Screening and classification of ceramic powders

A summary is given of the classification technology of ceramic powders. Advantages and disadvantages of the wet and dry screening and classification methods are discussed. Improvements of wind force screening devices are described

Are Japanese Firms Becoming More Independent from Their Banks?: Evidence from the Firm-Level Data of the "Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics," 1994-2009

The Ministry of Finance's "Corporate Enterprise Quarterly Statistics" (Hojin kigyo tokei kiho) is the only statistical source of well-balanced information about the financing behavior of Japanese firms. Indeed, there are few comparable sources available anywhere in the world. Using this firm-level data set from 1994 to 2009, I investigate the financing behavior of Japanese firms with over \10 million in paid-in capital. The conclusions contrast sharply with the conventional wisdom. Much of the research and policy discussions about Japanese finance begin from the premise that banks play a decisive role in firm behavior. This paper shows that firms have maintained a dependence on financial institutions well below the level that the conventional wisdom has claimed. Under the recent gzero-interest-rate, quantity easingh monetary policy, this gindependence of the firms from the banksh has increased further. This tendency is clearest among the smaller firms. In turn, this first conclusion raises doubts about the plausibility of the basic premise of research and policy debate on financial issues, and leads us to question whether observers may not have confused a gcrisis of financial institutionsh with a gfinancial crisish. Investigation into firm financing behavior under the gfinancial crisish from the end of 1997 to the beginning of 1999 does indeed suggest that it was a fiasco caused by the confusion of a gcrisis of financial institutionsh with a gfinancial crisish.

Kenya's 2007 election crisis

On 27 December 2007, the Republic of Kenya held its tenth general election since independence. The ballot-related proceedings went as planned up to and including the vote count, providing grounds for optimism for a largely peaceful transfer of power. However, after the official declaration by the Electoral Commission of Kenya late in the afternoon of 30 December that the presidential election had been won by the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki (from Central Province and a Kikuyu), Kenya entered into a period of deep crisis. How might we best understand this great turbulence, which was unprecedented in post-independence Kenya? Perhaps the answer lies in the sudden defeat of the opposition's presidential candidate, Raila Odinga from Nyanza Province and a Luo, who had been widely expected to win. With the post-election upheaval as the context, and looking at the situation from the standpoint of political history, this paper will offer an analysis of trends in Kenya's politics since 2002.Elections, Internal politics, Ethnic groups, President, Kenya, Election, Conflict, Ethnicity, Democracy, Politics

The gap between recognition and the 'compensation business' : the claim against Britain for compensation by Kenya's former Mau Mau fighters

During the first Kibaki administration (2002-2007), a movement by the former Mau Mau fighters demanded recognition for the role that they had played in the achievement of independence. They began to demand, also, monetary compensation for past injustices. Why had it taken over 40 years (from independence in 1963) for the former Mau Mau fighters to initiate this movement? What can be observed as the outcome of their movement? To answer these questions, three different historical currents need to be taken into account. These were, respectively, changing trends in the government of Kenya, progress in historical research into the actual circumstances of colonial control, and a realization, based on mounting experience, that launching a legal action against Britain could turn out to be a lucrative initiative. This paper concludes that, regardless of the actual purpose of the legal case, neither of their objectives was certain to be achieved. Two inescapable realities remain: the doubts cast on the reputation of the government by its decision to lift the Mau Mau‟s outlaw status – a decision that was widely seen as a latter-day example of the „Kikuyu favouritism‟ policy followed by the first Kibaki administration – and the popular interpretation of the involvement of Leigh Day, well known in Kenya ever since the unexploded bombs case for its success in obtaining substantial compensation payments, as a vehicle for squeezing large amounts of money from the British government for the benefit of the Kikuyu people.Kenya, Great Britain, Independence movements, Guerrillas, Colonies, Ethnic problem, Compensation, Ethnicity, Kibaki, Colonization, Kikuyu, Mau Mau

New exact results on density matrix for XXX spin chain

Using the fermionic basis we obtain the expectation values of all \slt-invariant and $C$-invariant local operators on 10 sites for the anisotropic six-vertex model on a cylinder with generic Matsubara data. This is equivalent to the generalised Gibbs ensemble for the XXX spin chain. In the case when the \slt and $C$ symmetries are not broken this computation is equivalent to finding the entire density matrix up to 10 sites. As application, we compute the entanglement entropy without and with temperature, and compare the results with CFT predictions.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

Homesick L\'evy walk: A mobility model having Ichi-go Ichi-e and scale-free properties of human encounters

In recent years, mobility models have been reconsidered based on findings by analyzing some big datasets collected by GPS sensors, cellphone call records, and Geotagging. To understand the fundamental statistical properties of the frequency of serendipitous human encounters, we conducted experiments to collect long-term data on human contact using short-range wireless communication devices which many people frequently carry in daily life. By analyzing the data we showed that the majority of human encounters occur once-in-an-experimental-period: they are Ichi-go Ichi-e. We also found that the remaining more frequent encounters obey a power-law distribution: they are scale-free. To theoretically find the origin of these properties, we introduced as a minimal human mobility model, Homesick L\'evy walk, where the walker stochastically selects moving long distances as well as L\'evy walk or returning back home. Using numerical simulations and a simple mean-field theory, we offer a theoretical explanation for the properties to validate the mobility model. The proposed model is helpful for evaluating long-term performance of routing protocols in delay tolerant networks and mobile opportunistic networks better since some utility-based protocols select nodes with frequent encounters for message transfer.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Non-orientable fundamental surfaces in lens spaces

We give a concrete example of an infinite sequence of $(p_n, q_n)$-lens spaces $L(p_n, q_n)$ with natural triangulations $T(p_n, q_n)$ with $p_n$ taterahedra such that $L(p_n, q_n)$ contains a certain non-orientable closed surface which is fundamental with respect to $T(p_n, q_n)$ and of minimal crosscap number among all closed non-orientable surfaces in $L(p_n, q_n)$ and has $n-2$ parallel sheets of normal disks of a quadrilateral type disjoint from the pair of core circles of $L(p_n, q_n)$. Actually, we can set $p_0=0, q_0=1, p_{k+1}=3p_k+2q_k$ and $q_{k+1}=p_k+q_k$.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figure