It is difficult to get a real scale image of the solar system through lecture. A scale model is a classical and one of good solutions (e.g. Handa et al.2003, Handa et al.2008). Through this model, people living in or visiting to the city can physically understand the scale of the solar system. This scale gives 1 cm for Earth's diameter and 115 m for 1 AU. However, some gadget is required to make it attractive for public citizens.

As the binary collision process requires much more computation time, a statistical electron-electron collision model based on modified Langevin equation is developed to reduce it. This collision model and a simple electron-ion scattering model are installed into one-dimensional PIC code, and collisional effects on fast electron generation and transport in fast ignition are investigated. In the collisional case, initially thermal electrons are heated up to a few hundred keV due to direct energy transfer by electron-electron collision, and they are also heated up to MeV by Joule heating induced by electron-ion scattering. Thus the number of low energy component of fast electrons increase than that in the collisionless case.

Optical and near-infrared observations of novae give us useful information for understanding the diversity of nova eruptions. Classical nova V1723 Aql was discovered by F. Kabashima and K. Nishiyama on 2010 September 11. We have conducted photometric and spectroscopic observations of V1723 Aql in both optical and near-infrared (NIR) wavelength regions since its discovery. The V-band decline time by 2 mag after the maximum, t2, was ~12 d. The apparent Fe II emission lines were also seen in the optical spectra. The Rc- and Ic-band light curves exhibited rapid declines (0.16 mag d−1 in Rc) 20 days after the visual maximum, while the NIR (J, H, and Ks) showed slow decline rates (~0.07 mag d−1). This rapid reddening suggests that dust particles formed during the very early phase of the expansion in V1723 Aql.

Dome Fuji is potentially one of the best astronomical sites in Antarctic plateau. We have a plan to build a 2-m class infrared telescope at Dome Fuji, and have been evaluating the site since the 2006/2007 Antarctic summer. We present the outline of a 2-m class telescope project and some results of our SODAR measurements.

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of concurrent chemoradiotherapy as a primary treatment modality for larynx preservation in patients with stage two squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the glottic larynx. Between February 2000 and August 2003, a total of 20 patients received concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Carboplatin was given intravenously once a week during the period of radiotherapy. The weekly carboplatin dose was based on the area under the curve 1 to 1.25. Uracil–ftegafur (UFT) was given in a daily oral dose of 300 mg as tegafur. Radiotherapy was delivered five days a week using a once-daily fractionation of 2.0 Gray (Gy), to a total dose of 66–72 Gy. The three-year overall survival rate with larynx preservation was 100 per cent.

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy with carboplatin and UFT for stage two SCC of the glottic larynx was safe and effective in improving local control with larynx preservation.

In January 2003, two cases of Legionnaires' disease associated with a ship's cruise were registered in the database of National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Diseases. A 70-year-old male heavy smoker with mild emphysema contracted the disease during a cruise. Legionella pneumophila serogroup (sg) 5 was isolated from the patient's sputum and the ship's indoor spa. The isolate from the spa matched the patient's isolate by genotyping performed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). The second case was in a 73-year-old female. During epidemiological investigation, a third case of Legionnaire's disease in a 71-year-old male was subsequently diagnosed among passengers on the same ship on the following cruise. Environmental investigation revealed that porous natural stones (Maifanshi) in the filters of the spas had harboured L. pneumophila, a phenomenon which has not been reported except in Japan. This is the first documented evidence of L. pneumophila sg 5 infection on a ship and of porous stones as a source of Legionella infection.

We compared serotypes, drug susceptibility and presence of virulence-related genes in diarrhoeagenic Escherichia coli isolates from children <5 years from Kenya (n=82) and Japan (n=47). Multiplex PCR was used to detect genes coding for enteroaggregative adherence (aggR), heat-stable toxin (st), heat-labile toxin (lt), verotoxin (vt), attaching and effacing mechanism (eaeA), enteroaggregative E. coli heat-stable enterotoxin 1 (astA) and enteroinvasive mechanism (invE). Kenyan E. coli O-serotypes were more diverse than those from Japan (29 vs. 12 serotypes) and exhibited high level multidrug resistance to World Health Organization (WHO) recommended antibiotics. Resistance rates to tetracycline, ampicillin and sulphamethoxazole–trimethoprim were 70·7, 65·9 and 68·3% respectively, but resistance to sulphamethoxazole–trimethoprim among the E. coli isolates from Japan was low (2·1%). Kenyan isolates harboured virulence-related genes in high frequency (82·9%) compared to those from Japan (25·5%) with aggR and astA being the most frequently detected genes. The presence of multiple virulence genes was associated with multidrug resistance and this merits further investigation.

The characteristics of 1 MeV electron irradiated GaAs solar cells grown on GaAs and Si substrates are studied under dark and AM 0 conditions. The short circuit currents (Isc) for GaAs/GaAs cell and GaAs/Si cell have been decreased at higher fluences. The degradation rate of Voc and Pmax for GaAs/Si is slower than that of GaAs/GaAs at the fluence 1×1016 cm−2. This is due to the high radiation resistance of saturation current. It has been due to slow generation of arsnic vacancies related defect (VAs) in the GaAs/Si solar cell, which is determined by photoluminescence analyses and deep level transient spectroscopy.

We report estimates for the extragalactic background light (EBL) in the K band (2.2 μm), obtained by the integration of galaxy counts down to K=25 mag in the Subaru Deep Field (SDF, 2′ x 2′). We have obtained deep galaxy count data by using the 8.2m Subaru telescope, with a total integration time of 10 hours and an average seeing of about 0.4 arcsec. The 5-sigma limiting magnitude is K=23.5, and 350 objects are detected brighter than this magnitude. There has been a significant discrepancy between previous K-count observations, probably because of the systematic uncertainties in the completeness correction. To overcome this problem, we have paid special attention to selection effects and completeness corrections, with realistic theoretical galaxy models taken into account consistently. The faint-end slope is significantly flatter than some earlier observations of K counts, and our results suggest that the bulk of the extragalactic light in this band has been resolved as discrete sources. We estimate the value of the EBL flux obtained from the integration of our counts as 9.8 ± 1.0 nWm−2 sr−1.

A composite of two conducting polymers, polyaniline and polypyrrole, could result in much improved physical properties with respect to their applications in pH electrodes and conducting paints/coatings. However, the composite has time dependant properties that made the use of dynamic computational algorithms necessary to control its behaviour. We used a sandwich-modified electrode as a pH-sensing electrode, which was integrated with a pre-trained computer for data processing and knowledge discovery. Conducting polypyrrole/polyaniline colloidal composites have been also prepared by deposition of the mixture solution of polypyrrole and polyaniline at negative potentials. Different substrates were dipped in the solution containing the mixture together with an acrylic latex and after drying the adhesive strength and electroactivity of the paint were studied. Several colloidal composite based coatings were investigated. At last a computer facilitated with powerful artificial ncural network based algorithms classified the paints.

We present the results of luminescence studies for free-standing CdZnS/ZnS strained layer multi-quantum wells (MQWs). PL measurements of the CdZnS/ZnS MQW at 1.4 K show intense, sharp excitonic emission in blue-ultraviolet spectral region. The band discontinuity is estimated by an analysis of the luminescence results in terms of a finite-potential well model. A free-standing MQW is assumed. The calculated zero-stress band discontinuity is in extremely good agreement with the value from Harrison’s model.

Optical second harmonic generation in epitaxial layers of CdxZn1−xS and CdxZn1−xS:ZnS and CdS:CdxZn1−xS strained layer superlattices which had been removed from their substrates has been investigated. Some evidence for resonant enhancement of the second order non-linear susceptibility has been found for one sample where the onset of optical absorption was at photon energies close to that of the second harmonic radiation.

Conventional selected area diffraction patterns as obtained in the TEM present difficulties for identification of materials such as asbestifonn minerals, although diffraction data is considered to be one of the preferred methods for making this identification. The preferred orientation of the fibers in each field of measurement, and the spotty patterns that are obtained, do not readily lend themselves to measurement of the integrated intensity values for each dspacing, and even the d-spacings may be hard to determine precisely because the true center location for the broken rings requires estimation. To overcome these problems, we have implemented an automatic method for diffraction pattern measurement. It automatically locates the center of patterns with high precision, measures the radius of each ring of spots in the pattern, and integrates the density of spots in that ring.