Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is less restrictive for examinees than other brain function imaging methods such as positron emission tomography or functional magnetic resonance imaging. In addition, fixation of the head and recumbence on a special device during measurement are unnecessary with NIRS. Biofeedback training (BFT) elucidates the importance of mental training, and monitors and encourages the learning of psycho-physiological control necessary for peak performance. Electromyography of examinees' rectus femoris muscles and nearinfrared spectroscopy were simultaneously conducted to investigate the relationship between BFT and local cerebral blood flow. The influence of a kicking motion on brain functioning was confirmed. These findings suggest that BFT is effective in activating working memory.

This paper provides the average and maximum distances to the first and second nearest vertices of Archimedean tilings. Distance is measured as the Euclidean distance. The distances in Archimedean tilings are useful for location analysis. The average distance can be used as a criterion of efficiency, whereas the maximum distance can be used as a criterion of equity. As an application to location analysis, we consider bi-objective problems where two distances are minimized. The result shows that tilings other than three regular tilings can be Pareto optimal.

We study the (near or close to) ground state distribution of N softly repelling particles trapped in the interior of a spherical box. The charges mutually interact via an inverse power law potential of the form 1/r^γ. We study three regimes in which the charges form an single spherical shell at the edge of the box (γ = 1), a series of concentric shells of increasing density (γ = 2) and γ = 12 for which the charges form shells with a more uniform charge distribution. We conduct numerical simulations for clusters containing up to 5000 charges and compare charge density across the system with continuum limit results. The agreement between numerical (discrete) results and the continuum limit is found to improve with increasing N. These findings are accompanied by a visual gallery of some of the low energy ground states found by simulated annealing.

We propose a method that uses three-dimensional data to directly determine the pores (holes) in the skeleton of a spherical radiolarian. Our goal is to automatically determine both the number and the distribution of the pores. We used a set of grid points on a spherical surface to approximate the skeletal structure, which was obtained from a micro X-ray CT scan. Next, we counted the number of pores by using an algorithm for counting clusters on a grid. Finally, we used Voronoi tessellation to determine the distribution of the pores. For noisy data, a smoothing filter was applied before the procedure. We applied our method to three real data sets, and the results showed that our method worked well.

Much of early research on chaos from the viewpoint of physics was performed using spatially confined convective systems. In spatially extended convective systems, on the other hand, spatiotemporal chaos occurs. However, there is no unified definition for the term spatiotemporal chaos as for chaos. To unify definition, a property common to the three kinds of spatiotemporal chaos observed in electroconvection of nematic liquid crystals is presented.

A novel concept based on the golden ratio φ, where the cumulative probability of the Fibonacci numbers coincides with the reciprocal of φ, is presented for discrete probability distributions. In addition to the binomial, Poisson, and geometrical distributions, the Benford-type as well as the inverse power distributions are considered. For the latter, in the limit of n → ∞ (n being a parameter of the present distribution), the value of the power is found to approach the fractal dimension of the golden tree. Finally, examples being close surprisingly to the golden distribution are shown for the analysis of the word spectra of texts written in English.

In recent years, electric vehicles (EVs) have gained prominence because of its reduction in CO₂ emissions and its departure from dependence on oil. As an increasing number of EV models are becoming commercially available, their popularity is expected to grow. Ongoing efforts to improve EV performance have not addressed inadequacies in their driving range, which is approximately 160 km. This is an issue particularly on highways in cases of long-distance driving. Hence, this research focuses on the EV support infrastructure of charging facilities on highways and proposes a mathematical model to estimate the number of EVs arriving at the charging facilities. Moreover, the model is applied to Japanese highway networks and its validity is examined. We change the number of power-feed intervals and infrastructure facilities and evaluate the various parameters to estimate the required number of EV charging facilities.

The establishment and maintenance of characteristic cellular morphology is especially important in the nervous system, in which neurons make connections with specific targets, thereby enabling the processing of information. The axonal pattern is crucial in determining the target cells, and is controlled by extracellular molecules, called axon guidance molecules. In culture, isolated neurons are capable of extending the axon and establishing mature neuronal morphology without particular cell-extrinsic cues. Molecular systems that control this cell-autonomous process remain to be elucidated. In this paper, we summarize the cellular processes of axonal patterning and some of the intracellular molecular mechanisms that contribute to maintain the axon morphology.