The Muographers 2017 General Assembly, the main yearly event for the international muography community, took place at the French Embassy for Tokyo on October 2, 2017. After a full program of presentations, the day culminated in a signing ceremony between BGRM France (The French Geological Survey) and ERI that was presided over by French Higher Education, Research and Innovation Minister Frédérique Vidal, French Ambassador Laurent Pic, ERI Director Kazushige Obara and BRGM Deputy CEO Pierre Toulhoat. This conference was included as part of the French-Japanese Week on Disaster Risk Reduction and a reception at the Ambassador’s residence followed the signing ceremony.
After the opening remarks by Cédric Guillerme, Attaché for Science and Technology, and a general overview by Tanaka, researchers from Japan, Europe and Canada gave presentations on muography topics.
In the first session, Andrea Giammanco (Professor, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium) and Cristiano Bozza (Board Member of Physics Department of the University of Salerno, Italy) discussed the European Muography Network Inititative and Virtual Muography Institute, emphasizing network and international cooperation. Then Carline Danirovic (Chargée de coopération internationale, CNRS, France) and Matthieu Py, (EURAXESS Japan Representative, European Union) discussed specific European funding options. Cristina Carloganu (Chargée de Recherche, CNRS, France) and Laszlo Olah (Project Researcher, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo) reviewed recent studies of volcanoes in France and Japan during the next session. Then two historic architecture projects were discussed: the METROPOLIS Muography Project presented by Luigi Cimmino (Project Researcher, INFN, Italy) and the ScanPyramid Muography Projects by Kunihiro Morishima (Assistant Professor, Nagoya University, Nagoya) and Simon Bouteille (Project Researcher, IRIS Instruments, France). Recently, as part of an effort to educate the general public, designers, painters, sculptors, musicians and other creative professionals have been creating art inspired by muography. Four presentations were given by experts on this subject: the recent Kansai University exhibits were discussed by Takefumi Hayashi (Professor and Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Informatics, Kansai University, Osaka), an augmented reality project for a muography exhibit at Osaka Science Museum was explained by Tomohiro Tanikawa (Associate Professor, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo), the efforts of the art@cms program, part of the CMS experiment at CERN, was reviewed by Michael Hoch (Program Leader of art@cms, European Union) and Federico Iacobucci (Maestro and Composer, Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, Italy) discussed the upcoming Muography Symphony Project. The 5th session concentrated on natural resource exploration. Lee Thompson (Professor and Head of Undergraduate Admissions, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom) discussed the CCS Muography Project and Ignacio Lazarro Roche (Project Researcher, The University of Nice, France) shared recent results from the TD2M2 Muography Project. Industrial muography projects, mineral and petroleum exploration, were reviewed by Doug Schouten (Chief Technology Officer, CRM GeoTomography Technologies, Inc., Canada) and Susumu Abe (General Manager, Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (JAPEX). During the last session, technical developments in academic and industrial muography projects worldwide were discussed. Talks were: “The REGARD Muography Project” by Dezso Varga (Group Leader, Wigner Research Centre for Physics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary), “Muography for A Future Mars Mission” by Peng Hong (Project Researcher, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo), “Muography Projects at Kyushu University” by Tadahiro Kin ( Assistant Professor, Kyushu University, Fukuoka), and “Muography Projects at NEC” by Shinichi Miyamoto (Senior Expert, NEC, Tokyo). Following this was the poster and discussion session and then the welcome address of Frédérique Vidal (Minister for higher education, research and innovation) preceding the signing ceremony.
The support of the Science and Technology department of the French Embassy was essential to the success of this event, particularly the efforts of Pierre Feuardant and Sébastien Codina.
During the final day of Muographers 2017, there was a Workshop at the Prince Hotel, Tokyo to give researchers the opportunity for more in depth discussions of these topics.