This paper examines the relationship between private and public sectors in diffusion process of the energy conservation technologies, based on the case study of "Eco Cute" high efficiency water heater technology. The paper illustrates how the heat pump technology overcame the so-called "valley of death", how it was applied to household water heater field and how it could diffuse very quickly through combination of public and private sectors' initiatives. Then, we would propose 3 important points: (1) the continuality and diversity of the R&D in the basic research phase supported by public sector; (2) the function of the "relevant marginal actor" in the commercializing phase; (3) the appropriate support measures by private and public sector. Finally, the paper points out the compatibility of infrastructure as a key condition to diffuse energy technology, and suggests improvement in energy policy based on comparison of "Eco Cute" and "EcoWill", gas engine co-generation water heater case.

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Representation of stakeholder interests is crucial in ensuring the fairness and effectiveness of policy-making. In order to ensure representation, "stakeholder analysis" techniques have been used. For the techniques to be useful in the assessment of national or global issues, certain adaptations are necessary. The article introduces an "MS5" approach to stakeholder analysis that focuses on "environmental factors," involves rigorous literature review, and follows "fragmentation and integration" steps. In an analysis of barriers to the introduction of environmental technologies, we successfully characterized the complex nature of technology introduction and. diffusion, involving a diverse range of environmental factors, cross-cutting issues across sectors, and "cognitive information resource".

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This article focuses on the roles and characteristics of multi sectoral networks and public entrepreneurship in the process of introducing innovative environmental technology. We analyze the case of constructing the residential building with the innovative solar heating system, which contributes to the low carbon emission. This article concludes that two key factors are strategically needed for the success: (1) the formation and the enhancement of multi sectoral networks and (2) the public entrepreneurship by private actors as well as public ones.

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This paper analyzes the problem structure in the discussions on road pricing scheme proposed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government particularly from the freight transportation viewpoint. In order to survey the problem structuring identified by the stakeholders, we interviewed the following stakeholders: the two departments in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), the TMG Committee on road pricing scheme, the two types of freight transportation operators and the retailers. The survey results show that the stakeholders identify the road pricing scheme in the various ways whereas the stakeholders have change in the identified problem structure during the discussions.

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This paper focuses on analyzing the possibility of a community health care network, aiming to seek out the obstacles to the cooperation among stakeholders and some suggestions of the process management, using modified stakeholder approach. We begin to identify interests of stakeholders of the network through interviews. Then, it goes to show that there is a difference of interests and perceptions of conditions and consequences for cooperation. . But the difference is assessed to be manageable. Then, we suggest that establishing cross-organizational and cross-functional forum for the mutual understanding and the share of a common vision of the networking process among stakeholders is a key to construct an effective system.

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A number of various policy, measures and administrative works exist in local governments in order to provide public services effectively for the resident's demand. In addition, they owe the obligation which makes such a series of measure system to visible and makes it public to the resident as accountability. This research not only proposes the methodology to plan policy and measures in the local governments and to achieve set strategic target effectively but aims to construct the administrative management system by making good use of the tool which called problem structuring, logic model and so on.

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We conducted a citizen panel conference, as a part of hybrid participatory conference "Forum for creating environmentally sound material-cycle society by citizen participation". We mailed invitation of the conference to random sampled 2000 Nagoya citizens over 20 years old from electoral register, and decided participants among those who stated their willingness of participation to the conference. We chose random sampling method as selection of participants to assume equal chance of participation, one of the procedural fairness of participation. In the citizen participation model, representativeness of participants often becomes an issue, in particular, when there are not many participants. We studied whether the participants of this conference who selected by the procedure based random sampling had some biased or not compared to the population.

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There is much difference among participants in discussion, in that they handle the knowledge on techniques and expertise, local knowledge, and the way of conducting discussion. The fact can be clearly proved by observing the process of discussion by residents to argue and make some decisions on some regional issue. In this paper, we have an experiment which the participants discuss a cost allocation problem on investment for disaster prevention communication equipment at a supposed area that they reside in. We visualize and analyze the discussion process to insist on opinions each other, to share knowledge, and to build the consensus in the end. The analysis derives essences for facilitating and smoothing such discussion.

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This study demonstrates the local energy system modeling with MARKAL (Market Allocation) model. Ourregional MARKAL model assumes long-term energy demand and supply composition from 1990 to 2050. This model receives a lot of technology information (efficiency, life, start years, unit cost, etc) from Japanese MARKAL model developed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency, but also, some particular parameters (capacity bound, demand level, etc) are obtained from the "local energy balance table". The optimization is performed considering future economic growth, energy intensity, energy cost, and advancement of energy technologies. The energy system modeling in regional level will contribute to policy argument and activities on reducing CO2 emission.

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It is concerned that the sources of high-grade phosphate ore deposits could disappear within the next 100 years at current use rates. Detail review on the domestic phosphorus material flow in Japan revealed by the authors shows that phosphorus in steelmaking slag and sewage sludge is almost equivalent with that in the imported phosphate rock in the view points of the amount and the concentration, and thus they have great potential as a new artificial phosphorus resource. Recovery technologies from them which are being developed by the authors are introduced. Environmental and economical benefits given by the proposed new process are also quantitatively evaluated by the Waste Input-Output model.

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Shinkatsushika Hospital has recently attracted attention for its Medical ADR. Medical ADR in the hospital has managed inside the hospital. Based on the simplified method of Problem Structuring Methodology, we had interviews to the persons concerned in and outside the hospital after building a hypothesis by referring to literature survey and what the director of the hospital recognize as the problem. With the results, we revised our hypothesis, picked out some points, and built them again, to clarify significance and problems of the medical ADR inside Shinkatsushika Hospital. Importance of mediator's competence of communication and merits of appointing non-doctor has become clear.

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The system of no fault compensation rule in medical accidents is seriously considered. This system is much needed by not only health care provider but also patients in that speedy remedy is realized without proving provider's fault. However, as compensation system is established, there are a lot of issues, who pay contribution, how to limit of compensation area, who manage payment and is he or she neutral and professional... In this study, We should organize these issues, and make clear the position of current considered system. By this, Wehope this study help system construction in the near future.

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In United Kingdom, animal experiments are regulated by the nation with the comprehensive law in which licence system at the levels of person, project and institute is defined. In the United States of America, decentralized regulation is attained by the institutional animal care and use committee in each institute and multiple structure of legal systems. The basic principle of this regulation is described in the combination of national laws and guidelines. On the basis of comparison of these systems, two main proposals are described for the future design for the effective regulation of animal experiment in Japan. Firstly, the basic principle of the regulation should be set on "Respect for life". Secondly, educational system for researchers, together with self regulatory system, should be established, and shown its effectiveness to the public.

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This paper reports activities and findings in the first exercises in Japan against information-technology-related troubles that involve multiple critical infrastructures, which were held in 2006. The activities consisted of research of exercises and on-table exercise, with participation of 10 infrastructure sectors and five government ministries and agencies. The on-table exercise adopted a scenario of event that caused troubles in the information systems and operations of 10 different infrastructure sectors.

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It is necessary to consider various influencing factors including harmful effects of disasters, damages of infrastructures, behavior of citizens, etc. in designing effective and resilient emergency response systems. Human factors in inter- and intra-organizational coordination is one of the major issues for the system design, however, it has not been paid much attention. In this study, we have investigated human factors in emergency response, especially for inter- and intra-organizational coordination, and developed a model of organizational behavior as well as domain ontology for emergency response in disasters. We incorporated the model into the simulation model previously developed and showed some simulation results reflecting those human factors.

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To advance measures for safety of the railroad accidents effectively, we have tried to apply the risk assessment method to the railway network. We divide the railway areas into the stations to evaluate risk adequately including the accident that actually did not occur, and we estimated the probability of the accidents according to the kind of railway facilities. In addition, we constructed the method of evaluating the consequences of the accidents by the Monte Carlo Simulation. Moreover, we tried to assess the risks including social sense of values to reflect the social safety. We made a practicable assessment method to estimate the risk value for some scenarios.

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As shown in "The promotion policy of research and development on technology for safe and security" issued by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, now in the highly-complicated societies, we have to suggest the socially acceptable solution to the safe and security problems using not only the knowledge of natural science but also that of human studies and social science. In this research, we picked out frontiers of human studies and social science research to be promoted in the near future for the issues in seven fields: natural disaster, serious accidents, emerging and reemerging infection, food-safety, information network, terrorism, various crimes (especially that against children).

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This paper aims to investigate the trends of and to extrapolate the issues surrounding interdependency analysis. Interdependency analysis studies the linkages, especially among lifeline infrastructures, within the socio-economic system for evaluating its vulnerability, and has gained its importance in the recent years, due mostly to the frequent occurrence of sever natural disasters and the increasing threats of international terrorism. Survey was conducted by interviewing both the researchers and the users of such research, in order to examine the current affairs and to formulate the agendas for the future research and development.

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Domain knowledge, which experts have accumulated locally, should be shared with other non-specialists more broadly to aid their decision making and problem solving. One of the largest social issues due to inadequate knowledge sharing can be observed, however, in a matter of "public acceptance of nuclear power", where people can hardly participate in its technical discussion beyond impeding expertise. In order to mitigate the difficulty, we developed an information retrieval service based on an ontological technique. This new service was implemented into society and served there to make it easier to search nuclear-related contents on the Internet. This technology can be applied to any other matters to aid people in reaching specialized domain knowledge.

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The method that enabled to extract important topics from document clusters containing text documents of many subjects retrieved from Nikkei newspaper was developed. The hierarchical clustering algorithm, UPGMA was used to generate the tree structure of clusters according to the similarity of document vectors defined by noun words appeared in the documents. The document clustering revealed the intimate relationship with the process of the societal problem detection, classifying similar documents in each topical group and structuring the groups according to their contents. The method was evaluated by applying to the subject of the organizational hazards caused by Japanese industries during 1990-2005.

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