K-SEC
Meeting Summary
September 1, 2014
Here is a summary of the materials we read at the K-SEC meeting on September 1, 2014.
A. Attendees (in ABC order):
Ishiguro, Kanzawa, Kotake, Nishimura, Nishiwaki, Okai, Sadayasu, Sekiguchi,
Terasaki, Umemura (Total of 10)
B. Materials read:
1. Moving to a Smaller Home, and De-cluttering a Lifetime of Belongings - Tsurumoto
Tsurumoto-san has an experience of assisting her mother-in-law in de-cluttering her age
old belongings as she was to move into a smaller house. It was not an easy task for her
as well as Tsurumoto-san. From this experience, he picked up this article from The New
York Times (dated August 22) which tells us how the de-cluttering or 断捨離 is a big
things in the U.S. these days.
The amount of goods people can accumulate over a long period of time, especially if they
have lived in the same house, can be overwhelming. Perhaps it is a bigger problem or
task for average Americans as they tend to live in larger houses and hold more
household goods than average Japanese. What they have accumulated is their history
and throwing them away means throwing away their history. It is emotionally very difficult
for many people to do that.
In America, there are professionals “De-clutter Ladies” or downsizing specialists who can
help you sort through and pare down your belongings to a more manageable size. Such
service cost you anywhere from $60 to $200 an hour depending upon where you live.
You end up paying a lot of money just for the consulting as they spend days with you. In
Japan, you tend to attend a seminar or something to learn what to do and most of the
cases you do it yourself. With the number of seniors increasing so fast in Japan,
de-cluttering is becoming a big theme for many Japanese as well.
2. World’s First Realization of Ultrahigh Pressure and Ultrahigh Temperature at the
Earth’s Center – Finally teaching the Earth Core - Kotake
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Here is an excellent summary of the presentation that Kotake-san kindly prepared per my
request.
Quote
I (Kotake) briefly explained Spring-8 synchrotron radiation facility (an acronym of Super
Photon Ring-8 GeV), or 大型放射光施設 in Japanese, which is the world’s largest and
state-of-the-art third generation facility and is located at Sayo-cho, Hyogo Pref. Japan.
This facility consists of a storage ring containing an 8 GeV electron beam which is
extracted and run through undulators to produce synchrotron radiation with energies
ranging from soft X-rays (300 eV) up to hard X-rays (300 KeV).
I explained various effective usages of this facility ranging from biochemical protein
characterization to spectroscopic analysis, earth science, life science, environmental
science, industrial application and so forth. He enumerated, as famous actual cases from
many fields, the materials analysis to identify substance for police investigations during
the Wakayama curry accident and the attack of superintendent-general of Tokyo
Metropolitan Police Department in the Aum Shinrikyo incident.
I picked up and introduced above topics as an example not only of earth science but also
of a brilliant scientific study results. This study was achieved by a group led by Kei Hirose,
a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology. This experiment was carried out by using
this Spring-8 facility.
Professor Hirose’s group carried out an experiment to recreate the environment of the D”
layer artificially at the bottom of the mantle and discovered a completely new mineral,
which had a significant impact throughout the field of earth science. As explained in this
topics, Spring-8 an epoch-making and a state-of-the-art facility enabled us to search for
earth’s core which is unknown to us and difficult to approach at present.
Unquote
3. Bio series – Jose Rizal, a Philippine’s national hero - Sadayasu
We read a biography of Philippine hero, Jose Rizal who inspired the Philippine people for
it’s independence from Spain. This is compiled based on various Internet sites.
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Largely through his novels and newspaper articles, Jose Rizal called for a number of
reforms of the Spanish colonial system in the Philippines and appealed for freedom of
speech and assembly, equal rights for Filipinos and appointment of Filipino priests in place
of the often –corrupt Spanish priests.
Rizal never called for independence of the Philippines. However, the colonial government
considered him a dangerous radical and finally executed him in December 1896. This
precocious man with high academic achievements from several top ranking educational
institutes in Europe was 35 years old then.
Spurred by his martyrdom, the Philippines, with assistance from the United States, was
able to defeat the Spanish army and declared its independence from Spain on June 12,
1898. Jose Rizal is remembered today throughout the Philippines for his brilliance, his
courage, his peaceful resistance and his compassion toward his people.
C. Role assignment for September 15 meeting:
Current Topic - Kanzawa
Current Topic – Nishimura
Special - Tomozawa
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