We explore the organizational, environmental, and economic effects of sustainable forest management (FM) certification by SmartWood (SW), one of the certification bodies accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to carry out certification in Japan. We closely investigated three enterprises: the Yusuhara Forest Owners' Cooperative, Yamanashi Prefectural Forest, and Ryujin-mura Forest Owners' Cooperative. Interviews with representatives of these entities provided crucial empirical information regarding the influence of certification on environmental assessment, rare-species protection, landscape-management planning, management objectives, and forest supervision. Attainment of FM status improved environmental awareness and engendered positive changes in assessing and managing forests and other natural resources but simultaneously imposed heavier economic costs.

A new nucleation-site-control method has been proposed for excimer-laser crystallization, where a cross-coupled phase shifter is placed on the sample surface. High thermal conductivity of molten Si flattens its temperature distribution shortly after laser-light irradiation, and, in turn, confines a low-temperature Si region to a very narrow area. Since nucleation can take place only in this narrow area of unmolten Si, not only is the number of nuclei limited to unity, but also the position of a nucleus can be determined. The usefulness of the proposed method is investigated theoretically and experimentally. A single grain as long as 5 µm in diameter was formed at the desired position.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract