Abstract: A method of processing a wooden piece into a predetermined shape by compressing the wooden piece, includes bending a raw-material piece which is a wooden piece to be processed and is placed in a humid condition of high temperature, cutting out a blank-material piece from the raw-material piece bent in the bending so that the blank-material piece includes at least a part of a bent portion of the raw-material piece, and compressing the blank-material piece cut out in the cutting out in a water vapor atmosphere of a temperature and a pressure higher than those of an atmospheric air.

Abstract: A series of organometallic complexes and the singlet oxygen sensitization properties of these complexes are provided. Complexes with acetylacetonate ligands give singlet oxygen quantum yields near unity, whether exciting the ligand-based state or the lowest energy excited state (MLCT+3LC). The singlet oxygen quenching rates for these ?-diketonate complexes are small, roughly three orders of magnitude slower than the corresponding phosphorescence quenching rate. Similar complexes were prepared with glycine or pyridine tethered to the Ir(III) center (i.e. (bsn)2Ir(gly) and (bt)2Ir(py)Cl, where gly=glycine, and py=pyridine). The glycine and pyridine derivatives give high singlet oxygen yields.

Abstract: An optical receptacle according to the invention includes a columnar stub ferrule having an optical fiber inserted into a center line connecting both opposite end faces; a cylindrical sleeve into which a part of the stub ferrule is inserted; and a housing in which a through hole is formed, which houses the stub ferrule and the sleeve in the through hole, which holds a part on a side on which the stub ferrule is not inserted into the sleeve, with a projecting portion formed in the through hole, and which surrounds a side surface of the stub ferrule on the side on which the stub ferrule is not inserted into the sleeve. The optical receptacle has a space between the side surface of the stub ferrule on the side on which the stub ferrule is not inserted into the sleeve and an inner peripheral surface of the housing opposing the side surface.