Ooencyrtus nezarae Ishii (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) is a gregarious egg parasitoid of Riptortus clavatus Thunberg (Hemiptera: Alydidae) and also attack three other stink bugs in soybean fields. In a previous study the refrigerated R. clavatus eggs were supplemented in soybean fields and found to enhance the parasitism by Gryon japonicum (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae), a sympatric solitary parasitoid of R. clavatus, but not by O. nezarae. Therefore, the R. clavatus eggs refrigerated for 0, 15, 30, 60 and 120 days were evaluated for the parasitization by O. nezarae in the laboratory. The number of parasitized host eggs, number of adult parasitoids emerged, immature mortality, sex ratio, development time, adult longevity, and size of the parasitoids were examined for the parasitoids exposed to or emerged from the refrigerated host eggs. All the attributes examined were not affected by the refrigeration of host eggs for up to 60 days. In addition, refrigeration did not change the reproduction capacity of the emerged adult parasitoids nor the biological attributes of their offsprings. In the evaluation of post-refrigeration period of the host eggs, O. nezarae parasitized the eggs successfully for the first 4 days after the refrigeration at 26.3ºC and 78.7% RH conditions. Since O. nezarae can parasitize the eggs of R. clavatus that were refrigerated up to 60 days, the underlying reason for the no-change in parasitism by O. nezarae in the field supplemented with refrigerated host eggs is in further investigation.

The international cooperation project CIBER (Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRiment) is a rocket-borne instrument, of which the scientific goal is to measure the cosmic near-infrared extra-galactic background to search for signatures of primordial galaxy formation. CIBER consists of a wide-field two-color camera, a low-resolution absolute spectrometer, and a high-resolution narrow-band imaging spectrometer. Currently, all the subsystems have been built, and the integration, testing, and calibration of the CIBER system are on process for the scheduled launch in June 2008.

As a part of enhancing the performance of wood-plastic composites (WPC), polypropylene (PP)/ nanoclay (NC)/ wood flour (WF) nanocomposites were prepared using melt blending and injection molding process to evaluate their thermal stability. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was employed to investigate thermal degradation kinetics of the nanocomposites both dynamic and isothermal conditions. Dynamic scans of the TGA showed an increased thermal stability of the nanocomposites at moderate wood flour concentrations (up to 20 phr, percentage based on hundred percent resin) while it decreased with the addition of 30 phr wood flour. The activation energy (Ea) of thermal degradation of nanocomposites increased when nanoclay was added and the concentration of wood flour increased. Different equations were used to evaluate isothermal degradation kinetics using the rate of thermal degradation of the composites, expressed as weight loss (%) from their isothermal TGA curves. Degradation occurred at faster rate in the initial stages of about 60 min., and then proceeded in a gradual manner. However, nanocomposites with wood flour of 30 phr heated at 300℃ showed a drastic difference in their degradation behavior, and reached almost a complete decomposition after 40 min. of the isothermal heating. The degree of decomposition was greater at higher temperatures, and the residual weight of isothermal degradation of nanocomposites greatly varied from about 10 to 90%, depending on isothermal temperatures. The isothermal degradation of nanocomposites also increased their thermal stability with the addition of 1 phr nanoclay and of wood flour up to 20 phr. But, the degradation of PP100/NC1/MAPP3/WF30 nanocomposites with 30 phr wood flour occurs at a faster rate compared to those of the others, indicating a decrease in their thermal stability.

This paper compares the effect of using different types of iron powders for the preparation of by calciothermic reduction-diffusion (CRD). Three types of iron powder were used: carbonyl, sponge and water atomized. The results show that, when immediately nitrogenated after the CRD process, prepared from sponge and water atomized iron powders yield -magnets with a high degree of texture. However, after a suitable treatment with hydrogen followed by nitrogenation, -powders made from Carbonyl iron produce magnets with the best quality regarding coercivity, remanence and degree of texture.

We studied formation of nanostructured -Cu composites under shock wave conditions. We investigated the influence of preliminary mechanical activation (MA) of Ti-B-Cu powder mixtures on the peculiarities of the reaction between Ti and B under shock wave. In the MA-ed mixture the reaction proceeded completely while in the non-activated mixture the reagents remained along with the product . titanium diboride. The size of titanium diboride particles in the central part of the compact was 100-300 nm.

Magnetic oxide-coated iron nanoparticles with the mean size ranging from 6 to 75 nm were synthesized by aerosol method using iron carbonyl as a precursor under the flowing inert gas atmosphere. Oxide shells were formed by passivation of asprepared iron particles. The influence of experimental parameters on the nanoparticles' microstructure, phase composition and growth behavior as well as magnetic properties were investigated and discussed in this study.

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of washing medium, breed and washing temperature of fresh and frozen-thawed boar sperm on mitochondrial activity and membrane integrity by flow cytometry. More than 80% of fresh sperm washed with mTLP-PVA medium at 20℃ exhibited an intact membrane and a functional mitochondrion. With frozen-thawed samples, a large number of sperm showed both damaged membrane (36.4~46.9%) and nonfunctional mitochondrion (55.1~71.1%) in the mTLP-PVA and BTS washing media at 20℃. There were no breed effects of fresh and frozen-thawed sperm on mitochondrial activity and membrane integrity. The percentages of damaged membrane of fresh and frozen sperm, respectively, were higher at 4℃ washing temperature than at 20℃ washing temperature in the mTLP-PVA medium. We found that washing medium and washing temperature of fresh and frozen-thawed boar sperm were important for the analyses of mitochondrial activity and membrane integrity by flow cytometry.