Know more about e3
Our new home from this October

Content

The Birth of the New E:Vision

Letter from the e3 Head...
Do you know Inspiratory Muscle
Training (IMT)? This is a training
method for athletes to gain power andendurance by working out theinspiratory muscles. In IMT, you willhold a device in your mouth andbreathe for 30 times in themorning and in theevening. The device adds
resistance, which can be
adjusted to fit your muscle
strength, when you
breathe so that yourinspiratory muscles get
s t r o n g e r. S t r o n g e r
inspiratory muscles give
you more oxygen wheny o u e x e r c i s e. A
scientific researchshowed that the timefor 40 km time trial bybicycle was reduced by 4.5%
after 6 weeks of IMT.
By the way, as you may know,
EGPSEE will be replaced by e3 thisOctober 2007. EGPSEE was operated
by a voluntary committee, which waschaired by me. But the Graduate
School established a new official
committee for e3 this year. The official
committee makes important decisions
and is directly under the Dean. The
head of the official committee is Prof.
Tsunekawa, one of the Vice Deans, andthe members are professors from alldivisions in the whole Graduate Schooland Ms. Werawan.
A working group (WG) which takes
care of the various things for theoperation of e3 was created. The WG is

The e3 Magazine

What’s in this issue?
2
Special Interview - Mifue 
5Feature - Japanese Plagiarism6
Feature - CEED Story
9
Feature - Nanotechnology 11
Article - Food and Diet 
14Article - Travelogue: UK 
15
Article - Finland Friend
16
Article - Ebetsu Town
17
Update18
Special Feature - About e3

I suppose the inspiratory muscles for e3
is significantly improved. It supplies e3much more oxygen. However, althoughsome of the professors have a lot ofexperiences in teaching abroad in
English, most professors in mechanicaland material engineering are new inthis aspect. At first, some new problems
in operating e3 may arise. Let the WG
know the problems, of course, not onlyof the new subject groups but also of
the conventional subject groups. The
WG is making efforts to improve theeducation in the English Program andwill continue to do so. I strongly
appreciate your cooperation.
Worrying about the abnormal
weakening of Japanese yen.

Editor-in-chief: Thithiwat May
Editorial committee: Richard Diaz Alorro, Rani K T Jha, Alba Carolina Blanco
Chaparro, Carlito Baltazar Tabelin, Werawan Manakul Ueda, Arshad Baharudin
and Michael Angelo B. Promentilla
Copyright@2007, English Engineering Education Program, All right reserved.

E:Vision Summer 2007

E:Vision Summer 2007

under the official committee andconsists of representatives from thesubject groups. I was chosen as thehead of the WG.
All of therepresentatives are enthusiastic about
education and hot discussions arecarried out in every meeting. On theother hand, e3 has a new officer
in the person of Ms.
Mifue Shimamura
who is working as an
assistant to Ms.
Werawan. I don't
really think that Ms.
Shimamura should
work only as a parttimer because she is so
intelligent and fluent inEnglish. Anyway, theWG warmly welcomed
her and I hope all of you
will love her.



















1

Special

Feature:e3- another step towards internationalized engineering education

By Werawan Manakul Ueda
When the Graduate Schoolof Engineering started the “Tokubetsu
Eigo Course” or the “Special English
Course” in 2000, it was called the“English Graduate Program in SocioEnvironmental Engineering” or
EGPSEE in English. The application
submitted to the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology (MEXT) in 1999 toobtain an approval that, if granted,
would come with a fixed number ofscholarships says that students
enrolled in the program will receive
all educational instruction in English.
Given the fact that a student’s
education does not start and end in
the classrooms alone, the word

“English” in the program’s name andthe promise the university gave to
MEXT and students enrolling in the
program have brought about
numerous attempts to ensure that the
program adheres by its name and its
pledge to MEXT.
If we were to look at the socalled English-medium graduate
programs at other Japanese
universities or even at our own
Hokkaido University, none calls itself
an English graduate program. They
are either “special” or “international”
programs.
EGPSEE started with 12
MEXT scholarships and 7 subject
groups. Each subject group consistedof 6-7 courses pulled from 14 researchgroups in the Socio-Environmental
Engineering Group in the Japanese
program structure.
The double peak concept atthat time required a master’s student
to earn 12 credits from his/her
primary field and 8 credits from thesecondary field. (All courses carry 2
credits each.)
When the Information
Science and Technology Group split
to become a separate Graduate
School, the Graduate School ofEngineering restr uctured theremaining Divisions. Although thenumber of faculties remained
unchanged the three originalDivisions in the Socio-Environmental
Engineering Group split up to become

Table 1 EGPSEE structure (October 2000- March 2004)

Division

Japanese ResearchGroup

Environmental and Resources
Engineering

5

Structural and GeotechnicalEngineering
Urban and Environmental
Engineering
E:Vision Summer 2007



EGPSEEEGPSEE Subject
Group
ERE-1
ERE-2
ERE-3
SGE-1
SGE-2
UEE-1
UEE-2

4
5













No. ofcourses
7
6
6
8
7
6
8




2

six Divisions. Initially EGPSEE planned to remain as it
was, i.e. with the 7 subject group structure. However it
was found out at the last minute that the restructure did
not only touch upon regrouping of Divisions, it also didon the number of required courses in the primary andsecondary fields. The original requirement of 6+4 waschanged to 8+2. Five out of the 7 subject groups had lessthan 8 courses and were not ready to offer new ones.
Grouping the existing courses Division-wise showed that
only 2 out of the 6 Divisions would be required to offer
additional courses and fortunately these two Divisions
agreed to. As a result in 2005, when the restructure of
Graduate School of Engineering took place, EGPSEE
changed its structure from 7 subject groups to 6 Divisions.
To provide students with more courses to choose
from, in 2006, EGPSEE introduced a system in whichcourses offered by other Divisions were borrowed andgiven recognition as the borrower’s original courses. The
combined number of courses (original plus borrowed) inthe Division is equal to the number of courses available in
the Japanese.
In 2006, MEXT announced the abolition of all
the existing 70+ special programs offered by Japanese
universities including EGPSEE and invited new
applications. I proposed shrinking the program so that it
consisted of only qualified professors, quality courses andlaboratories. My proposal was shelved. Instead the Dean
and Vice Deans preferred to expand the English program.
Their ultimate aim is for all the Divisions in the Graduate
School of Engineering to join the English program one
day in the future.
Five new Divisions responded positively to theVice Dean’s invitation to join the English program. On thecontrary one existing Division bowed out as a Divisionleaving the decision to join or not to join the program with
its individual faculty. At the same time some professors inanother Division chose to discontinue offering theircourses making it impossible for the Division to remain on

Table 2 EGPSEE structure (April 2005-September 2007)

Division(same as in Japanese program)No. of originalcourses

Field Engineering for Environment
Engineering and Policy for Cold
Regional Environment
Architectural and Structural Design
Human Environmental System
Built Environment
Solid Waste, Resources andGeoenvironmental Engineering

8“Borrowed” No. of originalcourses between and borrowed No. of courses in
Divisionscourses inJapanese program(effective 2006)
EGPSEE
7
15
15

9

2

11

11

8
8
13

4
6
-

12
14
13

12
14
13

12

4

16

16

Table 3 e3 structure (Oct 2007-)

Division

Subject Group

Field Engineering for
Field Engineering forEnvironment
Environment
Engineering and Policy for Engineering and Policy for
Cold Regional
Cold Regional
Environment
Environment
Architectural and
Human Environmental
Structural Design
System, Architectural and
Human Environmental
Structural Design
SystemBuilt Environment
Built Environment
Solid Waste, Resources and Solid Waste, Resources andGeoenvironmental
Geoenvironmental
Engineering
Engineering
Materials Science andMaterials Science andEngineering
Engineering
Energy and Environmental
Systems
Mechanical and Space
Mechanical and Intelligent
Engineering
System Engineering
Human Mechanical
Systems and Design
Quantum Science andEngineering
E:Vision Summer 2007







No. of originalcoursesNo. ofborrowed
coursesNo. of original
and borrowed
courses in e3

Japanese
program

8

7

15

15

8

3

11

11

13

1

14

n/a

13

-

13

13

12

4

16

16

10

-

10

15

8

-

8

n/a













3

its own. Furthermore among the five
new Divisions, only one Division willoffer courses enough to stand alone asa primary field. The English program
once again faced a similar problem it
did two years ago hence had nochoice but to return to the subject
group format.
To avoid having to change
the name of the program in the future
after new Divisions join, we decided
to simply name the program “English
Engineering Education” or e3.
MEXT approved our application withan allocation of 14 scholarships. I
have covered the background leading
to the establishment of the English
Engineering Education or the e3
program. I will now tell you why I
think e3 is a step towards
internationalized engineering
education.
Although my idea of
shrinking the program so that it
contained only quality courses andqualified faculty was not accepted,
the concept of quality courses was.
In November 2006 a Quality
Assurance Working Group wasestablished.
QAWG’s first task was
drawing up a guideline for preparing
a syllabus. The guideline requires
course instructors to clearly describe
the sequence of the course content,
references, grading method, etc. This
practice is considered standard
internationally but it is not so in theJapanese graduate curriculum. With
the blueprint laid out the next step is
to make sure that what is written in
the syllabuses is actually followed.
Students will play and important rolein this matter as they are expected toprovide candid opinions.
In early 2007 an official
committee to deal with the e3
program was established. In the past
EGPSEE was governed by a groupconsisting of two representative
members from each subject group/

division. Since the group was notrecognized as an official committee,
decisions made there must be
approved by committees in theJapanese program. Despite the factthat many issues in the English
program should be dealt withdifferently, they were viewed under
the same way as the Japanese
program. As a result they should not
differ from what is being practiced in
the Japanese program.
The newly established“Tokubetsu Eigo Course Iinkai” or“Special English Course Committee”
chaired by the Vice Dean for
Academic Affairs recognizes English
and Japanese as its official language.
Recognition of English as an official
language for an official committee isunprecedented in Japanese national
universities.
Furthermore thecommittee’s official Working Group(e3 WG) chaired by the EGPSEE
head conducts its meetings and keeps
its records totally in English. Can
you imagine a meeting where 8 of the
9 members are Japanese carries out
its discussion totally in English? This
is what is happening at e3 WG
meetings.
As matters e3 WG deals withconcern the e3 program and its
students, e3 WG members agree that
it is more practical and efficient tohave matters, rules and regulations
concerning e3 discussed and recorded
in English rather than having themrecorded in Japanese and translated
later. As a member and secretary, I
can say that some of the issues
deliberated in the e3 WG became anissue because they are looked at notfrom a Japanese perspective but aninternational one.
The role of the QAWG
whose aim is to raise awareness ofquality education among teaching
staff and lay the groundwork for
quality assurance measures in the e3

program is taken over by the e3 WG.
It agreed that a laboratory’s
homepage is one of the indicators as
to how ready a laboratory is to accept
inter national students.
Alllaboratories were then advised to
update or create their homepage inEnglish before a certain deadline.
Laboratories that failed to comply
would be marked as “unable to accept
students” on the e3 website.
e3 will officially start in
October 2007 with 16 new students.
It is in a much better and freer
situation than EGPSEE. An increasein the number of Divisions andfaculty brings in fresh air and ideas
which is vital for a program to remaincompetitive.
In my opinion, themost significant change is theestablishment of an e3 official
committee that enables the program
to operate more freely and outside thelong established framework of theJapanese program. One of the firstsigns of internationalization that you
will soon see is how the names ofinternational students appear on theuniversity documents.
Instead of
katakana, the names will be shown inromanji (English) and, if necessary,also in kana. A small yet a big step
towards internalization for a Japanese
university with 131 years of history
like Hokkaido University.

Werawan is our second Mom and is
our active program officer.
E:Vision Summer 2007



















4

Special“Never lose an opportunity ofseeing anything that is beautiful,for beauty is God's handwriting -- awayside sacrament. Welcome it inevery fair face, in every fair sky, inevery flower, and thank God for it
as a cup of blessing.”

Getting to know Mifue- Ralph Waldo Emerson

By Richard Diaz Alorro
When my beloved sensei, Prof. Tsunekawa, told
me that Ms. Werawan finally got an assistant, I was glad
(at last she will have someone to share some of her
workloads). But when he said that the assistant is beautiful
and advised me to go to Werawan san’s office to see her, I
was ecstatic and hurriedly went down to 4th floor. And
there I met her…for the first time.
It was June 1, 2007, her first day at work. She wasdressed in an ordinary denim and shirt yet she exuded an
inexplicable radiance. Yes…my sensei was correct. She isindeed gorgeous. She is smart, confident and eloquent, yet
What is your complete name?
Mifue Shimamura

What do you want to do in the
future?
In the future, I want to do something forkids or children without parents or
relatives to take good care of them. That’s
my dream.

Let’s talk about favorites. What isyou favorite…
Color – Pink
Food – Mexican, ChineseMusic – Nothing way too loud or heavymetal. I like Kirk Franklin.
Movie – Love stories, romantic comedy,
comedy (she loves to laugh)

Where is your hometown?
Kobe, Japan. I moved from Kobe to
Sapporo last March 2007
Where and when did you finish yourbachelor’s degree?
Kobe City University of Foreign Studies,
2005

What made you decide to accept thejob offer in e3?
I have always wanted to work at schools
because people who are learning somethingare very inspiring! I enjoy working here at
Hokudai and seeing people study so hard.
It makes me want to study harder! And
the students are very nice : )How about your talent?
“singing” (let us listen to her golden voicesome other time)

What is your major?
American Literature (interesting right?
Now maybe you know why she is very
good in English)

Have you been to other countries?
What is the best place so far?
I’ve been to Australia, Vanuatu, USA(San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii,
Nevada). I think the best so far was San
Francisco!

How and where did you learn
English?
I studied at school, and by watchingmovies and reading books

Any message for e3 students?
I haven’t met some of you but I am
thrilled to work here at Hokudai. Hope toknow you all better through events.

How about some work experience
before joining e3?
I worked as a receptionist to complete
resident for non-Japanese people called
THE ENTENTE in Kobe from 2005 to2007

What do you usually do during yourfree time? Hobby?
Watching movies, reading, cooking(hmmm…maybe we should ask her tocook sometime during one of our parties),
hanging out, bowling, karaoke
E:Vision Summer 2007

a child at heart. She is the kind of girl who is a let’s sit andtalk a while type yet would eventually end up in a whole
day conversation.
I picked up the words of the famous poet, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, about beauty to convey my appreciation
to a lovely lady and warmest welcome to the newest
addition to our happy family. I had this opportunity tointerview and ask her several questions. Let us wander
over the threads of words of her answers, and know her
more.











And lastly, are you still single?
Not anymore. I got married last November
2006 in Kyoto to Zachary Poyner, a
Christian missionary from Virginia, USA(So guys, she is not free anymore. But eventhough tied by heart, she is always free tohelp us with our academic needs.)








5

FEATURE:

The myth of Japanese
acceptance of plagiarism
By Prof. Greg Wheeler

Plagiarism has been an issue numerous
professors at Hokkaido University have had toconfront over the past several years. In the past
year alone, no fewer then three professors,
recognizing this is a topic I am currently
researching, have related experiences they have
had with their students copying almost word forword articles and passing the material off as
their own original work. It is considered aserious enough problem, in fact, that there has
been talk about introducing the topic into theEnglish II syllabus, an online course that all
first-year students take during their firstsemester at the university.
There are of course a number of reasons,both intentional and unintentional, for why
students plagiarize. Concerning the former, alack of confidence is often a determining factor;
a student may have a written assignment andfeels that he or she is incapable of completingthe task, and instead submits the work ofanother, claiming credit for it as his or her own.
This is often the case for students who are
writing in a language that is not native to them.
Motivation for others is that they believe it very
easy to plagiarize and are confident they will
not be caught. Too late, these students often
ultimately discover this is simply not the case.
On the other hand, many students willplagiarize without realizing what they are
doing. They may, for example, be unsure of thedifferences between paraphrasing sources andplagiarizing, and their work may lean toward
the latter. Others may write material without
realizing that proper citation is necessary forwhat they have submitted.

“We are told that the Japanese do notregard copying without proper citation
as a major offense, and in fact somescholars will go so far as to insist thatstudents are expected to plagiarize.”
Whatever the reasons, students from theWestern hemisphere recognize that plagiarism
is regarded as a heinous offense in academia.
Simply put, it is considered a moral breach ofacademic honesty. As such, any study claimingthat students from countries such as the UnitedStates believe plagiarism is inherent in theirculture would be rightfully scoffed at.
However, this is often exactly what we hearin regards to plagiarism in Japan. We are toldthat the Japanese do not regard copying without
proper citation as a major offense, and in factsome scholars will go so far as to insist thatstudents are expected to plagiarize. According
to these researchers, to do so is in keeping withJapanese culture. Be it Buddhist or Confucian
influences, or the legendary sempai (superior)kohai (underling) relations that supposedly
permeate all aspects of Japanese society, there isapparently no shame in copying work that has
been previously submitted. According to one
researcher, in fact, originality is something
regarded with suspicion in Japan: “In Japan,
originality is in some ways counterproductive tothe notion of community and shared interests.
Thus, it is often considered bad form to disagree
or to go off on a different tangent. There isnothing to be ashamed about following the welltrodden paths of others when reporting on
research.”

To Copy
Technology makes us too
lazy? Is copying a good
choice?

E:Vision Summer 2007



















6

Certainly, even those who believe
plagiarism is not considered a moraltransgression by Japanese students dofeel the students should be taught
proper citation techniques. However,they would seem to advocate that
Western academics should take amore forgiving attitude toward theJapanese students, recognizing thatthey are simply doing what is normal
in their culture.
It is an interesting theory.
However, when informed of this,every Japanese professor at Hokkaido
University whom I have mentioned
this to has expressed disagreementwith the idea that plagiarism is
accepted in Japan. Many are worried
about the problem as well. This
would seemingly contradict the ideathat students are actually being
encouraged—particularly at thegraduate level—to copy the ideas
from other sources.
In order to gauge student
reactions to plagiarism at theuniversity, in the fall semester of
2006, three professors who teachEnglish composition courses
conducted surveys in their first- andsecond-year English courses. During
the course of this survey, students
were asked to read and evaluate threeparagraphs. They were informed thatthe first paragraph had been
submitted as a homework assignment
by a student named Kintaro
Takahashi. After reading thisparagraph, students assigned it ascore from one to ten points (onebeing the lowest score possible).
Next, students read the second
paragraph, which had been created toappear as if it had been publishedpreviously in an academic journal.
This paragraph, with very few
changes, was almost exactly the sameas the Takahashi submission. Afterreading this ‘published’ work, thestudents were asked to re-evaluate
Takahashi’s work.
Finally, students were asked toread one more paragraph, also
submitted by Takahashi. This
paragraph was very similar in content
to the ‘published’ work, but the
vocabulary was changed somewhat.
Students were also asked to assign
this paragraph a score on the one toten point scale.
In total, 249 students participatedin the survey. For greater detail, one
can read Wheeler (2006), but tobriefly sum up the results, students
were overwhelmingly negative in theirreactions toward Takahashi after
reading the ‘published’ work.
Although mostly positive in their
E:Vision Summer 2007

“As almost any cultural
anthropologist could
attest, for all too many
people, ‘different’, when
expressed in cultural
terms, almost inevitably
evolves into ‘inferior’.”

Greg Wheeler is a professor at the Institute of Language and Culture Studies.

initial evaluation—the mean score
was 7.74, with 1.521 standard
deviation—this score fell to 3.79
(St.Dev. 2.988) after the students readthe published paragraph. Moreover,the students were scathing in theircomments, condemning Takahashi
for clearly copying from a journal andtrying to pass off the work as his
own.
Interestingly, scores for the final
paragraph were almost similar to theinitial marks students gave Takahashi(mean 7.10; St.Dev. 2.340). In theire va l u a t i o n s, m a n y s t u d e n t s
recognized that the content was
similar to that from the ‘published’
paragraph, but did not consider
Takahashi to have plagiarized
because he had used his own words.
During the spring semester of
2007, the survey was repeated, withminor changes (Japanese instructions
were added to lessen possible student
confusion, and the third paragraph
was said to have been written by
Makoto Watanabe). This time, 77
students participated in the survey.
Results were similar to those from theearlier survey.3 The mean for the firstevaluation was 7.29 (St.Dev. 1.605),
the re-evaluated mean after students
read the ‘published’ paragraph was
3.58 (St.Dev. 3.159) and for the final
paragraph, the mean was 5.12
(St.Dev. 2.626). Similar to the firstsurvey, students wrote comments
expressing dissatisfaction at what
they viewed as a clear case ofplagiarism upon re-evaluation the firstparagraph. Also similar to the first











survey were attitudes concerning thefinal paragraph, which seemed toshow that many students did notconsider it plagiarism simply because
Watanabe chose different vocabulary
to express his point.
The results of both surveys
indicate that the students at Hokkaido
University do indeed disapprove ofplagiarism, but perhaps only when
they are able to recognize it. That amajority did not understand that thethird paragraph was also plagiarizedindicates that students lack detailed
knowledge on what constitutes
plagiarism. This should come as no
great surprise. The subject ofplagiarism is often not covered at
length during a student’s junior orsenior high school years. Thus, they
may often recognize and condemn
blatant examples of clear copying—as
they did in their reevaluations of the
Takahashi paragraph—but notunderstand the correct methods ofparaphrasing an author’s ideas, andthus be far more forgiving of works
such as the third paragraphs from thesurveys. This loose form ofplagiarism, often called patch writing,is common in the development of
second-language learners of English.
Usually, with time and ample practicein writing, students can evolve as
writers beyond this stage. If a
professor perceives this is the casewith an assignment received from a
student, he or she would do well not
to come down too hard on thestudent.







7

In the end, both those who claim plagiarism isculturally acceptable in Japan, and those who
believe students are patch writing feel leniency on
the part of the English professor is vital. If bothsides share this feeling, why, then is it important todistinguish between the two views? One potential
problem with the first view is that if a professor
believes something is part of a student’s culture, notwanting to appear insensitive, he or she may be very
reluctant to press the student to change. However, inthe back of that professor’s mind, the idea may
linger that it is culturally acceptable for Japanese
students to ‘cheat’. Japan once again becomes that‘other’ place where things are done ‘differently’. As
almost any cultural anthropologist could attest, forall too many people, ‘different’, when expressed incultural terms, almost inevitably evolves into
‘inferior’. For this reason alone, the professor needs
to be extremely wary of dismissing matters such asplagiarism as merely differences in culture. The
students deserve better than such a simplistic
explanation, one founded only on superficial views.

Day, M. (2001). A meshing ofminds: The future of online
research for print andelectronic publication. In J.
Barber and D. Grigar (Eds.),
New worlds, new words:
Exploring pathways forwriting about and inelectronic environments (pp.
251-277). New Jersey:
Hampton Press.
Wheeler, G. (2006). A surveyof Hokkaido University
students’ attitudes towardplagiarism. Media, Language
and Culture, 51, 227-242.

ETHIOPIANMILLENNIUM
by Mintesnot Gebeyehu
Woldeamanuel

The calendars of the entire world are basedon the work of the old Egyptian astronomers who
discovered - as early as three to four thousand years
BC - that the solar or sidereal year lasted slightly
less than 365  days. However, it was left to theastronomers of the Alexandrian school toincorporate this knowledge into some sort ofcalendar; and it was these astronomers who alsocame up with the idea of leap years.

Ethiopian calendar retains the old Egyptian
system whereby the year was divided into twelve
months of thirty days each plus one additional
month of five days (six days in leap years).
Ethiopian dates therefore, fall 7- 8 years behindwestern dates and have done so since early
Christian times. This discrepancy results fromdifferences between the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church and the Roman Catholic Church as to thedate of the creation of the world and the birth ofJesus Christ. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church
believes that Christ was born exactly 5,500 years
after the creation of the world which they thenequate to 7BC. Some experts believe that they areprobably nearer the true date than the Gregoriancalendar. Each Ethiopian year is dedicated to one of
the four Evangelists according to the cycle:
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The year of St.
John is Leap Year, and therefore always has six daysin the thirteenth month of the Ethiopian calendar.

Subsequently, the Romans under Julius
Caesar borrowed their reformed calendar from theAlexandrian science and adopted it to the westernworld. In due course, the Copts handed thiscalendar, together with their method of computing
the date of Easter, on to their descendant Church in
Ethiopia. When Europe converted the Juliancalendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1582,
Ethiopians stuck with the Julian calendar, which
they had been using happily for centuries.
Consequently, the seven-year adjustment that
Europe underwent in the 16th century never took
place in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian calendar remains
approximately seven years behind the one used inmost of the rest of the Christian world.

E:Vision Summer 2007







Based on the above historical accounts,
Ethiopia will marks its Millennium on September
12, 2007, which is Meskerem 1, 2000 in Ethiopia.
Minte is an alumnus of our program. He finished his
PhD in transportation engineer in Sept. 2007.













8

FEATURE:

Mission of CEED and its
interesting programs
By Prof. Toru Noguchi

Center for Engineering Education
Development, CEED, was established in April
2005 to develop and provide educational
programs for graduate students in the School ofEngineering and School of Information
Science, which are more practical andconcordant with the needs of industry andglobal society. Students can acquire abilities toapply scientific knowledge in practicalengineering problems, leading to a wide rangeof comprehensive practical skills that are nottaught in classrooms and research works inuniversity laboratories. CEED consists of threeprograms: the Industry Collaboration Program,the International Relation Program, and theContinuing Education Program. The CEED
programs are supported by a special budget ofMonbu-Kagaku-sho (Ministry of Educationand Science) lasting five years. Details of the
program are as follow.
Internship education is a core program of
CEED. It has four sub-programs: (1) long-term
overseas, (2) long-term domestic, (3) short-term
domestic, and (4) accepting overseas students.
Long-term internship, both overseas anddomestic, should be longer than about one
month and students are required to join someprojects, researches, surveys, designs,
production, and others. Students can learn how
their classroom/laboratory experiences areapplied to the business and activities in thecompanies or research institutes. Especially inoverseas internship, students must live in totallydifferent culture, customs and language, just likewhat EGPSEE students are doing here. The
experience is invaluable although the period is
not long enough.
Short-term internship is within two weeks, toexperience working in companies or other“They are expected to be outstanding
engineers and researchers, andcontribute to our society and to theworld in the near future.”o r g a n i z a t i o n s i n c l u d i n g g ove r n m e n t
institutions. The experience might be verysignificant because most of the Japanese
students know only classroom theories, but do
not have any ideas about working (not as a part-time job) in companies. Until the 1970’s,
internship in companies used to be acompulsory course for engineering students inJapan. However in the 80's, these internshipprograms disappeared from the curriculums in
Hokkaido University (HU), mainly because
most of the undergraduate (UG) students go tograduate schools, and research work in thelaboratories was regarded as more important
than company experience. This resulted in thelack of industrial sense of the students and
CEED programs compensated for it, although
the number of students was limited. CEED
gives financial aids to enthusiastic students fortheir travel expenses. Accommodation andliving costs are expected to be paid by the hostorganization. Two credit units are given to
long-term internships, and one to short-term
ones. The routes to find host organizations are:a) adviser professors, b) IAESTE (International
Association for Exchange of Students forTechnical Experience), c) developed by CEED,d) Career Center, HU, and d) public offer
through internet, etc.
Overseas internship, in the fiscal year of
2006, 28 students including 4 foreign students

CEED isFriendship and engineering

E:Vision Summer 2007



















9

joined overseas internship in 15
countries: US, UK, France, Germany,
Finland, Norway, Netherlands,
Belgium, Swiss, Poland, Hungary,
China, Indonesia, Nepal, and Korea.
The internships were hosted byproduction companies, research
institutes and universities.
Long and short-term domestic, in
2006, 29 students joined domestic
long-term internships in companies
including Hitachi, Mitsubishi,
Toshiba, Toyota Hokkaido, somegovernment institutions and others.
Unfortunately, companies accepting
foreign students are quite limited, andin 2006, no foreign students
experienced internship in Japanesecompanies. The main reason seems
to be business confidentiality. CEED
is promoting internship of foreign
students in Japanese companies
because it must be a significant
experience both for engineering
training and for understanding thiscountry.
Adviser professor route
might be the most effective. There
was an example of a foreign student
who joined a one week internship in acompany near Sapporo. In 2007,
another good example is going to be
successful.
In 2006, 22 students
experienced short-term domestic
internships.
Internship seminar, annualinternship seminars are held in
October and November, twice foroverseas internships (all students are
required to present) and once fordomestic one (outstanding students
are selected both from long term andshort term programs).
Students
present their valuable experiences,
projects they joined, daily life andweekend events, and every otherinteresting stories with humor andbeautiful slides. Half of the students
returned from overseas present intheir improved English.
Accepting foreign internshiptrainees, in 2006, 13 internshiptrainees from France, Canada,
Holland, Iran Germany, China andKorea stayed here from one month to
6 months.
They joined someresearch programs in the laboratories,that provided a good opportunity tocollaborate with foreign students,
leading to good educational effects, aswell as, achieving better research
performance. CEED supported theiraccommodation and living expenses
for a maximum of two months. In
2007, more than 20 internshipstudents are coming here. Students
volunteer committee had just began
its activity to treat them with somehelp of CEED. Anybody who wants
E:Vision Summer 2007to enjoy international friendship arewelcome to join the movement.
Special lecture for bringing up
creative engineers, it is quite
important for engineering students toknow contemporary trends, problems
and the future visions of technology
in various engineering fields. In thislecture, outstanding engineers areinvited, and they talk about theirexperiences in various projects.
Students can learn how the basic
science and engineering ideas areapplied to actual projects andcontribute to society. The students
also realize the importance ofbroadmindedness, leadership andvarious abilities required fromengineers as well as the importance of
career design. In 2007, top engineersfrom 10 companies including
Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toyota, andCanon were invited to talk on themain theme "Energy andEnvironment", and they discussedwith students on global warming andother energy problems. 72 students, 4
are UGs, joined the course.
The
lectures are all in Japanese, but wewelcome foreign students as well, you
can feel and touch the warm heart ofengineers at the forefront.
International Relation Programs,
as you all know well, proficiency inEnglish communication of Japanese
students,( and professors as well,) arepoor or insufficient with only a small
number of exceptions. International
Relation Program aims at improving
the English ability, and also
promoting international
understanding of graduate students.
Practical English in Science andEngineering, graduate students arerequested to write research articles
and to make academic presentation in
English.
Prof. Ono in Tokyo
University gives a 15-hour lecture in
the first stage. In the second stage,
every student is required to arrange a
10-minute presentation with
Powerpoint (PPT) format slides, andnative English instructors help themto improve their skills, to make slides
clearer, to attract audience, toovercome the discussion as well as, toteach English expressions. In 2007,
46 students including one Chinese
student joined the course, with full
financial support from CEED.
Brush-up English course consistsof more fundamental lessons toimprove conversational English, and40 students joined the class with halfof them is supported by CEED.
Student programs of international
exchange, CEED supports the eventsplanned by students to promote










international exchange of Japaneseand foreign students. In 2006, threeout of five proposals were approved.
International forum was held withpresentations and posters on research
projects, introduction of students’
mother countries and cultures.
International ski tour and live concert
music entitled "There is no Border inMusic" were also very successful with
24 and 50 participants, respectively.
E-learning program is a powerful
method for students outside of theschool, as doctoral (DC) students incompanies, to take a course and get
new knowledge and results ofcontemporary research without
attending the classes in the university.
It also helps the students in school toreview or prepare for their classroom
studies.
Continuing Education
section is developing effective elearning systems by collaboratingwith Graduate School of Information
Science.
In 2006, 13 courses inInformation Science, 10 courses inEngineering and one common course
are available. "MicrobiologicalEngineering" and "Environmental
Biotechnology" by Prof. Okabe, "Lifeand Water" by Prof. Uchida and"Information Media Environment" by
Prof. T. Yamamoto, and others are in
English. Anybody who wants to use
these e-programs can simply contact
CEED, ceed-con@eng.hokudai.ac.jp
and ask for an ID number.
With these programs, many
students enjoy various opportunities
to improve their abilities, practiceengineering science, collaborate withindustries, improve their English
communication skill, have overseas
experiences and promoteinter national understanding,leadership and activeness on
everything, all of which are notobtained in the classroom. The total
number of the students who joined
CEED programs in 2006 total toalmost 300. They are expected to beoutstanding engineers andresearchers, and contribute to oursociety and to the world in the near
future. Please visit CEED office(Room L-200) anytime, staffs are
waiting for you.

Prof.Noguchi is the head of CEED andalways supports our community.







10

Fig.1(a)“Nanotechnology is a general term for the
study of anything with a length scale
between 1 nanometer (nm) and 1000nm,
where 1nm is one billionth of a meter or
50,000 times smaller than width of a humanhair.”(b)(c)

FEATURE:

Optic to the small scale:

An introduction to nanotechnology
By Tim Kelf

In recent years there has been an explosion of interestin the field of nanotechnology. Along with this, much has
been written about the potentials and dangers of scienceon the nanoscale. In this article I will briefly outline thework in which I have recently been involved, and in sodoing, hopefully provide a glimpse into the meaning of
this buzz word from the perspective of a scientist.
Nanotechnology is a general term for the study ofanything with a length scale between 1 nanometer (nm)and 1000nm, where 1nm is one billionth of a meter or
50,000 times smaller than width of a human hair. This,by definition, therefore encompasses all of chemistry andmuch of biology, as well as fields like computerengineering and optics. Clearly a stricter definition isreally required, and so it is often said that nanotechnology
represents the overlapping regions between the puresciences.
Traditionally there has been little
interdisciplinary collaboration, and it is this new foundwillingness to bring together people and ideas fromdifferent backgrounds which has brought nanotechnology
into the spot light as an exciting new area of science.
There are many reasons why this science is of suchinterest, but one of the most important is how things on
the small scale interact with light. This has been my areaof research, and so is what I will concentrate on here.
When a structure is of a similar size to the wavelengthof light, strange effects begin to become apparent, as
indicated in figure 1a, b. Here, a butterfly’s wing andpiece of opal are shown. Both are colorful, but thesecolors come purely from structure rather than any
E:Vision Summer 2007







chemical effect. The structure of the wing is very regularand built in such a way that it perfectly reflects all blue
light, while transmitting all other colors. The opal on theother hand has a more random structure, and so reflects
different colors at different places.
What is mostimportant here is that not only does the structuring haveto be of equal size to the wavelength of light, but it must
be well ordered to produce a strong effect.
Another optical phenomenon is show in figure 1c, d.
Here a picture of a classical piece of Roman glasswork isshown illuminated both from outside (c) and within (d).
The change of color depending on the lighting is quite
striking, and yet now there is no structuring. At very highmagnifications it is found that the piece contains tiny
particles of metal only 3nm in size (an atom is around
0.1nm). Clearly this is a very different effect from that of
the butterfly, and the reason is that light also interacts
strongly with free electrons. Normally electrons arelocked in orbit around atoms, but in metals they become
free to move through the material – the strength of theinteraction with light becomes clear when you look in a
mirror, here the free electrons do not allow the light toenter the material, and so force it to reflect back the way it
came. The exact physics of all this gets quite tricky, but it
is important to appreciate that metals interact with lightbecause of the sea of free electrons within them. In thecase of the cup there is a second important factor. At thenanometer scale quantum mechanics begins to become
important. Loosely speaking quantum mechanics can besummed up by saying that everything is a wave, and so the












11

electrons on the surface of the metal act in this way.
Like waves on a sting, only certain numbers ofoscillations will ‘fit’ around the edge of the particle, as
indicated by the red/blue aura around the sphere in
figure 2a, and these special frequencies will interact
even more strongly with the light. The strength of thiseffect is summed up in figure 2b, which shows anumber of vials, each with a suspension of metal
coated spheres. By tuning the thickness of a metal
coated sphere (from vial to vial), certain frequencies oflight will be totally absorbed, leading to a change incolor of the liquid, again it should be stressed that thisis a very strong effect since only a low concentration ofparticles is needed to radically change the observedcolor. The effect of surface electrons acting together
like a wave in this fashion is known as a surface
plasmon, and the study of this is plasmonics, a field of
research in its own right.
The above examples demonstrate thatnanostructuring occurs quite frequently in nature. In
the case of the butterfly, the structure is actively built,
and has been refined over millions of years. Ourcurrent level of technology is insufficient to grow suchcomplex structures so instead we take a different
approach.
There are essentially two techniques to makenanoscale object, known as ‘top-down’ and ‘bottomup’. The computer industry is the archetypal example
of top-down processing. Here, expensive facilities areused to make exactly one sort of computer chip. This
technique can mass-produce vast numbers of identicalchips, but the procedure is difficult and expensive tosetup and once operating there is no chance of eventhe slightest alterations. The bottom-up approach tries
to find ways to allow nature to help in the process.
This leads to a reduced amount of control over the
final outcome, but, as will be shown, can be used tomake some elegant individually tailored structures atalmost no cost. Nanotechnology very often deals withthis bottom up approach, and while way behind topdown processing is progressing quickly to the stage
where simple devices can now be produced.
The technique used for the following research isthat of nanotemplating. Here metal is cast through ananoscale template to form a new structure. This idea
is quite simple, and is depicted in figure 3. Fromexperience you will know that if marbles are placed inbox they will line up into a hexagonal array. The same
rule is true at any scale, and nanospheres are very easy
to produce and use, so form a good starting point for
many of today’s structures. If an array of nanospheresis placed on a surface then using an electroplating
technique gold can be grown around them, forming acast. The neat part about this technique is that the
thickness of the gold layer radically alters the shape ofthe final structure. As shown in figure 3b, it is possible
to make smooth dishes, sharp spikes and enclosed
cavities all from one template. And so with this degreeof control it is possible to make very well ordered
metal structures on the same scale as light, providing
the means to carefully study the effect of opticalinteractions.
As an example, a sample with graded thickness isshown in figure 3c, here the sample has shallow dishes
and encapsulated voids at the other, and features every
other possible geometry in-betweens. Now it can beseen that by changing the shape of the structure wecan alter the color of the gold surface, in a similar way

E:Vision Summer 2007







Fig 2.

“Well mostly these things are just ofscientific interest; however there are somepossible applications.”
to the particles shown in figure 2b. Again the reason
for this is similar to the effect of the spheres, only now
we are looking at the inverse. However there are twodifferences. Firstly, the spheres are randomly
positioned where as the dishes are carefully arranged in
an organized fashion. Since ordered structures interact
more strongly with light, this leads to a stronger
coupling between the surface and light. Secondly thedish act to focus the light so there will be regions ofmuch higher energy within each of the dishes.
So what is the purpose of all of this? Well mostly
these things are just of scientific interest; however there
are some possible applications. The first is concernedwith future communications systems. The current
generation of internet systems use optical fibers totransmit data all over the world at the speed of light,
however, every so often this data needs to be directed,
and so the light has to be converted back into anelectrical signal, read to see where it should go, moved
the correct place and then converted back into light so
it can continue its journey. This is the major limitation
with modern communications, and so ‘all optical’
solutions are being developed. Currently the favoredtechniques involve the movement of tiny mirrors but
another possibility is to utilize the close link between
electrons and light that is displayed on structured metal
surfaces. In the first step of this process a structured
surface can be used to efficiently couple light out of the
air and linked with waves of free electrons. Then ameans of controlling and storing these waves must be
developed. This represents the problem at the current
time, but there is much active research to try to findsolutions. Perhaps this idea is quite farfetched at thecurrent time, however there is a very different field of
device where nanostructured metals are now finding
applications, and that is in molecular detection. In
many different scenarios it is important to identify verysmall numbers of molecules, such as finding explosiveor detecting bacteria. The problem is that most
detectors use light, but molecules do not interact verystrongly with light because of the poor coupling. Hereis where metals can help because molecules interact
strongly with electrons, so a structured metal surface
can be used to couple light to electrons, and then theelectrons couple to the molecules, then the reverse
process occurs until light is reemitted from the surface.
While this process appears needlessly complex it has













12

the advantage that most of the work is done passively by
the surface. Also, as mentioned above, since dishes
concentrate the light, the effect is further enhanced. So
the final sensor can simply be a piece of structured metal;
but when illuminated with a laser, and the reflected lightcarefully detected, it becomes possible to ‘see’ if verysmall numbers of molecules are on this surface.
The picture of nanotechnology I have describedabove is quite different from nanorobots that are talked
about from time to time. In some ways I have kept thediscussion this way to emphasize the difference between
science and the media. While there are more exciting
examples throughout the science, often researchers get
carried away explaining all the possibilities of their work,and then this is turned around to show the dangers. The
current reality is that we are a long way from the control
over the nanoworld required to make such exciting
devices, but if we simply tried to make such things wemight not find many new and interesting possibilities. To
this end much of the current research is aimed at trying tounderstand all the new effects which appear at thenanoscale, and then consider what new possible

applications there might be. Perhaps the greatest
achievement the field has had to date is to unite scientists
from all fields of research and fuel a growing trend ofknowledge sharing and collaboration. It is certainly that itis these attributes which will shape much of the researchin the coming years.

Fig 3.

Tim is our friend from England who always joins our activities.
He is currently a PostDoc researcher at the laboratory of
applied physics.

EDITOR’SCHOICE

E:Vision Summer 2007



If you would ask me
about MP3 player, I shallrecommend iPod fromApple. Apple has several
products and most of themare popular. As I mentioned
somewhere, I am an Applefan and am always looking
forward to any newtechnolog y from thiscompany.
I have decided to getmyself on iPod 5 years ago
to improve my English via
Podcasts. It was a 4th
generation iPod. However, I
felt that sometimes it wasa little bit bulky. Thus, I
decided to get an iPod
Shuffle, a small iPod but
full of MP3 function.
With a capacity of up to
240 songs, you can clip it on
your sleeve or belt. With up
to 12 hours of battery life,
iPod Shuffle may keep
rocking even longer thanyou do.











IPOD SHUFFLE




13

CHOLESTEROLAND VEGGIES,ANYONE?

RECENT ARTICLE:

By Carlito Baltazar Tabelin

I have been in Japan foralmost a year now. Although I enjoy
eating Japanese food like sushi,
sashimi and ramen (yasai andtatsutamen at the shokudo because
these are the only ones I like best and I
missed the Filipino food that I used to
eat when I’m under stress (studying isreally stressful especially before thefinal exams; I guess all of you willagree with me). So in this article I will
introduce two different food; one is I
think quite unhealthy and expensive (inthe Philippine standard of living) butvery delicious and the other one is very
healthy, cheap but would not appeal toyounger people (younger people don’t
eat veggies right?).
Lechón (Tagalog: Litson) is
the Spanish word for suckling pig
inside. Lechón is often cooked during
national festivities (known as fiestas),
the holiday season, and other special
occasions such as weddings,
graduations, birthdays and baptisms, orfamily get-togethers. The lechón isusually the highlight and the mostpopular dish of these events. It is
usually served with a liver-based sauce.
However, in some cases, it may beserved Chinese style with steamed buns
and a sweet plum sauce.
Another version of lechón,
called lechón kawali, involves boilingthen frying pieces of pork. Leftoverlechón in the Philippines is easily
recycled into another delectable dish,called Paksiw na Lechon. Paksiw na
Lechon involves cooking the left-overlechon by boiling it in vinegar making
the meat moist and the skin very soft.
Lechón was originally introduced to
the Philippines as a part of Spanish
cuisine and can be found in many
Hispanic countries. Other historicalevidence traces the origin of lechón toChinese immigrants
Pinakbet or pakbet is a
popular Ilocano dish, from thenorthern regions of the Philippines,
although it has become popularthroughout the archipelago. The
vegetables used in this dish include
native bitter melon, eggplant, tomato,
ginger, okra, string beans, lima beans,chili peppers and various Filipino
vegetables like parda, winged beans,and such. A Tagalog version usually
includes calabaza or squash. Most ofthese vegetables are easily accessible,
and are grown in backyards andgardens of most Ilocano households.
As its name suggests, it is usuallycooked until almost dry and shriveled,however, the flavors of the vegetables
are emphasized and accentuated withthe help of bugguong. In some cases,
lechon, chicharon, or other meats(most commonly pork) is added. It isconsidered a very healthy dish, andconvenient in relation to the harsh andrugged, yet fruitful Northern andIlocos regions of the Philippines. The
history of this dish is derived fromsuch. As of the writing, a newvariation of this cuisine has been
introduced by the Ilocanos, its calledpinakbet pizza. They say it’s reallydelicious, so when I go home I willdefinitely look for one (hopefully I canafford it).

Carlito is a master course student
from the Philippines and isstudying in terrestrial fieldengineering.

E:Vision Summer 2007



















14

TRAVELOGUE:UNITED KINGDOM
by Richard Diaz Alorro

England was on the list of
countries I would like to visit. But I never
expected to step foot on the largest andmost populous constituent of the United
Kingdom so soon. Thanks to theInternational Symposium on Bio- andHydrometallurgy 2007.
The conference was held at
Fallmouth Beach Resort Hotel in
Fallmouth, Cornwall. The journey from
London to the south-western part ofEngland was never boring. The 5 hours
trip on board the First Great Western
train offered me the pleasure of seeing
England’s rapeseed fields and farmlands
and the beautiful countryside ofSomerset and Devon before entering the
remote county of Cornwall. Cornwall
was refreshingly warm, serene and lovely.
I stayed in a hotel with the Fallmouthbeach as the view from my window.
The International Symposium
on Bio- and Hydrometallurgy 2007 was
the 3rd Minerals Engineering
International (MEI) conference on bio
and hydrometallurgy, and the first to beheld outside South Africa according to
MEI. It was attended by 52 delegatesfrom a record 24 countries, and was truly
an international gathering of scientists
from around the globe. Forty five papers
were presented over the two days, 14 inposter sessions, and 31 in the following
technical sessions: (1) Bio andHydrometallurgical Treatment of Ores,(2) Treatment ofores by
Hydrometallurgical Methods, (3) Bio andHydrometallurgical Treatment ofWastes, (4) Treatment of Wastes byHydrometallurgical Operations.
I presented our paper entitled,“Carrier-in-Pulp Method as a New
Hydrometallurgical Route to Reject andRecover Heavy Metals from MSW
Melting Fly Ash” which wascategorically classified under technicalsession 4. I was asked with several

questions by two professors from South
Africa and Japan. Being the loneparticipant from Hokkaido University
and without the other co-authors withme, I felt quite nervous at first but was
relieved and became confident when they
were satisfied with my answers. After mypresentation, I received heartwarming
comments from the moderator of thesession and from other delegates for avery nice presentation.
The conference did not only giveme an opportunity to learn many things
relevant to my area of study but alsooffered a chance for me to meet the
famous author whose book in minerals
processing we use since I was still anundergraduate student in the Philippines.
I finally met Dr. Barry Wills who is
fortunately, also the chairman of
Minerals Engineering International andthe Editor-in-Chief of the Minerals
Engineering journal. I had his signature
signed in the book which I had
painstakingly carried from Japan to UK.
Before coming back to Sapporo,
I had an opportunity to go around
London. I stayed in a junior suite room
in Radisson Edwardian Hotel inLeicester Square (thanks to a Filipino
friend for the generosity and hospitality).
I was able to see London even for thevery limited time. I was able to visit the
British Museum, the home of the famous
Rosetta stone and other finest collections
from ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, Asiaand other parts of the world. A visit toLondon would never be complete
without seeing the world-renowned Big
Ben and the Houses of Parliaments, theWestminster Abbey (the traditional
coronation and burial site for English
monarchs), the Buckingham Palace (theofficial London residence of the British
monarchs), the London Eye (the world’s
largest ferris wheel), the Tower ofLondon and the Tower Bridge, the WestEnd of London (home of entertainment
and theaters), and other interesting
places. Truly, London is a city where theancient and the modern meet; a melting
pot of culture.

RECENT ARTICLE:“My five days sojourn in Englandseemed to be an endless parade ofwonderful memories. If only I had theluxury of time and money, I would
have stayed longer to experience
more of its grandeur. But we have
many duties to fulfill and work to do.
I came back to Sapporo on May 5,
2007, jet-lagged and tired but
overwhelmed and filled with gladness
for the wonderful experiences andlearnings in life. No matter where wego or what we do, one thing is forcertain, that learning comes in many
dimensions. It is not confined to thefour corners of our classroom and thechapters of our books. Our everyday
experiences, the people we meet, andthe places we visit enrich our lives
and provide an avenue for learning.
The world has so much to offer for us
to learn. Explore the world and nevercease to learn.”
Richard is the SU president for
2006-2007 and is doing research inmineral processing.

E:Vision Summer 2007



















15

RECENT ARTICLE:

Timo is an exchange student from Finland
who have joined our activities.
I should first introduce myself. I am Timo Niura, a24-years-old student from Tampere Polytechnics from
Finland. I was very lucky to accidentally hear about the
chance to come with an internship to Japan: I was justwalking in the corridor of my school, and two of myteachers were speaking behind my back: “-Maybe he couldgo”. I got interested and asked them about what they werespeaking about. They were talking about a possibility to go
to Japan as an intern. I answered that I will take the chance
the same evening, after I talked with my family. That is thefortune how I come to Japan.
Before the travel I was kindly helped and informedby my Professor Funamizu. As well I got a lot of help
from Shiro Amano, a student who was as intern inmy school at Finland. I must thank them a lot
because it was very easy to travel to Sapporo, when
everything was already arranged for me. My
apartment was very near to the school andSapporo station, about 5 to 10 minutes walk. Veryideal place to live! Sapporo is a logically built city,
pretty easy to get familiar with the streets andlocations. I also visited Nagoya and Tokyo, but Sapporo
was the city I liked the most.
I am from the countryside, from a municipality with 3000
inhabitants, so just sometimes I missed silence and peace.
But after all living in a huge city was a nice experience.
My experiment was to research about the efficiencyof biotoilet. Biotoilet is heated to evaporate the moistureinside it. In this case efficiency was meaning that how muchof energy from heater is going to evaporating the moisture( I will rather write: “In this case efficiency is measured in termsof heater ‘s energy requirement to evaporate the moisture”). I was
also collecting the information of moisture content ofsawdust in biotoilet. It is important for proper use thatbiotoilet’s sawdust matrix is not too moist. My task was also
to take care of conditions of biotoilet, and ensure that it is apleasant place to visit by cleaning it.
The experiments that I was supposed to do were notvery hard. I was mainly working with excel sheets, andcollecting data in there, as well as collecting data from the
E:Vision Summer 2007







moisture content of biotoilet. Usually difficulties come withthe problems with language. Sometimes it was hard for me
to understand technical English words, and that’s why there
were several misunderstandings. But all the time I got verykindly help for all my problems from my teachers or fromother students. I really appreciate the help, even I sometimes
felt me as bothering other people. Mainly because I didn’t
have so much knowledge about the things I was working
with and Japanese students seemed all to be so hard working
and well educated.
It was interesting to see how the biotoilet wasworking in Hokkaido University. In Finland lot of
people have own summerhouses. Summerhouses
don’t have electricity or water in many cases, so
different kind of a biotoilets are used and could
have more potential use in Finland. Generally I
found that living in Japan was not so hard,even if I didn’t know the language. The prices
were cheaper in restaurants than in Finland, so
it was easy to survive with low budget. Also myfriends were helping me a lot with things,
especially when Japanese language skills wereneeded.
The biggest problem I found in my stay was the timedifference between Finland and Japan. It was so hard to stayin contact with my family, when time difference was 6 hours.
But actually three months was short time for me, though forpeople at home it was a long time, which caused problems
for all of us.
After all I am very happy about my exchange
program. Mostly I am satisfied since I could touch Japaneseculture and meet so many nice and friendly people! I think
this internship was a very rare chance; maybe otherwise it
would have been never possible to travel so far and meet somany nice people. Sometimes it is important to travel far, tosee the things that are important in homeland; and it isalways good to learn about new cultures. But the things that
I will miss the most from Japan are the friends. I must thankthem, as well as all people I met during my stay, from that I
had very pleasant stay in Japan. Thank you all!













16

MY TOWN EBETSU
By Keisuke Iwata‘Ebetsu’ means ‘the river sharkliving’ in Ainu language. Ebetsu islocated in the center of the Ishikari
Plains and adjacent to Sapporo,
Kitahiroshima, Iwamizawa, Tobetsu,
Nanporo and Sinsinotsu, blessed withrich, natural surroundings. The trainride to Sapporo on Hakodate line takes
only about 20 minutes. The topography
is basically flat but it is about 100m
higher than Sapporo downtown so we
can see the wide and beautiful view.
Ebetsu has not only been grown as a
bed town of Sapporo but also havesome unique characteristics in itself due
to geological features.
Ebetsu’s brick has been well known
since the late 1800’s as ‘Nopporo brick’,and Ebetsu remains to this day as the
only city in Hokkaido that hascontinued to have a brick industry forover 100 years. Houses, public facilities,
schools, parks, walkways, monuments
and many more structures have usedbricks in their designs.
The Ishikari Plains consisted ofclayey layer which can be used as thematerial of bricks. Maximum of 20
million bricks were made per year when
it was at its’ most prosperous. The
Hokkaido government office building,
Sapporo beer factory, Tomakomai Oji
paper factory and brick buildings in
Otaru city has been made from Ebetsu
bricks.
Coals had been used to fire bricks(Now fuel oil is used to prevent damage

caused by smoke). Coals
were transported from
Yubari city by Yubari railway. Not only coals but
also people came and wentby the train. That’s why the
Yutetsu bus (Yubari
Railway bus) is stillrunning in the Ebetsu
city.
Ebetsu has grownwith the brick industry.
Actually, in my youngage, I could see a big andtall chimney made frombricks in the window of myclass room at junior highschool. There was a brick factory but
we already lost it now - it changed tothe big shopping center. I think if ‘the
Brick Tower’was still there, it must havebeen one of the symbols of Ebetsu.
The rich, ground Ishikari River runs
along the north-eastern side of Ebetsu.
Ishikari means ‘Meandering’ in Ainu
language. Ishikari River used tomeander along the Ishikari Plain. Thatis one of the reasons why we have aclayey layer. And also, Hokkaido
Nopporo Forest Park, the world’s
largest virgin forest park on level land isalong the south-western area. This area
has about 40 kilometers of trails, resting
facilities, 6 ponds and is well-used by
the Ebetsu citizenry.
If you visit Ebetsu, please enjoy
the big natural resources. Not only the

Forest Park, but also the smallparks with promenade, ponds andfireflies. Concerning bricks, many
valuable buildings had gone with the
big growth of the City. It is a common
problem for towns and cities in Japan.
Now people are trying to preserve andutilize old brick facilities to keep theunique characteristics of Ebetsu city. If
you can enjoy the scenery with brickand nature, you have to visit Ebetsu.

RECENT ARTICLE:
Keisuke is one of the active
Ja p a n e s e s t u d e n t s i n o u rcommunity. His research is about
hydraulics.

EDITOR’SCHOICEDo you have a dream? If you
have one, do you still
follow
yourdream?
Thisbook will help you to lookfor your real dream!
First published in Brazil,
and later to 55 languages.
It is becoming one of thebest selling books aroundthe world.

The Alchemist
By Paolo Coelho

E:Vision Summer 2007



















17

Community UPDATE

e
m
i
T
e
t
a
Hakod

carry out theirteaching andlearning activities.

a
Manakul Ued
By Werawan

Besides being
blessed withclear weather
that enabled us
to see one ofJapan's mostbeautifulnight views
from Mt
H a k o d a t e,
the choiceoffood
Yayoi selected foru s wa s
excellent.
The two
outdoor lunches weresuch a relax. I ate whale
meat burger and kani (crab)
tempura for the first time
during this trip and reallyenjoyed it. In fact many of us did manythings for the first time during the trip, e.g.
trying to tell our teammates through action,
not words, what kind of animal we weretalking about, drinking glass after glass ofwater after losing the card games during thefirst night, the following night was eating
the left over burger? Although I did notjoin the card games, I could hear laughterscoming from the next room where thegames were going on.

We arrived
back at theuniversity
around 4pm
yesterday. After
getting off thebus, Kado sensei
told us that thiswas the last trip
for this university
bus that provided
us a comfortable
and safety journey
to Hakodate. The
bus had been in service for 35 years.
Thanks to Kado andOzawa sensei we wereable to enter designated national historical buildings to learn about the architectural concept and design adopted during theearly days of Hakodate, one of the firstJapanese ports opened to international
trades. The blend between western andJapanese architecture of these old buildings
is interesting. When talking about the newbuilding, the 2002 AIJ award winning Mirai or Future University is a new concept.
One could hardly imagine that such an enclosed yet open structure is in fact a university where 1,100 students and 70 faculty

Thanks to all participants! A big
prize goes to the winner of thisissues theme, Our University.
For the next issue, we would liketo invite and challenge you again
wit h you r cam era and ma cro
function...
with the theme... Flower 

E:Vision Summer 2007















18

‘Our University’
By Warangkana Saengsoy
Photo Contest Winner

E:Vision is the magazine of the English
Engineering Education-Student Union (e3SU), and is published twice a year in print
and online.

E:VISION MAGAZINEEnglish Engineering Education Program
Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido
University, Kita-ku, Kita-13, Nishi-8,
Sapporo 060-7628 JAPAN

E:Vision stands for English and the visionof the e3 students of the Graduate School ofEngineering, Hokkaido University, Japan.
It is the vision of facing the world ingeneral perspective, most especially theacademic challenges.