1.
Saitama, Saitama
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Saitama is the capital and the most populous city of Saitama Prefecture in Japan, situated in the south-east of the prefecture. Its area incorporates the cities of Urawa, Ōmiya, Yono. It is a city designated by government ordinance, being in the Greater Tokyo Area and lying 15 to 30 kilometres north of central Tokyo, many of its residents commute into Tokyo. As of 1 February 2016, the city had an population of 1,226,656. Its total area was 217.43 square kilometres, the city was founded on May 1,2001, and was designated on April 1,2003 as a government ordinance. For the histories of Urawa, Ōmiya and Yono before the merger, see, Urawa-ku, Saitama Ōmiya-ku, Saitama and Yono, Saitama, on April 1,2005, Saitama absorbed the city of Iwatsuki to its east, which became a new ward, Iwatsuki-ku. The name Saitama originally comes from the Sakitama district of what is now the city of Gyōda in the part of what is now known as Saitama Prefecture. Sakitama has an ancient history and is mentioned in the famous 8th century poetry anthology Manyōshū, the pronunciation has changed from Sakitama to Saitama over the years. With the merger of Urawa, Ōmiya, and Yono it was decided that a new name, the prefectural name Saitama was changed from kanji into hiragana, thus Saitama City was born. It is the prefectural capital in Japan whose name is always written in hiragana. However, Saitama written in hiragana actually finished in place in public polling to Saitama written in kanji. Despite this, government officials decided to name the new city Saitama in hiragana, in third place in the poll was Ōmiya. In fourth was Saitama, written with a kanji for sai which means colorful. The sai used in the name is a rare form of a common character that means cape or promontory. The city is located 20 to 30 km north of central Tokyo, the western portion of the city lies on the lowland created by the Arakawa River along with those created by small rivers such as the Moto-Arakawa River, Shiba River, and Ayase River. The rest of the area mostly resides on the Ōmiya Plateau lying in the north-south direction, dispersed in this region, major rivers flow southward, almost paralleling to one another. The city is one of commercial centers of the Greater Tokyo area and serves Saitama Prefecture, North Kanto. Saitama is also home to manufacturers, exporting automotive, food, optical, precision
2.
East Japan Railway Company
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East Japan Railway Company is a major passenger railway company in Japan and one of the seven Japan Railways Group companies. The company name is abbreviated as JR-EAST or JR East in English. The companys headquarters are in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, JR East was incorporated on 1 April 1987 after being spun off from the government-run Japanese National Railways. Following the breakup, JR East ran the operations on former JNR lines in the Greater Tokyo Area, the Tohoku region and its railway lines primarily serve Kanto and Tohoku regions, along with adjacent areas in Koshinetsu region and Shizuoka prefectures. JR East operates all of the Shinkansen, high-speed rail lines and these lines have sections inside the Tokyo Suburban Area designated by JR East. This does not necessarily mean that the lines are fully inside the Greater Tokyo Area, JR East aims to reduce its carbon emissions by half, as measured over the period 1990-2030. This would be achieved by increasing the efficiency of trains and company-owned thermal power stations, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department has stated that JR Easts official union is a front for an organized crime syndicate called the Japan Revolutionary Communist League. An investigation of this is ongoing, the East Japan Railway Culture Foundation is a non-profit organization established by JR East for the purpose of developing a richer railway culture. The Railway Museum in Saitama is operated by the foundation, EJRC has bid for the London Midland franchise in the United Kingdom. Winners will be announced on June 2017 and will start operating on October 2017, East Japan Railway Company Web Site JR East official apology for Inaho No.14 accident on 25 December 2005 Company history books. Wiki collection of works on East Japan Railway Company
3.
Utsunomiya Line
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The Utsunomiya Line is the name given to a 159.9 kilometre section of the Tōhoku Main Line between Ueno Station in Tokyo and Kuroiso Station in Nasushiobara, Tochigi, Japan. It is part of the East Japan Railway Company network, service on the line has been extended to Tokyo Station via the Ueno-Tokyo Line. Services on the Utsunomiya Line are typically divided into those starting and terminating at Ueno and Shōnan-Shinjuku Line through services from Shinjuku, Ikebukuro, and points south. Between Ueno and Ōmiya, trains share the track with the Takasaki Line, the Utsunomiya Line has four trains per hour to/from Ueno, with another two trains per hour through from the Shōnan-Shinjuku Line, one of which is a rapid service. The fastest service on the line, the rapid Rabbit, makes the run between Ueno and Utsunomiya in one hour and 26 minutes, service on the line is generally divided at Utsunomiya, though the number of through trains has been increasing steadily over the years. They are operated only on weekday evenings, departing Ueno between 18,00 and 22,00 and Utsunomiya between 16,00 and 21,00, with approximately one round-trip per hour, all trains are E231/E233 series 10- or 15-car EMUs. Rapid Rabbit services run between Ueno and Utsunomiya, skipping some intermediate stations, Rabbit trains were first operated by the Japanese National Railways as an hourly/half-hourly rapid service. Since October 2004, however, Rabbit services run only twice during the morning, on weekends, local trains run four times hourly, one of those terminates at Koganei, while the rest terminate at Utsunomiya. During the morning peak, Ueno-bound trains run at intervals of 4–6 minutes, services are provided by E231/E233 series 10- or 15-car EMUs. Within the Utsunomiya Line, Shōnan-Shinjuku Line rapid and local trains are operated once per hour. They do not stop at Saitama-Shintoshin Station since it has no platforms available, all trains are 10- or 15-car E231/E233 series EMUs. Rapid trains operate hourly, making limited stops. They travel between Shinjuku and Utsunomiya in one hour,35 minutes, local trains operate once hourly, stopping at all stations. They travel between Shinjuku and Ōmiya in 32 minutes, between Utsunomiya and Kuroiso, local and rapid trains stop at every station. Trains operate approximately three times per hour, traveling between Utsunomiya and Kuroiso in approximately 50 minutes, most trains are 205-600 series EMUs. Ohayō Tochigi / Hometown Tochigi Hokutosei, Cassiopeia Two trains bound for Koga depart Ueno every weekday evening, passengers can board only at Ueno, all other stations are for disembarking only. Stops include, Ueno, Urawa, Ōmiya, Higashi-Ōmiya, Hasuda, Kuki, service is provided by 7-car 185 series and 9-car 489 series EMUs. Tōhoku Main Line Stations of the Tōhoku Main Line
4.
Japanese yen
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The yen is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the exchange market after the United States dollar. It is also used as a reserve currency after the U. S. dollar, the euro. Before the Meiji Restoration, Japans feudal fiefs all issued their own money, hansatsu, in an array of incompatible denominations. The New Currency Act of 1871 did away with these and established the yen, the former han became prefectures and their mints private chartered banks, which initially retained the right to print money. To bring an end to this situation the Bank of Japan was founded in 1882, following World War II the yen lost much of its prewar value. To stabilize the Japanese economy the exchange rate of the yen was fixed at ¥360 per $1 as part of the Bretton Woods system, when that system was abandoned in 1971, the yen became undervalued and was allowed to float. The yen had appreciated to a peak of ¥271 per $1 in 1973, then underwent periods of depreciation and appreciation due to the 1973 oil crisis, arriving at a value of ¥227 per $1 by 1980. Since 1973, the Japanese government has maintained a policy of intervention. The Japanese government focuses on an export market, and tries to ensure a low yen value through a trade surplus. Since that time, however, the yen has greatly decreased in value, the Bank of Japan maintains a policy of zero to near-zero interest rates and the Japanese government has an extreme anti-inflation policy. Yen derives from the Japanese word 圓, which is cognate with the Chinese yuan, originally, the Chinese had traded silver in mass called sycees and when Spanish and Mexican silver coins arrived, the Chinese called them silver rounds for their circular shapes. The coins and the name appeared in Japan. While the Chinese eventually replaced 圓 with 元, the Japanese continued to use the same word, the spelling and pronunciation yen is standard in English. This is because mainly English speakers who visited Japan at the end of the Edo period to the early Meiji period spelled words this way, ゑん /wen/ in historical kana orthography. In the 16th century, Japanese /e/ and /we/ both had been pronounced and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them ye, some time thereafter, by the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain the pronunciation. In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn, following Medhurst, spelled all es as ye in his A Japanese and that was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and probably prompted the spelling yen. Hepburn revised most of yes to e in the 3rd edition in order to mirror the contemporary pronunciation and this was probably already fixed and has remained so ever since
5.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
6.
Ellerbe Becket
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Ellerbe Becket was an independent Minneapolis, Minnesota-based architectural, engineering, interior design and construction firm until 2009, when it was acquired by AECOM. As of May 2011 the company is doing business under the AECOM name. AECOM is ranked as one of the worlds largest architectural firms, with offices in Dallas, TX, Kansas City, MO, San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Doha, Qatar. The firm currently employs 475 people in seven locations and three countries, and has designed buildings in all of the 50 states and in 20 countries, the company originally called Ellerbe & Co. was founded by Franklin Ellerbe in 1909 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Its first clients included the Mayo Clinic and 3M, thomas Ellerbe took over the company in 1921 upon his fathers death. When he retired in 1966 it became an employee-owned company, in 1987 it merged with Welton Becket and Associates of Los Angeles and became Ellerbe Becket. In 1988 it opened a sports division in Kansas City. On October 26,2009 Ellerbe Becket joined the architecture, planning, Ellerbe Becket’s professional expertise and practice strengths in the design of healthcare, sports, government, corporate and higher education facilities complement the global AECOM platform
7.
Basketball
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Basketball is a non-contact team sport played on a rectangular court by two teams of five players each. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high that is mounted to a backboard at each end of the court. The game was invented in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket being defended by the opposition team during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line. A team can also score via free throws, which are worth one point, the team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time is mandated when the score is tied at the end of regulation. The ball can be advanced on the court by passing it to a teammate and it is a violation to lift, or drag, ones pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling. The game has many techniques for displaying skill—ball-handling, shooting, passing, dribbling, dunking, shot-blocking. The point guard directs the on court action of the team, implementing the coachs game plan, Basketball is one of the worlds most popular and widely viewed sports. Outside North America, the top clubs from national leagues qualify to continental championships such as the Euroleague, the FIBA Basketball World Cup attracts the top national teams from around the world. Each continent hosts regional competitions for teams, like EuroBasket. The FIBA Womens Basketball World Cup features the top womens basketball teams from continental championships. The main North American league is the WNBA, whereas the EuroLeague Women has been dominated by teams from the Russian Womens Basketball Premier League, in early December 1891, Canadian Dr. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied, after rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot elevated track. Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball and these laces could cause bounce passes and dribbling to be unpredictable. Eventually a lace-free ball construction method was invented, and this change to the game was endorsed by Naismith, dribbling was not part of the original game except for the bounce pass to teammates. Passing the ball was the means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a part of the game around the 1950s
8.
Volleyball
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Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to points by grounding a ball on the other teams court under organized rules. It has been a part of the program of the Summer Olympic Games since 1964. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court, the team may touch the ball up to 3 times but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point, the ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push the ball with any part of the body. A number of consistent techniques have evolved in volleyball, including spiking and blocking as well as passing, setting, the game took some of its characteristics from tennis and handball. Another indoor sport, basketball, was catching on in the area, having been invented just ten miles away in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, only four years before. Mintonette was designed to be a sport, less rough than basketball, for older members of the YMCA. The first rules, written down by William G Morgan, called for a net 6 ft 6 in high, a 25 ft ×50 ft court, and any number of players. A match was composed of nine innings with three serves for each team in each inning, and no limit to the number of contacts for each team before sending the ball to the opponents court. In case of an error, a second try was allowed. Hitting the ball into the net was considered a foul —except in the case of the first-try serve, Volleyball rules were slightly modified by the International YMCA Training School and the game spread around the country to various YMCAs. The first official ball used in volleyball is disputed, some say that Spalding created the first official ball in 1896. In 1917, the game was changed from 21 to 15 points, in 1919, about 16,000 volleyballs were distributed by the American Expeditionary Forces to their troops and allies, which sparked the growth of volleyball in new countries. The first country outside the United States to adopt volleyball was Canada in 1900, an international federation, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, was founded in 1947, and the first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women. The sport is now popular in Brazil, in Europe, in Russia, and in countries including China. Beach volleyball, a variation of the played on sand. Volleyball is also a sport at the Paralympics managed by the World Organization Volleyball for Disabled, nudists were early adopters of the game with regular organized play in clubs as early as the late 1920s
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