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Freelance Japanese to English translator offering high quality translation, localisation, proofreading and language tuition services. I specialise in technical translation, particularly for the IT and automotive industries.
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Freelance translator and/or interpreter, Verified site user
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Translation - English A suggestion for "Points of View on the Basic Energy Plan" - do we really need nuclear power?
December 24, 2013
The consultation “Points of View on the Basic Energy Plan” was approved at the meeting of the Basic Policy Subcomittee of the Advisory Comittee for Energy and Natural Resources on December 23, 2013. This will be groundwork for the Basic Energy Plan (Basic Plan), which is drawn up every three years by the Japanese government, as stipulated by the Basic Act on Energy Policy. Based on the consultation, this Basic Plan, if approved by the cabinet, will be the first since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.
The 2010 Basic Plan, current at the time of writing, was set to increase the proportion of nuclear energy in electricity generation to more that 50% by 2030. After the disaster, in September 2012, the Noda government of the Democratic Party promoted denuclearisation with the Strategy for Innovative Energy and Environment. A new Basic Plan was to have been drawn up based on this, but as there was a change of government soon afterwards, the Liberal Democratic Party, for energy and environmental strategy, focused on a “square one review” and “establishing responsible energy policy.” The results of this inquiry's discussions form the present “Points of View.”
1) From denuclearisation to promotion of nuclear energy
The point of most interest is that, although the future of nuclear power was uncertain, as the table below clearly shows, there has been a major shift in policy towards its promotion instead. The Abe government has stressed the importance of nuclear power more than ever, and it could be said that this round of “Viewpoints” has delivered what would be expected from following this line. Rather than rejecting “Zero Nuclear” simply because it was a Democratic Party policy, it seems that promotion of nuclear energy has been revealed because of previous LDP nuclear policy, strategic concerns, and close ties with industry.
Policy Shift Towards Nuclear Promotion
Party - prime minister
DP - Noda
LDP - Abe
Decision date
September 2012
January 2014?
Policy name
Strategy for Innovative Energy and Environment
Basic Energy Plan 2013 (Planned)
Importance placed on nuclear power
“Zero operation by the 2030s”
“Important primary energy source”
Importance placed on renewable energy
Introduce as much “green energy” as possible
Energy source with “various issues”
National debate
Public hearing, debate-based public polling
?
The reason for this is, nuclear power fulfills the so-called "3 Es": it is a semi-domestic energy source (Energy Security), operational costs are low and stable (Economic), and during operation it does not emit greenhouse gases (Environmental), or so the argument has developed up to now. Especially in this round of "Points of View," nuclear power has been pointed out as economically viable and indispensable in alleviating a deepening sense of crisis concerning energy self-sufficiency and rising electricity prices as dependence on fossil fuels has reached 90% and the increase in import costs associated with this have reached ¥3.6 trillion ($36 billion, estimate for 2013 financial year)(*1).
On the other hand, target figures for the proportion of each power source in electricity generation for points such as 2030 were not given. This was said to be because of the unpredictability in "restarting operation of nuclear power stations and introduction of renewable energy based on the feed-in tariff ". However, the biggest reason could be in order to retain the option to return dependency on nuclear power to pre March 2011 levels, and further.
Going by the media reaction in support of LDP ex-Prime Minister Koizumi's recent outspoken anti-nuclear remarks, if the LDP consider the feeling of the population, whose support for denuclearisation is considerable, they are not likely to to lower the standard of reducing dependency on nuclear power "as much as possible" that they had raised at the election. Among the "Points of View," the phrase "reduce as much as possible" is present, but no definite policy or plan is indicated. One wonders if the Government wishes to make no promises to increase or decrease nuclear dependency for the time being, and put off policy making decisions for a while, then change course to a policy of more active promotion of nuclear power after making sure of public sentiment and international trends. Will it be enough politically for the Government to say qualitatively that it will "secure the necessary scale" of nuclear power as an "important primary energy source"?
Japanese to English: Egg Made from iPS Cell General field: Medical Detailed field: Genetics
Source text - Japanese iPS細胞から卵子
京都チーム成功 マウスの子も誕生
様々な組織や臓器に変化できるマウスのiPS細胞(新型万能細胞)から卵子を作ることに、斎藤通紀(みちのり)・京都大学教授らの研究チームが世界で初めて成功した。この卵子から健康な子が誕生した。
特殊な細胞培養法を用いているため、直ちに人に応用することはできないが、チームは昨年、マウスの精子作成にも成功しており、将来的には不妊症研究に利用できる可能性がある。5日の米科学誌サイエンス(電子版)に発表する。
斎藤教授らはまず雌のマウスの皮膚からiPS細胞を作製、卵子や精子のもとになる「始原生殖細胞」を作った。この細胞だけでは卵子ができなかったため、別の雌のマウスの胎児から、卵子を育てる卵巣のもとになる体細胞を取り出し、iPS細胞から作った始原生殖細胞と一緒に培養した。
2種類の細胞がくついた塊を成熟した雌の卵巣に移植すると、4週間後に始原生殖細胞が卵子に成長した。卵巣のもとになる体細胞が始原生殖細胞を卵子に成長させる物質を出しているらしい。さらに、できた卵子に健康な雄から採取した精子を体外受精させ、約10匹の成熟した雌の卵管に移植したところ、2匹から健康な子供のマウス3匹が誕生。その子供の世代も生まれた。
Translation - English Egg Made from iPS Cell
Success for Kyoto Team
Baby Mouse Born
A research team of Kyoto University staff headed by Professor Michinori Saito have for the first time, been successful in growing an egg cell from an iPS cell, a new type of pluripotent cell which can develop into many different types of organ and tissue. A healthy baby mouse was born from this egg cell.
This cannot be applied to humans as yet, as special culture method is used, but as the team were last year also successful in constructing sperm cells there is a possibility it could be used in fertility research in the future. The discovery is announced today in the electronic edition of the US academic magazine Science.
Saito and his colleagues first made an iPS cell from the skin of a female mouse, from which they formed a “basic reproductive cell” which can develop into a sperm or an egg cell. An egg could not be formed from this cell alone, so from another mouse embryo, they took somatic cells which later develop into the ovaries which nurture the eggs and cultured them together with the basic reproductive cells which had been made from the iPS cells.
The clump of both types of cells was transferred into the ovary of a mature female, and after 4 weeks the basic reproductive cells had developed into eggs. It seems that the ovary-forming somatic cells emit a substance which develops the basic reproductive cells into eggs. Furthermore, when eggs made this way were fertilised in vitrio with sperm from healthy males and transplanted into the fallopian tubes of ten mature females, two of those females gave birth to three healthy mice. These young also gave birth to their next generation.
Japanese to English: Digital Signal Processing (excerpt) General field: Tech/Engineering Detailed field: IT (Information Technology)
Source text - Japanese 近年、デジタル信号技術の進展に伴い、映像 (動画像)、画像又は音声を対象にした、通信、放送、記録媒体[CD (Compact Disc)、DVD (Digital Versatile Disc)]、医用画像、印刷等の分野がマルチメディア産業或いはIT (Information Technology)として著しい発展を遂げている。映像や画像、音声に対するデジタル信号技術の一翼を担うのが情報量を低減する圧縮符号化であるが、その信号理論として、代表的にはシャノンの標本化定理があり、更に新しくはウェーブレット変換理論等がある。また、例えば音楽のCDでは、圧縮を伴わないリニアPCM (Pulse Code Modulation)が用いられるが、信号理論は同様にシャノンの標本化定理である。
MPEG2 (ISO (International Organization for Standardization)/ IEC (International Electrotechnical Commition) 13818-2) は、汎用の画像符号化方式として定義された方式であり、飛び越し走査方式、順次走査方式の双方に対応できるように定義され、また標準解像度画像、高精細画像の双方に対応できるように定義されている。このMPEG2は、現在、プロフェッショナル用途及びコンシューマー用途の広範なアプリケーションに広く用いられている。MPEG2では、例えば720×480画素の標準解像度、飛び越し走査方式の画像データを4~8〔Mbps〕のビットレートにデータ圧縮することができ、また1920×1080画素の高解像度 、飛び越し走査方式の画像データを18~22〔Mbps〕のビットレートにデータ圧縮することができ、高画質で高い圧縮率を確保することができる。
Translation - English In recent years, progress in digital signal processing has brought considerable development in the use of moving or still images and audio by the multimedia industry and in IT (Information Technology), in areas such as communication and broadcasting, the recording formats CD (Compact Disc) and DVD (Digital versatile Disk), medical imaging, and printing. The importance of digital signal processing in audio and moving or still images lies in the reduction of data volume by compression encoding, the theory of which is exemplified by Shannon Sampling Theorem, and more recently by Wavelet Transform Theory. Also, while not involving compression, the signal theory behind PCM (Pulse Code Modulation), as used in, for example, audio CDs, is again Shannon Sampling Theorem.
The MPEG system is now a well known compression technique for moving images and digital video, and signal compression using the MPEG-2 system in digital broadcasting and DVD and the MPEG-4 system for internet streaming and mobile communications in 3rd generation mobile telephones has become extremely familiar in recent years. This is against a background of factors such as increased capacity of storage media, speeding up of networks, improvement in processor performance and the performance increases and price reductions of LSI. This way, step by step, an environment has come into being that supports audio visual systems dependent on digital compression.
MPEG-2 (ISO (International Organization for Standardization)/ IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) 13818-2) is defined as a general-purpose image encoding system that can be used for both interlaced and sequential scanning , and both standard and high resolution images. MPEG-2 is used for a wide range of applications for professional and consumer use. MPEG-2 can ensure high quality images and high compression ratios; for example, interlaced image data at standard resolution of 720x480 pixels can be compressed to a bitrate of 4-8 Mbps, and high resolution 1920x1080 pixels interlaced images to 18-22 Mbps.
In general purpose video encoding, data volume compression is brought about by a reduction in temporal and spatial redundancy. Inter frame prediction aims to reduce temporal redundancy by detecting movement in block units using a frame in front and a frame behind for reference to build a predicted image, then encoding the differential values between this and actual frame.
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Translation education
Master's degree - Leeds University
Experience
Years of experience: 17. Registered at ProZ.com: Dec 2013.
Freelance Japanese to English translator offering high quality translation, localisation, proofreading and language tuition services.
I specialise in technical translation, particularly for the IT and automotive industries, as well as financial and other related business documents. I can work with or without the CAT tools; Trados, memoQ, Deja Vu, Passolo and OmegaT and can deliver documents in finished or bilingual format
I hold an MA in Applied Translation Studies from the University of Leeds and teach Japanese language classes for local businesses.
Skills
Trained in translation and project management with SDL Trados 2015, Passolo, memoQ 2015, Deja Vu X2 and OmegaT
Language pair: English to Japanese (Journalistic, scientific/medical, technical, literary)
Good spoken Japanese
Web: Good understanding of HTML/CSS and Javascript
Communication: Introduced Wiggio group communication software to Leeds University Centre for Translation Sudies
I work on a wide variety of text types, but because of high demand, and because they suit my background, I also make a point of keeping up to date with the specialised language in certain areas, listed here with examples of recent projects.
Engineering
Large quality assurance projects for the automotive industry
Safety data sheets for industrial chemicals
Patents for household electrical items
Electronics and IT
Software for ATM machines
Marketing for audio equipment
Semiconductor patents
Telecommunications patents
Medical
Risk assessments for medical imaging equipment
Newspaper articles on genetic research
Financial
Investment reports on individual companies
Sector-wide investment reports
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