Metofluthrin (SumiOne^®, Eminence^®) is an exciting novel pyrethroid discovered by Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. It was registered in Japan in January 2005 and has now been under worldwide development for environmental health use. Metofluthrin has extremely high knockdown activity against various insect pests especially mosquitoes, as well as relatively high volatility and low mammalian toxicity. This is applicable to not only existing formulations and devices such as a mosquito coil and a liquid vaporizer, but also various new type products such as a fan vaporizer, a paper emanator and a resin emanator. It is noted that knockdown activity of Metofluthrin is more than 40 times higher than that of d-allethrin against southern house mosquitoes in a mosquito coil formulation. This paper describes the discovery story, insecticidal efficacies in various formulations, synthetic methods and safety evaluations of Metofluthrin.
(by Noritada MATSUO,Kazuya UJIHARA,Yoshinori SHONO,Tomonori IWASAKI,Masayo SUGANO,Tomonori YOSHIYAMA,Satoshi UWAGAWA )

Amrubicin is a completely synthetic anthracycline derivative. In contrast, however, the anthracyclines used clinically thus far have been produced by fermentation or semisynthesis. Amrubicin is structurally distinguishable from other anthracyclines by the amino group at the 9-position and its unique sugar moiety. In April 2002, Amrubicin was approved in Japan for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer.
(by Toshihiro NOGUCHI,Mitsuharu HANADA,Takashi YAMAOKA,Shinya MORISADA,Shinji ICHII )

We are developing novel synthetic methods of pharmaceutical intermediates aiming at construction of optically active tertiary alcohols. Now, we have found that the tetrasubstituted carbon center was easily constructed by the L-proline catalyzed direct asymmetric aldol reaction between cyclohexanone and ethyl phenylglyoxylate, which gave the corresponding aldol adduct in good yield with excellent diastereo- and enatioselectivity. Herein, we also report a practical synthetic route of (S)-CHPGA as a key intermediate for the preparation of (S)-Oxybutynin.
(by Tetsuya IKEMOTO,Osamu TOKUDA,Wei-Guo GAO )

High performance elastomer "Tafthren^®", which exhibit distinguished miscibility with polypropylene, has been developed by precise stereochemical and sequencial control of polyolefins with new homogeneous catalyst developed in Sumitomo chemical Co., Ltd. Many important properties of polypropylene, like flexibility, heat resistance, scratch resistance, transparency, adhesion properties and so on, could be improved remarkably by the addition of Tafthren^®, that could not be improved by the utillization of conventional olefinic elastomers or plastomers as modifiers. In addition, Tafthren^® is expected as an environmentally friendly material, because Tafthren^® is comprising from substantially same component as polypropylene, so recycle becomes easier than conventional modifier used systems. In this article, some of the practical features and practical application examples of Tafthren^® will be introduced.
(by Hirofumi JOHOJI,Hidetake HOZUMI,Tadaaki NISHIYAMA,Harunori FUJITA,Akio IMAI )

The controller performance monitoring technique, which is based on the principle of minimum variance control, can evaluate the performance of many PID controllers in a plant at a time and is applicable in online. It is important that the origins of failure are analyzed for lower performance controllers. One of them is valve failure and is identified by the proposed methods. In this article, the technology of controller performance monitoring and diagnosis is mentioned and its applications in practical chemical plants are shown.
(by Hidekazu KUGEMOTO )

To evaluate the toxicity of chemicals, sometimes the alternative methods instead of prescribed methods are very useful. As the alternative methods have their own sensitivity to distinguish chemical toxicity, we have to consider the detection principle and the sensitivity of the methods before use. Many alternative methods are developing now. It is desirable that the detection sensitivity and the results consistency between the alternative and the prescribed methods will be increased by the improvement of the methods and/or the ingenious way of using. In this review, we describe the public situation, trend, and our examination of the alternative methods to detect genotoxic, skin irritating or skin sensitizing potential of chemicals.
(by Mika OTA,Yosuke NAKAMURA,Sachiko KITAMOTO,Takashi MORIMOTO )

"Pressure Swing Adsorption" is playing a role of one of the Gas Separation Technologies to save energy consumption instead of Absorption or Distillation in the field of chemical industry. Especially this technology should be focused on "Saving Energy" which will contribute to the reduction of CO2 emission to cause Greenhouse Effect. Sumitomo Seika has improved this technology to expand its application field to promote "Saving Energy": In this paper, "Simultaneous N2/O2 Production Process" to save energy consumption is described and "Methanol Steam Reforming Hydrogen Generator" to produce lower cost hydrogen is introduced.
(by Kazuo HARUNA,Masanori MIYAKE,Hiroaki SASANO )

We report here on the "Palladium Charcoal-Catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling and Iridium-Catalyzed Aromatic C-H Borylation." In the Pd/C-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura coupling, we found that the combination of non-prereduced Pd/C and a phosphine ligand, such as PPh3, was essential for the reaction of halopyridines and haloquinolines. In the catalytic C-H borylation of arenes, we found that 2,6-diisopropyl-N- (2-pyridylmethylene) aniline acted as a good ligand. The bulkiness around the imine moiety was important for obtaining the products in high yields.
(by Mayumi NISHIDA,Tsuyoshi TAGATA )

The Personal Information Protection Act, which implements the 8 Principles of the Privacy Guidelines of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), went into full effect in April 2005. The background and requirements of the Act are outlined. Then will be explained the direction with respect to the Act for this company, which is in the business of handling personal information, each process for dealing with the "Safety Management Measures" enacted by this company referring to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's guidelines, and the "Compliance Program".
(by Hiroshi NISHIKAWA,Toshinori GOTO,Toshiko SATOMURA )

Commercial aromatic liquid-crystalline polymers (hereafter designated as LCP), are known to be unable to dissolve in any common organic solvents except for costly fluorinated reagents. Recently, Sumitomo Chemical succeeded in the development of innovative LCP solvent casting film from its varnish. The casting film exhibits not only low water absorption characteristics, low gas permeability, low dielectric loss at high frequency and high temperature tolerance originated in using LCP as a base material, but also high tear strength because of less anisotropic property in comparison to extruded LCP films. The LCP film by this casting method has many advantages to be applied for the electro devices such as flexible print circuit board, embedded circuit board and so on.
(by Satoshi OKAMOTO,Tomoya HOSODA,Shiro KATAGIRI,Shinji OOTOMO,Toyonari ITO )

The image processing technology is widely used for various production fields, for example, object recognition, visual inspection, OK/NG diagnosis and so on. Although the computer technology has advanced rapidly, to make the image processing technique fit for practical use is still extremely difficult issue because the computer does not have comprehensive discretion. The authors have developed total machine vision systems, including the illumination technique, image sensing, image processing, and production improvement techniques, for various production lines. In this paper, the key technology of machine vision is described for each developmental stage. This paper also shows several actual applications involving visual inspection, measurement system, and plant monitoring system.
(by Atsuhiko SHINODUKA,Osamu HIROSE,Takashi SUZUKI,Masaya SHIMIZU,Ichiro WASHIZAKI )

Japanese agriculture developed with the first consideration that regards on taste and convenience of consumers and met variety of their appetite. On the other hand, for the agricultural technology that has supported mass consumption, there are many problems at a point of "food safety" and "environmental conservation". Therefore new technology development for food safety assuming low resources / energy consumption is demanded recently. In this paper, we review technical thought of the covering film for high-performance horticulture, and give an outline of our action plan that survey the future market and agriculture.
(by Taiichi SAKAYA,Jinsho NAMBU,Tomoki KOJIMA )

Pyridalyl was discovered and has been under worldwide development by Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd. It was already registered in some Asian countries in 2004, including Japan. This novel insecticide exerts excellent control against various lepidopterous and thysanopterous pests on cotton and vegetables. Many existing insecticide-resistant strains of lepidopterous pests can be adequately controlled by pyridalyl as well as susceptible strains. Since pyridalyl develops quite unique insecticidal symptoms, it is considered that pyridalyl has a different mode of action from any other existing insecticides. Its excellent safety to mammals and various beneficial arthropods would provide us with an important tool in IPM (Integrated Pest Management).
(by Noriyasu SAKAMOTO,Nobuhito UEDA,Kimitoshi UMEDA,Sanshiro MATSUO,Toru HAGA,Takuo FUJISAWA,Yoshitaka TOMIGAHARA )

It is well known that injured neurons in the central nervous system have only limited capability to regenerate and recover neurological function. We identified a low molecular weight compound, SM-216289, from cultured broth of a fungus isolated from the soil of the Osaka Castle Park as a new semaphorin inhibitor. SM-216289 completely inhibits semaphorin activity at less than 1 µM in vitro. The compound could accelerate neuro-regeneration in the central nervous system in vivo. Semaphorin inhibitors may become innovative drugs to enhance nerve regeneration after spinal cord or brain injury.
(by Kazuo KUMAGAI,Kaoru KIKUCHI,Akiyoshi KISHINO,Nobuo HOSOTANI,Akira ITO,Ikutaro SAJI,Toru KIMURA )

Virtual screening, a computational method to identify bioactive compounds among a vast number of chemicals, is in use with a great expectation of saving time and cost necessary for actual screening of bioactive compounds. Virtual screening techniques can be categorized in two, namely Ligand-based Drug Design (LBDD) and Structure-based Drug Design (SBDD). Conceptually LBDD and SBDD can be complementary with each other, but have been developed and applied independently. In order to improve the current methods, we developed 'Multiple Docking' method which utilized LBDD and SBDD complementarily. In this review we describe this new method, along with a computer software system 'Xsi' developed to realize the method.
(by Kazuto YAMAZAKI,Masaharu KANAOKA )

The importance of outgassing analysis, which is the investigation method of the chemical contamination source, has been increasing in the industrial field and the environmental field. The dynamic headspace method, which accelerates the emission rate from sample by heating, is used for the outgassing analysis. The emission rate and the decrease rate of outgassing from material depend on the experiment temperature. In this study, the relationship between the outgassing behavior and the experimental temperature was examined. The modeling formulas of outgassing behavior were proposed using these examined results.
(by Tatsuo NONAKA,Noriko OKAWA,Kazutoshi OHASHI,Kikuo TAKEDA )

New library and information service facility were established on April 2003 to serve several research laboratories and works in Osaka, Kasugade Area of Sumitomo Chemical Company. On this occasion those activities distributed in individual laboratories were unified and their operation was entrusted to Sumika Technical Information Service Inc. We have renewed these facilities and their activities on the basis of our concept "Key station of information retrieval in the 21st Century" and "Place comfortable for researchers to bring forth new idea". In this paper we introduce our new organization and the activities.
(by Noriko OKA,Ayako HOMMA,Ikuo YASUNAGA,Arata HASHIZUME,Fumiko NORIMUNE )