Complementary Reforms of Patent Examination Request System in Japan

The number of requests for patent examination showed a significant increase of 83% from 1997 to 2007 in Japan, while the number of patent applications increased by only 1%. This paper aims at theoretically and empirically analyzing the causes of recent "explosion" of examination requests, focusing especially on (1) the introduction of multiple claim system (January 1, 1988), (2) the shortening of the period available for examination request from seven to three years (October 1, 2001) and (3) the revisions of examination request fee and annual fee (April 1, 2004). We test the following propositions which are derived from the theoretical model; (a) the increase in the average number of claims increases the value of applications and raises the rate of examination request; (b) the shorter period of examination request increases the probability that the low-quality applications are requested for examination; and (c) the reforms of examination request fee and renewal fee improve the average quality of applications which are requested for examination. Our empirical results support these propositions.patent examination, option value, claim, R&D

Effect of vasodilators in patient with pulmonary hypertension associated with hemolytic anemia

AbstractPulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) has been described to associate with hemolytic anemia in updated clinical classification of pulmonary hypertension. A 56-year-old woman, diagnosed with warm antibody autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA), was treated with oral corticosteroids at the Department of Hematology, Osaka University Hospital for 30 years. Her AIHA worsened 3 months before the admission, and she was treated with rituximab and cyclosporine in combination with prednisolone. Soon after she left the hospital, she developed dyspnea on effort and leg edema, therefore she was re-admitted to the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine. Echocardiogram and cardiac catheterization demonstrated PAH associated with AIHA. She was treated with three types of vasodilatory agents, resulting in an improvement in pulmonary arterial pressure and pulmonary vascular resistance after 6 weeks. A few weeks after she left the hospital, her hemolytic anemia became in remission without intensifying AIHA therapy, and did not worsen for a year of follow-up. Although corticosteroids are the first-line treatment for AIHA, medications for PAH should be considered when the first-line therapy for AIHA failed to improve PAH

An Optically Dark GRB Observed by HETE-2: GRB 051022

GRB 051022 was detected at 13:07:58 on 22 October 2005 by HETE-2. The location of GRB 051022 was determined immediately by the flight localization system. This burst contains multiple pulses and has a rather long duration of about 190 seconds. The detections of candidate X-ray and radio afterglows were reported, whereas no optical afterglow was found. The optical spectroscopic observations of the host galaxy revealed the redshift z = 0.8. Using the data derived by HETE-2 observation of the prompt emission, we found the absorption N_H = 8.8 -2.9/+3.1 x 10^22 cm^-2 and the visual extinction A_V = 49 -16/+17 mag in the host galaxy. If this is the case, no detection of any optical transient would be quite reasonable. The absorption derived by the Swift XRT observations of the afterglow is fully consistent with those obtained from the early HETE-2 observation of the prompt emission. Our analysis implies an interpretation that the absorbing medium could be outside external shock at R ~ 10^16 cm, which may be a dusty molecular cloud.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ lette

The ASTRO-H X-ray Observatory

The joint JAXA/NASA ASTRO-H mission is the sixth in a series of highly successful X-ray missions initiated by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). ASTRO-H will investigate the physics of the high-energy universe via a suite of four instruments, covering a very wide energy range, from 0.3 keV to 600 keV. These instruments include a high-resolution, high-throughput spectrometer sensitive over 0.3-2 keV with high spectral resolution of Delta E < 7 eV, enabled by a micro-calorimeter array located in the focal plane of thin-foil X-ray optics; hard X-ray imaging spectrometers covering 5-80 keV, located in the focal plane of multilayer-coated, focusing hard X-ray mirrors; a wide-field imaging spectrometer sensitive over 0.4-12 keV, with an X-ray CCD camera in the focal plane of a soft X-ray telescope; and a non-focusing Compton-camera type soft gamma-ray detector, sensitive in the 40-600 keV band. The simultaneous broad bandpass, coupled with high spectral resolution, will enable the pursuit of a wide variety of important science themes.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, Proceedings of the SPIE Astronomical Instrumentation "Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray

The Quiescent Intracluster Medium in the Core of the Perseus Cluster

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe and are still forming. They are thus important probes of cosmological parameters and a host of astrophysical processes. Knowledge of the dynamics of the pervasive hot gas, which dominates in mass over stars in a cluster, is a crucial missing ingredient. It can enable new insights into mechanical energy injection by the central supermassive black hole and the use of hydrostatic equilibrium for the determination of cluster masses. X-rays from the core of the Perseus cluster are emitted by the 50 million K diffuse hot plasma filling its gravitational potential well. The Active Galactic Nucleus of the central galaxy NGC1275 is pumping jetted energy into the surrounding intracluster medium, creating buoyant bubbles filled with relativistic plasma. These likely induce motions in the intracluster medium and heat the inner gas preventing runaway radiative cooling; a process known as Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback. Here we report on Hitomi X-ray observations of the Perseus cluster core, which reveal a remarkably quiescent atmosphere where the gas has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of 164+/-10 km/s in a region 30-60 kpc from the central nucleus. A gradient in the line-of-sight velocity of 150+/-70 km/s is found across the 60 kpc image of the cluster core. Turbulent pressure support in the gas is 4% or less of the thermodynamic pressure, with large scale shear at most doubling that estimate. We infer that total cluster masses determined from hydrostatic equilibrium in the central regions need little correction for turbulent pressure.Comment: 31 pages, 11 Figs, published in Nature July