The present issue of insect resistance and environmental toxicity of pesticides is triggering deep discussion about the pest management tactics, in which pest monitoring and control activity are mainly involved. Novel control agents, hopefully overcoming the present issues and problems, should be researched and commercially applied to the farm fields. With the monitoring-based research, additionally we have to focus on the control-based, particularly control agent-based research and application. Entomo- pathogenic fungi can used as one of the possible novel control agents once considerations are given to the control of soil- or water-dwelling pests. In our research group, the entomopathogenic fungal library has been constructed using the mealworm-based isolation system, which showed a variety of opportunities of their use in pest control. Important key production technologies including granular formulation have been developed to increase their industrialization. Some entomopathogenic fungal isolates showed high biological performance in the control of rice weevils, western flower thrips and Japanese bettles in field stands. To elucidate the fungal mode of action, a fungal transformation system using AtMT and gene identification tools were established. Recently a more deep study about the relationship between insect and entomopathogenic fungi is be investigated using RNA seq. We suggest that to make the entomopathogenic fungal products be applied to agricultural farm field, R&D of down-stream process should be seriously considered as the key step.

A large-scale neutral hydrogen (H i) ring serendipitously found in the Leo I galaxy group is 200 kpc in diameter with MHi ~ 1:67 X 109M⊙, unique in size in the Local Universe. It is still under debate where this Hi ring originated - whether it has formed out of the gas remaining after the formation of a galaxy group (primordial origin) or been stripped during galaxy-galaxy interactions (tidal origin). We are investigating the optical and Hi gas properties of the dwarf galaxies located within the gas ring in order to probe its formation mechanism. In this work, we present the photometric properties of the dwarfs inside the ring using the CFHT MegaCam u*, g', r' and i'-band data. We discuss the origin of the gas ring based on the stellar age and metal abundance of dwarf galaxies contained within it.

Hydroxyapatite (HA), which is an important calcium phosphate mineral, has been applied in orthopedics, dentistry, and many other fields depending upon its morphology. HA can be synthesized with different morphologies through controlling the synthesis method and several parameters. Here, we synthesize various morphologies of HA using two simple methods: hydrothermal combustion and solution combustion. The phase purity of the synthesized HA is confirmed using X-ray diffractometry. It demonstrates that pure phased hydroxyapatite can be synthesized using both methods. The morphology of the synthesized powder is examined using scanning electron microscopy. The effects of pH and temperature on the final powder are also investigated. At 140 oC, using the hydrothermal method, nano-micro HA rods with a hexagonal crystal structure can be synthesized, whereas using solution combustion method at 600 oC, a dense cubic morphology can be synthesized, which exhibits monoclinic crystal structures.

The effects of the mixing of an active material and a conductive additive on the electrochemical performance of an electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) electrode were investigated. Coin-type EDLC cells with an organic electrolyte were fabricated using the electrode samples with different ball-milling times for the mixing of an active material and a conductive additive. The ball-milling time had a strong influence on the electrochemical performance of the EDLC electrode. The homogeneous mixing of the active material and the conductive additive by ball-milling was very important to obtain an efficient EDLC electrode. However, an EDLC electrode with an excessive ball-milling time displayed low electrical conductivity due to the characteristic change of a conductive additive, leading to poor electrochemical performance. The mixing of an active material and a conductive additive played a crucial role in determining the electrochemical performance of EDLC electrode. The optimal ball-milling time contributed to a homogeneous mixing of an active material and a conductive additive, leading to good electrochemical performance of the EDLC electrode.

The currently cultivated varieties of moth orchid flowers have weak or no fragrance and the plant requires high temperatures for cultivation. In order to develop a new variety of orchid that is psychrophilic and fragrant, intergeneric cross between wild wind orchids and moth orchids was performed. In 2009, To obtain intergeneric hybrids from Sedirea japonicum and Neofinetia falcata with moth orchids, artificial crosses with a total of 160 combinations were performed. Most of the cross combinations failed due to crossincompatibility after intergeneric crosses, with no pod formation, premature pod dropping after pod formation, and pod formation that did not produce seeds. From among these, the crosses that formed normal seeds and germinated to produce viable plants included Doritis pulcherrima × S. japonicum, N. falcata × D. pulcherrima, and N. falcata × P. equestris. From the hybrid specimens obtained through these crosses, 2 superior lines (819-3B and K9256) were selected based on their floral morphology, number of flowers, hardiness, and fragrance. Comparative analyses of the morphological and chromosomal traits were performed between the selected hybrid specimens and their parents. The flower and inflorescence characteristics of the selected hybrids exhibited intermediary traits of both the parents; however, more traits from the moth orchids were inherited. For pollinia traits, both 819-3B and K9256 specimens exhibited intermediate forms of their parents in terms of their shape and size. In the case of 819-3B specimen, a high degree of trait similarity with that of D. pulcherrima was observed; whereas, K9256 specimen showed lobes similar to that of P. equestris. The ploidy of moth orchid, S. japonicum, and N. falcata used for crosses was diploid, as determined by microscopic examination and ploidy analysis. The microscopic examination of chromosomes from the intergeneric hybrid pollens revealed mutation of the chromosome count among different specimens as well as irregular chromosome separation. For the production of next-generation progeny using the obtained hybrids, back-cross was performed; however, most of the progeny obtained were sterile and, among the 12 back-crosses, pod formation was noted in S. japonicum × 819-3B and 819-3B × S. japonicum crosses only.

We search for misclassified type 1 AGNs among type 2 AGNs identified with emission line flux ratios, and investigate the properties of the sample. Using 4 113 local type 2 AGNs at 0.02 < z < 0.05 selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7, we detected a broad component of the Hα line with a Full-Width at Half-Maximum (FWHM) ranging from 1 700 to 19 090 km s−1 for 142 objects, based on the spectral decomposition and visual inspection. The fraction of the misclassified type 1 AGNs among type 2 AGN sample is 3.5%, implying that a large number of missing type 1 AGN population may exist. The misclassified type 1 AGNs have relatively low luminosity with a mean broad Hα luminosity, log LHα = 40.50 ± 0.35 erg s−1, while black hole mass of the sample is comparable to that of the local black hole population, with a mean black hole mass, log MBH = 6.94 ± 0.51 M⊙. The mean Eddington ratio of the sample is log Lbol/LEdd = −2.00±0.40, indicating that black hole activity is relatively weak, hence, AGN continuum is too weak to change the host galaxy color. We find that the Oiii lines show significant velocity offsets, presumably due to outflows in the narrow-line region, while the velocity offset of the narrow component of the Hα line is not prominent, consistent with the ionized gas kinematics of general type 1 AGN population.

In this work, we report in-situ observations of changes in catalyst morphology, and of growth termination of individual carbon nanotubes (CNTs), by complete loss of the catalyst particle attached to it. The observations strongly support the growth-termination mechanism of CNT forests or carpets by dynamic morphological evolution of catalyst particles induced by Ostwald ripening, and sub-surface diffusion. We show that in the tip-growth mode, as well as in the base-growth mode, the growth termination of CNT by dissolution of catalyst particles is plausible. This may allow the growth termination mechanism by evolution of catalyst morphology to be applicable to not only CNT forest growth, but also to other growth methods (for example, floating-catalyst chemical vapor deposition), which do not use any supporting layer or substrate beneath a catalyst layer.