In shops, shrines, homes and gardens throughout Japan, at noisy festivals and in the most serene teahouses, you are likely to encounter the plump, smiling image of Otafuku--a mythic figure from Japan's distant past. With her twinkling eyes and rosy lips, she appears in countless incarnations: on banners, cups and bowls, and in craft, furniture, painting and sculpture. Who is this warm, wonderful lady, whose gentle and calming presence is felt everywhere in Japan? In Otafuku, renowned author Amy Katoh explores in her own inimitable way the colorful world of Otafuku. Katoh traces Otafuku's roots and folk beginnings, showing her many delightful identities, and providing a magical glimpse into this charming and little-known corner of Japanese culture. With a mixture of poems, photographs, anecdotes and stories, she presents a veritable jewel box of surprises that is sure to enchant readers. Today Otafuku is Japan's most influential female icon and is attributed with having many bestowing powers including health, pleasure, success, and the granting of wishes.

The main objective of the book is to highlight the modeling of magnetic particles with different shapes and magnetic properties, to provide graduate students and young researchers information on the theoretical aspects and actual techniques for the treatment of magnetic particles in particle-based simulations. In simulation, we focus on the Monte Carlo, molecular dynamics, Brownian dynamics, lattice Boltzmann and stochastic rotation dynamics (multi-particle collision dynamics) methods. The latter two simulation methods can simulate both the particle motion and the ambient flow field simultaneously. In general, specialized knowledge can only be obtained in an effective manner under the supervision of an expert. The present book is written to play such a role for readers who wish to develop the skill of modeling magnetic particles and develop a computer simulation program using their own ability. This book is therefore a self-learning book for graduate students and young researchers. Armed with this knowledge, readers are expected to be able to sufficiently enhance their skill for tackling any challenging problems they may encounter in future.

Over the past few decades, Japan has faced severe earthquake disasters, an increasing aging population, declining birth rates, and widening social disparities. These issues have served to highlight gaps left by top-down governance approaches and the urgent need to create resilient societies using more traditional models. Japanese "machizukuri" has developed to become an exceptional example of bottom-up creative approaches based on collective action and use of local resources. Since its evolution in the 1960s, machizukuri has come to define diverse and creative community-driven management models, by which local communities are enabled to actively tackle problem-solving. Including contributions from experts directly engaged in the process, this book explores the original development of machizukuri in Japan, its diffusion through East Asia and the positive outcomes of this transfer. Combining theoretical explanations with practical case studies, from pre-disaster planning in Tokyo, to the revitalization of historic towns and rural areas around Japan, the book looks at specific solutions, tools, and links between academics, communities, organizations, governmental bodies, and the private sector. It will appeal to researchers in planning, community engagement, architecture, urban design, and sustainable development.

The Japanese phrase "hodo-hodo" originates in ancient times. When contemporary designer Taku Satoh applies it to his work, it means "just enough." Hodo-hodo design deliberately holds back, leaving room for individuals to engage with objects according to their unique sensibilities. In the midst of a consumerist age, Satoh has built an illustrious design career around this philosophy, creating iconic work in fashion, food, and architecture. His ideas speak not just to professional designers, but to anyone who wishes to move more thoughtfully through the world. Within this slim but powerful volume, Satoh explains his philosphy through tangible examples-from the aesthetic of a timeworn ramen shop to a rooftop playground inspired by onomatopaeia. Urging readers to appreciate everyday objects and spaces and to question the lure of convenience, he delivers a message rooted in the past yet perfectly suited to our times.

Over the past few decades, Japan has faced severe earthquake disasters, an increasing aging population, declining birth rates, and widening social disparities. These issues have served to highlight gaps left by top-down governance approaches and the urgent need to create resilient societies using more traditional models. Japanese "machizukuri" has developed to become an exceptional example of bottom-up creative approaches based on collective action and use of local resources. Since its evolution in the 1960s, machizukuri has come to define diverse and creative community-driven management models, by which local communities are enabled to actively tackle problem-solving. Including contributions from experts directly engaged in the process, this book explores the original development of machizukuri in Japan, its diffusion through East Asia and the positive outcomes of this transfer. Combining theoretical explanations with practical case studies, from pre-disaster planning in Tokyo, to the revitalization of historic towns and rural areas around Japan, the book looks at specific solutions, tools, and links between academics, communities, organizations, governmental bodies, and the private sector. It will appeal to researchers in planning, community engagement, architecture, urban design, and sustainable development.

This book examines the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute between Japan and China and the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between Japan and Korea, in order to offer new perspectives on the possible approaches towards amelioration and resolution of these conflicts. Japan's Island Troubles with China and Korea addresses the prospects of and challenges to achieving resolutions in the island disputes, rather than focusing solely on the origins and the political roles they play in the domestic politics of the three nations. Furthermore, in taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book transcends existing studies, which focus on the domestic contexts of the disputes, and therefore avoids the pitfalls of nationalistic narratives. Instead, this book fills a theoretical and methodological lacuna in the academic literature, exploring how the islands could become a point of co-operation, rather than contention. Providing a fresh examination of Japan's relations with its two closest neighbours, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of Asian politics and international relations, security studies, and Asia-Pacific studies more generally.

This book examines the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute between Japan and China and the Dokdo/Takeshima dispute between Japan and Korea, in order to offer new perspectives on the possible approaches towards amelioration and resolution of these conflicts. Japan's Island Troubles with China and Korea addresses the prospects of and challenges to achieving resolutions in the island disputes, rather than focusing solely on the origins and the political roles they play in the domestic politics of the three nations. Furthermore, in taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book transcends existing studies, which focus on the domestic contexts of the disputes, and therefore avoids the pitfalls of nationalistic narratives. Instead, this book fills a theoretical and methodological lacuna in the academic literature, exploring how the islands could become a point of co-operation, rather than contention. Providing a fresh examination of Japan's relations with its two closest neighbours, this book will be invaluable to students and scholars of Asian politics and international relations, security studies, and Asia-Pacific studies more generally.

The main objective of the book is to highlight the modeling of magnetic particles with different shapes and magnetic properties, to provide graduate students and young researchers information on the theoretical aspects and actual techniques for the treatment of magnetic particles in particle-based simulations. In simulation, we focus on the Monte Carlo, molecular dynamics, Brownian dynamics, lattice Boltzmann and stochastic rotation dynamics (multi-particle collision dynamics) methods. The latter two simulation methods can simulate both the particle motion and the ambient flow field simultaneously. In general, specialized knowledge can only be obtained in an effective manner under the supervision of an expert. The present book is written to play such a role for readers who wish to develop the skill of modeling magnetic particles and develop a computer simulation program using their own ability. This book is therefore a self-learning book for graduate students and young researchers. Armed with this knowledge, readers are expected to be able to sufficiently enhance their skill for tackling any challenging problems they may encounter in future.

This edited book brings together studies on different aspects of marginalization in Japanese, creating a framework for studying marginalization which can also be applied in other linguistic and international contexts. The chapters in this book look at both marginalization of others and self-marginalization, examining the pragmatic strategies used to achieve marginalization, and investigating situations where it acts as an agentive tactic of speakers, in addition to a strategy of broader social structures. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and East Asian languages and cultures.

This edited book brings together studies on different aspects of marginalization in Japanese, creating a framework for studying marginalization which can also be applied in other linguistic and international contexts. The chapters in this book look at both marginalization of others and self-marginalization, examining the pragmatic strategies used to achieve marginalization, and investigating situations where it acts as an agentive tactic of speakers, in addition to a strategy of broader social structures. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and East Asian languages and cultures.

The Venus Express spacecraft, which was launched in November 2005 and ceased activity in December 2014, has brought about a new wealth of data on Venus's atmosphere, surface, and space environment. Following the completion of this landmark mission, an overview of the current state of scientific understanding of Venus has been assembled into a single collection. The ten papers in this book, written by an international team of specialists, are the products of this effort. They review our knowledge of Venus's interior structure, surface composition, and atmosphere in terms of thermal structure, dynamics, composition, chemistry, clouds, aeronomy, and interaction with the solar wind. Additionally, they identify the questions and measurements that remain open for study in ongoing and future research and exploration efforts. The resulting volume is primarily intended for students and researchers of planetary science. This book is a follow-up to the pioneering book Venus, published in 1983, and its successor volume Venus II, published in 1997, stood at their respective times as the most authoritative single-volume works available on the planet. Originally published in Space Science Reviews in the Topical Collection "Venus III"

This book targets the issue of water scarcity in Egypt as a typical example of the world water crisis. Today, the available water resource is facing its limit because of rapid increase in water demand as a result of population growth and changes in peoples' life-style. The basic idea to solve the problem of water scarcity is that the irrigation sector, the biggest user of water, should increase water use efficiency. However, the real problem is how this can be achieved in view of the crucial need for water in this sector. This book addresses this challenge through case studies from the Nile delta in Egypt. The water problem in the Nile delta, the major source for water in Egypt, is discussed in this book from all its various aspects. This book covers the situation before and after the advent of the Aswan High Dam, so that the reader understands the entire development. Another special feature are the extensive and scientific descriptions of contemporary topics in water and agriculture, especially from the viewpoint of water saving and sustainability. These descriptions are based on field experiments and surveys in a six-year international research project. Topics of this book are local, but their implications are global.

This book constitutes extended, revised, and selected papers from the JSAI annual conference, JSAI 2022, and the 14th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, JSAI-isAI 2022, held in Kyoto, Japan, in June 2022. The 18 full papers were carefully selected from 67 submissions and presented during the two events: 16th International Workshop on Juris-informatics, JURISIN 2022, and JSAI 2022 Intenational Session. This papers present discussion on fundamental and practical issues in Juris-informatics among researchers from various backgrounds such as law, social science, information and intelligent technology, logic, and philosophy, including the conventional AI and Law area. 

This book targets the issue of water scarcity in Egypt as a typical example of the world water crisis. Today, the available water resource is facing its limit because of rapid increase in water demand as a result of population growth and changes in peoples' life-style. The basic idea to solve the problem of water scarcity is that the irrigation sector, the biggest user of water, should increase water use efficiency. However, the real problem is how this can be achieved in view of the crucial need for water in this sector. This book addresses this challenge through case studies from the Nile delta in Egypt. The water problem in the Nile delta, the major source for water in Egypt, is discussed in this book from all its various aspects. This book covers the situation before and after the advent of the Aswan High Dam, so that the reader understands the entire development. Another special feature are the extensive and scientific descriptions of contemporary topics in water and agriculture, especially from the viewpoint of water saving and sustainability. These descriptions are based on field experiments and surveys in a six-year international research project. Topics of this book are local, but their implications are global.

The two-volume set LNCS 10132 and 10133 constitutes the thoroughly refereed proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Multimedia Modeling, MMM 2017, held in Reykjavik, Iceland, in January 2017. Of the 149 full papers submitted, 36 were selected for oral presentation and 33 for poster presentation; of the 34 special session papers submitted, 24 were selected for oral presentation and 2 for poster presentation; in addition, 5 demonstrations were accepted from 8 submissions, and all 7 submissions to VBS 2017. All papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 198 submissions. MMM is a leading international conference for researchers and industry practitioners for sharing new ideas, original research results and practical development experiences from all MMM related areas, broadly falling into three categories: multimedia content analysis; multimedia signal processing and communications; and multimedia applications and services.

General circulation models (GCMs), which define the fundamental dynamics of atmospheric circulation, are nowadays used in various fields of atmospheric science such as weather forecasting, climate predictions and environmental estimations. The Second Edition of this renowned work has been updated to include recent progress of high resolution global modeling. It also contains for the first time aspects of high-resolution global non-hydrostatic models that the author has been studying since the publication of the first edition. Some highlighted results from the Non-hydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) are also included. The author outlines the theoretical concepts, simple models and numerical methods for modeling the general circulation of the atmosphere. Concentrating on the physical mechanisms responsible for the development of large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, the book offers comprehensive coverage of an important and rapidly developing technique used in the atmospheric science. Dynamic interpretations of the atmospheric structure and their aspects in the general circulation model are described step by step.

General circulation models (GCMs), which define the fundamental dynamics of atmospheric circulation, are nowadays used in various fields of atmospheric science such as weather forecasting, climate predictions and environmental estimations. The Second Edition of this renowned work has been updated to include recent progress of high resolution global modeling. It also contains for the first time aspects of high-resolution global non-hydrostatic models that the author has been studying since the publication of the first edition. Some highlighted results from the Non-hydrostatic ICosahedral Atmospheric Model (NICAM) are also included. The author outlines the theoretical concepts, simple models and numerical methods for modeling the general circulation of the atmosphere. Concentrating on the physical mechanisms responsible for the development of large-scale circulation of the atmosphere, the book offers comprehensive coverage of an important and rapidly developing technique used in the atmospheric science. Dynamic interpretations of the atmospheric structure and their aspects in the general circulation model are described step by step.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of four workshops held as satellite events of the JSAI International Symposia on Artificial Intelligence 2011, in Takamatsu, Japan, in December 2011. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous papers. The papers are organized in four sections according to the four workshops: Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics (LENLS), Juris-Informatics (JURISIN), Algorithms for Large-Scale Information Processing in Knowledge Discovery (ALSIP), and Multimodality in Multispace Interaction (MiMI).

This book presents the most important and main concepts of the molecular and microsimulation techniques. It enables readers to improve their skills in developing simulation programs by providing physical problems and sample simulation programs for them to use.

Multi-agent systems are communities of problem-solving entities that can exhibit varying degrees of intelligence. They can perceive and react to their environment, they can have individual or joint goals, for which they can plan and execute actions. Work on such systems integrates many technologies and concepts in - ti?cial intelligence and other areas of computing as well as other disciplines. The agent paradigm has become widely popular and widely used in recent years, due to its applicability to a large range of domains, from search engines to edu- tional aids to electronic commerce and trade, e-procurement, recommendation systems, simulation and routing, and ambient intelligence, to cite only some. Computational logic provides a well-de?ned, general, and rigorous framework for studying syntax, semantics, and procedures for various capabilities and fu- tionalities of individual agents, as well as interaction amongst agents in multi-agent systems. It also provides a well-de?ned and rigorous framework for implemen- tions, environments, tools, and standards, and for linking together speci?cation and veri?cation of properties of individual agents and multi-agent systems. The CLIMA workshop series was founded to provide a forum for discussing, presenting, and promoting computational logic-based approaches in the design, development, analysis, and application of multi-agent systems.

The technology of arti?cial intelligence is increasing its importance thanks to the rapid growth of the Internet and computer technology. In Japan, the annual conference series of JSAI (The Japanese Society for Arti?cial Intelligence) has been playing a leading role in promoting AI research, and selected papers of the annual conferences have been published in the LNAI series since 2003. This book consists of award papers from the 21st annual conference of JSAI (JSAI 2007) and selected papers from the four co-located workshops. Seven papers were awarded among more than 335 presentations in the conference and 24 papers were selected from a total of 48 presentations in the co-located workshops: Logic and Engineering of Natural Language Semantics 2007 (LENLS 2007), the International Workshop on Risk Informatics (RI 2007), the 5th Wo- shop on Learning with Logics and Logics for Learning (LLLL 2007), and the 1st International Workshop on Juris-informatics (JURISIN 2007). The award papers from JSAI 2007 underwent a rigorous selection process. Firstly, recommendations were made from three people (Session Chair, session commentator and one PC member) in each session, and then recommended - pers were carefully reviewed and voted for by PC members for ?nal selection.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the 11th Asian Computing Science Conference, ASIAN 2006, held in Tokyo, Japan, in December 2006.

The 17 revised full papers and 8 revised short papers presented together with 1 invited paper were carefully selected during two rounds of reviewing and revision from 115 submissions. The papers cover all aspects of theory, practice, applications, and experiences related to secure software and feature new ways to apply theoretical and practical techniques in secure software analysis, design, development, and operation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th International Multimedia Modeling Conference, MMM 2007, held in Kyoto, Japan, in January 2007. The 23 revised full papers and 24 revised poster papers were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 130 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections that include material on media understanding, creative media, visual content representation, and video codecs, as well as media retrieval, audio and music.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Ubiquitous Computing Systems, UCS 2007, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2007.

The 16 revised full papers and 8 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 96 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on security and privacy, context awareness, sensing systems and sensor network, middleware, modeling and social aspects, smart devices, and network.

Welcome to the proceedings of the 5th Paci?c Rim Conference on Multimedia (PCM 2004) held in Tokyo Waterfront City, Japan, November 30-December 3, 2004. Following the success of the preceding conferences, PCM 2000 in Sydney, PCM 2001 in Beijing, PCM 2002 in Hsinchu, and PCM 2003 in Singapore, the ?fth PCM brought together the researchers, developers, practitioners, and educators in the ?eld of multimedia. Theoretical breakthroughs and practical systems were presented at this conference, thanks to the support of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, IEEE Region 10 and IEEE Japan Council, ACM SIGMM, IEICE and ITE. PCM2004featuredacomprehensiveprogramincludingkeynotetalks, regular paperpresentations, posters, demos, andspecialsessions.Wereceived385papers andthenumberofsubmissionswasthelargestamongrecentPCMs.Amongsuch a large number of submissions, we accepted only 94 oral presentations and 176 poster presentations. Seven special sessions were also organized by world-leading researchers. We kindly acknowledge the great support provided in the reviewing of submissions by the program committee members, as well as the additional reviewers who generously gave their time. The many useful comments provided by the reviewing process must have been very valuable for the authors' work. Thisconferencewouldneverhavehappenedwithoutthehelpofmanypeople. We greatly appreciate the support of our strong organizing committee chairs and advisory chairs. Among the chairs, special thanks go to Dr. Ichiro Ide and Dr. Takeshi Naemura who smoothly handled publication of the proceedings with Springer. Dr. Kazuya Kodama did a fabulous job as our Web master.