Kansai Electric to study coastal ecosystem to stop global warming
Kansai Electric Power Co. on February 26 announced it will conduct research on ways to use the coastal ecological system for absorption and fixation of carbon dioxide, which is considered a major cause of global warming.The research will be done jointly with the Australian Institute of Marine Science and Kansai Environmental Engineering Center Co., a Kansai Electric Power subsidiary.The studies will be conducted for four years from fiscal 1996 through fiscal 1999.
Various organisms in the coastal area are known for their close symbiotic relationships.They tend to produce more organic substances than those in the ocean and perform photosynthesis actively.
The aim of the research is to establish cost-effective techniques for carbon dioxide absorption and fixation by making comprehensive use of mangroves, plankton, coral reefs and other organisms.Researchers will analyze how carbon moves and how much accumulates in coastal ecological systems, as well as try to grasp the organisms' capacity to immobilize carbon dioxide.Results of the study will also be used to propose measures for coastal mangrove swamp restoration in Southeast Asia.
To curb and absorb carbon dioxide emissions, the firm has been promoting measures focusing on three areas: efficient use of energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions in power generation and enhancing carbon dioxide absorption in the natural environment.Kansai Electric Power has been engaged in developing similar technologies using algae and other marine creatures.
NEC to build state-of-the-art multimedia lab in Kansai Science City
NEC Corp. said on February 29 it will construct an institute for the research and development of frontier multimedia applications in the Takayama District of Kansai Science City, which is located in Ikoma City, Nara Prefecture.The institute will be built on a 25,000-sq.-meter site and have a total floor space of 7,000 sq. meters.Construction of the lab will start in September, with its opening scheduled for March 1998.NEC's total investment in the project will be about ¥7 billion.The new institute, Kansai Research Laboratories, will become NEC's R&D base for multimedia in Kansai.By moving its existing Kansai C&C Research Laboratories in Osaka to the new lab, NEC aims to expand the scope of its multimedia studies and research capabilities.State-of-the art applications for multimedia, such as electronic libraries, virtual museums, electronic secretaries and on-line shopping, as well as interface technology, such as speech input systems and handwritten character recognition systems, will be among the institute's research subjects.The institute will open with a staff of 100 researchers, which will be expanded to 150 in five years.Kansai Science City, which straddles Kyoto, Osaka and Nara prefectures, is becoming a mecca for domestic multimedia applications research.Ongoing projects include experimental B-ISDN applications, research on integrating communications and broadcasting, and electronic libraries.
Chambers urge individual investment in venture businesses
Four chambers of commerce and industry of Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Nagoya jointly submitted a request on February 22 to the central government and other institutions calling for measures to help entrepreneurs and newly established venture businesses with fund-raising activities.The request includes setting up stock investment trusts and tax incentives.The chambers point out that in Japan, venture capital firms and banks actively invest in and provide loans to the growing number of companies expected to go public in a few years.But few firms in their planning or embryonic stage have access to fund supply sources because they lack the collateral for loans.
To expand fund supply from individual investors for these enterprises, the chambers seek to implement the following three measures:
To more easily attract small-lot funds from investors, create a company-style investment trust specializing in investment in venture businesses.Such an investment trust is expected to be able to list its stock for trading in open markets.Exempt taxes on the income of venture businesses and directly tax the combined income of investors to help investors save tax payments by offsetting profits and losses from various income sources.Allow investors to deduct half the amount they sink into a venture business from their taxable income for the year in which they make the investment.
SEI group firms to make wiring harness parts in China
Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. (SEI) and its group firm Sumitomo Wiring Systems Ltd. will set up a joint venture in Tianjin, China, in March to produce and market wiring harness components for automobiles, together with two local enterprises and a U.S. firm, the companies announced on February 28.Tianjin Jin Zhu Wiring System Components Co. will be capitalized at 20 million yuan (about ¥240 million), of which the two Sumitomo firms will provide 60% and Tianjin Zhonghuan Electric & Machineelectric Component Corp. China will supply 20%.The U.S. company United Technologies Automotive Inc. will invest 10% in the joint venture and Tianjin Jin Zhu Wiring Systems Co., a local joint venture of the SEI group, will provide the remaining 10%.The new company is expected to start operation in July.It will supply wiring harness parts to Tianjin Jin Zhu Wiring Systems and the U.S. company's production arm in China.The firm targets sales of 19 million yuan (about ¥230 million) for fiscal 1997.
Finnish wind-powered device installed to clean water in Lake Biwa
A wind-powered water circulator developed in Finland was installed on February 28 in Lake Biwa, Japan's largest lake, in an effort to improve the quality of the lake's water over a two-year test period.This is the first use of the Finnish-made device in Japan.The device was leased free of charge to the Ohmi Environment Protection Foundation, an affiliate of the Shiga prefectural government, by Marubeni Corp.
The circulator is powered by a three-cup propeller (each cup measures 2.1 meters in diameter) that can be set in motion by light wind with a velocity of as little as 0.5 meter per second.It pumps oxygen-rich water from the surface of the lake through a pipe into deeper waters.
The device can circulate about 1,400 cubic meters of water per day at a wind velocity of 2 meters per second.It circulates water gently and hardly agitates mud at the bottom of the lake.Ithas proven effective in improving the quality of water in a lake in Finland.
It is installed 750 meters off shore near the city of Kusatsu in the southern part of the lake, where a 25 -hectare, 14-meter-deep hollow was made after dredging.During the summer when the oxygen content in deeper waters in the hollow falls to zero, nitrogen and phosphorus accumulated at the lake bottom dissolve and contaminate the water.
Nanki Shirahama Airport to be expanded to accommodate jets
Nanki Shirahama Airport in Shirahama Town, Wakayama Prefecture, will become the third airport in the Kansai region that can accommodate jets, effective March 9.The other airports are Osaka Airport at Itami and Kansai International Airport.In a bid to promote tourism, Wakayama Prefecture has built a 1,800-meter long, 45-meter wide runway adjacent to the existing airport.Japan Air System Co. will operate a 134-seat MD-87 jet on twice daily flights between Tokyo International Airport at Haneda and Nanki Shirahama Airport.The aircraft will replace the YS-11, a 64-seat propeller plane that previously served the route three times a day.
The new jet will reduce the 100-minute flight between Shirahama and Tokyo to 60 minutes.The morning flight from Haneda and the afternoon flight departing Shirahama will be pushed back for better traveler convenience.
Last year, about 3.3 million tourists visited Shirahama, known for its beautiful coast line, hot springs and leisure facilities.The Wakayama prefectural government is counting on the improved air service to boost the number of tourists from the Tokyo metropolitan area.To draw more visitors from other areas, new air routes, such as a Shirahama-Fukuoka flight, are also under consideration.
Osaka to construct Cosmosquare canal, maritime museum
The city of Osaka has announced plans to build a 1.6km canal in the Cosmosquare district of Sakishima, a man-made island in Osaka Bay.The construction of the canal will start in fiscal 1996, with its completion slated for fiscal 1998.The cost will total some ¥3 billion.Of the amount, ¥151 million has been earmarked in the fiscal 1996 budget draft.The canal, 9 meters wide and 1.1-1.2 meters deep, crosses the Cosmosquare district from east to west.Promenades will be built along both sides of the canal.They will connect the international ferry terminal and the Osaka Maritime Museum (tentative name) expected to be completed in fiscal 1999.A small 50-seat boat is planned to ply the waters of the canal.The Maritime Museum, envisioned as an Osaka port landmark, will be a semi-transparent glass dome (height:35 meters, diameter: 70 meters) that will appear to be floating in the harbor.Construction will start in fiscal 1997.One of the featured exhibits will be a replica of a higaki kaisen,which was used for regular shipping services between Osaka and Edo (now Tokyo) during the Edo period.In the fiscal 1996 budget, ¥1,022 million for designing the museum and building a full-size replica of the higaki kaisen, which will measure 30 meters long, 26 meters tall and 7 meters wide, has been proposed.The Maritime Museum project will require an investment of ¥16 billion in total.Of the three man-made islands in Osaka Bay, where the city has been developing a new urban center, Sakishima Cosmosquare has seen more development, with the Asia and Pacific Trade Center and World Trade Center already built.By constructing such sightseeing spots on the island, the city hopes to promote its concept of transforming Osaka into a place attractive to visitors.
Quake damage deters tourists from visiting Kobe in 1995
A total of 10.74 million tourists visited Kobe in 1995, about 44% of the 1994 figure of 24.4 million, the Kobe municipal government disclosed on February 29.Until 1994, the number of tourists had exceeded 20 million for 10 consecutive years, peaking in 1993 at 27.5 million.The sharp decline in tourism underscores the severity of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which struck the Kobe area on January 17, 1995.The drop in the number of tourists was sharpest in the Kitano area of Chuo Ward.The area which is known for its ijinkan (foreigner's residence) quarter suffered extensive quake damage.The number of tourists to the Kitano area plunged 75% from 1.66 million in 1994 to 410,000 last year.
The number of tourists to the district surrounding Kobe Port plummeted by 74% to 950,000 in 1995 from 3.66 million recorded the previous year.
However, for the month of December, tourism rose to reach 62% of December 1994 levels, excluding the 1.94 million visitors who came to the Kobe Luminarie, a year-end celebration.At the event, some 700 meters of streets in Chuo Ward were festively illuminated.
Kobe notes that its tourism has been picking up slowly but steadily, keeping pace with the progress of the city's reconstruction from the devastating quake.
Kansai in Focus: Ark Techno-Research Inc.: Breaking new ground with fuzzy logic-based technology
Ark Techno-Research Inc., headquartered in Fushimi Ward in the city of Kyoto, is a venture business (capital: ¥10 million) that concentrates on fuzzy logic-based application systems created by its founder and president Haruhiko Arikawa.Set up in January 1990, the firm was basically a one-man operation until the latter half of 1994, when the staff was expanded to three.Ark's R&D center is located in the Advanced Software Technology and Mechatronics Research Institute of Kyoto, a concentration of venture businesses in Shimogyo Ward.
Arikawa first saw the importance of fuzzy logic in 1987 when he was a student at the NASA Space Academy in the U.S.While there, he heard a presentation by Takeshi Yamakawa, then an assistant professor at Kumamoto University and a leading researcher in the field.Fuzzy theory is a type of logic applied to computer programming.It attempts to replicate the reasoning method of human beings.It is considered an effective method for handling imprecision or uncertainty.Arikawa began working with Kaoru Hirota, then an assistant professor of Hosei University.He rose to prominence in 1988 when he presented their joint research findings on the world's first address look-up style fuzzy chip at an international academic conference.Known as the ROM/RAM system, it is one of the simplest and most low-cost control methods among fuzzy logic applications, and is currently used in most household appliances boasting fuzzy logic functions.The ROM/RAM system, however, did have its drawbacks: slow processing speed and weakness with regard to multi-inputs.These faults were eliminated in the memory network system Arikawa developed with Masaharu Mizumoto, professor at Osaka Electro-Communication University.Using this new system, a foreign aircraft maker was able to complete an automatic landing system long stuck in the development stage in just three months.A Japanese maker of special metals also was finally able to wrap up a five-year development project by incorporating the memory network system.Following these triumphs, Arikawa went on to develop such products as Hakobune (ark), a fuzzy logic software program for research training adopted by a seminar of the Japan Society of Fuzzy Theory and Systems, personal computers and micro atmospheric pressure sensors with built-in fuzzy control software, an inverted pendulum experiment apparatus using optical devices, and laser pointers.
Arikawa, who had decided as a high school student that he would major in philosophy or theoretical physics, has a philosophy degree from Ritsumeikan University.Philosophy and fuzzy logic: the two might seem totally unrelated to the average person, but in Arikawa's mind they are merged into a harmonious whole.His research interests currently extend to the development of energy systems that use no fossil fuels and systems for killing viruses with ultrasonic waves.To this end he will enter a doctorate course at Osaka Electro-Communication University in April.The president's research fervor, in fact, may tend to distract him from his corporate management responsibilities.But he has recently found an effective management partner to share those responsibilities.