Information technology is changing the state of a local community. However, an information technology is utilized and the figure of the "citizen" who bears the local community which will solve the problem of a life does not exist there. The main factor is "socialization in a life", and "the individualism in a life." We are faced with the problem of the "communication burden" and "collapse of reliance". In order to solve this problem, a local community needs to be revived.

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This paper summarizes the results of a study on how mobile phones are used among high school students in Japan, and have what are their impacts on human relations. It is estimated that the use of mobile phones exerts a great influence of interpersonal relationship among high school students. The younger they becomes, the more friends they have. However, the frequency of their communications does not increase. It is presumed as follows that they are increasing the tendency to consider one to be an intimate friend by registering one's name in the memory of their mobile phones.

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The coming the ubiquitous information society, this research focuses on the citizen considers how to treat personal information or privacy. Consequently, a general citizen's image is "convenient and anxious" in the ubiquitous information society. We consider what citizens really want as well as pursue technology and convenience. We have an interview with not only a user's viewpoint but also those who do not want to use.

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Shopping association members networked all over the country, and commercialized them "the package of earthquake disaster evacuation". It is the measure against an earthquake disaster which have contact with people in the community not only at the time of the earthquakes ( including volcanic eruption and tsunami) but also daily life. It have private-sector exchanges and interchange of the people , products and information. It is the structure for community renovation that human relationships serve to reinforce each other when an earthquake occurs.

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The use of the Internet to regional industrial promotion is familiarized. In this research is studied comparison analysis of 93 sites of a regional shopping web site in the Tokyo metropolitan suburbs area, 53 regional sightseeing web sites by nationwide and showed the feature of the contents and the effect for managing the web site.

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E-local government is going on, and the degree of advancement are different depending on the field and the scale. In this study the trend is clarified by analyzing the investigation data intended for local governments throughout the country, the index that evaluates these progress is set, and the result of the application is considered.

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The quality of life (QOL) study gradually has been increasing in various fields recently. We think that an electronic community finally must aim at the improvement of a local resident's QOL.However, there is a little QOL study in the social informatics. Therefore, attempts haven't been made at following question in our country; what kind of information improves the local resident's QOL in an electronic community? This paper is a study of the quantitative method to the question.

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Recently, utilization of information and media in a community increases. Expectation for knowledge or learning came to be seen with the increase in a study opportunity or practice,and the actual condition also has many not clear points. By this research, paying attention to learning function of media production activities of the Hitoyoshi-Kuma area, qualitative analysis of interview data is performed as a case study, and the development process and result of an evaluation tool "the evaluation index of the media production activities in local area", which developed J-matrix to the precedence example, are reported.

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In recent years, there are many childcare problems. Because the exchange of knowledge among parents may not be as frequent as it was in the past, due to a decrease in the average number of children per family.Therefore, parents collect and use much childcare information.In this paper, we observe the hospital reputation with the mothers of young children. We interview parents to obtain process of hospital choice, the criteria of hospital reputation.The conclusion is that many parents choose a hospital using an opinion of friends on the basis of regional characteristics and a medical profession's attitude. Moreover, based on this result, we consider future childcare support.

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Japan is faced with radical changes of its social paradigm which seems to be not laid yet academically by the impacts from both sides of the wide ranges of the information technology and the rapid growth of the aged population. It is very challenging subject to find out the revaluation of the aged people who are located off the main stream especially in the IT revolutionary society.

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In the era of the Knowledge Society, the importance of developing qualified human resources is key success factors for corporate innovation. In this paper, based on the review of e-learning market and issues, the concept of "Strategic Use of e-Learning for Corporate Innovation" is presented based on corporate case studies/

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Real Options has been developed as new methods to evaluate the enterprise value and the investment. We survey the new valuation method of enterprise value for IT start-up venture that has developed under uncertainty by Real Options on the profit area. We point out the risk of uncertainty to evaluate the enterprise value on non-profit area at the same time.

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There is a gap in the ability to understand the disclosed risk information between the government agencies disclosing it and the public. We modeled disclosure as a trust game. We found that there is less incentive to disclose information of a negative nature than there is for information of a more positive nature. We also found that as their ability to understand improves, the greater the possibility for society to reach the Pareto optimum. We believe that public understanding of disclosed information would be greatly improved with explanations and support from experts in the related field, such as non-profit organizations.

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The measures against an information security is not the transient work completed by decision of Information Security Policy, and is organized by employing smoothly of the management cycle (PDCA) aiming at carrying out everyday management effectively after decision. In this paper, I consider the role of which Information Security Audit plays and its effect based on the advanced example in a local government in order to evaluate and check the management cycle is established.

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ICT would be one of the most effective means to utilize profit-seeking activities; however, it might not be well placed at communities to solve and resolve various issues being resulted from non-profit-seeking motives. This paper is aimed at considering ICT as it is vital to realize non-profit-seeking motives.

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The measure which explores the possibility about each of welfare, education, exchange, and IT associated business was taken about the state of the new communication practical use support which is made to connect each base and makes a synergistic effect by connecting the left islands by practical use of an image network taking advantage of the strong point of each detached island.

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The purposes of this research consider the relevancy of policy networks approach that examine the relationships between the network of public, NPO, and private actors participation and contents in process of local portal site making. What are they? How do they form? And, I would like to examine the implications of policy networks, to identify whether network management is getting great importance in a forthcoming collaborative society through a comparative analysis of local portal site making process and contents.

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The main problem of regional information study seems to have shifted from hardware environment equipment to solving problems.However,we still don't have the theoretical framework and methodology that make it possible to analize successful previous cases stucturally, and make use of the experiences through comparison and examination. In this report, I define the "community network" as a concept including actions for solving community by using ICT in the first place,outline the perspectives on community network study in the secone place. And finally, I present a typology of community networks in order to analyze successful cases and share their best practices.

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An agent-based approach enables us to understand mechanisms of emergence of cooperative behavior. It simplifies the description and operation of a complicated model. That is, it enables a model builder to change control parameters or dynamics of the system characteristics simply by making corrections to the algorithm. Ant System is a typical example of emergent of cooperative behavior without any central control. We develop a simple model of foraging of ant colony and discuss robustness of pheromone communication for change of environment.

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Citizens will be required to make both a gran plan and an action plan by themselves on a coming new phase of "the community informatization". In this paper, as a case study, we take up and analyze a remarkable and torrid attempt of Chofu-city for seeking a new method, and argue that a development of "community resource" is critically important for the community informatization and that the community informatization plan should be treated as the highest priority policy plan by a local government.

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The aim of this study was to gain a general view of the present state of citizens' and residents' activities in the Lake Biwa region to see what use is being made of the Internet in these activities, in order to grasp how use of the Internet leads to various activities becoming networked. Findings of the study can be summarized as follows: (1) Existing citizens' and residents' activities had previously developed independently, with any networks consisting mainly of human networks; various effects of use of the Internet had been anticipated, but they were internal to each organization. (2) With the start of citizens' and residents' activities that utilized IT, online networks were formed, and connections started to be built up with existing citizens' and residents' activities, giving rise to a greater mutual connectedness among them all.

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This research takes up a public comment system(PC) and is examining a citizen's opinion reflection method for an evaluation results. In examination, the meaning which utilizes PC was considered first. Next, the employment example in a local self-governing body was analyzed, and the problem was extracted. It became clear that the performance of accountability expected and a role of the intensive technique of decision-making information were limitation-like as a result of analysis.

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While the borderless economy has emerged in the spiral of globalization, Internet revolution, and preeminence of the market, industry competition opens up cross-border business opportunities as well as focuses on the cluster development based on the regional inherence and on the networking of their regional cluster. This paper examines some models taken the advantage of information technology in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland, and then discusses critical points for the dynamic regional cluster development. We argue that it is critical to establish the intermediaries who facilitate the sharing and creating knowledge between agents by involving them in the common contexts based on practices with alignment of their activities within successful clusters.

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Start-up firms ,despite their importance for R&D, regularly encounter difficulties in raising capital. Taking up a loan is usually not possible, as banks demand substantial tangible assets for security. Banks, however, recently started to approve loans secured by intellectual property rights. I am going to explore the potential role of loans secured by intellectual property rights for the Japanese innovation system. I will focus on the question how the usage of loans secured by intellectual property rights can be furthered by improving evaluation techniques and the establishment of a market for intellectual property rights.

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An innovative new concept for public health centers would be for them to take the central role in providing health care services and promoting peace and safety for citizens within the districts they serve. In order to function as fundamental source of health care services and safety net provider, it will be necessary for public health centers to increasingly utilize information technology to analyze enormous amounts of diverse information from multiple perspectives and to fully network with related organizations, the private sector, non-profit organizations, and local citizens.

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The idea is prevailing to support businesses using public libraries. In this study, we propose an idea for a local businessman to strengthen collaboration with a regional public library to get wisdom. We contrived a system that a public university coordinates between businessmen and a public library which orientating toward the regional information center. Then, a practical example of the system will be shown.

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This report describes the positioning of social and/or economic view model for ITS. Inter-Vehicle Communications is typical example of ITS communication applications, and examined it's social and/or economic issues. Formations or characteristics of information community built with communication services are qualitatively analyzed. Feasibility and positioning of community model based on basic economy canon are described on a study of this community popularization process.

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Though many governments ran into financial difficulties, they have to promote the shift for e-government. On the other hand, their information systems are not consistent in terms of technology and business, because of gradual implementation. So local governments need to optimize the construction of information systems so that they could invest new information systems and maximize ROI of IT.

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Nowadays, mostly local governments have own Web Site and broaden their information about administration services. Almost ten years have passed since some advanced local governments started Web Site, the goal, "Local e-Government", is set as national policy. Circumstance, organization, and relationship with the inhabitant influence the realization of the new goal. Therefore, from the point of historical view, functions of Local e-Government and Web Site should be materialized.

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As decentralization reforms make progress, the skills required of local government officers are undergoing change. Particularly, improved policy-making skills are required to grasp regional needs and overcome challenges. This report clarifies the issue of increasing computer usage, such as data collection and analysis, in policy-making skill development training at all local job training centers. Further, this report considers whether or not the incorporation of computers into policy-making training is beneficial, and the substance and ideal form of this training.

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Although the environment, in which it is easy to create information spontaneously, is desirable in order to promote information sharing between members, broadcasting media like mailing list or multi-party chat are not appropriate to write trifling memos as these make users feel pressure to send something to the others.Then, thorough our two trials with web-capable mobile phones,we consider the desirable environment from following three points; (1)Personal bulletin board, (2)Exchange relations, and (3)Writing editor.

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The environmental problem is one of the most serious problems that human beings face now. The importance of environmental education has been pointed out as one of the measures which tackle this. Although various researches on environmental education were made and it has practiced also at actual schools by today, the effect cannot be said as sufficient thing. Then, this research adds examination to the state of various social systems including the educational system of the present age relevant to an environmental problem from a viewpoint of environmental education, and aims at drawing the figure of future environmental education.

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The opportunity of computer mediated communication called CMC is increasing with arrival of network society. By the appearance of a weblog or a new tool called Wiki, the knowledge share which let CMC pass not only in between specialists but in the large range is progressing. However, only improvement in the convenience by technical change attracts attention, and the present condition is the having not resulted even in the knowledge shared argument which exists previously. It is necessary to arrange methodology knowledge shared through CMC anew here.

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We develop a method to convert a computer program of social simulation model employing Socio-Informatica to a graphical chart, and, in turn, to translate the chart to sentences in natural language. It is difficult to map an ordinary computer program to conceptual structure of a social model, because describing agent's rules of decision-making and action with ordinary programming language requires additional codes in social alternative creation, selection, and execution, respectively. Hence, the computer program is a black box for the audience, because it is hard to distinguish fundamental codes of social model from the additional codes. The problem of black box can be resolved, when a social model is described in terms of agent's alternative perspective of Socio-Informatica. We provide an example of graphical chart s and sentences in natural language in terms of the perspective.

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How a development of computer simulations contributes modeling and simulation approach in the social sciences? In this paper, first, we outline some roles of modeling in the social sciences using some previous sudies. We also discuss on characteristic and considerable points of simulation approach which is now developping. We attempt to define a new technical term "Modelogy" and consider about it.

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This is the study of Japanese commercial TV history. The purpose of the paper is to make clear the transformation of Japanese Civil Consciousness last 50 years, divided into 6 periods. Original Chronological Table of Japanese TV History is as follows. (1) (prehistory-1952) The previous night of open the TV station (2) (1953-1959) A hundred million of the Japanese Idiots (3) (1960-1970) Accelerator and brake down (4) (1971-1984) Rationalism and profit (5) (1985-1992) Age of news show (6) (1993-until today ) Ten years missing

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Electric book(eBook) is new media, which record digital information on electric media. eBook has many useful functions which paper book doesn't have. This research analyzes the eBook's attribute and possibility of its popularization.

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Today, CATV is exposed to the wave of digitalization. In the situation, the role of regional information in CATV is asked again. Then, we thought that it was important to understand the consideration which senders who were actually producing regional information in each CATV. On that based on it, we clarified the current state and the problem of CATV Community Channel by the CATV sender questionnaire survey, and examined the directionality in the future on that.

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