December 20 (Saturday)
Morning (4 hours)
Prof. Kaoru Kitajima, Professor of Tropical Forest Resources and Environments,

Title: “The ecology and evolution of tropical and warm-temperate evergreen forests”

Broad leaf evergreen forests that span from the tropical SE Asia to the coastal East Asia harbor some of the most biologically diverse forests. Unfortunately, these forests and many ecosystem services provided them are under serious threats directly and indirectly stemming from human activities, such as land-use change, climate change, and over exploitation of natural resources. This module (three 50 min lectures plus 20 min discussion and 30 min evaluation test at the end), will provide (1) an overview of the ecological and evolutionary backgrounds of the natural forests of this region, (2) ecology of seedling regeneration and species coexistence in natural tropical forests, and (3) the challenges and opportunities in conserving the biological diversity and ecosystem services provided by these forests.

Evaluation: Test


Afternoon (4 hours)
Prof. Nawata, Professor of Tropical Agriculture

Title: “Agricultural resources and agricultural systems in the tropics”

The tropics can be a key area for the future sustainable development of the world, because we believe rich agricultural resources in the tropics have not been fully developed yet. This class provides general characteristics of agricultural resources and agricultural systems in the tropics, especially in tropical Asia. In the first half, climatic factors affecting agricultural production in tropics Asia are explained in detail and representative agricultural systems and their recent changes in tropical Asia are introduced in the latter half. After that, future prospect or future strategy for sustainable agricultural development in the tropics is discussed.

Evaluation: Test


Evening (2 hours)
Prof. Miyagawa, Professor of Bioregulation Chemistry

Title: "Introduction of Crop Protection Chemistry"

Pesticides have been played an important role in the protection of crop plants from the attacks by various pest insects, pathogens and weeds, preventing from the yield loss. The first part of this lecture focuses on the necessity and the history of pesticides, or the measures taken for crop protection. Then, chemical properties and action mechanisms of major practically used pesticides will be reviewed, along with the problems to be improved hereafter. Regulatory system in Japan to lower the risk of pesticide residue in food as well as to mitigate the environmental effects will also be introduced.

Evaluation: Test


December 21 (Sunday)
Morning (4 hours)
Prof. Kondo, Professor of Bio-Sensing Engineering
Title: “Invitation to Precision Agriculture Oriented Bio-Sensing Engineering”
World population is rapidly increasing into 9 billion in 30 years. The most important issue is “How those many people continuously spend health and affluent lives with minimum environmental load by solving global and local problems.” In this lecture, we learn current agricultural technologies especially on precision agriculture such as agricultural machinery, automation, sensing systems, and information technologies in the open fields and the cooperative facilities of fruits, vegetables and grains for minimum investment and maximum benefits to farmers. In addition, future collaboration with Asian countries will be discussed.

Evaluation: Test


Afternoon (4 hours)
Prof. Tani, Professor of Food Environmental Science

Title: “Principles of Mucosal Immunology and Food Functionality”

Gastrointestinal (GI) tract is the most ancient and primordial organ from the viewpoint of biological evolution. We usually recognize a material as the ingestible foodstuff by visual and organoleptic assessment such as its appearance and odor. However, it remains unclear how GI tract senses a variety of stuffs we ingest. A variety of regulatory immune cells exist to maintain the intestinal homeostasis. They physiologically control the GI functions in response to the periodical stimuli by food ingestion as well as to a vast number of indigenous commensal microflora. Using the biochemical and cytological approaches at the molecular level, therefore, we need to focus on the researches to elucidate how mammalian GI tract copes with what kinds of information foods have in themselves, directing toward the development of a novel type of food to promote our health with high acceptability. This module (including a brief evaluation test at the end), will provide an overview of the principles of mucosal immunology, (2) food environment and functionality to control mucosal homeostasis.

Evaluation: Test