Abe presents a comprehensive picture of the linguistic strategies employed by Japanese sexual minorities in various social contexts, from magazine advice columns to bars to text messaging on cell phones to private homes.

Toshio Mura has written extensively on micromechanics over the years, and in part due to his writings and many others in the field, micromechanics has gradually emerged as a recognized discipline in the study of mechanics of materials. The idea is to bring both the mechanics and physics on the micro­ scopic level to the macroscopic scale, so that the deformation and fracture processes of materials can be better understood. While much apparently remains to be done, this approach has already shed new light on certain selected topics and has proved to be fruitful. It is indeed a happy occasion to celebrate both Toshio''s upcoming 65th birthday and the emergence of this young science at the same time. The volume contains thirty-seven original articles on the related topics of micromechanics and inhomogeneity; it is presented to Toshio by his friends, colleagues, and admirers as a wish for his good health and continuing pro­ ductivity. The contributors belong to both the applied mechanics and the materials communities, all with a common belief that micromechanics is an indispensable area of research. It is hoped that this somewhat balanced structure will make the volume more useful to a wider range of readers, and that in the meantime it will still reflect more or less the spectrum of Toshio''s lifelong works. As Editors we have at the outset set the highest possible standards for the book, with a keen anticipation that the volume will be widely circulated for many years to come.

Toshio Mura has written extensively on micromechanics over the years, and in part due to his writings and many others in the field, micromechanics has gradually emerged as a recognized discipline in the study of mechanics of materials. The idea is to bring both the mechanics and physics on the micro­ scopic level to the macroscopic scale, so that the deformation and fracture processes of materials can be better understood. While much apparently remains to be done, this approach has already shed new light on certain selected topics and has proved to be fruitful. It is indeed a happy occasion to celebrate both Toshio's upcoming 65th birthday and the emergence of this young science at the same time. The volume contains thirty-seven original articles on the related topics of micromechanics and inhomogeneity; it is presented to Toshio by his friends, colleagues, and admirers as a wish for his good health and continuing pro­ ductivity. The contributors belong to both the applied mechanics and the materials communities, all with a common belief that micromechanics is an indispensable area of research. It is hoped that this somewhat balanced structure will make the volume more useful to a wider range of readers, and that in the meantime it will still reflect more or less the spectrum of Toshio's lifelong works. As Editors we have at the outset set the highest possible standards for the book, with a keen anticipation that the volume will be widely circulated for many years to come.

This work is concerned with a group of proteins which were originally consid­ ered to be an esoteric phenomenon but which have now been shown to play critical roles both in normal and stressed cells as well as being involved in a variety of human diseases. It is the purpose of this work to give a comprehen­ sive view of these proteins and their various aspects. After an introductory chapter providing an overview of these proteins, the work is divided into four main sections each of which deals with one important aspect of these proteins. Thus, the first section contains a series of chapters which describe individual stress proteins and their roles in particular biological phenomena. Evidently, the induction of these proteins by elevated tempera­ ture or other stresses is their defining feature and the second section of this book therefore considers the regulation of stress protein gene expression both by stressful stimuli such as elevated temperature or ischaemia and by non­ stressful stimuli such as cytokines.

Hydraulic fracturing has been and continues to be a major techno­ logical tool in oil and gas recovery, nuclear and other waste disposal, mining and particularly in-situ coal gasification, and, more recently, in geothermal heat recovery, particularly extracting heat from hot dry rock masses. The understanding of the fracture process under the ac­ tion of pressurized fluid at various temperatures is of fundamental scientific importance, which requires an adequate description of thermomechanical properties of subsurface rock, fluid-solid interaction effects, as well as degradation of the host rock due to temperature gradients introduced by heat extraction. Considerable progress has been made over the past several years in laboratory experiments, analytical and numerical modeling, and in-situ field studies in various aspects of hydraulic fracturing and geothermal energy extraction, by researchers in the United States and Japan and also elsewhere. However, the results have been scattered throughout the literature. Therefore, the time seemed ripe for bringing together selected researchers from the two countries, as well as observers from other countries, in order to survey the state of the art, exchange scientific information, and establish closer collaboration for further, better coordinated scientific effort in this important area of research and exploration.

Abe presents a comprehensive picture of the linguistic strategies employed by Japanese sexual minorities in various social contexts, from magazine advice columns to bars to text messaging on cell phones to private homes.

Toshio Mura has written extensively on micromechanics over the years, and in part due to his writings and many others in the field, micromechanics has gradually emerged as a recognized discipline in the study of mechanics of materials. The idea is to bring both the mechanics and physics on the micro­ scopic level to the macroscopic scale, so that the deformation and fracture processes of materials can be better understood. While much apparently remains to be done, this approach has already shed new light on certain selected topics and has proved to be fruitful. It is indeed a happy occasion to celebrate both Toshio''s upcoming 65th birthday and the emergence of this young science at the same time. The volume contains thirty-seven original articles on the related topics of micromechanics and inhomogeneity; it is presented to Toshio by his friends, colleagues, and admirers as a wish for his good health and continuing pro­ ductivity. The contributors belong to both the applied mechanics and the materials communities, all with a common belief that micromechanics is an indispensable area of research. It is hoped that this somewhat balanced structure will make the volume more useful to a wider range of readers, and that in the meantime it will still reflect more or less the spectrum of Toshio''s lifelong works. As Editors we have at the outset set the highest possible standards for the book, with a keen anticipation that the volume will be widely circulated for many years to come.

Toshio Mura has written extensively on micromechanics over the years, and in part due to his writings and many others in the field, micromechanics has gradually emerged as a recognized discipline in the study of mechanics of materials. The idea is to bring both the mechanics and physics on the micro­ scopic level to the macroscopic scale, so that the deformation and fracture processes of materials can be better understood. While much apparently remains to be done, this approach has already shed new light on certain selected topics and has proved to be fruitful. It is indeed a happy occasion to celebrate both Toshio's upcoming 65th birthday and the emergence of this young science at the same time. The volume contains thirty-seven original articles on the related topics of micromechanics and inhomogeneity; it is presented to Toshio by his friends, colleagues, and admirers as a wish for his good health and continuing pro­ ductivity. The contributors belong to both the applied mechanics and the materials communities, all with a common belief that micromechanics is an indispensable area of research. It is hoped that this somewhat balanced structure will make the volume more useful to a wider range of readers, and that in the meantime it will still reflect more or less the spectrum of Toshio's lifelong works. As Editors we have at the outset set the highest possible standards for the book, with a keen anticipation that the volume will be widely circulated for many years to come.

This work is concerned with a group of proteins which were originally consid­ ered to be an esoteric phenomenon but which have now been shown to play critical roles both in normal and stressed cells as well as being involved in a variety of human diseases. It is the purpose of this work to give a comprehen­ sive view of these proteins and their various aspects. After an introductory chapter providing an overview of these proteins, the work is divided into four main sections each of which deals with one important aspect of these proteins. Thus, the first section contains a series of chapters which describe individual stress proteins and their roles in particular biological phenomena. Evidently, the induction of these proteins by elevated tempera­ ture or other stresses is their defining feature and the second section of this book therefore considers the regulation of stress protein gene expression both by stressful stimuli such as elevated temperature or ischaemia and by non­ stressful stimuli such as cytokines.

Hydraulic fracturing has been and continues to be a major techno­ logical tool in oil and gas recovery, nuclear and other waste disposal, mining and particularly in-situ coal gasification, and, more recently, in geothermal heat recovery, particularly extracting heat from hot dry rock masses. The understanding of the fracture process under the ac­ tion of pressurized fluid at various temperatures is of fundamental scientific importance, which requires an adequate description of thermomechanical properties of subsurface rock, fluid-solid interaction effects, as well as degradation of the host rock due to temperature gradients introduced by heat extraction. Considerable progress has been made over the past several years in laboratory experiments, analytical and numerical modeling, and in-situ field studies in various aspects of hydraulic fracturing and geothermal energy extraction, by researchers in the United States and Japan and also elsewhere. However, the results have been scattered throughout the literature. Therefore, the time seemed ripe for bringing together selected researchers from the two countries, as well as observers from other countries, in order to survey the state of the art, exchange scientific information, and establish closer collaboration for further, better coordinated scientific effort in this important area of research and exploration.