Internet Use Among Religious Followers: Religious Postmodernism in Japanese Buddhism

Strong sect organizations are a feature of traditional Buddhist denominations in Japan. Having long benefited from the protection of Japan's feudal society, these once strong organizations have been buttressed by factors of social change in the modern and post-modern eras, including modernization and the evolution of the media. The Internet is a rich source of information about innovations of religions adapting to social change. To examine these changes, I undertook a survey from 2002 to 2004 of 2,007 followers and religious specialists. The results highlight a critical attitude among followers: Sending and receiving messages in the interaction between a religious group and its followers results in followers expanding the scope of allowable subjects of criticism, and they have begun to entertain doubts regarding their faith systems. We may infer that in postmodern faith, horizontal interaction among religious followers will take on an increasingly important role in comparison with the vertical (top-down) structure of traditional doctrines.     

Effect of oxygen deficiency reduction in Mg-doped Mn-spinel on its cell storage performance at high temperature

The effect of doping foreign metal ions into the LiMn₂O₄ spinel structure on the oxygen deficiency by high-temperature firing has been investigated. The degree of the oxygen deficiency in the Mg- and/or Al-doped spinel is very small even when fired at 1000 °C, and then the oxygen deficiency nearly disappeared after low temperature annealing. Mg-doped Mn-spinels (Li_1.05Mn_1.94−xMg_xCa_0.01O_4−z, 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.15) obtained at 1000 °C contained a small oxygen deficiency amount when the x-value reached 0.03 or more. The annealing at 800 °C then reduced the oxygen defect content in the Mg-doped spinels. The crystallinity of the spinels is improved by doping with a small amount of Ti. The storage performance of the coin-type cell at 60 °C is improved about 1.6 times using both Mg- and Ti-doping, which would be due to the oxygen stoichiometric spinels with a low solubility by firing at high temperatures and/or by Ti-doping to increase the crystallinity.     

Flexible LCDs fabricated with a slit coater: Not requiring an alignment film

A homogeneously aligned liquid crystal layer on a substrate film on which it is not necessary to form a liquid crystal alignment film can be assembled by a slit coater. Types of twisted nematic and in‐plane switching flexible liquid crystal displays were demonstrated. The production time can be considerably shortened because of the lack of need for an alignment film. The slit coater method is also applicable to the roll‐to‐roll process.