In this study, we showed the outline of the system which supports the community design activities in Gunma. The support systems have been found since 1998. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the implementation status and the evaluation of the area activation through the questionnaire survey to residents. The major findings include the followings. 1. The evaluation items which are the efficiency function, the resident function, the hospitality function, the history and the culture of their towns, the AHP technique are applied to calculate weight of the each evaluation items. 2. The success of Area Activations which are the efficiency on the enthusiastic in their town.

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This paper reviews the history of regional transportation system and analyzes its impact on local society in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. The history of regional network development is categorized into the three periods: before Meiji-era, Meiji-era to the World War II (WW II), and after the WW II. Yamanashi has suffered from poor accessibility because it is landlocked. However, a number of access roads have been developed since ancient times whereas the river transportation was also established in Edo-era. Then, rail network was constructed in Meiji-era while highways connecting with Tokyo were developed after the WW II. Then, the relationship between regional transportation system and social factors including national⁄local politics, policy, and industry are discussed.

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Road construction plays an important role in the Great Development of Western China. Many researches have been carried out by focusing on the influence of road construction on industrial structure and regional development. This paper studies the causality between the road network construction and its effects on regional industry structure, regional economy development, and industry changes. This study points out that the regions with high commuting rate have significant growth effects on economy and industry structure. Road construction promotes the development of regional growth and the adjustment of industrial structure. This study also suggests that the connection between the main production place and the main consumption place should be strengthened so as to promote the development of the regional economy.

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This paper examines the feasibility of cooperation among stakeholders in car sharing business in Japan. First, we interview ten stakeholders regarding the car sharing business, including the car sharing operators, rail operators, bus operators, local governments and central government. We abstract the stakeholders' recognitions of problem structure of car sharing through interviewing them. Then, we analyze the feasibility of cooperation among stakeholders. The results show that the joint business of car sharing with public transit service could be realized if the public transit operators find the benefit from the car sharing business.

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Electric Vehicle (EV) is coming up as an eco-friendly next-generation vehicle. A lot of companies release plans to sell EV, and then it is expected that EV becomes a means of transportation in daily life in the near future.
This study aims to pose an optimal routing problem of EV considering gradients (slopes) of roads. An optimal routing problem of EV differs from that of conventional cars, because electricity consumption and cruising rangEVary with inner states (battery performance and weight) of EV and the use of regenerative brake. In this study, a calculation model of electricity consumption of EV considering gradients is proposed. The influence of road gradient on an optimal routing of EV is also EValuated by using elEVation data collected during an experimental run.

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In South Korea, there were nine attempts to determine the radioactive waste repository site for 19 years since 1984. However, final repository site had been decided in none of these attempts. Finally, referenda regarding acceptance of LILW (Low and intermediate level radioactive waste) were held in four candidate municipalities at the same time in 2005, Gyeongju city accepted it. In contrast to past cases, four voluntary candidates competed for the project in the referenda. In order to analyze the reason of siting, a causal analysis of the political process is carried out. As a result, six decisive factors in the political process have been found: namely, the separation of SNF (spent nuclear fuel) storage, the big economic benefit, the legislated referenda, the legislation of the special law, setting the problem on national agenda, and the severe conflict in Buan.

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This goal of the present study was to examine the effects of the public's perceptions of the necessities and anxieties associated with nuclear power on the motivation of people to consider implementing nuclear power generation. In addition, differences in these effects were examined across different areas at various distances from nuclear power plants. Motivation for considering nuclear power generation was examined from two viewpoints: gathering information and discussion. The results suggested that perceptions of the necessities of nuclear power influence the gathering information motive, whereas anxieties influence the discussion motive. Perceptions of the necessities of nuclear power were found to have a stronger influence on the gathering information motive among people living near a nuclear power plant than among people living far away from a nuclear power plant.

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This paper presents outline of development of evacuation guidance system by using the technique of distributed autonomous cooperative system. The system which we developed consists of many devices; we called "Unit", which have smoke sensor, temperature sensor, CO sensor, microcomputers and data communications equipment by wireless LAN. We developed algorithms in order to communicate to each other units by using distributed autonomous cooperative system. After developing the system, we performed pilot experiments conducted on two kinds of actual buildings. As the result, the prototype system achieves successful performance as an evacuation guidance system.

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It is thought that there are two types of fire risks. The one is the causing fire risk by oneself, and another is the suffering fire risk from neighbors. Against the former, it is important basically for oneself to be prepared for fire. And against the latter, it is important additionally for neighbors to be prepared for fire. Such characteristics of the suffering fire risk from neighbors are abele to be referred to as externality. It is considered that the one who understood such characteristics of externality will have motivation to call one's and neighbors' attention. In this paper, we verify that the activation of residents' spontaneous motivation for regional fire spreading risk reduction.

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Risk management for overseas construction projects has become an extremely important subject. Based on the situation, "Development of Risk assessment system for Concrete Structures Construction in Vietnam" has been conducted. This research content three research investigations to collect actual data concerning the probability & cost of occurred failure, the factor of the accident related formwork and methods for reduce & deal with the failure in concrete construction in Vietnam. This paper presents the first investigation process and result. As the result of the first investigation, Event Tree Analysis was conducted by using some case of risk curves to identify and evaluate the sequence of events in the failures. Comparison was done between the results in Vietnam and those in Japan. As the result, mostly risk in concrete construction in Vietnam is 4 times higher than those in Japan.

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The narrowly-defined and broadly-defined aspects of injury information systems, injury surveillance systems and injury communication systems among stakeholders in the society are introduced. The authors found some shortcomings in the existing injury information databases in Japan, and presented some measures to improve them. A structure of contents of an information database, a five-factor method, which includes host, vector, agent, environment and consequence of injuries, are proposed. A comparative study is also made between Injury Information Databank in Japan and NEISS in America, and their strengths and weaknesses are pointed out.

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Complicated forms of 'public-private division of labour' are frequently observed in regulatory activities. In this paper, I first classify the institutional alternatives of public-private work-sharing, according to the amount of discretion that remains with the government. Then, I expand on my research agenda?how the delegated regulator chooses its administrative tools for public-private collaboration, and the performance of such tools?through a comparative case study on [1] the third-party/self-certification system under the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law, and [2] self-regulation against electromagnetic interference (EMI) managed by a private council, the Voluntary Control Council for Interference by Information Technology Equipment (VCCI). The results reveal that their differences in administrative tools are also explained by differences in [1] the resources that the industry possesses for effective regulation, such as administrative or punitive powers for appropriate implementation, and so, [2] suitable discretionary tools in the government for making the regulation productive and responsive in the regulatory space (provided by social factors such as market, consumer, and information), and [3] whether the regulatory system directly suffered from political tides of the regulatory reform in the 1980s, in addition to differences in [4] tools reasonable for the nature of the regulated technology, and [5] the respective path-dependent factor. This paper also mentions some implications for sociotechnology research.

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A scale for assessing the Subjective values of people using a system software product was constructed, because it was difficult to determine these values using existing approaches. In a pilot study, a questionnaire was developed to which the users of the product (n = 220) responded. The Subjective Value Scale (SVS) of SCS/SPC" was developed based on these responses. Then, it was confirmed that the scale had sufficient reliability and validity.

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To mitigate the urban heat environment, it is now becoming common practice to increase natural vegetation such as trees and grass. Particularly, the planting of greenery on roof-tops and on the walls of houses, buildings etc. has been promoted by many municipalities. However, it is also important to plant greenery in unused areas to increase the vegetation. In fact, covering unused areas with greenery not only has an effect on mitigating urban heat environment, but also offers a place of recreation and relaxation to people. In this study, first, we extracted the green covers such as trees and grass by using the high resolution satellite imagery, IKONOS. Then, we merged the land use data and greenery (LUG). We also acquired the land surface temperatures (LST) during different seasons and times. After which, we analyzed relationship between the LUG and the LST data. We also simulated mitigation effect of urban heat environment by planting greenery in unused areas.

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Although radio frequency identification technologies (IC Tag technologies) provide ubiquitous society with convenience and security, issues such as their effect on the environment or on privacy are controversial. When invisible and complex technologies are introduced, people's opinions need to be sampled and analyzed. In order to do so, the authors of this paper have considered the utilization of an opinion expression system, based on the results of an experiment using pTAS that the authors have developed themselves. Also, they proposed analyzing the concept of "communication without explicit interaction" from the viewpoint of the above-mentioned opinion expression system.

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The authors have been actively involved in the organization of the "EST stakeholder conference", which has been developed under the progress of Technology Assessment. The conference was held based on the hypothesis that "a participatory conference providing stakeholders' deliberation can identify the fundamental bottlenecks in innovative decision-making for achieving EST". The conference failed to identify opinion structure and the critical issue by stakeholders' initiative, though stakeholders managed to reach a conclusion through deliberative discussing. However, the practice identified valuable demonstrative data and specific issues through stakeholder dialogue based on sharing scientific knowledge and deliberation.

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In Nagoya City, in making the basic plan for municipal waste management, conference of "Citizen's Proposal for Nagoya Environmentally Sound Material-cycle Society" was conducted in advance. Taking the result of this proposal development as one of the materials for further discussion, the administrative plan was determined. For this plan development process through collaboration of citizens, industries/corporations and government, the hybrid-type citizens' participatory conference, which was formulated under the JST research project conducted in 2002-2005 through the collaboration of experts/researchers and local members, was utilized.
The purpose of this paper is to 1) report the result of the policy proposal for the environmentally sound material-cycle society developed through citizens' proactive participation conducted in 2006-2007 by applying the research output of JST research project and evaluate this decision-making process, and 2) point out the usefulness and problem areas of this hybrid-type citizens' participatory conference.

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This research examined the coordination role of extension officers in Japanese agricultural communities. Using a survey conducted on 319 extension officers, this study found that (1) coordinate activities such as creating social networks in extension works solves problems, (2) their positive affect is mainly predicted by the harmonious relationships in the responsible communities, (3) extension officers with the ability to encourage and direct farmers are positively evaluated as "role models," and (4) elder extension officers with relational skills have positive impacts on younger extension officers. The implications of the role and skills of extension officers in Japanese agricultural societies are discussed.

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This paper illuminates widening variety of technology assessment (TA) activities by parliamentary organizations and other bodies in the United States and Europe. It also illustrates a range of institutional options for TA from the view of its key elements, and examines the operational issues. Based on extensive interviews with TA practitioners and other related actors, we identified the recent direction of TA activities and provide discussion materials for states and regions in which there is a growing concern about the institutionalization of TA functions.

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