November 16-17, 1987, At Daiko Kaikan, Nagoya, Japan
Preface
Everything in the world has its own characteristic form. Some of the forms are essentially determined by factors of circumstances, and some are mainly determined by their own functions of constituent elements of the growing substances. Recently considerable progress in the study of pattern formation has been seen in various fields of science.
It was timely that the Nagoya Meeting on Pattern Formation was held for the purpose of getting stimulation from various fields, standing at quite different points of view. Therefore, very active scientists were invited from various fields such as mathematics, physics (statistical physics, solid state physics, geophysics and so on), chemistry and biology. The program is listed at the end of the preface. Eventually we had the international meeting on Structure Formation in Ionic Colloids in Kyoto at the same time, and it was great that we could invite two speakers from the US, Prof. B. Chu from the State University of New York and Dr. P. Meakin of du Pont.
It was also a great pleasure to have a large audience, who were interested in pattern formation and eager to get some useful hints for their further investigations. Nagoya has an advantage to hold this kind of meeting, because this city is located in the central part of Japan and it is within easy access from various parts of Japan. We hope to keep on organizing this kind of meeting.
Finally, we thank the Daiko Foundation and Chubu University for financial support. We are also grateful to Professors S. Muto and T. Tanaka for helping with troublesome tasks of the organization. The graduate school students T. Kakiuchi, Y. Hasegawa, Y. Fujimoto and undergraduate Y. Ohta are acknowledged. Although publication of the presentations was not planned initially, some of speakers and audience wished to keep the notes of the meeting. We owe Prof. R. Takaki, the chief editor-in-Chief of Science on Form, for giving us an opportunity to publish the report of the Nagoya Meeting on Pattern Formation. The kind cooperation of all speakers in sending their manuscripts is greatly acknowledged.
S. MIYAZIMA and T. SEKIMURA
Chubu University
Kasugai, Aichi 487, Japan