Misc

© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The emigration of residents following the Fukushima nuclear accident has resulted in aging and depopulation problems in radiation-contaminated areas. The recovery of affected areas, and even those areas with low radioactive pollution levels, is still heavily affected by this problem. This slow recovery consequently affects immigration patterns. This review aims to present possible factors that have contributed to this dilemma. We first present an overview of the evacuation protocol that was administered in the study area following the Fukushima accident. We then analyze characteristics of the subsequent exodus by comparing population data for both before and after the accident. Based on the findings of existing literature, we identify three causes of emigration: (1) The health risks of living in a low radiation zone are still unknown; (2) The post-disaster psychological disturbance and distrust of government information promotes the emigration of evacuees; (3) an absence of economic vitality and of a leading industry renders the area less attractive to individuals residing outside of the city. Further research is needed on this issue, especially with respect to countermeasures for addressing this problem.

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG. All Rights Reserved. This book contributes to the literature on resilience, hazard planning, risk management, environmental policy and design, presenting articles that focus on building resilience through social and technical means. Bringing together contributions from Japanese authors, the book also offers a rare English-language glimpse into current policy and practice in Japan since the 2011 Tohoku disaster. The growth of resilience as a common point of contact for fields as disparate as economics, architecture and population politics reflects a shared concern about our capacity to cope with and adapt to change. The ability to bounce back from hardship and disaster is essential to all of our futures. Yet, if such ability is to be sustainable, and not rely on a "brute force" response, innovation will need to become a core practice for policymakers and on-the-ground responders alike. The book offers a valuable reference guide for graduate students, researchers and policy analysts who are looking for a holistic but practical approach to resilience planning.

 In this paper, we present the results based on people’s experiences of sand sauna therapy at the Tavan Els Kidney Sanatorium in Mongolia. The sanatorium offers a type of balneotherapy through the application of thermally warmed sand and a combination of a healthy micro-bioclimate, a pure natural environment, and the preparation of fresh and healthy local foods. It’s function is to treat patients with chronic kidney glomerulonephrits through natural heated sand baths and other therapies. Sand sauna therapy involves an individual lying in a heated sand bath 8 to 20 minutes for adults and 7 to 15 minutes for child, and is performed twice a day (morning and afternoon) for 2 or 3 weeks once a year. The sand sauna treatment most likely affects the body by means of the sand’s high temperature and the presence of important biological and chemical elements. Our study was limited to the sand therapy and local conditions at Tavan Els kidney sanatorium. We recommend more collaborative scientific research on the effectiveness of balneotherapy for the treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD).

More and more attentions have been paided to the quality of spatial data, but still there is no such functions in conventional GIS packages. Geographic attribute errors have been discussed in several studies with the extension of reraltional data model, in which the spatiality of geographic informatin is irgnored. This paper tries to develop a new data model for uncertain spatial objects. Various uncertainties are classified into two dimensions - position and attibute which are represented by spatial membership functions in fuzzy topology space. Based on this representation, LOU data model is proposed in which topological relationships of fuzzy objects are created in Layer level, attributes are recorded in Object level and fuzziness of objects are refered to Unit level. Methods of spatial analyses like map overlay by LOU model are also discussed.