1. Name:
   Peng Xue, Yuanyuan Wu, Zhengyang Zhu, Qiujun Wang
2. Faculty/Graduate School, Department (Stream / Program) / Major:
   Department of Systems Innovation, D2, D3, M2, M2
3. Name of award and short explanation about the award:
   The Society of Advanced Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Student Bridge Contest World Championship is an annual competition for lightweight bridges made of fiber-reinforced composites and is divided into eight categories based on the type of reinforcing fiber and bridge shape. The University of Tokyo team won the 2023 competition in Category B (hollow rectangular cross-section bridge using carbon fiber). This is the second year in a row that our laboratory has won.
4. About awarded research:
   The winning team of the Japan competition is sent to this world competition as the representative of Japan. Takahashi-Wan Laboratory had won the Japan competition for the past four consecutive years and the world competition for the last year. After the optimal structural design by FEM utilizing the anisotropic properties of carbon fiber, we repeated the molding and evaluation tests by hand many times and entered the world competition with our best bridge, which was estimated to have the smallest strength variation based on appearance and sound diagnosis.
5. Your impression & future plan:
   We are very honored to receive this award. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the members of our laboratory for making it possible for us to receive this award. We did the best we could do at the moment, but we feel fortunate to have won against world-class universities which are regular winners of this award. We gained valuable insights and advice from the interaction with these universities, and we will continue to improve our design and molding techniques to pass them on to the younger members of our laboratory.

Tatsuki Yotsushima (M2, Kawasaki lab) won Logistics Research Encouragement Award at the Japan Logistics Society.

〈Name of award and short explanation about the award〉
The Logistics Research Encouragement Award, awarded by the Japan Logistics Society, is given to outstanding young logistics researchers who have achieved particularly outstanding results enrolled in educational and research institutions to which at least three regular members of the Japan Logistics Society belong.

〈About awarded research〉
This study developed a time-series supply chain network (SCN) using global inter-firm transaction data and clarifies the robustness and structural characteristics of the SCN. Besides, robustness of the network to various risk events and the aspects of functional deterioration were identified. We also found the conditions to enhance the functional sustainability of supply chain, and contributed to the formulation of strategies that firms should take in response to risks. As one of the risk events, we consider the US-China trade friction and analyzed a case in which all semiconductor transactions between the US and China were disrupted. In addition, we proposed a new indicator of network overlapping rate as a method for creating time-series SCNs.

〈Your impression & future plan〉
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Kawasaki and all those who supported me in receiving this award. I am proud to receive such a prestigious award in recognition of my research activities and achievements during two years in the master’s course. In the Kawasaki Lab, I have had diverse, unique, and fulfilling experiences, such as daily research activities, readings, seminars, submitting papers to journals, presentations at international conferences, and joint seminars with other universities. Although I will be leaving the university, I will continue to make efforts to contribute to society.