The purpose of this article is to determine the least cost network-topology for farmers' marketing groups to collect information about vegetables and fruits marketing originating daily from many wholesale markets. On the network information transmission about vegetables and fruits marketing from many wholesale markets to farmers' marketing groups, the costs are compared among using mesh-network, star-network, distributed mesh-network and distributed star-network. The results from the analysis are as follows. 1) ISDN save a cost of information transmission about Vegetables and Fruits Marketing. 2) It is important to the selection of network-topology on the network-systems, because the network-topology make a diferrence to a cost of information transmission. 3) The least cost network-topology is distributed mesh-network both the High-speed transmission and the Low-speed transmission. 4) Accordingly, on information transfer about vegetables and fruits marketing, the least cost network-topology is distributed mesh-network using ISDN.

View full abstract

To make good use of organic resources and decrease eutrophication of rivers and lakes in rural area, it is important to establish a strategic plan for the management of organic matters. The aim of our study is to develop a method to estimate standing stock and flowing quantity by examining organic matter flow system in rural area for the establishment of the management plan. The organic matter flow system in rural area consist of eight compartments; crops, by-products (straw and residual product), home, livestock farming, farmland, environment (where organic matter is dumped without good use of it), buying and selling. Standing stock and flowing quantity of each compartment are derived from published data such as the government report. Explication of the organic matter flow system in rural area was achieved and the management plan of organic matters was examined by using our method.

View full abstract

The Ministry of Construction originally prepared the Digital National Land Information. We stored the data into floppy disks and made a personal computer based system for the easy use of the data. Further we implemented the program TOCHI to display the status of land use. This program works on the personal computers, and users can set the various conditions. To implement this data base, we first assembled the data that had the same first mesh code (in this paper, "mesh" means "grid cell"), and transferred into floppy disks. Secondary, we transformed the expression of each land use area to a ratio to the total area in the third mesh. Moreover, we compressed the data size by changing the ASCII format to binary. We also included altitude data. Finally, we devided all the data into 6 regions, Hokkaidô, Tôhoku, Kantô-Kôshinetsu, Chûbu-Kinki, Chûgoku-Shikoku and Kyushu. Compressing data, we summed the records which had the same mesh code on a border area of cities, towns or villages. The arrangement of records in the file had been mesh-code-ordered. We rearranged these raster-ordered so that TOCHI could display quickly. We can easily keep, refer and use the Digital National Land Information in floppy disks. We can also see trend of land use in each region interactively and can easily overlap these information onto another meshed data (for example, Natural Energy Resources Map in Floppy Disks, NOAA data and so on).

View full abstract