This paper presents an overview of the large international projects in which the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan is involved, namely, the Subaru Telescope, Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, and the Thirty Meter Telescope. The last section provides a brief historical view of the international collaboration in East Asia regions over the last 20 years.

History of Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) Following the large reservoir and water development era of the mid-twentieth century in North America, resource agencies became concerned over the loss of many miles of riverine fish and wildlife resources in the arid western United States. Consequently, several western states began issuing rules for protecting existing stream resources from future depletions caused by accelerated water development. Many assessment methods appeared during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. These techniques were based on hydrologic analysis of the water supply and hydraulic considerations of critical stream channel segments, coupled with empirical observations of habitat quality and an understanding of riverine fish ecology. Following enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970, attention was shifted from minimum flows to the evaluation of alternative designs and operations of federally funded water projects. Methods capable of quantifying the effect of incremental changes in stream flow to evaluate a series of possible alternative development schemes were needed. This need led to the development of habitat versus discharge functions developed from life stage-specific relations for selected species, that is, fish passage, spawning, and rearing habitat versus flow for trout or salmon. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, an era of small hydropower development began. Hundreds of proposed hydropower sites in the Pacific Northwest and New England regions of the United States came under intensive examination by state and federal fishery management interests. During this transition period from evaluating large federal reservoirs to evaluating license applications for small hydropower, the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) was developed under the guidance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

Short-term ingestive behavior of cattle was measured for two tropical grasses with contrasting growth forms, centipedegrass (CG; strongly prostrated) and bahiagrass (BG; more erect). Bite dimensions, bite weight and intake rate of animals increased as herbage mass increased in both grasses, showing a steeper initial increase and an earlier and lower plateau in CG than in BG. The results show that strongly prostrated grasses should be grazed when herbage mass is close to the point where the intake response plateaus, in order to maximize both quantity and quality of intake.

In order to develop the nano-sized WC powder that improved the hardness of hardmetals, carbothermal reduction of WO3 by C was examined by using the thermogravimetric analysis. At the direct carburization reaction path of , the nano-sized grain was generated at the reaction stage to and W. For trial production, the intermediate products which consists of metal and carbide phases obtained by the first heating has been carburized to the final WC powder. We succeeded in the development of the WC powder of about 70nm. In addition, the nano-sized WC powder in which the vanadium of the most effective grain growth inhibitor was uniformly dispersed was developed.

The latest scientific highlights obtained with the Subaru telescope are given together with its current status and on-going instrumentation. We have been successfully operating the telescope and 8 observatory instruments (including an adaptive optics system) since January 1999, when the first light was accomplished. Open-use of Subaru began in December 2000. Subaru has a unique capability of its prime focus among other 8-10 meter class telescopes and has an excellent imaging performance as a result of its sophisticated active optics combined with the high stability of the sky at Mauna Kea. Scientific highlights are given on the discoveries of the most distant galaxies, spiral structure on a protoplanetary disk around AB Aur, and planetesimal belts in the debris disk around β Pic. Brief summaries are given for three new instruments: the Multi-Object Infrared Camera and Spectrograph (MOIRCS), 188 element adaptive optics system, and Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS)