On August 8th in 2009, the author discovered an artificial flake made of agate from the outcrop of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e marine terrace at Sunabara site, Izumo City, Shimane Prefecture, western Japan. This site is situated at 35° 17' 22.3" N and 132° 37' 55.3" E. Following the preliminary survey by our group between 22nd and 24th in August, trenching excavation was carried out from 16th to 29th in September. A total 21 stone artifacts such as a scraper, a pointed scraper and a flake made of rhyolite, quarts and agate, were found from paleosol VIb. As paleosol VIb can be correlated with MIS 5e, it is assumed that those are the earliest one in Japan.

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Although there is great concern regarding the quality and safety of foods and agricultural products imported from P. R. China, we do not have enough information and knowledge about the actual conditions of agricultural production and food supply in China. Because the area of land in China is so vast, conditions are highly variable. It is necessary to know the geographical patterns of such conditions in order to have a better understanding of the features of imported foods and products from the country. In keeping with this, the author would like to show the results of his research in China to contribute to a growing understanding. Agricultural production in China has increased gradually since the 1960s, especially of fruits, vegetables and animal products where a radical increase has been seen since the 1990s. During this process, there have been changes in the geographical patterns of producing regions such as a rise in the number of newly developed producing regions and the replacement of leading regions over a short time. This is quite a contrast to grain crops and industrial crops where changes in their geographical patterns have been slow. In addition to this, the patterns of the producing regions differ from the geographical pattern of market transactions within China and that of foreign exports from China according to China's province-wise statistics of domestic market and international trade.

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This article aims to analyze the locational patterns of pay nursing homes supplied by private-sector providers at the national and intra-urban scales. Since the enforcement of the Long-Term Care Insurance in 2000, pay nursing homes have been supplied extensively in metropolitan areas, with the Tokyo metropolitan area in particular accounting for 40 percent of the national capacity. Most pay nursing homes in the Tokyo metropolitan area are located in built-up areas and there are large regional disparities in supplied capacity and nursing home residence costs. Regional capacities are uncorrelated with the welfare and housing needs of the elderly; on the contrary, nursing home residence costs are often more expensive in areas with massive unfulfilled needs. The large number of idle facilities such as closed dormitories for employees of major companies that have been converted to pay nursing homes also have an influence on the regional supply of pay nursing homes. These results indicate a number of issues, namely (1) the expansion of the supply of pay nursing home cannot be dictated by welfare programs since this supply tends to be influenced by economic performance factors such as real estate market; (2) although pay nursing homes play the role of a safety net for elderly persons accidentally left stranded with nowhere to live, regional disparities in nursing home residence costs are a huge risk in terms of strengthening the socio-spatial marginalization of the destitute elderly.

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The purpose of this paper is to report the present conditions of the mountain villages in Japan and to offer view-points for regional policy. The traditional mountain village societies in Japan are rapidly aging because the indus-tries that have historically supported these villages - namely agriculture and forestry - are no longer relevant. The government increased taxes for supporting mountain villages in order to fund the constructions of roads and infra-structure projects for the region since 1970. However, the revenue from the increased taxes was negatively offset by the continuing decrease in population of the region, therefore the funds were not effective. My proposal to halt the economic recession of mountain villages is to promote the forestry and agriculture industries directly through inha-bitants of urban areas. This would include strategies and programs set up to enable the mountain villages to sell and to distribute their products directly to urban regions.

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The Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake of 2008 occurred in an area where no active faults were known to exist. However, after conducting a detailed investigation of this area after the earthquake, we discovered that an active fault actually existed in this area. If this active fault had been identified and if the magnitude of a potential earthquake had been anticipated prior to the actual earthquake, it may have been possible to take adequate precautions that would in turn have led to lesser damage. Therefore, it is extremely important to identify active faults that may generate a major earthquake. The length of the newly discovered active fault was found to be significantly shorter than that of the seismogenic fault;therefore, it was extremely difficult to estimate the magnitude of an earthquake. This is the major issue raised by this earthquake.

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