We are happy to announce that the 4th Japan-Bangladesh Research and Practice (JBRP) will be held at Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan, from 13-14 December. We expect many researchers to gather together and share their ideas and experiences. You are most welcome to submit an abstract of your work and present your work at the conference. Please check the conference site for the details.
Sponsored by the Network of Bangladeshi Researchers in Japan (NBRJ), the 2nd International Conference on Japan-Bangladesh Research and Practice (JBRP) 2023 ended at August 12 2023 at Nanzan University located in the largest city in the Chubu region and the major industrial hub in Japan, at the outset of the great holiday (Obon festival) season. About 26 papers under 9 sessions were presented around four multidisciplinary domains (namely, 1. Business, Huminites, and Social Science, 2. Agricultural Science, 3. Medical, Pharmaceutical, and Public Health, 4. Natural Science, Engineering, and ICT) mostly from Bangladeshi (origin) researchers working in Japan. Apart from those sessions and the best presentation award, an insightful keynote, a tutorial session, and a panel discussion were also organized. Earlier, the conference was formally opened by Professor Kazumitsu Minamikawa, Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration, Nanzan University in August 11 morning 2023.
It is worth mentioning that JBRP is a flagship event organized by the Network of Bangladesh Researchers in Japan (NBRJ, https://atomic-temporary-193405763.wpcomstaging.com). The NBRJ was formally established on August 12, 2022, through a general meeting held at the Tokyo International Forum at its first annual workshop inaugurated by H.E. Mr. Shahabuddin Ahmed, Ambassador of Bangladesh in Japan in Tokyo. NBRJ aims to bring together Bangladeshi (origin) researchers working at different universities, research organizations, industries, and corporate sectors across Japan. The conference continues last year’s workshop (https://nbrjdotjp.wordpress.com/workshop2022/) with a new name and look. JBRP provides a platform for researchers across different scientific fields to share their achievements for creating multidisciplinary research collaboration opportunities and learning from each other, and make a bridge to achieve NBRJ’s vision to be the leading research and policy advocacy group in Japan with interdisciplinary skills dedicated to inform and leverage the development of Bangladesh through promoting Japan-Bangladesh scientific and development cooperation, intellectual engagement, and policy advocacy.
The keynote titled “Uncovering Knowledge” was delivered by Professor Sharifu Ura, Kitami Institute of Technology, Hokkaido who leads KIT’s Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Lab and directs the Innovative Manufacturing Center for Education and Research. In the talk, the speaker uncovers knowledge, presents an epistemology-based scheme of eliciting knowledge in simple terms, and shows that knowledge becomes more meaningful when different forms of knowledge are integrated into a knowledge map and co-creation through transdisciplinary problem-solving activities by researchers and practitioners.
In the tutorial session titled `From Data to Knowledge; how machine learning (ML) technologies may help in your discipline`, the speakers had a comprehensive discussion and useful tips about ML techniques across the disciplines with applications. The applications discussed in the tutorial include digital health care, sensors and system design, and evidence-based Social Science Research. The panel of speakers include Dr. Md Shoaib Bhuiyan, Suzuka University of Medical Science, Dr. Ashir Ahmed, Kyushu University and SocialTech Japan, Dr. Mahfuzul Islam, Kyoto University, and Dr. Mohammad Abdul Malek, University of Tsukuba. The tutorial session was organized by Dr. Md Shoaib Bhuiyan, a Professor at the Suzuka University of Medical Science’s Health Data Science Department and in its Graduate School of Medical Science.
On the second day, at the end of all technical sessions but before the award and closing event, a panel discussion was organized to provide a platform for the researchers to learn how their excellent research outcome can be applied to solve various social problems and policymaking for Bangladesh. The topic of the discussion was “Collaboration between Bangladeshi researchers and practitioners for JICA’s Projects/Programs in Bangladesh”. After having a background presentation on JICA projects and program operations in Bangladesh by Mr. Syed Nasir Ershad, the Economic Minister, The Embassy of Bangladesh in Tokyo, four panelists, namely, Dr. Chowdhury Mahbubul Alam, Fukuoka Women’s University, Dr. Tofael Ahamed, University of Tsukuba, Dr. Salma Akter, Kyoto University, and Dr. Shoaib Bhuiyan, Suzuka University of Medical Science shed their reflections about how the collaborations between researchers and practitioners across the sectors (public, private, and NGOs) can better contribute across the domains to create an ‘evidence base’ for qualitative improvements of future projects and programs in Bangladesh. The major suggestion that came up in the discussion includes creating a joint fund for developing human capital and accelerating innovation where NBRJ researchers can better contribute to the path of ongoing Bangladesh development journey from a lower middle-income country to an upper middle-income country by 2031, and an advanced country by 2041. The Panel discussion was organized and moderated by Dr. Mohammad Abdul Malek, Associate Professor of Development Economics and South/Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Tsukuba, and the founding Coordinator for NBRJ.
This year, the committee received 41 abstracts from universities and research institutes in Japan and Bangladesh representing cutting-edge results from different research fields. In the end, 26 presentations were presented in a two-day program, and several presentations were nominated for awards based on the votes from the conference committee members and session chairs. While the best presentation and special presentation went, respectively to Dr. Sadequl Islam, Nagoya City University, and Dr. Shofiqur Rahman, Immunology Research Institute in Gifu, the young presentation awards went to Kazi Faiz Alam, University of Tsukuba, Raul R. Rodriguez, Kyoto University, and Forhad Hossain, Kyushu University.
The NBRJ-JBRP 2023 committee members included Dr. Khandakar Mizanur Rahman, Nanzan University as General Chair, Dr. Mohammad Abdul Malek, University of Tsukuba and Dr. Mahfuzul Islam, Kyoto University respectively as Technical Program Co-Chairs, Dr. Mehadi Aman, Sharp Corporation, Dr. Shamim Jubair Ahmed, The University of Tokyo and Dr. Tania Afroj, Kobe University, respectively as Organizing Committee Co-Chairs, and Dr. Saad Khan, Santec Corporation as Local Arrangement Chair. The two-day conference sponsored by NBRJ, and also supported by Nanzan University, gets a good success which is the outcome of the hard work and efforts of the authors, reviewers, committee members, and session organizers/chairs.
It was also announced that the NBRJ-JBRP 2024 will be organized at the University of the Ryukyus, located in Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture of Japan, and Professor Md. Amzad Hossain will act as General Chair for the next conference.
The formal letter from the committee coordinator Professor Malek is here.
A network of Bangladeshi (origin) Researchers in Japan (NBRJ), with about 60 members of faculties and researchers of Bangladeshi (origin) working in Japanese universities, research institutes, and industries, was formally kicked off by its first in-person flagship annual event, multidisciplinary research workshop at 50 years of Bangladesh, in Tokyo International Forum, Tokyo on 12 August 2022. The network was initiated earlier by a zoom-based network meeting on 12 March 2021 during the Covid 19 pandemic.
The NBRJ sets a vision to be known as the leading research and policy advocacy group in Japan with interdisciplinary research skills dedicated to informing and leveraging the development of Bangladesh through promoting Japan-Bangladesh scientific and development cooperation, intellectual engagement, and policy advocacy. We gradually envision symbiosis (共生) and coexistence (共存) with Japanese researchers and research bodies that have similar interests and goals.
At its annual event, the general meeting with about 30 members is organized, and a working committee is formed and planned to formulate its bylaws, complete society registration, and like. It is also planned that the second annual flagship workshop will be held in August 2023 at Nanzan University, Nagoya, to be chaired by Professor Khondakar Mizanur Rahman.
In its first multidisciplinary workshop, about 18 papers on Bangladesh issues were presented in four major disciplines, namely 1) Business, Humanities, and Social Science, 2) Agricultural Science, 3) Medical, Pharmaceuticals, and Public Health, and 4) Natural Sciences, Engineering, and ICT. In addition, a workshop proceeding compiling all abstracts is published, and a book with extended abstracts has been planned for wider circulation and dissemination. Professor Sharifu Ura at Kitami Institute of Technology chaired the 2022 multidisciplinary research workshop.
The two days event was formally concluded by the Ambassador of Bangladesh to Japan, H.E. Mr. Sahabuddin Ahmed.
The final paper on system of rice intensification (RCT with BRAC Bangladesh) finally got published in Am J of Agr Econ by Christopher B. Barrette (Connell University), Asad Islam (Monash University), Abdul Malek (University of Tsukuba), Deb Pakrashi Pakrashi (IIT, Kanpur) and Ummul Ruthbah (Monash University). Our results may help settle intense debates around SRI as a tool for boosting rice productivity and rice farmers’ well-being in the Global South.
For the paper, you may access here:
A research group from Kyoto University led by Mahfuzul Islam developed a novel statistical parameter extraction technique that will help LSI (Large Scale Integration) circuit designers to accurately predict their chip performances.
Kensuke Murakami, Mahfuzul Islam, and Hidetoshi Onodera, “CDF Distance Based Statistical Parameter Extraction Using Nonlinear Delay Variation Models,” in 27th IEEE International Symposium on On-Line Testing and Robust System Design (IOLTS), June 2021.
Statistical parameter extraction is a technique to estimate the distributions of underlying physical parameters from a set of distributions of the observed parameters. For example, in the case of a MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) transistor, the observable parameter is its drain current. However, the drain current of a MOS transistor is determined by many physical parameters such as the channel doping density, gate length, oxide thickness, work functions, and so on. The problem is that these parameters are statistical and thus the chip performance also becomes statistical. Estimation of chip’s performance, therefore, refer to estimating the distribution of the chip performance and calculating the worst-case value under certain probability. Thus, it is essential to have accurate statistical models of the physical parameters and simulate the circuit with the accurate models.
Estimation of the distributions of the physical parameters is challenging simply because we cannot measure them directly. We have to calculate their distributions from the distributions of the observable parameters, for example the current or frequency. State-of-the-art extraction techniques, that are often based on simple linear models, worked well under limited scenarios. These techniques also assume that the physical parameters follow normal distributions. However, with the advancement of CMOS technology, we encounter with new phenomena of noise and variation that the assumption of normal distribution does not hold anymore. As a result, there was a need for a new technique that can work with any distributions as well as with nonlinear models. This paper utilizes the concept of comparing two distributions using CDF (Cumulative Distribution Function) distance. We have defined a new CDF distance concept to help converge the extraction process quickly. The work is still ongoing. In the future, we expect the presented technique to be incorporated into the commercial simulation tools.
Please find the following PDF file to know the story of Dr. Bishnu Kumar Adhikary.
On the 3rd of April, NBRJ held its first webinar. Our first guest speaker was Dr. Nazmul Ahsan of the University of Tokyo. Dr. Nazmul is a Research Associate Professor, Department of New Energy, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo. In 2020, he was named ‘Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (FIAAM, Sweden)’ to contribute to the “Advancement of Materials”. The title of his talk was “Breeding my research life – facing the dilemmas.” I had the privilege to moderate this talk. Dr. Nazmul touched on several vital points in his speech, especially for the young and early career researchers. I am giving some highlights of his address below.
Dr. Nazmul emphasized the importance of being part of your professional network to succeed in an academic career. Often, you enter your professional network through your supervisor. Conversely, your supervisor will naturally try to increase his influence in the network by establishing his students as much as possible. Therefore, Dr. Nazmul suggested using your supervisor to your advantage in a good way. Make good relationships with your supervisor and earn his trust. Make a good team and try to learn to make effective communication with him.
Dr. Nazmul then suggested having a mentor who can guide us throughout our careers. Therefore, you should choose a mentor as early as possible. Your mentor needs not be your supervisor or someone from your research field. Instead, it is better to have a mentor from outside of your research area. This way, your mentor can give you feedbacks objectively.
Dr. Nazmul then focused on the importance of obtaining competitive research funds, such as the JSPS research grants, to establish himself as an independent researcher. We need to know the rules and guidelines beforehand and write the proposal according to the guidelines. A crucial point for a proposal is to illustrate your ideas using visuals rather than texts.
One fantastic story we got to learn is that Dr. Nazmul once quit his Ph.D. There were many reasons behind his decision. Among them, the one reason that got my attention was he found it difficult to make sense of the data from his experiments. After spending some years in his own company, he came to realize the meaning of the data, and then he thought of giving it another shot. He came back to resume his Ph.D. and successfully earned his Ph.D. This story should encourage many Ph.D. students and early career researchers to persevere with his research. If necessary, one may take some time off, but we learned that perseverance could give you excellent results in the end. Dr. Nazmul also demonstrated his prowess in not only experiment design but also in theoretically evaluating different materials. As a result of his excellency, he could develop a solution for increasing the efficiency of solar cells much higher than the existing ones.
As you can guess, the whole talk and the following Q&A session were so vibrant and exciting that we had to extend the original time slot. In the end, we had to end the session forcefully, although we could have continued as long as we could without any sign of fatigue in the audience. Such was the depth and weight of this speech. We were mesmerized.
Finally, on behalf of the NBRJ, I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Nazmul for giving us an excellent and timely speech. We are looking forward to having Dr. Nazmul again in the future to hear his other stories. With this, I conclude this summary. I wish for the continuous development of NBRJ and all members.
MAHFUZUL ISLAM
JUNIOR ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
KYOTO UNIVERSITY
Network of Bangladeshi Researchers in Japan 