Carbonyl-Iron/Epoxy Composite Magnetic Core for Planar Power Inductor Used in Package-Level Power Grid

Our research objective is to realize the basic technology for a next generation package-level power grid (PLPG) for plural application large scale integrated circuits (LSIs). In this study, a carbonyl-iron powder (CIP)/epoxy composite magnetic core, for large-current power inductor used for the main dc-dc converter in the PLPG, has been fabricated and evaluated. 54 vol.%-CIP/epoxy composite core made by screen-printing had a relative permeability of 7.5 and loss tangent of about 0.03 at 100 MHz. The planar power inductor using composite core was fabricated and evaluated, which had a quasi closed magnetic circuit consisting of low permeability composite core and embedded 35-mu m-thick, two-turn copper spiral coil. The fabricated inductor with a 1-mm-square in size had 5.5 nH inductance, Q-factor of 15 at 100 MHz, and 18 m Omega dc coil resistance. Inductance was constant even when the superimposed dc current increased up to around 5.5 A.ArticleIEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS. 49(7):4172-4175 (2013)journal articl

From photoelectron detachment spectra of BrHBr−, BrDBr− and IHI−, IDI− to vibrational bonding of BrMuBr and IMuI

Photoelectron detachment XLX−(0000) + hν → XLX(vib) + e − + KER (X = Br or I, L = H or D) at sufficiently low temperatures photoionizes linear dihalogen anions XLX− in the vibrational ground state (v 1 v 2 l v 3 = 0000) and prepares the neutral radicals XLX(vib) in vibrational states (vib). At the same time, part of the photon energy (hν) is converted into kinetic energy release (KER) of the electron [R. B. Metz, S. E. Bradforth, and D. M. Neumark, Adv. Chem. Phys. 81, 1 (1992)]. The process may be described approximately in terms of a Franck-Condon type transfer of the vibrational wavefunction representing XLX−(0000) from the domain close to the minimum of its potential energy surface (PES) to the domain close to the linear transition state of the PES of the neutral XLX. As a consequence, prominent peaks of the photoelectron detachment spectra (pds) correlate with the vibrational energies E XLX,vib of states XLX(vib) which are centered at linear transition state. The corresponding vibrational quantum numbers may be labeled vib = (v 1 v 2 l v 3) = (000 v 3). Accordingly, the related most prominent peaks in the pds are labeled v 3. We construct a model PES which mimics the “true” PES in the domain of transition state such that it supports vibrational states with energies E XLX,pds,000v3 close to the peaks of the pds labeled v 3 = 0, 2, and 4. Subsequently, the same model PES is also used to calculate approximate values of the energies E XMuX,0000 of the isotopomers XMuX(0000). For the heavy isotopomers XHX and XDX, it turns out that all energies E XLX,000 v 3 are above the threshold for dissociation, which means that all heavy XLX(000 v 3) with wavefunctions centered at the transition state are unstable resonances with finite lifetimes. Turning the table, bound states of the heavy XLX are van der Waals (vdW) bonded. In contrast, the energies E XMuX,0000 of the light isotopomers XMuX(0000) are below the threshold for dissociation, with wavefunctions centered at the transition state. This means that XMuX(0000) are vibrationally bonded. This implies a fundamental change of the nature of chemical bonding, from vdW bonding of the heavy XHX, XDX to vibrational bonding of XMuX. For BrMuBr, the present results derived from experimental pds of BrHBr− and BrDBr− confirm the recent discovery of vibrational bonding based on quantum chemical ab initio calculations [D. G. Fleming, J. Manz, K. Sato, and T. Takayanagi, Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 53, 13706 (2014)]. The extension from BrLBr to ILI means the discovery of a new example of vibrational bonding. These empirical results for the vibrational bonding of IMuI, derived from the photoelectron spectra of IHI− and IDI−, are supported by ab initio simulations of the spectra and of the wavefunction representing vibrational bonding of IMuI

Impact of a Booklet about Diabetes Genetic Susceptibility and Its Prevention on Attitudes towards Prevention and Perceived Behavioral Change in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Their Offspring

Background. Offspring of type 2 diabetic patients are at a high risk of type 2 diabetes. Information on diabetes genetic susceptibility and prevention should be supplied to the offspring. Methods. A six-page booklet on diabetes genetic susceptibility and prevention was distributed to 173 patients who ere ordered to hand it to their offspring. The patients answered a self-administered questionnaire on booklet delivery and attitudinal and behavioral changes toward diabetes and its prevention in themselves and their offspring. Results. Valid responses were obtained from 130 patients. Forty-nine patients had actually handed the booklet. Booklet induces more relief than anxiety. From the patient's view, favorable attitudinal and/or behavioral changes occurred in more than half of the offspring who were delivered the booklet. Conclusion. The booklet worked effectively on attitudes and behaviors toward diabetes and its prevention both in patients and their offspring. However, the effectiveness of patients as information deliverers was limited

Utilization of On-campus Support Resources and Job Hunting Processes by University Students : Cooperation among Organizations within Universities

本研究の目的は，第一に，大学内のサポート資源を学生がどのように活用しているのかについて明らかにすること，第二に，それらの活用の仕方と就職活動プロセスの関係を明らかにすることであった。大学4 年生223 名に対してアンケート調査を実施した。全学の支援（キャリアセンター）と学部独自の支援を同時に利用している者が多かった。どちらも利用する者は就職活動量も多く，相談相手も多い傾向があった。それに対して，どちらも利用しない者は就職活動量が少なく，相談相手が少ない傾向があった。Students’ utilization of on-campus support resources, and correlations between this utilization and job hunting, were investigated. A questionnaire was administered to fourth year university students. The results indicated that students using the support resources provided by the university and the department applied to many companies and had many consultations. On the other hand, students who did not use support resources applied to few companies and had fewer people to ask for advice

Analyzing the Relationship Between Poverty and Work: Exploring ways to solve the problem of the working poor (Japanese)

International comparison analyses have clarified that the relative poverty rate among working households in Japan is high. Based on this fact, this study analyzed the relationship between poverty and work, using the Keio Household Panel Survey 2004-2010 (KHPS). Our study showed that households where the head of the household is working as a temporary worker have a higher probability of being in poverty than households where the head of the household is unemployed and not engaged in any other income-earning activity. However, concerning the poverty dynamic, households where the head of the household is working in any capacity including temporary work are more likely to exit from poverty than households where the head of the household is not working. Needless to say, households where the head of the household is working as a regular worker have the least probability of falling into poverty, and shifting from temporary work to regular work is an effective solution for the working poor. Because of this fact, our study also analyzed the probability of shifting from temporary workers to regular workers. Results for women showed that those who invest in self-development are more likely to make the shift from temporary workers to regular workers; accordingly, investing in human capital—for instance, in the form of self-training—is important for making this shift. Moreover, among the unemployed who are in poverty, those receiving unemployment benefits and investing in job-training are more likely to get out from poverty than those not eligible for unemployment benefits. This implies that it is necessary to build a support system for those who are not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Impact of Regional Factors on Births and Wives' Continuation in Employment - Panel survey of consumers by the Institute for Research on Household Economics (Japanese)

This thesis examines regional disparities in fertility rates, and analyzes the influence of regional factors on birth trends and continuation in employment. For this analysis, while controlling for individual attributes such as type of work, age, and academic career, by combining microdata and attribute data for the region in which individuals reside, we investigate how differences between regions with regard to the living environment and other factors affect women's birth behavior and continuation in employment. With regard to regional factors, we focus on housing conditions, commuting time, the government's family policies, and the economic climate. In order to consider the concurrence of birth behavior and continuation in employment by wives, we used a bivariate probit model to make estimates, and our findings were that there are correlations between the birth rate of the second child and whether the home is rented or owned, and between the birth of the first child and the father's commuting time and the capacity of daycare centers.

Cases of primary malignant melanoma and melanocytosis of the esophagus observed by magnifying endoscopy : Application to differential diagnosis : case series

Rationale: Primary malignant melanoma of the esophagus (PMME) is a rare disease with an extremely poor prognosis. In contrast, melanocytosis is a benign condition defined as melanocytic proliferation with melanin deposition. PMME is often accompanied by melanocytosis, but differentiating between them is difficult because of their similar appearance. Patient concerns: Here, we reported 3 PMME cases, 2 with melanocytosis. Diagnoses: Magnifying endoscopy revealed characteristic non-uniform pigmented spots along deformed intrapapillary capillary loops (IPCLs) in PMME, while melanocytosis showed fine granule-like or linearly arranged spots and intact IPCLs. Interventions: The patients underwent endoscopic or surgical resection of each lesion. Outcomes: Histologically, magnified images reflected melanocyte growth. For cases 1 and 2, the patients remained disease-free for 61 and 15 months after endoscopic resection, respectively. In case 3, liver metastases developed two months after surgery, and the patient died from liver failure after six months. Lessons: This is the first report describing differences in magnified views of the 2 diseases, which aids a differential diagnosis

How does end-to-end speech recognition training impact speech enhancement artifacts?

Jointly training a speech enhancement (SE) front-end and an automatic speech recognition (ASR) back-end has been investigated as a way to mitigate the influence of \emph{processing distortion} generated by single-channel SE on ASR. In this paper, we investigate the effect of such joint training on the signal-level characteristics of the enhanced signals from the viewpoint of the decomposed noise and artifact errors. The experimental analyses provide two novel findings: 1) ASR-level training of the SE front-end reduces the artifact errors while increasing the noise errors, and 2) simply interpolating the enhanced and observed signals, which achieves a similar effect of reducing artifacts and increasing noise, improves ASR performance without jointly modifying the SE and ASR modules, even for a strong ASR back-end using a WavLM feature extractor. Our findings provide a better understanding of the effect of joint training and a novel insight for designing an ASR agnostic SE front-end.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 tabl

Wide dynamic range charge sensor operation by high-speed feedback control of radio-frequency reflectometry

Semiconductor quantum dots are useful for controlling and observing quantum states and can also be used as sensors for reading out quantum bits and exploring local electronic states in nanostructures. However, challenges remain for the sensor applications, such as the trade-off between sensitivity and dynamic range and the issue of instability due to external disturbances. In this study, we demonstrate proportional-integral-differential feedback control of the radio-frequency reflectometry in GaN nanodevices using a field-programmable gate array. This technique can maintain the operating point of the charge sensor with high sensitivity. The system also realizes a wide dynamic range and high sensor sensitivity through the monitoring of the feedback signal. This method has potential applications in exploring dynamics and instability of electronic and quantum states in nanostructures.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure