Due to the increasing use that the stainless steel is getting recently in the nuclear industry, this document proposes the study of the stainless steel 316L with boron addition. With the final product, the properties of the stainless steel 316L (good mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance) with the boron neutron absorption properties are claimed to unify. The P/M technologies allow adding higher boron quantities than with the solidification conventional technologies, where segregation is produced.

The corrosion performance of a powder metallurgical aluminum alloy in aeronautical environments was studied for both as sintered and heat treated states. Sintered samples were obtained by uniaxial pressing of an Al-Cu-Mg prealloyed powder followed by liquid phase sintering. The heat treatments applied were T4 and T6. Corrosion behaviour was assessed by means of potentiodynamic polarization. Results for the equivalent commercial wrought counterpart, AA2024-T3, are also presented for comparison. Similar corrosion performance was observed for both as sintered and AA2024-T3 samples, while corrosion resistance of the PM materials was improved by the heat treatment, especially in the T4 state.

The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) is a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) treasury project. The COSMOS aims to perform a 2 square degree imaging survey of an equatorial field in I(F814W) band, using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). Such a wide field survey, combined with ground-based photometric and spectroscopic data, is essential to understand the interplay between large scale structure, evolution and formation of galaxies and dark matter. In 2004, we have obtained high-quality, broad band images of the COSMOS field (B, V, r', i', and z') using Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope, and we have started our new optical multi-band program, COSMOS-21 in 2005. Here, we present a brief summary of the current status of the COSMOS project together with contributions from the Subaru Telescope. Our future Subaru program, COSMOS-21, is also discussed briefly.

In this paper, we argue that the gigahertz peaked spectrum (GPS) quasars are special blazars, blazars in dense and dusty gas enviornment. The ROSAT detection rate of GPS quasars is similar to that of flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), suggesting that the relativistic jets in GPS quasars are oriented at small angle to the line of sight. Due to strong inverse Compton scattering off infrared photons from dense and dusty nuclear interstellar media in GPS quasars, most of them may have significant soft gamma-ray and X-ray emission, which is consistent with ASCA X-ray observations. Because Compton cooling in GPS quasars is stronger than that in FSRQs, synchrotron emission in GPS quasars may less dominate over thermal emission of the accretion disk and hot dust, hence most GPS quasars show low optical polarization and small variability, consistent with observations. We suggest that it is the significant radio emission of electron/positron pairs produced by the interaction of gamma-rays with the dense gas and dust grains in GPS quasars that makes GPS quasars show steep radio spectra, low radio polarization, and relatively faint VLBI/VLBA cores. Whether GPS quasars are special blazars can be tested by gamma-ray observations with GLAST in the near future, with the detection rate of GPS quasars being similar to that of FSRQs.

We present the results of an rocket-borne observation of far-infrared [CII] line at 157.7 μm from the diffuse inter-stellar medium in the Ursa Major. We also introduce a part of results on the [CII] emission recently obtained by the IRTS, a liquid-helium cooled 15cm telescope onboard the Space Flyer Unit. From the rocket-borne observation we obtained the cooling rate of the diffuse HI gas due to the [CII] line emission, which is 1.3±0.2 × 10-26 ergss-1 H-1atom. We also observed appreciable [CII] emission from the molecular clouds, with average CII/CO intensity ratio of 420. The IRTS observation provided the [CII] line emission distribution over large area of the sky along great circles crossing the Galactic plane at I = 50° and I = 230°. We found two components in their intensity distributions, one concentrates on the Galactic plane and the another extends over at least 20° in Galactic latitude. We ascribe one component to the emission from the Galactic disk, and the another one to the emission from the local interstellar gas. The [CII] cooling rate of the latter component is 5.6 ± 2.2 ×10.