Hello from Inside!

Hope all has been well.  Japan has had a string of events these past few days, including the annular eclipse and the grand opening of Tokyo Sky Tree. 
Unfortunately Insider missed the annular eclipse, but saw the photos on Facebook and mixi pages, as well as people’s blogs, many of which had been uploaded from their mobile phones.  It made Insider realize once again that mobile phones have become capable of so many things over the past 15 years or so.

So, iUniv top page features were those contents that had something to do with mobile devices, including this one:

TULANE UNIVERSITY
Tulane Faculty Symposium on Digital Trends
Tulane Digital Trends: Mobile Fieldwork in Kenya
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/25344/pid/2018

The speaker has been doing field work in Kenya for many years and she tells the audience about the usage of mobiles in rural Kenya. 
What is interesting is that she began owning a mobile phone not in her native America but in Kenya, in 2003.  While big cities in Kenya (such as Nairobi, which is one of the largest cities in the African continent) have fully developed communication networks, the rural areas were still unequipped with electricity.  Therefore mobile phones came in handy.  (Note; this is as of 2003)  People who used mobile phones in such areas used dry-cell battery-operated mobile phones, and brought their PCs (desktops) to their local electronic stores to charge the batteries.  The devices were compromising well with the infrastructure circumstances.  At that time they were paying their phone bills on prepaid cards, and were using their mobile phones solely for talking - no email, no Internet.  Insider is curious to know how mobile devices are being used in rural Kenya today.

For your information, Japan’s Ministry of Affairs and Communications have a website called “世界情報通信事情 (Information-Communication of the World Today).  According to this website, Kenya’s population is about 40,000,000 and about 23,420,000 people are using “mobile communication”.

Hello from Inside!

So today was the Leap Day, once in every 4 years.  It turned out to be quite a memorable day in Tokyo, where iUniv’s headquarters are, with lots of snow (compared to the conventional weather here).  And Insider thought, hey, why not write an Insider’s Diary?  Next time Insider can write a diary on 2/29 is 2016!

This past month, we had Valentine’s Day.  As more people are giving chocolates to one another (in Japan it used to be the women who give chocolates to men, but now friends are swapping chocolates, regardless of gender), perhaps more people have eaten more sweets than usual in February.  In fact, staffs at iUniv’s headquarters have a weakness for this particular foreign-based doughnut chain…

The new batch of top page features is a fun selection this time, rather than serious educational ones:

INDIANA UNIVERSITY- PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS
News at IUPUI- II
“Glazed America”
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/12377/pid/1035
Professor focuses on doughnuts, America’s national sweet, from an anthropological standpoint.  It’s basically an introductory video to his interesting book.

Culinary Institute Of America
Culinary Intelligence from the CIA- I
Zucchini Pancakes recipe from the World’s Premier Culinary College
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/5464/pid/430
Abbreviated as CIA(!), this worldly renowned culinary school offers many recipes including this one, featuring cuisines from around the globe.  This one is from their Greek section.

JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Cooking With Class
How to Make Frozen Peanut Butter and Chocolate Crunch Cake
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/81555/pid/1071
Active pastry chef shows us how to make neat and classy cake from peanut butter - once again, America’s iconic spread.

KETTERING UNIVERSITY
Think Busters
Think Busters: Mentos
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/13227/pid/1117
A very playful video using Mentos and other chewing candies, and Coke.  Not something that you should try, though… ;-)

Enjoy!

Hello from Inside! 
Many regions including Japan is suffering from cold winter with lots of snow.  Hope you have been well.  It’s so cold that Insider has excuses to stay Inside!  Sorry for not saying hello for weeks.

In the meantime, we were featuring “Reproduction Medicine” on the iUniv home page.  The theme was inspired from a TV documentary about a Japanese diet member and her son, which had been aired last month.  Those who had actually seen the program would surely have different opinions, but on this feature on iUniv, we did not want to focus on whether reproduction medicine is a Do or a Don’t.  We just wanted to see what kinds of treatments are taking place today. 

(By the way, there was one featured content whose title sounded like having something to do with reproduction medicine, but actually not.  Insider apologizes for the confusion.  The audio ”Sex, Reproduction and Marriage Part I” is more like an anthropological content, comparing human beings with animals, one ethnic group with another, and so on.)

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CENTRE
Diseases and Health Issues- I
Infertility - Advances in Treatment (Part 1)
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/29541/pid/2354
This is the first of the series that focuses on the advancements in fertility treatment.  It was a little surprising to find out that male infertility is quite more common than Insider thought.  This Part 1 describes the reasons of infertility, what would have risks to become infertile, and the methods of infertility test.

YALE UNIVERSITY
Yale Health & Medicine - Health and Medicine
Advances In Fertility
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/56127/pid/3452
This one is quite similar to the aforementioned audio.
Insider learnt that some advanced fertility treatments are done not only to revive the patient’s fertility, but also to maintain the cancer patients’ dreams to have a family by freezing the fertilized egg, the egg itself, or the sperms, before they go into chemotherapy. 

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
MiHealth - Audio
Hope for ending the pain, infertility of endometriosis?
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/51337/pid/3342
This audio focuses on endometriosis, one of the risky conditions.

These contents, although they are themed on reproduction medicine, include tips on daily health care from time to time.  They are highly recommendable not only to women but also to men.  

Enjoy!

Hello from Inside!

First of all, let Insider mention that today, January 17, marks the 17th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake.  Being the first Hanshin anniversary since the Great East Japan Earthquake, many people, including Insider, spent the day with a different mind-setting from the previous anniversaries.  Once again, Insider’s heart goes out to the ones who tragically lost their lives in the two devastating disasters…

It’s a little embarrassing to continue this diary with a totally different subject; in Japan, many books of very nutritional recipes are selling like pancakes (a food metaphor!).  Some of them were written by people at a famous weight scale manufacturer, women’s university, etc.  The boom even generated a ‘nutritional restaurant’ in Tokyo.  Come to think of it, Japanese have always been nutrition-conscious people, which adds to the acceleration of the boom, while some people are too conscious about losing weight and do not care about nutrition at all. 

Thus Insider decided to feature the following contents, focusing on nutrition:

Boston University
Science & Technology - Video
Measuring Calories on the iPhone
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/35744/pid/2801
An iPhone-compatible application that calculates calories by sending pictures of your meal.

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
MiHealth - Audio
The beverages you drink could be ruining your diet
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/51360/pid/3342
When you’re on a diet, you need to take care about what you drink as well.

Clemson University
Nutrition, Diet and Health - Audio Podcasts
Health Eating Habits   
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/37130/pid/2862
Eating habits are very important for weight control.

Arizona State University
Health-E - Content
Nutrition: Yikes what CAN I eat?
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/35036/pid/2774
“Yikes” sounds casual but it’s a very serious lecture.  It kinds of summarizes the aforementioned three.  If you don’t have time, perhaps it’s good to listen to just this one.

Insider also recommends to those who have time, revisit the Insider’s Diary dated November 17, 2011.

Dear iUniv users:

We have some new features on iUniv:

Learn!  Connect! - iUniv now compatible with social logins

• We have integrated iUniv accounts with “Castalia IDs”, and iUniv is now compatible with social logins.  You can now use your Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, and mixi accounts.
  By using your existing social network ID upon creating a Castalia ID or signing into iUniv, you won’t be wasting your precious time in enjoying iUniv’s rich library of over 73,000 audio and visual contents.
  We have also renovated the Create Account / Sign in / Settings interface.
  Check out iUniv’s new interface now at http://iuniv.tv/

• iUniv now available on iPad!
  An HTML5-compatible web application, iUniv is now available on “iPad”, one of the most promising tablet devices.  We would be happy if you enjoy the location-free learning experience with iUniv on your iPad.

We are also glad to report that iUniv was featured as a case study of the implementation of “cloudpack,” a Cloud management / maintenance service.
iUniv has implemented cloudpack’s management / maintenance / monitoring services to further enhance the environment of iUniv.
For further information, please go on to cloudpack’s website, where we have been featured as one of their case studies:
http://blog.cloudpack.jp/2011/12/news-casestudy-largeplan-iuniv.html (in Japanese)

Hello from Inside!

Insider used to write a diary after watching or listening to all four contents featured on the iUniv top page.  However, Insider realized (finally!!) that it may not be useful, as the top page features change right after the new diary is posted.  So Insider decided to do the diary at the beginning or in the middle of watching and listening to the contents.

So this time, we featured a very abstract theme - What is happiness?

Last month, Japan welcomed the King and Queen of Bhutan.  Their visit made us feel closer to this beautiful and mountainous country.  At the same time, we became interested in their unique policies - most of all their index called GNH (Gross National Happiness). In fact (Insider is not sure whether this was determined in the wake of the Bhutan royals’ visit), the Japanese government seems to be planning to follow their footsteps.

But can happiness, which is supposed to be different from person to person, be measured?  We selected some contents from iUniv’s vast library to see if we can get some idea.

So here we are:

ESCP EUROPE
BERLIN campus
Philippe Gabilliet | How to create your own luck
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/74141/pid/608

“The key to success is luck.  And luck is something to create by yourself.”  Simple but depthful…  Listening to this would definitely add to your motivation.

Souzou Gakuen University
workshop 加齢発達学 16
workshopⅠ加齢発達学(16-1. 日本人の幸福度について①)
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/70045/pid/4298

Picked up from Souzou Gakuen University’s interesting series, this one is the introduction to a lecture themed on Japanese people’s happiness.  Please go on to parts 2 and latter to go into details.

WARWICK UNIVERSITY
Warwick TEDx
Hapiness and the economic crisis
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/32702/pid/2613

Does one’s economic circumstances coincide with his/her happiness?  Yes and no; no but yes. 

Stanford University
Globalization - Audio
Bhutan: In Every Respect an Experiment
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/56658/pid/3467

The professor used to live in Bhutan for a while.  He talks about his experiences there, and shed light on this unique country - such as GNH and how the king is involved in making his people happy.

And as an Insider, I am proud to say that happiness includes to be able to learn whatever you want whenever you want, with iUniv! :-)

Hello from Inside!

As you can see, we featured videos/audio about “obesity” on our home page recently.  For Insider who has been Inside all the time, the o-word is something fast approaching…  at this time Insider is in the ‘normal’ zone ‘medical wise’ but almost on the verge of being considered having a metabolic syndrome. :-(  So in order to avoid diseases associated with adult lifestyle habits, Insider decided to use iUniv to gain knowledge on how to tackle obesity. 

Actually, the trigger was the death of a famous man who passed away recently, which Insider read in the news.  It seemed that the remote causes of his death were the facts that he was obese, and he had been suffering from diabetes (probably type 2) for a long time.

iUniv introduces you to contents from a wide range of fields, and what Insider is proud about iUniv is that we can learn not only ‘academic’ subjects but also things that lead to our ordinary lives, in English and Japanese (and Spanish - Insider found a few of them regarding this issue; thinks it was about diabetes)

According the the contents featured on our home page, the lifestyle habits that lead to obesity are:

• Lack of sleep
• Bad basal metabolism
• Lack of physical exercises
• Being with a lean person who eats a lot (probably because he/she gives you an image that eating a lot does not affect weight)
• And of course, intake of fatty food

Seems like all apply to Insider!!!  Need to make a change.

By the way, the most impressive content featured this time was:

DEL MAR COLLEGE
Lectures at Del Mar
“Children of the Corn Syrup” lecture by Dr. Stephen W. Ponder
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/6327/pid/498

The video features child obesity and lifestyle on food consumption.
The lecturer, who is a type 1 diabetes patient himself, intrigues us with a non-nonsense-but-humorous lecture.  The lecture also features photographs of ‘supersize’ meals that makes us feel gross (oops) even by looking at them.  This video is surely educational but at the same time helps us reduce our appetites, which means that it helps our diet.  So it is a recommendable content in more ways than one.  Enjoy!

Dear iUniv/Schooly users:

To provide a more comfortable environment for our users, iUniv/Schooly will go into server maintenance later this week. 

Due to the maintenance, the iUniv and Schooly services will be suspended during the timeframe stated below.  We apologize for the inconvenience it may cause you, and appreciate your kind understanding.

[Server maintenance schedule]
From:Wednesday, November 16, 2011 20:00 JST
To:Thursday, November 17, 2011 03:00 JST
Please note that the ending time is subject to change, depending on the progress of the maintenance.

[Services to be suspended]
All services on “iUniv” and “Schooly”

Please feel free to contact info@iuniv.tv with any questions.

iUniv - Social Learning Center
http://iuniv.tv/

Castalia Co. Ltd.
http://www.castalia.co.jp/

Hello from Inside!

First of all, Insider has good news for you…  iUniv has recently been upgraded and the version we’re using now is Ver1.0.1.  With this new version, the modification on the YouTube playlist is immediately reflected on iUniv, which means that we can deliver newly found wonderful contents as soon as we find them.  We hope this enhances your iUniv experience! :-)

On our top page we featured some contents related to Turkey, in the wake of the recent earthquake.  Our hearts go out to those people who have suffered and who still are, and we pray for their earliest restoration.  Turkey has a long history of being friendly to Japan.  Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that both countries have experienced many major earthquakes over the years (especially this year!).

The earthquake-safe plans have been studied at many universities including Purdue.  They made a proposal video of a new city plan of Istanbul:

PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Research at Purdue
Proposed new city of Istanbul premiers in animated video
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/23696/pid/1884

Turkey is also known as one of the countries that are aiming for membership in the EU. 

Cornell University
Burning Topics!- I
Turkey’s Accession: An E.U. Challenge
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/5027/pid/401

The above mentioned video is a panel discussion regarding issues related to the possible membership.  Insider was not knowledgeable enough and he/she was thinking the major issue was the religion difference (as many EU countries are Christian-oriented and Turkey is Islam-oriented) but that does not seem to be the ‘major’ case.  It is a very interesting video to see, especially when there are more new and potential member countries of the EU.

Thanks, Steve Jobs,

We all love Apple.  And we all love Steve Jobs.

We work on Macs, communicate on iPhones, and make presentations and demonstrations on iPads.  Today Apple has become the most successful company that everyone knows.  When Steve Jobs made a comeback to Apple, who in the world imagined the company the way it is now?  Maybe Mr. Jobs was the only one.

Without Mr. Jobs, we would have never started our business.  We could never have.   And it was not just business that we were inspired by him - Apple taught us how to enjoy music, and the pleasure of editing our own movies.

A Chinese news site stated, “Perhaps God wanted an iPhone too.”  And we’re sure that is true.  Maybe he has already started designing an iPhone for Heaven.  Such a thought of him makes us smile a little bit - That’s how Mr. Jobs was to us.

We are truly happy to have lived the same time as him and to have always been with the products of his magic.  Thank you once again, and so long.

Love & Peace,

Staffs of Castalia Co. Ltd.
October 5, 2011

Hello from Inside!  Hope all has been well with you.

The latest pickups, themed on Europe, was inspired by the recent various issues in Europe, such as weak euro, new taxes that would be implemented in some countries (‘fat tax’ in Denmark & Hungary…) and so on.  Almost 20 years after the effectuation of the Maastricht Treaty, perhaps the entire continent is reaching another transitional period… 

However, around the same time Western Europe became almost as one (EU), Eastern European countries went the other way round.  In fact they chose to divide.  Some of those little countries that began operating by themselves are not ‘official’ countries but ‘act like’ independent countries. 

Arizona State University
Geography of Europe - Content
Geopolitics of Europe Part 6 (De Facto Countries)
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/34826/pid/2765

This sound-only lecture focuses on such de facto countries such as North Cyprus, Kosovo, Gibraltar, and Kaliningrad to name a few.  It is interesting to find out especially about (Turkish Republic of) North Cyprus, where Turkey is the only country that recognizes it but it actually operates like an independent country. 

For more information on North Cyprus, please refer here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus

Note: In this lecture, Kosovo is considered one of the de facto countries, but actually Kosovo has been ‘partly’ recognized as an independent country in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Kosovo
Insider assumes this lecture was recorded before 2008.

Hello from Inside!

I realized that this blog is mostly not weekly…  So I’ve changed the title. (Now, this is not an excuse to not posting blogs periodically…)

The videos featured on iUniv recently were picked in the wake of the recent media frenzy in Japan, when a famous TV personality announced his sudden retirement.  He used to be pretty much involved in the ‘variety show’ market and he hosted many of them, producing younger talents and their songs, etc.  Not that Insider was a fan (Insider tries to be neutral, not to voice his/her personal tastes), but he will surely be missed by many people in the entertainment business. 

So Insider picked up contents that have something to do with TV productions and ‘reality’ business, including this one:

Nagoya University
スタジオチャンネル現代ジャーナリズム論41平成20年7月3日
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/60426/pid/3686

In this discussion taped in July 2008 (The 20th year of Heisei era), they focused on the reasons why there were so many scandals on broadcasting frauds on commercial television.  They attributed them to the so-called ‘rating supremacist’ trend, and to the fact that many programs are made by small production companies that have been relegated the making of the programs, in order to save budgets.

Hello from Inside! 

Last week Japan saw the dramatic finale of the annual national high school baseball tournament.  (Congratulations to 日大三高：The Third Senior High School Of Nihon University!)  So Insider chose the four videos featured on the iUniv top page. 

Souzou Gakuen University
workshop 加齢発達学 10
workshopⅠ加齢発達学(10-4 骨を考える④)
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/69993/pid/4292

This is part of SGU’s aging and developmental studies workshop.  In this video, they compare the bone mineral contents of athletes from different sports including baseball.  The correlativity of “axis foot” and “manipulating foot” are interesting to know, as it differs from sport to sport.

Also

California Community Colleges
Events at CCC
Blacks Entering Major League Baseball
http://iuniv.tv/top/episode/eid/2192/pid/188

This features Jackie Robinson, who was the very first African American to play in the Major League baseball.  The lecture focuses on how he fought to achieve his people’s rights to play, and how his presence led to the Civil Rights movement.  A very interesting and inspiring lecture to see!