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Electro‐magnetic stirrers, applied to the mold of a continuous caster, induces electromagnetic forces that influence the steel flow pattern modifying the casting parameters. The steel quality has been highly improved by the application of this magneto‐hydro‐dynamic (MHD) technique. Anyway, the complexity of the MHD interaction made difficult the complete comprehension of the factors that contribute to eliminate the defects due to the inclusions in the cast products. The optimization of the MHD techniques is still the object of a large research effort, which utilizes both experimental activity and numerical simulation. In this paper, the numerical simulation of the 2D flow pattern of the molten steel in a mold for billets has been done. The attention is focused on the gradient of the velocity of the molten steel near the wall and on the effects that the gradient change determines on the inclusions, which are present in the metallic pool. Actually the increase of the velocity gradient corresponds to the increase of the forces that can clean the solidifying shell from the inclusions.

Minamata disease was first officially recognized in May 1956. Its earliest victims were small children. Environmental contamination most rapidly and seriously affected the physiologically weak among the residents. However, the outbreak of the disease in humans was preceded by abnormalities in the natural environment such as massive death of fish and shellfish, and the abnormal behavior and death of cats. It used to be considered that poisoning was caused by direct exposure to a toxic substance, and that toxic substances did not pass the placenta. Minamata disease is an indirect poisoning by methyl mercury through the food chain as a result of environmental contamination, and is the first known disease to cause abnomalities in the fetus due to a toxic agent passing through the placenta. Minamata disease, therefore, had implications in various fields. Namely it also stirred up legal, ethical, and eugenic arguments concerning fetal protection. This report reviews the course of Minamata disease, and evaluates its impacts. “Minamata Studies” has three intellectual and scientific missions to change the social systems that caused the disease; to pursue environmental justice; and to explore the possibility of an environment that permits coexistence not only of all humans, but of all living things.

Management practices in Japan differ from those prevalent in the West partly because of different cultural assumptions regarding the basic character of humanity itself. Whereas opinion in Western tradition tends to favour the pessimistic assumption, Japanese tradition (as represented, particularly, by Confucianism) has always held man′s nature to be intrinsically good. Confucian ideology has been gradually absorbed into business management, and various well‐known features of Japanese management such as emphasis on personal relations, informal superior‐subordinate ties, consensus oriented decision making, and life‐time employment derive from the notion of the individual′s intrinsic virtuousness.