We aimed to verify the effectiveness of real-time reverse transcription (rRT) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detecting cases of modified measles (M-Me) and for predicting super-spreader candidates through the experience of a measles outbreak dominated by M-Me in Yamagata, Japan, during March–April 2017. We applied rRT-PCR to specimens from 35 cases of M-Me, nine cases of typical measles (T-Me) and nine cases of prodromal stage of T-Me (P-Me). From rRT-PCR among the M-Me cases, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) showed the highest positive rate (80.0%), followed by throat swab (48.6%), urine (33.3%) and serum (3.1%). The negative result of PBMC in M-Me cases was recovered by the result of a throat swab. In specimens of PBMC, throat swab and urine, M-Me group showed the significantly higher cycle of threshold (i.e., lower viral load) in the rRT-PCR than T-Me and P-Me groups, respectively. Furthermore, three super-spreaders in T-Me or P-Me showed an extremely low cycle of threshold in their throat swab specimens. rRT-PCR using PBMC and throat swab might be helpful for clinical management and measles control by certain detection of M-Me cases and by predicting super-spreading events resulting from measles cases with the high viral load.

The groundmass of andesitic dykes at Sezaki, southwest Japan, has trachytic texture and contains microscopic shear zones. The shear zones comprise a conjugate pair formed by flattening of the solidifying dyke rock, probably caused by the magma pressure of the still molten part of the dyke. This pressure shortened the solidifying rock perpendicular to the dyke margins and caused it to extrude parallel to the magma flow direction. The groundmass shears indicate that locally the magma flowed 60° upward in the dykes. It is concluded that while groundmass shears are a useful indicator of flow direction in dykes, phenocryst alignment in dykes is strongly influenced by magma-pressure flattening and thus may be a poor indicator of flow direction

We have developped a software of Star-Image-Extractor (SIE) which works as the on-board real-time image processor. It detects and extracts only the object data from raw image data. SIE has two functions: reducing image data and providing data for the satellite's high accuracy attitude control system.

Nano-JASMINE is a nano-size astrometry satellite that will carry out astrometry measurements of nearby bright stars for more than one year. This will enable us to detect annual parallaxes of stars within 300 pc from the Sun. We expect the satellite to be launched as a piggy-back system as early as in 2009 into a Sun synchronized orbit at the altitude between 500 and 800 km. Being equipped with a beam combiner, the satellite has a capability to observe two different fields simultaneously and will be able to carry out HIPPARCOS-type observations along great circles. A 5 cm all aluminum made reflecting telescope with a aluminum beam combiner is developed. Using the on-board CCD controller, experiments with a real star have been executed. A communication band width is insufficient to transfer all imaging data, hence, we developed an onboard data processing system that extracts stellar image data from vast amount of imaging data. A newly developed 2K × 1K fully-depleted CCD will be used for the mission. It will work in the time delayed integration(TDI) mode. The bus system has been designed with special consideration of the following two points. Those are the thermal stabilization of the telescope and the accuracy of the altitude control. The former is essential to achieve high astrometric accuracies, on the order of 1 mas. Therefore relative angle of the beam combiner must be stable within 1 mas. A 3-axes control of the satellite will be realized by using fiber gyro and triaxial reaction wheel system and careful treatment of various disturbing forces.

Shell-like supernova remnants (SNRs) are primary candidates for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays. However, among the known SNRs (about 220), only a small fraction has been known to exhibit the synchrotron X-ray spectrum, that is considered to be a piece of evidence for high energy particle acceleration. Synchrotron X-ray emitting SNRs are known to be systematically radio-quiet compared to the SNRs that do not emit synchrotron X-rays. Therefore, most synchrotron X-ray emitting SNR candidates may have escaped detection in the previous systematic radio surveys. On the other hand, hard X-ray surveys are effective to search for synchrotron X-ray emitting SNRs, because of its penetration power. Thus we have searched for SNRs in the ASCA Galactic Plane Survey data, the first Galactic imaging survey in $>$2 keV, and discovered 14 candidates. Deep follow-up observations with ASCA, XMM, or Chandra on 5 of them revealed 2 sources to be synchrotron X-ray emitting SNRs. Furthermore we confirmed non-thermal X-ray spectra from the other 3 sources, though the origin is yet unknown. We report the observational results and discuss the X-ray origin.

Variability of the light curves of the short-period eclipsing binary system GR Tau (, almost-contact binary) is studied. It is found that GR Tau experienced both the state which is characterized by asymmetric light curves and the state characterized by symmetrical light curves.

The High Energy Transient Explorer 2 is a small scientific satellite designed to detect and localize gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The coordinates of GRBs detected by HETE-2 will be distributed to interested ground-based observers within seconds of burst detection, thereby allowing detailed observations of the initial phases of GRBs. HETE-2 was launched successfully on October 9, 2000. The GRB positions will start to be delivered after a few months of the complete testing and calibration of the spacecraft system and the science instruments.

The complex radio source Sgr A is embedded in a region near our Galactic Center. The dynamical center of our Galaxy is considered to be Sgr A*, the compact non-thermal radio source. Dynamical mass within ~0.1 pc from Sgr A* has been estimated to be ~ 3×106 M⊙. This places Sgr A* to be a candidate of a massive blackhole (Eckart and Genzel, 1997 and reference therein).

On 1993 August 20, we observed the Rho-Oph dark cloud and detected hard X-rays from Class I sources (Koyama et al.(1994), Kamata et al.(1997)). One of the sources (EL29) showed a flare-like variability, while another (WL6) exhibited sinusoidal variation with no large spectral change. The later would be due to a spin of the protostar. The sinusoidal period of about 1 day is shorter than spin periods of TTSs of ~3-7 day.

In the X-ray band, we can see weak and extended X-rays along the Galactic plane and near the Galactic Bulge region, although these regions are dominated by many point sources (e.g., Warwick et al. 1985). The Tenma satellite discovered conspicuous emission lines from selected regions near the Galactic plane (Koyama et al. 1986). These lines are identified with K-shell line from He-like Fe, hence the extended emission is attributable to optically thin hot plasmas with temperatures of several keV. The origin of the thin hot plasmas, however, have been debatable, because no class of X-ray objects shows such high temperature plasma emissions. To investigate the origin of the extended X-rays, we are currently observing the Galactic plane regions with the ASCA satellite. In this paper, we report on the ASCA results: the hard X-ray imaging and spectroscopy of the hot plasma in the Galaxy.

The region south of the reflection nebula NGC1333 in Perseus is an active star forming region including numerous Herbig-Haro objects and at least 5 protostar candidates with molecular outflows and far-infrared emission. It has been actively studied in various wave bands (e.g. Aspin et al 1994 and references therein). We observed this region with ASCA with the primary objective to detect X-rays from the protostars embedded deep in the molecular cloud.

One major objective of our ASCA Galactic Plane Survey Project (AGPSP) is, utilizing the wide and high energy band (up to 10 keV) X-ray imaging capability and the high spectral resolving power of ASCA, to search possible X-ray SNRs in the Galactic inner disk. The observation of the field including G352.7-0.1 reported in this paper, was performed on 1996 March 14 during the first AO4 survey. We report on the X-ray SNR G352.7-0.1 found in AGPSP. G352.7-0.1 is one of the radio SNRs (Green 1996), and is classified as a shell-like SNR with the size of 8' x 6'.

The valencies of the Bi and Cu ions in Bi2Sr2(Ca1−x Yx)Cu2Oy were determined separately by a coulometric titration technique. The Cu valency decreased monotonically from 2.16 to 2.04 with increasing Y content over the range from 0 to 1. Superconductivity occurred for Cu valency greater than 2.1. The Bi valency was also found to decrease from +3.12 to +2.99 as the Y content increased. It leveled off at ∼ +3.0 for the Y content larger than 0.8. This change in the Bi valency was correlated with the change in the structural modulation period and with its transformation from an incommensurate to a commensurate state.