Japanese culture is inscrutable-but then, so is American culture seen from the viewpoint of the Japanese. As Hayashi and Kuroda make clear, the problem is one of perspective. Neither is really an enigma if the viewer can free him- or herself from the mother culture and look at the other culture from within its own context. Along the way, the authors answer many questions about Japan from the never-ending nature of its trade disputes to the reasons for the misconceptions of many Western writers. The authors challenge those who think every culture perceives, thinks, and expresses alike. They also challenge those who believe that Japanese culture has changed significantly in recent years. Hayashi and Kuroda look at ancient poems and 7th-century documents as well as the writings of Japan's Nobel laureate, Oe, to show that the essence of Japanese culture remains unchanged. By examining the use of language as well as analyzing modern statistical data, Hayashi and Kuroda show how the Japanese concept of self is indistinct and how the Japanese live in a mental world of multiple truths. Along the way the authors provide new interpretations and insights that are invaluable to all students of Japan, from policy makers to poets and painters.

This is the proceedings of the Fifth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies held in Kobe, Japan, on March 27-30, 1996: The astounding increase in computer usage over the past decade and the ever-increasing scope of global communication networks have ushered in the information age; however, human intelligence is required to make sense of this sea of data and to use it effectively. Consequently, the rapidly developing cross-disciplinary field of data science has come of age. This volume contains selected papers from the Fifth Conference of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS-96), held in Kobe, Japan, in March 1996. A wide range of topics is covered, including theoretical and methodological advances relating to data gathering, classification and clustering, exploratory and multivariate data analysis, and knowledge seeking and discovery. A broad view of the state of the art is presented, making this an essential work not only for data analysts, mathematicians, and statisticians but also for researchers involved in data processing at all stages from data gathering to decision making.