Brief Introduction to The University of Aizu

The University of Aizu is both unique and typical at once. As a research and educational center, it has to deal with the following conventional tasks:

The university develops scientific directions that are interesting and promising to the faculty members.
The university provides the students with necessary knowledge and skills. However, as the first international Computer Science and Engineering School in Japan, the University of Aizu has higher goals:
The university is developing a new synthetic style of thinking and scientific research that combines the characteristics of Western and Japanese mentalities.
The university is creating a new type of education and a new type of student. This is not only due to the international environment, but also due to the concept of top-down education, based on involving students in research activities at the earliest stages of education.

Our faculty comes from 16 countries including Japan, U.S.A., Russia, China, Korea, Germany, Poland, Brazil, France, Canada, Turkey, India, Tunisia, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The faculty has now spent more than three years in the university's international environment and has come to understand how great the influence of cultural stereotypes and the traditions of scientific schools are on the style and results of research.

We realize how these stereotypes differ and how useful the combination of various approaches to the same work can be.

Foreign faculty members now feel that the Japanese culture and traditions have increased their understanding, while their presence has influenced the Japanese faculty members and students as well.

The University of Aizu is still brand-new. It is exceedingly well constructed and equipped. All conditions to work out this " multi-cultural reality'' are present.

This second issue of Annual Review already contains papers on the combined research of faculty members from different countries. We hope that in the future the number of such publications will increase, particularly after the beginning of Master's and Ph.D. programs in the university.

The Annual Review intends to show the contributions of the Laboratories and Centers of the University. The Annual Review 1995 includes technical papers (published/accepted) and academic activities from April 1, 1995 to March 31, 1996. More detailed information on the faculty members is published in the brochure The University of Aizu: People Advancing Knowledge for Humanity.

The Annual Review 1995 was edited by Prof. Q. M. Chen at the Office for Planning and Management with the cooperation of all Laboratories and Centers of the university. Also, we would like to thank the members of the Public Relations and Publications Committee 1996: Profs. A. Taubin, M. Cohen, K. Gotoh, T. Orr, K. Funahashi, A. Fujitu and Q. M. Chen.

In addition, President T. L. Kunii was the initiator of this Annual Review and gave much of his own time and effort to make this publication possible and to improve its quality.

Public Relations and Publications Committee
University of Aizu