IMA NEWS - Oct. 2001

Motto: We challenge risk boldly, deduce conclusion rapidly, create new business chance and contribute to revitalization of Japanese economy.

IMA (Institute of Mathematical Analysis) news is delivered every month. 

Scope of our business

I have been studying for long time wave phenomena of water and air from the viewpoint of applied mathematics. So, the subjects I am trying to study are researches on waves. As the elemental items, various aspects of waves such as generation, propagation and transmission of signal and energy are the targets of study. Gradually, weight on the aspect of signal transmission is becoming heavy.

Specifically, GPS, broadband communication, optical communication and recognition of voice and image are the subjects I am interested in. Soliton and wavelet necessary for these research and development are also very attractive field to me.

As an unusual subject, I would like to deal with translation of English into Japanese and vice versa. When I couldn't get enough jobs by any chance, I would like to support my life by this. If I get order in the morning and finish it in the evening, there may be a rather big demand. It goes without saying that I work without a holiday. Of course, I don't want this to become my main job. However, through these work, a hint for efficient machine translation may be obtained.

Jobs in September

(1) Travel to USA
    Presentation of a paper at IONGPS 2001 Symposium held at Salt Lake
        http://www.ion.org/meeting/gps2001program.html
     Visiting a ventures in the field of GPS
(2) Purchase of equipments and preparation of experiment on Underground       GPS
(3) Putting together Modulation/Demodulation Simulation
(4) Application of an abstract to IONNTM 2002 Symposium
       http://www.ion.org/meetings/ntm2002abstractlist.html
(5) Preparation for opening of an office

Schedule on and after October

(1) Experiment on Underground GPS
(2) Putting together high sensitivity GPS receiver and proposal for it
(3) Putting together Modulation/Demodulation Simulation
(4) Presentation of two papers at the Geodetic Society of Japan
        http://wwwsoc.nii.ac.jp/geod-soc/indexe.html
(5) Presentation of two papers at the Society of Naval Architects of Japan
        http://www.snaj.or.jp/index-e.html
(6) Opening of an office

Essay: Terrorist Attack

I was on a business trip to the United States from Sept. 9th (Sun) until 21st (Fri). The purpose was to present a paper at IONGPS 2001 Symposium held at Salt Lake hosted by Institute of Navigation and to visit a venture in the field of GPS at Silicon Valley.

On Sept. 11th (Tues.), the terrorist attack happened. The event took place, when I was on my way to Salt Lake Airport around seven o'clock to see off my nephew going to New York. Since all airports in the United States were closed, his trip to New York was abandoned, and we returned back to the hotel.

The event had no direct influence on me since Salt Lake is far from New York, and it was a kind of a fire on opposite bank of a river. The symposium itself suffered, however, very big influence. The terrorist attack was on Tuesday, and the symposium was held from Wednesday until Friday. So, though speakers on the first day had almost arrived at Salt Lake, many of those on the second and third day had lost means to attend the symposium.

Through the event, I have experienced many things that may not be understood if I am not there. My nephew and I lined before UA counter for check in. The check in procedure became gradually slow and finally stopped completely. When I asked the staff of UA, they said the airport had been closed and we should go home. To my surprise, the passengers followed the direction and began to go back home meekly. There might be a few people who were urgent for explanation, but they followed the direction calmly.

After coming back to my hotel, I watched TV report. They were concentrating their effort to report the fact, and no criticism to the authorities concerned and their policy are reported. In Japan, various kinds of critics appear on screen and speak all kinds of opinions. Usually, the audiences are left in confusion. This kind of thing never took place. Gradually, the unity of the whole country was formed with the president as its center. It is really wonderful.

Some people doubt the legitimacy on the last presidential election. 

Nevertheless, the evaluation that the president is a right president elected by right procedure is firm. There seems to be a big difference compared with Japanese case where an impression that the procedure to choose the prime minister is not fair enough can't be swept away.

And there is a very big difference between the journalism in both countries. Japanese journalism tends to prefer sensationalism. In a word, there may be a difference in the maturity of democracy.

Watching the event in Japan, we are apt to think that there is some truth in what terrorists say. However, the understanding is completely different. People in the United States are very through that the terrorism is a crime. 

According to church, terrorists are devils and should be erased from the surface of the earth. There is no ambiguity that terrorism and politics behind terrorism should be distinguished clearly and terrorists are murderers. There is no hesitation that the murderers should be found out by all means and brought to trial.

Through the terrorist attack, I experienced many things. The most incomprehensible thing is the terrorist idea that the world can be changed by terrorism. It is an unrealistic madness that they sacrifice themselves. When they govern the world by any chance, it is certain that the modern civilization collapses and the history goes back several hundreds years. It is really terrible!