This article challenges the prevailing narrative surrounding the Japanese manufacturing industry in the post-World War II era, which predominantly centers on large corporations and male engineers. It sheds light on the vital role played by Japanese housewives in shaping product innovation. It argues that the exclusion of consumers, particularly women, from existing industrial models carries a gendered dimension. By presenting Japanese housewives as active stakeholders who defy stereotypes and enhance their lives by expressing their opinions, we aim to offer a fresh perspective on innovation and product development. The article specifically focuses on the electric appliance industry and draws upon a diverse range of sources, including women’s magazines and corporate archives, to uncover the hidden aspects of gender within the Japanese economic miracle. It shows that housewives have played an active role in product innovation and that women’s magazines have made this possible by acting as intermediaries between women and companies.

In this proceeding paper, we introduce the recent results of Galactic maser astrometry by mainly focusing on those obtained with Japanese VLBI array VERA. So far we have obtained parallaxes for 86 sources including preliminary results, and combination with the data obtained with VLBA/BeSSeL provides astrometric results for 159 sources. With these most updated results we conduct preliminary determinations of Galactic fundamental parameters, obtaining R0 = 8.16 ± 0.26 kpc and Θ0 = 237 ± 8 km/s. We also derive the rotation curve of the Milky Way Galaxy and confirm the previous results that the rotation curve is fairly flat between 5 kpc and 16 kpc, while a remarkable deviation is seen toward the Galactic center region. In addition to the results on the Galactic structure, we also present brief overviews on other science topics related to masers conducted with VERA, and also discuss the future prospect of the project.

An amorphous p-type conductive oxide semiconductor was created based on a mother crystalline material, a p-type conductive ZnRh2O4 spinel. The amorphous film of ZnRh2O4 was deposited by an rf sputtering method. Seebeck coefficient was positive, +78 μVK-1, indicating that major carrier is a positive hole. A moderate electrical conductivity (2 S cm-1 at room temperature) for a p-type semiconductor was observed. Optical band gap was estimated to be 2.1 eV. P-n junction diodes with a structure of Au / a-ZnRh2O4 / a-InGaZnO4 / ITO fabricated on glass substrates, operated with a good rectifying characteristics, a rectification current ratio at ± 5V of ∼103. The threshold voltage was 2.1 eV, which corresponds to the band gap energy of the amorphous ZnRh2O4. This is the first discovery of a p-type amorphous oxide and the demonstration of p-n junction all composed of amorphous oxide semiconductors.

Room temperature operation of UV LED is realized for the first time using a hetero p-n junction composed of transparent conductive oxides, p-SrCu2O2 and n-ZnO. Ni/SrCu2O2/ZnO/ITO multi-layered film was epitaxially grown on an extremely flat YSZ (111) surface by a PLD. The grown films were processed by a conventional photolithography, followed by reactive ion etching to fabricate p-n junction diode. The resultant device exhibited rectifying I-V characteristics inherent to p-n junction whose turn-on voltage was about 1.5V. A relatively sharp electro-luminescence band centered at 382nm was generated when applying the forward bias voltage larger than the turn-on voltage of 3V. The red shift in the EL peak was noticed from that of photo-luminescence (377nm), which was most likely due to the difference in the excited state density between the emission processes. The EL band is attributed to transition in ZnO, probably to that associated with electron-hole plasma. The photo-voltage was also generated when the p-n junction was irradiated with UV light of which energy coincided with both exciton and band-to-band transitions in ZnO.

Patterned KTiOPO4 (KTP) films were successfully synthesized through metallo-organics using ultraviolet (uv) patterning. A homogeneous precursor solution was prepared by the reaction control of (nBuO)2P(O) (OH), Ti(OEt)4, and KOEt in ethanol. The solubility of the KTP precursor films in ethanol changed with uv irradiation because of the polymerization of KTP precursor. The patterned KTP precursor films crystallized to single-phase KTP after heat treatment at 600 °C for 2 h. The patterned films were found to be exactly stoichiometric KTP.