Japan has to urgently build a new system for securing electric power supply including renewable energy and for saving electric power. The electricity demand and the electricity supply based on renewable energy are influenced by the weather. Thermal power generation may also be affected by equipment failure. Therefore, plotting of a plan is required to avoid electric power shortage under inaccurate prediction for supply and demand of electricity. In this article, we propose a probability evaluation system to avoid electricity shortage. We also propose a method for setting the electricity saving rate to avoid electricity shortage while maintaining the present level of electricity shortage occurrence risk.

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Diamond is expected to be an excellent material exceeding SiC for producing low power loss electronic devices because of its superior material characteristics. We have developed series of elemental technologies including killer-defect free epitaxial growth, refractory Schottky contact, Schottky barrier height control associated with low leakage current and termination structure. As a result, we have developed a refractory Schottky barrier diode with fast switching capability, which can operate for over 300,000 hours at 250 °C. R&D of large scale wafers and large power devices are required to realize low-loss devices with a new concept of “cooling free.”

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AIST has been conducting marine geological surveys in the Okinawa area to construct geological maps since 2008. The chain of islands extending from Kyushu to Taiwan in the Okinawa area is called the Ryukyu Arc, and was formed with the subduction of the Philippine Sea Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate along the Ryukyu Trench. The Okinawa Trough is a back-arc basin formed behind the Ryukyu Arc. Active submarine volcanoes and hydrothermal phenomena are known to exist in the trough. Because large scale mineral deposits may exist in relation to the geological structures, collecting the marine geological information around the area where submarine mineral resources are expected is very effective for grasping the location of resource-rich zone. Being surrounded by sea, Japan is expected to increase marine utilization within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the future. Methods for developing submarine mineral resources based on the geological phenomena are presented as tools for exploiting fundamental geological information.

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This study explores the methods for measuring standardization activities in basic research and applied and development research. Such methods are supposed to enable more sophisticated management of innovation in organizations. This paper focuses on standardization activities relating to intellectual property, because such activities are thought to be strongly linked to innovation. Universities and technology licensing organizations were chosen as examples of basic research institutions. Companies in the electric machinery industry and information and communication industry were selected as examples of the applied and development research institutions. First, the stability of data over multiple years and the validity of the definition of standardization activities are discussed. Then, the difference in measurement results between basic research, and applied and development research is described. A hypothesis is proposed that the ratio of standardization activities in basic research is as high as that in applied and development research.

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A portfolio analysis of composing elements using a synthesiological method has been carried out for complex technology development, which involves fusion of various technology systems and elemental technologies. To assess the method’s effectiveness, a case study was conducted on GERAS (Geo-environmental Risk Assessment System), a system for soil contamination diagnosis. The analysis spanned the entire development phase, from the generation of research ideas to the dissemination of results to society. The benefit of using this method was greater ease in system design and social implementation, through the analysis of critical components in the developmental process. I also discuss applying this method to novel areas, such as the development of technology for reconstruction after The Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster.

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