The Japanese beech tree (Fagus crenata Blume) prefers a cooler climate and thus its large communities are found in the mountain areas of northern Japan. However, there are some distributional areas around the summits of the Suzuka Mountains and the largest one proliferates at the headwater area of the Asake River. A global warming simulation predicts the complete decay of its population within a century. Hence, we began an ecological survey for these beach trees and have gathered locational and biological data for around 700 individual trees since 2010. Through the survey, the characteristics of the tree community such as the relation between the age versus the breast height diameter, the age distribution of trees and the spatial distribution of trees have been determined. A future survey planned for 2013 and 2014 will increase our understanding for the forest.

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In recent years, game machine performance has become higher, and game software reality has increased. However, the number of the newly released game titles continues to decrease and the market size of video games has been inclined to scale down. We examined these “games” from the viewpoint of cultural anthropology and propose a hypothesis based on the hunter-gatherer lifestyle that significant factors of the good games are easily understandable, by looking at the comparison between popular video games and unpopular ones. We examined the hypothesis by means of game production and evaluation. First, we produced a series of two trial video games and conducted questionnaire studies in which approximately ten test players participated. On the basis of the above trials we conducted master production of the video game and discussed the expected orientation for forthcoming video games.

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Educators worldwide are watching developments in mobile computing and considering how these new technologies can be used for educational purposes. Japan is well known for its economic and technological development but lags behind other industrialized countries, e.g. USA, Britain, South Korea, Singapore, etc. in its use of IT in education. Over the past 20 years there have been various governmental initiatives to increase the use of IT in education such as the “e-Japan Strategy, ” “New IT Reform Strategy, ” and “e-Japan Strategy 2015, ” however these are often criticized for failing to achieve their goals. This paper will discuss the potential for the use of mobile computing devices and applications such as Facebook in Japanese education.

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We teach American Studies as the study of a foreign culture, and we do so on separate continents, Asia and Europe. We treat our subject under the headings of Linguistic Issues, American-Studies Issues and World Issues, and our paper is a shared one because we see that teaching American literature and culture in Europe and in Asia raises problems that are both similar and different. We think that our two countries, England and Japan, might be considered to be at extremes of an American-Studies teaching spectrum. （It should be noted that we speak of England and not the United Kingdom, and what we say about students in England is not necessarily applicable to students in Scotland, Wales or Ireland.） For many years, American Studies has been popular among university students in both our countries, and it has projected the United States as economically, technologically and, as people sometimes believed, culturally, the most advanced country in the world. However, as the world has become more globalized, people have begun to adopt new perspectives, and these have become critical since 9/11.

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The Housing and Dwelling Policy under the Basic Act for Housing is examined in two cities - Higashi Mikawa and Nishi Mikawa. I analyzed the questionnaire that each city carried out for its citizens. The contents were examined as to whether it is effective that the existence of a railroad station may collect a city area. The results are that citizens living around the central station in these cities highly evaluated the convenience of a station and the facilities of shopping or medical treatment. Also citizens aren’t willing to move the circumference of a station. It is not necessarily effective that there is a station as a base which collects a city area.

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