_                   
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      V   V   SSSS   OOO   PPPP                 \__      |_|      __/         
      V   V  S      O   O  P   P                   --____/ \____--            
      V   V   SSS   O   O  PPPP                    _ _ _ --- _ _ _            
       V V       S  O   O  P                      |_|_|_|  @|_|_|_|           
        V    SSSS    OOO   P                             o-o                  
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      ***  N    E    W    S  ***                        <)                    

MOVING

The skyline at the Sagamihara campus of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science has changed dramatically over the last year, with the construction of a new eight story building next to the main building. (Japan follows the US custom of calling the ground level the first story and the one above the second story, etc.) The VSOP team is one of the groups that will move into the new building this week. As a result, the VSOP web site and e-mail to and from VSOP team members will be disrupted for a day or two over the next few days. Only minor changes to phone and fax numbers are expected -- these will be included in the next newsletter after everything is settled from the move.

VISITING PROFESSORSHIPS AT ISAS

ISAS has a limited number of visiting professorships available each year. Anyone interested in spending between three and twelve months at ISAS (in the comforts of the new building!) to work on VSOP data and/or planning for VSOP-2 should contact VSOP Project Scientist, Prof. Hirabayashi. The limited number of positions are shared between all groups at ISAS, so an earlier response is more likely to be successful.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

The VSOP special edition of Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan contains the first formal (i.e., refereed) publication of the VSOP Survey Program, "The VSOP 5 GHz AGN Survey I. Compilation and Observations", by Hirabayashi and Fomalont et al. The paper describes the compilation of a complete sample of 402 radio sources associated with active galactic nuclei (AGN); the selection of the subsample of 289 sources for VSOP observations; the extensive ground resources used for the Survey; the status of the observations; the data analysis methods; and examples of results from the VSOP Survey. Reprints of this paper are available upon request.

MERGERS

Until the end of last year, ISAS was under the control of Monbusho, the Ministry for Education, Science, Sports and Culture (or MESSC for short), and NASDA, the National Space Development Agency, was under the control of the Science and Technology Agency (STA). As part of a program of government reform initiated several years ago, Monbusho and the STA merged at the beginning of this year. The result is the lengthy Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, which goes by the nifty acronym MEXT!

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi