The Intercellular lipids of stratum corneum, including ceramides, cholesterol, free fatty acids, triglycerides and cholesteryl sulfate, play the important roles such as the water permeation barrier, water retention properties and cohesion-dishesion mechanism. This paper focuses in the sphingolipids, which contain sphingosine, ceramides, sphingomyelin and cerebrosides, and describes the recent advances of investigations on the biosynthesis and enzymatic degradation of their sphingolipids.

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We have an affluent environment now. The culture and the economy have highly developed our life. However, it is said that "the time of rapid change" has come. We have a plenty of problems that we have to think over with an international point of view. In consequence, these problems have a great influence on human mind and body. They have frightened us as stress. Stress is a scrious problem for us and it should not be overlooked. We have to go back to the starting point again. Therefore, I'd like to consider the posture holds the key to health and beauty.

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[in Japanese]

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When Shakespeare dedicated his first narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, to Earl of Southampton, he promised the earl a graver work, if the poem met with his approval. The poet dedicated his second narrative poem, The Rape of Lucrece, to the earl in 1594,one year after the publication of Venus. There are many modern critics who consider this poem 'an interesting failure.' The poem, however, was so successful among his contemporaries as it had been printed 9 times by 1655. In those days Lucrece was regarded by everyone as 'a graver moral work.' The poem roughly consists of two parts, the first half dealing with Tarquin's lust for Lucrece and the last half, Lucrece's tragic complaint and her suicide. Lucrece can be traced in the tradition of the complaint poem which was in vogue in England during the 1590s. The chief interest of the poem lies in the plight of the victim and her complaint. In the first part of her complaint she rails at Night, Oppotunity and Time, in turn. In the latter part of the complaint, the poet tells us the Troy episode, especially about Perjured Sinon, who deceived the Trojans into breaking down the walls and taking the horse inside. Lucrece compares him to Tarquin who destroyed her Troy.

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Lee Breuer, director, playwright, and a founding member of the avant-garde theatrical group Mabou Mines, is well known in the American avant-garde theatre for his adaptations of Beckett's work as well as his original work such as the Animation trilogy. The purpose of this essay is to present my criticism of his latest work, the New York production of The Warrior Ant in 1988. Through a close examination of the performance text and analyses of both the narrative and mythopoeic aspects of the work, in reference to Aristotelian notion of epic, Brecht's idea of Epic Theater and Roland Barthes' speculation on Bunraku, Breuer's importation of a narrative structure as a framework to hold such a postmodern piece will be confirmed as a successful solution. Fianlly, the problematics of postmodernism and interculturalism will be discussed in relation to the postmodern aspects of the production, such as the reference of various ideas and cultural codes, ready-made images and parodies on both semantic and linguistic levels regardless the difference between high and low, the holy and the popular, the classic and the modern to place the significance of this production in its social context as a kind of intercultural phenomenon in this so-called postmodern era.

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Das Kunstwerk im japanischen Kunstbegriff wurdet als den "Kagami (=Spiegel)" der "Selbstvergessenheit=Psyche=Kami (=Gottheit)" betrachtet. Nach meiner Meinung, diese Idee existierte in der japanische Mythologie. Und diese lebt bis heute unter dem Einfluβ von dem einheimischen Glaube der "Seele", dem Schintoismus und dem Buddhismus. Deshalb hellene ich diesmal die Bedeutung des Wort "Kagami" auf und betrache den japanischen Kunstbegriff.

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Color is important as one part of formative element. It is not only theory of color, but involving subjective feeling always. Considering a color from the theory and sense is considering it physically, mentally, physiological, sensuous. In the process, I try sounding out relationship of the property in color.

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One can understand the life and sense of beauty of an age through the medium of an excellent architecture. A way of getting a useful idea of beauty is to abstract its essence from an architecture and apply it to hair dressing methodology. It is well known that Vidal Sassoon introduced the design concepts of modernist architect (e.g. Le Corbusier, Bauhaus architects) in the development of the "Sassoon Bob" in the 1960's. Since the slowdown of the modermist movement in the 1970's, Post Modern style has been main stream in the field of architecture. Post Modern architects have revived in the Post Modern age. In this project, we made experiment on applying the essence of Art Deco to our hair designs in oder to create today's new style of coiffure. We have photographed the models whose hair style we designed in Art Deco style settings. We want to create a total effect of the hair styles harmonious with the surroundings of Art Deco style.

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Since the age of "Manyo", people thought that belts, sashes and strings had magical power. Those things which had been considered as magical turned to ornamental accessaries in the course of time, and the fashion underwent changes in turn, mainly led by "Kabuki" actors and other entertainers. At the root of people's mind, however, there remained an idea that "to tie sashes or strings is to connect human souls." Even at the present time, still living is this idea of "Enmusubi" : to tie strings in order to have closer relations with other people. The act of tying lovers with a sash was considered in Edo Period to be the way to express love symbolically in order to make their human relation firm and eternal. This act of tying and its symbol can be observed particularly in Chikamatsu's play, Double Suicide at Sonezaki.

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