Human beings are adapted for group living. Groups have a wide range of adaptive functions for individuals, including both material benefits of mutual aid and collective action, and subjective psychological benefits of affiliation and social identity. Recent development of cultural psychology, however, has uncovered that culture plays crucial roles in group processes: patterns of group behavior and underlying psychological processes are shaped within specific cultural contexts, and cultures emerge in group-based interactions. Culture and Group Processes, the inaugural volume of the Frontiers of Culture and Psychology series, is the first edited book on this rapidly emerging research topic. The eleven chapters included in this volume, all authored by distinguished scientists in the field, reveal the role of culture in group perceptions, social identity, group dynamics, identity negotiation, teamwork, intergroup relations, and intergroup communication, as well as the joint effect of cultural and group processes in interpersonal trust and creativity.

Ayumi is a young man with special powers to bring back the dead to meet the living.

A gift passed down in his family, he is able to arrange meetings according to strict rules and always under a full moon. After years in this role, he begins to question its meaning, and how his powers affect his own desires in the real world. Meanwhile, he helps out five characters:

-A young film star finds resolution with the father who abandoned him, but not as he expected;
- An amateur historian is obsessed to meet a minor warlord of the sixteenth century;
-Ayumi anxiously juggles two meetings on the same evening, both have lost their daughters;
-A former cook, whose request to visit an upper-class young woman in the afterlife has been repeatedly rejected, is finally granted his wish.

Find out how Ayumi and his clients learn to lose their regrets, open up to the unexpected, and cherish what they already have in this profound and moving novel by Japan's leading storyteller.

Learn how to create beautiful and understated decorative stitching motifs. The designs feature surface and dimensional stitches and bead embroidery; with motifs inspired by nature ranging from roses, sunflowers, asters and daisies to little bumblebees, ladybugs and dragonflies. All 20 projects include step-by-step instructions and actual size templates. Learn how to make brooches, small bags and purses, cushion covers, picture frames and more. The variety of motif combinations will keep you stitching all year round.

This thesis describes the essential features of Moon-plasma interactions with a particular emphasis on the Earth's magnetotail plasma regime from both observational and theoretical standpoints. The Moon lacks a dense atmosphere as well as a strong intrinsic magnetic field. As a result, its interactions with the ambient plasma are drastically different from solar-wind interactions with magnetized planets such as Earth. The Moon encounters a wide range of plasma regime from the relatively dense, cold, supersonic solar-wind plasma to the low-density, hot, subsonic plasma in the geomagnetic tail. In this book, the author presents a series of new observations from recent lunar missions (i.e., Kaguya, ARTEMIS, and Chandrayaan-1), demonstrating the importance of the electron gyro-scale dynamics, plasma of lunar origin, and hot plasma interactions with lunar magnetic anomalies. The similarity and difference between the Moon-plasma interactions in the geomagnetic tail and those in the solar wind are discussed throughout the thesis. The basic knowledge presented in this book can be applied to plasma interactions with airless bodies throughout the solar system and beyond.

Asta is a young boy who dreams of becoming the greatest mage in the kingdom. Only one problem-he can't use any magic! Luckily for Asta, he receives the incredibly rare five-leaf clover grimoire that gives him the power of anti-magic. Can someone who can't use magic really become the Wizard King? One thing's for sure-Asta will never give up! Young Asta was born with no magic ability in a world where magic is everything. In order to prove his strength and keep a promise with his friend, Asta dreams of becoming the greatest mage in the land, the Wizard King!

Akane takes on the world of rakugo to avenge her father!

Shinta Arakawa wants nothing more than to pass his shin’uchi exam—the test that would make him a top-rank headliner and master storyteller in the traditional Japanese art of rakugo. Akane Osaki, his daughter and biggest fan, spies on him while he practices and learns his routines for herself. When rakugo master Issho Arakawa expels everyone after the exam with no explanation, a fire is lit inside Akane. From that day forth, she has had one goal—to avenge her father and prove his art was worthy of the title of shin’uchi.

Maikeru Arakawa is gearing up to be the first futatsume in the Arakawa school to take the shin’uchi exam since the big expulsion scandal that forced Akane’s father out of the rakugo world. That incident weighs heavily on all of Master Shiguma’s apprentices, but it hit Maikeru especially hard due to his close relationship with Shinta Arakawa. And worse, one of the Arakawa Arch Four, Zensho Arakawa, has it out for Maikeru due to their similar performance styles. Will Maikeru be able to gain the approval of the Arakawa Arch Four and overcome the hurdle that no one in the Arakawa school has even attempted since the scandal all those years ago, or will he face the same fate as Akane’s father?

The Food Wars! creative team cooks up a special One Piece one-shot! See what Straw Hat chef Sanji dishes up in his battle to win over the bellies and hearts of all he feeds, man or woman, friend or foe. This one-shot spinoff rolls all six original story chapters into one collection, concocted and served up to you by the creators of Food Wars!

"What's the big deal about Fermat's last theorem?" Yuri asked. "It's famous," I said. "So simple anyone can understand it, but it took centuries for mathematicians to prove it's true." * * * With a note scribbled in the margin of a book in the 1600s, Fermat set in motion centuries of effort spent unraveling this enigma. It would require 358 years and the development of entirely new fields of mathematics to provide a definitive solution to what is now recognized as one of the greatest mathematical problems of all time. In this second book in the Math Girls series, you'll join Miruka, Tetra, and new "math girl" Yuri in explorations of number theory, abstract algebra, modular arithmetic, methods of proof, and other intriguing mathematical topics, leading up to a whirlwind tour of the modern proof of Fermat's last theorem. Math Girls 2: Fermat's Last Theorem has something for anyone interested in mathematics, from advanced high school students to college math majors and educators. Praise for Math Girls ..".the type of book that might inspire teens to realize how much interesting mathematics there is in the world-not just the material that is forced upon them for some standardized test." "Recommended" -CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries "Imagine the improbable: high-school students getting together on their own - not in a Math Club or Math Circle, not in preparation for any Math Olympiad or "regular" test, not on the advice of any of their teachers, not as part of any organized program - to talk about pure math, math more interesting than the math found in their textbooks. The three students in this book do that for the sheer love of it. That to me is the beauty and fascination of this novel for young people, mostly young people interested in math." -Marion Cohen, Arcadia University, MAA Reviews "Sometimes the math goes over your head-or at least my head. But that hardly matters. The focus here is the joy of learning, which the book conveys with aplomb." -Daniel Pink, NYT and WSJ best-selling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind "if you have a...teenager who's really into math, this is a really interesting choice" -Carol Zall, Public Radio International, The World "Math Girls provides a fun and engaging way to learn and review mathematical concepts...the characters' joy as they explore and discover new and old ideas is infectious." -review, "Experiments in Manga" blog

In this thesis, the author considers quantum gravity to investigate the mysterious origin of our universe and its mechanisms. He and his collaborators have greatly improved the analyticity of two models: causal dynamical triangulations (CDT) and n-DBI gravity, with the space-time foliation which is one common factor shared by these two separate models.

In the first part, the analytic method of coupling matters to CDT in 2-dimensional toy models is proposed to uncover the underlying mechanisms of the universe and to remove ambiguities remaining in CDT. As a result, the wave function of the 2-dimensional universe where matters are coupled is derived. The behavior of the wave function reveals that the Hausdorff dimension can be changed when the matter is non-unitary.

In the second part, the n-DBI gravity model is considered. The author mainly investigates two effects driven by the space-time foliation: the appearance of a new conserved charge in black holes and an extra scalar mode of the graviton. The former implies a breakdown of the black-hole uniqueness theorem while the latter does not show any pathological behavior.

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Takashi Natsume has always been aware of the supernatural world, but after he inherits a magical book from his grandmother, the supernatural world is aware of him!

Takashi Natsume can see the spirits and demons that hide from the rest of humanity. He has always been set apart from other people because of his gift, drifting from relative to relative, never fitting in. Now he is a troubled high school student who has come to live in the small town where his grandmother grew up. And there he discovers that he has inherited more than just the Sight from the mysterious Reiko.

A simple auction takes a turn for the sinister when the entire venue is locked down after several priceless items go missing. To make matters worse, the human guests aren’t the only ones stuck in the mansion! Now Natsume, his friends, and his questionable allies will need to solve the mystery of the thefts and uncover the secrets of the Nakatomi manor if they ever want to get out.