ABSTRACT
The production system for "Title Change Map for Union Catalog of Serials in European languages,1990"is described.In contrast with the previous edition of the Map: "Title Map for Union List of Periodicals in Japanese language,1987,"the present edition is characterized in the following aspects:1) bibliographic data in European languages,2)the 2.6 times larger number of serials to be included,3)source data gathered through an online cataloging system. These required many parts of the system to be newly designed and developed,on which the paper discussed in depth.

ABSTRACT
The "Union List of Periodicals"(ULP)database has been in compilation since 1976 at the National Center for Science Information System(NACSIS) and its predecessors,in order to centralize the location data for journals held at all Japanese universities.The "Title Chang Map" is a graphical method of presenting the history of title changes in a group of related journals.It was devised for efficient management and retrieval of the ULP database.The 3rd edition of the Map for journals in European languages,with various improvements to the former edition, was published in 1990.It consists of 37,527 journals in 12,827" families." The paper first summarizes the history and environment of the ULP database and the Title Change Map,then outlines the data management for title changes based on the "family" concept.Later it describes the format and organization of the Map with reference to the computerized process involved in generating the Map.Because of the Title Change Map's intuitively comprehensible nature,its applications have been broadened so as to include online services and a CD-ROM version.As well,the paper gives statistics, based on a classification derived from a graph theoretical analysis of the patterns of title changes,with comments on statistically unique families.

ABSTRACT
This paper describes a multimedia document database system based on object-oriented model.Layer structured model is proposed to apply object-oriented concept to database systems. This model combines faculties of existing relational database systems and data model with class hierarchy mechanism in object-oriented concept.The layer-structured model consists of data management layer,object management layer and user interface layer. Faculties of these layers are discussed and examined to develop a multimedia document database system,and a prototype system based on this model has been implemented for a document database system.

ABSTRACT
This paper discusses a method to combine several existing relational databases.The concept of lossless join,which is derived from data dependensies constrained on data,can be used to decide whether the composite data is expected one or not.When the composite data are not expected one,additional data are needed to make composition be lossless join.This paper provides a method to obtain the scheme of this additional data.It can be used to construct additional data scheme in combining separately managed data.

ABSTRACT
A new approach to segmenting digitalized documents which can break document image into regions of text and images in order to recognize characters is discused.Though OCR technology is advancing rapidly,the variety and size of displayed fonts and information objects (e.g.,illustrations,charts,photographs and logo marks)generally contained in contents sheet are still beyond the ability of commercially available technology.Since the difficult problem in the document image recognition is the variety of page layouts,our approach is focused on the segmentation of digitalized page images into regions of text and images. This approach is constructed from two processes.One is the global processing,which page image is roughly segmented into text regions and image regions by comparing the spatial frequency patterns of Fast Fourier Transform(FFT).The second is the local processing, which the Run Length Smoothing Algorithm(RLSA) and the Peripheral Projection (PP) method are applied in order to segment text regions in more detail.

ABSTRACT
Problems anticipated in the formation of the production and dissemination system of electronic publication are discussed based mainly on technical visits in the years of early 1989 and 1990 focusing on recent trends in Europe and U.S.A. Activities of SGML promoting organizations are reviewed and tasks to be overcome by these activities are pointed out. Early implementations by publishers, government organizations are reviewed to determine the initial obstacles encountered. Preliminary analysis is made on aspects of storage and dissemination of electronic documents which were exemplified by the Knowledge Warehouse Project (U.K), the Project Gutenberg(U.S.A.), American Memory Project (U.S.A.), the electronic document delivery project of the BLDSC(U.K.).

ABSTRACT
The Chinese Academy of Sciences(CAS),which has about 130 institutes all over China,is a research center of different fields in natural sciences.The Documentation and Information-Centre of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(DICCAS)is a supporting organization for the research activities in CAS, and forms the documentation and information system of CAS with 4 local centers in Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu and Lanzhou,and 130 branch libraries of each institutes.In this paper,the development of library automation and modernization in DICCAS as well as in other centers has been described,with emphasis in database construction and services.The achievment obtained through more than 10 years' efforts is shown,and the problems are pointed out on the way of developing towards a new hi-tech center for exchanging and sharing of information resources.

ABSTRACT
The author reported a state-of art survey of current status of database industry and problems in regards to information environment in Korea.The first database in Korea was produced in 1978 by the KORSTIC. As of 1990, Korea has 170 data bases produced by 140 institutions,but only 68 databases by 47 institutions are in service, in which KETEL, NICE-TIPS, DACOM are major figures. Among them, CITI has been tasked with a national focal role in database activities. The amounts of users and usage were introduced to show the phase of taking-off of the database industry. The historical background and the corrent trends of Korea's database production and distribution were discussed.The author pointed out some of the present issues that face Korea's database industry and its future tasks and prospects.

ABSTRACT
Framework ob bibliographic control in the East Asian Region is discussed to determine premises of understanding on the vernacular cataloguing rules which are inevitable for aqcuisition and cataloguing of vernacular documents.Study and analysis work is carried out on Korean Cataloguing Rules(KCR) to evaluate 1)adaptability for cataloguing Korean language materials in Japan; 2)possibility for establishing of common cataloguing principles between Korea and Japan; and 3) differences between KCRs and Nippon Cataloguing (NCRs). KCR Version 3.1 is translated into Japanese for these purposes.Although both languages use Chiness characters for technical terms,usages of characters differ in two languages and expressions vary richly.Future tasks are listed to propose further steps for promoting international exchange of shcholarly and/or bibiographic information in Korean and Japanese languages.

ABSTRACT
A field survey of the Japanese collections accumulated in foreign countries was conducted to assess their potentialities to cope with the needs for information on Japan.On the basis of the results of a preliminary survey in Japan and Korea of the holdings of Japanese and Korean materials,seven criteria were tentatively set up to revaluate the Japanese collections in a new perspective,namely:1)balance between monographs and serials collections,2)levels of bibliographical units and analytics,3)development of union catalogues,4)freedom from exoticism, 5)English materials as the sources of Japanese information,6)subject access and/or subject librarians,7)custodial isolation.Interviews and observations in some twenty-three Japanese Collections in U.K., Germany, France and United States were carried out with these seven criteria in mind as the working hypothesis.The results were collected, arranged and examined. Five factors were selected as the critical measures to revaluate these Japanese collections,including: 1)dual structure of global language and vernacular, 2) relative position from exoticism, 3) bibliographiccontrol, 4) subject access, 5) coordination to CJK concept.Three ideal types of Japanese collections were proposed to extend the research a step further.

ABSTRACT
Based on their limited experience,many Japanese tend to believe various scientifically unfounded misconceptions about their writing system, which is a logographic writing system.The present paper attempts, from the scientific viewpoint based on linguistics, psychophysics, cognitive science, brain science, etc.,to unravel the tangle of conflicting claims on the merits of various writing systems by their respective supporters.

ABSTRACT
The phenomental development of Japan's industrial economy since the Second World War has attracted the admiration of the international community, and has sometimes even been regarded as an enigma. However, the resulting international trade triction has led to accusations that Japan's success is due to chauvinistic heterogeneity of her culture and unfair trade practices of her government. However, the majority of arguments do not appear to have a solid foundation. The present note attempts to abate international misconceptions through discussion of particular problems from various standpoints. It also makes suggestions to be considered by the Japanese side in resolving international trade problems.

ABSTRACT
The writer has qualitatively argued elsewhere that,when a subpopulation is selected through a series of tests designed to screen candidates based on overall scores obtained by adding individual test scores,those who have some outstanding qualifications such as creativity in a certain area tend to be eliminated in favor of those who have well-rounded abilities in all fields.The present note furthers the argument quantitatively by providing some mathematical support to it.