The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI; 電力中央研究所) is a Japanese non-profit foundation that conducts research and development of technologies in a variety of scientific and technical fields related to the electric power industry. Also, CRIEPI researches many aspects of social matters through subordinate laboratories. CRIEPI not only engages in research and education in Japan, but also provides education, training and technology transfer worldwide.It is similar to the U.S. EPRI, though its energy research extends into areas that could be considered to be in the domain of the USDOE's national laboratories in the United States, such as research and design of fission reactor concepts.In 2004, CRIEPI developed a U.S. presence due to the proposed Galena Nuclear Power Plant in Galena, Alaska, that is proposed to use an advanced reactor design – the Toshiba 4S – developed by Toshiba Corporation and CRIEPI..
Over the past decades, unexpected reductions in fertility have resulted in a growing number of nations facing serious population declines. Experts remain uncertain about which psychological mechanisms contribute to declining reproduction and have not yet identified effective countermeasures. Evolutionary psychology is well-positioned to investigate this problem, yet as a field it has primarily examined sexual psychology in largely non-reproductive populations, leaving an important explanatory gap concerning reproductive psychology, especially among women. This theoretical and synthetic interdisciplinary article addresses that gap in three ways: it identifies a mismatch between contemporary evolutionary research on mating and actual reproductive decision-making; it proposes Young Female Syndrome as a conceptual target for understanding how contemporary environments may impact female reproductive strategies; and it outlines a research program linking macro-level fertility correlates to evolved reproductive psychology. It also argues that broader historical context is important for understanding current fertility decline. Across the past eight centuries, the West’s three sexual revolutions have produced a novel mating environment that may be affecting female sexual strategies, pair-bonding, and reproduction in ways that remain poorly understood. Addressing this challenge requires integrating evolutionary, economic, cultural, and psychological perspectives in order to clarify how major social changes influence human reproductive decision-making.
This study introduces recent efforts of the Architectural Institute of Japan (AIJ) to develop guidelines for largeeddy simulation (LES) of pedestrian wind environments (PWEs). Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models have been widely used for predicting urban wind environments following best practice guidelines (BPGs) by Franke et al. [Int J Environ Pollut 44, 1-4 (2011)] and Tominaga et al. [J Wind Eng Ind Aerodyn 96 (10-11), 1749-1761 (2008)]. Although RANS models can predict mean wind velocity and some turbulence statistics based on empirical assumptions, LES provides higher accuracy in resolving transient turbulence structures larger than the grid scale. With increasing urbanization, understanding instantaneous complex wind and wind-related phenomena around buildings is essential for ensuring pedestrian wind comfort and safety. However, LES applications face challenges owing to a lack of BPGs. This study outlines key recommendations for simulation setups and post-processing, including domain size, building modeling, grid generation, boundary conditions, turbulence modeling, discretization, convergence criteria, and reliability evaluation. Additionally, new benchmark cases are provided to support validation for PWEs. The AIJ working group systematically evaluated LES performance across urban scenarios to ensure practical applicability while balancing computational costs. These guidelines aim to enhance prediction reliability, thereby contributing to the standardization of LES applications for PWE and advancement of computational wind engineering.
In the seismic design of nuclear power plants in Japan, a liquefaction evaluation is required from a conservative standpoint even for cemented Pleistocene sand, which is normally considered to be non-liquefiable. However, research on the undrained cyclic loading behavior of cemented sand under simple shear conditions has been limited. Therefore, hollow torsional shear tests were performed in this study on artificially cemented sand at various degrees of cementation to investigate its behavior under undrained cyclic loading, especially with respect to the minor principal stress. The test results showed that weak cementation led to the deterioration of the behavior under undrained cyclic loading, and that the excess pore water pressure ratio exceeded 95%. However, strong cementation led to a decrease in effective stress under undrained cyclic loading. The minor principal stress became negative and resulted in failure under the combined effect of tensile and shear stresses. Even when the excess pore water pressure ratio did not reach 95%, the shear strain increased after the minor principal stress had reached its local minimum value, eventually leading to failure. Based on these results, a new criterion for the undrained cyclic resistance of cemented sand was proposed, focusing on the local minimum value of the minor principal stress. Use of this criterion has the potential to serve as an effective method for adequately evaluating the undrained cyclic resistance of cemented sand under strong seismic ground motions. (c) 2026 Japanese Geotechnical Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
We deployed 30 temporary seismic stations around the source region of the 2024 M w 7.5 Noto Peninsula earthquake to investigate the relationship between mainshock rupture and fault geometry. Using machine learning techniques, we detected and precisely located 46,252 aftershocks, revealing several fault planes corresponding to active faults ruptured during the mainshock. Two subparallel landward-dipping planar structures were identified near the mainshock hypocenter, converging westward to the Wajima-Oki segment. This geometry suggests that complex rupture episodes near the hypocenter resulted from successive ruptures on adjacent fault planes rather than slip on a single plane. At the western edge of the 2024 rupture area, aftershocks extend close to but rarely occur on the fault that ruptured during the 2007 M w 6.7 earthquake, suggesting that the 2024 earthquake did not re-rupture the same faults of the 2007 earthquake.
Dibutyl phosphate (DBP) is a problematic compound in reprocessing plants, affecting not only the extraction processes of U and Pu, but also the vitrification of high-level liquid waste (HLLW). Previous full-scale glass melter tests indicated that even a minor amount of DBP in simulated HLLW altered the cold-cap morphology, making it larger and thicker. In this study, small-scale melter tests revealed that the influence of DBP on cold-cap morphology is related to the Zr/Mo concentration ratio in HLLW. When the Zr/Mo ratio was high, a tall wall composed of calcined waste components formed around the cold cap, and a thick waste layer developed at its bottom. These DBP-induced changes were mitigated by lowering the Zr/Mo ratio; the cold cap then adopted a flatter morphology similar to that observed in the absence of DBP.
