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Mitsubishi
Corporation has a better way to satisfy your sweet tooth.
It set up a company recently in Thailand to produce the
low-calorie sweetener maltitol.
What's special about maltitol is that it lets
people enjoy the sweetness of sugar without suffering sugary
drawbacks. Maltitol doesn't raise blood glucose or insulin
levels, so it's safe for diabetics. Nor does it cause tooth
decay. In addition, maltitol has barely one-half the calories
of sugar--a boon to consumers concerned about their waistlines.
Candyland
Maltitol is a member of the polyol
family of sweeteners, also known as sugar alcohols. It is
about 90% as sweet as sugar and is popular in chewing gum,
chocolates, baked goods, and hard candies.
Mitsubishi Corporation owns 60% of the new
venture, MC-Towa International Sweeteners. Towa Chemical
Industry, a Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiary and a world
leader in maltitol production, owns 40%. Mitsubishi Corporation
will market the maltitol in Japan, Europe, North America,
and other markets.
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She's healthy. And she's going to stay that way. |
Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries began marketing inexpensive fabric masks
in January that could help prevent infection from SARS and
other airborne diseases. The masks contain an enzyme preparation
developed by the company for its popular Beaver line of
air conditioners. That preparation appears to provide antibacterial,
antifungal, and antiviral action.
The enzyme in the masks breaks down proteins.
With bacteria and fungi, that means killing pathogens that
come into contact with the mask. With viruses, it means
neutralizing a surface protein that the viruses require
to enter a host, which renders them noninfectious.
A government-affiliated laboratory in Japan
has evaluated the efficacy of the new masks. It has determined
that the masks are highly effective in killing bacterial
pathogens and in preventing infection from viruses. Researchers
at the laboratory tested the masks' enzyme with a protein
structurally almost identical to the protein sheath on the
SARS virus. They found that the enzyme destroyed more than
99% of the protein.
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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is a
world leader in manufacturing diesel engines. Recently,
it began shipping small diesel engines to Caterpillar.
Caterpillar
installs the small diesel engines in equipment sold under
its flagship brand and under the name of its U.K. subsidiary
Perkins. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Caterpillar concluded
the supply contract in February 2002, and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries expanded its production capacity to fulfill the
contract. It began shipping engines to Perkins in June 2003
and began shipping engines to a Caterpillar plant in North
Carolina in October. Under the present contract, Caterpillar
is to purchase 15,000 engines a year.
Clean diesels for tidy Cats
The engines are of 3.3-liter
displacement. They feature the latest technology for minimizing
emissions of noxious gases and of carbon dioxide. The engines
already render service worldwide in bulldozers, forklifts,
generators, and other kinds of equipment sold by Mitsubishi
Heavy Industries under its own name.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Caterpillar
enjoy a long history of mutually beneficial cooperation.
Their 50:50 joint venture in Japan, Shin Caterpillar Mitsubishi,
is a much-cited model of successful international collaboration.
And Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has supplied larger diesel
engines to Caterpillar previously. |
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Mitsubishi
Corporation established a wholly owned subsidiary in London
in 2003 to handle financial instruments for managing risk
in energy-related transactions. The company, Petro-Diamond
Risk Management, develops, buys, and sells financial derivatives.
Those products range from simple futures to instruments
of stunning complexity.
Futures allow for buying or selling oil, for
example, at a future date at a predetermined price. They
are therefore useful in hedging exposure to price fluctuations.
More-complex derivatives are also tools for managing risk.
They can lock in a minimum or maximum price, and they can
link transaction prices to any number of variables, such
as currency exchange rates.
Rising demand
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They're taking the risk out of the oil. |
Demand for energy-related derivatives
continues to rise. Driving part of the rise is the increasing
volatility in oil prices. Also stimulating demand is the
deregulation of energy markets around the world. Governments
worldwide are moving to open their nations' electrical power
and gas industries to competition. The growing array of
competitors in those markets heightens the need for financial
derivatives for hedging risk and otherwise managing transactions.
Financial derivatives based on commodities
are familiar territory for Mitsubishi Corporation. As a
world leader in resource development and commodity trading,
the company has amassed immense expertise in hedging transaction
risk. Mitsubishi Corporation shares that expertise with
clients as part of its value-added support for commodity
transactions.
Mitsubishi Corporation has operated a specialized
subsidiary for handling financial derivatives for base metals
for more than 30 years. That subsidiary, Triland Metals,
is also based in London.
Triland Metals has a well-established risk management team,
which supports daily monitoring of counterparty and market
risk, calculation of daily profit and loss, and monitoring
of trading limits through mark-to-market and value-at-risk
(VaR) evaluation. It also provides mid- and back-office
services, which include processing, invoicing, notifications,
payments, receipts, and other administrative work associated
with financial transactions. It will use these capabilities
to provide operational support to Petro-Diamond Risk k Management.
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She's taking it to the Middle Kingdom. |
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Asahi
Glass has upped the ante in its expanding presence in
the Chinese market. The company established a subsidiary
in Shanghai in November to market chemical products.
A world leader in glass production, Asahi Glass
also has an extensive line of business in chemical products.
Its new sales company, AGC Chemicals Trading (Shanghai),
will market mainly fluorochemical products, resins, water
and oil repellents, cleansers, and materials for optical
filters. |
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First Prize
Dr. Torsten Wittmann
The Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, California, USA
Filamentous actin and microtubules
(structural proteins) in mouse fibroblasts
(cells) (1,000x)
Fluorescence |
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Second Prize
Dr. Greg W. Rouse
Marine Invertebrates, South Australian Museum
Adelaide, Australia
Myrianida pachycera, a polychaete (worm)
(60x)
Darkfield |
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Third Prize
Dr. Heiti Paves
Laboratory of Molecular Genetics
Tallinn, Estonia
Dorsal root ganglion neurons of an
embryonic rat (100x)
Fluorescence |
Top
honors in the 2003 competition went to Dr. Torsten Wittmann,
of the Scripps Research Institute in California. His close-up
of fibrous and tubular material in mouse cells (right)
was a technical and aesthetic tour de force. It also exemplified
the immense scientific value of high-quality photomicrography.
The 2003 entries featured vast diversity: rat
brain, nematode worms, sperm cells, a snowflake, a computer
chip, and chemical crystals, among other specimens. Serving
as judges were Carolyn L. Smith, of the National Institute
of Neurological Diseases and Stroke; Paul Forscher, of Yale
University; Jennifer Waters Shuler, of Harvard University;
Kristine LaManna, of Popular Science Magazine; and
Michael W. Davidson, of Florida State University.
Nikon has held the Small World Photomicrography
Competition annually since 1975. The competition, emphasize
the organizers, "is open to anyone with an interest
in photography through the microscope." It attracts
entries from around the world. And the winners have included
hobbyists, as well as professionals. An exhibition of 20
prize-winning photomicrographs from the 2003 competition
is touring 16 U.S. cities between December 2003 and January
2005.
For more information and for a look at more photos, visit
the Small World Website. You can find it at
www.microscopyu.com/smallworld |
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