The purpose of this article is to clarify the relations between the way of spatial thought and the social structure in early medieval Japan by investigating the writing pattern of spatial representation of title deeds (shomon), including various types of documents such as baiken (land transaction document), shobun-jo (inheritance document), kishin-jo (donation document). The study area here is Yamato Province (present Nara Prefecture), where numerous documents have survived since the early medieval period. The study period (783 to 1250) are recognized as Heian and the first half of Kamakura Periods.
For historians, such documents are the principal material for research. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in the attitude of people toward documentation of right in ancient and medieval Japan. Those studies tell us interesting facts, but almost all of them remain fragmented and discuss only some interesting aspects of documents. Except Kanno (1994), comprehensive research about the writing pattern of spatial representation of documents is lacking indeed.
We need to refer to previous discussions concerned with land registers, basic documents of land management and those with land management in ancient and medieval Japan. In the discipline of historical geography, Kinda (1985, 1993) has achieved excellent systematic studies from this perspective: mainly based on empirical research of grid patterns (jori plan), he has elucidated the relationship with various types of small area place names, including the four-edges (shiishi) and territorial units such as county (gun) and “hundred” (go). It is considered that such a focus on the jori plan would be quite effective for clarifying institutional changes of land management.
This category of research, however, has the drawback that different spatial representations are usually explained only with changing land management. Thus, different representations due to different actors as well as their regional differences tend to be difficult to examine. To further this standpoint, it is necessary to explore how the changing process of institutions was related to the changing process of document forms and in what representations the process was reflected.
To deal with these problems, statistical approaches were selected. To begin with, matrices whose cells consists of binary data (0 or 1), need to be prepared from title deeds. The data sources here are Heian-ibun and Kamakura-ibun, both of which are compiled historical records. Generally, one sample was extracted from one document. In some cases, plural samples are extracted from one document, when the contracts of two or more places are recorded in one document. Through this extraction, 989 samples were prepared finally, and they were arranged in rows of the data matrices. In the columns, the attributes of the samples were arranged, and the attributes were classified into the two types: one concerns the spatial representations found in the documents like jori, shiishi, small place name and territorial units (gun, go and so on), and the other concerns the situation of document preparation such as period, area, social class of document maker, land size and land use.
In the third section, the context of document preparation is discussed. It is quantitatively confirmed that the number of documents increased since the 12th century. This shows the penetration of the mentality that documentation of rights was essential in the alienation of property.
In the fourth section, relations between each of the spatial representations and each of the contexts of document preparation are analyzed individually based on the two-dimensional contingency tables (see Table 2). As a result, Kindas schema that difference of period causes the variation of spatial representations, especially of jori, is confirmed quantitatively.

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The recession of the 1990's pressed many Japanese corporations to restructure. In former recessions, corporations dealt with recessions by rationalization in works in the field like plants and stores. In this recession, however, they needed to rationalize their divisions related to office functions. Many firms in various industries cut back their white-collar workers by transferring them to associated companies, reduction of new hiring, and so on.
This study aims to clarify how one Japanese corporation rationalized and changed the spatial organization of its office functions during this recession. The object of this study is Uny Corporation, which is one of the major retail corporations in Japan. Its main market is the Chukyo-area, central Japan. There are two main reasons why I choose this company. The first one is that Uny is an advanced and remarkable case. It reduced 1/2 of its headquarter's staff and transferred all of its office facilities. And the other reason is that Uny took spatial factors for its rationalization into consideration, like the transferring of its headquarter from the CBD of a large city to its suburbs, and reallocation of the former headquaters staff to the stores near their home.
The method, effect and influence of rationalization are summarised as follows:
1. Uny transferred its offices in order to reduce fixed costs (=rental costs). It had a headquarters in Nagoya and three regional headoffices in Tokyo, Shizuoka and Kanazawa. By autumn 1993, Uny reduced each of their office's staff and moved them from rental buildings to its own facilities like retail stores and distribution centers. This was for the purpose of cutting such rental costs. As a result, Uny didn't have to pay 121 million yen for rental space. This transfer cost a total of 170 million yen, but this is less than one and half years of the previous rent.
2. The transfer of their headquarters to suburbs reduced the ability for easy face-to-face contacts with other businesses. Uny transfered its headquaters from downtown Nagoya to the city of Inazawa. Inazawa is a suburb northwest of Nagoya. By moving to Inazawa, the access time for clients making contact with Uny's headquater was raised from 58.1 minutes in average to 85.8 (+47.8%). For clients, it now means an increase of time and travelling expenses. For Uny itself, however, the demerit of transfer was relatively small.
3. Uny went a step further, out-sourcing its headquaters' affairs. The information system department could reduce its staff sharply by not developing software for themselves. And the sales promotion departmet also reduced its staff by placing coordinate affairs with outside suppliers.
4. As the headquarter staff was reduced drastically, those workers were re-allocated to the retail outlets. The principal concept was to ensure that store be“near their homes”. For the staff, it meant that commuting time had been shortened, and for the corporation, it cut down the commuting costs. Re-allocation to stores made productivity fall for a time, but Uny developed new stores. This is, therefore, not a backward restructuring plan but a forward one. In the case of re-allocation of store managers, they were also transferred to a store which was near their home.
The above-mentioned rationalization very much influenced business affairs, staff and trading partners. The factors which rationalize Uny's restructuring are as follows:
1. Profits of Uny declined in 1992, then rationalization was unavoidable, and the whole Japanese economy was also going from bad to worse.
2. Uny is one of the major retail companies, and has about 120 shopping centers, so its buying power is very big. And Uny functions on the demand side. Although the cost to contact Uny's headquaters increased for partners, most of them wanted to continue doing businesses with Uny anyway.

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This study attempts to elucidate the export activities of firms in Pusan toward Japan in terms of the root of international physical distribution, especially focusing on Shimonoseki Port, which firms in Pusan frequently use as a gateway to Japan.
The results can be summarized as follows:
1. The transportation patterns of international physical distribution in exporting-firms in Pusan are classified into four types, and there is a difference between the spatial root of contract and that of physical distribution.
2. The merits of using Shimonoseki Port are not only short entry time and short operation time from Pusan Port to Shimonoseki Port, but also an abundant shipping schedule. Especially, as far as there is no great difference of transportation costs, as for trade-firms, an important factor on selecting a port is rapidity of the appointed date of delivery, in order to maintain selling amounts in the market.
3. In order to make clear the relation between a port and its hinterland, it is essential to consider the interrelationship between the activities of selecting a port and the distribution of business connections overseas.

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The aim of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of a landscape at the sacred place paying attention to landscape scenery.
This aim is dealt with in humanistic geography. But, there are still many complicating problems in the process of study. Especially, the translation of the word landscape is problem: all geographers ought to use the word keikan as meaning landscape, although the landscape study with which humanistic geographer are concerned is differnt from that of other geographers. Humanistic geographers are interested in how felt landscape is looked at by a person. On the other hand, most geographers have been interested in how a landscape is made, not how it is felt. Despite these different interests in landscape study, all geographers ought to use a same word. Therefore, landscape study with which humanistic geographers are concerned often has difficulty being understood by many geographers on other fields.
So, I use the term word landscape scenery as a key word in this paper. The term landscape scenery is used by landscape gardeners. A humanistic geographer's concern is how a landscape is felt when looked at by a person, so this concern is close to the gardener's. If I carelessly use the word keikan as meaning landscape, my aim may not be properly understood by many other geographers.
By the way, a sacred place can in the considered by context of history or society. Indeed, it is important to consider a sacred place from such contexts. But even if the focus goes further than history or society, it may be possible that such a place attracting all human beings exists. I want to deal with such a place that has been attracting all human beings beyond history or society as sacred place.
I take up Muro as a sacred place in this papaer. Muro is a village between mountains. It has attracted many people as a sacred place for 1200 years. I make a study through researching Muro's landscape scenery. By the way, landscape scenery changes according to season or weather. Therefore, I mainly focus on the form of landscape scenery in this papaer.
Muro's landscape scenery is mainly formed by 3 main structures.
1: Very long path that has very bad visibility.
2: A basin scenery looking from a place where the field of vision suddenly opens up.
3: Changing scenery when a person gradually descends to the sacred village
This landscape structure looks like a form combin a tunnel with earthenware mortar. Moreover, this landscape scenery looks like the scenery when we go back to mother's womb, if we wish. Is it exaggerated that this landscape scenery is possibily attractive for all human beings?
The way of feeling for landscape when pepole look at it may be different for each person or each time. But there may exist a landscape scenery attracting all human beings. At least, this paper may be able to suggest that Muro's landscape scenery is very attractive, and the landscape structure of Muro may apply to a landscape scenery attracting all human beings.
The aim of this paper is to clarify the characteristics of landscape at a sacred place paying attention to landscape scenery in geography.

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Today, many environmental problems are being observed by a lot of people, and waste management has become one of the most serious problems in Japan. In this paper, we analyzed industial wastes coming from both livestock and marine products in Japan.
Much residue has been found in slaughterhouses or meat factories. Some factories use this residue and process materials for feed and fertilizer. These factories are called “rendering plants”.
There are about 150 rendering plants in this country, and most of them are medium or small-sized ones. Recently, Japanese agriculture is on the decline, and it has become difficult to supply a sufficient amount of residue to the rendering plants. The locations of this business are dispersed around the country, making it difficult to transport the residue a long distance because it is often decayed. Furthermore, the odor remains a serious problem for this business.
As the distribution system of the rendering business is vague, it is neccessary to grasp and plan how to use and remove these resources for a better future.

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