To investigate the occurrence of viruses in sweet cherry in Japan, leaf samples were collected from sweet cherry trees in Aomori, Iwate, and Yamagata prefectures. Analysis of dsRNAs from sweet cherry leaves showed that 73% of 49 samples contained dsRNAs more than 6 kbp in size. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analysis of cherry viruses indicated that 14% of the samples had Little cherry virus-1, 65% had Little cherry virus-2, 14% had Cherry necrotic rusty mottle virus, 49% had Cherry virus A, and 92% had Cherry green ring mottle virus. This is the first molecular detection of these five cherry viruses in Japan.

SUMMARYOwing to the widespread use of the Internet and portable phones, long-distance human communication is becoming convenient and is being widely used in daily life. In particular, with portable phones, real-time voice communications can be realized between widely separated locations, regardless of where, and at any time. This paper proposes a real-time remote communications support system (mutual view-sharing system) in which the views seen by the parties can be shared in real time by means of an eyeglass-type face-mounted display, a small camera attached above the eye of the user, and a wearable PC. When this system is used to communicate with another party at a distant location, the displays on both sides maintain the same "shared view." The "shared view," in which one party's view is shared with the other party, contains the image obtained from one party's face-mounted camera and also an image of the hand of the other party. When the view of the other party is shared, the "shared view" combines the image obtained from the face-mounted camera of the other party and also the speaker's own hand image. This mechanism makes it possible, even if the other party is at a distant location, to share a view of the subject of the conversation visually and to transmit positional information on the subject by means of pointing gestures. The system is completely wearable, and the parties communicate while appropriately switching between the shared views. Thus, the system can be considered as an extension of the portable phone. This system was used to perform a real-time remote communications experiment with the content of "asking the other party to find an object." It was shown that the system is especially useful compared to voice-only communications when the shape of the subject of the conversation is complex and the other party has no knowledge of the subject.

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To search the infection source of bacterial seedling blight of rice, we tried to isolate the pathogen, Pseudomonas plantarii, from weeds around the paddy field using the dilution plating method with modified medium of Azegami et al. in 1991. Weeds belonging to 28 genera within 16 families were collected in Mogami-machi, Yamagata Prefecture and used for the isolation. Twelve isolates obtained from kouyawarabi (Onoclea sensibilis), creeping buttercup (Ranunculus silerifolius), cranesbill (Geranium nepalense) and wild strawberry (Duchesnea chrysantha) formed the pathogenic bacterium-like colonies on the plate. The isolates induced the symptoms similar to those by the control strain to rice seedling and kouyawarabi. On the basis of their pathogenicity tests and bacteriological characteristics, the present isolates were identified as Pseudomonas plantarii Azegami et al. 1987. This is the first report that P. plantarii is isolated from weeds other than grasses.