detection of these cations were achieved in 20 min on a 150 mm × 4.6 mm i.d. Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL silica gel column with 0.2 mm oxalic acid containing 4 mm 18-crown-6 (1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaoxacycloctadecane), pH 3.7, as mobile phase (detection limits (signal-to-noise ratio, 3, injection volume, 20 μL), were 0.15 μm for Li+, 0.16 μm for Na+, 0.21 μm for NH4 +, 1.0 μm for K+, 0.17 μm for Mg2+, and 0.25 μm for Ca2+). The proposed IC–CD method was successfully applied to the separation and detection of major cations (Na+, NH4 +, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+) in rain and river water samples.

The application of C7 aliphatic carboxylic acids (heptanoic, 2-methylhexanoic, 5-methylhexanoic and 2,2-dimethyl-n-valeric acids) as eluents in ion-exclusion chromatography with conductimetric detection for C1-C6 aliphatic carboxylic acids (formic, acetic, propionic, isobutyric, butyric, isovaleric, valeric, isocaproic and caproic acids) was carried out using a highly sulfonated styrene-divinylbenzene co-polymer resin (TSKgel SCX) in the H+ form as a stationary phase. When using 0.05 mM sulfuric acid at pH 4.0 as the eluent, peak shapes of hydrophobic carboxylic acids (isovaleric, valeric, isocaproic and caproic acids) were tailed strongly. In contrast, when using 1 mM these C7 carboxylic acids at pH ca. 4 as the eluents, although system peaks (vacant peaks) corresponding to these C7 carboxylic acids appeared, peak shapes of these hydrophobic acids were improved drastically. Excellent simultaneous separation and relatively high sensitive conductimetric detection for these C1-C6 aliphatic carboxylic acids were achieved in 25 min on the TSKgel SCX column (150 x 6 mm I.D.) using 1 mM 5-methylhexanoic acid at pH 4.0 as the eluent.

Pure silica gels (Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL) calcined at 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000°C for 5 h have been used as cation-exchange stationary phases in ion chromatography with indirect photometric detection for common monovalent and divalent cations (Li+, Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+); 0.75mm tyramine (4-(2-aminoethyl)phenol)-0.25mm oxalic acid, pH 5.0, containing crown ethers (18-crown-6 (1,4,7,10,13,15-hexaoxacyclooctadecane) or 15-crown-5 (1,4,7,10,13-pentaoxacyclopentadecane)) was used as mobile phase. With increasing calcination temperature, the amounts of the crown ethers adsorbed on the calcined silica gel column increased and, consequently, the effect of the crown ethers as retention modifiers for these cations increased. Excellent simultaneous separation and highly sensitive detection of these cations at 275 nm were achieved in 17 min by use of a 150 mm×4.6 mm i.d. column packed with silica gel calcined at 1000°C and use of 0.75mm tyramine-0.25mm oxalic acid, pH 5.0, containing either 0.5mm 18-crown-6 or 5.0mm 15-crown-5 as mobile phase.

Neutron powder diffraction studies have been performed for the Heusler compound ‘CoTiSn’ prepared from stoichiometric amounts of the constituent elements and its nitrogenation products. The Rietveld refinement indicates that the ‘CoTiSn’ sample consists of three phases: Co+Ti+Sn→0.69Co 1.50 TiSn+0.05Ti 6 Sn 5 +0.06Sn. It is concluded that the stoichiometric compound CoTiSn is not synthesized but that Co 1.50 TiSn with a half-filled vacancy sublattice in the MgAgAs-type structure which has the XYZ configuration is formed. Nitrogen absorption is accompanied by the disproportionation of the ‘CoTiSn’ sample according to the following equation: ‘CoTiSn’+0.23N 2 →0.50Co 1.92 TiSn+0.47TiN+0.36Sn+0.04CoSn 2 +0.03Co 1.50 TiSn. It is revealed that nitrogen atoms react selectively with Ti atoms in the Co 1.50 TiSn and Ti 6 Sn 5 compounds and that nitrogen-induced occupation of the vacancy site in Co 1.50 TiSn by Co atoms takes place during nitrogenation; Co 1.92 TiSn with the Cu 2 MnAl-type structure is formed.

Ion chromatographic behavior of common mono- and divalent cations (Li+, Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+ and Ca2+) on columns packed with silica gels (Super Micro Bead Silica Gel B-5, SMBSG B-5) calcinated at 200, 400, 600, 800 and 1000 degrees C for 5 h was investigated using nitric acid containing crown ethers [18-crown-6 (1,4,7,10,13,15-hexaoxacyclooctadecane) and 15-crown-5 (1,4,7,10,13-pentaoxacyclopentadecane)] as eluent. When using 0.5 mM HNO3 as the eluent, the calcination had almost no effect on the improvement of peak resolution between these mono- and divalent cations. In contrast, when using 0.5 mM HNO3 containing crown ethers as the eluent, with increasing the calcinating temperature, the amount of crown ethers adsorbed on the corresponding calcinated SMBSG B-5 silica gels columns increased and, as a consequence, peak resolution between these mono- and divalent cations was quite improved. Excellent simultaneous separation of these mono- and divalent cations was achieved on column (150x4.6 mm I.D.) packed with the SMBSG B-5 silica gel calcinated at 1000 degrees C by elution with 0.5 mM HNO3 containing either 1.0 mM 18-crown-6 or 5.0 mM 15-crown-5.

A pure silica gel (Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL), synthesized by the hydrolysis of pure tetraethoxysilane [Si(OCH2CH3)4], was applied as a cation-exchange stationary phase in ion chromatography with indirect photometric detection for common mono-and divalent cations (Li+, Na+, NH4+, K+, Mg2+, and Ca2+) using various protonated aromatic monoamines (tyramine [4-(2-aminethyl) phenol], benzylamine, phenylethylamine, 2-methylpyridine and 2,6-dimethylpyridine) as eluet ions. When using 0.75 mM tyramine-0.25 mM oxalic acid-1.5 mM 18-crown-6 (1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaoxacyclooctadecane) at pH 5.0 as the eluent, excellent simultaneous separation and highly sensitive detection at 275 nm for these mono-and divalent cations were achieved on the Pia Seed 5S-60-SIL column (150×4.6 mm I.D.) in 20 min.

Exterior wall tiles with high solar reflectance are effective in mitigating heat-island phenomenon. Such walls have also the potential to decrease the warming up of building interiors in mid-summer. For the purpose of increasing the solar reflectance of wall tiles, several kinds of glazes were prepared to measure their visible and infra-red spectral reflectance by the spectrophotometer. The incident angle of sunlight on vertical exterior wall is larger than 70 degrees at midday of the summer season in Japan. The reflectance theoretically increases with the increase of incident angle. It is important to examine the reflectance against the sunlight with varied incident angles. The practical solar reflectance of glazed tiles is calculated by measuring the hemi-spherical integrated spectral reflectance with an oblique incident light. The glazed tiles having layered structure were also prepared and their spectral reflectance was investigated.

Most organs scale proportionally with body size through regulation of individual cell size and/or cell number. Here we addressed how postmitotic and morphologically complex cells such as neurons scale with the body size by using the dendritic arbor of one Drosophila sensory neuron as an assay system. In small adults eclosed under a limited-nutrition condition, the wild-type neuron preserved the branching complexity of the arbor, but scaled down the entire arbor, making a "miniature". In contrast, mutant neurons for the Insulin/IGF signaling (IIS) or TORC1 pathway exhibited "undergrowth", which was characterized by decreases in both the branching complexity and the arbor size, despite a normal diet. These contrasting phenotypes hinted that a novel regulatory mechanism contributes to the dendritic scaling in wild-type neurons. Indeed, we isolated a mutation in the gene CHORD/morgana that uncoupled the neuron size and the body size: CHORD mutant neurons generated miniature dendritic arbors regardless of the body size. CHORD encodes an evolutionarily conserved co-chaperone of HSP90. Our results support the notion that dendritic growth and branching are controlled by partly separate mechanisms. The IIS/TORC1 pathways control both growth and branching to avert underdevelopment, whereas CHORD together with TORC2 realizes proportional scaling of the entire arbor., 体の大きさに合わせて神経細胞の大きさを制御するしくみを解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2014-03-17.

Capillary and skimmer interfaces in EGA-MS were compared by analysis of the carbon substances remaining in the hydrolysis products of aluminum alkoxides. Peaks with higher intensities were detected in the skimmer interface mode than those in the capillary interface mode. It was confirmed in particular that the skimmer interface is effective in increasing the sensitivity for species with higher mass, e.g. the evolved butyl group, as carbon substances remaining in the hydrolysis product of aluminum sec-butoxide.

Polycrystal of VOMoO 4 has been synthesized by sintering. The electrical resistivity, ρ, was measured with and without magnetic field down to 77 K. The numerical value of ρ is about 5.4 Ω· m at 300 K. The temperature dependent behavior is like as a semiconductor, but the Arhenius plot does not give any constant carriers' excitation energy. Above 100 K ρ behaves as T - n with n of about 5. Magnetic field up to 1 T gives little magnetoresistance and no Hall effect down to 77.2 K. That means the very small mobility of carriers, and suggests the importance of electron-phonon interaction giving the heavy effective mass to carriers. Discussion was made about the relation to the structural instability of crystal, hence, phonon and magnetic instability. Estimation of the electronic state density was tried by molecular orbital calculation with Xα method. It was made sure that only V ions carry the spins. The shape and width of valence band was reasonable compared to measured ones. Energy gap at Fermi level could n...

Impurities in raw Si3N4 powders remain in intergranular glassy phases in Si3N4 and Si2N2O ceramics and degrade their high-temperature properties. Fluorine is one of the typical impurities in the raw powders. The oxidation rate of Si2N2O ceramics doped with Gd2O3 greatly varied with a difference in impurity contents (especially F) of the raw Si3N4 powders used. When a high concentration of impurity existed in the intergranular glassy phase, the rate of oxidation was controlled by O2− diffusion through the glassy phase in the partly oxidized scale and unoxidized body; outward diffusion of Gd3+ occurred concurrently. On the other hand, when the impurity contents in the intergranular glassy phase was very low, the diffusion rate of ions (Gd3+, O2−, etc.) in the glassy phase became very low (substantially zero in the oxidation at 1300°C). Only cristobalite (SiO2) was formed on the surface. The rate of oxidation was controlled by O2 diffusion through the cristobalite layer, and was very low.

The piezospectroscopic (PS) coefficients relating frequency shift to pressure are evaluated for Sm3+ in the Al2O3–Y2O3 system compounds, which include Al2O3, Y3Al5O12, YAlO3, Y4Al2O9, and Y2O3. The fluorescence peaks are inherently narrow for all the synthesized compounds, on the basis of the f–f transition nature of Sm3+ ion. Furthermore, the PS coefficients are ranged from −2.2 to −8.2 cm−1/GPa, which are similar to the reported value for the R1 line of ruby and suitable for the PS stress evaluation. PS stress distribution measurements are demonstrated with sintered Y3Al5O12 ceramics as a sample, with 50 μm intervals, under a microscope.

We have peformed neutron diffraction measurements on melt-grown polycrystalline samples of ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{x}{\mathrm{MnO}}_{3}$ $(0.49l~xl~0.75).$ A systematic transformation of the crystalline and magnetic structures of this system was observed. This can be consistently explained by the change of the character of the Mn ${e}_{g}$ orbitals. When increasing X, the ${\mathrm{Nd}}_{1\ensuremath{-}x}{\mathrm{Sr}}_{x}{\mathrm{MnO}}_{3}$ system exhibits an evolution from a metallic ferromagnetic state, to a metallic A-type antiferromagnetic (AFM), and then to an insulating C-type AFM state. The CE-type charge-ordered AFM state was observed only in the vicinity of $x=1/2$ and it coexists with the A-type AFM state for $x\ensuremath{\gtrsim}1/2,$ indicating that the energy difference between these two states is very small. We also found that the ${\mathrm{MnO}}_{6}$ octahedra are apically compressed in the CE-type and A-type AFM states due to the ${d(3x}^{2}\ensuremath{-}{r}^{2}{)/d(3y}^{2}\ensuremath{-}{r}^{2})$ or ${d(x}^{2}\ensuremath{-}{y}^{2})$ orbital ordering, whereas they are apically elongated by the rod-type ${d(3z}^{2}\ensuremath{-}{r}^{2})$ orbital ordering in the C-type AFM state. Finally, a selective broadening of Bragg peaks was observed in the C-type AFM phase and its x dependence strongly suggests the onset of charge ordering for either $x=4/5$ or $x=3/4.$

Neutron powder diffraction experiments were performed in order to determine the crystal structure of Ce11B 2C2, since the structure of CeB2C2 has been examined only by X-ray techniques and the positions of the B and C atoms in this compound are suspicious. The neutron diffraction pattern reveals that the crystal structure of Ce11B 2C2 has a symmetry with the space group of P4/mbm, where the Ce atoms occupy the 2(a) sites (0,0,0) and the B and C atoms 4(h) sites (x,x+0.5,0.5) with positional parameters of xB=0.361(1) and xC=0.160(1) at 15.0 K.

Powder neutron diffraction measurement on CaNiN exhibits no structural phase transition and no long range magnetic ordering with above 0.2 μ B from room temperature to about 3 K. Temperature independent paramagnetic susceptibility and specific heat measurement show that the maximum Wilson ratio is about 1.5, indicating a relatively weak electron correlation effect in CaNiN.

Neutron powder diffraction experiments were performed on the tetragonal DyB 2 C 2 compound in order to determine its magnetic structure. DyB 2 C 2 undergoes two phase transitions: one is a quadrupolar ordering at T Q =24.7 K, and the other a magnetic ordering at T C =15.3 K. The magnetic structure below T C is complicated, which is essentially an antiferromagnetic one with small ferromagnetic components. This complicated magnetic structure is due to the coexistence and competition of antiferromagnetic and antiferroquadrupolar interactions.