IEICE Global Plaza

IEICE Global Plaza - Monthly community plaza in English for students, faculties and engineers -

*< Contents >*
	Essay Expected Intellectual Cultural Exchange Based on Science and Technology between Japan and Egypt
	Hot Topics Complete English Session BS-6 Successfully Held at 2011 IEICE Society Conference
	Call for Papers: STF2012 in Sarajevo IEICE Europe Section IEICE Communications Society
	*Upcoming International Conferences*
	*Message from TFIPP Secretariat*

Essay

Expected Intellectual Cultural Exchange Based on Science and Technology
between Japan and Egypt

So Hasegawa,
Director, JSPS Cairo Research Station
Visiting Professor, Waseda University

　Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) has 10 overseas liaison offices over the world at the moment. The primary objective of founding those Stations is to support the academic exchange between Japanese and regional researchers and promote bilateral collaborative research activities through the invitation of foreign researchers to Japan or the financial support to scholars who are studying or willing to study for their PhD degrees in Japan. Since the headquarters of JSPS is in charge of the promotion of science and technologies with the Grants in Aid for Scientific Research, each liaison office provides another function of information exchange among couple of research missions dispatched from Japan, additionally to the assistance of JSPS's support and promotion of those activities in the region around the Center. I, taking the major in archaeology, joined JSPS Cairo Research Station this Spring, and my responsibility is to well manage the international relations related to JSPS between academic institutions in Japan and the region covering Middle East and North African countries, here in Cairo.
　As reported in recent newspapers over the world, there was a big political change, "Revolution" called by local people, in Egypt, in January, 2011, and the long year political power which has governed the country over the past 30 years fell down so that an unstable situation in both economy and autonomous state has been continued and we have to put forward the JSPS activities in so difficult condition.
　When it comes to speaking Egypt, it easily reminds us couple of symbolic words, Pyramids, Cleopatra and Arabian Nights. It is well known as a nation which has built so rich civilizations represented by the Early Civilizations of the world as the prehistory and cradle of civilization, Hellenistic Civilization beyond classical Greeks, and Islamic Civilization (Fig.1). These flourishing civilizations always have endorsed the history of sophisticated technological innovation.
　Meanwhile, the "reversal of power" between these civilizations and Western civilizations which came off in the 17th century led to the beginning of history where the nation was usurped by the Western civilizations. Though it was finally relieved from the domination by Western countries in the middle of 20th century, the industries degenerated in the competitive global market and they have frustrated in the world far from the technological innovation. The former Government of Egypt before the Revolution has adopted a policy focused on the IT infrastructure development to improve the social environment for investment as a breakthrough to the stagnating recession in export. The Government promoted the construction of huge IT industrial

Fig.1 View of modern Cairo

Fig.2 Huge IT Industrial Estate

parks at the edge of the desert (Fig.2). They concentrated their intention on an economic hub through IT development covering education and research environments and invitation of foreign high-tech industries. As a result of this policy, quite many IT services represented by satellite communication, mobile phone and digital navigation promptly have been developed and they were involved in a dream as if their ancient regime were cast off. However, the prompt social development results in a cozy relations of privileged people just on the board of conviction by the new Government.
　The new Egyptian society is now facing the establishment of a long year nation building vision which would cover the cultural exchange between the society and Western world including Japan and some other Asian countries. We have established Agreements of collaborative research activities based on the science and technology so far and they are trying to taking over the Agreements. Most of the past and the current JSPS exchange programs between Egypt and Japan have related to the field of physical science, with the cases of JICA programs for the foundation of Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology in the field of engineering and the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum in the field of conservation.

Fig.3 Traditional scene of the daily family talk along the Nile

　Then, as a future step, it is expected to extend the framework of exchange programs from the unilateral technical transfer to bilateral relations. Egypt has been a nation with the tradition of sophisticated civilizations which have been formed by sharing the knowledge between special and relevant fields under the restricted available environment along the Nile (Fig.3). It is the dream of an archaeologist to promote collaborations not only for the transfer of technological innovation but also for research covering "the application of knowledge" which has been developed in the long history of this country.
Note for Mr.Hasegawa's contribution
　The author is also well-known with his research activities of Egyptian archaeology. See them at http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/archaeology/2001-02-15-eqypt-satellite.htm.

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Hot Topics

Complete English Session BS-6 Successfully Held at 2011 IEICE Society Conference

Yuji Nomura,
Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd.,
Session Organizer, BS-6,
IEICE Communications Society

　The 2011 IEICE Society Conference was held with total 8,043 participants at Hokkaido University, Sapporo from 13th to 16th in September 2011. IEICE Technical Committee on Information Communication Management (ICM) provided a complete English Session as one of 9 Symposium Sessions focused on special topics of advanced technologies there. It was entitled "BS-6 Planning, Control and Management on Networks and Services".
　ICM began this Session in 2004, and has improved and evolved it year by year. The purpose of this Session is to promote the globalization of IEICE by providing the participants staying in Japan or joining from overseas with more opportunities of presentations and discussions in English. The Session was divided into 14 consecutive subsidiary sessions. The participants could enjoy the Session only in English for three and a half days during the Society Conference through these subsidiary sessions. The number of papers in the Session has increased year by year and reached 47 in total this fiscal year, with an increase of 20% from the previous fiscal year. Many kinds of topics covering wireless network, sensor network, optical network, routing, traffic analysis, disaster recovery and QoS were discussed in those sessions.
　The Session was so active, a lot of questions came up by the participants in every presentation and some people continued the discussion with speakers successively even during the break time as well. 41 papers were presented by international students studying in Japan and foreign researchers working in Japanese companies. In addition, more than 30 persons joined it every day and the 80% of the attendees were from foreign countries.
The Session has a role of providing a unique opportunity for the international students and researchers to discuss and exchange up-to-date topics, technical problems and ideas even if the research result is not mature. It helps them to find researchers interested in or studying the same area of technologies and make friends each other. Therefore, it is effective in and contributes to the globalization of IEICE.
　ICM will select the excellent papers and award the encouragement prize of the Session to those papers in the near future, to further sustain and more vitalize this activity. They will be commended in ICM workshop which will be held in coming March, while the following papers won the same prize last year.
(1)"Dynamic Transmission Range Adjustment Algorithm to Avoid Energy Holes in Wireless Sensor Networks", Vinh Tran- Quang, Shibaura Institute of Technology
(2)"Design and Implementation of an Optical Plug and Play Technique", Rie Hayashi (NTT)
(3)"How to Model Terminal Equipment in Simulation", Miarisoa Randriamananjara (Global Information and Telecommunications Institute, Waseda University)

Fig.4 English Session in 2011 IEICE Society Conference

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Call for Papers: STF2012 in Sarajevo
IEICE Europe Section
IEICE Communications Society

　In May 2012, the 2012 Sarajevo Technology Forum (STF2012) will be held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This traditional annual conference is co-organized by IPSA Institute Sarajevo and IEICE Europe Section, with the technical sponsorship of IEICE Communications Society and IEICE. IEICE Europe Section will take its stronger initiatives in Europe and encourage the participants covering developing countries through paper presentation and opinion exchange with researchers, industry professionals and academics dedicated to innovation across the broad field of information and communication technologies. You are invited to submit papers where the high-quality papers will be recommended for publication in Special Issue of IEICE Trans. on Communications. The forum information including areas of interest is summarized below.
Venue and Date
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina on May 24-25, 2012.
Potential Topics (not limited to the categories)
- Optical Communications and next-generation GPON
- Information and communication theory and algorithms
- Next-generation home networking
-Performance measurements, experimental platforms and testbeds
- Content distribution networks
- Security and privacy in next-generation networks
General Chairs
Prof. Fumiyuki Adachi (Tohoku University, Japan)
Prof. Asrar Ul-Haq Sheikh (KFUPM, Saudi Arabia)
Tutorial and Forum Chair
Haris Gacanin (Alcatel-Lucent Bell, Belgium)
Petar Popovski (Aalborg University, Denmark)
Idelfonso Tafur Monroy (Technical Univ. of Denmark, Denmark)
Liljana Gavrilovska(Ss.Cyril & Methodius Univ., FYR Macedonia)
Due Date of Paper Submission
Prospective authors are encouraged to submit 5-page full paper (or 2-page extended abstract including results) through the conference Web site by January 10, 2012. For more information, visit http://www.iwwtf.com/.

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Upcoming International Conferences

ICOIN2012- IEICE Communications Soc., in Bangkok, Thailand, on February 1-3, 2012, http://www.icoin.org.
WTC2012- IEICE Communications Soc., in Miyazaki, Japan, on March 5-6, 2012, http://www.ieice.org/~wtc2012/
APMP2012- IEICE Electronics Soc., in Kyoto, Japan, on April 25-27, 2012, http://www.apmp2012.org/Asia-Pacific_Microwave_Photonics_Conference_2012/Home.html
VTC2012- IEICE Communications Soc. & Engineering Sciences Soc., at Pacifico Yokohama in Yokohama, Japan, on May 6-9, 2012, http://www.vtc2012spring.org/
ISAP2012- IEICE Communications Soc., in Nagoya, Japan, on October 29-November 2, 2012, http://www.isap12.org/

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Message from TFIPP Secretariat

　 This issue is delivered also by a free mail magazine "IEICE Global Plaza on Line" with updated news of interest for you. Please contact Prof.Takahashi, TFIPP (Task Force for International Policy and Planning) at global@ieice.org, if you need. Back numbers are available in archives at http://www.ieice.org/eng/global_plaza/index.html.

Editorial Committee of IEICE Global Plaza
Edito-in-Chief Editor	Kenzo Takahashi	Chair, IEICE-TFIPP
	Qi-Wei Ge	IEICE Engineering Sciences Soc.
	Takao Naito	IEICE Communications Soc.
	Toshiyuki Yakabe	IEICE Electronics Soc.
	Hiroyoshi Miyano	IEICE Information & Systems Soc.
	Shigeyoshi Iizuka	IEICE Human Commun. Group

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