2007 World Championships in Athletics coming to Osaka City
Osaka City has been chosen as the venue for the 2007 World Championships in Athletics at a meeting of the Council of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) held in Monaco.The championships attract the world's top athletes and is said to be a big sports event along with the Olympic Games and soccer World Cup. This is the second time the championships will be held in Japan following the 1991 Tokyo event.
Int'l symposium on global environment in Kobe
The Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) and the Hyogo Prefectural Government will hold an international symposium on global environment problems, the APN Symposium on Land Use Cover Change and Vegetation Recovery in Degraded Land Areas, at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in Chuo Ward, Kobe City, on November 28.The symposium will consider influences to the environment by land use cover change, deforestation, desertification and other changes on the earth's surface (cover change), and discuss tree planting and other vegetation recovery as concrete activities to preserve the environment.
Lectures by and panel discussions among Japanese and foreign experts, including Sharifah Mastura Syed Abdullah, a professor of the National University of Malaysia, and John Fox, a professor of the Curtin University of Technology of Australia, are planned.
APN is an intergovernment organization with 21 countries in the Asia-Pacific region as its members and promotes international joint researches concerning the global environment in the region.
Visible light responsive photocatalyst developed
The Corporate Research and Development Laboratories of Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd. with its headquarters based in Chuo Ward, Osaka City, and Sumitomo Titanium Corp. in Amagasaki City, Hyogo Prefecture, have jointly developed a visible light responsive TiO2 photocatalyst which can decompose organic matters, such as bad-smelling substances and NOX, through the absorption of visible light.The photocatalyst activity for decomposition of organic pollutants (the rate of decomposition of organic pollutants) in rooms is 10 times faster than the conventional photocatalysts, and it is hoped that the newly-developed photocatalysts can promote air purification by its applications to interior materials and electric home appliances.
Photocatalysts that absorb light and decompose organic matters using its energy have been noted as an eco-material with environment purification functions, but the conventional ones react only to ultra-violet rays (UV).
This time, two photo-catalysts were developed: one is a general-purpose type, which is produced by heating Ti02 in the gas containing special reactant, and the other is highly active type, which is produced by adding chemical treatment to the general one. They absorb 400-600 nanometer-visible light and UV (nano is one-one billionth) which are the main wavelength of solar light and fluorescent light.
In a weak light environment like the one in rooms, the photocatalyst activity under the general-purpose type is five to six times faster than the UV-type photocatalyst, that under the highly active type 10 to 15 times faster and that under UV-irradiation 1.5 times faster.
Yeast to brew sake with sweetness and acidity
The Industrial Research Institute of the Mie Prefectural Science and Technology Promotion Center and the Mie Sake Brewers Association have jointly developed a new yeast to brew sake with balanced sweetness and acidity.Sake contains organic acid, such as lactic acid, malic acid, succinic acid and acetic acid, and its volume and kinds greatly affect sour and other tastes of sake. The acid newly developed has a nature conventional acid does not have- production of much lactic acid and acetic acid- and can brew sake with refreshing sour. Acetic acid in sake has been said to be unfavorable, but the new yeast can draw acetic acid as a good taste as it produces lactic acid and acetic acid in good balance. The center will introduce the new yeast hoping that it will lead to the promotion of locally brewed sake.
5,190 applicants for Osaka's concept contest
The total number of registered Japanese and foreign applicants to the International Concept Competition for the Northern Osaka Station Area was 5,190, the competition committee, made up of Urban Development Corp., the Osaka Municipal Government and others, announced recently.The committee accepted applications from September 1 to October 31. About 43 percent of registered applicants or 2,251 applicants were from 91 foreign countries and territories- the U.S. (400), Britain (166), Poland (142), Italy (139) and France (92).
The number of applicants is much larger than that of other international competitions of the kind held in recent years- the 1989 Tokyo Forum International Competition (2,284 from 69 countries) and the 1997 21st Century Kyoto Future Competition (2,157 from 61 countries and territories). Committee officials said the area is widely recognized both at home and abroad as the last and best place left in the Osaka metropolitan region, and has attracted large attention.
Submissions will be accepted from December 1 to January 31, 2003, and the winners will be announced in late March.
Lions Club convention gives economic ripple effect
The 85th Lions Club International Convention held in Osaka in July brought an economic ripple effect of about 1.5 times higher than expenses actually paid, the Osaka Convention Bureau (OCB) chaired by Wa Tashiro has announced.This was found in an interview with convention sponsors who paid convention site, management, eating and drinking, and hotel expenses and in questionnaires to participants who paid hotel, and eating and drinking expenses.
Based on the interview and questionnaires, OCB estimated that the convention's direct economic effect was 7,992.3 million yen (163,000 per participant) and the economic ripple effect was 12,180 million yen.
The convention was held for five days from July 8, and 49,000 people, including 8,000 from overseas, took part in it.
KIPPO holds 21st century journalists' forum 2002
The Kansai International Public Relations Promotion Office (KIPPO) held the 'Journalists' Forum 2002 for the 21st Century' at the International House in Tennoji Ward, Osaka City, on November 14, jointly with the Kansai Press Club and the Osaka International House Foundation. The theme was 'Kansai, Pursuing a Vision of Change - East Asian City Strategies Today.' Following the keynote speech by Jitsuro Terashima, chairman of the Japan Research Institute, about 170 people keenly listened to heated panel discussions by Luo He Qing, chief representative at China's Shanghai Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Representative Office in Osaka, and Choi Bong Jin, desk of planning of South Korea's Busanilbo newspaper, and others.
Kansai in Focus: Kansai press tour of old and new Nara for foreign reporters
The Kansai International Public Relations Promotion Office (KIPPO) sponsored a two-day 'Kansai press tour' of Nara Prefecture in late October for 21 foreign correspondents stationed in Tokyo, enabling them to cover the 1,250-year-old Todaiji Temple, the Toshodaiji Temple Main Hall where demolition and repairing are under way and Asuka Village, the birthplace of administrative power centralization system.The correspondents were especially interested in the Center of Conservation Science at the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property, Motomachi, Ikoma City, said to be Japan's best institute for cultural asset preservation, and Takatori Corp. (Shindocho, Kashihara City), which developed automatic sewing machines for panty stockings and has become its world's largest manufacturer by use of technology of manufacturing and repairing machines of local knit socks industry, and which also has made inroads into electronics and liquid crystal equipment.
The predecessor of the Gangoji Institute for Research of Cultural Property is an institute inaugurated in 1961 to survey and study more than 100,000 materials concerning folk religions in the Medieval Period which were discovered at the Gangoji Temple in Nara City while it was overhauled and its precincts were excavated.
Later, the institute was renamed as the Gangoji Buddhism Folk Materials Institute, and in 1975, its center of cultural property conservation and restoration was established in Ikoma City, and the present name was adopted for the center in 1978. In the same year, the center became a center of Japan's cultural property conservation when it successfully preserved and restored Shura, a sled, unearthed at the Mitsuzuka tomb in Fujiidera City, Osaka Prefecture.
The 8.8-meter-long Japanese evergreen oak Shura is the world's largest wooden product excavated, but none had experience to preserve and restore it. The center made a special restoration tank by studying Swedish and Danish technologies to preserve wooden ships and succeeded in preserving and restoring the Shura using polyethylene glycol over a period of 12 years from 1979, thus establishing preservation technologies. Annually, not only wooden products but also all unearthed things, numbering more than 10,000, are carried to the center, boosting it to a liable preservation center.
Takatori Corp. was set up in Yamatotakada City in Nara Prefecture in 1956 as Takatori Machinery MFG. Co. It developed an automatic toe seaming machine in 1968, and an automatic crotch seaming machine in 1972 to begin exporting sewing machines for panty stockings. After that, the company began producing clothing equipment and expanded its business to include semiconductors, liquid crystal and the cutting system for apparel. The company changed its name to Takatori Corp. in 1986 and moved its head office to Kashihara City in 1994.
Osho Takatori, the founder and chairman of the company, told the foreign journalists, 'Under 'creation and innovation' spirit, we are producing what the world doesn't have. We obtained a patent for automatic sewing machines for panty stockings and is almost monopolizing the global market. Since sewing machines can be used for as many as 20 years, fresh orders have declined. So, we advanced to the semiconductor field where sewing technologies can be applied. At age 60, I built a high-tech industry-housing complex and fully advanced to electronics and liquid crystal equipment by regrouping ourselves,' he said.
Takatori also talked about the company's restructuring two times amid the severe economic environment, but stressed the importance of an 'entrepreneur spirit of challenging to develop commodities in an unknown field.' At age 77, Takatori still keeps a challenger spirit. (J)