With the hot days of summer limiting my outside activity, I spend a lot more time following the famous National High School Baseball Tournament that is played in August every summer and shown live on NHK television.

Japanese baseball ‘yakyuu’（野球）is Japan’s most popular sport.  This is the 93^rd year that the summer high school baseball tournament is being held with 49 teams vying to be crowned the top high school baseball team in Japan.  I find this time period in Japan to be comparable to March Madness in the U.S. where the best college basketball team is finally decided.

High school baseball tournaments are held  all over the country in July to decide one team to represent its prefecture.  Five or six games might be played just to get into the big tournament played at Koshien Stadium in Osaka, the home of the pro baseball team the Hanshin Tigers.

The games are played with great enthusiasm and are very exciting to watch as the level of play is quite high.  Most high school baseball teams practice every day throughout the year to see if they can participate in the spring or summer tournament.

One of my favorite moments happens at the end of every game.  After both teams bow to each other and shake hands, the winning team will line up  facing the centerfield flags above the scoreboard from home plate.  Their school song is played as a camera pans in on each happy player’s face of the winning team.  Then they rush to the outfield on either the left or right field side of the stadium to bow and wave to their classmates, family and friends.

I have watched this tournament every summer and spring for 38 years, and each year is as memorable as the year previous.  Many years ago I had the opportunity to see a Championship game live at Koshien Stadium and it was that day that I found Japan’s ‘Field of Dreams’.

Congratulations to each high school baseball team that has has filled my heart with  their spirited play down through the years.  Play Ball!

Professor Roland T. Chin, provost, deputy vice-chancellor, and chair professor of Computer Science at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) will be giving a free public talk titled “Internationalization of Higher Education in Hong Kong” on Monday, October 3, 2011, 4 – 5:30 p.m. | 206 Ingraham Hall.

“The internationalization of higher education is very fast moving and dynamic,” explains Professor Chin, “In this talk we explore various issues of internationalization in higher education and share our experience of this transformation that has taken place in Hong Kong in the last 15 years.”

Professor Roland T Chin is Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, and Chair Professor of Computer Science at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Prior to joining HKU, he was deputy president and vice-president for Academic Affairs (2006-2010), vice-president for Research and Development (2003-2006), and chair professor of Computer Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. From 2001 to 2003, he was vice-president for Information Technology of Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI). Since 2005, he has been the chairman of the Research Grants Council in Hong Kong.

Professor Chin studied electrical engineering at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He subsequently worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland for two years prior to joining the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1981 to 1995.

Professor Chin will visit UW-Madison under the auspices of the Global Studies in Higher Education (GSHE) initiative.

Much Too Early!

I gazed at my alarm clock and it once again read 4:15 a.m.  The warblers outside my window along with the cicadas were having their morning meetings making sure I was awake.  But it is only 4:15 a.m. and I am wide awake as light begins to filter through the cracks of my drapes declaring a new morning..  This summer time pattern for me has worn out its welcome.

I have an ingenious idea!  How about converting over to summer time or as I used to know it in Wisconsin as daylight saving time?  I wonder if there is any chance of that morning sun postponing its greeting to me by an hour.  This thought enters my mind almost every day as I honestly think that no one has to be up at the crack of dawn, especially when it is only a bit after 4:00 a.m.!

Japan along with S. Korea and Iceland are the only countries among the 30 members who belong to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) that do not follow daylight saving time.  Japan has tried daylight saving time, but that was during the Allied Occupation between the years 1948 and 1951.  It was eventually considered inconvenient and the idea of daylight saving time may have been considered since then, but never put into effect.

The major earthquake in Japan in March of this year has officials talking about the idea of adopting the Western concept of daylight saving time once again.  Japan has very hot days and nights during the summer months and the thought of going to daylight saving time would help people to focus on daylight hours and use less electricity at night.  With The Fukushima plant and other thermal plants being affected due to the earthquake, the Japanese government may need to have blackout periods during days where it is so hot and electricity is not available to everyone.  There is also the idea that with the extra hour of light that it might give the hard working Japanese people time to reflect on their lives away from their jobs.

On the other side of the totem pole, there are people who feel that making that one hour adjustment would be quite cumbersome as there would be a lot of clocks and electronic devices that would have to be changed, they would lose an hour of sleep and many workers would be forced to stay longer in the office due to the longer daylight hours.  They also contend that the change to daylight saving time would not affect the amount of electricity that would be consumed during the peak afternoon hours when air conditioners would be used anyway.

So which is it going to be?  Will there ever be a change?  Do I need to purchase thicker drapes and soundproof windows that will not let in the light and sounds of an early morning in Japan?  Would I be able to stand the searing daytime heat knowing that nightfall would be an hour later?  Is it at all practical?

Hiding From The Light

The pros and cons of converting to daylight saving time is probably discussed in the countries that use it every year and I am sure not everyone is pleased with it.  It has been over sixty years since Japan has tried daylight saving time and it might be something that people can truly enjoy.  The government is discussing this now and might be still in discussion when fall rolls around.  Either way, I can still imagine, can’t I?

If daylight saving time does not become reality, you can easily envision me waking each morning to the sound of birds chirping and the morning milkman who manages to defy sleep with his early morning delivery – Yes, at the first sign of daylight!  And just when I try to justify why I need to wake up an hour later each summer morning, a smile comes to my face knowing that at least change might be possible!

I hope you are all enjoying your summer holidays!

Eighteen academically-talented high school students from China and the United States recently wrapped up a unique, three-week residential experience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where they explored global issues of sustainability and the promise of solutions through various emerging technologies.

The new Global Wisconsin Idea Program was developed by the Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth (WCATY), part of the School of Education, and the Division of International Studies.

The Chinese students came well-prepared for their in-depth learning experience here in Wisconsin, says Carole Trone, director of WCATY.

“Although this is the first visit to the United States for most of our Chinese students, they arrived with excellent English language skills and an energizing curiosity about research and innovation occurring here in Madison,” Trone says. “Our discussions between our American and Chinese students about globally important issues such as sustainability have been inspiring.”

The program consisted of three weeks of lectures, discussion, demonstrations, and field trips to sites around Madison designed to help students to understand ecosystems and to adopt a systems perspective. They also learned about environmental sustainability and using social and digital learning games as tools to explore ideas.

The final week also included a hands-on workshop about the science of stem cells, hosted by the Morgridge Institute for Research and held in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building. The workshop featured an overview of research in the stem cell field and provided students an opportunity to use laboratory techniques developed by scientists to maintain, propagate and direct stem cells into specialized cells.

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