Here, the phrase ‘regional problem’ refers to the situation in which a region or part of the territory of a nation-state constitutes social, political and/or economic problems for the society of the nationstate. This definition is necessary, firstly because in certain geographical schools, the Western concept of ‘region’ was understood as an operational concept, and was an exclusive object of geography (the regionalizing myth in geography referred to by David Livingstone); and secondly, the Japanese concept chiiki is still understood by some Japanese geographers to denote any demarcated space regardless of scale. A regional problem in this sense becomes explicit only when the region in question is incorporated into a nation-state, but the origin or cause of the regional problem exists from before the incorporation takes place. For instance, the Southern problem in Italy became a regional problem for Italy immediately after the unification of modern Italy in the 1860s, but the origin or remoter cause of the problem lay in the complete difference of the historical background of Southern Italy from those of Northern and Central Italy, and in the process of Italian unification (risorgimento), which was realized in the form of a military conquest of the South by the North. When the region in question was no longer part of the national territory, it ceased to cause regional problems. As another instance, for a long time Ireland constituted a regional problem of the British Empire (the Irish Question), but when the Free State of Ireland was formed in 1923, it ceased to be a regional problem; Northern Ireland, however, has to this day constituted a regional problem for the United Kingdom, as a sequela, so to speak, of the Irish Question.
From the comparative viewpoint, it is possible to point out certain criteria for a typology of regional problems in various states of the modern and contemporary world.
1) Substance of the problem. Regional problems have multifarious facets-economic disparity; cultural differences, especially the imposition of an official language on people accustomed to a different dialect; political discrimination against certain regions by the central goverment. In this case, it is necessary to understand that at times, the substance of regional problems appears to differ according to whether it is observed from the viewpoint of elite culture or that of folk culture. If we applied the distinction made by Redfield between “great tradition” and “little tradition, ” we find that, generally, religion-which by its very nature is considered to be universal-officially does not constitute a regional problem, but at the level of folk culture (or little tradition), it actually constituted and still constitutes the cause or motif of regional problems, as was seen in Ireland and is occurring in many 1) Period immediately after the unification of Italy (1860s). In this period, the problem in question was first created by the politicians of Northern Italy, who felt overwhelmed by the difficulty of the social and economic integration of the country, and by the disillusioned peasantry of the South, who expressed their dissatisfaction through rioting.
2) Proposals regarding Southern problems by a limited number of Northern intellectuals (1870s).
3) Proposals regarding problems by Southern intellectuals in the form of meridionalismo (from the 1880s up to around 1910). Their ideological position varied somewhat, from anarchism and socialism to romantic idealism, but they commonly recognized that the South had been exploited after unification, and for this reason insisted on regional measures to compensate for this exploitation.
4) World War I and the period of the Fascist Government.

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Talus slopes are developed around Mt. Ogari in Usu Volcano, Hokkaido, Japan. These slopes show pronounced longitudinal variation in grain size of surficial materials, and then are classified into two surface zones based on the clast size due to different transport processes. Upper to middle zones are mainly composed of pebble-sized clasts which are considered to have been transported by dry fragment flow; in contrast, lower zones are composed of rubbly cobble-sized clasts which are considered to have been transported by rolling and/or jumping.
A division of 2m×3m on a pointed head of dry fragment flow deposit which occurred on 31 May 1992, and another division of 5m×5m in area of rolling and/or jumping clasts, were selected as the study sites as they were located close to each other on the same talus slope. The altitude of both sites is about 462m a. s. l, Slope angle is 35°, and slope orientation is 160° (calculated clockwise with N defined as 0°). Clasts are directly derived from dacite rockwall resulting from fault escarpments formed between 1977-1981 accompanied with volcanic activity.
Azimuths and dips along the long axis (= a-axis) of clasts and the length of a-, b-, and c-axis of clasts were measured at the surface of each division. A total of 735 clasts with a-axis longer than 6 cm were measured as rolling and/or jumping deposits, and a total of 500 clasts with a-axis longer than 3cm were measured as dry fragment flow deposits. Using these data, clast shape was classified by axial ratio into four types: blade, disc, rod, and sphere, as defined by Zingg (1935), and threedimensional fabric analysis was done by means of Scheidegger's(1965) and Mark's(1974) eigen value method and Woodcock's (1977) logarithmic ratio plot to evaluate the way length of a-axis and clast shape separately influence the fabric. The methods mentioned above produce eigen vector Vi, which is an estimate of the distribution mean(= V1 orientation and V1 dip), and 51, which is a measure of the strength of the preferred orientation. Moreover, ΔθH (deviation of V1 azimuth from slope orientation) and LX 9P (deviation of V1 plunge from slope angle) were also calculated by means of the methods mentioned above. ΔθH is classified into three arrangement types: parallel, random, and transverse arrangement are defined as 0°_??_±30°_??_±150°_??_180°, plusmn;30_??_60°or ±120°_??_150°, and ±60°_??_120° respectively (+: calculated clockwise, -: calculated counterclockwise). The main results related to each transport process are summarized below.
For clasts within dry fragment flow deposits: The changes in ΔθH and ΔθP against the length of a-axis show that a-axis of clasts are arranged parallel to the slope direction with upslope imbrication in most cases. These tendencies are as strong as increases in length of a-axis, because the highest value of S1 appears in the class with the longest a-axis. Observations of the changes in ΔθH and ΔθP related to clast shape revealed that those values are independent of clast shape, because both values are relatively constant in spite of different clast shape. Although these results are obtained under the assumption that size and shape of clasts are not related to each other, clasts with a long a-axis tend to have high content of blade and rod.
When changes in ΔθH and S1 of clasts with the same shape are analyzed against length of a-axis, values for each clast shape are closely similar; the highest value of S1 appears in a range with the longest a-axis in any clast shape. This result indicates that clast shape has little effect on its fabric, and that clasts with a longer a-axis probably have stronger fabrics.

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The 1995 Hyogoken-nanbu earthquake created 10km-long surface fault ruptures on the northwest coast of Awaji-shima. Due to right-lateral and vertical faulting, characteristic tectonic microforms appeared on the land surface.
This report presents large-scale detailed maps and stereo photographs of four sites where various small-scale faulted and deformed landforms such as pressure ridges, bulges, and so on were observed. Analyses of such microforms expressed in the detailed maps with contour intervals of 2cm or 10cm-and stereo photographs led to two conclusions.
1. Distribution of bulges and depressions on the southeastern block of the fault suggests that the southeastern block moved mainly toward the southwest against the northwestern block. This shows a good agreement with the results of geodesic measurement.
2. Pressure ridges are often separated by tension cracks or faults. This means that during the formation of tectonic microforms, pressure ridges were built up in the earlier stage due to non-faulting phase, followed by tensile or shearing separation in the soft materials in response to increased fault displacement.

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