LETTERI NST I T U TE FOR A DVA NCED R ESE A RCHMarch 2023 Vol. 21

Special Interview

Continuous Research and Development by Curiosity and Human Connection
1‒ Aiming for the Development of Robots and Coexistence with People

Toshio FUKUDA
Recognizing Social Norms through Literature Fields
2‒ To Select Better Norms in an Ever-Changing Era

Yuko IIDA
Be Sincere and Persistent in the Fact of Mystery
3‒ Challenge of Elucidating Sophistiated Immune Response against Cancer

Hiroyoshi NISHIKAWA
Research Highlights

The Cambridge School and the Methodologies of History of Political Thought / Takuya FURUTA
Physical Exercise as a Mean for Cellular Rejuvenation / Hirotaka IIJIMAThe Royal Correspodence of the Assyrian Empire / Sanae ITO
Unravelling Plant Cell Division in Moss Physcomitrium Patens / Elena KOZGUNOVA
Probing Quantum Gravity via Quantum Information Theory / Shinji MIYAJI
A Preliminary Risk Assessment of Geomagnetically Induced Currents on Japanese Power Grids / Satoko NAKAMURA
Hierotopy in Early Netherlandish Art / Miyako SUGIYAMA
Galaxy Formation and Evolution within the Comic Web Filaments / Hideki UMEHATA
Cell Polarity in Plants: Exploring Polar Nutrient Transport and the Fundamental Cell Polarization Machinery / Akira YOSHINARIINSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH, NAGOYA UNIVERSITY
Telephone. +81- 52 -789 -3933

E-mail. nu-iar@adm.nagoya-u.ac.jp

http://www.iar.nagoya-u.ac.jp/

21March 2023

LETTERI N S T I T U T E F O R A DVA N C E D R E S E A RC H

Showcase for Advanced Research and Developmentof Talented Researchers Voyage for New Standardsof Academia

CONTENTS

The Institute for Advanced Research (IAR), Nagoya University, was established in 2002 topromote top-level global research and to contribute widely to society through its outstanding researchoutcomes. The IAR is among the first of such organizations established in Japanese universities by the
first director Prof. Ryoji Noyori. The IAR has since been promoting Nagoya University’ s research

03

IAR Information

09

Special interview

especially in pure research from a broad perspective that transcends conventional disciplinary

1boundaries. Today, the mission has expanded to include the promotion of academics at Nagoya
University, support for excellence in research, developing the research and researchers leading next
generation, and conducting international research exchanges. The IAR aims to promote the explorationof new and significant research fields as worthy of one of the global leading research universities. We

2have been hosting IAR lectures and seminars, including the Nagoya University Lectures, delivered byeminent researchers, who have been awarded special lectureship by the president of Nagoya University.
The IAR has been also serving as a steering committee member of the University-Based Institutes for3

through the Young Leaders Cultivation (YLC) program and Young Researcher Unit. As Nagoya
University aims to become one of the global leading research universities under the framework of theｰAiming for the Development of Robots and Coexistence with People

Toshio FUKUDA
Recognizing Social Norms through Literature Fields
ｰTo Select Better Norms in an Ever-Changing Era

Yuko IIDA
Be Sincere and Persistent in the Fact of Mystery

ｰChallenge of Elucidating Sophistiated Immune Response against Cancer

Hiroyoshi NISHIKAWA

Advanced Study (UBIAS), which is the international network of other such institutions around theworld. Furthermore, the IAR has been encouraging early-career researchers to be next-generation leaders

Continuous Research and Developmentby Curiosity and Human Connection

18

Tokai National Higher Education and Research System, the IAR aims to further expand its function as a
hub for research information and human resources, as well as its role in showcasing research, research

Research Highlights
The Cambridge School and the Methodologies of History of Political Thought/ Takuya FURUTA
Physical Exercise as a Mean for Cellular Rejuvenation / Hirotaka IIJIMA

activities, and the development of research personnel. I keenly look forward to your continued support,

The Royal Correspodence of the Assyrian Empire / Sanae ITO

guidance, and encouragement for the IAR.

Unravelling Plant Cell Division in Moss Physcomitrium Patens/ Elena KOZGUNOVA
Probing Quantum Gravity via Quantum Information Theory / Shinji MIYAJI
Kunio AWAGA
Director of Institute for Advanced Research

A Preliminary Risk Assessment of Geomagnetically Induced Currents on
Japanese Power Grids / Satoko NAKAMURA
Hierotopy in Early Netherlandish Art / Miyako SUGIYAMA
Galaxy Formation and Evolution within the Comic Web Filaments/ Hideki UMEHATA
Cell Polarity in Plants: Exploring Polar Nutrient Transport and the Fundamental
Cell Polarization Machinery / Akira YOSHINARI

27

IAR People

Director

Kunio AWAGA

Cover Picture :Dr.Toshio Fukuda's Representative Invenstion CEBOT mark IV（1992 ）I.A.R. INFORMATIONI
INFORMATION
After a challenging last year with the coronavirus
pandemic, this year, Nagoya University’s Institute forAdvanced Research (IAR) was able to organize several hybrid
online and on-site events and invite several hundred people
to an on-site symposium celebrating Honorary Director
Noyori’s receipt of the Historical Chemistry Paper Award.

Symposium to Celebrate the “Citations
for Chemical Breakthrough Awards
2021 Awardees”
On July 2, 2022, the International Research Center for
Materials Science and the MIRAI Global Science Campus(MIRAI GSC) of Nagoya University jointly hosted the“Symposium Celebrating the Historical Chemistry Paper
Award.” Citations for Chemical Breakthrough Awards are
given by the American Chemical Society. In 2021, the firstauthor, Ryoji Noyori, a distinguished Professor at Nagoya
University and an Honorary Director at IAR (2001 Nobel
laureate in chemistry), was awarded the first author’s paper.
The prize was awarded to the Department of Chemistry,
Faculty of Science, Nagoya University, where Dr. Noyori
conducted his research. The symposium featured theunveiling of a commemorative statue, a panel discussion
between Dr. Ryoji Noyori and selected high school students
from Nagoya University’s MIRAI GSC, and lectures on the
future of science and society by the prize winners andNagoya University’s leading chemistry researchers.

3 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Activities & News
Nagoya University Lecture 2021
The Nagoya University lecture was held on
January 9, 2022, in the Toyota Auditorium at Nagoya
University. Dr. Takao Kondo, a distinguished Professor
at Nagoya University and former Director of IAR, washonored with the title of Nagoya University lecturer. At
t h e c o m m e m o ra t i v e sy m p o s i u m , P ro f. Ta ka s h i
Yoshimura of Nagoya University gave a lecture on theconnections and impressions between Dr. Kondo’s
research and his own. Afterward, Dr. Kondo gave alecture titled “50 years of research on circadian clocks,”
in which he reviewed his own research life and gave avery passionate talk about his current and future
research on clock proteins in cyanobacteria, whichmeasure 24 h. An archive of his lecture is available on
the IAR website(http://www.iar.nagoya-u.ac.jp/performance/1607/).

Nagoya University Lecture 2022

The Ninth IAR Symposium

On October 30, 2022, the 2022 Nagoya University
lecture series celebrated Dr. Maki Kawai, Director of the
National Institutes of Natural Sciences, with guests invitedon site at the Toyota Auditorium. Dr. Kawai was presented
with a ceremonial plaque, and Dr. Takayuki Uchihashi,
Professor at the Graduate School of Science of Nagoya
University, gave a wonderful lecture on the impact of Dr.
Maki Kawai’s research on society at a commemorative
symposium. Dr. Kawai then gave a lecture titled “The worldof ‘surface’ that cannot be judged by its contents – A variety
of functions created by breaks in continuity –.” In her
lecture, she gave a very passionate talk about the results ofher research on catalytic reactions and her groundbreaking
work in visualizing metal surface morphology and theimage of molecules adsorbed on them. An archive of her
lecture is available on the IAR website(http://www.iar.nagoya-u.ac.jp/performance/2076/).

February 16, 2022
The IAR symposium aims to communicate Nagoya
University’s established, novel, and cutting-edge research
to the wider university community and beyond. The
seventh symposium, held last year, had a slightly
different overall theme of “Significance and Contributionof Academia” but was well received. This year ’s
symposium was the second such symposium, introducing
social contribution and relations with society throughresearch, and discussing its importance, difficulties, andproblems. At the symposium, Dr. Yoshitaka Hibi from the
Graduate School of Humanities and Letters spoke about
the contribution of researchers to society, Dr. Miyuki
Watanabe from the Graduate School of Law about civil
dispute resolution procedures and social contribution,
and Dr. Seiji Kadowaki from the Graduate School ofEnvironmental Studies about research dissemination
activities at the Nagoya University Museum.

The Third NU Initiative Webinar
June 23, 2022
Since the time of COVID-19 in 2020, IAR and theInstitutes of Innovation for Future Society haveco-organized online webinars to achieve better
communication between basic and applied sciences on
campus. This year, four speakers from both institutes
presented on the theme “Secrets of Academic ResearchIntegration.” Dr. Hisashi Hayakawa and Dr. Shinnosuke
Ishizuka spoke on “Past Intense Solar Storms Explored in
Historical Literature” and “The ‘Microscopic’ Chemistry of
Earth and Space Dust,” respectively. Two people from theInstitutes of Innovation for Future Society gave
presentations. Dr. Hiroshi Yukawa and Dr. Takayoshi
Suganami presented on “Advanced imaging measurement
and medical/pharmaceutical applications based on
q u a n t u m n a n o - o p t i c s ,” a n d“Development of innovative
diabetes treatment strategies usinga ‘stick-on’ artificial pancreasd e v i c e ,” r e s p e c t i v e l y. T h i s
symposium had fruitful panel
discussions, not only between thetwo institutes but also between theaudiences at Nagoya University.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 4

INFORMATION

Activities & News

I.A.R. INFORMATION

University-Based Institutes for Advanced Study ( UBIAS ) ICA Mini Workshop
August 31–September 2

UBIAS ICA Mini Workshop Day1

IAR and the co-organizer, the Moonshot Researchand Development Program (Goal 3) of the Japan Scienceand Technology Agency, invited UBIAS ICA fellows to takepart in the Mini Workshop of the Intercontinental
Academia, “Robot and Artificial Intelligence” in Nagoya.
This Mini Workshop “Robot and AI” was conceived during
session 1 of ICA 4.0 by Dr. Olivier Bouin, Director at the
RFIEA, and Dr. Toshio Fukuda, a mentor of ICA 4 andProfessor Emeritus at Nagoya University, as a way toaccelerate international relationship between ICA fellows
to Japan to learn from each other during 3 days oflectures and discussions. Dr. Yasutomo Kawanishi fromRIKEN Guardian Robot Project spoke on “Understanding

and Remembering Daily 3D Environments by an
Autonomous Robot.” Dr. André Fujita presented on“Network Statistics, Heart Informatics, and Robots.” Dr.
Laura Candiotto from the Centre for Ethics at the
University of Pardubice presented on “Can we havecultural robotics without emotions?” as an online speech.
Dr. Alex Cayco Gajic from the Département d’Etudes
Cognitives at École Normale Supérieure in Paris spoke on“Linking high-dimensional neural representations tocomplex behaviours.” Through this international
workshop, all the participants were able to deepen theirfriendships with the researchers from other Institutes for
Advanced Study around the world.

UBIAS ICA Mini Workshop Day2UBIAS ICA 4
The fourth UBIAS Intercontinental Academia has
been held with the title of “Intelligence and Artificial
Intelligence.” Prof. Toshio Fukuda of Meijo University, aformer IEEE president and IAR faculty, attended theworkshop as a mentor, and Dr. Yasutomo Kawanishi(RIKEN), a former faculty at Nagoya University, wasawarded as a participant in the workshop. The workshop
in Belo Horizonte was held from November 7 to 12,
2022, in person and online.

UBIAS Directors’ Conference 2022
UBIAS’s online conference was held on May 23–24,
2022, and participated by directors worldwide. Prof.
Olivier Bouin from the French Network of Institutes for
Advanced Study (Paris, France) virtually hosted the
directors’ conference. IAR has long played a central role
as a steering committee of UBIAS. Prof. Awaga, Directorof Nagoya IAR, has been elected as cochair of theste e r i n g co m m i tte e , t h e s o - ca l l e d Tr i u mv i rate
(coordination team), with the directors of the Merian
Institute for Advanced Study in Africa (Accra, Ghana) andthe French Network of Institutes for Advanced Study.

5 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 6

INFORMATION

Activities & News

2022 Young Leaders Cultivation Program
The YLC program is a strategic program of Nagoya IAR
based on the premise that it is crucial to secure an
appropriate quantity and quality of young researchers tosustain the development of outstanding education andresearch in the future. The Nagoya IAR recruits and trains
young faculty members regularly and systematically. In theacademic year 2022, Dr. Takuya Furuta (Graduate School ofLaw); Dr. Hirotaka Iijima (Graduate School of Medicine); Dr.
Sanae Ito, and Dr. Miyako Sugiyama (Graduate School of
Humanities); Dr. Elena Kozgunova, Dr. Masamichi Miyaji,
and Dr. Hideki Umehata (Graduate School of Science); Dr.
Satoko Nakamura (Institute for Space–Earth Environmental
Re s e a rc h ) ; a n d D r. A k i ra Yo s h i n a r i ( I n st i t u te o f
Transformative Bio-Molecules) were newly employed as
designated assistant professors of the YLC program.

YLC Seminar

I.A.R. INFORMATION

visual circuits, and mechanism of ‘mogu-mogu’ behavior
in fish.” and Dr. Yuichiro Tada (Graduate School of Science)talked about “Frontier of primordial black hole research –star first or black hole first?” The 28th YLC seminar wasorganized in person and online on June 28, 2022. Dr.
Miyako Sugiyama (Graduate School of Humanities) talked
about “Creating Sacred Space in the Late Medieval
Bruges.” and Dr. Qi-Dong Zhou (Kobayashi Maskawa
Institute) talked about “Search for new physics by precise
measurement of B meson decays.” The 29th YLC seminar
was organized in person and online on December 1, 2022.
Dr. Takuya Furuta (Graduate School of Law) talked about“Theory and practice in reception history of politicalthought: Seeley in Japan 1880s–1940s,” and Dr. Hirotaka
Iijima (Graduate School of Medicine) talked about“Challenges towards an establishment of rehabilitation
science-driven new interdisciplinary fields.”

IAR “Invitation to the Advanced
Researches” Lecture SeriesThis lecture series includes lectures by the IAR
academy and faculty members, IAR fellows, and Nagoya
University researchers and targets Nagoya University
students. This series was aimed at communicating the
fun of academic research. In the academic year 2022, thefollowing 15 lectures occurred online:
1.“Science Started from Observation,”
Prof. Sumio Iijima（Guest Professor at Nagoya University and Professor at Meijo University）

2.“The Research History of Particle Physics,”
Prof. Makoto Kobayashi（Director of the Kobayashi Maskawa Institute and 2008 Nobel laureate in physics）

3.“The Dark Side of the Universe,”

Prof. Naoshi Sugiyama（President of Nagoya University）

4.“Material Science—Fun and Useful,”Prof. Ichiro Terasaki（Graduate School of Science）

YLC Salon
The YLC salon was launched in 2019 with the aim of
expanding YLC member’s knowledge beyond their own
area of expertise. One
researcher was invited to thissalon and gave a lecture on
her latest research. The salon
was held on July 13, 2022. Dr.
Marta Andres de Miguel(University College London)gave a talk titled “Octopamine
as a key neuromodulator of-XO\  2QOLQH
malaria mosquito hearing.”,QVWLWXWHIRU$GYDQFHG5HVHDUFK1DJR\D8QLYHUVLW\VW </&6DORQ

2FWRSDPLQHDVDNH\QHXURPRGXODWRURIPDODULDPRVTXLWRKHDULQJ'U0DUWD$QGUHVGH0LJXHO 8QLYHUVLW\&ROOHJH/RQGRQControl of the parasitic disease malaria relies on
effective control of the mosquitoes which act asits’ vector. As male mosquitoes rely on hearing to
identify females, interfering with mosquito
hearing offers a badly needed novel method of
disrupting mating.
I will describe the influence of theneuromodulator octopamine on mosquito
hearing. Identification of the specific octopamine
receptor mediating this influence allows fortargeted use of currently available insecticides.
Improving our understanding of the neurobiology
of malaria mosquitoes can thus lead to improved
mosquito control strategies.

WK

5.“The Present in Historical Studies:Excavate the Hellenism Civilization,”
Prof. Yoshiyuki Suto（Graduate School of Humanities and Eighth Director of IAR）

The YLC seminar is aimed at providing members with
opportunities to understand each other ’s researchinterests to assist in interdisciplinary collaboration
research. The 27th YLC seminar was organized online on
March 22, 2022. Dr. Hanako Hagio (Graduate School of
Bioagricultural Sciences) talked about “Evolution of the

7 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

The YLC collaborative research grant was launched in2018 to support the interdisciplinary collaboration
between YLC faculties. YLC faculty voluntarily organized
the grant contents, schedule, and selection process. In
this year, YLC selected two research groups: one group
was led by Dr. Hisashi Hayakawa (Institute for Space–EarthEnvironmental Research) with the title “Archaeoastronomical Analyses and Assessments of Ancient Eclipse
Records,” and the other group was represented by Dr.
Miyako Sugiyama (Graduate School of Humanities) withthe title “Comparative Study of Hierotopy in East–Western Churches and Buddhism.

To facilitate International Scientific cooperation, this programsupports short research visits of overseas researchers (maximum of
4 weeks), including related activities such as
holding a symposium. In the academic year
2022, Dr. Leigh Canham (Professor at the
School of Physics and Astronomy, University ofBirmingham) was selected for this fellowship.

Foreign Principal Investigator
Fellowship Program
The Foreign Principal Investigator Fellowship Program invites
excellent researchers from foreign countries with outstanding
research achievements for 3–4 months’
fellowship to promote the Universities’
academic research. In the academic year
2022, Dr. Daniel F. Eberl (Professor at the
Department of Biology, University of Iowa)
was selected for this fellowship.

6.“How to Use Contemporary Economics,”

Prof. Jiro Nemoto（Graduate School of Economics）

7.“Visualize—Science About the Blessing of Nature,”
Prof. Ryo Kohsaka（University of Tokyo）
8.“Analyze Democracy,”Prof. Hiroko Takeda（Graduate School of Law and Deputy Director of Nagoya IAR）

Awards

9.“Fascination with an Introduction to the History of Thought,”

Dr. Hanako Hagio

10.“Next-Generation Bio-imaging,”
Prof. Shigehiro Yamaguchi(YLC/Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences)
re c e i ve d t h e I n o u e A wa rd fo r Yo u n g S c i e nt i st s
(February 2022).

Prof. Takaho Ando（Chukyo University and Sixth Director of Nagoya IAR）

Contact: Matthew Su (su.matthew.paul.y3@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp)

YLC Collaborative Research Grant

Short-term Fellowship Program（Graduate School of Science and Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules）

11.“Signaling Molecules Make Plant Life Resilient,”
Prof. Hitoshi Sakakibara（Deputy Director of IAR and Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences）

12.“Are Chemically Reacting Molecules ‘Visible’?,”Prof. Akiyoshi Hishikawa（Research Center for Material Science）

Dr. Satoko Nakamura(YLC/Institute for Space–Earth Environmental Research)received the Obayashi Early Career Scientist Award(November 2022) and NF Foundation R&D
Encouragement Award (November 2022).

13.“Chemistry of Anthocyanin —Make It Bloom the Blue Roses,”Prof. Kumi Yoshida（Graduate School of Informatics）

Dr. Masamichi Miyaji

14.“How Is the Brain Formed? Research on Cell Development,”
Prof. Takaki Miyata（Graduate School of Medicine）(YLC/Graduate School of Science) received the 2022
Young Scientist Award of the Physical Society of Japan.
(He received this award while he was at the Universityof California, February 2022.)

15.“Concluding the Course of Invitation to the Advanced Researches”
Prof. Yoshiyuki Suto（Eighth Director of IAR）

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 8

Special Interview 1 | Toshio F UKUDA

One day at lunchtime, Dr. Fukuda was rowing a boat in
the moat of a park. Looking into the water, he unexpectedly saw many small creatures, including mosquito larvae.
He scooped up a cup of water and brought it back to thelab, where he immediately looked at it under a microscope. He noticed that there were many organisms there,
including vorticellae. Although he thought instantly, "Iwant to grab hold of them," of course neither his fingers
nor tweezers would fit into the prepared specimen. It wasat this time that he pondered whether there was any way
to grab hold of them, and this was the beginning of a new
development.

SpecialInterview

1

Toshio Fukuda
In 2020, he became the first Japanese member to be named President of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE), one of the largest international professional associations for electronic engineering and electricalengineering . He also currently ser ves as the Program Director for Goal 3 of the "Moonshot Research andDevelopment Program" initiated by the Cabinet Office, which envisions a future in which humans and robots
coexist in harmony. He is an advocate of multiscale robotics and has a wide range of research interests. His
laboratory has produced 105 PhD candidates to date. He specializes in robotics.

Continuous Research and Development
by Curiosity and Human Connection‒Aiming for the Development of Robots and Coexistence with People̶̶ Curiosity and the commonality of physical lawsthat enable the development of multiscale robotics
ゆく川のながれは絶えずして、
しかも、もとの水にあらず
淀みに浮ぶうたかたは、
かつ消えかつ結びて、
久しくとどまりたるためしなし
The above Japanese passage describes how "A river flows continuously,
and not a single drop of water flowing through it remains the same. A
bubble floating in stagnant water repeatedly disappears and is reborn.”
It compares the concept of everything perpetually changing (impermanence)
to the flow of a river.

This is a passage from the Hojoki, written by KamonChomei, famous historical essayist. It is one of Dr. Fukuda's
favorite quotes and seems to aptly describe his continuous
09 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

research and development. Dr. Fukuda says, "If you stay inthe same study for even one year, it will be a thing of thepast." He has worked on pipe-inspection robots, clustering
self-organizing distributed robots "CEBOT," and brachiation robots that move like gibbons—a never-ending list.
Based on the concept of multi-scale robotics, in which
research and development are vertically conducted fromthe nanoscale to the macroscale, he has developed numerous technologies and robots.

A power source to "move a thing only a little" is essential
for gripping a small object. Using a motor did not work
because it caused too much movement to grab a small
object well. He heard about a power source called piezo(piezoelectric element); however, it was expensive anddifficult to obtain at the time. In the midst of this situation, through his senior's connections, he learned that a
prototype of a small actuator (a mechanism for converting
energ y into power) had been developed using anothermicro technolog y. He immediately visited the researcher
who developed it. Fortunately, he was able to share about
20 of these devices. The displacement that this small actuator could move was only 4 micrometers. By making use of
the principle of leverage, he made it possible to adjust the
movement to 40 micrometers, and to 400 micrometers.
Thus he was able to invent a micro -gripper, with theworld’s best capability of grasping small objects at the time.
The research and development that originated from this isextensive. Attachment of a sensor to its tip made it possible to measure the width of the object displacement andthe softness of the object, in addition to gripping it. It
would also be possible to manipulate a single cell and precisely apply a physical stimulus to it. Eventually, offers forjoint research began to come in, leading to the development of micro-grippers that could be used under vacuum
conditions and to the application of microcatheters that
could move inside blood vessels.
Dr. Fukuda speaks of these potential applications as follows.

What is the driving force behind his research and development? Part of its essence can be seen in the episode when
he developed a micro-gripper, which was initiated in the
1980s. This delicate technology, which made it possible togrip micro-sized objects, attracted attention as a revolutionary idea at the time.
“It started out as a hobby. It's an interest in grasping asmall object."“When improving the micro-gripper, for example, I considered a variety of actuators, including those made of shapememor y alloys and polymer materials, those operated
hydraulically and others that I had never dealt with before.
All of these are in accordance with the fundamental physicalphenomena. Even if they are dealt with by different research
fields, they are all the same. It is often the case that what was
not useful in other research fields is useful in my field.”

Through a genuine curiosity to grip something small, andas a result of nurturing this curiosity without giving up, a
new field of microtechnolog y has blossomed. The commonality of physical laws serves as a hub for applicationsin other fields. This sequence of events is probably one ofthe driving forces behind his ideas, which are connectedwithout stagnation.

̶̶ A new world of research created by humanconnections
Of course, his ideas do not only come from his inner curiosity. He said that the impetus for his research and development had often came from connections with people.
One example is the development of carbon nanotube processing technology. He learned about carbon nanotubes bytalking to Dr. Yahachi Saito and Dr. Hisanori Shinohara, aleading nanocarbon researcher at Nagoya University.
"Carbon nanotube researchers focused their attention on
unraveling the true nature of carbon nanotubes, including
their physical properties. However, my interest was in how
to manipulate and process them."
For Dr. Fukuda, the electron microscope was not an observation tool, but an experimental tool. In the late 1990s, hebegan to embark on research and development. He continued his research to develop a nano-robotic manipulator
that works well in the confined space of an electron microscope, to improve the electron microscope itself and todevelop a processing method using oxygen gas, which
eventually enabled the measurement, processing andassembly of materials at the nanoscale.
Furthermore, since there was no forum for the presentation of such groundbreaking results at that time, Dr.
Fukuda took the initiative to establish a new forum forpresentation and discussion called the Nanotechnolog yCouncil within the IEEE in 2002. He pioneered the fieldof nanotechnolog y research that is done from the standpoint of robotics research.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 10

Special Interview 1 | Toshio F UKUDA

of nanotechnolog y research that is done from the standpoint of robotics research.
“The new field was gaining worldwide recognition, and at
one point so many students and researchers gathered at mylab that they could not enter. Ever y day our researchreceived positive feedback. It was a really good time."̶̶ Creating a relationship where people and robots
can learn from each other in order to coexist in harmony
How will robots and their technologies evolve in the
future? And how will they integrate into our human society?
Goal 3 of the Moonshot Research and Development Program, for which Dr. Fukuda currently serves as the Program Director, is aimed at developing new, never-seen-before AI robots by 2050. For example, a robot that canautonomously learn, make decisions and adapt to its environment even in places it has never been before. It will be
useful on the moon, at disaster sites and in other places
where people cannot directly enter. Other examples
include a robot that can understand human emotions andethics and grow together with people. The keywords indevelopment are "co-evolution" and "self-organization.”
The key to development is the "technolog y in which AI
technology and robot technology work together to autonomously improve their performance" and the "AI androbot technologies that self-modify their own knowledge
and functions.”

Second Law : A robot must obey the orders given it byhuman beings except where such orders would conflictwith the First Law.
Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as longas such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Law.
The Three Laws of Robotics are summarized as necessary
for autonomous robots to coexist with humans. Then,
how should they be written to the robot and executed by
the robot?
First, the current state of the art is not capable of writing
the Three Laws of Robotics into the foundation of all controls and protecting them from tampering . Also, will
robots be able to correctly identify "harm" to humans? In
the first place, have people themselves been able to define
what "harm" is? Thus, in addition to the technical aspects,
there are also issues that we as humans will not be able tosolve unless we are deeply engaged in protecting our own
lives and livelihoods.
“For the coexistence of humans and robots, it is importantthat there is a balance between the two. Of the various
perspectives, including hardware and software, even someshould be symmetrical between humans and robots.
Humans make robots smarter. Humans also learn fromrobots. I believe that we need to create a cross-learning
relationship.”Research and development of AI robots and our society
will continue to change like the flow of a river. Dr. Fukuda's facial expressions and every word he said powerfullyemphasized that an interesting future will come after overcoming challenges one by one from a starting point offully accepting these changes.

SpecialInterview

2

Yuko Iida
Professor, Japanese Culture Studies, Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University / Director, Center forTransregional Culture and Society, Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University
She has published many works, including 彼女たちの文学：語りにくさと読まれること（ single-authored ）; 女性と闘争：雑誌「 女 人 芸 術 」と一九三 〇 年 前 後の文 化 生 産（ authore d and compile d ）; and ケアを描く：育 児と介 護の現 代 小 説（ co-authored ）. Her new work, プロレタリア文学とジェンダー：階級・ナラティブ・インターセクショナリティ（ authored andcompiled ）, was published on October 24, 2022. She presently works in a wide variety of fields, as indicated byher serving as the Director of the Center for Transregional Culture and Society and organizing the international
symposium The Ethics of Care and the Humanities on January 28 and 29, 2023. She specializes in modern andcontemporary Japanese literature and gender studies.

Recognizing Social Norms through Literature Fields‒ To Select Better Norms in an Ever-Changing Era

̶̶ What Is the Silent Power That Controls Us?
The Pursuit of Research to Find the Answer
We live with various social labels attached.
- Students of the natural sciences are good at thinking logically. Students of the humanities have high-level communication skills.
- Stable jobs with lifetime employment are popular. Startinga business and working freely is also good as a modern style.

Before they can be developed and applied to society, ofcourse, many challenges must be overcome. For example,
the introduction of AI robots also raises ethical issues. Asa starting point for thinking about this issue, I would liketo quote the "Three Laws of Robotics" that appear at thebeg inning of Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel "I,
Robot.”(1)First Law : A robot may not injure a human being or,
through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
11 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

(1) "I, Robot—the Definitive Edition" Isaac Asimov (Author) / Fusa Obi(Translator) / Hayakawa Publishing Corporation / Publication date:August 6, 2004

Although we are not sure if they are true or not, we often
hear many other similar examples. These labels affect us asnorms for living even before we realize it. Prof. Iida
describes it in the following way:
“We all live in ignorance of norms. I feel that it is importantto visualize and be conscious of norms. If they are correct,
we should maintain them, and if they are incorrect, we candisregard them.”
However, how should we perceive norms, which can be
described as “implicit dynamics”? One of the approaches isanalysis from the perspective of literature research.
In the late 1980s, a cultural research approach began to beincorporated into Japanese literature research. For example,
a novel by a writer is read by many people, such as theeditor, critics, and general readers, while influencing society
and undergoing evaluation, which in turn influences thewriter. Novels are therefore creations not only based on thewriter’s own views, but also based on the influence of society
as a whole. Called the “literature field,” this entire process isacknowledged as an element that forms culture. A close
March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 12

Special Interview 2 | Yuko IIDA

analysis of the literature field enables a complex entanglement of the norms in society to be unraveled and visualized.

̶̶ What is the “Literature Field,” Which Reflects
and Forms Society?
Let’s take a look at proletarian literature, which is one of Prof.
Iida’s research areas and a major trend in modern literature.
The Meiji, Taisho, and Showa periods saw dramatic progressin the modernization of Japan. Textiles, mining, shipbuilding, and many other industries supported the developmentof Japan in those days, but at the time, they required a large
amount of cheap labor. Consequently, the structure of economic disparities became conspicuous, as expressed by theterms “bourgeoisie of the capitalist class” and “proletariat of
the wage-earning class.” Under these circumstances, proletarian literature emerged with the theme of the harsh working environment of the proletariat and invited empathy
from many people. This literature gained momentum especially in the 1920s and the 1930s, including the renowned
work 蟹工船 (The Crab Cannery Ship) by Takiji Kobayashi.
Proletarian literature has been a popular research theme.
Prof. Iida, who has incorporated the perspective of gender
into the research, says:“For gender research, it is important to look not only atgender, but also at connections with other elements.”
Gender refers to the socially and culturally formed sex,
rather than the biological sex. A gender perspective has been
woven into each of education, work, public service, etc. The
structure and true problems of gender will remain obscure if
the relevant elements are simply identified and categorized.
They will become explicit only after holistic consideration is
given to their backgrounds and surroundings. Prof. Iida has
given such consideration in プロレタリア文学とジェンダー 階級・ナラティブ・インターセクショナリティ, (1) authored and compiled by her and other literature researchers.

プロレタリア文学とジェンダー, authored and compiled by Prof. Iida

13 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Those who challenged capitalism and fought for socialism
and communism in those days were subject to imprisonment as “thought” criminals. Among them were some proletarian writers, including Takiji Kobayashi. Some citizens
tried to provide relief to such imprisoned fighters by, forexample, providing them with relief items, visiting them inprison, and offering support for their families.
For these relief efforts, women played the main role in apractical sense. However, public documents only record that
men took the lead in the relevant relief organizations,almost without reference to the women’s efforts. In thisregard, literature research first highlights the reality hiddenin the male gender norms of the time. For example, proletarian writers Shigeharu Nakano and Rintaro Takeda, who
authored 病気なほる and 暴力, respectively, depict women
engaged in relief efforts in their novels. In one of her works,
Prof. Iida says:“Based on the gap between the public record and reality,
I would like to indicate that unlike the public record,
the relief narrative represented by proletarian literaturefeatures women as the main players in the relief efforts.
[...] Women, who do not appear in the public record, areportrayed in literature.” (2)In the structure of reality, there were gender norms of the“fight” as the central part played by men and of the “relief ”
as the peripheral part played by women. This theory is supported by the description of Tefu Watanabe, the “mother”
of the relief efforts, as the symbol of the efforts. She isdescribed in 残された前衛の家族はどうしてゐるか? by Misao
Hata, published in the issue of March 1930 of the literature
magazine 戦旗, along the following lines:“She always smiles as if she had completely forgotten
about the sadness of her son having been XX. She isworking as hard as the young, big Seki-san. She is exactly
like the mother of Pavel in Mother by Gorky. She is themother of the proletariat. [...] If any of you are about tofeel depressed or intimidated even slightly, you should
go there quickly and have a bowl of ramen noodles.”(3)Tefu Watanabe, who worked hard and made every effort tosupport the imprisoned fighters and their families, was oftenfeatured in proletarian literature magazines. Meanwhile,interestingly, she was at first described as a victim who had
lost a family member in the midst of the fighting, namely
a person to be relieved. A message to her was published in
同志×野からお母さんへ in the July 1929 issue of 戦旗:“Ms. Watanabe, please don’t cry when you come to seeme. [...] There are a lot of things to be done, including
those that you can do. I hope that you will visit everyone
and console them. Please do not think only about yourself but about everyone.”(4)文学とジェンダー）(4) 同志×野からお母さんへ, 戦旗, July 1929 issue, Senkisha, p. 127
and p. 129 (Note: Primary citation from プロレタリア文学とジェンダー）(5) Authored by the same persons as (1), p. 85

̶̶ How Should We Behave When Norms Are Continuing to Change?
From the modern era to the contemporary era, many literature works present the norms of each period. For suchnorms, Prof. Iida feels something through her research.
She says:“History shows that norms have always been changing, andI feel that they will surely continue to change.”

Magazine 戦旗 Each sentence in the magazine presents differences in thehistorical background between then and now.

Tefu Watanabe, a mother in deep sorrow due to the loss of afamily member, was gradually becoming transformed from aperson to be relieved to the key player in the relief efforts. In
one of her works, Prof. Iida discusses this transformation
along the following lines:“Due to these dual features, the family grief and predicament served as rhetoric that mobilized citizens to beengaged in the relief efforts. Tefu Watanabe played asymbolic role in this process. (5)To add momentum to the gender norm of the “fight” as thecentral part played by men, women placed in the peripheral
were depicted differently depending on the purpose. To emphasize the necessity of relief, women were sometimes
described with the focus on their family members whoshould be relieved and the women’s predicament. At othertimes, women were depicted to encourage others to become
committed as backup supporters. Prof. Iida says:

Gender norms will also surely change in line with the times.
Today, people have begun to search for their ideal selves as
men and women, and even various identities that cannot be
simply categorized as men or women. If there are old-fashioned systems and approaches that disregard this trend, theyneed to be changed. Prof. Iida says:“I don’t feel that the framework of gender will or shouldcease to exist. However, I believe that discrimination causedby the framework should be eliminated. It would be nice if
we could just accept diverse people as they are. People havetraditionally fallen into various categories, such as age,origin, class, ethnicity, and race. Among these, genderfigures very strongly. I feel that it would be good if genderwere diluted by many other attributes.”“Literature, especially novels, are based on a framework ofthought which includes views about the family and society.
Literature reflects and also forms society. ”
The views described here are only a small part of her work
プロレタリア文学とジェンダー, which we strongly recommend
to you.
(1) プロレタリア文学とジェンダー：階級・ナラティブ・インターセクショナリ
ティ Yuko Iida (auth. and comp.), Izumi Nakatani (auth. and comp.), andKayo Sasao (auth. and comp.), Seikyusha, released at bookstores on October 24, 2022 ISBN978-4-7872-3514-5(2) Authored by the same persons as (1), p. 87 and p. 89(3) Misao Hata, 残された前衛の家族はどうしてゐるか?, 戦旗, March
1930 issue Senkisha, p. 179 (Note: Primary citation from プロレタリア

Her lab is full of books. Each of them has its own stor y. Prof. Iida
unravels the messages and historical backgrounds woven into stories
every day.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 14

Special Interview 3 | Hiroyoshi NISHIK AWA

SpecialInterview

3

Hiroyoshi Nishikawa
Professor of the Department of Immunology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, and also Chief of theDivision of Cancer Immunology, Research Institute/Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC),
National Cancer Center
In 2022, Dr. Nishikawa was honored as one of the Highly Cited Researchers 2022 by Clarivate Analytics for a third
consecutive year, following his recognition in 2020 and 2021. He continues to be a leader in the field of cancer immunology.

Be Sincere and Persistent in the Fact of Mystery‒ Challenge of Elucidating Sophistiated Immune

Response against Cancer

̶̶ Don’t pretend to understand what you don’t understand.
Dr. Nishikawa said that his early work, conducted more than
20 years ago, still serves as the cornerstones of his current
research.
“I was lucky to have experienced that work at the beginning.
When something happens that I never expected, I can thinkthat there’s only so much wisdom I can have, and there’s still somuch I have yet to learn,” he said.
Our body’s immune system plays a crucial role in not only
fighting against bacteria and viruses but also eliminating
cancer. Dr. Nishikawa started his research in the field ofcancer immunology in the late 1990s, when the focus was
mainly on the study of killer T cells, which directly attack
cancer cells.
At that time, he thought that immunity was not so simple anddecided to focus his research on helper T cells, which were15 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

recognized as coordinating the immune response. However, atthe time, it was believed that helper T cells only assisted killer
T cells in their fight against cancer, although much remained
to be understood. He divided mice with cancer into several
groups and treated them in different ways:
1. Activation of killer T cells only
2. Activation of helper T cells only
3. Activation of both killer and helper T cells
4. No treatment

cells” also exist. They play a different role by putting thebrakes on killer T cells’ attacks. Immunity is such a powerfulmechanism that once it gets out of control, it may cause excessive immune responses in the body. Regulatory T cells constantly monitor and control the immune system to prevent
immune responses from getting out of hand.
Cancer can manipulate and exploit immune suppressive cells
including regulatory T cells as a clever mechanism to evadeattacks by the immune system. This mechanism may explain
the results of his early research described above, in which
treatment intended to activate helper T cells also activatedregulatory T cells, unexpectedly leading to the protection ofcancer cells. In fact, the two types of T cells work in balancewith each other. CD4-positive T cells should not be lumped
together as helper T cells only. The expected outcome would
not be seen unless the two subsets of CD4-positive T cells areactivated differently.
Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi, Specially-appointed Professor of
Osaka University, discovered regulatory T cells in 1995. At
the time, Dr. Nishikawa struggled with mysterious results,
turned to Dr. Sakaguchi’s research on regulatory T cells,
thinking that it could be the key. Thus, he found the key tothe solution and eventually paved the way for cancer immunology research.
He said, “Actually, immunology was my least favorite subject
as a medical student. The theory at that time seemed like apatchwork of disconnected information that was being forced
together. I couldn’t understand it very well.”There are significant factors, such as one’s position as a
researcher and research trends at the time, that determine
one’s research theme. At the time, it must have taken couragefor Dr. Nishikawa to focus on studying helper T cells.
“It is important for researchers to sincerely face the occurring
phenomena. We should not pretend to understand what we
don’t understand,” he said.

When you cannot explain well a phenomenon you are seeingor when you do not feel fully convinced, there is surely something wrong. An attitude of not running away from suchdissatisfaction can lead to new findings.

̶̶ A saying of his boss serves as his driving
force: “If you see one phenomenon, continue tosit in front of it until you have written five
papers on it.”
The research of Dr. Tasuku Honjo, who is the Nobel Prizelaureate in Physiology or Medicine 2018, has opened up a
new field of cancer treatment known as “cancer immunotherapy,” particularly, “PD-1 blockade therapy”. One drug
used in this therapy is nivolumab (Opdivo).
Killer T cells typically do not attack unless they can recognize and identify other cells as their attack targets. Thisis another mechanism that prevents excessive immune
response, and cancer cells can also take advantage of thismechanism to suppress the attackers. Cancer cells provide
a “certificate” that they are not the attack targ ets asanother means of escape. Killer T cells are slowed down
and cannot show their ability to attack in the presence of
this certificate. PD-1 blockade therapy including Opdivo
has the function of nullif ying this certificate, allowing
killer T cells to attack cancer cells.
Cancer immunotherapy is a relatively new field of medicine. Unfortunately, PD-1 blockade therapy is only effective in 20% to 30% of eligible cancer cases, for some reasons not entirely explained. Dr. Nishikawa has provenone of the reasons.
“ The immune system works properly in a positive andnegative balance. I realized the phenomenon I encountered 20 years ago commonly underlied the results of mycurrent work,” he said.

He expected that mice with activated killer T cells and/or
helper T cells would have better prognoses although to varying degrees; but unexpectedly, mice with only activated helper
T cells showed cancer progression.

It has been shown that PD-1 blockade therapy activates
not only killer T cells but also reg ulator y T cells surrounding cancer. Therefore, the key to the efficacy of the
drug is the balance between the two types of T cells. If
regulatory T cells in the periphery of cancer are strong ,the killer T cells will eventually be outcompeted by them.

Why? Though he later noticed the fact during the days of
research, CD4-positive T cells, to which helper T cells belong,
can actually be further classified. In reality, in addition tohelper T cells supporting killer T cells in fighting cancer,
another subset of CD4-positive T cells called “regulatory T

Dr. Nishikawa’s research progressed further, and the next
step was to demonstrate exactly what determines the balance between killer and regulatory T cells. He turned his
attention to cancer metastases in the liver, which are particularly resistant to PD-1 blockade therapy.

Dr. Nishikawa’s research attitude is passed on to students through daily
communication.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 16

Special Interview 3 | Hiroyoshi NISHIK AWA

Research Highlights _ 01

The liver is a metabolically active organ that receives abundant nutrients supplied from the digestive system such as thelarge and small intestines. The liver consumes a large amountof glucose to generate energy for metabolism, which resultsin the release of lactic acid. Cancer cells also consume highamounts of glucose to grow and divide. Metastatic cancer
tissues in the liver are richer in lactic acid than other tissues.
“What I keep in my mind during my research on cancer
immunolog y is to have both the viewpoints of cancer andimmunity. I’ve noticed that regulatory T cells can utilize
lactic acid, which hasn’t received attention in previous
studies,” said Dr. Nishikawa.
Killer T cells and most other types of immune cells use glucose as an energy source for their activities, but they cannot
use lactic acid. In an area where a large number of immune
cells are accumulating and actively working, glucose levels
decrease while lactic acid levels increase. In such an environment, regulatory T cells, which can utilize lactic acid,would not have any trouble obtaining an energ y source,
allowing them to constantly monitor and control immune
responses.
Furthermore, Dr. Nishikawa has demonstrated that highlevels of lactic acid slow down the activity of killer T cells;
this suggests that metastatic cancer in the liver may be amore favorable environment for regulatory T cells than forother immune cells.
This series of discoveries has provided new insights into thestudy of cancer immunology, and has significantly impacted clinical practice. It is a great advance to identify patients
who are not expected to respond to PD-1 blockade therapy, considering their cost and potential side effects.

The Cambridge School and the Methodologies ofHistory of Political Thought
Takuya FURUTA

A painting by Charles Demuth (left frame), a gift from Dr. Old to Dr.
Nishikawa. The “No. 5” in the painting reminds Dr. Nishikawa of Dr.
Old’s saying.

̶̶ The immune system is purposeful, interesting, and beautiful.
When and how does the immune system find and recognize
cancer cells? Does the judgment of whether or not somethingis foreign depending on the situation? Can we create killer T
cells that can utilize lactic acid?
Questions arise in his mind one after another. The immune
system is very complex, and much of it is still a mystery.
Therefore, efforts may not yield fruitful results. “It’s daunting,and there’s so much I don’t understand yet, but that’s whatmakes it exciting,” Dr. Nishikawa stated. Each of his words
sounds as if it conveys a spark of curiosity.
“While study immunology, I sometimes feel thrilled at such acomplex but sophisticated mechanism present in our bodies,and the more I study, the more I am amazed and can only
stand in awe of it. When I think something is wrong andresearch it again, I get exactly the results I was looking for. The
immune system is so amazing that it makes me realize thathuman understanding is so far behind,” he said.

Dr. Nishikawa has accomplishe d many studies, anddescribes himself as “being persistent” when it comes to his
research, while attributing much of his success to advancesin science and technology and to superior researchers who
have supported him. His research attitude can be traced
back to the time when he was a researcher at the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, U.S., from2003 to 2006. His boss at the time, Dr. Lloyd J. Old, was arenowned leader in the field of cancer immunology.
“He told me that when you see one phenomenon, continue tosit in front of it until you have written five papers on it. It’s
pretty hard to write five papers, but I learned from him theattitude of doing as much as I can to solve a series ofthings,” said Dr. Nishikawa.
17 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Law / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: ftakuya@law.nagpya-u.ac.jp

A set of two advanced protein analyzers, one of only about five sets in Japan.
Dr. Nishikawa’s challenge of conducting innovative research continues.

Special Interviews were done by Science Communicator Tasuro Ayatsuka.

INTRODUCTION
The contemporary political philosopher David Miller has maderenowned among students of political philosophy The Allegory of Good and
Bad Government, a series of mural paintings of Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Figure 1
is a part of the painting, which illustrates good government. In this panel, amonarch representing the good government is surrounded by figures symbolizing values, such as justice and peace, while in another panel, the subjects
enjoy a gratified and harmonious life under the good government. At the
beginning of Political Philosophy, Miller says that looking at this painting is
the best introduction to political philosophy. It tells us the perennial truththat politics affects human life, that there is good and bad politics, and that
we are able to recognize the nature of the difference. Miller, in short, suggeststhat this painting provides us with the best way to consider the problem ofvalues. He does not tell us, however, what the best “historical” approach is tothe question of these values. This is the theme addressed by the Cambridge
School, which is my research focus.

THE IDENTITY OF HISTORY OF POLITICAL IDEAS
The Cambridge School in intellectual history is a group of historians ofpolitical thought, represented by John Pocock, John Dunn, and Quentin
Skinner. Although they have not conducted collaborative research, since thelate 1950s, they have all published a series of methodological articles thatshare a common orientation. The Cambridge School criticized conventional
research methods, significantly revising the traditional plot of the history ofpolitical ideas, mainly through the study of the distinguished philosophers,
such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, and other prominent discourses inseventeenth-century England. Perhaps, it may be possible to elicit from classical works perennial messages still profitable today. But is conveying suchmessages to “us” really what Hobbes and Locke actually “did?” Here is roomfor historical inquires, distinct from philosophical investigations.
According to their view, “theory” or “thought,” perceived as a set of
propositions, does not itself constitute history. For example, the politico-philosophical proposition that “liberty signifies the absence of opposition” itself is
a-historical. It is only when a person writes, speaks, or pronounces such a
proposition that it appears in the history of human activities. Hence thehistory of ideas is the history of “action”: writing and speaking. The two
propositions, “Caesar crossed the Rubicon” and “liberty signifies the absenceof opposition,” are of entirely different status. But when the latter proposition
was rewritten as “‘Hobbes wrote’ that liberty signifies the absence of opposition,” it comes to be a description of an action, an event in the past, like
Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon. Historical inquiries of past ideas are to explore
the meaning of the actions of writing a particular proposition, just as historians explore the meaning of Caesar’s action.
Pursuing the history of ideas as history of actions, the Cambridge-stylehistorians hoped to establish the identity of the history of political thought.
Their common aspiration was to rebuild this history against the new academ

Figure 1. Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of the Good Government (Public Domain:
Available on Wikipedia)

ic background in the late twentieth century, in which natural scientific methods were being adopted in many areas of the humanities and social sciences.
However, the model of natural scientific causal explanations, when applied tohistory of ideas without modification, leads to reductionism, which substitutes historical understanding of an idea with successive attempts to find thecauses of the idea somewhere in, for examples, the social structure, economic
structure, or personal biography. The Cambridge-style historians therefore
oppose the direct application of such explanatory models, while seeking to
defend the possibility, or autonomy, of the history of political thought as anindependent discipline, which has distinctive methods. In doing so, they
derived various supporting arguments not simply from the field of history ofpolitical ideas but also from a variety of related disciplines.

A FORGOTTEN LEGACY
However, it is this close connection between the Cambridge School andother disciplines that has often been overlooked, or simply forgotten. Theirapproach, often summarized as “contextualism,” became widely accepted fromthe 1960s onwards. Ironically, the prevalence of their method itself has
obscured their dialogue and tensions with the social and natural sciences.
However, it is, I believe, in these forgotten aspects that we can learn somesignificant lessons today, when the relationship is being hotly debatedbetween the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. I am therefore conducting my research, focusing on these aspects; I am also convincedthat this theme is perfectly suitable for research conducted at Nagoya University’s Institute for Advanced Research, where young specialists from various
field gather together.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 18

Research Highlights _ 02

Physical Exercise as a Means for Cellular Rejuvenation

Research Highlights _ 03

The Royal Correspondence of the Assyrian Empire

Hirotaka IIJIMA

Sanae ITO

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Medicine / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: iijima@met.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Humanities / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: ito.sanae.s4@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

INTRODUCTIONASSYRIOLOGY

THE ROYAL CORRESPONDENCE
When I stayed at the University of Helsinki, where the research projecton publishing the archival texts of the Assyrian Empire had been conducted, I
took the opportunity to study the royal correspondence of Assurbanipal, theAssyrian king (668-c. 630 BCE) who expanded the territory to its biggest(Fig. 2). I conducted a philological and historical research on his letter as my
Ph.D. work (1).

AN AGE-R EL ATED INCR E ASE IN ECM STIFFNE SS
DRIVES EPIGENETIC REPRESSION OF α-KLOTHO

Assyriology covers various academic disciplines related to the research on
ancient West Asia (modern Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine,
and Turkey) from the fourth millennium BCE to the first century CE. Assyriology, in its narrower sense, also means the philology dealing with cuneiform
texts written in Akkadian—i.e., Assyrian and Babylonian, Sumerian, Eblaite,
Hittite, Luwian, Elamite, Hurrian, Urartian, Ugaritic, and Old Persian. As
most of the cuneiform texts were inscribed on clay tablets that hardly perish,
about half a million texts have been discovered so far since the end of the 19th
century CE and stored in museums worldwide (Fig. 1). However, it takes
many years of focused effort to acquire the ability to decipher cuneiform
documents ; hence, the number of Assyriolog ists—researchers in
Assyriolog y—in the world is roughly 200, spanning several generations.
Systematical cuneiform text editing projects started from the middle of 1980s
in North America and Europe and annotated editions of the various corpus,
such as Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions, state archival texts, scholarly writings, have been released. Having benefitted from these editions,
Assyriologists are recently focusing on not only deciphering newly excavatedcuneiform texts but also examining history, languages, art history, religion,
science, literature, economy, societies, legal systems and material culture of theancient West Asia.

All cells in the human body are subject to mechanical influences. This isparticularly true in articular cartilage, given that its primary role is to transmit
forces to the underlying bone. However, these functions are disrupted by cartilage deterioration over time. In most cases, cartilage damage eventuallyprogresses to osteoarthritis (OA), which in 2019 represented the 15th leading
cause of disability worldwide. Although we have known of the poor healing
capacity of cartilage for over 250 years, effective treatment is currently lacking.
This lack of treatment is attributed, at least partly, to a poor understanding of
the molecular mechanisms underlying age-related OA.

To address this gap, we performed a meta-analysis and bioinformatic
analyses to elucidate the mechanisms of OA in the knee joint.1 From thisstudy, a pattern of common molecular and cellular denominators of knee OA
emerged, including elevated inflammation, impaired autophagy, and cellularsenescence—three hallmarks of aging. At the intersection of each of thesehallmarks, we identified the longevity protein, α-Klotho, suggesting that
α-Klotho may play a mechanistic role in the onset of knee OA. Indeed, using
both murine and human samples, we found that aging drives a decrease in
α-Klotho protein levels in chondrocytes. 2 However, supplementation of
α-Klotho to aged mice restored a more youthful cartilage profile, suggestingthat α-Klotho plays a critical role in the preservation of cartilage health.2
In search of factors that may drive declines in α-Klotho, we found that an
age-related increase in extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffness initiates pathogenic mechanotransductive cascades that inhibit Klotho gene expression.2 Whilematrix-provoked declines in tissue health are broadly recognized, the underlying mechanisms mediating these effects have been elusive. Our studies suggestthat biophysical matrix characteristics epigenetically regulate Klotho gene
expression. Specifically, we found that a stiff matrix engineered to mimic thebiophysical properties of aged cartilage drove methylation of the Klotho
promoter in young chondrocytes. Contrastingly, a soft (young-like) matrix
restored a youthful phenotype to aged chondrocytes through Klotho promoter de-repression. These findings suggest that modulation of matrix mechanics
or inhibition of downstream cellular response to the aged-like (stiff ) matrix
may be a therapeutically viable tool in the treatment of age-related knee OA.

PHYSICAL EXERCISE AS A MEANS TO COUNTERACTTHE STIFF ECM-DRIVEN CELLULAR AGING

The above findings indicate that age-related alterations in ECM
biophysical properties initiate mechanotransductive cascades that disrupt
chondrocyte health via epigenetic repression of Klotho. As a next step, we aim
to identify methods to counteract the pathogenic mechanotransductive
cascades accompanying the aging process. A growing body of evidence has
demonstrated the beneficial effects of young blood on the health and functionof aged tissues. This is also true in cartilage, as evidenced by the fact thatrejuvenation of the systemic microenvironment through exposure of aged
mice to a young circulatory system restores cartilage integrity. With this inmind, numerous studies have sought to identify circulating “anti-geronic”
19 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Figure. Exercise counteracts age-related pathogenic mechanotransduction

factors that may transpose a youthful phenotype onto aged cells and tissues.
While the bulk of efforts to date have focused on free circulating
proteins as potential mediators of the beneficial effect of young blood, we
recently turned my attention to circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs aremembrane-bound nanoparticles that transfer biomolecules targeting cells toregulate the physiological functions of recipient target cells. Blood contains aheterogeneous mixture of EVs of different origins, and these EVs are currently
being tested for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. In particular, the effectsof EVs are now the subject of growing interest in the context of aging andcartilage disease, and recent in vitro studies have attempted to evaluate thechondrogenic potential of EVs from blood-derived products. In support ofthis premise, my preliminary results showed that treatment of aged chondrocytes with EVs isolated from young blood displayed a more youthful phenotype. Most notably, we found that the chondrogenic potential of EV wassignificantly improved by exercise.3 These data suggest that physical exercise
influences circulating EV cargoes that modulate mechanotransductive signals,
and therefore, may be a promising tool to modulate the health and functionof target chondrocytes (see Figure).
Building upon these previous works, I propose a new interdisciplinary
research field, “Rejuvenative Rehabilitation,” an interdisciplinary field that
integrates approaches from rehabilitation medicine with rejuvenative medicine, with the ultimate goal of developing innovative anti-aging therapeutics
that maximize physical function. I believe that the establishment of “Rejuvenative Rehabilitation” will accelerate our resolution of the challenges ofhuman aging.

Figure 2. Relief of Assurbanipal hunting on horseback. © The Trustees of the
British Museum.

Figure 1. The flood tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic. © The Trustees of the British
Museum.

Based on this research, I wrote an introduction when the text editionof half of his correspondence was published from the project (2). I also examined the complicated process of composing the Assyrian royal correspondence(3). Currently, I am at the Institute for Advanced Research in Nagoya University doing research on the Assyrian imperial communication system to reveal
how the thousands of Assyrian state correspondence had been delivered. Thissystem was the important instrument that enabled the empire to implement
state policies and achieve its political aims for the cohesion of the vastly
expanded empire. Additionally, Designated Assistant Professor H. Hayakawa
and I do collaborative research on the solar eclipses mentioned in the Assyrian
royal correspondence and the Babylonian astronomical diaries.

THE ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
REFERENCES[1] Iijima H, et al. Meta-analysis Integrated With Multi-omics Data Analysis to Elucidate Pathogenic Mechanisms of Age-Related Knee Osteoarthritis in Mice. J Gerontol A
Biol Sci Med Sci. 2022;77(7):1321-1334.
[2] Iijima H, et al. Age-related increase in matrix stiffness downregulates α-Klotho inchondrocytes and induces cartilage degeneration. Nature Communications (Accepted)[3] Iijima H, et al. Exercise as a means to promote rejuvenative signals delivered byextracellular vesicle (In preparation).

The Assyrian kingdom emerged as a city-state in the middle of theEuphrates from the 21st century BCE, became a territorial state in the second
millennium BCE, and eventually turned into an empire in the first half of thefirst millennium BCE. The Assyrian Empire was the first world empire inhistory. At its height, it united a vast territory stretching from present-day Iranto Egypt. I am interested in the Assyrian Empire and understanding how the
first world empire was constructed, managed, and inherited.

REFERENCES[1] Ito, S., Royal Image and Political Thinking in the Letters of Assurbanipal (2015).
[2] Ito, S., “INTRODUCTION,” in S. Parpola, The Correspondence of Assurbanipal, Part
I: Letters from Assyria, Babylonia, and Vassal States, State Archives of Assyria vol. 21, pp.
XIII-XXXIX, (2018).
[3] Ito, S., “The Problem of Original Letter, Draft and Copy,” in G. B. Lanfranchi, R.
Mattila and R. Rollinger (eds.), Writing Neo-Assyrian History: Sources, Problems, andApproaches, State Archives of Assyria Studies vol. 29, pp. 247-260, (2019).

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 20

Research
Research Highlights
Highlights __ 05
05

Research Highlights _ 04

Unravelling Plant Cell Division in Moss
Physcomitrium Patens

Probing Quantum Gravity via Quantum
Information Theory

Elena KOZGUNOVA

Masamichi MIYAJI

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Science / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: kozgunova.elena.b1@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Science / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: miyaji. masamichi.j4@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

INTRODUCTION
The development of multicellular organisms depends on the ability ofcells to make accurate copies of themselves; this is the core function of mitotic
cell divisions. Our understanding of mitotic mechanisms is largely derived
from studies conducted in animals. Although plant cell division follows themain stages of eukaryotic mitosis, some studies suggest that even conserved
mitotic proteins have acquired novel functions in plants (1). Limited progresshas been made in elucidating plant-specific mechanisms of mitosis, in part due
to the slow speed of functional gene analysis in most common model plant
species, which are diploid or polyploid with relatively long life cycles. However, these limitations do not apply to the moss Physcomitrium patens (seeFig.1a), which is also called “green yeast” by plant molecular biologists. P.
patens is haploid for most of its life cycle and is distinguishable by its remarkable regeneration abilities, with any single somatic cell capable of regenerating
into a whole plant. All genetic modifications can be easily obtained in the first
generation within one to two months, and cutting-edge technology, such as a
microfluidic device for high-resolution live-cell imaging, has been developed(2, 3). These advantages make P. patens an ideal model plant for genome-wide
screens that can rapidly progress identification and functional characterizationof new genes on a large scale.

ways, knowledge that has been later transferred to other animal systems andthe medical field. However, this promising approach of exploiting a simple,
fast-growing organism for gene discovery remains rarely used in the plant
field. In the future, using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and P. patens, I plan topursue an ambitious genome-wide screen to identify novel factors involved inplant development and stress tolerance.

a

b

c

SPINDLE POSITION AND ORGAN DEVELOPMENT
In animals, mitotic spindle positioning determines the division site
during asymmetric cell division. On the other hand, it was believed that inplants, the cell division site was determined before mitosis, and no evidence ofactive spindle positioning in plant cells was discovered until now. In the recent
work, we characterized the function of the microtubule-associated protein
targeting protein for Xklp2 (TPX2) during mitosis in P. patens and isolated ahypomorphic mutant of TPX2 that showed drastic spindle motility leading toa reversed cell ratio in asymmetric cell division and impaired organ development (5) (see Fig.1c).

FUTURE PERSPECTIVE
In the last decades, simple model organisms (e.g. Saccharomyces cerevisiae) have pioneered in the functional characterization of novel genes and path
21 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

BLACK HOLE INTERIOR FROM QUANTUM INFORMATION

Quantum mechanics and general relativity are two foundations ofmodern theoretical physics. Quantum mechanics is a theory of microscopic
matter, such as elementary particles. General relativity is a theory of gravity,
describing macroscopic objects such as stars. However, it is hard to construct atheory of gravity in terms of quantum mechanics, called quantum gravity, insuch a way that general relativity appears when we neglect quantum effects.
This means we are still unable to understand the physics of the black hole andthe beginning of our universe.
This situation was substantially improved by the discovery of holography(Fig.1) [1, 2, 3]. Holography tells us that the quantum gravity of spacetime isequivalent to quantum mechanics on the spacetime boundary. The important
point is that quantum mechanics does not contain gravity; therefore, once weknow about quantum mechanics, which is a doable task, we can understandthe corresponding physics of quantum gravity. The next question then is,which aspects of quantum mechanics correspond to the physics of quantum
gravity of interest? One direction that has proved fruitful is focusing on thequantum information of the boundary quantum mechanics.

Black holes are heavy objects which distort the spacetime around themand are believed to be ubiquitous in our universe. A black hole has an event
horizon from which nothing can escape after falling behind it. Inside theevent horizon, there is a singularity where general relativity is no longer true,and quantum gravity is necessary. Therefore, to understand the properties ofthe black hole interior, singularity, and quantum gravity, it is necessary toconstruct physical quantity at the boundary quantum mechanics, whichcorresponds to geometric quantities behind the horizon.

QUANTUM INFORMATION AND GRAVITYPOLYPLOIDY AND CELL DIVISION
Polyploidy, or genome multiplication, has greatly influenced plant evolution and speciation. Our current understanding of this process attributes
errors in sexual reproduction to polyploidy—e.g., unreduced gamete fusion orpolyspermy. However, a comprehensive screen of all major kinetochore components in P. patens led to an unexpected discovery: defects in chromosome
segregation, namely lagging chromosomes that completely blocked cytokinesis
in a spatio-temporal manner (4). The resulting cells had a duplicated genome
and eventually developed into polyploid plants. This suggests that P. patens
possesses a failsafe mechanism that ensures chromosome segregation
post-metaphase and can terminate cytokinesis to prevent aneuploidy.

INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. Cell division in the moss Physcomitrium patens.
(a) A photo of P. patens colony (b) One of the stages in cell division in P. patens,
showing microtubules (green) and chromosomes (magenta) (adapted from (4)).
(c) 3D cell reconstitution after first gametophore division (adapted from (5))

REFERENCES[1] Kozgunova E, Suzuki T, Ito M, Higashiyama T, Kurihara D. 2016. Haspin has Multiple Functions in the Plant Cell Division Regulatory Network. PCP 57:848–861.
doi:10.1093/pcp/pcw030[2] Kozgunova E., Goshima G. A versatile microfluidic device for highly inclined thin
illumination microscopy in the moss Physcomitrella patens. Scientific Reports 9, 15182(2019)[3] Yoshida M., Kozgunova E., Microfluidic device for high-resolution cytoskeleton
imaging and wash out assays in Physcomitrium (Physcomitrella) patens. Methods in
Molecular Biology (2022 – in press)[4] Kozgunova E, Nishina M, Goshima G. Kinetochore protein depletion underlies
cytokinesis failure and somatic polyploidization in the moss Physcomitrella patens. eLife
8:1–16 (2019) doi:10.7554/eLife.43652[5] Kozgunova, E., Yoshida, M.W., Reski, R., Goshima G. Spindle motility skews
division site determination during asymmetric cell division in Physcomitrella. Nat
Commun 13, 2488 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30239-1

Quantum mechanics has unique structures, as compared to classicalmechanics. Such structures are formalized in quantum information theory.
The fundamental fact is that information in quantum mechanics is stored inqubits, which have a far richer structure and unique applications compared toclassical bits. One important example of an important structure studied inquantum information theory is quantum entanglement. Quantum entanglement is a non-local quantum correlation between two quantum systems. It
plays an important role as a resource for quantum teleportation as well as atool to study quantum mechanical systems.
One measure to quantify quantum entanglement is entanglement entropy, which can count the number of entangled pairs of particles in the system.
Therefore, it can be used to study non-local correlations present in the system.
Such non-local correlation is important since it can be used to classify thelong-range order of the system of interest as an order parameter.
The profound connection between quantum information and quantum
gravity in holography was first discovered as equality between entanglement
entropy of the boundar y quantum mechanics and the area of the
Ryu-Takayanagi surface in the bulk spacetime (Fig.1) [4]. This relation iscalled the Ryu-Takayanagi formula andis the first connection between thequantity of the boundar y quantum
mechanics and fundamental degrees of
freedom in gravity. The Ryu-Takayanagi
formula has uncovered various important new directions in studying holography and quantum gravity. One significant implication is the resolution of
Hawking’s black hole information para- Figure 1: Quantum mechanics (QM)dox [5, 6], which is one of the mostat the spacetime boundary and
Ryu-Takayanagi surface.
notorious paradoxes in quantum gravity.

QUANTUM FISHER INFORMATION
Quantum Fisher information
is a quantum information theoretic
measure that quantifies the distinguishability of quantum states interms of parameters. In otherwords, quantum Fisher information
tells how difficult it is to estimate
the parameters of the given quantum state. Miyaji et al. found thatthe quantum Fisher information
corresponds to a volume of the
Figure 2 : Maximal volume slice penemaximal volume time slice (Fig.2).
trating the black hole interior.
There are several remarkable points
in this finding. First, this correspondence is another example connecting
geometry and quantum information theoretic quantity. Second, the maximal
volume slice can penetrate beyond the event horizon of the black hole,enabling us to study the black hole interior in terms of the boundary quantum
mechanics. It is an exciting future program to extend this correspondence inorder to investigate geometry behind the horizon out of the maximal volume
slice. Ultimately, the goal in this direction is to capture physics near the blackhole singularity using some quantum information theoretic quantity byextending the quantum Fisher information.

REFERENCES[1] ‘t Hooft., Dimensional reduction in quantum gravity. Conf.Proc.C 930308(1993)384-296.
[2] Susskind L., The World as Hologram. J.Math.Phys. 36 (1995) 6377-6396.
[3] Maldacena J., The Large N Limit of superconformal field theories and supergravity.
Int.J.Theor.Phys. 38 (1999) 1113-1133.
[4] Ryu S., Takayanagi T., Holographic derivation of entanglement entropy from
AdS/CFT. Phys.Rev.Lett. 96 (2006) 181602.
[5] Penington G., Entanglement wedge reconstruction and the information paradox.
JHEP 09 (2020) 002.
[6] Almheiri A. et al., The entropy of bulk quantum fields and the entanglement wedgeof an evaporating black hole. JHEP 12 (2019) 063.
[7] Miyaji M. et al., Distance between Quantum States and Gauge-Gravity Duality.
Phys.Rev.Lett. 115(2015)26, 261602.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 22

Research Highlights _ 06

A Preliminary Risk Assessment of Geomagnetically
Induced Currents on Japanese Power Grids.

Research Highlights _ 07

Hierotopy in Early Netherlandish Art

Satoko NAKAMURA

Miyako SUGIYAMA

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE) / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: Nakamura.satoko@isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Humanities / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: sugiyama.miyako.e0@f.mail.nagoya-u.ac.jp

INTRODUCTION

CONCEPT

Geomagnetically induced current (GIC) is hazardous to social infrastructures having long-length conductors, such as power lines, pipelines, andcommunication cables as shown in Figure 1. Our research team has developed
a new numerical model for calculating GIC flowing in the Extra High Voltage(EHV) power transmission lines in Japan to estimate a potential risk of GIC
in Japan. A risk of (GIC) is expected to be high for large magnetic storms
caused by solar eruptions. One of the most famous consequences was thecollapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid on March 13, 1989, associated witha severe geomagnetic storm. Previously, it had been believed that the occurrence of strong GICs is limited in the high latitude regions. Japan is located at
low- and mid-latitudes, and the influence from GIC on the transformer situated in the Japanese power grid is small. It has recently been suggested that theJapanese grid system may not always be safe as previously thought.

Hierotopy is a concept suggested by Alexei Lidov in 2001 and publishedin 2006 (1). The term combines two Greek roots: hieros (sacred) and topos(place, space, notion), and this concept focuses on the procedure and system
of making a sacred space. The combination of the architecture, religious imagery, liturgical performance, incenses, and lighting all contribute to creating a
sense of sacredness in the space. This sense is a core necessity for human beings
to communicate with the celestial world.

SACRED SPACE AND IMAGE

Figure 2. The distribution of the estimated risk against GICs for a 500-kV transmission. network in Japan. The magnitude of the GIC flowing at a substation isindicated by the radius of the circle

Figure 1. A concept map of the space weather chain.

RISK ESTIMATIONOur group investigated the problem of realistic modeling of GICs in
Japan. The islands of Japan are located in a highly heterogeneous geologic
region and are also surrounded by a conductive ocean. High-resolution 3Delectrical conductivity modeling is presented for physics-based time-domain
modeling of the geoelectric fields and the GICs in Japan. This is a timely
topic, and the methodolog y developed to address the problem is novel,sophisticated, and reflects the best practices in this area of research. The analysis is scientifically valid and is a great addition to the modern literature on the
topic. Using a subsurface electrical conductivity model, GIEs generated byexternal geomagnetic disturbances can be calculated. When the GIE distribution is provided, the magnitude of the GIC can be determined by the topology and electrical parameters of the power grid, such as the resistance values of
the ground and the transmission line. Lehtinen and Pirjola (1985) suggested ascheme to calculate the GIC flowing in an entire grid for a given GIE andparameters of the power grid. Figure 2 inducates that large-amplitude GICs
tend to flow at substations near the coast. In addition, particularly large GICs
are found in the inland areas where the gradient of the conductivity is high.
23 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

This is a notable example showing that the inhomogeneity of the conductivity and topology of the power grid are significant in the generation of a GIC.
As described above, the mechanism of GICs has been clarified to some extent
by studies in the last ten years; however, there are still some problems to besolved for the reproduction of actual GICs and estimation of possible GICs
in the future. Further studies are required to improve the accuracy of GIC
reproduction and prediction capability of GICs against extremely large
geomagnetic storms. Another issue that has not been discussed well thus far isthe effect of the complex magnetospheric ionospheric current system thatemerges during an extremely large geomagnetic storm. Moreover, the interaction between the ground and transmission lines (i.e., electromagnetic
coupling between ground and transmission lines) has not been fully
discussed. Field and numerical experiments will help understand the coupling
and evaluate the generation of GICs more precisely.

REFERENCES[1] Nakamura, S., Y. Ebihara, and S. Watari, Strong influence of rainfall on daily
variations of transfer functions for calculation of 1 geomagnetically induced current(GIC), Space Weather, John Wiley & Sons, accepted (2020)[2] Nakamura, S., Y. Ebihara, S. Fujita, T. Goto, N. Yamada, S. Watari, and Y. Omura(2018), Time domain simulation of geomagnetically induced current (GIC) flowing in
500 kV power grid in Japan including a three ‐ dimensional ground inhomogeneity.
Space Weather, John Wiley & Sons, 16, 1946–1959.

The main focus of hierotopic research so far has been Eastern Christianity (Byzantine and Medieval Russia), and little study has been done on westernchurches and other religions (2). For the first time, this research project introduces the hierotopic methodology to the study of art and culture in the latemedieval Low Countries, the territories in which early Netherlandish art
flourished in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The project especially
focuses on the system of creating new sacred spaces in local cities throughcopies of sacred images. According to medieval theolog y, an image wasbelieved to reflect its divine prototype. For instance, Saint Basil the Great (ca.
330–79) said that “the honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype”(3). This opinion established a standard idea of an image as a window throughwhich beholders could communicate with a sacred presence.

Figure 1

Figure 1. Italo-Byzantine, The
Cambrai Madonna, mid-14th
century, tempera on panel,
35.7 x 25.7 cm, Cambrai
Cathedral
Figure 2. Hayne de Bruxelles,
Virgin and Child, ca. 1454–55,
oil on panel, 62.2 x 36 cm,
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City
Figure 3. Adornes family chapel(Jeruzalemkapel), 1470s–80s,
BrugesPROTOTYPE AND COPY
A copy of a sacred image contributed to creating a new space for devotion. For instance, there are a number of copies of the Cambrai Madonna(Fig.1), the famous miraculous icon—a devotional painting of a holy figure. A
copy in Kansas City (Fig. 2) is not an exact copy of the original, but rather amodern interpretation of the older icon (4). It was modified to fit the aesthetic taste in the fifteenth-century Netherlands. This type of “modern icon” stimulates the audience to see the image, and by providing an adequate setting as ashrine, to perform various devotional acts in front of it. In the late medieval
Netherlands, not only the sacred images but also the sacred places, such as
Jerusalem and Rome, were copied. A particular example is the Adornes family
chapel, or Jeruzalemkapel (5). The Adornes family in Bruges had a long history of devotion to the Holy City, where several family members went onpilgrimage. Between 1470 and 1471, Anselm Adornes and his oldest son Jan
Adornes traveled together to Jerusalem, among other cities. After returningfrom their travel, they renovated their family chapel (Fig. 3) to commemorate
their journey and experience in the Holy Sepulcher. The chapel was originallyfounded in 1427. In previous literature, the chapel has generally been mentioned as a kind of copy of Jerusalem, “conceptual Jerusalem in miniature,” or“a domestication of the Jerusalem pilgrimage experience” to do virtual pilgrimage to the Holy City (6). However, it is worth pointing out that the chapel
itself is not an exact copy of the Holy Sepulcher, but rather an interpretation
or a completely new creation of Calvary to attract local citizens with its
unique design and concept. What is copied in both the aforementioned“modern icon” and the Adornes family chapel is, as will be demonstrated inthis research, a core concept. New elements and environment were thenprovided to adapt to the new context. Copying the sacredness is, paradoxically, a creative activity to make a new place for devotion in the secular world.

Figure 2

Figure 3

REFERENCES[1] Alexei Lidov, Hierotopy. Creation os Sacred Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia,
Moscow: Progress-Tradition, 2006; id., Hierotopy. Spatial Icons and Image-Paradigms in
Byzantine Culture, Moscow: Theoria, 2009.
[2] Some comparative studies have been done in Alexei Lidov (ed.), Air and Heavens in
the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World: Materials from the International
Symposium, Moscow: Theoria, 2019.
[3] De Spiritu Sancto 18:45. Translation from Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, Nicene andPost-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, 14 vols, New York: Christian Literature PublishingCo., 1890-1900, vol. 8, p. 28.
[4] On the two paintings, with further references, see Miyako Sugiyama, Images andIndulgences in Early Netherlandish Painting, Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2021, p. 13.
[5] On the family and chapel, see especially Noël Geirnaert, Het archief van de familie
Adornes en de Jeruzalemstichting te Brugge, 2 vols, Bruges: Stadsbestuur, 1978-89; Mitzi
Kirkland-Ives, “Capell nuncapato Jherusalem noviter Brugis: the Adornes family of
Bruges and Holy Land devotion,” Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 39 (2008), pp.
1041–64.
[6] Kirkland-Ives 2008, p. 1041.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 24

Research Highlights _ 08

Galaxy Formation and Evolution within the
Cosmic Web Filaments

Research Highlights _ 09

Cell Polarity in Plants: Exploring Polar Nutrient Transport
and the Fundamental Cell Polarization Machinery

Hideki UMEHATA

Akira YOSHINARI

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Graduate School of Science / Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University
E-mail: umehata@a.phys.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Designated Assistant Professor of the Young Leaders Cultivation Program
Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM), Nagoya University
E-mail: yoshinari@itbm.nagoya-u.ac.jp

INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION

It is becoming clear that galaxy formation activity and growth ofsuper-massive black holes (SMBHs) change across cosmic time. After the Big
Bang, structure formation was initiated and matters were assembled, draggedby gravity. The first galaxies were born in hundreds of million years. The
formation activity gradually increased and the universe underwent the mostactive phase, in which violent star-forming activity and rapid growth of
SMBHs occurred, about 10–12 billion years ago. As time passed, however,more and more metals and dust were produced, which hid such intrinsicallyintensive activity and prevent us from accurately understanding the cosmic
history. Such activity then gradually declined toward the present. Charting
galaxy formation and evolution in the actively forming era, which is often
obscured by dust, is thus essential.

Plants have developed sophisticated tissues and organs, which are complex and highly functionalized to adapt to terrestrial environments. Cell polarity plays a key role in the coordinated developmental processes in plants and isalso required for the efficient transport of nutrients from the roots to theshoots for homeostasis and growth. However, the molecular framework that
regulates cell polarity has not been elucidated in plants. I have been studying
cell polarity in plants by focusing on unique proteins that polarly localize inthe cell membrane.

KEYWORD: COSMIC WEB
For this purpose, one avenue is observations of galaxies and SMBHs.
Another is the exploration of surrounding matter. Galaxies possess only lessthan 1% of the total mass of matter in the Universe and only around 20% of
ordinary matter. Models of cosmological structure formation in a cold dark
matter universe predict that the bulk of ordinary matter assembles in a cosmic
web of sheets and filaments as a consequence of gravitational collapse. The
cosmic web is the main reservoir of baryons and play a critical role in shaping
galaxy evolution. Thus, we need to comprehensively understand the cosmic
web, galaxies, and SMBHs, which have a wide variety of scales and densities.
Unfortunately, although most baryons are in these filaments, their low density, low temperatures, and low metal abundance make them notoriously hardto observe. Indeed, the cosmic web is predicted to emit HI Lyα 1216 arisingfrom fluorescence induced by the UV background (UVB). However, due tothe intrinsic low surface brightness, detection of the emission from the intergalactic filaments has remained elusive so far.

NEW FINDINGS
To obviate to this limitation, one can turn to regions where the local
radiation field boosts the Lyα emission, compared to regions that are only
illuminated by UVB. The boosted emission from the cosmic web is expected
to have detectable Lyα surface brightness in the presence of a high density ofionizing photons. Galaxy overdensity in the early Universe, a proto-cluster,
can provide an ideal laboratory, owing to high density of matter and a numberof ionizing sources. The local radiation field can boost the Lyα emission, compared to regions that are only illuminated by UVB. Furthermore, Lyα surface
brightness can also be boosted in the node as a result of complex phenomena,
including ionization, cooling radiation, and scattering. Following such a newprescription developed by us, we successfully reported the detection ofrest-frame ultraviolet Lyman-alpha radiation from multiple filaments at z=3 (zis redshift; it corresponds to 11.5 billion years ago). The network of filaments
was found to connect individual galaxies across a large volume, allowing it topower dust-obscured activity, intense star formation, and black-hole growth
25 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

POLARITY MAINTENANCE BY ENDOCYTOSIS

Figure legend. Cosmic web filaments found in this work. Extended Lya emission
are shown across the panel (0.9x1.3Mpc at z=3.1 in size). Background image isthe 1.1mm map taken with ALMA. Dusty starburst galaxies ubiquitously
distribute along the filaments, which suggests that cosmic web fuels suchactive galaxy growth.

(Figure, Ref. (1)). The groundbreaking results tell us the arrival of a new
era in which we can directly observe and investigate the cosmic web in theearly universe.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
We are in the initial phase: a small part of the cosmic web has been(finally) captured. We are further developing the work in several ways. The
first theme is to obtain a whole picture of the gaseous network and association of galaxies. The Subaru telescope in Hawaii provides a strong tool, utilizing its capability to observe a wide sky area. Our ongoing 100 hours intensive
survey will uncover the cosmic web on a cosmological scale, together withdeeper spectroscopy in 3D taken with other telescopes. The second theme isto unveil the interplay between the cosmic web and galaxies. How do galaxies
obtain mass, metals, and angular momentum? How much gas is actuallyfunneled onto galaxies or expelled out from galaxies during the forming
phase? On the basis of intensive observational campaigns of cosmic web andgalaxies, we will uncover how cosmic web actually regulate galaxy formationin the early Universe. The third theme is to uncover the co-evolution of galaxies and SMBHs. One of the big challenges in this theme is the mass measurement of heavily obscured SMBHs. We believe our method can achieve it,using the James Webb Space Telescope and ALMA. With these multi-epoch/scales/phases strateg y, the following overarching questions will beanswered.
・How did the Universe assemble matter in the cosmic history?
・How did the Universe shape galaxies and SMBHs through the cosmic web?
REFERENCES[1] Umehata, H. et al., Science 366, 97-100 (2019).

Boron is an essential nutrient for plants. In the roots of the model plant
Arabidopsis thaliana, boron is mainly taken up from the soil by the boric acidchannel NIP5;1 and transported to the vasculature by the borate transporter
BOR1 when the environmental boron concentration is limited.1 Interestingly,
these proteins are localized in the plasma membrane, with distinct polarities;1
NIP5;1 and BOR1 are localized in the outer (soil-side) and the inner(stele-side) domains of the plasma membrane, respectively (Figure). The polar
localization of these proteins is crucial for the efficient directional transport ofboron in plants under low-boron conditions. We investigated how the polar
localization and intracellular trafficking of these proteins are controlled inplant cells.
Plant root cells, except endodermal cells, do not have a diffusion barriersuch as the tight junction that restricts the diffusion of membrane proteinsand maintains the polar domains in animal epithelial cells. However, polar
localization of NIP5;1 and BOR1 is kept in various cells. This phenomenon
can be explained by constitutive transcytosis—cycling of the protein transport
to the polar domain and removal from the opposite domains. Through reverse
genetic analyses, we found that the clathrin adaptor protein complex-2 (AP-2)
is required for the constitutive endocytosis and polar localization of both
NIP5;1 and BOR1, indicating that endocytic removal of the proteins fromthe opposite domains is essential for the maintenance of the polarity.2, 3, 4
When the boric acid concentration in the rhizosphere is elevated, Arabidopsis plants need to remove the BOR1 protein from the plasma membraneby endocytosis and subsequently transport it into the vacuole. This vacuolar
degradation of BOR1 is important to avoid excessive accumulation of boricacid.1 We found that the endocytic degradation of BOR1 normally takes placein mutants lacking the AP-2 subunits, suggesting that Arabidopsis utilizes theAP-2-dependent and -independent machinery of clathrin-mediated endocytosis for BOR1 trafficking.4

FUTURE FOCUS
My research focus has been shifting to a more fundamental mechanism underlying cell polarization since I moved to Nagoya University.
Recently, I found a unique membrane-residing protein that is localized in
the soil-side domain of the plasma membrane in the epidermal and cortical

A lateral root of Arabidopsis thaliana. The boric acid channel NIP5;1 (red) and theborate transporter BOR1 (green) are localized in the outer (soil-side) and inner(stele-side) domains of the plasma membrane, respectively, for directional transport of boron toward the vasculature.

cell layers, whereas the polarity domain has switched to the stele-side domain
in the endodermal cell layer. I named this phenomenon “polarity switch,” andit is possibly regulated by a small change in the combination of post-translational modifications in the protein or by a membrane trafficking factor
expressed in a cell layer-specific manner. I expect that studying the polarity
switch will uncover a minimal determinant for the polar localization ofproteins in plants.
I am also undertaking chemical genetics to identify the cell polarization
factors. Many small compounds, which inhibit the polar localization of
BOR1, have been isolated, thanks to a great collaboration with the ITbM
Chemical Library Center. These compounds likely interfere with specificproteins required for cell polarization, endocytosis, or endomembranetrafficking. Identification of the proteins targeted by the compounds will
provide fundamental insights into cell polarity in plants.

REFERENCES[1]Yoshinari A. & Takano J., Insights into the mechanisms underlying boron
homeostasis in plants. Front. Plant Sci. 8, 1951 (2017).
[2] Yoshinari A., Fujimoto M., Ueda T., Inada N., Naito S., Takano J. Plant Cell Physiol
57: 1985–2000 (2016).
[3] Wang S., Yoshinari A., Shimada T., Hara-Nishimura I., Mitani-Ueno N., Ma J.F.,
Naito S., Takano J., Polar localization of the NIP5; 1 boric acid channel is maintained by
endocytosis and facilitates boron transport in Arabidopsis roots. Plant Cell 29, 824–842(2017).
[4] Yoshinari A., Hosokawa T., Amano T., Beier M.P., Kunieda T., Shimada T.,
Hara-Nishimura I., Naito S., Takano J. Plant Physiol 179: 1569–1580 (2019).

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 26

IAR Core FacultyCommittee

The IAR Core Faculty Committee is composed of the Institute Director, Deputy
Directors, Full-Time Faculty Members, and member of the clerical staff, who promote
the Institute’s activities, and make proposals to the IAR Committee.

Affiliation : Director of Nagoya IAR / Professor of the Graduate school of Science
Research Field : Solid-State Chemistry

Kunio
AWAGA
Director

Affiliation : Designated Lecturer at Nagoya IAR
Research Field : Particle Physics, Astrophysics

Tsutomu
FUKUDA

Full-Time Faculty

Research Interests
A fundamental particle "neutrino" is a key for revealing the origin of the matter dominated universe. I havecarried out accelerator based neutrino experiments with nuclear emulsion detector. So far we provided the final
evidence of nu_mu -> nu_tau neutrino oscillation with tau neutrino appearance in a muon neutrino beam from
CERN in the OPERA experiment. Then I have established and am promoting a new experimental project(NINJA Experiment) to measure neutrino interactions precisely at J-PARC as the PI. Precise measurement of
neutrino-nucleus interactions is essential for observing the neutrino-CP violation which is an important hint
for matter-antimatter asymmetry in our universe.

Research Interests
Prof. Kunio Awaga is pursuing novel electronic and electrochemical functions by creating characteristic
structural topologies using molecular materials. His research group aims for win-win results in both
fundamentals and applications by consistently carrying out synthesis of topological molecular materials,
exploration of fundamental physical properties, and device development for organic electronics and energy
storages.

IAR
Steering Committee

The I A R Steering Committee plan, discuss, and decide on the Institute’s
academic activities.

Affiliation : Deputy Director of Nagoya IAR / Professor of the Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences
Research Field : Molecular Plant Physiology, Phytohormone

Hitoshi
SAKAKIBARA
Deputy Director

Research Interests

Kenji
KADOMATSU

Steering Committee

IAR PEOPLE | IAR Core Faculty Committee 2022

Affiliation : Deputy Director of Nagoya IAR / Professor of the Graduate School of Law
Research Field : Political Sociology, Politics

HirokoTAKEDA

Deputy Director

Affiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Humanities
Research Field : Southeast Asian History, Tai History

Research Interests
My research can be mapped out in an intersection of the following three major elements; political sociology,
gender and Japan / UK. Political Sociology is my disciplinary background. In particular, I developed a keeninterest in the studies on governmentality. As for gender, I have long been interested in gender issues and thecore of academic questions that I have continuously explored in my extant work--the ways in which the world of
the everyday life is linked with the state system --was formulated as an outcome of my effort to examine genderissues with reference to governmentality. Finally, Japan has been my primary source of case studies and recently,
I also started to explore the British cases.

KumikoKATO

Steering Committee

Affiliation : Deputy Director of Nagoya IAR / Professor of Institute for Space-Environmental Research
Research Field : Cosmic ray physics, Neutrino and dark matter

Yoshitaka
ITOW

Deputy Director

Shin
NAYATANI

Steering Committee

Affiliation : Associate Professor at Nagoya IAR
Research Field : Egyptian Archaeology, Pyramid, 3D Survey

Yukinori
KAWAE

Full-Time Faculty

Kazuhiro
NAKAMURA

Steering Committee

Affiliation : Associate Professor at Nagoya IAR
Research Field : Plant Physiology, Plant nutrients

SatomiKANNO

Full-Time Faculty

27 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Research Interests
My research interest is understanding plant growth adaptation mechanisms according to environmental
nutrients conditions. Plant senses internal and external ion level and controls the ion transport system tooptimize their growth. I am working on these mechanisms focusing on phosphate, one of themacronutrients for plant growth, by using molecular biology technics and imaging technologies to traceions in the living plants.

Research Interests
I have worked on various subjects and problems in differential geometry as well as its applications to other fields
in mathematics. For a long period I was devoted to the study of rigidity of actions of discrete groups on spaces
by geometric method. Recently I'm most interested in the eigenvalue maximization problem. Here theeigenvalue means the eigenvalue of the Laplacian of a curved space, and the problem is to maximize thisquantity over all possible shapes of the space. Though this is primarily an analytic problem, it is closely related
to a geometric problem to find the best realization of a given space in a Euclidean space.

Affiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Medicine
Research Field : Autonomic Neuroscience, Physiology

Research Interests
My research interests lie in the field of Egyptian archaeology, particularly in 3D surveys of ancient megalithic
structures and excavations of ancient settlements. My academic career started the excavation of the Lost City of
the Pyramids at Giza. Soon after the introduction of 3D technolog y in Eg yptian archaeolog y, I began
conducting an interdisciplinary research project to complete 3D surveys of pyramids. Recently, I expanded thecollaborative research to include a television production company as Open Innovation Project. My use of 3D
data challenges the unprecedented empirical analysis approach to understanding the mystery of the pyramids’
construction.

Research Interests
My main research interest is in the early modern history of mainland Southeast Asia and southwestern China.
These areas had many Tai (Dai) premodern states; I have been especially interested in one such state,
Sipsongpanna, which became the Xishungbannna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in the late 1950s. Recently, myresearch has focused on Qing China’s views of Sipsongpanna and other Tai states in the eastern Shan States ofMyanmar and northern Thailand.

Affiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Mathematics
Research Field : Differential Geometry

Research Interests
My main research interest is cosmic ray physics, where particle physics and astrophysics cross over. I have beenworking for neutrino physics at Super-Kamiokande for many years, and now promoting Hyper-Kamiokande, afuture large water Cherenkov detector. I am also searching for dark matter, considered unknown neutral
particles, by a liquid xenon detector in the XENONnT experiment in Italy. I also conduct LHCf and RHICf
experiments dedicated to measuring very forward photons and neutrons at LHC and RHIC for a precise
understanding of air showers of high energy cosmic-rays.

Research Interests
My research interest lies at the intersection of glycans and nerves. We have found that glycans regulate
neuroaxonal regeneration and synapse formation. On the other hand, I am currently working to establish an
all-Japan system for acquiring comprehensive human glycan structural information to develop the foundation
for life science.

Research Interests
My research focuses on the brain neural circuit mechanisms of homeostatic physiological functions inmammals, such as body temperature regulation, fever, and stress responses. These functions are essential forsustaining life. The circuit mechanisms also function for the defense from various environmental stresses, suchas infection, enemies, heat, cold, and starvation. By combining state-of-the-art molecular biological techniqueswith in vivo physiological and neuroanatomical experiments, I am pursuing to unify the circuits into a central
neural network fundamental for homeostasis.

Affiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Economics
Research Field : International economics, Economic theory

AkihikoYANASE

Steering Committee

Research Interests
I have worked on theoretical studies in international economics, public economics, environmental economics,
and industrial organization. My current research topic is mainly on the interactions among international trade,market competition, and government policies. For government policies, public investment in infrastructuredevelopment is of particular interest. I develop static or dynamic game models that capture the interactions
between governments and/or economic agents, analyze the properties of equilibrium outcomes of the games,
and apply the theoretical results to practical policy issues.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 28

IAR PEOPLE | IAR Core Faculty Committee / IAR Steering Committee 2022

My research interest is to understand how plants manage their growth and development under abiotic stressconditions, such as nitrogen limitation. Plant orchestrates a number of cues including phytohormone actions
and metabolic responses to coordinate its development and metabolism at a whole-body level. I am studying
molecular basis of this topic with focusing on nitrogen-dependent regulation of phytohormone biosynthesis
and signaling.

Affiliation : Vice President of Nagoya University / Professor of the Graduate School of Medicine
Research Field : BiochemistryAffiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Engineering / Professor of Institute of Nano-Life-Systems
Research Field : nanobioscience, biomedical engineering

Yoshinobu
BABA

Steering Committee

Research Interests
The research efforts in my laboratory have been focused on the development of nanobiodevices for biomedical
applications and healthcare, including single cancer cell diagnosis for cancer metastasis, circulating tumor cell (CTC)
detection by microfluidic devices, nanopillar devices for ultrafast analysis of genomic DNA and microRNA,
nanopore devices for single DNA and microRNA sequencing , nanowire devices for exosome analysis,
single-molecular epigenetic analysis, AI-powered nano-IoT sensors, quantum switching intra vital imaging of iPS cells
and stem cells, and quantum technology-based cancer theranostics.

YLC
Program Faculty
TeppeiKITAHARA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Professor of the Graduate School of Engineering
Research Field : Chemical Biology

Shigeki
KIYONAKA

Steering Committee

My research focus is understanding the molecular basis of the complex biological system using “chemistry”. Oneof the research directions is to develop new chemical tools for visualizing or controlling neurotransmitter
receptors in neurons, to understand the physiological roles of proteins in the brain. Another is manipulatingtarget cells of interest in organs or live animals by combining chemical approaches with genetic engineering, toclarify the roles of the cells in living animals.

Hiroki
FUJINO

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Visiting Professor at Nagoya IAR / Professor at Chubu University
Research Field : History of Social Thoughts

Research Interests

Yumi
BAMBA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Research on History of Social Thoughts, especially on French Enlightenment and Liberalism.

Affiliation : Visiting Professor at Nagoya IAR
Research Field : Medieval Japanese Culture and Texts

YasuroABE

Visiting Professor

Research Interests
My research focuses on the religious texts of medieval Japan, emphasizing their context as objects of religious
cultural heritage. I have strived to demonstrate how religious texts, images, and other objects have been used,transmitted, and understood from the Middle Ages through the present day. Through the analysis of concrete
examples—such as the cult of Prince Shōtoku, and various conceptions of the "sacred" in medieval Japan—I
have demonstrated that these texts mutually interact not only with each other, but also with external works ofliterature, performative arts, and iconography.

Affiliation : Visiting Professor at Nagoya IAR / Professor at Nanzan University
Research Field : International Economics

DapengCAI

Visiting Professor

Atsushi
J. NISHIZAWA
Visiting Associate
Professor

29 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Research Interests
I am interested in searching for physics beyond the standard model through precision measurements of theproperties of standard model particles, and especially my main focus is on flavor physics. I am going to improve
the standard model predictions of B-meson decays and also investigate CP violation in rare kaon decays. I am
broadly interested in testable physics of various experiments, and I hope to stimulate interactions between
theory and experiment.

Research Interests
An increasing number of challenges facing humanity today, such as the reduction of the emission of thegreenhouse gases, or the protection of global commons, all require intensive cooperation by many countries. My
research aims at analyzing the international negotiation processes that are underlying the formation of theneeded international cooperation. Besides the issue of emission reductions, I also examine other issues that
require international negotiations-in particular, those between the North and the South-such as the protectionof intellectual property rights, as well as the setting of investment rules or production standards.

Affiliation : Visiting Associate Professor at Nagoya University /Associate Professor at
Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University
Research Field : Observational Cosmology, Astronomy
Research Interests
My research interest ranges from theoretical aspects of cosmological model that explains accelerating expansionof the Universe, to the theory of galaxy formation. To reveal such problems in the Universe, large astronomical
data obtained by telescope is used. Recently I am working on the photometric redshift that determines the
distance to galaxies. The redshift of galaxies are of particular importance for doing both cosmology andastronomy. I am also interested in the methods of data analysis including machine learning.

Yoko
MIZUTA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty
(YLC)

Aaron
CHAN

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)AngelaMENESESGUTIERREZ

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Mathematics
Research Field : complex analysis, function theory
Research Interests
My research topic is on the global properties of the infinite dimensional Teichmuller spaces. In particular, I am
mainly interested in degeneration phenomena of Riemann surfaces on the boundaries of the Teichmuller spaces.
The Teichmuller space is a space which parametrizes all quasiconformal deformations of a given surface. If thegiven surface is of finite type, the degenerations to nodal surfaces appear as a dense subset of the boundary.
However, in the case of infinite type surfaces, various degeneration phenomena are obtained besides thedegenerations to nodal surfaces.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Division for Integrated Studies,
Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research
Research Field : Solar Physics, Space Weather
Research Interests
Solar eruptions, such as "solar flares" and ''coronal mass ejections (CMEs)" are sometimes impact to spaceenvironment around the Earth. However, onset mechanisms and propagation processes of those phenomena are
not yet revealed. Therefore, our ability of "space weather forecast", which predict disturbances of spaceenvironment near the Earth, does not satisfy requirements from modern society, which rapidly promote spacedevelopment. I aim to understand the onset and propagation processes of solar eruptions by comparison ofvarious observational data and numerical modelings.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Institute of Transformative
Bio-Molecules (ITbM), Nagoya University
Research Field : Molecular biology, Plant reproduction
Research Interests
In the flowering plants, sexual reproduction occurs in a flower. In the flower, pollen lands on the female tissue,
and pollen germinates pollen tube and deliver the sperm to the egg cell. After that, fertilization occurs. During
this process, it is necessary to fertilize without waste both males (pollen tubes) and females (ovules) to produce
more seeds in nature, but the whole picture of such precise plant fertilization mechanism is unclear. To
understand this mechanism, two-photon imaging, expression and phylogenic analyses will be performed. I
developed deep-and live-imaging technics using two-photon microscopy. The pollen tube mediated genemodification technology is also developed.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Mathematics
Research Field : Representation theory, category theory
Research Interests
I research in the representation theory of algebras and related structures, which originates from theapproximating (i.e. `representing') abstract mathematical objects using linear algebra. I am particularlyinterested in tilting theory. This studies different methods in modifying a category of representations in a waythat preserves homological properties. I am also involved in a similar theory-cluster-tilting theory-which is atheory in the algebraic analogue of resolution of singularities.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Disaster Mitigation Research Center
Research Field : Crustal deformation
Research Interests
I study crustal deformation through geodetic observations (Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS),
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), etc.), focusing on the analysis of earthquake-related
processes. I am interested in distinguishing strain accumulation due to elastic processes in the Earth, released in
the form of large earthquakes, from inelastic processes which are irreversible and cause strain to accumulate overgeological time.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 30

IAR PEOPLE | YLC Program Faculty 2022

IAR PEOPLE | IAR Steering Committee / IAR Visiting Professor & Designated Professor 2022

Visiting Professor

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute (KMI)
Research Field : High energy physics, Flavor physics

Research Interests

IAR
Visiting Professor & Designated Professor

TakahoANDOYLC Faculty members are promising young researchers recruited under the
Nagoya University Young Leaders Cultivation Program (YLC Program).

Daichi
KASHINO

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

TomoyaNAKAYAMA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Hisashi
HAYAKAWA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

ManabuBESSHOUEHARA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

QidongZHOU

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

31 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Research Interests
The present-day Universe contains a variety of elements and is a rich world in which stars, galaxies, and life
exist. I aim to understand the material evolution in the Universe. We are especially paying attention to aphenomenon called cosmic reionization that completed until about 1 billion years after the Big Bang. Cosmic
reionization is a phenomenon in which the Universe, which was initially filled with electrically neutralhydrogen gas, was ionized by the ultraviolet rays emitted by stars and galaxies born in the early Universe, and is
the first step in material evolution. We are carrying out various observations using large telescopes tounderstand the physical process of reionization.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences
Research Field : Animal physiology, Molecular biology
Research Interests
In temperate zones of the earth, dynamic environmental fluctuations occur at the annual seasonal cycle. To copewith these seasonal changes, many animals adapt their physiology and behavior. Although some of theseseasonal activities, such as reproduction, growth and hibernation are known to be controlled by endogenous
annual rhythmicity, which is called circannual rhythm, in some animals, the molecular mechanism is still
unknown. We use medaka fish as a model to understand this mechanism.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences
Research Field : Fish Neuroscience
Research Interests
Two ascending visual pathways to the telencephalon are present in mammals. However, some species of fish
possess two visual pathways, while others one pathway. Our studies in several fish species suggest that thecommon ancestor of actinopterygians possessed two pathways, and later one pathway was lost in the common
ancestor of acanthopterygians, which include many fishes for fisheries. We try to elucidate functions of visual
pathways using genome editing and microscopic live imaging analyses on visually-evoked neural activities. We
would like to find visual stimuli attractive for fishes and utilize its characteristics in fishing gear to contribute to
the academic field and fisheries industry.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research
Research Field : Space Weather, History, Solar Activity
Research Interests
Hisashi Hayakawa is working on historical space weather events and long-term solar activity based on thecontemporary analog records. He consults analog records for sunspots, solar flares, geomagnetic measurements,
and auroral sightings to reconstruct chronology and intensity of the space weather events, namely sequence of
solar flares, interplanetary coronal mass ejections, geomagnetic storms, and auroral displays. He also analyses
historical sunspot records to quantitatively reconstruct and improve long-term solar variability. Thus hechronologically extends the time series of the existing scientific databases for centuries and quantitatively
contextualises the modern data into longer time series.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Biology, Evolution, Bioluminescence
Research Interests
Bioluminescence, light production by living organisms, is one of the most common traits of the animals on the
Earth (75-90% of macroscopic individuals in the ocean can emit light). Bioluminescence evolved among diverse
taxa independently, which is the best model to study evolution. The molecular mechanisms involved in thelight emission are poorly understood except for a few well-studied animals. In addition, I recently discovered
kleptoprotein, stealing protein from the prey, for bioluminescence. I study the molecular mechanisms involvedin the luminescent reaction, luciferin and luciferase, to understand extreme convergent evolution of
bioluminescence.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Particle physics and astrophysics
Research Interests
Dark matter, matter dominance universe, there are phenomena still could not be explained by the current
framework of theory in particle physics, the standard model (SM). To explore the new physics beyond standard
model, it is a useful approach to precisely measure the decay reactions under the environment just like thebeginning of our universe which is created by colliding-beam accelerator. Belle II is an experiment dedicated to
explore new physics beyond SM based on this approach. It has already started collecting data since April 2018. I
am preforming the detector upgrade and data analysis in parallel. In coming years, these data will help us tounderstand the origins of matter and the universe.

Shinnosuke
ISHIZUKA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

SotaroSUGISHITA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Yuichiro
TADA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Ryo
HIGUCHI

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty
(YLC)

Asuka
HIGO

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

MinoruHIROSE

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research
Research Field : Laboratory Atmospheric and Astrochemistry
Research Interests
Nano to sub micrometer sized particles is ubiquitous in the nature and play central roles in chemical evolution.
Cosmic dust diffused into interstellar space act as catalyst providing complexed molecules and are building
blocks of the solar system. Aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere impact the climate system by light absorption andscattering and by promoting cloud formation. However, little attention has been paid for specific-chemistry of
the fine particles. We experimentally reveal how the tiny characters affect their lives.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Quantum Gravity, Quantum Field Theory
Research Interests
My research field is theoretical physics, with a particular interest in quantum gravity, a quantum theory of
spacetime. Quantum gravity provides a theoretical explanation for the mystery of how our universe begins. The
theory describing our universe is still under construction. Holography is the hypothesis that a quantum
spacetime emerges like a hologram from a low-dimensional spacetime. We have not understood well themechanism of this hypothesis and to what extent we can use it. I am working on the holography from various
points of view to construct the theory of quantum gravity.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Early Universe
Research Interests
My main interest is physics of the early stage of our universe. In particular, I have so far focused on inflation, theaccelerated expansion preceding the hot Big-Bang universe. I have proposed a novel analysis approach toinflation with use of mathematics of random noise called stochastic calculus. Primordial black hole is also myresearch topic as a direct consequence of particular dynamics of the early universe. I'm also working on several
production mechanism of gravitational waves

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Humanities
Research Field : History of Architecture
Research Interests
While the framework of Orthodox Christianity and wall painting was standardised during the middle
Byzantine period (9th–12th centuries), the forms of the architecture followed various types while the churches
themselves had different roles. The purpose of my study is to investigate why middle Byzantine architecture
took various architectural forms and to understand the role of the churches in Byzantine society, through adetailed and comprehensive analysis of surviving architecture.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Center for Gene Research
Research Field : Plant development, Sexual reproduction
Research Interests
Annual plants need to orchestrate the growth and death cycle of whole body to end the sexual reproduction
before dying. The signals and receptors for this important regulation is totally unknown. I want to identify the
integrator secreted from the stem cell tissue and its receptor and also understand the evolution of plant life cycle
variation : annual vs perennial plants.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Mathematics
Research Field : Number Theory
Research Interests
I am working on multiple zeta values and its surroundings. Multiple zeta values are concrete numbers defined bysimple infinite series, but their algebraic structure is deep and interesting. Also, multiple zeta values are related
to various areas such as mixed motif theory, Lie algebras, absolute Galois groups, knot theory, fundamentalgroups of moduli spaces, modular forms, calculations of amplitudes in string theory, and so on.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 32

IAR PEOPLE | YLC Program Faculty 2022

IAR PEOPLE | YLC Program Faculty 2022

HanakoHAGIO

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Astrophysics

Jie
HUANG

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Matthew
Paul SU

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Research Interests
My research interest lies primarily in the cultural anthropology studies on the dynamics or contemporary
development of folk beliefs in Southeast Asia countries. My research mostly focusing on the syncretism ofindigenous beliefs, with foreign religions in the substratum of Mainland Southeast Asian societies from the20th century to the present. Through case studies of the syncretism of the city pillar shrine and other folk
beliefs in urban Thailand, my research tries extending new theories of folk beliefs in Southeast Asian studies.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Mosquito neuroscience and behavior
Research Interests
Male mosquitoes rely on hearing to locate females for mating. Novel control tools which interfere withmosquito hearing are thus highly promising, as they could prevent copulation from occurring. However, ourunderstanding of the underlying bases of mosquito audition remains poor. My research focuses on theelucidating the molecular and neuronal bases of mosquito hearing behaviors in order to improve thisunderstanding. In particular, I am interested in the connections between mosquito mating, hearing and theircircadian clocks, as these clocks influence the time at which mating can occur.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Law
Research Field : History of Political Thought
Research Interests

ShinjiMIYAJI

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Satoko
NAKAMURA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

MiyakoSUGIYAMA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

I am an historian of Western political ideas, interested in how and when various political concepts that we areusing today have been formed and re-formed. My current research focuses on exploring the ‘identity’ of thehistory of political thought—its purpose, methodology, and contemporary relevance. In particular, I am
engaged in contextualizing the ideas of the “Cambridge school” in intellectual history.

Hideki
UMEHATA
Hirotaka
IIJIMA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Medicine
Research Field : Rehabilitation medicine, Mechanobiology, Aging, Systems biology

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Research Interests

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty
(YLC)

Elena
KOZGUNOVA

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

33 | IAR LETTER | March 2023

Research Interests
My primary research fields are quantum gravity, quantum field theory, and quantum information theory. I am
particularly interested in understanding the non-perturbative physics of quantum gravity, such as the black holeinterior and the initial singularity of our universe, by using quantum information theoretic quantities. I am alsointerested in applying these quantities to condensed matter physics using inspirations from gravity theory.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research
Research Field : Space Weather
Research Interests
The modern society, which is supported by advanced information systems and space technology, is at anincreasing risk from severe space weather disasters. This research develops the model for the risk assessment
associated Geomagnetically Induced Currents on Japanese Power Grid. We refine our previous physics-basedmodel under this wide range of domestic and international cooperation, including researchers on the space
physics, the engineering, and power companies.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Humanities
Research Field : Art history, Cultural anthropology
Research Interests
Miyako Sugiyama is an art historian specializing in early Netherlandish art. She received her Ph.D. in art history
from Ghent University in 2017. Her research focuses on the functions of images and the diverse relationships
between art and devotional practices in the late medieval Netherlands. She published various books and articles
on the topic, including Images and Indulgences in Early Netherlandish Painting. Currently she is a designatedassistant professor at Nagoya University.

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Astronomy, Astrophysics
Research Interests
The Universe is thought to generates interconnecting filaments of baryons and dark matters called the cosmic
web, within which galaxies form and evolve. To test this paradigm observationally and chart the history ofmatter assembly, I will develop and lead the new research field, observational study of cosmic web and galaxy
formation, using ALMA, Subaru, and other cutting-edge facilities.

Aging is a progressive degenerative process that results in an increased risk of chronic diseases. I am proposing a
new interdisciplinary research field, “Rejuvenative Rehabilitation”, the interdisciplinary field that integrates
approaches from rehabilitation medicine together with rejuvenative medicine with the ultimate goal of thedevelopment of innovative anti-aging therapeutics which maximize physical function.

Akira
YOSHINARI

Sanae
ITO

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Theoretical Physics

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Humanities
Research Field : Assyriology

Young Leaders
Cultivation Program
Faculty(YLC)

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules Sciences
Research Field : Plant Biology
Research Interests
Cell polarity plays a key role in the coordinated developmental processes in plants. However, the molecular
framework to regulate cell polarity is still unclear. I will uncover the mechanism underlying cell polarization andpolarized distribution of membrane proteins in plants by novel approaches relying on chemical genetics andproteomics.

Research Interests
Assyriology is the philology dealing with cuneiform texts. My main research interest is in the political andintellectual history of the Assyrian Empire ( 747-c. 612 BCE) in relation to the Assyrian royal correspondence.
My current research focuses on the Assyrian imperial communication system. This system enabled the empire to
implement state policies for the cohesion of the vastly expanded state.

Science Communicator

Affiliation : Designated Assistant Professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Science
Research Field : Plant cell division
Research Interests
The development of multicellular organisms depends on the ability of cells to make accurate copies ofthemselves; this is the core function of mitotic cell divisions in both animals and plants. However, limited
progress has been made in elucidating plant-specific mechanisms of mitosis, in part due to slow speed offunctional gene analysis in the common model plant species, which are diploid or polyploid with long life
cycles. These limitations do not apply to the moss Physcomitrium patens, also known as “green yeast” of plant
molecular biology. Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing and P. patens I plan to pursue genome-wide screen to
identify novel factors involved in plant development and stress tolerance.

TatsuroAYATUSKA
ScienceCommunicator

Affiliation : Science Communicator
Research Field : Science Communication
Research Interests
Science communication that coordinates the context between various stakeholders is important for gaining a
positive understanding of research and moving society forward. In my career, I have been involved in various
science communication activities ranging from fan science to risk communication. While analyzing the state of
public communication, I will enhance the showcase function of the Institute for Advanced Research by using
various methods as tools, including article writing, movie distribution, and event planning.

March 2023 | IAR LETTER | 34

IAR PEOPLE | YLC Program Faculty / Science Communicator 2022

IAR PEOPLE | YLC Program Faculty 2022

TakuyaFURUTA

Affiliation : Designated Assistant professor at Nagoya IAR and Graduate School of Humanities
Research Field : Cultural anthropology