Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south; the kanji that make up Japan's name mean "sun origin", it is called the "Land of the Rising Sun". Japan is a stratovolcanic archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands; the four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido and Shikoku, which make up about ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area and are referred to as home islands. The country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions, with Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one; the population of 127 million is the world's tenth largest. 90.7 % of people live in cities. About 13.8 million people live in the capital of Japan. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with over 38 million people. Archaeological research indicates; the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD.
Influence from other regions China, followed by periods of isolation from Western Europe, has characterized Japan's history. From the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shōguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a long period of isolation in the early 17th century, ended in 1853 when a United States fleet pressured Japan to open to the West. After nearly two decades of internal conflict and insurrection, the Imperial Court regained its political power in 1868 through the help of several clans from Chōshū and Satsuma – and the Empire of Japan was established. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victories in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism; the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the Japanese surrender. Since adopting its revised constitution on May 3, 1947, during the occupation led by SCAP, the sovereign state of Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with an Emperor and an elected legislature called the National Diet.
Japan is a member of the ASEAN Plus mechanism, UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the G20, is considered a great power. Its economy is the world's third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity, it is the world's fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer. Japan benefits from a skilled and educated workforce. Although it has renounced its right to declare war, Japan maintains a modern military with the world's eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a developed country with a high standard of living and Human Development Index, its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, but is experiencing issues due to an aging population and low birthrate. Japan is renowned for its historical and extensive cinema, influential music industry, video gaming, rich cuisine and its major contributions to science and modern technology; the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, pronounced Nihon or Nippon and means "the origin of the sun".
The character nichi means "sun" or "day". The compound therefore means "origin of the sun" and is the source of the popular Western epithet "Land of the Rising Sun"; the earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, the Old Book of Tang. At the end of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan requested that Nihon be used as the name of their country; this name may have its origin in a letter sent in 607 and recorded in the official history of the Sui dynasty. Prince Shōtoku, the Regent of Japan, sent a mission to China with a letter in which he called himself "the Emperor of the Land where the Sun rises"; the message said: "Here, I, the emperor of the country where the sun rises, send a letter to the emperor of the country where the sun sets. How are you". Prior to the adoption of Nihon, other terms such as Yamato and Wakoku were used; the term Wa is a homophone of Wo 倭, used by the Chinese as a designation for the Japanese as early as the third century Three Kingdoms period.
Another form of Wa, Wei in Chinese) was used for an early state in Japan called Nakoku during the Han dynasty. However, the Japanese disliked some connotation of Wa 倭, it was therefore replaced with the substitute character Wa, meaning "togetherness, harmony"; the English word Japan derives from the historical Chinese pronunciation of 日本. The Old Mandarin or early Wu Chinese pronunciation of Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. In modern Shanghainese, a Wu dialect, the pronunciation of characters 日本; the old Malay word for Japan, Japun or Japang, was borrowed from a southern coastal Chinese dialect Fukienese or Ningpo – and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Southeast Asia in the 16th century. These Early Portuguese traders brought the word
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of London judges to have made a'substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science'. Fellowship of the Society, the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour, awarded to many eminent scientists from history including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Ernest Rutherford, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Dorothy Hodgkin, Alan Turing and Francis Crick. More fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking, Tim Hunt, Elizabeth Blackburn, Tim Berners-Lee, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Atta-ur Rahman, Andre Geim, James Dyson, Ajay Kumar Sood, Subhash Khot, Elon Musk and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900; as of October 2018, there are 1689 living Fellows and Honorary Members, of which over 60 are Nobel Laureates.
Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows and foreign members are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year. New Fellows can only be nominated by existing Fellows for one of the fellowships described below: Every year, up to 52 new Fellows are elected from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Nations which make up around 90% of the society; each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS. See Category:Fellows of the Royal Society and Category:Female Fellows of the Royal Society; every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members. Like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science.
As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS. See Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to the cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville and Onora O'Neill. Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters FRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, see Category:Honorary Fellows of the Royal Society. Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include 4th Earl of Selborne. Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain,Ramsay Macdonald and H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category:Fellows of the Royal Society.
The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows: Charles, Prince of Wales elected 1978 Anne, Princess Royal elected 1987 Prince Edward, Duke of Kent elected 1990 Prince William, Duke of Cambridge elected 2009 Prince Andrew, Duke of York elected 2013Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, but provides her patronage to the Society as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow; the election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection. Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, criticised for establishing an old-boy network and elitist gentlemen's club.
The certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership; the Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April and a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A maximum of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of 6 can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with 15 members and a chair.
Members of the 10 sectional committees change every 3 years to mitigate in-group bias, each group covers different
Rhodium
Rhodium is a chemical element with symbol Rh and atomic number 45. It is a rare, silvery-white, corrosion-resistant, chemically inert transition metal, it is a member of the platinum group. It has only one occurring isotope, 103Rh. Occurring rhodium is found as the free metal, alloyed with similar metals, as a chemical compound in minerals such as bowieite and rhodplumsite, it is one of most valuable precious metals. Rhodium is found in platinum or nickel ores together with the other members of the platinum group metals, it was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston in one such ore, named for the rose color of one of its chlorine compounds, produced after it reacted with the powerful acid mixture aqua regia. The element's major use is as one of the catalysts in the three-way catalytic converters in automobiles; because rhodium metal is inert against corrosion and most aggressive chemicals, because of its rarity, rhodium is alloyed with platinum or palladium and applied in high-temperature and corrosion-resistive coatings.
White gold is plated with a thin rhodium layer to improve its appearance while sterling silver is rhodium-plated for tarnish resistance. Rhodium detectors are used in nuclear reactors to measure the neutron flux level. Rhodium was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, soon after his discovery of palladium, he used crude platinum ore obtained from South America. His procedure involved dissolving the ore in aqua regia and neutralizing the acid with sodium hydroxide, he precipitated the platinum as ammonium chloroplatinate by adding ammonium chloride. Most other metals like copper, lead and rhodium were precipitated with zinc. Diluted nitric acid dissolved all but rhodium. Of these, palladium dissolved in aqua regia but rhodium did not, the rhodium was precipitated by the addition of sodium chloride as Na3·nH2O. After being washed with ethanol, the rose-red precipitate was reacted with zinc, which displaced the rhodium in the ionic compound and thereby released the rhodium as free metal. After the discovery, the rare element had only minor applications.
The first major application was electroplating for decorative uses and as corrosion-resistant coating. The introduction of the three-way catalytic converter by Volvo in 1976 increased the demand for rhodium; the previous catalytic converters used platinum or palladium, while the three-way catalytic converter used rhodium to reduce the amount of NOx in the exhaust. Rhodium is a hard, durable metal that has a high reflectance. Rhodium metal does not form an oxide when heated. Oxygen is absorbed from the atmosphere only at the melting point of rhodium, but is released on solidification. Rhodium has both lower density than platinum, it is not attacked by most acids: it is insoluble in nitric acid and dissolves in aqua regia. Rhodium belongs to group 9 of the periodic table, but the configuration of electrons in the outermost shells is atypical for the group; this anomaly is observed in the neighboring elements, niobium and palladium. The common oxidation state of rhodium is +3, but oxidation states from 0 to +6 are observed.
Unlike ruthenium and osmium, rhodium forms no volatile oxygen compounds. The known stable oxides include Rh2O3, RhO2, RhO2·xH2O, Na2RhO3, Sr3LiRhO6 and Sr3NaRhO6. Halogen compounds are known in nearly the full range of possible oxidation states. Rhodium chloride, rhodium fluoride, rhodium fluoride and rhodium fluoride are examples; the lower oxidation states are stable only in the presence of ligands. The best-known rhodium-halogen compound is the Wilkinson's catalyst chlorotrisrhodium; this catalyst is used in the hydrogenation of alkenes. Occurring rhodium is composed of only one isotope, 103Rh; the most stable radioisotopes are 101Rh with a half-life of 3.3 years, 102Rh with a half-life of 207 days, 102mRh with a half-life of 2.9 years, 99Rh with a half-life of 16.1 days. Twenty other radioisotopes have been characterized with atomic weights ranging from 92.926 u to 116.925 u. Most of these have half-lives shorter except 100Rh and 105Rh. Rhodium has numerous meta states, the most stable being 102mRh with a half-life of about 2.9 years and 101mRh with a half-life of 4.34 days.
In isotopes weighing less than 103, the primary decay mode is electron capture and the primary decay product is ruthenium. In isotopes greater than 103, the primary decay mode is beta emission and the primary product is palladium. Rhodium is one of the rarest elements in the Earth's crust, comprising an estimated 0.0002 parts per million. Its rarity affects its use in commercial applications; the industrial extraction of rhodium is complex because the ores are mixed with other metals such as palladium, silver and gold and there are few rhodium-bearing minerals. It is found in platinum ores and extracted as a white inert metal, difficult to fuse. Principal sources are located in South Africa. Although the quantity at Sudbury is small, the large amount of processed nickel ore makes rhodium recovery cost-effective; the main exporter of rhodium is South
Nagoya University
Nagoya University, abbreviated to Meidai, is a Japanese national university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the last Imperial University among the National Seven Universities, it is the 3rd highest. As of 2014, six Nobel Prize winners have been associated with Nagoya University, the third most in Japan behind Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo. Nagoya University traces its roots back to 1871. In 1939 it became Nagoya Imperial University. In 1947 it was renamed Nagoya University, became a Japanese national university. In 2004 it became a Japanese national university corporation; the ideal written in the Nagoya University academic charter is to encourage the intelligentsia with courage by providing an education which respects independent thought. In March 2012 the university played host to the International Symposium on Innovative Nanobiodevices. While the majority of its students come from Tōkai region, Nagoya University has a good portion of students from all over Japan; the school has many students from abroad.
There are over 1300 international students from 78 countries studying in the faculties of Nagoya University. The majority of them are from Korea. Among other countries, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan are represented by more than 30 students. Among non-Asian countries, the United States and Brazil sent 16 students each. Law Medicine Engineering Letters Science Agriculture Economics Education Information Culture Education Law Economics Arts and Sciences Science Mathematics Engineering Life Sciences and Agriculture Medicine International Language Culture International Development Environmental Studies Information ScienceThe University's Research Center for Seismology and Disaster mitigation is represented on the national Coordinating Committee for Earthquake Prediction. Nagoya University is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan; this can be seen in several rankings such as the ones shown below. The university has been ranked 15th in 2009 and 21st in 2010 in the ranking "Truly Strong Universities" by Toyo Keizai.
In another ranking, Japanese prep school Kawaijuku ranked Nagoya as the 8th best university in Japan. The Academic Ranking of World Universities 2009 ranks Nagoya University as fourth in Japan; the 2009 THE-QS World University Rankings ranks Nagoya University as fifth in Japan. The 2010 QS Asian University Rankings rated Nagoya number ten in Asia and number five in Japan, while the QS World University Rankings for 2011 ranked Nagoya 80th in the world. Nagoya is one of the top research institutions in Japan. According to Thomson Reuters, Nagoya is the 5th best research university in Japan, its research standard is high in Physics and Biology & Biochemistry. Weekly Diamond reported that Nagoya has the 6th highest research standard in Japan in research funding per researchers in COE Program. In the same article, it's ranked 6th in terms of the quality of education by GP funds per student. In addition, Nikkei Shimbun on 16 February 2004 surveyed the research standards in Engineering studies based on Thomson Reuters, Grants in Aid for Scientific Research and questionnaires to heads of 93 leading Japanese research centers, Nagoya was placed 9th in this ranking.
Furthermore, Nagoya had the 8th highest number of patents accepted in 2009 among Japanese universities. It has a high research standard in Social Humanities. Asahi Shimbun summarized the amount of academic papers in Japanese major legal journals by university, Nagoya University was ranked 4th during 2005-2009. RePEc in January 2011 ranked Nagoya's Economic department as Japan's 13th best economic research university. Nagoya Law School is considered one of the top law schools in Japan, as it was ranked 10th in the pass rate of the Japanese Bar Examination in 2010. According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings, graduates from Nagoya have the 38th best employment rate in 400 major companies in Japan. Nagoya is one of the most selective universities in Japan, its entrance difficulty is considered one of the highest in Japan. Full list can be found in the Japanese Wikipedia article: List of Nagoya University people It includes six Nobel Prize winners. Hiroshi Amano, one of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the blue LED.
Isamu Akasaki, one of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the blue LED. Makoto Kobayashi, one of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics. Toshihide Maskawa, one of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics. Osamu Shimomura, one of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Ryōji Noyori, one of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners, spent most of his academic career researching and teaching at the university, it includes one Fields Medalist. Shigefumi Mori, one of the 1990 Fields Medalists, spent most of his academic career at the university until he won the Fields Medal in 1990. There are several world-class scientists: Koji Nakanishi, a Japanese-American bioorganic and natural products chemist, graduated from Nagoya, professor at Columbia University. Hisashi Yamamoto, a Japanese chemist, laureate of the Medal of Honor with a Purple Ribbon. Masayoshi Nagata, a Japanese mathematician, disproved Hilbert's fourteenth problem. Goro Azumaya, a Japanese mathematician, int
William Standish Knowles
William Standish Knowles was an American chemist. He was born in Massachusetts. Knowles was one of the recipients of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he split half the prize with Ryōji Noyori for their work in asymmetric synthesis for his work in hydrogenation reactions. The other half was awarded to K. Barry Sharpless for his work in oxidation reactions. Knowles attended Berkshire School in Massachusetts, he led his class academically and upon graduation was admitted to Harvard University after passing the College Board exams. Feeling that he was too young to go to college, Knowles spent a year at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. At the end of the year, he captured his first award in the school's $50 Boylston Prize. After his year in preparatory school, Knowles attended Harvard, where he majored in chemistry, focusing on organic chemistry, he received his undergraduate degree in 1939, attended Columbia University for graduate school. While he was at Columbia, Knowles was a member of St. Anthony Hall.
1983 Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Chemists 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 Peter H. Raven Lifetime Achievement Award, from the Academy of Science, St. Louis, he shared half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001 with Ryōji Noyori for "their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions". The other half of the prize was awarded to K. Barry Sharpless for the development of a range of catalytic asymmetric oxidations. Knowles developed one of the first asymmetric hydrogenation catalysts by replacing the achiral triphenylphosphine ligands in Wilkinson's catalyst with chiral phosphine ligands; this experimental catalyst was effective for enantioselective synthesis, achieving a modest 15% enantiomeric excess. Knowles was the first to apply enantioselective metal catalysis to industrial-scale synthesis. Following his retirement in 1986, Knowles resided in a suburb of St. Louis. In retirement he restored native prairie grasses on a 100-acre farm, he was married to his wife, for 66 years and had four children, Peter and Lesley McIntire.
He had four grandchildren. Knowles died in Chesterfield on June 13, 2012 at age 95, he and his wife had stated that their farm would be donated to be converted into a city park after their deaths. Knowles's Nobel Foundation biography Knowles's Nobel Lecture Asymmetric Hydrogenations Center for Oral History. "William S. Knowles". Science History Institute. Grayson, Michael A.. William S. Knowles, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by Michael A. Grayson at St. Louis, Missouri on 30 January 2008. Philadelphia, PA: Chemical Heritage Foundation
Ligand
In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electron pairs; the nature of metal–ligand bonding can range from covalent to ionic. Furthermore, the metal–ligand bond order can range from one to three. Ligands are viewed as Lewis bases, although rare cases are known to involve Lewis acidic "ligands". Metals and metalloids are bound to ligands in all circumstances, although gaseous "naked" metal ions can be generated in a high vacuum. Ligands in a complex dictate the reactivity of the central atom, including ligand substitution rates, the reactivity of the ligands themselves, redox. Ligand selection is a critical consideration in many practical areas, including bioinorganic and medicinal chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, environmental chemistry. Ligands are classified in many ways, including: charge, the identity of the coordinating atom, the number of electrons donated to the metal.
The size of a ligand is indicated by its cone angle. The composition of coordination complexes have been known since the early 1800s, such as Prussian blue and copper vitriol; the key breakthrough occurred when Alfred Werner reconciled isomers. He showed, among other things, that the formulas of many cobalt and chromium compounds can be understood if the metal has six ligands in an octahedral geometry; the first to use the term "ligand" were Alfred Stock and Carl Somiesky, in relation to silicon chemistry. The theory allows one to understand the difference between coordinated and ionic chloride in the cobalt ammine chlorides and to explain many of the inexplicable isomers, he resolved the first coordination complex called hexol into optical isomers, overthrowing the theory that chirality was associated with carbon compounds. In general, ligands are viewed as the metals as electron acceptors; this is because the ligand and central metal are bonded to one another, the ligand is providing both electrons to the bond instead of the metal and ligand each providing one electron.
Bonding is described using the formalisms of molecular orbital theory. The HOMO can be of ligands or metal character. Ligands and metal ions can be ordered in many ways. Metal ions preferentially bind certain ligands. In general,'hard' metal ions prefer weak field ligands, whereas'soft' metal ions prefer strong field ligands. According to the molecular orbital theory, the HOMO of the ligand should have an energy that overlaps with the LUMO of the metal preferential. Metal ions bound to strong-field ligands follow the Aufbau principle, whereas complexes bound to weak-field ligands follow Hund's rule. Binding of the metal with the ligands results in a set of molecular orbitals, where the metal can be identified with a new HOMO and LUMO and a certain ordering of the 5 d-orbitals. In an octahedral environment, the 5 otherwise degenerate d-orbitals split in sets of 2 and 3 orbitals. 3 orbitals of low energy: dxy and dyz 2 of high energy: dz2 and dx2−y2The energy difference between these 2 sets of d-orbitals is called the splitting parameter, Δo.
The magnitude of Δo is determined by the field-strength of the ligand: strong field ligands, by definition, increase Δo more than weak field ligands. Ligands can now be sorted according to the magnitude of Δo; this ordering of ligands is invariable for all metal ions and is called spectrochemical series. For complexes with a tetrahedral surrounding, the d-orbitals again split into two sets, but this time in reverse order. 2 orbitals of low energy: dz2 and dx2−y2 3 orbitals of high energy: dxy and dyzThe energy difference between these 2 sets of d-orbitals is now called Δt. The magnitude of Δt is smaller than for Δo, because in a tetrahedral complex only 4 ligands influence the d-orbitals, whereas in an octahedral complex the d-orbitals are influenced by 6 ligands; when the coordination number is neither octahedral nor tetrahedral, the splitting becomes correspondingly more complex. For the purposes of ranking ligands, the properties of the octahedral complexes and the resulting Δo has been of primary interest.
The arrangement of the d-orbitals on the central atom, has a strong effect on all the properties of the resulting complexes. E.g. the energy differences in the d-orbitals has a strong effect in the optical absorption spectra of metal complexes. It turns out that valence electrons occupying orbitals with significant 3 d-orbital character absorb in the 400–800 nm region of the spectrum; the absorption of light by these electrons can be correlated to the ground state of the metal complex, which reflects the bonding properties of the ligands. The relative change in energy of the d-orbitals as a function of the field-strength of the ligands is described in Tanabe–Sugano diagrams. In cases where the ligand has low energy LUMO, such orbitals participate in the bonding; the metal–ligand bond can be further stabilised by a formal donation of electron density back to the ligand in a process known as back-bonding. In this case a filled, c
