This paper is a guide to Usborne's "My Reading Library" box of 50 little illustrated books for children, which consists of 14 books from Usborne First Reading Level Three, 16 books from Usborne First Reading Level Four, and 20 books from Usborne Young Reading Series One. The contents are retold stories mainly from Aesop's fables such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Hare and the Tortoise, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and Androcles and the Lion; Grimm brothers' collected folk tales like The Musicians of Bremen, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel etc.; and Hans Christian Andersen's original stories such as The Tin Soldier, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor and the Nightingale, and The Little Mermaid. Charles Perrault's Cinderella and Grimm's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty must be appealing to young readers as the stories of Disney's animated films. Along with these famous tales, Japan's The Inch Prince, China's The Monkey King, Russia's The Little Red Hen, Armenia's The Golden Carpet, Persia's Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Ghana's The Leopard and the Sky God create an international atmosphere, making My Reading Library a charming collection of children's world literature.
According to Usborne Publishing's policy, these books are intended to guide children through the early stages of reading with the help of their parents. The publisher advises the adults to "try to find a little time every day to sit down with your child and read together," which means the above stories are written and illustrated for both children and their parents; regardless of age, the intended readers are native speakers of English. That's why My Reading Library books are full of lively expressions and impressive descriptions; thus they must be more enjoyable for Japanese adults than ordinary graded readers for young students learning English as a foreign language like Compass Classic Readers dealing with the same materials, which tend to be too easy to appreciate. While Usborne's The Boy Who Cried Wolf is an exception that changes the violent ending of the boy being eaten by the wolf into a happy one, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves retains the shocking scenes of how Ali Baba's brother and the thieves were cruelly killed. Hans Christian Andersen would be glad to know that Katie Daynes keeps the sad ending of his masterpiece The Little Mermaid. Modernizing classics, however, is also Usborne's advantage: The Hare and Tortoise and Hansel and Gretel have modern settings so that the reader can sympathize with characters more easily. Everyone cannot help smiling at the newly added scene to the former: "It was a beautiful day. Harry saw some television cameras and did a little running specially for them." Probably adult readers will feel sorry for the poor woodcutter in the latter complaining about "electric fires and plastic furniture," compelled by his new wife to discard his own children.
Among others, I enjoyed Susanna Davidson's humorous version of The Frog Prince with a lot of laughter thanks to her comical changes and Mike Gordon's appropriate illustrations. Also, I recommend Kate Knighton's Sleeping Beauty since her artistic narrative is worth reading as a real fantasy. I bet that not only English-speaking children and their parents but foreign adult learners of English will rediscover charm and attraction in the newly retold books of the classic stories they are so familiar with.

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In Japan, some people believe that RoboCop (1987), one of America's finest sci-fi films, was inspired by Robot Detective (1973), Japanese superhero TV drama comprised of 26 episodes now available at Prime Video. Is it true? Although some advertisements affirm it, both the author Shotaro ISHINOMORI (1939-98) himself and his son Jo ONODERA have actually denied the direct influence on the American counterpart. The truth is, ISHINOMORI, not only the King of Manga whose Cyborg 009 series remains popular, but also the giant creator of Japan's superheroes such as Masked Rider and of course Go-Rangers, the progenitors of Power Rangers, was extremely irritated by the sheer fact that he was NOT internationally acknowledged as the first to come up with the idea of a robot police officer as a superhero. In other words, he was disappointed that Robot Detective had been almost forgotten even in his own homeland, obviously thinking that the quality of the children's program did not meet his satisfaction and preferring his own manga version for young adult readers.
However, the TV original of Robot Detective is truly worth watching, deserving reevaluation among people all over the world. In the drama, Robot Detective K (often called just "K") learns how to get along with his human colleague SHINJO (played passionately by Jiro CHIBA, younger brother of Sonny CHIBA) and his irascible but humane boss Daizo SHIBA, not to mention that he, using both martial arts and powerful weapons, fights a variety of villain robots. Just as charmed by RoboCop Murphy and his partner Anne Lewis, you will be also fascinated by the good example of Japan's male relationships which were to help achieve the "Japan as Number One" position from the late 1970s to the early 90s, whose dominant influence can be seen in RoboCop 3 (1993), the worst in the series because the very American essence of Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece was damaged by the completely different values. While it is not unusual that Robot Detective K is helped spiritually by Japanese women including his "Mother," the huge female robot resembling Buddhist deity of mercy, it is really discouraging to see the once invincible RoboCop saved by a nine-year-old American girl at the climax of the movie.
Having seen the culmination of Japan's economic power, Kaku TAKASHINA (1919-94), the actor who played older detective SHIBA, passed away in the following year. He had made his debut in the 1938 war movie Mud and Soldiers as the First Class Private who is killed in action, saying "For the sake of His Majesty the Emperor." I rediscovered Robot Detective as a drama of Japan's high economic growth by paying more attention to TAKASHINA's marvelous acting which undoubtedly contributes to the immortal merit of this TV program for children as if he had left his secret message of encouragement to the future generations of his country.

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Perovskite oxides containing lanthanides BaCeO₃ and BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ (R = La, Pr, and Gd) were synthesized by pechini method: the calcination of gel precursor consisting of metal ion complexes with citric acid and propylene glycol. Obtained samples were examined by XRD measurement to clarify the crystal structure. BaCeO₃ mainly absorbed ultraviolet light, while all of BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ absorbed visible-light. Furthermore, All of BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ showed higher photocatalytic activity than BaCeO₃ under visible-light irradiation. It was found that perovskite oxides containing rare earths BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ drive as visible-light responsive photocatalysts. This suggests that the band gap of the photocatalyst can be freely controlled by inserting the 4f orbital of the rare earth. Photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue has been investigated in aqueous suspension under artificial sunlight irradiation for the evaluation of these photocatalysts. The relationship between the calcination temperature and remaining impurities in the synthesis of BaCeO₃, a UV-responsive photocatalyst, was clarified by XRD, TG/DTA and IR measurements. However, in the MB dye decomposition test, BaCeO₃ calcined at 1000°C showed the highest photocatalytic activity. This may be the result of the increase in specific surface area due to the control of particle size rather than the presence of impurities, since the presence of impurities, BaCO₃, does not interfere with the photocatalytic activity. In the MB dye decomposition test, all the solid solution samples of BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ showed higher MB decomposition efficiency than BaCeO3. The diffuse reflection spectra suggested that all the BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ samples have a narrower band gap than BaCeO₃. For example, the MB decomposition efficiency of BaCe_0.95Pr_0.05O₃ was 96% with a band gap of 2.46 eV. The visible-light responsive photocatalyst BaCe_0.95R_0.05O₃ (R = La, Pr, and Gd) was synthesized without loss of photocatalytic activity even with a reduced band gap.

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The Diversity Promotion Office of Gunma KOSEN in cooperation with Yakult Gunma Sales Co., Ltd. offered a makeup class for job hunting students in October 2021. It was the first makeup class ever held at Gunma KOSEN, and was the Diversity Promotion Office’s second event following the cooking class in 2019. To avoid spreading of Covid-19, the focus of the class was on skin care rather than makeup. The results of the questionnaire after the class showed that most of the attendants had originally been interested in makeup, that they were satisfied with the class and expected it to be useful for job hunting.

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There is widespread concern that the COVID-19 pandemic will prevent us from doing a variety of things which we used to be able to do. Education at Gunma College could not be free from the impact either. Online instructions took the place of classroom lectures during the greater part of the summer semester in 2020. Requirements for students to go to the next academic year were also relaxed. There were vague concerns about the side effects of those changes above, but what we can see from the Physics I tests for the second graders is that the second graders in 2021 are doing better in physics than those from 2017 to 2019.

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Validness of the stochastic testability proposed by the author is verified. As a result of applying to the ISCAS89 s27 benchmark circuit, the number of test patterns for stuck-at faults is calculated accurately. This shows that the proposed method is valid as a testability.

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The energy level called Fermi level is an important concept in solid-state physics and electronic device engineering. However, terms, symbols, and explanations are different in various documents, and the descriptions are not always unified. In this report the descriptions for Fermi energy, Fermi level and chemical potential in books are investigated. As a result it is confirmed that there was confusion in the usage of these terms.

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In this report it is investigated if the difference in gender of avatars used in virtual space affect the personality of the user and what kind of impact it would have. As a result it is possible to make a hypothesis that "if the gender in the real space and the gender of the avatar in the VR space are different, the user will be affected."

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The author of this work was the emperor's maid. Despite their high status, their reality is unknown. Focusing on the fact that they were the maids of the emperor, when we read the work, I found various discoveries. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the research on the emperor's maid and look for the next task.

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