This article compares the provision of long-term care (LTC) in Japan and Spain, two countries with similar demographic structures but which address the provision of LTCs in very different ways. Both countries provide universal LTC. However, Japan has developed a generous benefit package of formal services for dependents to alleviate the care burden on the family, but provides no cash benefits. ...

A real-time seismic monitoring infrastructure has been recently installed and it is actually operating in southern Italy, whose main purposes are to rapidly issue an earthquake alert, to provide near-real-time maps of the peak ground motion and intensity shaking and to test the feasibility of earthquake early warning following moderate to large earthquakes occurring along the southern Apenninic...

The latest improvements in geo-informatics offer new opportunities in a wide range of territorial and environmental applications. In this general framework, a relevant issue is represented by earthquake early warning and emergency management. This research work presents the investigation and development of a simple and innovative geospatial methodology and related collaborative open source geos...

We at DDBJ (http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp) process and publicise the massive amounts of data submitted mainly by Japanese genome projects and sequencing teams. It is emphasised that the collaboration between data producing teams and the data bank is crucial in carrying out these processes smoothly. The amount of data submitted in 1999 is so large that it alone exceeds the total amount submitted in ...

We demonstrate a flexible strategy for local tsunami warning that relies on regional geodetic and seismic stations. Through retrospective analysis of four recent tsunamigenic events in Japan and Chile, we show that rapid earthquake source information, provided by methodologies developed for earthquake early warning, can be used to generate timely estimates of maximum expected tsunami amplitude ...

Recent results suggest that measurements of the average “predominant period,” sp, of an earthquake using the first few seconds of P waves provide a rapid approximate estimate of magnitude that can be used for earthquake early warning systems. Although these prior studies demonstrate the empirical value of such an approach, we here examine the theoretical properties of the predominant period est...

This paper describes a novel method for structural health monitoring of buildings, currently being developed at the University of Southern California for future applications in earthquake early warning systems. The method uses data from vibrational sensors and is based on detecting changes in travel times of waves propagating through the structure. It is an intermediate scale method, which can ...

objectives: japan has a relatively high prevalence of smoking in men. despite the importance of behavioral patterns on successful smoking cessation, only limited information is available in japan. the present study collected data from former smokers in a rural community in japan in order to identify health status at the time of cessation, predominant motivating factors, and the role of smoking ...

A vigorous effort has been undertaken to develop a robust and high speed network in the Asia-Pacific region which satisfies the needs of the scientific community. Consortium for Asia-Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) are established in some countries in this region. Our group, along with collaborators in Singapore and Australia, is moving towards the establishment of Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics N...

The recent advances in geo-informatics have been opening new opportunities in earthquake early warning and emergency management issues. In the last years, the geo-scientific community has recognized the added value of a geo-analytic approach in complex decision making processes for critical situations due to disastrous natural events such as earthquakes. In fact, recently, GIS-based solutions a...