Titanium and its alloys are useful for implant materials. In this study, porous Ti-Nb-Zr biomaterials were successfully synthesized by powder metallurgy using a NH4HCO3 as space holder and TiH2 as foaming agent. Consolidation of powder was accomplished by spark plasma sintering process(SPS) at 850˚C under 30 MPa condition. The effect of high energy milling time on pore size and distribution in Ti-Nb-Zr alloys with space holder(NH4HCO3) was investigated by optical microscope(OM), scanning electron microscope(SEM) & energy dispersive spectroscopy(EDS) and X-ray diffraction(XRD). Microstructure observation revealed that, a lot of pores were uniformly distributed in the Ti-Nb-Zr alloys as size of about 30-100μm using mixed powder and milled powders. In addition, the pore ratio was found to be about 5-20% by image analysis, using an image analyzer(Image Pro Plus). Furthermore, the physical properties of specimens were improved with increasing milling time as results of hardness, relative density, compressive strength and Young's modulus. Particularly Young's modulus of the sintered alloy using 4h milled powder reached 52 GPa which is similar to bone elastic modulus.

Herein, we discuss the in situ measurement of the electron temperature in the ionosphere/plasmasphere by means of DC Langmuir probes. Major instruments which have been reported are a conventional DC Langmuir probe, whose probe voltage is swept; a pulsed probe, which uses pulsed bias voltage; a rectification probe, which uses sinusoidal signal; and a resonance cone probe, which uses radio wave propagation. The content reviews past observations made with the instruments above. We also discuss technical factors that should be taken into account for reliable measurement, such as problems related to the contamination of electrodes and the satellite surface. Finally, we discuss research topics to be studied in the near future.

In this paper we examine a total of 16 dipolarization events that were observed by THEMIS spacecraft in space close togeosynchronous orbit, r < ~ 7 RE. For the identified events, we examine the characteristics of the plasma flows and associatedbubbles as defined based on pV5/3, where p is the plasma pressure and V the volume of unit magnetic flux. First, we find thatthe flow speed in the near-geosynchronous region is very low, mostly within a few tens of km/s, except for a very few events forwhich the flow can rise up to ~200 km/s but only very near the dipolarization onset time. Second, the bubble parameter, pV5/3,decreases by a much smaller factor after the dipolarization onset than for the events in the farther out tail region. We suggestthat the magnetic dipolarization in the near-geosynchronous region generates or is associated with only very weak plasmabubbles. Such bubbles in the near-geosynchronous region would penetrate earthward only by a small distance before theystop at an equilibrium position or drift around the Earth.