Special Committee on the Globalization of Education and Research, the Faculty of Engineering of Iwate University

KENGURO Quarterly vol.7

3D Ganchan: Produced byan on-campus company, MMM

Issued on March 31, 2016

Sakura Science Plan

Focus !! Supporting Tsunami-Affected Areas through R&D in Robotics!!
The Special Committee on the Globalization of Education and Research (KENGURO) is actively seeking out programs for inviting students from overseas inorder to attract outstanding international students. As a continuing effort from August 2015, the program welcomed a graduate student from the Dalian University of Technology in China and three undergraduate students from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand from January 18 to February 6, 2016 with the supportof the Sakura Science Plan under the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). The students stayed at a lab at the Department of Electrical Engineering andComputer Science for three weeks to engage in a joint R&D project to develop cutting-edge robots for post-disaster support.

★ Field trip to Kamaishi and Ofunato!!

Students took a boat tour toobserve local ﬁsheries and heard
stories on the post-disasterreconstruction from local ﬁshermen (photo on the left).

The students visited Kamaishi and Ofunato from January 21 to 23 to learn about the current
situation and problems that motivated them to carry out their research work. On the ﬁrst
day, they enjoyed a Japanese ryokan and delicious Japanese dishes, explored the World’s
Camellia Museum, and went on a cruise trip on a ﬁshing boat while engaging in talks withlocals at the Kamaishi Forest Owner’s Association and the Kirikiri Fishing Port to learn
why their research topic is needed. The second day took place in Ofunato where students
heard stories about the damage and the state of reconstruction from Mr. Miura, Directorof Commercial and Industrial Port and Harbor Department at the Ofunato City Hall. They
continued on to the Ofunato Tsunami Museum. The students were shocked by the fact thata number of people are still living in temporary housing even now. The ﬁeld trip was fol-During the break from theresearch project at Iwate University, the students enjoyed skiing
at Iwate Kogen Snowpark (photoon the right), and went hiking
on snowy Iwayama with Iwate
University students.

lowed by a two-week research project on campus.

★ Final Debriefing Session!!

Mr. Zheng gave a presentation

On February 4, the Final Debrieﬁng Session was held to wrap up the program. Zheng fromon his research under the title,

China designed a timber harvesting machine for foresters in the Kamaishi area who werechine and ejecting device.”“The design of a boring ma-

affected by the disaster. If the harvester is put to practical use, it could reduce work-related
accidents as workers would be able to keep their distance from trees. Three Thai students
did research on introducing image processing to automatic ship handling for local ﬁshermencatching sea urchin and abalone. If this is actually used, beginners and elderly ﬁshermenwould also be able to help with the work.

★ Feedback on the Program
The guest students had an opportunity to learn about the current state of post-disaster recon-

They received a collection ofmessages at the exchange party
after the debrieﬁng session (photoon the right). Associate Prof.
Kim (on the far right) from the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
was in charge of this program.

struction directly from locals and engage in activities with other lab students to learn fromdifferent perspectives. It was also a great opportunity to get them interested in Japaneseculture. We are also having a forward-looking talk with Prof. Cong (Zheng’s supervisor) ona potential joint research project in the future and have received inquiries from the two participants from Thailand on studying at Iwate University.

Prof. Yoshizawa, Chair of KENGURO,and Prof. Kobayashi visiting Dalian University of Technology in early March for aconsultation on student exchange (photo onthe left). They met Zheng (on the far right)
again. Prof. Cong is second from the right.

Participants' VoiceMr. H. Zheng, China: Many foreign friends I met are friendly
and many things I should learn from them. I hope my researchin Japan is useful for Prof. Kim. I believe that our friendship iseverlasting. If there is any opportunity I will come back again.

Takuma Kaneko, Department of Electrical Engineering andComputer Science M1: What I remember most is our ski trip
with the international students as a lab event. Many of themhad never seen snow and I think they were able to experiencesomething new. It was a great opportunity for me, too as I wasable to communicate in English.

Miss J. Boonjing, Thailand: Morioka is a very beautiful city.
There is a good environment and there are many activities onsnow that I cannot do in Thailand. I have a very good time here.
I got a great experience. I would like to say thanks for everything
you done for us.

Shohei Hama, Department of Electrical Engineering andComputer Science B4: This exchange made me realize that it
was actually rather exciting that I could not use Japanese atall. I was mainly in charge of the welcome party and the skitrip. I will never forget the day I taught them how to ski without using any Japanese.

★ Meet our Young Instructor at the Faculty of Engineering (Part 1)!!
The Ginga Seminar was held twice this academic year with the aim of discovering outstanding research work done by a young instructor. This year, Eriko Sugano,
Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Bioengineering, and Tomoyuki Naito, Associate Professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, talked about their research topics. They described the topics they pursue in their research work in an easy-to-understand way for our readers.

★ Associate Prof. Eriko Sugano: Optically Controlling Genes to Restore Vision!!
Imagine being told that you would lose your sight. How terrifying would that be? Your daily life would become very difﬁcult and you wouldn’t even be able to see your own face. We are doing research under thetheme, “Restoring the sight of patients who have lost their vision” as there is no treatment for vision loss. Adisease called retinitis pigmentosa causes a reduction of photorecepter cells in the retina that receive information ﬁrst andprevents visual information from being delivered. The disease
will eventually lead to vision loss. However, even though thephotoreceptor cells are lost, other nerve cells remain in theretina. So, we applied optogenetic technologies to enable theSugano writing a paper(?)

remaining cells to receive optical information and convert it toneural information. This is how we are attempting to recover
lost vision (see the ﬁgures on the right). More speciﬁcally, we
let the retinal cells make channelrodopsin, a protein from green
algae that receives light and converts it to neural informationthat works as photoreceptor cells. We successfully developed

With this technology wedeveloped, Astellas, a pharmaceutical company, willstart the preparation steps fortreating people ofﬁcially!!

channelrodopsin, which receives visible light by itself, andFaculty members and students at the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience that Sugano is
afﬁliated with.

Maki Takahashi

now own the patent in Japan, the United States, and Europe.

★ Associate Prof. Tomoyuki Naito:
Controlling Substances with Superconducting Magnets!
When you hear the word superconductor, you might think of “zero electrical resistance” first. Anotherfeature of superconductors is “ﬂux pinning” in which a superconductor is pinned in space above a magnet(quantized ﬂux). By utilizing this ﬂux pinning, you can turn a chunk of a superconductor (bulk) into quasi-permanent magnet (I say quasi-permanent because the superconductor needs to be continuously cooled).
In order to maintain this captured magnetic ﬁeld, supercurrent, as much
as 1,000-10,000 amps per square centimeter, needs to be ﬂowing within
the superconducting material with zero electrical resistance. A magnet-Naito looks happy with the MgB2 bulk in hishand. It measures as much as 20cm in diameter.

ic ﬁeld exceeding 10 tesla that is generated by a superconducting bulk
magnet a few centimeters in diameter (earth’s magnetism is 50 microtesla) is strong enough to lift a linear motor car (magnetic levitation) andrepel water (Moses effect). I’m especially interested in material developMoses effect (top). That’s right. The ment based on the MgB2 superconductor and microscopic mechanism of
famous episode in the Old Testament
ﬂux pinning in my research.
inspired the name.

Bulletin★ Academic cooperation between faculties !!
The agreement on academic exchange with the National University of Mongolia will berenewed. Two students from the National University of Mongolia will join Prof. Konno’s
lab as Ph. D. students at the department of Design and Media Technology. We look forward to meeting them at various events!

★ Lecture by Prof. Herbert Yang from the University of Alberta, Canada!!

Faculty members and students at the Laboratory that Naito is afﬁliated with.

Editor's Note
This issue featured not only an international exchange
program but also the research topics of two instructors.
Although we hardly get to hear about ﬁelds outside ourown specialties, various events like international exchange and lectures remind us that meeting new people
sparks new interests and gives us reasons to try newthings. We continue to host activities to provide thesekinds of opportunities on campus.

The 29th Ginga Lecture will be held on April 20, 2016. We will have a guest lecturer,
Prof. Yang from the University of Alberta in Canada who talks about his country, hisuniversity and his ﬁeld of specialization. Professor Yang specializes in computer graphics
and computer vision. Please come and enjoy.

Editor:Special Committee on Globalization of Education and Research,
Faculty of Engineering of Iwate University
Email: kenguro@iwate-u.ac.jp