The paper relates to the improvement of engineering ethics education using class questionnaires. Firstly, the applied questionnaire design and widely conducted surveys were overviewed. Secondly, the obtained results based on the class data as a unit and on each responded student as a unit were quantitatively compared, followed by the analysis on the observed student change from learning. Finally, by showing the self-assessment of actual class instructed, the dendrogram analysis method was proposed which could improve each instructor's teaching plan. Throughout the paper, various concrete plans and hypotheses for educational improvement were proposed.

A learning system of C-Language that consists of some freewares such as C-language compiler, DOS emulators, some batch files and configuration files, has been newly proposed to learn introductory C-language. A non-official graphic library for C-language has been introduced to the system to motivate student programming. Two DOS emulators have also been introduced into the system to run old applications such as this compiler on some later versions of Windows. This system is effective to interest more students than learning only ANSI C-language standard. Furthermore the system is constructed on a portable storage medium to use the same programming environment inside and outside of the university. This system enables the students to study programming in the same procedure even if they use a various PCs with different equipment configurations. Thus, this system was also suggested to be practical in Active-Learning.

From the background where educational available techniques related to ICT with computer programming have been arranged, an example of IoT implementation is experimentally conducted as the teaching materials. The web application is IoT performing remote monitoring and control such as switch operation of the commercial power supply and the live line parameters to watch the voltage, current, power consumption. The http protocol software consisted of web front-end and back-end is based on JavaScript with Node.js and Socket.io in order to allow students to understand a principle easily of the two-way communication. The hardware and software system can be set with simple and easy machine parts for students to learn the IoT implementation.

An electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) is a highly effective system for a measurement of surface voltage distribution. We have been working on the development of the EFM which enables to measure surface voltage in the range from +/-0.1 V up to +/-2 kV with a high spatial resolution better than 10 µm in diameter under atmospheric environment. The EFM is able to scan a wide area larger than tens of mm. However, since the EFM employs a non-contacting measurement method and we expect a wide scanning range as well, the distance between a sensor tip (ST) and a sample under test (SUT) is always a very critical issue. We have successfully developed a new methodology with which we can always keep an equal distance d between ST and SUT automatically throughout a measurement process. Since the EFM also employs a field nullification technology for the electric field between ST and SUT, the EFM keeps monitoring the voltage difference between ST and SUT. This methodology utilizes the information of aforementioned voltage difference for controlling the distance to be always equal. We have confirmed that we can control the d with a resolution as good as 1 µm throughout a measurement.

Whistling competitions have been held regularly in Japan in recent years, and some prize-winning whistlers have established music classrooms to teach musical whistling. The principle of sound production in human whistling is not well-known. A good understanding of the principle would be very beneficial to both the trainer and the trainee. The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of the non-circularity of lip opening in the whistle on the volume in order to ascertain the validity of the description of the whistle instruction book. When the ellipticity of the opening of the lip plate of the human whistling model is varied, the pitch frequency and volume of the generated sound are measured. Based on the relationship between the ellipticity and the volume of sound generated, the whistle instruction book described based on experience was supported by physical experiments.

To develop a sterilization method for controlling post-harvest stem-end rot of mango, we examined to sterilize fungi on peduncle by using the dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). Additionally, to investigate the sterilization factors, we performed sterilization against stem-end rot on agar medium by using the DBD generated in air, argon gas or oxygen gas. It was found that the DBD can sterilize fungi with high probability. Ultra-violet ray and O₃ don’t contribute to the sterilization. High energy electrons, and radicals such as O and OH play an essential role for the sterilization.

Increasing the surface flashover voltage of the internal insulation spacer is important to reduce the size of gas insulated switchgear (GIS). The authors are developing a new nanocomposite insulating material that contributes to the miniaturization of GIS spacers. In this paper, we investigated the effect of various nanofillers added to epoxy composites on the impulse partial discharge inception voltage (PDIV) characteristics in the wedge gap of SF₆ gas. As a new insulating material, we have created a nano-micro composite (NMC) in which 1 vol% of nano-scale silica, titania, and strontium titanate particles are mixed in micro-composite (MC) added with µ size silica. The NMC was sandwiched between a rod and plate electrode, and positive discharge voltage was applied to the rod electrode in SF₆ at 0.5 MPa to measure partial discharge inception voltage PDIV. As a result, the impulse PDIV of any type of NMC was increased by about 4% over the impulse PDIV of MC. It was shown that the PDIV values estimated by volume time theory were in good agreement with the measured values. It is concluded that this increase in PDIV with the addition of the nanofillers is brought by deep electron traps formed by the nanofillers.

It is well known that magnetic properties deteriorate and iron losses increase due to strains induced in motor cores made of electrical steel sheets during those manufacturing process. We have developed a thermal measurement system of the iron loss distributions with a thermography camera in order to clarify the deterioration degree of the magnetic properties depending on different processing methods. In this paper, firstly the iron loss distributions in rectangular specimen of the electrical steel sheet cut with different cutting methods are measured with the thermal measurement system and those results are compared. Three cutting methods are used in this investigation; the wire electric discharge cut, laser cut and water jet processing. Also effect of lamination method is investigated by using the samples welded after processed with the wire electric discharge cutting to be a rectangular sheet. It was shown that the variations of the iron loss distributions in width direction were measurable with the presented method and the largest degradation occurred around welding position.

Transient magnetic fields due to collision electrostatic discharges (ESDs) between charged spherical electrodes having a diameter of 30 mm at a charging voltage from 600 V are measured in the time domain with a magnetic near-field probe. A waveform correction method based on the response of time domain reflectometry (TDR) to the magnetic field probe is proposed. The method is validated by a comparison with a theoretical waveform of the magnetic far-field derived from a dipole model consisting of image charges of the spherical electrodes just before the ESD happens.

The two-dimensional density distributions of electrons and neutral vapor in vacuum arcs under type-1 and type-2 anode-spot modes were measured using a Shack-Hartmann method. The electron density for type 2 was higher than type 1 by a factor of about three, while the neutral density was found to be almost the same between both types.