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This Week in Japan
Sunday, May 26, 2019
The latest headlines in Japan for the week of May 20 2019
Japan Enacts Law to Curb Food Waste
Japan discards 6 million tons of edible food every year. On Friday, the government, with interparty support, enacted legislation to cut back on food waste. Momentum for this legislation began last year when images of sushi rolls being discarded from convenience store shelves went viral, encouraging the farming industry to call out supermarkets and convenience stores for overstocking.
Conveniences stores are now at the forefront of change, agreeing to discount prices of fresh food closer to the expiry date or time. However, restaurants and households are still the biggest culprits of wasting food. An estimated 66% of the 6 million tons of wasted food come from restaurants and homes. Food waste is not only bad for the environment but also is extremely expensive to discard. The hope is to reduce the amount of food waste by 50% by 2030.
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Japan's New Super Computer Named Fugaku
Japan’s newest supercomputer, that is scheduled to begin operation in 2021, has been named Fugaku after Japan’s most famous cultural icon, Mount Fuji. Currently, Japan’s largest supercomputer is called the K computer and is located in the RIKEN research institute’s Kobe campus. RIKEN and Fujitsu, the electronics manufacturer, jointly developed the K computer’s successor, Fugaku. Assembly of the new computer started in March.
RIKEN says the new computer will have a central processing unit that is 20 times faster than the current K computer and its data processing capabilities will match the world’s most advanced models. The computer will be used for research including topics like disaster mitigation, manufacturing, and medicine.
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Real-Time Flood Detection System Developed by Waseda and Tokyo University
A joint team from the University of Tokyo and Waseda University has developed a real time flood projection simulator. They team claims their new model is able to more accurately predicted flooding compared to previous models. The Beta phase of the new model will be launched in Tokyo’s 23 wards with the hope of having full flood prediction operations up and running before the Olympics next year.
The new system called S-uiPS, short of “Sekine’s urban inundation system” uses data of sewage systems, street structures and connectivity to rivers in addition to rainfall projection data from the Meteorological Agency and transport authority to predict flooding in real time. The real-time predictions can help municipal authorities make important life saving decisions.
For more information here are some useful links:
Women Pass Tokyo Medical University Exam at Higher Rate than Men
Last year Tokyo Medical University entrance exam scandal took the whole country by surprise when the university admitted to manipulating test scores to prevent women from entering the university. The scandal led to internal reforms and brought into office the first ever-female president of the University.
President Yukiko Hayashi promised to conducted fair and equal entrance examinations going forward. These year’s results show that women out performed men in the entrance exam by 0.4%. 20.2 % of women passed the exam compared to 19.8% of men. In the previous year, 2% of women passed the exam compared to 9 % of men. The overall increase in passage rates is due to reforms implemented to the entrance exam system.
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