Popular music in Japan has been under the overwhelming influence of American, Latin American and European popular music remarkably since 1945, when Japan was defeated in World War II. Beginning with ...gunka and enka at the turn of the century, tracing the birth of hit songs in the record industry in the years preceding the War, and ranging to the adoption of Western genres after the War--the rise of Japanese folk and rock, domestic exoticism as a new trend and J-Pop--Popular Music in Japan is a comprehensive discussion of the evolution of popular music in Japan. In eight revised and updated essays written in English by renowned Japanese scholar Toru Mitsui, this book tells the story of popular music in Japan since the late 19th century when Japan began positively embracing the West.
The pacing of glacial-interglacial cycles during the Quaternary period (the past 2.6 million years) is attributed to astronomically driven changes in high-latitude insolation. However, it has not ...been clear how astronomical forcing translates into the observed sequence of interglacials. Here we show that before one million years ago interglacials occurred when the energy related to summer insolation exceeded a simple threshold, about every 41,000 years. Over the past one million years, fewer of these insolation peaks resulted in deglaciation (that is, more insolation peaks were 'skipped'), implying that the energy threshold for deglaciation had risen, which led to longer glacials. However, as a glacial lengthens, the energy needed for deglaciation decreases. A statistical model that combines these observations correctly predicts every complete deglaciation of the past million years and shows that the sequence of interglacials that has occurred is one of a small set of possibilities. The model accounts for the dominance of obliquity-paced glacial-interglacial cycles early in the Quaternary and for the change in their frequency about one million years ago. We propose that the appearance of larger ice sheets over the past million years was a consequence of an increase in the deglaciation threshold and in the number of skipped insolation peaks.
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IJS, KISLJ, NUK, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
We present an improved search for neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of ^{136}Xe in the KamLAND-Zen experiment. Owing to purification of the xenon-loaded liquid scintillator, we achieved a ...significant reduction of the ^{110m}Ag contaminant identified in previous searches. Combining the results from the first and second phase, we obtain a lower limit for the 0νββ decay half-life of T_{1/2}^{0ν}>1.07×10^{26} yr at 90% C.L., an almost sixfold improvement over previous limits. Using commonly adopted nuclear matrix element calculations, the corresponding upper limits on the effective Majorana neutrino mass are in the range 61-165 meV. For the most optimistic nuclear matrix elements, this limit reaches the bottom of the quasidegenerate neutrino mass region.
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CMK, CTK, FMFMET, IJS, NUK, PNG, UM
Abstract
We report a search for electron antineutrinos at KamLAND with an 8.3−30.8 MeV energy range via the inverse beta decay. In 6.72 kton-yr of KamLAND data, we found 18 neutrino candidates and no ...significant excess over estimated backgrounds. From data interpretation, with the assumption of some supernova relic neutrino spectrum predictions, we give upper flux limits of 60−110 cm
−2
s
−1
(90% CL) in the analysis range and present a model-independent flux. These upper limits are the most stringent for 8−13 MeV region. We also improve on the upper probability limit of
8
B solar neutrinos converting into antineutrinos via the Resonant Spin Flavor Precession with the neutrino magnetic moment. Besides, we could set limits on the annihilation cross-section for light dark matter pairs to neutrino pairs.
•Magnetic moment of Fe, mFe in Sm(Fe1-xCox)12 was determined by synchrotron Mössbauer spectroscopy.•mFe vary in a descending order: 8i > 8j > 8f.•mFe are independent of the Co content because the ...variation is caused by the magneto-volume effect.•Temp. dependence of mFe vary in the order of 8i > 8j > 8f because the enhancements in the exchange coupling strength decrease in the same order.
The relationship between the magnetization and magnetic moment at each Fe site in Sm(Fe1−xCox)12 compounds and their temperature dependence were investigated via synchrotron Mössbauer spectroscopy. The enhancement in the Fe magnetic moments in the Sm(Fe1−xCox)12 compounds with increasing Co content was observed at a similar rate as the increment in their saturation magnetization at 300 K. We found that the magnitudes of the Fe magnetic moments vary in a descending order: 8i > 8j > 8f, and they are independent of the Co content because the variation is caused by the magneto-volume effect. The curvatures of the temperature dependence of the Fe-sublattice magnetic moments are larger and also vary in the order of 8i > 8j > 8f because the enhancements in the exchange coupling strength decrease in the same order.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The KamLAND experiment has determined a precise value for the neutrino oscillation parameter Deltam21(2) and stringent constraints on theta12. The exposure to nuclear reactor antineutrinos is ...increased almost fourfold over previous results to 2.44 x 10(32) proton yr due to longer livetime and an enlarged fiducial volume. An undistorted reactor nuovere energy spectrum is now rejected at >5sigma. Analysis of the reactor spectrum above the inverse beta decay energy threshold, and including geoneutrinos, gives a best fit at Deltam21(2)=7.58(-0.13)(+0.14)(stat) -0.15+0.15(syst) x 10(-5) eV2 and tan2theta12=0.56(-0.07)+0.10(stat) -0.06+0.10(syst). Local Deltachi2 minima at higher and lower Deltam21(2) are disfavored at >4sigma. Combining with solar neutrino data, we obtain Deltam21(2)=7.59(-0.21)+0.21 x 10(-5) eV2 and tan2theta12=0.47(-0.05)+0.06.
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ABSTRACT In the late stages of nuclear burning for massive stars (M > 8 M ), the production of neutrino-antineutrino pairs through various processes becomes the dominant stellar cooling mechanism. As ...the star evolves, the energy of these neutrinos increases and in the days preceding the supernova a significant fraction of emitted electron anti-neutrinos exceeds the energy threshold for inverse beta decay on free hydrogen. This is the golden channel for liquid scintillator detectors because the coincidence signature allows for significant reductions in background signals. We find that the kiloton-scale liquid scintillator detector KamLAND can detect these pre-supernova neutrinos from a star with a mass of 25 M at a distance less than 690 pc with 3 significance before the supernova. This limit is dependent on the neutrino mass ordering and background levels. KamLAND takes data continuously and can provide a supernova alert to the community.
Spinal cord stimulation is a potential therapeutic option for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD)-associated symptoms. Repetitive trans-spinal magnetic stimulation (rTSMS) is a non-invasive and ...safe alternative for stimulation of spinal pathways that has not been studied for therapeutic efficacy in PD. We assessed the benefits of rTSMS on camptocormia, an often treatment-resistant postural abnormality observed in PD patients.
We compared rTSMS to sham stimulation in PD patients with camptocormia in a single-centre, randomised, single-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled study. PD patients with camptocormia were administered a single trial of rTSMS (a train of 40 stimuli) or sham treatment followed 1 week later by the alternate treatment. Primary outcome measure was thoracolumbar spine flexion angle in the standing position immediately after the trial.
Of 320 PD patients examined, 37 had concomitant camptocormia and were randomly assigned to either the rTSMS first group (n=19) or sham first group (n=18). Flexion angle in the standing position decreased by a mean of 10.9° (95% CI 8.1 to 13.65) after rTSMS but remained unchanged after sham stimulation (mean, -0.1°; 95% CI -0.95 to 0.71). The flexion angle while sitting (secondary outcome) decreased by 8.1° (95% CI 5.89 to 10.25) after rTSMS, whereas sham treatment had no significant effect (mean, -0.8°; 95% CI -1.62 to 0.05).
We found an immediate beneficial effect of rTSMS on camptocormia in PD patients. Although the effect was transient, this successful trial justifies further studies to test if repeated rTSMS treatments can induce longer term improvements in camptocormia associated with PD.
UMIN Clinical Trials Registry: UMIN000011495.
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