1.
Osaka Prefecture
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Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture located in the Kansai region on Honshu, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Osaka and it is the center of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area. Osaka is one of the two prefectures of Japan, Kyoto being the other. Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Osaka prefecture was known as Kawachi, Izumi, Osaka Prefecture was created on June 21,1868, at the very beginning of the Meiji era. During the instigation of Fuhanken Sanchisei in 1868, the received its suffix fu. On September 1,1956, the city of Osaka was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance, in 2000, Fusae Ota became Japans first female governor when she replaced Knock Yokoyama, who resigned after prosecution for sexual harassment. On April 1,2006, the city of Sakai was promoted to a city designated by government ordinance, in 2008, Tōru Hashimoto, previously famous as a counselor on television, was elected at the age of 38 as the youngest governor in Japan. In the 2011 local elections the association was able to win the majority of the prefectural seats, the plan was narrowly defeated in the 2015 referendum. Osaka Prefecture neighbors the prefectures of Hyōgo and Kyoto in the north, Nara in the east, the west is open to Osaka Bay. The Yodo and Yamato Rivers flow through the prefecture, prior to the construction of Kansai International Airport, Osaka was the smallest prefecture in Japan. The artificial island on which the airport was built added enough area to make it larger than Kagawa Prefecture. This represented approximately 48% of the Kinki region, the per capita income was ¥3.0 million, seventh in the nation. Commercial sales the year was ¥60.1 trillion. Overshadowed by such globally renowned electronics giants as Panasonic and Sharp, the number of SMEs based in Osaka in 2006 was 330,737, accounting for 99. 6% of the total number of businesses in the prefecture. The Osaka Securities Exchange, specializing in such as Nikkei 225 Futures, is based in Osaka. There are many electrical, chemical, pharmaceutical, heavy industry, food, and housing companies in Osaka Prefecture. According to the 2005 Population Census of Japan, Osaka prefecture has a population of 8,817,166, as of 2013 this prefecture has about 200,000 ethnic Korean persons, the largest such population of any prefecture in Japan. As of 2013 most ethnic Korean children attend ordinary Japanese public schools, although some Korean schools operated by the Chongryon, during the Japanese rule of Korea many ethnic Koreans came to the Osaka area to look for work
2.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
3.
Toshiba
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Toshiba Corporation, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Toshiba was founded in 1938 as Tokyo Shibaura Electric K. K. through the merger of Shibaura Seisaku-sho, the company name was officially changed to Toshiba Corporation in 1978. Toshiba is organized into four groupings, the Digital Products Group, the Electronic Devices Group, the Home Appliances Group and the Social Infrastructure Group. It is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX indices, the Osaka Securities Exchange, Toshiba is the seventh largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Toshiba was founded in 1939 by the merger of Shibaura Seisakusho, Shibaura Seisakusho had been founded as Tanaka Seisakusho by Tanaka Hisashige in July 1875 as Japans first manufacturer of telegraph equipment. In 1904, it was renamed Shibaura Seisakusho, Tokyo Denki was founded as Hakunetsusha in 1890 and had been Japans first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It later diversified into the manufacture of consumer products and in 1899 had been renamed Tokyo Denki. The merger of Shibaura and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki and it was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation. The group expanded rapidly, driven by a combination of growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering. In 1977, Toshiba acquired the Brazilian company Semp, subsequently forming Semp Toshiba through the combination of the two companies South American operations, the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million, the contract ended in 2008, ending seven years of OEM production with Orion. In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube televisions, in 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. To ensure its competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market. Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu, today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu, and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer the employees consume, in July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8 billion. In late 2007, Toshiba took over from Discover Card as the sponsor of the top-most screen of One Times Square in New York City and it displays the iconic 60-second New Years countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company. In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu, Toshiba announced on 16 May 2011, that it had agreed to acquire all of the shares of the Swiss-based advanced-power-meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion
4.
Mazda
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Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker based in Fuchū, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. In 2011, Mazda was the fifteenth biggest automaker by production worldwide, Mazdas company website states that its name is derived from Ahura Mazda, the Avestan word for God, which is also the name of God to Zoroastrians. Specifically, the states that The name was also associated with Ahura Mazda. The company website further notes that the name derives from the name of the companys founder. Mazda began as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co, Ltd, founded in Hiroshima, Japan,30 January 1920. Toyo Cork Kogyo renamed itself to Toyo Kogyo Co. Ltd. in 1927, in the late 1920s the company had to be saved from bankruptcy by Hiroshima Saving Bank and other business leaders in Hiroshima. In 1931 Toyo Kogyo moved from manufacturing machine tools to vehicles with the introduction of the Mazda-Go autorickshaw, Toyo Kogyo produced weapons for the Japanese military throughout the Second World War, most notably the series 30 through 35 Type 99 rifle. The company formally adopted the Mazda name in 1984, though every automobile sold from the bore that name. The Mazda R360 was introduced in 1960, followed by the Mazda Carol in 1962, both piston-powered and rotary-powered models made their way around the world. The R100 and the RX series led the companys export efforts, during 1968, Mazda started formal operations in Canada although Mazdas were seen in Canada as early as 1959. In 1970, Mazda formally entered the American market and was successful there. To this day, Mazda remains the only automaker to have produced a Wankel-powered pickup truck, additionally, it is also the only marque to have ever offered a rotary-powered bus or station wagon. After nine years of development, Mazda finally launched its new model in the U. S. in 1970, Mazdas rotary success continued until the onset of the 1973 oil crisis. As American buyers quickly turned to vehicles with fuel efficiency. Combined with being the least-efficient automaker in Japan, inability to adjust to excess inventory and over-reliance on the U. S. market, the company suffered a huge loss in 1975. Fortunately, the company had not totally turned its back on piston engines, the smaller Familia line in particular became very important to Mazdas worldwide sales after 1973, as did the somewhat larger Capella series. Mazda refocused its efforts and made the engine a choice for the sporting motorist rather than a mainstream powerplant. Starting with the lightweight RX-7 in 1978 and continuing with the modern RX-8 and this switch in focus also resulted in the development of another lightweight sports car, the piston-powered Mazda Roadster, inspired by the concept jinba ittai
5.
Kita-ku, Osaka
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Kita is one of 24 wards of Osaka in Japan. Kita-ku, particularly the Umeda area surrounding Osaka Station, is one of the commercial centers of Osaka. Kita-ku is also an administration center, housing the headquarters of the Japan Mint. Dentsu and Yomiuri Shimbun have branch offices in Kita-ku, mazda has an office in the Umeda Sky Building Tower East. Air France has an office on the third and sixth floors of the Shin-Sakurabashi Building in Umeda, google has an office in the Hankyu Grand Building in Kita-ku. Bandai Visuals Kansai Office opened in Kita-ku in March 1988, the division is now known as the Osaka Branch, Japan Airlines at one time operated a ticketing facility on the first floor of the Daiichi Seimei Building in Umeda, Kita-ku. The Consulate-General of the United States in Osaka is located in Kita-ku, the Consulate-General of Belgium in Osaka is located on the twelfth floor of the Snow Crystal Building in Umeda, Kita-ku. The Consulate-General of Germany in Osaka is located on the floor of the Umeda Sky Building Tower East in Kita-ku. The Consulate-General of Italy in Osaka is located since April 2013 on the 17th floor of the Nakanoshima Festival Tower in Nakanoshima, commercial and business centre of Kansai region with many high-rise buildings and large underground complexes. Government facilities and museums, and office buildings is situated on this island, notable establishments is City hall, Central Public Hall, Bank of Japan Osaka branch and Osaka International Convention Center. National Museum of Art, Osaka and Osaka Science Museum is also in this island
6.
Umeda
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Umeda is a major commercial and business district in Kita-ku, Osaka, Japan, and the citys main northern railway terminus. The area is notable for its high concentration of tall buildings, of which those in Nishi-Umeda. Four of the citys largest department stores are located here, as well as shopping and tourist areas such as HEP Five, Osaka Grand Front. The districts name means plum field and it was originally written as buried field, because the area had been agricultural and was filled in to accommodate the new train station in the 1870s. There are several theories as to why the kanji changed, although most people seem to believe that the old characters merely carried a negative connotation. Ōsaka Station Kitashinchi Station Umeda Station Umeda Station Umeda Station Nishi-Umeda Station Higashi-Umeda Station There are over 2.3 million passengers a day at these stations and they rank fourth busiest in Japan. Aside from being a business district in Osaka, Umeda offers a large selection of shopping, entertainment. NTT Data Sekisui Systems Corporation Animate Umeda ABC-MART Umeda Building Hankyu Hanshin Holdings, & Hankyu Corporation Mainichi Broadcasting System, Inc
7.
PlatinumGames
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PlatinumGames Inc. is a Japanese video game development company. The company was founded under the name Seeds, Inc. in August 2006 by Shinji Mikami, Atsushi Inaba, the company merged with Tatsuya Minamis Odd Ltd. to form PlatinumGames in October 2007. Their partnership later extended to include Anarchy Reigns, however, none of these were a commercial success, even though most of them received high critical praise. The company was founded as Seeds, Inc. by Shinji Mikami, Atsushi Inaba, prior to establishing the company, the three worked for Capcom, and were key members of the Osaka-based Clover Studios, which specialized in making new and creative intellectual properties. They worked closely together developing popular Capcom franchises including, Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, most of these titles received critical acclaim, but they under-performed commercially, leading to Capcoms decision to close Clover and to reabsorb it into Capcom. Prior to the closure of Clover, the three founders had left the studio to form their own company in mid-2006. In January 2006, the company expanded to 51 employees, including more former Capcom employees such as Masami Ueda, composer for the early Resident Evil games, Yusuke Hashimoto and Kenji Saito, who would eventually become PlatinumGames directors, also joined during its establishment period. The new company launched its website, revealing its existence in February 2007, Tatsuya Minami founded a video game company named Odd Ltd. in February 2006. Like the founders of Clover, Minami worked at Capcom prior to founding his own studio and he joined Capcom and for 20 years was involved in titles such as Super Ghouls n Ghosts, and the Mega Man franchise. However, he decided to leave as he tired of making sequels. In October 2007, Odd Ltd. merged with Seeds to form PlatinumGames, Minami became the studios head and focused on the companys management and administration, while Mikami, Inaba and Kamiya remained in the positions of director or producer. The company had not revealed anything about upcoming projects for a year, until 2008, according to Minami, the titles were unique and creative, and it was courageous of Sega to publish these risky titles. Minami added further that the partnership with Sega allowed them to bring titles to Western markets. The three games included, MadWorld, Infinite Space, and Bayonetta, all the intellectual properties created by PlatinumGames as part of the partnership are owned by Sega. MadWorld was the first game to be released, produced by Inaba, the game was designed to appeal to a western audience and had a unique art style inspired by that of Sin City. The team created the game with a vision of bringing a unique game to the Wii, one of the games main themes is violence and brutality which led to controversy as it tarnished the family-friendly image of the Wii console. While the game received positive reviews, it was a commercial failure, though the game was a commercial failure, Sega felt that sales were encouraging, and said that they would continue to make mature games for the Wii. They released the Welcome To Violence pack, which bundles MadWorld with House of the Dead, Overkill, in 2010, Sega announced that they would cease publishing mature video games for the Wii, citing the disappointing sales of MadWorld as a contributing factor
8.
Hiroshi Hara (architect)
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Hiroshi Hara is a Japanese architect and author on architecture. With a doctorate in engineering, he was a professor at the University of Tokyo until 1997, Hiroshi Hara graduated from the University of Tokyo with a BA in 1959, and subsequently earned an MA in 1961 and a PhD in 1964, also from the University of Tokyo. He became a professor in the Faculty of Architecture at Toyo University in 1964. He attended Harvard Universitys Summer Seminar in 1968 and he collaborates with Atelier Φ for design practices from 1970. In 1982, Hara became Professor at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo and he changed the designation to Hiroshi Hara + Atelier Φ from 1999. Hiroshi Hara is not only known as an architect but also as an author of essays on architecture and cities
9.
Nomura Holdings
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Nomura Holdings, Inc. is a Japanese financial holding company, and a principal member of the Nomura Group. Michael Coombs is the investment banker. In October 2008, the company acquired Lehman Brothers Holdingss investment banking and equities unit in Asia and Europe, Nomura paid $225 million for the purchase of Lehmans Asian-Pacific unit. Due to large losses with shares dropping to their lowest level in nearly 37 years, Nomura cut around 5 percent of its staff in Europe in mid-September 2011. The history of Nomura begins on December 25,1925, when the Nomura Securities Co. Ltd. was established in Osaka, NSC initially focused on the bond market. It was named after its founder Tokushichi Nomura II, a wealthy Japanese stockbroking tycoon and he had earlier established Osaka Nomura bank in 1918, based on the Mitsui zaibatsu model with a capital of ¥10 million. Like the majority of Japanese conglomerate, or zaibatsu, its origins were in Osaka, NSC gained the authority to trade stock in 1938, and went public in 1961. On October 1,2001 Nomura adopt a holding company structure and Nomura Holdings, Nomura made most of its profits in the Japanese retail banking market, but has expanded its international investment banking capabilities. Instinet Incorporated was acquired in February 2007, following his subsequent suspension, Tokley was replaced by Michael Coombs. is the holding company of the Nomura Group and the groups principal member. Nomura Holding America Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Nomura Europe Holdings plc, operates as a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. Nomura Asia Holding N. V. operates as a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Nomura Securities Co. Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, Inc. The Nomura Trust & Banking Co. Ltd, Nomura Babcock & Brown Co. Ltd. Nomura Funds Research And Technologies Co. Ltd, Nomura Pension Support & Service Co. Ltd. Nomura Research & Advisory Co. Ltd, Nomura Institute of Capital Markets Research Nomura Services India Pvt. Ltd. Nomura Healthcare Nomura Private Equity Capital Unified Partners Nomura Agri Planning & Advisory Instinet The marketing slogan of Nomura is Connecting Markets East & West
10.
AstraZeneca
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AstraZeneca plc is a British–Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical company. In 2015, it was the eighth-largest drug company in the based on sales revenue. AstraZeneca has a portfolio of products for major areas including cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory. The company was founded in 1999 through the merger of the Swedish Astra AB and it has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including Cambridge Antibody Technology, MedImmune, Spirogen and Definiens. AstraZeneca has a listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It has secondary listings on the New York Stock Exchange and the OMX exchange, Astra AB was founded in 1913 in Södertälje, Sweden, by 400 doctors and apothecaries. In 1993 the British chemicals company ICI demerged its pharmaceuticals businesses and its agrochemicals and specialties businesses, finally, in 1999 Astra and Zeneca Group merged to form AstraZeneca plc, with its headquarters in London. In 1999, AstraZeneca identified as a new location for the companys US base the Fairfax-plus site in North Wilmington, in 2002, its drug Iressa was approved in Japan as monotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. On 3 January 2004 Dr Robert Nolan, a director of AstraZeneca. In 2005, the company acquired KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, a UK biotech company, for £120m and it also announced that it had become a Diamond Member of the Pennsylvania Bio commerce organisation. In 2006, following a relationship begun in 2004, AstraZeneca acquired Cambridge Antibody Technology for £702 million. In February 2007, AstraZeneca agreed to buy Arrow Therapeutics, a focused on the discovery and development of anti-viral therapies. AstraZenecas pipeline, and patent cliff, was the subject of speculation in April 2007 leading to pipeline-boosting collaboration and acquisition activities. In 2010, AstraZeneca acquired Novexel Corp, an antiobiotics discovery company formed in 2004 as a spin-off of the Sanofi-Aventis anti-infectives division, Astra acquired the experimental antibiotic NXL-104 through this acquisition. In 2011, AstraZeneca acquired Guangdong BeiKang Pharmaceutical Company, a Chinese generics business, in February 2012, AstraZeneca and Amgen announced a collaboration on treatments for inflammatory diseases. Then in April 2012, AstraZeneca acquired Ardea Biosciences, another biotechnology company, in June 2012, AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb announced a two-stage deal for the joint acquisition of the biotechnology company Amylin Pharmaceuticals. AstraZeneca also announced that it would move its headquarters from London to Cambridge in 2016. That announcement included the announcement that it would cut 1,600 jobs and it also announced that it would focus on three therapeutic areas, Respiratory, Inflammation & Autoimmunity, Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease, and Oncology
