Rika Takahashi | 30 September 2010
On 27 September, the Japan's local winners of the first Global Particle Photo Walk were announced. This Photowalk was held at five particle physics laboratories in the world on 7 August (see Feature Story this week). The winning photo taken by Yuki Hayashi features scientists working at the Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) at KEK. But they are not Japanese scientists. They are three of the nine French scientists and engineers who were visiting the ATF from the end of July to install and test their four-mirror optical cavity.
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Feature | Tagged:
ATF, Japan, photography, photowalk
Rika Takahashi | 26 August 2010
Vietnam and Japan have been nurturing cooperative relationship in many fields for many years. For the field of science and technology, both governments signed the Japan-Vietnam Science and Technology Co-operation Agreement to promote and deepen the co-operation in science and technology in 2006. Following year, Shinzo Abe, then Prime minister of Japan, proposed at the East Asia Summit (EAS) to launch a youth exchange initiative totaling 35 billion Yen over five years including the invitation to 6,000 young people from the member countries of ASEAN and EAS to Japan, which was accepted with great welcome. Now, these invitations are bringing many Vietnamese scientists to KEK.
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Around the World | Tagged:
Asia, EAS, East Asia Summit, Japan, Vietnam
Rika Takahashi | 8 July 2010
On 1-2 June, the review on the design study of the ILC conventional facility in mountain regions was held at KEK, Japan, and the final review report was submitted last week by the review panel lead by Vic Kuchler of Fermilab to Seiya Yamaguchi, head of KEK's Linear Collider Office and to Marc Ross, project manager of the Global Design Effort (GDE) in charge of the conventional facility study (GDE/CFS).
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Feature | Tagged:
Asia, CFS, conventional facilities, single tunnel
Rika Takahashi | 1 July 2010
The ILC will have an ultra-cold and complex heart made of niobium, a rare, soft, grey, and ductile transition metal. Some 18,000 radio frequency (RF) accelerating cavities for the ILC will be made of niobium, which becomes superconductor when cooled to nearly absolute zero. The global annual production of niobium in 2007 was 58,000 tonnes, and it is expected to grow up to 45 percent more in 2010 with a positive trend towards economic recovery. Although it is a 'rare' material, the reserves of niobium are assumed to be enough to cover the current world demand for 500 years
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Feature | Tagged:
industrialisation, niobium, SRF industrialisation
Rika Takahashi | 27 May 2010
One day before the beginning of the biggest ever – and first international – Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC 2010, a satellite meeting was held with scientists and specialists from laboratories and industries around the world on the superconducting radiofrequency (SCRF) cavity technology and industrialisation.
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Feature | Tagged:
IPAC, IPAC 2010, Particle Accelerator Conference, SRF industrialisation, SRF technology
Rika Takahashi | 20 May 2010
On 17 March, the Science Council of Japan, a special organisation of scientists under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister for the purpose of promoting science and having it reflected into national policy, released a recommendation on the major research programmes heading in the mid-term-about ten years, and issued a "Master Plan" (in Japanese) where they listed the top large-scale facilities and programmes. The list covers all fields from human and social science to biotechnology, energy and earth science, and of course, physics and engineering. The Council has closely examined a total of 285 big-science proposed projects with more than ten billion yen construction budget and big research programmes with more than one billion yen operational budget, and finally chose 43 of them as Japan's priority. Among those, nine projects listed KEK as one of their implementing agencies, including the upgrade of the KEKB accelerator, J-PARC, next-generation light source projects and the International Linear Collider.
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Around the World | Tagged:
Japan, Science Council of Japan
Rika Takahashi | 29 April 2010
April is the season of beginnings in Japan: beginning of spring, beginning of the school year, and beginning of the business fiscal year. Tokyo is not quite in the beginning of spring yet, as snow fell on Saturday, 17 April, matching a 41-year-old record for the season's latest snowfall. Regardless of the late arrival of spring, KEK's Linear Collider Project Office kicked off the new fiscal year with a new head of the Office: Seiya Yamaguchi.
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Around the World | Tagged:
Japan, KEK
Rika Takahashi | 15 April 2010
The ILC community welcomed a new ILC communicator from China at the Linear Collider Workshop 2010. “I feel so lucky to become an ILC communicator and to work with the other communicators,” said Min Zhang. Zhang, based at the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Science (IHEP), will be sharing the Asian communication duties with Rika Takahashi (KEK) and will closely collaborate with her European colleagues, Perrine Royole-Degieux (CNRS/IN2P3) and Barbara Warmbein (DESY).
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Feature | Tagged:
Asia, ILC Communicators, Japan, KEK
Rika Takahashi | 25 March 2010
From the end of March to the beginning of April it is one of the most festive times of the year in Japan, when the cherry blossom trees all over Japan come in to bloom for about ten days and people hold outdoor parties to view and enjoy them. The cherry blossoms are also symbols for farewells and welcomes, because April is the beginning of another school year and a new fiscal year for businesses in Japan. On 23 March, Shuichi Noguchi, one of the leading superconducting radio frequency specialists of KEK, gave his retirement lecture entitled 'Thinking back on my life as a scientist — my life at KEK and the superconducting RF cavity.'
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Around the World | Tagged:
Japan, KEK
Rika Takahashi | 11 March 2010
The word quantum beam, or Ryo-shi beam in Japanese, defined as high-quality beams produced with accelerated leptons or hadrons applying quantum mechanics, isn't really an academic word, but rather a key word for advanced technology. But it is gradually getting its recognition in Japan as a technology that will achieve breakthroughs in many fields, such as new materials developments, nanofabrication, or medical applications.
Category:
Around the World | Tagged:
Japan, outreach
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