The emission of particulate matter and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from a motor vehicle painting booth was quantitatively evaluated. Most particulate matter was emitted during the spraying process, in which the PM10 concentration was 16.5 times higher than that of the drying process. When the paint was being sprayed, the particles with a diameter of 1.0~2.5 μm accounted for 39.4% and particles greater than 2.5 μm in diameter accounted for 30.6% of total particles. On the other hand, small particles less than 0.5 μm in diameter accounted for 52.4% of total particles during the drying process. In contrast to the particulate matter, high concentrations of VOCs were emitted during both spraying and drying processes. Butyl acetate, xylene, toluene, and m-ethyltoluene were the most abundant VOCs emitted from the motor vehicle painting booth. Additionally, xylene, butyl acetate, toluene, and 1,2,3-trimethylbenzene were the dominant ozone precursors. Especially, xylene exhibited the highest ozone production contribution (32.5~44.4%) among 34 species of the ozone precursors. The information obtained in this study can be used to establish a suitable management strategy for air pollutants from motor vehicle painting booths.

It is an important issue for APEC economies to build mutual understanding in order to promote friendship and cooperation among the economies. Some schools and organizations have set up international communication projects to correspond by email or video conferencing periodically. There are, however, some barriers that hinder these activities. Firstly, most schools do not have experience. Secondly, teachers have difficulty in such endeavors speaking and writing in English. Thirdly, funding is not adequate. The World Youth Meeting (WYM) is one successful international collaboration project lasting six years. In this research, we investigate the WYM as a model case in order to understand how the WYM is organized so that we can develop guidelines for other international collab-oration projects.

The trend toward miniaturization and wireless communication offers the prospect of ubiquitous computing, that is computing available everywhere, all the time. As communication devices become more and more mobile, and as life styles adapt to this mobility, education must adapt also. A host of new and rapidly changing applications is emerging, wrapped around handheld information and communication technology (ICT) devices and the software and services on which they run. Users expect to always remain connected during their nomadic roaming, and this expectation is beginning to include students. Information technology managers are searching for ways to meet the mobile technology and ubiquitous computing demands of students while educators are seeking ways to exploit this new communication life style for positive pedagogical purposes The new mobile technologies seem well suited to support contemporary theories of learning that emphasize active engagement, collaboration, information-seeking, and reflection. All of these qualities can be achieved in mobile learning (“m-learning”) but only after overcoming significant constraints related to the technical and physical limitations of mobile technologies. Some design guidelines are offered to help educators cope with these limitations.

This study was carried out to compare the toxicity of nano and micrometer particles with Cu and Zn on soil microbial community and metal uptake of buck wheat. In microcosm system, soil was incubated for 14 days after soil aliquots were artificially contaminated with 1,000 mg/kg Cu, Zn nano and micro particles, respectively. After then, buck wheat was planted in incubating soils and non incubating soils. After 14 days, we compared bioaccumulation of metal, and microbial carbon substrate utilization patterns between incubating soils and non-incubating soils. The enrichment factor (EF) values of incubating samples were greater than non-incubating soils. Dehydrogenase activity had been inhibited by Cu and Zn nanoparticles in non-incubating soil, as well as it had been inhibited by Zn micro particles in incubating soils. Results of biolog test, it was not significant different between nano particles and micro particles. It cannot be generalized that nanoparticles of metal are always more toxic to soil microbial activity and diversity than micrometer-sized particles and the toxicity needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.