Expectation for the Newborn Science Council of Japan (SCJ)
　On April 14, 2004, partial amendments of the Science Council of Japan Law went into the gazette and as from October 2005 SCJ will turn over the new leaf. On this occasion, I hope that the SCJ will establish such a framework that it can fully demonstrate its functions of 1) making policy recommendations to the government, 2) facilitating liaison and coordination among scientists, 3) communicating with the society, and will properly fulfill its responsibility to respond to the public mandates.
　The public understanding and concern about science and technology issues, such as the negative effect in line with the advancement of science and technology and the increased concern about safety matters, have been changing drastically. In this situation, scientists and engineers are expected by the public to give neutral, impartial and highly knowledgeable messages on a non-governmental and non-profitable standpoint about a wide spectrum of issues related to science and technology.
　Based on the above, the Engineering Academy of Japan, which comprises of members who are in leading positions in industry, academia, and government with outstanding achievement and a wide scope of knowledge, must play an active role as follows.
1) Carefully watching environmental changes around science and technology, EAJ shall research issues to work on, foresee their influence on the society and appeal to the public with convincing messages from an impartial, non-political and non-governmental standpoint.
2) Sticking to the private entity, in an individual capacity and from an integrated stance of academia, industry and government, EAJ shall welcome the newborn SCJ, strongly support the Council of Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet and SCJ which are compared to the both wheels of a car, and shall play a role as a good partner for them.

The 142nd Lecture Meeting "Interim Activity Report of Technological Literacy Task Force"
　The 142nd Lecture Meeting was held on February 3, 2005 to present a progress report of the activities in the Technological Literacy Task Force. Firstly, Mr. Hiroshi Sakurai, Chairman of the task force, reviewed the interim report and then, Emeritus Prof. Shiro Ishii of the Univ. of Tokyo gave his comments. After that, Emeritus Prof. Haruo Hosoya of Ochanomizu Univ. talked on "Technology in K-12 Science Education." At the end, there was a very active exchange of views including 55 participants.
　Throughout the discussions, the following issues were identified. ITEA (International Technology Education Association) in U.S. published a book "Standards for Technological Literacy" in the year 2000 with all-out support of National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in U.S.A. Both the concept and contents proposed in the book are totally different from those in our ministry's curriculum guidelines for the "technology & home economics" in Japan. If nothing is done, the education for children, who are responsible for the future of science and technology in our country, regarding Technology Literacy (TL), seems extremely pessimistic.
　The TL education that is proposed in STL aims at letting children understand the concept and importance of Technology and acquire the basic knowledge necessary to participate in the policy making about the technology in the future. On the other hand, the technology-related education in the ministry's technology & home economics aims at letting children acquire technical knowledge necessary for family life. It was pointed out that MEXT might neither fully understand the principle of technology nor recognize the importance of such an education.
　The conclusion obtained at the lecture meeting is that EAJ play a primary role in continuously emphasizing the original TL education, making diligent efforts of illuminating the idea of TL and working hard on the educational administration till the curriculum guidelines are fundamentally implemented.
　The participants in this lecture meeting included teachers of science courses at junior highs and science journalists. The discussions including those participants will be reflected in the final report of the Task Force, and the Open Symposium is also planned.

The 143rd Lecture Meeting on "Recommendation for the Third Basic Plan for Science and Technology"
　The Committee on Technology Policy of EAJ planned the 143rd Lecture Meeting on February 15, 2005 with a view to reporting the recommendation for the Third Basic Plan for Science and Technology that the committee drafted and to exchanging views with EAJ members. Copies of the recommendation were already distributed to all those concerned and the text was also put on the EAJ NEWS No.101. In the course of drafting the recommendation, the committee made an E-mail survey to absorb as many opinions as possible from EAJ members on this matter. As the recommendation was closely related to the future five-year science and technology policy of our country and it was a matter of deep concern to EAJ members, about 40 people attended.
　In the beginning, all the attendants offered silent players for Dr. Takeru Onoda, who played a leading role in drafting the recommendation as Chair of the Committee and suddenly passed away in January. Then, Vice President Nakahara, who contributed as facilitator, explained about the gist of the recommendation and Dr. Iizuka, a committee member, gave an additional explanation. Vice President Nakahara also referred to the unofficial exchange of views about the recommendation with several members of the Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet Office. After that, Prof. Fujio Niwa, who was newly appointed Chair of the Committee on Technology Policy as the successor of Dr. Onoda, introduced the result of the review on the present basic plan that the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy (NISTEP) conducted.
　The recommendation suggests that the Third Basic Plan should be positioned as a problem-solving strategy toward unprecedented environmental changes anticipated in the future and as a knowledge-oriented strategy to overcome restrictions on a global basis. The major points that EAJ recommended are: in the internationally tense relations in the future, priority should be given to national interests about comprehensive security system of our country; regarding securing of human resources, it is important to foster people who have a wide vision integrating knowledge oriented from humanity & social science and that from natural science & engineering as well as strong leadership; the assessment system of the plan should be enhanced and in particular the ex-post assessment should be reflected in the next plan.
　For the recommendation covering wide range of issues including those described above, a variety of opinions were given by the attendants such as enhancement of discretionary authority of the Council for Science and Technology Policy, partial allocation of defense budget to R&D in private sector, reinforcement of software development, focus on problem-solving strategy. The view commonly pointed out by the attendants was that the words and phrases used in the recommendation were difficult to understand and that plain and commonly- used expressions should be used. Nevertheless, the recommendation is extremely suggestive and appropriate. We strongly wish EAJ's recommendation will be accepted by the Council for Science and Technology Policy and be reflected in the Third Basic Plan.

The 144th Lecture Meeting "d-commerce Declaration: 8 Necessary Requirements for the Content Business for 2010; Metadata Changes Content Delivery"
　Digital Commerce Task Force of EAJ, which was established in April 2002 with Prof. Hiroshi Yasuda as chair, had worked on 'Digital Content Delivery through Broad Band network' in cooperation with the committee of the Science Council of Japan chaired by Prof. Shigeo Tsujii. The Task Force planned a lecture meeting on February 25, 2005 to report the result of their activities.
　Prof. Hiroshi Yasuda, as soon as he recognized attending members, he modified his ppt slides and talked about metadata technology in addition to the activity report.
　The explosive growth of Internet and the digital content delivered through Internet posed technological challenges such as content production, IPR management including digital rights, consumer and privacy protection, and Internet taxation. Prof. Yasuda stressed the importance of international conformity and introduced information technology that will not hamper the Internet expansion.
　He also analyzed the reasons for the slower growth of IT business compared to the expansion of broad band and proposed necessary requirements to foster IT business to be USD 50 billion market by the year 2010. Digital content-related problems include 'a change of media alone will not make a new market', 'insufficient content, which is a network specific problem', 'incomplete IT gadget that enables individuals to easily produce content." Problems inherit in values of Internet users include deep-rooted sense of 'free', 'unauthorized use' and 'reformable.' Metadata technology is the core technology for effective content production, for QC (quality control) such as reliability of information, for advertisement of goods and information service, for accumulation and search of digital knowledge, for digital right management and for infomediary service. This is what he proposes as 'Digital-Commerce.' In order to appeal to the industry, academia, government and the people, a book "d-commerce Declaration: 8 Necessary Requirements for the Content Business for 2010" was published.

d-commerce Declaration: Digital Content, Orderly, Metadata, Mediating, Electronic, Rights, Communication, Economics

The 145th Lecture Meeting "Features of the Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake and the Role of Geoscientists"
　The 145th Lecture Meeting was held on March 4 inviting Dr. Satoru Ohya, Advisor of OYO Corporation and EAJ member. He graduated from Geology Department, School of Science, Univ. of Tokyo in 1953. He has served as president of Society of Exploration of Geophysicists of Japan, as board member of geoscience section, Stanford Univ. and also participates in the activities of international NPOs. Despite the snowfall in the morning, the meeting enjoyed about 30 attendances.
　The Sumatra-Andaman Islands Earthquake is estimated to have the magnitude of 9 and is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900. The rupture zone judged from the aftershock distribution was over 1,100km. A large part of about 300,000 missing and dead were victims of tsunami. 80% of them were Indonesian, and Thai, Sri Lanka and Africa were also affected. The photos to report the disaster-affected city of Banda Aceh at the Northwestern tip of the Sumatra Island were awful and made us feel how strong and merciless the Nature's destructive force was.
　The study of geological structure and earthquake distribution ranging from Myanmar to the Sumatra Island raised concerns of an earthquake likely to occur in Myanmar which was an extension of the earthquake fault this time, due to subduction of the Indo-Australian plate under the Burma Micro Plate.
　In the end, Dr. Ohya raised questions 'Were those big earthquakes and tsunami predictable?' and 'Were education and illumination sufficiently given to the public?', and at the same time he referred to the importance of comprehensively using knowledge to disaster-prevention practice and the role that Japan should play in the international society.
　Topics discussed after the lecture included the importance of education to the general public, responsibility of experts, prediction of earthquakes and tsunamis, way for information disclosure, real-time prevention of earthquake disaster, restriction for housing area, preventive measures, lack of record of earthquake information.

Newsletter Forum: Proposal of "The Kagakugijutsu (Science-and-Technology)" Academy

Obituary
Kinjiro Aso, Prof. Emeritus of Kyushu Univ. passed away on Jan.6, 2005 at the age of 85.
Ichimatsu Tanishita, Prof. Emeritus of Keio Univ. and ex-President of Kanagawa Institute of Technology, passed away at the age of 98.
May they rest in peace.