In Frontiers in Education Committee, we develop activity through announcement and discussion in Meetings on Frontiers in Education mainly. Its purpose is to contribute to information sharing about new development of higher education and various solutions to problem such as liberal arts or SDGs.

The main objective of HEE is to examine the direction in which electrical engineering should move in the years ahead by studying the past. The historical study of this field constitutes the various bases of technologies that we should develop. It is just the starting point from which we should approach the future. This paper introduces recent activities of the committee.

This report briefly presents activities of Technical Committee on Electromagnetic Theory (EMT), IEEJ. Our committee is now implementing the activities on 2019, which includes three times of the technical committee meeting and four times of technical committee conference. The report also contains three research topics presented in the technical committee meeting on EMT.

The technical committee on electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) was established under the Fundamentals and Materials Society (FMS), the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Japan (IEEJ) in 1999. Since then, researches and investigations related to this field have been conducted actively in the committee. In this report, trends and current activities in the research field of electromagnetic compatibility are summarized.

Recent technologies using electrical discharges, plasma, and pulsed power have been used in various areas involving high-voltage electric circuits/machines, organic/inorganic materials processing, environmental protection, biology, medicine, nuclear fusion, propulsion, high-energy particle beams, and high-power electromagnetic wave. This review describes recent progress in electrical discharges, plasma, and pulsed power technologies.

This article reports the topics of the field in light application and visual science, the activities of the technical committee (TC-LAV) and the introduction of research of technical meeting on light application and visual science of IEEJ

The IEEJ Technical Committee on Instrumentation and Measurement has explored key technologies in this field through technical meetings and research committees. Its recent activities and some leading research results are presented.

This is a review of the 50^th Anniversary Symposium on Electrical and Electronic Insulating Materials and Application in Systems hosted by Technical Committee on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation (TC-DEI) in IEEJ in order to overview the latest trend and front line in this research field. The proceedings booklet in Japanese, with English abstract and figure captions for each presentation, will be available at the IEEJ office.

In this article, we report current status of superconducting joint technology development, which is currently one of the hottest topics in the superconductor research area, especially towards realization of ultra-high resolution NMR spectroscopy with a magnetic resonance frequency beyond 1.0 GHz.

The author explained the activities of the Technical Committee on Magnetics of IEEJ, focusing on the practical applications of high-frequency magnetic materials. The main topics are novel high-frequency magnetic materials and their measurement technique for microwave frequency range.

Whistling has become more popular in recent years. “Whistling competitions” are being held in Japan since 2005. However, it can be difficult to teach some people how to whistle. One of the reasons is that theoretical information, including clear descriptions about how to whistle is scant. A better understanding of the principle would be beneficial to both the trainer and the trainee. In the present study, the glottis opening area during whistling was measured via endoscopic imaging data. The amplitude characteristics of the vocal tract were determined by measuring the glottis opening area during whistling and calculating the transfer function of the vocal tract in conjunction with that area. By considering the glottis opening area, we could logically explain the fact that, in reality, some notes corresponding to theoretically calculated resonance frequencies did not occur, and we could obtain a calculation result that was close to the physical model. Furthermore, because the calculation result close to the physical model was only associated with certain glottis opening areas, it is evident that not only the shape of the vocal tract and the lip opening area, but also the glottis opening area is an important component of sound production during human whistling.

Cancer treatment by ultra-short pulse high electric field is one of new biological applications. This work focuses on difference of effects caused at applying the pulse to different types of cells for realizing cancer treatment via ultra-short pulse electric field. In this study, by employing HeLa S3 of a cancer cell and budding yeast of a eukaryotic cell as samples, difference of effects given to each cell via the pulse was investigated. As a result, it was found that yeast cells are difficult to cause cell death compared to HeLa cells under the condition that the energy supplying to cells is equal.

A compact, semiconductor switched Marx generator has been developed. It consists of 12 modules, each has separate MOSFET switches for charging and discharging. This pulsed high-voltage generator has been designed to drive dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) under atmospheric pressure. The experimental evaluation of the circuit performance and its coupling with the DBD load are reported.

“Carbonization” were detected as the precursor phenomena on the insulation burning of rotating machine, and we have studied the generation condition for higher dV/dt of the inverter surge. We built the experimental setup of elemental model, which could simulate the steeper surge from SiC device inverter and construct the stator insulation system inside the motor core to control the insulation sheets configuration. By revealing the quantitative conditions of the carbonization generation, we verified that the voltage to suppress the carbonization generation depended on the location of the mold release layer. Therefore, we developed the guideline of insulation design to prevent the carbonization for the steeper inverter surge.

Novel conductive polymer aluminum solid electrolytic capacitors were fabricated using DC etched aluminum foil and various polyhydric alcohols, such as erythritol, sorbitol, and polyglycerol (PG), as secondary dopant to improve electrical conductivity of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(4-styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). It was found that both excellent capacitor characteristics and breakdown voltage were obtained by filling the low resistance PEDOT:PSS into the etching pit of the aluminum foil, where equivalent series resistance (ESR), capacitance usable rate (C.R.), and breakdown voltage of the capacitor fabricated using the PEDOT:PSS containing 96.5 wt% of PG were 0.023 Ω, 89%, and 210 V, respectively. The results indicated that the filling state of PEDOT:PSS and polyhydric alcohol inside the etching pit was crucially important for the capacitor characteristics and breakdown voltage of the PEDOT:PSS aluminum solid electrolytic capacitors.

ZnO is a fine non-linear material and used in several electrical devices as surge arrestors. ZnO micro particles showed varistor properties. These ZnO micro particles were stressed with over current and their grains and grain boundaries were observed by SEM observations. Over current stress showed changes in the ZnO grain boundaries. We found melted metal oxide on grain boundaries which were not present before the over current stress experiment.