  Various physical quantities are measured and analysed for the Cu-substituted
thermoelectric oxide NaCo_{2-x}Cu_xO_4. As was previously known, the
substituted Cu enhances the thermoelectric power, while it does not increase
the resistivity significantly. The susceptibility and the electron
specific-heat are substantially decreased with increasing x, which implies that
the substituted Cu decreases the effective-mass enhancement. Through a
quantitative comparison with the heavy fermion compounds and the valence
fluctuation systems, we have found that the Cu substitution effectively
increases the coupling between the conduction electron and the magnetic
fluctuation. The Cu substitution induces a phase transition at 22 K that is
very similar to a spin-density-wave transition.
