2774 items found.
Efforts to preserve the global environment are one of the greatest challenges of the present age. Thus, it is inevitable to have a considerable involvement in environmental issues, irrespective of the area of specialization. The field of environment is extremely broad. It involves a wide range of stages from the earth to life to human society. For this reason, subjects related to the environment are currently being segmented and specialized.
With this context, this course helps the students to learn specialized knowledge in the field of extremely wide sectors related to environment in order to have a solid foundation of this diverse topic. A comprehensive review of a wide range of environmental fields from a unified viewpoint of science and technology is provided. This helps in deepening knowledge while viewing the entire environmental field, even if the student advances to one specific areas for his/her research or profession. In each lesson, we will take up specific cases, that can easily be understood with view point of science and technology application in the field of envirnmental management.
In this lecture, we deal with the characteristics and issues of three approaches related to public management ((1) Government (2) Market (3) Community)
This lecture deals with the history, institutions, and policy of the health care and long-term care services.
This lecture will enhance the understanding of the essence of social marketing and its trends.
Introduces key concepts helpful to analyze the nature of network industries. Will try to deepen the understanding by reading literature and occasionally inviting guest speakers. Will be asked to submit approximately 200 words in English essays seven times during the semester. Some students will be asked to present based on the essays.
Note that a class dealing with essentially the same concepts but in Japanese will be offered in the second quarter of the spring semester.
Introduces key concepts helpful to analyze the nature of network industries. Will try to deepen the understanding by reading literature and occasionally inviting guest speakers. Will be asked to submit approximately 400 characters in Japanese essays seven times during the semester. Some students will be asked to present based on the essays.
Note that a class dealing with essentially the same concepts but in English will be offered in the first quarter of the spring semester.
Using microeconomics and game theory mainly, the public choice explains political phenomena, analyzes interdependence between polity and economy, and clarifies the basis of legal system and social norm. Adopting the analytical methods of microeconomics and game theory here means that the public choice basically depends on the hypothesis that people and organizations behave to maximally achieve their specific objectives under given conditions.
In this lecture, in order to place emphasis on having students understand the basic idea of public choice, we will not carry out detailed technical explanation as a rule. However, because it is necessary to respond well to the intellectual requirements of graduate students, somewhat advanced contents may be included for undergraduates.
This course is aimed to learn the basics of risk management and insurance economics.
Appropriately managing risk increases the utility of individuals and firm value.
This decision-making process is "risk management."
There are many financial instruments for risk management such as insurance, annuities, and derivatives, provided by insurance companies and financial institutions, regulated by the authority.
Theories of international relations are discussed.
(This course will be taught in Japanese for the academic year 2022, and in the following year in English as a GIGA course.)
Since the end of the Second World War, and with the independence of a great number of countries, the so-called "development" project was enacted globally to improve the living standards of the so-called "developing countries." This process was accompanied by expansion of academic knowledge of these regions, and made way for interdisciplinary and problem-solving oriented social science. In this lecture, we will explore this process from the point of view of anthropology, and with a regional focus on Latin America.
The purpose of the course is to approach human (in)security by examining the role of the state in its services to the people, the services that the state can provide, and the extent to which the state services can reach out for its people. Examining risks presented to the individuals due to the lack of services and/or the limited coverage of existing services are also another focus of the course. The role of the government (acting in the name of the state), theoretically speaking, is to design policies and offer services to its people and in return, people pay taxes in order to enjoy the services provided, that is, public goods. Depending on the extension of services it can provide can one state be considered either a night watchman state or a welfare state. How do the people carry out their daily life given the presence/absence of the protection from its state in a certain area? Even where the state is involved, there is no assurance that such policies and/or services are comprehensive enough to cover everyone, or even effective for many. Furthermore, even with these problems, these policies and services may either give so little autonomy to their beneficiaries (people). The course will use examples of health, police, education, etc as illustrations to examine how different types of states deal with each issue and how their approach influences the living of its people.
Why does scientific advice on nutrition keep changing? Does hydroxychloroquine cure coronavirus? How can we tell the difference between a scientific breakthrough and fake news? And how can a budding scientist do exciting research that will save the world and land you a job without following in the footsteps of the fraudsters and spin artists who have been taken down by scientific scandals? This course will look closely at some of the worst examples of science gone wrong from across all disciplines, including RIKEN’s faked stem cell images, the over-hyped “Mozart effect”, scientific racism in IQ and skull measurements, and Excel errors in GDP:debt ratio calculations. Taught by someone with first-hand experience both with using open science and with retracting a high-profile journal article, we will have frank discussions about the perverse incentives that select for unethical science practices and how we might fix them.
How do people choose words or expressions to communicate with others successfully? Further, what difficulties are experienced if such acts are done in a second language(L2)? This lecture will survey how adult learners acquire L2. Students will learn theories of L2 acquisition and study issues involving communications from theoretical and practical positions. I welcome students who are interested in cross-cultural communication and pragmatics as well as second language acquisition (SLA) research.
The course aims to introduce students to basic concepts of semantics and methods for practical analysis of linguistic data. We will put particular focus on the analysis of lexical meaning from a cognitive linguistic perspective. What is the mechanism behind our understanding of lexical meaning? How are our concepts structured via metaphors other conceptual operations? What might we be able to learn from the analysis of culturally significant lexical items? These are basic research questions of this course. Graduate students who have already taken this course are expected to enhance their skill further and to tackle on a research question which will result in a professional presentation.
Imagine you have an ant in your hand. The ant does not know you are moving forward, nor you can crush it anytime. The ant is us human beings living on the Earth's surface. This course provides an introduction to learning how the Earth's dynamics works from the point of view of solid earth science. You will briefly learn the history of the Earth and its creations, and the consequent change in the environment. You will also learn the mechanism of an earthquake, a tsunami, and a volcanic eruption. You will feel the difference between time and space scales from your everyday life. (You can learn about fluid earth science in the class "Earth System B" held by Dr. Y. Miyamoto.)
The class aims to provide the basic understanding of the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean. By omitting equations as much as possible, the history of the atmosphere and ocean, mechanism on wind and rain, will be introduced. Using the basic understanding, environmental issues such as global warming, air pollution, and heat island will be discussed in the class.
This academic project （AP） makes use of research methods proper to humanities in order to examine cultural issues that our societies face in the processes of globalization. Putting a focus on 1) language expression, 2) thoughts, 3) systems as research areas, we will analyze theoretically what these issues mean for a human subject and study practically how they can be resolved through the redesign of systems.
Among many challenges raised in contemporary societies, transcultural phenomenon will be an important research topic in this academic project. This phenomenon appears on an individual and a collective level, taking various forms. It can be observed in the relation between a person and his/her native language(s), or between immigrants and host societies for example. Problems raised in such a situation lead us to think seriously about how to design and construct a new relation between individuals and groups or communities.
To tackle this challenge, we specifically pay attention to research areas in which humanities approaches are appropriate, like literature as a form of language expression, or philosophy and thoughts. Methodologically, we investigate the meaning of the human experiences in contemporary societies and cultures from the standpoint, not of “explanation” (Erklären), but of “comprehension” (Verstehen).
It should be added that the social and cultural experiences mentioned above occur beyond the existing social or political frameworks because of globalization in process. This requires also rethinking of systems in order to handle the problems of language, nationality or immigration. These practical issues are also taken into account in this project.
Over the more than 20 years since the beginning of the popularization
of the Internet, society has come to depend on it. The Internet is much more than just a digital technology, it has become one of the key elements of the infrastructure on which our society is built. Thus, it is important to consider operations and applications of the
Internet with respect to global relationships, law, ethics, and society. In this academic project, we'll study the social aspects of
the Internet and support the sound development of the Internet.
Over the past 20 years since the beginning of the popularization of the Internet, society has changed drastically into a mechanism based on Internet premise.
As the Internet further develops as an infrastructure that supports society, technological progress and innovation as infrastructure are indispensable for contributing to humanity. In this Academic Project, we will research and develop new Internet technologies that are needed as infrastructure to support humanity.
Our basic functions such as thinking, feeling, learning, sensing, and moving are outcomes of neural interactions between the brain and body. This would lead us to know that neuroscience is the essential way to understand humans.
In this "Academic Project", we try to obtain methodologies for understanding neural mechanisms of our behaviors such as medicine, sports, music, cultural activities, and economical activities, and to promote logical thinkings.
In the globalizing and Informatization, To build the global governance to realize the world peace and prosperity is necessary in this changing world. This project will try to find the way of the resolution by using "Area Studies" for making clear the various issues in the real world.
This projects aims to use SFC trans-disciplinary knowledges to create a web of connected institutions with SFC as the Japan hub
Increased global interest in Japanese language and cultures has led to government support for cultural outreach programs with a focus on support for policy initiatives in the Asia-Africa corridor
The development of direct student-to-student connectivity and innovative materials has lagged. This project will utilize SFC resources to:
Develop student-centered connections with institutions supporting Japanese studies
(ISP-gombe DRC, St. Stephens College, India etc.)
Create web-based Japanese studies materials
and p-to-p diplomacy portals
This AP aims to bring together graduate students and faculty throughout SFC doing research joining music/art and science. We will spend a full day one Tuesday (tentatively 11:10~18:00 May 24th, but exact date/time TBC) with students giving presentations showcasing their research.
The purpose of this course is to acquire specialized knowledge and research methods by discussing and reading literature and materials on contemporary Chinese politics and diplomacy.
The main purpose of this academic project is to build a new approach to “security,” thruough a variety of perspectives. Given the development of artificial intelligence (AI), drone technology and big data science, our conception of security is undergoing a major change. At the same time, the cross-domain and multi-domain nature of security is also becoming more evident, encompassing the nuclear, conventional, space and cyber domains. How we can build a bridge bwtween the traditional and emerging areas of security studies is also something we would like to explore in this project.