We present a new analysis of Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer observations of the 2002 outburst of the transient X-ray nova 4U 1543-47. We focus on observations in the high/soft state, and attempt to measure the "spin" of the black hole by simultaneously fitting the thermal disk continuum and by modeling the broadened iron k-shell emission lines and additional blurred reflection features. Previous works have found that use of these methods individually returns contradictory values for the dimensionless spin parameter a * = cJ/GM 2 . We find that when used in conjunction with each other, a moderate spin is obtained (a * = 0.43 +0.22 −0.31 ) that is actually consistent with both other values within errors. We discuss limitations of our analysis, systematic uncertainties, and implications of this measurement, and compare our result to those previously claimed for 4U 1543-47.

In manufacturing process of semiconductor, blue light emitting diode (LED), and lithium ion battery, detection and monitoring of trace water vapor (<1 µmol/mol) are significantly important techniques. We have been researching about detection of trace water vapor with high speed and sensitivity by using ball surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor.In this paper, we tried to detect trace water vapor by coating silicon oxide (SiO x ) on ball SAW sensor using solgel method. It was confirmed that SiO x -coated ball SAW sensor could detect water vapor in a wide range from ¹95 to 0°C in frost point (0.0356.0 © 10 3 µmol/mol in concentration) and its response time to frost point change from ¹70 to ¹60°C was one half of that of a chilled-mirror hygrometer.

In order to commonly use explosive H 2 gas as an energy source, fast, sensitive, and low-power consumption sensor is required. We developed a ball surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensor with porous PdPt alloy film to realize such a sensor. The sensor with 20% Pt alloying film was useful for the suppression of a phase transition of Pd and the detection of ppm order concentration at 35°C. The amplitude response was proportional to the square root of the concentration, which was demonstrated for the first time in the field of SAW sensor, resulting in the detection limit of 3.7 ppm at signal to noise ratio of 3. The response time decreased to 1/5, compared with those of pioneering H 2 sensors working at room temperature. From these results, it was shown that the fastest and most sensitive hydrogen sensor working at room temperature could be realized using the ball SAW sensor with porous Pd alloy film.

A well‐known analytical method for linear systems is that which employs the Laplace transformation. Such method is applicable to analytical nonlinear systems in various ways, as has already been reported [1, 2]. A problem in this method is calculation of the multidimensional inverse transformation, which is normally performed after reduction to one dimension. However, if higher‐order terms have to be taken into account, the amount of calculation for the reduction becomes excessive, so that manual calculation is impossible. Thus, in this report we propose to achieve the reduction operation by computer. Algorithms derived are practical for application to systems that consist of the sum and product of linear subsystems, cascade connection, and feedback. These are quite efficient algorithms, fully utilizing the system characteristics. We show that the advantage of the algorithm is to have the output in the form of frequency components.