The preparation and exfoliation of graphite oxide at low temperatures (near room temperature) to produce exfoliated graphite (EG) instead of rapid heating to a high temperature (conventional process) are reviewed. The exfoliation by microwave irradiation, electrochemical exfoliation and surfactant-assisted exfoliation of graphite are also included because these techniques can be applied under ambient atmosphere, although last two techniques were mainly applied for thinning the graphite flakes to obtain “graphene” flakes. The applications of the resultant exfoliated graphite (EG) for oil/water separation, adsorptive removal of the environment pollutants and microwave shielding are shortly reviewed.

This paper examines the mechanisms and the determinants of cross-border partnerships formed by Japanese companies and their foreign partners. The result of the analysis suggested that four key variables, equality, fit, trust and commitment, empirically influence the outcomes of the partnerships. The research sheds additional light on the mechanism and the determinants for materializing successful cross-border partnerships.

This exploratory study conducts the difference of e-business implementation of each industry in Japan. According to factor analysis, 9 e-business contents are classified into four factors. Then, as a result of cluster analysis using the four factors, industries are classified into five clusters according to the grade of execution of e-business, and the contents of execution. Online networks including internet have given rise to the digital economy to support electronic business (e-business) activities. But it varies according to a type of industry because how enterprises perform e-business. The purpose of working on e-business is also the same. This study shows that the implementation status of e-business of each industry. E-business using online networks are various, such as not only e-commerce but also activities inside the company. The former examples are sales or purchase trading, and the latter examples are activities of a direct department called production or physical distribution, and a back-office section called accounts or personnel. In addition, purposes of enterprises perform e-business may be various, for example sales expansion, and cost reduction, information sharing. In Japan, before the Internet known as an open online network spreads, former closed online network such as VAN; Value Added Network has been popular to companies in 1980’s. Therefore, companies could use e-business in internal business process integration or to specific partners. The examples are Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). But in fact, e-commerce is more popular than other e-business. That may be why effects come out of e-commerce in the short term, such as reduction of office work cost, improvement in customer satisfaction, or the reduction of an input cost. Iacovou et al(1995) recommends the development of successful EDI partner expansion plans, which include EDI initiators pursue promotional efforts to improve partners’ (especially small partners’) perceptions of EDI benefits, provide financial and technological assistance to partners with low organizational readiness, and carefully select and enact influence strategies to reduce resistance. Fisher(1997) concludes the effectiveness of SCM varies according to the matrix of product properties and purpose of SCM. From the viewpoint of marketing partnership, Doney et al(1997) shows that supplier size and supplier's willingness to customer have a positive impact on buyers’ trust. Chatterjee et al(2002) shows that companies structuring e-commerce platform should have top management championship, strategic investment rationale, and extent of coordination. According to these studies, the effectiveness of e-business changes in the factor inside and outside the company such as the relations with a type of industry and the trading partner. MTI(2006) shows the result of a questionnaire companies of Japan and USA why to introduce e-commerce. According to this survey, Japanese companies think as important cost reductions, such as a request from a customer, and increase in efficiency of ordering business, to the USA companies think as important sales expansions, such as new customer acquisition and expansion of a sales channel. SMEA(2009), belongs to MTI, shows SMEs which consider “reduction of trading costs” to be a benefit are greatest in number, but when looked at in terms of employee size, the smaller the enterprise, the larger the number citing that it is “easy to acquire new customers.” These suggest engaging e-commerce actively is important as a means of acquiring customers for small companies as well. MIC(2012) shows the result of an annualy mail survey with about 2,000 enterprises; 87.5% of companies have built a company communication network such as internet, the percentage of businesses using e-commerce (procurement/sales via the Internet) is 44.5%, and the percentage of businesses using at least a part of a cloud computing serviceis 21.6%, which is 7.5 percentage points more than the 14.1% rate at the end of 2010. This study conducts a statistical secondary analysis using large-scale survey. The original survey is “Results of the Basic Survey of Business and Activity on March 31, 2009” provided Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Japan. The survey is somewhat old because they survey each 5 years. The survey is a mail on self-declaration forms given to enterprises which engaged in business with both a minimum capital of 30 million yen and 50 or more employees. Questions include size and profit of enterprises, online network usage and e-business implementation. It covers over 28,000 enterprises which operate mining, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail trade, and eating and drinking places. This study analyzes the semi total data for every 103 types of industry because the reply for each enterprise is not disclosed, and conducts descriptive statistics. An exploratory factor analysis revealed 4 factors from 10 variables on a sample of 103 industries. Table1 shows that pattern matrix after Promax rotation with Maximum Likelihood extraction. As the factor loadings of Sales, Inventory and Distribution are high, 1st factor can be named as “Sales division”. Like the following, 2nd factor is “In-company management”, 3rd factor is “Procurement” and 4th factor is “Manufacturing”. e-business implementation can be classified into “Sales division”, “I n-company management”, “Procurement” and “Manufacturing”. This suggests the priority matter of each enterprise is reflected. First, a type of industry to suffer from the competition with others by sales markets to work on customer satisfactions or marketing tackles “Sales division”. Second, “In-company management” could be important for a type of industry to push forward information integration and employee management in the enterprise or the cost cut of the indirect section. Third, Industries which work on cost reduction with strong bargaining ability to the supplier could be tackling “procurement” e-business. And some manufacturing industries work on “manufacturing” e-business. In order to classify 103 industries according to e-business implementation, cluster analysis is conducted with factor scores observed the analysis. Figure 1 is a result of hierarchical cluster analysis applying the Ward Linkage method. It is divided into five clusters. Table 2 is average factor score & characteristics of each cluster. The analysis shows the characteristic of the type of industry to perform e-business. Cluster 5 which contains only electricity is firstly classified as other types of industry. The cluster has the highest score except “Sales Division” than other clusters. Cluster 3 and 4 work on e-business more positively than Cluster 1 and 2. Cluster 1 has very low score especially “Sales division” and “In-company management”. The reason may be why it has traditional manufacture such as mining and wood manufacture. Cluster 2 has also low score especially “Manufacturing” because it has traditional distributor sector such as apparel, agricultural or furniture wholesales. Therefore, “Sales Division” is performed better than other e-business. On the other hand, Cluster 3 has high score other than manufacturing because it has non-store retailer and electrical or motor wholesales. Many of them work on e-commerce because they satisfy customers and compete with others, and procure products to reduce costs. And Cluster 4 has major manufacture industries such as electronic, motor vehicles and communication, which work on e-business totally. In conclusion, the difference of e-business implementation of each industry reflects on market structure. This study has two limitations. First, as the data used for this analysis is already totaled for every type of industry, the reply situation for each company is not reflected. Though the government statistics are collecting data comprehensively, it is very rare to have released each data because of privacy. After taking into consideration in a respondent's privacy, an indication of individual data is desired. Second, the purpose or attitude companies work on e-business are not taken into consideration though analyzed based on the implementation rate of e-business. Not only action data but attitude data and consciousness data are important. The future research should analyze why companies work on e-business through an interview or questionnaire survey.

Terrestrial animals are widely considered to be well protected from damage caused by ambient UV radiation, and thus the direct effects of solar UV-B radiation on arthropods have not attracted a great deal of attention. However, if plant-dwelling arthropods have evolved behavioral adaptations to solar UV-B radiation, but not morphological or physiological adaptations, the resources available to them would be strongly limited. Tetranychus urticae and their dominant natural enemies, phytoseiid mites, usually stay on the lower leaf surfaces. Because of the accumulation of UV-B-absorbing compounds such as flavonoids in the leaves, the upper and lower leaf surfaces provide different UV environments. We tested whether UV irradiation affects survival and reproduction of T. urticae and, if so, whether staying on the lower leaf surfaces is beneficial for their performance in solar UV radiation. Consequently, we observed lethal effects of artificial UV-B irradiation and solar UV radiation on T. urticae. However, by remaining on lower leaf surfaces, the mites could avoid such deleterious effects. These suggest that staying on the lower leaf surfaces is a behavioral adaptation of T. urticae to avoiding harmful solar UV-B radiation. Lethal effects of UV-B irradiation also exerted strong deterrent effects on the hatchability of phytoseiid mites. Additionally, preliminary experiments suggested that phytoseiid mites avoided and quickly escaped from a place irradiated by solar UV. Therefore, solar UV-B radiation may strongly affect the diurnal and spatial patterns of distribution or migration of mite communities on host plant canopies.

Y-type barium ferrite was prepared by the glass-ceramic method. Glasses with composition of were prepared, and the precipitation behavior of Y-type ferrite from the glass matrix was investigated by heating glass specimens at various temperature. which is a precursor of M-type ferrite was precipitated at about 813 K and an unknown compound, phase X, was precipitated at about 850 K. M-type ferrite and Y-type ferrite started to form at about 923 K and 1103 K, respectively. The formation of Y-type ferrite was int erpreted as the result of the reaction of M-type ferrite with a melt of phase X.

Y-type barium ferrite ( Me=Zn, Co, Cu) expected as an electromagnetic wave absorber were prepared by the glass-ceramic method. The glasses with composition of were prepared. Single-phase powders of Y type barium ferrite were obtained with the composition . The shape of Y-type crystals depended strongly on the heating temperature and changed from a plate-like hexagon to a complex polyhedron with increasing heating temperature. Correlation was recognized between saturation magnetization and crystal shape. Electromagnetic wave absorption characteristics was affected by the saturation magnetization and crystal shape.

TZM alloy having elongated coarse-grain structure was developed by three-step internal nitriding treatment at 1423 to 1873 K in and subsequent recrystallization treatment at 2173 K in vacuum. Some specimens were subjected to re-nitriding treatment at 1873 K for 16 h. After the recrystallization treatment, aspect ratio (L/W) of grains for rolling direction was about 50 at the maximum. Yield stress obtained at 1773 K after re-nitriding treatment was about 6 times as large as that of recrystallized specimen. Re-nitriding was very effective in the improvement in strength of TZM alloy having elongated coarse-grain structure.

In order to overcome the recrystallization embrittlement and irradiation embrittlement of Mo, which are major problems for its fusion applications, internally nitrided Mo alloys were prepared by a novel multi-step internal nitriding. Neutron irradiation was performed in the Japan Material Testing Reactor (JMTR). After irradiation, nitrided Mo alloys exhibited ower ductile-brittle transition temperature than irradiated TZM. These results suggested that multi-step internal nitriding was effective to the improvement in the embrittlement by irradiation. Transmission electron microscope observation revealed that TiN particles precipitated by nitriding acted as a sink for irradiation-induced defects.

For pure Molybdenum carburized in mixed gases of argon and carbon monoxide, microstructural observations were carried out. X-ray diffraction analysis for carburized specimens revealed that brittle - layer hardly formed in the case of low carbon monoxide concentration. Fracture strength of the specimen carburized at 1673 K for 16 h is about 550 MPa higher than that of the un-carburized specimen. SEM observation revealed that with increasing carburizing temperature, the region demonstrating a transgranular fracture mode progressed towards the center of specimen. This result means that the grain boundaries were strengthened by the grain boundary diffusion of carbon and the strength of grain boundaries exceeded that of grain itself.

Internally nitrided dilute W-Ti alloy specimens having a heavily deformed surface microstructure were prepared by a multi-step internal nitriding at 1573-2073 K. Primary nitriding below their recrystallization temperature induced a precipitation of ultrafine TiN particles. After secondary and tertiary nitriding, those precipitates grew into rod-like TiN with a length of 20-60 nm. The recrystallization temperature after nitriding was elevated above 2073 K. The yield strength at 1773 K obtained from nitrided W-0.5 mass% Ti alloy was about 5 times as large as that of the recrystallized specimen. DBTT of the nitrided alloys was about 373 K.

From a viewpoint of heat stress at high temperatures and contact thermal resistance, it is confirmed that the optimal structure is the skeleton structure using Cu substrate on the cooling side, which has excellent heat conductivity and the optimal installation method is to adopt a carbon sheet and a mica sheet to the high temperature side, where Si grease is applied to the low temperature side, under pressurized condition. The power of the developed modules indicated 0.5W in an module and 3.8 W with a SiGe module at 823K, respectively.

Oridinal thermal spray process has developed into two ways, namely, temperature dominated represented by plasma spraying, and velocity dominated represented by HVOF. It is common for both that the particle materials sprayed are basically in melted or half melted condition. New process has developed recently, that is, Cold Spray and Aerosol Deposition. Particle's heating is limited in CS lower than half of the material's melting point. Moreover, exactly no heating is loaded in AD process. Through the investigation on common feature for these three spraying processes, potential of new material process - Particle Deposition, PD - is considered and proposed