Development of Supreme Super High-Density Realtime Disaster Mitigation System for Gas Supply System

With the 3,700 New SI sensors installed throughout its service area (3,100 km2), Tokyo Gas has started to develop its super high-density real-time disaster mitigation system SUPREME for gas supply systems. Immediately after an earthquake, seismic data from the New SI sensors is relayed to the main system where extremely precise estimates of the damage are made on the spot. Damage estimation consists of making an estimate of the surface distribution of seismic motion that takes account of the site amplification factor, and making an estimate of damage to the pipeline network that takes account of factors such as the types of the pipes, the topography of the area, and the liquefaction conditions

Identification of the enclosed electro-thermal system with using dynamic thermal response

Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 30 June - 2 July, 2008.A methodology for modeling and simulating electro-thermal system in an enclosed electronic package is presented. The electro-thermal model was constructed by using system dynamics, particularly the bond graph methodology. The system model, in which the electrical domain and the thermal domain are coupled, is presented. The system model described its dynamic thermal behaviour of the system caused by heat generation from the electronic package which in located in the test enclosure chamber. The system model included the time-variant thermal parameters such as environment variation and with incoming heat flow variation. In detail, an effective way to identify the time-variant thermal parameters of the system with considering transient thermal behaviour using temperature difference between nodes was suggested. The system model contains the variation of heat flow derived by resistance change of resistive heater in electronic device increasing with temperature rise of heater, and the variation of ambient air temperature. The electro-thermal system model was validated when the system has time-variant thermal parameters such as variation of convection and contact resistance. The proposed system model shows good agreement with measured temperature response in the transient state corresponding to the variance of environment.vk201

Development of thermal switch using liquid column

Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, South Africa, 30 June - 2 July, 2008.This paper presents the thermal switch which is composed of several switching channels, breathing grooves, reservoirs and actuators to control the liquid column. In the “on” state, a switching channel is filled with liquid supplied by an actuator, which decreases the thermal resistance. In the “off” state, the air fills in the gap of two plates instead of the liquid column and the thermal resistance is increased. Through this switch operation, temperature of the designated hot spot can be controlled locally. In order to realize the desired switch operation, the liquid column should be precisely controlled based on channel design. The switching channel is composed of burst area and path area to achieve the smooth operation. The burst area was geometrically designed to provide the hydrophilic surface geometrically by taking into account of burst area. Experiments were performed on a designed switch for the liquid column control and the heat flow regulation. The results showed that this thermal switch is able to make the “on” and “off” state by controlling liquid column well. Also, the temperature distribution and thermal resistance has been changed according to channel state.vk201

The novel heart-specific RING finger protein 207 is involved in energy metabolism in cardiomyocytes

A failing heart shows severe energy insufficiency, and it is presumed that this energy shortage plays a critical role in the development of cardiac dysfunction. However, little is known about the mechanisms that cause energy metabolic alterations in the failing heart. Here, we show that the novel RING-finger protein 207 (RNF207), which is specifically expressed in the heart, plays a role in cardiac energy metabolism. Depletion of RNF207 in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (NRCs) leads to a reduced cellular concentration of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and mitochondrial dysfunction. Consistent with this result, we observed here that the expression of RNF207 was significantly reduced in mice with common cardiac diseases including heart failure. Intriguingly, proteomic approaches revealed that RNF207 interacts with the voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC), which is considered to be a key regulator of mitochondria function, as an RNF207-interacting protein. Our findings indicate that RNF207 is involved in ATP production by cardiomyocytes, suggesting that RNF207 plays an important role in the development of heart failure

Development of the Curriculum for the Connection Period of an Elementary School and a Junior High School : Through Teachers in Kindergarten Joining Classes at Elementary School

本研究は，幼稚園教員・小学校教員がそれぞれの校種の保育・授業に参観・参加し，それぞれの専門性を活かして交流することを通し，幼小接続期におけるカリキュラムの開発に向けた基礎的情報を得ることを目的とする。特に，本研究では幼稚園教員による１年生の授業参加を通して認識した共通点・差異点に着目する。研究の方法としては，幼稚園教員が小学校１年生の生活科・音楽科の授業にＴ２として参加し，他の幼稚園教員は参観する。その後，幼稚園教員に対して質問紙調査を実施した。また，生活科・音楽科の授業後に，幼稚園教員と小学校教員で授業参加に関する研究協議を実施した。結果としては，次の３点である。１点目は，ねらいによって，受容・共感の言葉がけやねらいに向けて展開していく言葉がけが必要である。２点目は，幼稚園教師は子どもの成長を見ており，小学校教師は子どもを教科の枠で見ていることに違いがあり，この点に関しては接続期において配慮することが必要である。３点目は，ねらいが幼小で同じようでも活動の展開の仕方に違いがあり，子どもの発達に応じて活動の展開を工夫することが必要である。The purpose of this study was to develop a connective curriculum between kindergarten and elementary school. To achieve this, the differences between kindergarten and elementary school teachers were investigated. Kindergarten teachers participated in a music or a human life and science class in a team teaching staff or as observers. After this experiences, participants were asked some open-ended questions. The main results are as follows: (1) it is important to express sympathy to and adoption of the aims and goals of the class a; (2) kindergarten teachers tend to focus on the growth of children, compared with elementary school teachers, who focus on the goal of the class; (3) there are differences in the ways of conducting teaching activities even when the aims of classes are same

A comprehensive survey on quantum computer usage: How many qubits are employed for what purposes?

Quantum computers (QCs), which work based on the law of quantum mechanics, are expected to be faster than classical computers in several computational tasks such as prime factoring and simulation of quantum many-body systems. In the last decade, research and development of QCs have rapidly advanced. Now hundreds of physical qubits are at our disposal, and one can find several remarkable experiments actually outperforming the classical computer in a specific computational task. On the other hand, it is unclear what the typical usages of the QCs are. Here we conduct an extensive survey on the papers that are posted in the quant-ph section in arXiv and claim to have used QCs in their abstracts. To understand the current situation of the research and development of the QCs, we evaluated the descriptive statistics about the papers, including the number of qubits employed, QPU vendors, application domains and so on. Our survey shows that the annual number of publications is increasing, and the typical number of qubits employed is about six to ten, growing along with the increase in the quantum volume (QV). Most of the preprints are devoted to applications such as quantum machine learning, condensed matter physics, and quantum chemistry, while quantum error correction and quantum noise mitigation use more qubits than the other topics. These imply that the increase in QV is fundamentally relevant, and more experiments for quantum error correction, and noise mitigation using shallow circuits with more qubits will take place.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, figures regenerate

The Japanese space gravitational wave antenna; DECIGO

DECi-hertz Interferometer Gravitational wave Observatory (DECIGO) is the future Japanese space gravitational wave antenna. DECIGO is expected to open a new window of observation for gravitational wave astronomy especially between 0.1 Hz and 10 Hz, revealing various mysteries of the universe such as dark energy, formation mechanism of supermassive black holes, and inflation of the universe. The pre-conceptual design of DECIGO consists of three drag-free spacecraft, whose relative displacements are measured by a differential Fabry– Perot Michelson interferometer. We plan to launch two missions, DECIGO pathfinder and pre- DECIGO first and finally DECIGO in 2024