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NEWS OF THE WEEK
Free translations offered of Japanese documents U.S. researchers will be able to obtain free translations of Japanese-language technical documents from a new center based at the U.S. Commerce Department—the Machine Translation Center for Japanese Science & Technology Literature.
Established at a Commerce Department ceremony coinciding with the annual meeting of the U.S.-Japan Joint High Level Committee on Science & Technology, the center is a partnership between the Japan Information Center of Science & Technology and Commerce's Office of Technology Policy. The center will offer translation services to the public for a
limited time for noncommercial purposes. Later, it will charge a fee. Scientists can use the system's raw output to get a general idea of information in a Japanese document.
Users can expect the fastest turnaround if they submit documents electronically in JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard), a text file format for Japanese documents analogous to ASCII. Text to be translated should be sent to Patti O'Neill-Brown at Office of Technology Policy, Asia-Pacific Technology Program, U.S. Department of Commerce, Room 4226, Washington, D.C. 20230; phone (202) 482-6805; fax (202) 219-3310; e-mail [email protected].
the costs involved. But when Carbide and Petrochemical Industries Corp. of Kuwait agreed to build an ethylene, polyethylene, and ethylene glycol complex in Kuwait, they cited the complex's cost as more than $1 billion (C&EN, July 25,1994, page 8).
The plant is to be located in Tok Arun on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, where Petronas is building a world-scale gas processing plant that will supply feedstock to the venture.
The complex Petronas and Mitsubishi will build will be in Kertih in the same Malaysian east coast area. Slated to go on-line in the second half of 1999, the venture—Aromatics Malaysia—will make 420,000 metric tons per year of p-xylene and 150,000 metric tons per year of benzene. The plant will use heavy naphtha, to come from a condensate splitter plant Petronas will build.
As with the Carbide deal, the companies have not provided cost estimates on the aromatics project. Initial ownership is 50-50, but the two firms are negotiating with a third party to join, possibly to undertake processing of benzene into styrene.
Jean-Franqois Tremblay and Marc Reisch
U.S. and Japan boost joint scientific efforts Joint U.S.-Japanese efforts in science and technology have been boosted by a meeting in Washington, D.C, of a bilateral Cabinet-level committee. Heading the U.S. delegation was presidential science adviser John H. Gibbons. The Japanese were led by Minister of State for Science & Technology Hidenao Nakagawa.
Discussions at the sixth annual meeting of the U.S.-Japan Joint High-Level Committee on Science & Technology focused on strengthening cooperation in 11 areas. The areas range from supporting basic research to facilitating exchange of scientists and include setting up a partnership to study mitigation of earthquake damage. Timed to coincide with the meeting was announcement of establishment of a Machine Translation Center for Japanese Science & Technology Literature.
Committee members agreed it is important for both countries to continue to support the exchange of scientists. At last year's meeting, the U.S. raised con
cern over what seemed to be wavering Japanese interest in supporting U.S. scientists and engineers in Japan. At this year's session, the Japanese responded by strengthening financial support for the exchanges.
Moreover, the day after the meeting, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Japanese Science & Technology Agency signed a pact calling for Japan's Institute of Physical & Chemical Research to provide $20 million to DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory to support experiments with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider Facility. "This unique collaboration solidifies our commitment to jointly advance basic science and technology," said Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary at the ceremony.
The two countries also discussed—but did not resolve—the thorny issue of lim-
Uncle Sam is looking for a few good U.S. companies to help the Russians destroy their stocks of chemical weapons.
The Pentagon is asking experienced U.S. firms to bid on two contracts—one to redesign and equip an analytical laboratory in Moscow, the other to build a destruction facility at Shchuch'ye, a weapons storage facility east of the Ural Mountains.
Money for the contracts—$30 million for the lab and $400 million for the destruction facility—will come from Nunn-Lugar funds. These funds, named after their principal sponsors, Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-
ited U.S. access to Japanese technical information. Mary L. Good, Commerce Department undersecretary for technology, urged Japan to change its copyright system so U.S. organizations can more easily access documents originating from the Japanese government. The Japanese acknowledged this as an area of concern, but the two nations made little progress toward resolving the problem.
"These high-level meetings provide the political and policy momentum for changes," an official at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy tells C&EN. The agreements help "make sure that these programs get intra-agen-cy priority." How much funding the U.S. and Japan will commit to the agreed-upon initiatives has yet to be determined.
Linda Ruber
Ind.), were first authorized in 1992 to help Russia get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. The contracts are the first monetarily significant use of Nunn-Lugar funds for chemical weapons destruction.
The 20-month lab contract will be awarded in September. The successful company is expected to renovate and redesign an existing lab in Moscow and to outfit it with standard analytical equipment. The firm will also train Russians to operate the lab, which will serve as Russia's central analytical facility for its chemical weapons destruction program.
U.S. seeks firms to destroy Russian chemical arms
6 MAY 13, 1996 C&EN
