New record of family of arhynchobdellida leeches (Orobdellidae) from Gageodo Island is presented. We have surveyed for land leeches in Korea from July to September in 2011 and found 1 species. This is Orobdella tsushimensis Nakano, 2011, reported for the first time in Korean Peninsula. This species gets the following characteristics: IV unianulate; 1/2+5 annuli between gonopores; bottle-shaped gastroporal duct; and epididymides in XVII–XIX. According to their morphological features, the diagnosis of O. tsushimensis is slightly emended. Phylogenetic analyses using mitochondrial COI, tRNACys, tRNAMet, 12SrDNA, tRNAVal and 16SrDNA markers show that the Orobdella specimen from Gageodo Isl. and O. tsushimensis from Tsushima Island, Japan, form a monophyletic clade and also confirm the identification of the Orobdella specimens from Gageodo Isl.

A new material was developed to achieve improvement of heat durability, improvement of wear resistance, stability of friction coefficient and reduction in aggression to counterpart, because it is difficult to maintain braking properties by using currently available materials in the train wagons used for high-speed transportation. As a result, the new material showed a stable wear resistance even in the speed range of 350km/h, where improvement was also confirmed in reduction of aggression to counterpart material by more than approximately 10%. This development was adopted for the brake lining in the Taiwan High Speed Rail project.

WC-TiC-TaC binderless cemented carbide was oxidized under low partial pressure of oxygen (50ppm) at 873K for 1 to 20 h. Surface roughness was measured using atomic force microscope, and effect of TiC amount on oxidation behavior of the carbide was investigated. WC phase was oxidized more easily than WC-TiC-TaC solid solution phase. With an increase in TiC amount, WC-TiC-TaC phase increased and the oxidation resistance of the carbide increased.

In 1957, the first magnetic disk drive compatible with a movable head was introduced as an external file memory device for computer system. Since then, magnetic disks have been improved by increasing the recording density, which has brought about the development of a high performance thin film magnetic head. The thin film magnetic head has a magnetic circuit on a ceramic substrate using IC technology. The physical property of the substrate material is very important because it influences the tribology of head/disk interface and also manufacturing process of the head. -TiC ceramics, so called ALTIC, is known to be one of the best substrate materials which satisfies this property requirement. Even though the head is not in direct contact with the disk, frequent instantaneous contacts are unavoidable due to its high rotating speed and the close gap between them. This may cause damage in the magnetic recording media and, thus, it is very important that the magnetic head has a good wear resistance. -TiC ceramics has an excellent tribological property in head/disk interface. Manufacturing process of thin film head is similar to that of IC, which requires extremely smooth and flat surface of the substrate. The substrate must be readily sliced into the heads without chipping. -TiC ceramics has excellent machineability and mechanical properties. -TiC ceramics was first developed at Nippon Tungsten Co. as cutting tool materials in 1968, which was further developed to be used as the substrate materials for thin film head in collaboration with Sumitomo Special Metals Co., Ltd. in 1981. Today, we supply more than 60% of the substrates for thin film head market in the world. In this paper, we would like to present the sintering process of -TiC ceramics and its property in detail.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relation between conservative loan loss accounting practice of banks, defined as accounting behavior that increases loan loss allowances against expected credit losses, and bank lending. Furthermore, we specify the macroeconomic conditions reflecting debtors’ borrowing environments and analyze how these conditions affect the relation between conservative loan loss allowances and bank lending. Although existing literature reports that accounting conservatism has a direct effect on non-financial firms’ investment behavior, there is little evidence about an effect of conservatism on banks’ lending behavior. By exploiting data showing the links between individual Japanese firms and their individual lenders to control both loan demand and supply, we estimate OLS regressions to test the relationships among conservative loan loss allowance, bank lending, and macroeconomic conditions using a unique dataset containing bank–firm–year observations between 2001 and 2013. We find banks that have conservative loan loss allowances tend to provide fewer loans to firms with financing needs when macroeconomic conditions are good and these conservative banks are likely to provide more loans to firms when macroeconomic conditions are bad. Our findings suggest that reflecting expected credit loss into loan loss allowances can mitigate the procyclical behavior of banks.