As autumn deepens, the leaves change color.
Gold maple leaves in Oze, crimson rowan leaves in the Japanese Northern Alps and many other beautiful scenery had gone before I had the chance to visit and appreciate them. In Tokyo, the roadside trees will change color soon. Because this summer was quite hot, we will be able to enjoy striking autumn colors this year.

What does this autumn mean for you? The season for food, art, or research? It's a very pleasurable season and we hope you will enjoy it in your own way.

RWC News is now available on the Internet. Please take a look at our home page. The URL is:
http://www.rwcp.or.jp
(Yasuhiro Kato and Noriko Namikoshi)

How did you like this first issue of RWC News for the new year?

At the end of last year, a poll was made and people were asked "which Chinese character is most effective in expressing the year 1995." (Each Chinese charactor has own meaning.) Ranked top was the character meaning "quake" or "tremble." We wonder which character will be chosen if another poll is conducted at the end of this year.

ELNET, a database service provider of electronic libraries, made a prediction for keywords of 1996, based on their investigation as to how often specific words and phrases have recently been used in newspapers and magazines. The results showed that more than half of the "top eight keywords" had some relations with information processing; they included "Internet," "Windows 95," "home page" and "CALS." More and more, information processing technology is increasingly becoming available to, and understood by, the general public.

We will introduce the status quo of each RWC Laboratory and international exchange program in the subsequent issues of RWC News, hoping that they will improve understanding of RWC activities.

RWC News is also available via the Internet. Access our WWW service at the following URL:
http://www.rwcp.or.jp
(Noriko Namikoshi)