People’s welfare concern for farm animals increased greatly after the middle of the 20th century when intensified animal production system began to develop rapidly. Through the scientific studies in animal ethology and physiology, ‘Five Freedoms’ has been established as the most important welfare index for farm animals. Nowadays ‘Five Freedoms’ is used globally and applied to not only farm animals, but also all the animals raised by humans including pet and companion animals, laboratory animals, and animals for exhibition such as zoo animals. In this review, the development and the spreading processes of ‘Five Freedoms’ were described first. And secondly, animal health problems induced by the reproductive control and breeding conducted by humans for the purpose of domestication were described. In an increasingly globalized world, Japan in recent years experienced outbreaks of several malignant infectious diseases such as ‘Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy’, ‘Foot and Mouth Disease’, and ‘Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza’. These diseases threaten not only animal health, but also human health, safety of food of animal origin, and the nation’s economy. Therefore, lastly, some important animal infectious diseases were described from a view point of preventive veterinary medicine.

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In this paper, we dealt with the outdoor environment in which occupants engaged in moderate intensity work (metabolic heat production at 174 W/m²) and wearing general vapor permeable clothing and clarified the characteristics of the Yaglou’s WBGT from view point of heat transfer theory. The following conclusions were obtained. 1) The weighting coefficients of WBGT coincide with the situation where skin wettedness is around 0.5. 2) WBGT for the outdoor environment evaluates the influence of solar radiation using the weighted average of globe temperature and air temperature while it neglects the influence of long wave radiation. 3) Human’s heat balance can be expressed by the same equation with WBGT and additional adjustment factor. 4) WBGT can be interpreted as an index expressing the weighted sum of skin temperature and body heat storage rate. And 5) WBGT becomes erroneous when it is applied to the situations with variations in air velocity, clothing thermal insulation, solar absorption factor of clothing, and radiant field. Based on these findings, we proposed the evaluation method of the adjustment factor of WBGT from heat transfer properties.

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“Tategurumi” is a traditional house style common in Suwa, Nagano Prefecture. The typical “Tategurumi” is a wooden storehouse with a main house above. The purpose of this paper is to describe the effect of this structure on the indoor thermal environment of the “Tategurumi”. Field investigations of the indoor thermal environment of the “Tategurumi” were carried out in winter and summer, in 2008 and in 2010. The diurnal range of the indoor air temperature in the covered storehouse was about 0.5°C. The indoor air temperature in a covered storehouse was higher by about 0.5–3.0°C in winter and lower by about 0.5–2.0°C in summer than the indoor air temperature in a non-covered storehouse. The absolute value of the indoor air temperature in a covered storehouse was correlated not only with the area of covered walls of the storehouse but also with the air temperature in an adjacent room. The relative humidity and the absolute humidity in the covered storehouse were extremely stable. As a result, it was clear that the “Tategurumi” style is an appropriate design response to the harsh climate in Suwa.

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The objective of this study is to clarify the thermal characteristics of wooden storehouses in the area of Mt. Yatsugatake. Three types of traditional wooden constructions were selected as the subjects for this study. In summer of 2007 and winter of 2008, field measurements of air temperature and relative humidity in each room of three wooden storehouses were conducted in Nakajima, Minamiaiki Village, Nagano Prefecture. It was very stable that air temperature and relative humidity in the wooden storehouse covered with clay wall, and the diurnal range of air temperature in that were less than 2.0 degrees Celsius. In summer, diurnal range of air temperatures in the wooden storehouse built of logs were smaller than those in the wooden storehouse built of dropping thick wood panels between columns. In winter, daily minimum air temperatures in the wooden storehouse built of logs were higher than those in the wooden storehouse built of dropping thick wood panels between columns. The humidity conditioning effect of woods was appeared in each wooden storehouse.

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A future projection of Japanese thermal environment is conducted using wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT). As a prelude to the future projection, current climate condition (1991–2000 August) is evaluated based on the Japan Meteorological Association’s official station data throughout Japan. Results show that August in Japan is already under a harsh thermal environment. In most of the western parts of Japan, August mean day-time average WBGT exceeds 26°C, which corresponds to “warning level” in the heat stroke risk guidance by the Japanese Society of Biometeorology. On average Eastern Japan is in a milder thermal environment, but WBGT occasionally hikes up to “danger level” of 31°C. Future projection is conducted by dynamical downscaling approach, whereby outputs of a global climate model (MIROC5) are used as initial and boundary conditions for a high-resolution regional climate model (WRF). Thermal environment in Japan is projected to worsen by the end of 21st century, with an average increase of 2.5°C in national mean day-time WBGT. In the most parts of western Japan, number of “danger level” days for August (days with daily maximum WBGT exceeding 31°C) is projected to increase from barely none in current condition to twenty-days in future climate.

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