The University of Aizu is a new university that opened in April 1993, as one of the first universities in Japan with all faculty positions open to the world, and the first university in Japan dedicated to the discipline of computer science and engineering. After four years, its Graduate School was established in 1997 and CITEC (Core and Information Technology Center) in 1999 to promote the key technology of ``Next Generation High Speed Network''.
About a half of the faculty is non-Japanese with 18 different nationalities. They came here to build up a new computer culture in Aizu, which hopefully is something more than a collection of multiple cultural backgrounds of the faculty. Our goal is symbolized in the logo with the phrase ``to Advance Knowledge for Humanity". This is the First Issue of the Annual Review of the Graduate School presenting their activities.
I hope you enjoy this issue and give us your opinions and comments. We invite you to join us in various capacities to enjoy this melting pot of numerous cultural, political and economic differences. Our university is now strongly promoting the cooperation program between the university and industries. I hope this issue provides the good seeds of the cooperation program. E-mail is one way to enhance the cultural fusion. Our faculty's e-mail addresses are listed in the Author Index and E-mail Address section of this Annual Review.
With my warmest regards to all of you,
October 1999. Shoichi Noguchi, President