This is a guide to the full set of 16-level APRICOT's Springboard Readers, which is advertised in Japan as "picture books read among Australia elementary school children in a literacy program." The three characteristics of this series (128 little books) are as follows: 1) Although there are many levels, all books are of the same make: 16-page pamphlets with either full-color illustrations for fictional stories, or color photos for nonfiction. 2) These books are for children of all races, including the handicapped like people using wheelchairs or hearing aids: Reflecting the Australian society of diverse cultures, some of the illustrations and photographs show not only white people and Aboriginals but also many people of oriental origins. 3) As Australian graded readers, many books deal with Australian things, especially animals native to the large country: Interestingly, the protagonists of some animal stories are kangaroos, koalas, wombats, emus, platypuses and crocodiles, all of which are also dealt in nonfictional counterparts. Compared with other ordinary graded readers, these Australian stories written for the series might be more humorous but rather monotonous with no unexpected endings. However, the Springboard readers can be recommended to those who are interested in Australia and want to go there someday.

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Kyotaro NISHIMURA (1930-2022), one of Japan's greatest mystery novelists, was also one of the last students at Tokyo Army Cadet School, who would have died young for the Emperor if the war against the Allies had continued. Before revealing this fact in his autobiography The War for a 15 Year-Old (15-Sai no Sensou) in 2017, NISHIMURA had got more and more earnestly engaged in writing novels about the Pacific War, where he severely criticized General Tojo again and again as a vicious leader of the Japanese Military as well as its inhuman Tokko suicide attacks, while idealizing American counterpart's humanitarianism. Which shows that NISHIMURA proved to be a typical Japanese intellectual deeply influenced by American ideals. In fact, in his last novel published in August, 2022, he confessed that Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) was his favorite movie.

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On March 17, 2023, the long-awaited Shin Kamen Rider or Shin Masked Rider, directed by Hideaki ANNO (1960-), Japan's leading animator and filmmaker, was finally released. As a big fan of Kamen Rider as well as ANNO's legendary Evangelion series, I went to see the movie, only to find it disappointing. Contrary to my ideal Kamen Rider image, ANNO's new / true (which are the meanings of the Japanese word shin) Masked Rider turned out to be so feeble, just as the manly character of Susumu KODAI was changed into such a tearful weakling by Harutoshi FUKUI in the 21st century reboot version of Space Battleship Yamato. Their good intentions are clear: reviewing Japan's militarism during WWII, both ANNO and FUKUI tried re-creating the famous characters, eliminating the belligerent elements they firmly believed to be bad. Although their attitudes might be politically correct, the results would be boring with anticlimaxes, while the cinema audience really wanted to see the heroes' brave fights with great determination. Shotaro ISHINOMORI (1938-98), the late manga artist who designed the superhero, would have supported ANNO's Shin Kamen Rider, because he was possessed by the same pacific belief as a typical Japanese postwar democrat. Just like ANNO, I (1966-) was fortunate enough to enjoy the first Kamen Rider series, from the very first episode aired on April 3, 1971 to the last of Kamen Rider V3, which ended on February 9, 1974, when the true identity of Shocker and Deathtron's boss proved to be Satan himself. Which means Hideaki ANNO turned the Devil into a human being named Ichiro MIDORIKAWA, who only hoped to make the world a better place. Therefore it is natural that the fighting against SHOCKER tends to be not only anticlimactic but also melancholic in ANNO's new Rider film. The original TV series was written not by Shotaro ISHINOMORI, but mainly by Masaru IGAMI (1931-91), who was good at samurai dramas. It was IGAMI that created the strict father figure of Tobei TACHIBANA wonderfully played by Akiji KOBAYASHI (1930-96) and that wrote about the unforgettable Kamen Rider Kid Corps, which ANNO completely ignored. The true Masked Rider was played by Hiroshi FUJIOKA (1946-), one of the most masculine living Japanese actors, who continued to act Takeshi HONGO in Toei's 2021 authentic Rider movie at the age of 75. As he has discovered and embodied it in his career, I must say the very essence of Kamen Rider is the soul of a samurai.

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Since the Japan National Railways Ryomo Line connected Maebashi and Kiryu via Isesaki, the Jomo Electric Railway was established with the purpose of resolving the transportation inconvenience in the southern foothills of Mt. Akagi and transporting the raw silk produced in this area. This is a regional railway planned by local textile manufacturers, electric power companies, and influential people. The company had planned to build a railway network throughout the Gunma prefecture, including the Ogo－Honjo route, but due to economic recession, the current route, Chūō-Maebashi－Nishikiriu (25.4km), was opened in 1928. However, other route plans were not realized. Since its opening, the Jomo Electric Railway has been aware of competition with the Ryomo Line for transportation between Maebashi and Kiryu, and until the mid-1960s, the Jomo Electric Railway had an advantage in terms of the number of trains operated and the time required, but in April 1968, the Ryomo Line was electrified and partially double-tracked, increasing its speed and convenience. In terms of fares, the line remained almost the same as the Ryomo Line until the mid-1960s, but since then, due to unprofitability, prices have been raised one after another, and the fare gap has widened. In addition to the spread of private cars, these factors are thought to have caused many of the passengers using the Maebashi－Kiryu route to switch to the Ryomo Line.

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Geometric algebra, a mathematical framework that addresses vectors, was unearthed by Clifford in the late 19th century. Despite its initial lack of widespread recognition and subsequent period of neglect, geometric algebra has emerged as superior to traditional vector analysis both in theory and practical applications. Its significance has steadily grown in the 21st century. This paper aims to concisely elucidate the essence of geometric algebra, minimizing abstract discussions and emphasizing clarity.

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This paper discusses the effect of performance and emission characteristics for four stroke Spark Ignition engine by mixing fine plastic powder. In this experiment, net power, cylinder internal pressure, fuel consumption rate and concentration of harmful matters in exhaust gas such as NOx, CO and HC were measured in a single-cylinder motorcycle engine of 49.5 cc displacement equipped with fuel injection. Operating conditions for the engine were 14.8 in air fuel ratio, 3000 rpm in revolution speed, 32 °CA BTDC (MBT) in ignition timing. Four plastic powders of PMMA, PP, PE and PET with average particle size of 5 μm were used and two kinds of mixing ratio of 5 wt%, 10 wt% for plastic powder and gasoline were examined. Powder and air were uniformly mixed in a mixing chamber. The results show that any plastic powder worked partially alternative fuel to gasoline. PP and PE powder with high combustion quality and large lower heat value increased net power. But, in case of 10% mixing ratio, the increase of rate of change of net power and flame velocity were smaller due to the promotion of the coagulation. PMMA powder with high volatility and small lower heat value decreased combustion temperature estimated by the decrease of NOx concentration. PET powder with incombustibility increased cylinder pressure and flame velocity due to the turbulence of the flame front.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of flammable dust flames under an isotropic turbulence field. Polymethyl methacrylate powder which has a spherical shape and narrow size distribution was used as a fuel. Aflame of the PMMA powder was formed in a cylindrical combustion chamber with 8-L of volume in which the isotropic turbulence field was produced by moving a holed flat plate. The turbulence intensity in the chamber was preliminarily estimated by a wind tunnel experiment. The smaller amounts of powder were more affected by the increase of turbulence intensity. As the particle size increased, the maximum pressure decreased and the flame front was thicker. The particle size more than 30 µm was greatly affected by convective heat, and the maximum pressure increased with the increase of turbulence intensity.

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The tensile behavior of Sn–Bi–Cu, Sn–Bi–Ni, Sn-Bi-Zn, and Sn-Bi-Sb alloys has been widely investigated. The purpose of the present study is to measure the stress-strain curves and the strain rate sensitivity index m of Sn-Bi alloys. Tensile tests of Sn-Bi alloys with various Bi content at 25, 60, and 80 ℃ under strain rate of 5.25×10⁻³ and 5.25×10⁻⁴/s. The results showed that maximum elongation increased with Bi concentration and test temperature. Tensile tests for the measurement of the strain rate sensitivity index m were carried out at 80℃ under various cross head speed. Index m of Sn-Bi alloys at 80℃ is below3.0, 3.0 is the threshold of superplasticity deformation behavior. The Sn-Bi eutectic microstructure has greater effect on the superplasticity deformation in hypoeutectic Sn-Bi alloys.

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As a first step towards building automatic text evaluation technology using artificial intelligence, especially haiku evaluation technology, a system that extracts seasonal words from haiku is implemented. The conventional extraction method used partial matching with the seasonal word database on the Internet. This method cannot identify some seasonal words that are combinations of nouns and verbs, so improvements are needed. The implemented system was created to solve the problem of seasonal word identification using partial matching, and its application to automatic generation of critical sentences is also being considered in the future. To improve accuracy, morphological analysis and similarity searches using historical kana usage was employed in this system. As a result of the evaluation, it was found that the system could identify seasonal words more reliably than amateur students. However, this system still has some drawbacks and requires many improvements.

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This report is a continuation of the previous one. The present report describes a programming education for junior high school students in both application software and embedded systems. Themes of the software and hardware programming were"game" ,"Web-camera" and "robot", respectively. We adopted a beginner’s programming environment Scratch as a common education support tool of software and hardware. The "Web-camera" programming was done using the "video motion sensor" function, an extension of Scratch. Furthermore, educational robot mbot, programmable by the Scratch, is employed for the hardware programming. First, students enjoyed programming their games with the Scratch. In this part, original games by kosen students were presented. Then, they studied how to manipulate and program the web camera and robot easily with the same environment.The results of questionnaire showed that most of the students are satisfied with our education.

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Kōzukenikuni Nakanotake Kondōsan Busondaigongen Yurai (上野国中嶽金洞山武尊大権現由来) is a story which narrates the legendary origin and the miraculous efficacies of Nakanotake shrine (中之嶽神社). The manuscript in the possession of Nakanotake shrine is copied by hand in 1920, and the whereabouts of original is unknown. It is thought that the original was created after 1789. The text is an important material for studying the faith of Mt.Myogi (妙義山) in the Edo period. In this paper, I have reprinted the text and given a bibliographical introduction to it.

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Technical college students are required to submit reports on a daily basis. However, these students did not learn how to write essays or impressions in junior high school, so writing reports is unknown territory. Therefore, this report will discuss how academic writing guidance for technical college students should be carried out. Unlike high schools, technical colleges have less class time, so we have to incorporate a variety of elements into each class. The subject of this report is a class that combines novel reading and academic writing instruction. This study examines how classes can be taught efficiently within the highly restrictive curriculum of technical colleges.

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