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A small mirage on the road, Western plains, New South Wales, Australia

Los llanos, an area of land with relatively high relief in Venezuela

Corn fields in the Wallachian Plain. The Walachian plain is known for his thick deposits of loess and its fertile black earth

Part of the plain that surrounds Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia

In geography, a plain is land with relatively low relief, that is flat or gently rolling. Prairies and steppes are types of plains, and the archetype for a plain is often thought of as a grassland, but plains in their natural state may also be covered in shrublands, woodland and forest, or vegetation may be absent in the case of sandy or stony plains in hot deserts. Types of flatlands for which the term is not generally used include those covered entirely and permanently by swamps, marshes, playas, or ice sheets.

Plains occur as lowlands and at the bottoms of valleys but also on plateaus at high elevations. In a valley, a plain is enclosed on two sides but in other cases a plain may be delineated by a complete or partial ring of hills, by mountains or cliffs. Where a geological region contains more than one plain, they may be connected by a pass (sometime termed a gap). Plains may have been formed from flowing lava, deposited by water, ice or wind, or formed by erosion by these agents from hills and \bro Plains in many areas are important for nc because where the soils were deposited as sediments they may be deep and fertile, and the flatness facilitates mechanization of crop production; or because they support grasslands which provide good grazing for livestock.

Types of terrestrial plains[link]

• Coastal plain, an area of low-lying land adjacent to a sea; the term is used especially where they contrast with hills, mountains or plateau further inland.
• Alluvial plains are formed by rivers, and may be one of these overlapping types:
  • Flood plain, adjacent to a stream, river, lake or wetland that experiences occasional or periodic flooding.
  • Alluvial plain, formed over a long period of time by a river depositing sediment on its floodplain or bed which becomes alluvial soil. The difference between a floodplain and an alluvial plain is that the floodplain represents the area experiencing flooding fairly regularly in the present or recently, whereas an alluvial plain includes areas where the floodplain is now and used to be, or areas which only experience flooding a few times a century.
  • Scroll plain, a plain through which a river meanders with a very low gradient.
• Lacustrine plain, a plain that originally formed in a lacustrine environment, that is, as the bed of a lake.
• Lava plain, formed by sheets of flowing lava.
• Glacial plains are formed by the movement of glaciers under the force of gravity:
  • Till plain, a plain of glacial till that forms when a sheet of ice becomes detached from the main body of a glacier and melts in place depositing the sediments it carries. Till plains are composed of unsorted material (till) of all sizes.
  • Sandur (plural sandar), a glacial out-wash plain formed of sediments deposited by melt-water at the terminus of a glacier. Sandar consist mainly of stratified (layered and sorted) gravel and sand

Other types[link]

The term may also be used for flat areas of the ocean floor or for flat areas on moons and planets.

• Abyssal plain, a flat or very gently sloping area of the deep ocean basin

See also[link]

Look up plain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Plains

Geography portal

• Field
• Flooded grasslands and savannas
• Flood-meadow
• Grassland
• Machair
• Meadow
• Pasture
• Plateau
• Prairie
• Rangeland
• Savanna
• Steppe
• Water-meadow
• Wet meadow

References[link]

Towa Tei
Tōwa Tei in 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Tōwa Tei
Born	(1964-09-07) September 7, 1964 (age 47), Yokohama, Japan
Origin	Tokyo, Japan
Genres	Shibuya-kei Electronica Dance House Drum and Bass
Occupations	Music producer, disc jockey
Instruments	Keyboards
Labels	Elektra
Associated acts	Deee-Lite
Website	www.towatei.com

Towa Tei (鄭東和, Tei Tōwa^?, born September 7, 1964) is a DJ, artist and record producer in Yokohama, Japan. Towa debuted as a member of Deee-Lite, from the U.S. label Elektra Records in 1990, and shot to fame via their international hit single, "Groove Is In the Heart". His solo was with his album Future Listening! in 1994 and he has since relocated back from New York to rural Nagano prefecture in Japan^[1]

His concept party, "Hotel H", started in 2009 as a social spot for music industry people in Tokyo.^[2]

Biography[link]

Towa began making demo tapes at the age of 16 having bought his first synthesizer, a Korg MS-10. While studying at Musashino Art University Junior College of Art and Design he sent his tape to a radio program of Ryuichi Sakamoto titled "Sound Street".

In 1987 Towa moved to the US to study graphic design and joined house act Deee-Lite, a trio with Super DJ Dmitri and Lady Miss Kier, enjoying almost instant success after debuting in 1990 with their album World Clique and the single "Groove Is In the Heart".

In 1994 Towa returned to Japan after seven years in New York.^[1] He hinted in a 2011 interview that his time with Deee-Lite made him ill, though he didn't expand on the reasons why.^[3] Towa debuted as a solo act with Future Listening! that same year, incorporating an array of musical styles, including electronic, bossa nova, house, jazz and pop. It featured collaborations with Joi Cardwell, Bebel Gilberto, MC Kinky, Hiroshi Takano, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Toshihiko Mori, Satoshi Tomiie, Yuichi Oki of Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and Pizzicato Five vocalist Maki Nomiya.

Sound Museum followed in 1997, then Last Century Modern in 1999. 2002 brought the album Towa Tei, under the pseudonym Sweet Robots Against the Machine. Flash surfaced in 2005^[1] by which time Towa was DJing regularly in Japan. He has admitted though, that he doesn't enjoy performing and prefers producing and using computers.^[1]

Big Fun, featuring Verbal and Mademoiselle Yulia was released in 2009 and was the third album to feature the artwork of San Franciscan painter and graffiti artist Barry McGee^[1].. For the album, Towa utilized MySpace to collaborate with artists from around the world even if he didn't know them, such as with German act Taprikk Sweezee.^[1] Another collaborator he worked with for Big Fun was Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto, though they also only met on MySpace.^[1]

Towa has also established his own creative company, hug inc, which among other things, manufacturers his trademark sunglasses.^[1]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• 1995 Future Listening!
• 1998 Sound Museum
• 1999 Last Century Modern
• 2002 Towa Tei (as Sweet Robots Against the Machine)
• 2005 Flash
• 2009 Big Fun
• 2011 Sunny

DJ compilation albums[link]

• 2004 Motivation-Songs for Make Up
• 2004 Motivation-Driving Sweets
• 2005 Motivation3
• 2005 Motivation4 -Dusty Dance Halls
• 2007 Motivation Five
• 2008 Motivation 7

Singles and EPs[link]

• 1995 "Technova"
• 1995 "Luv Connection"
• 1997 "Happy" (ハッピー^?) feat. Vivian Sessoms
• 1997 "Intro"
• 1998 "GBI: German Bold Italic" feat. Kylie Minogue - UK #63^[4]
• 1998 "Butterfly" feat. Ayumi Tanabe and Vivian Sessoms
• 1999 "Funkin' for Jamaica (N.Y.)"
• 1999 "A Ring"
• 1999 "Let Me Know" feat. Chara
• 2000 "Kasei" (火星, Mars^?) feat. Ikuko Harada (Clammbon)
• 2001 "Funkin' for Jamaica (N.Y.)" (re-release)
• 2005 "Sometime Samurai" feat. Kylie Minogue
• 2006 "Koi no Upload" (恋のアップロード, "Love Upload"^?)
• 2008 "N705i"

Digital singles[link]

• 2008 "A.O.R." feat. Lina Ohta
• 2009 "Mind Wall" feat. Miho Hatori
• 2009 "Taste of You" feat. Taprikk Sweezee
• 2009 "Taste of You" (Zickzack Remix) (BIG FUN Remix)
• 2009 "Lyricist" (ajapai Remix) (BIG FUN Remix)
• 2009 "Taste of You" (Michael Fakesch Remix) (BIG FUN Remix)
• 2009 "Mind Wall" (SO TT Remix) (BIG FUN Remix)
• 2009 "Taste of You" (Atom TM Remix) (BIG FUN Remix)

Remix albums[link]

• 1994 Future Recall!
• 1995 Future Recall 2
• 1997 Stupid Fresh
• 2000 Lost Control Mix
• 2000 Lost Control Mix 2
• 2003 Re: Towa Tei (as Sweet Robots Against the Machine)
• 2006 Flasher

Compilation albums[link]

• 2002 Towa Tei / Best
• 2003 Best Korea (Korea only)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official TOWA TEI Website
• Official TOWA TEI Myspace
• Official TOWA TEI Twitter

Yukihiro Takahashi 高橋幸宏
Performing with YMO in 2008
Background information
Born	(1952-06-06) June 6, 1952 (age 60) Meguro, Tokyo, Japan
Genres	Electronic (dance, electro, electronica, house, techno), Experimental (art rock, avant‑garde), J‑pop, New Wave, Rock (pop, synth), Synthpop, World
Occupations	Musician, record producer, actor
Instruments	Drums Vocals
Years active	1972–present
Labels	EMI
Associated acts	Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sadistic Mika Band, Sketch Show, The Beatniks

Yukihiro Takahashi (高橋 幸宏 Takahashi Yukihiro, born June 6, 1952) is a renowned Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra,^[1] and as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band.

Biography[link]

Yukihiro Takahashi first came to prominence as the drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band, and became known to western audiences after this band (led by Kazuhiko Kato, formerly of The Folk Crusaders) toured and recorded in the United Kingdom. After the Sadistic Mika Band disbanded, some of the members (including Takahashi) formed another band called The Sadistics, who released several albums. Finally Takahashi recorded his first solo album Saravah in 1977. In 1978, Takahashi joined Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono to form the Yellow Magic Orchestra.

After the Yellow Magic Orchestra disbanded in the mid 80s, Takahashi went solo and released a large number of solo albums, primarily intended for the Japanese market. Takahashi has collaborated extensively with other musicians, including Bill Nelson, Iva Davies of Icehouse,^[2] Keiichi Suzuki of the Moonriders (often as a duo dubbed "The Beatniks", although Suzuki essentially functioned as a member of Takahashi's backing band during the Moonriders' brief hiatus) and in particular Steve Jansen. Takahashi has released a single Stay Close and an EP Pulse as a duo with Jansen.

Takahashi helped compose the soundtrack to the anime series Nadia: Secret of the Blue Water in 1989, including the song "Families".^[3] Takahashi participated in temporary reunions of both the Sadistic Mika Band (missing the lead vocalist Mika who was replaced by Kaela Kimura), and The Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). Both of these reunions included tours of Japan, and an album of new material.

In the early 2000s, Takahashi became a member of the duo Sketch Show, with Haruomi Hosono. Sketch Show has released two albums, one of which, Loophole, has been released in the UK. Both Takahashi and Hosono have recently reunited with Sakamoto as HASYMO - a combination of Human Audio Sponge and Yellow Magic Orchestra. This collaboration produced a new single "Rescue" in 2007 and a new album looks to be in the pipeline in the near future. Takahashi's latest solo album Page By Page was released in March 2009 in Japan.

Discography[link]

Solo albums[link]

• Saravah (1978)
• Murdered by the Music (1980)
• Neuromantic (1981)
• What? Me Worry? (1982)
• Tomorrow's Just Another Day (1983)
• Time and Place (1984) (Live Album)
• Wild and Moody (1984)
• Poisson d'Avril (1985)
• The Brand New Day (1985) (Best of)
• Once a Fool (1985)
• Only When I Laugh (1986)
• La Pensee (1987) - with Yohji Yamamoto
• Ego (1988)
• Broadcast from Heaven (1990)
• A Day in the Next Life (1991)
• The Adventures of Gaku (1991)
• Umi Sora Sango no Iitsutae (1992)
• Life Time Happy Time (1992)
• Heart of Hurt (1992) (Unplugged best of)
• Ahiru no Uta ga Kikoete Kuru yo (1993)
• Mr YT (1994)
• I'm Not In Love (1995) (Best of)
• Fate of Gold (1995)
• Portrait with no Name (1996)
• A Sigh of Ghost (1997)
• Pulse:Pulse (with Steve Jansen) (1997)
• A Ray of Hope (1998)
• Yukihiro Takahashi Collection - Singles and More 1988-1996 (1998)
• "Run After You" (1998) (Live Album)
• The Dearest Fool (1999)
• "Fool On Earth" (2000) - remixes
• Blue Moon Blue (2006)
• Page by Page (2009)

Singles[link]

• "C'est si bon"/"La Rosa" (Seven Seas, Japan 1978)
• "Murdered By The Music"/"Bijin Kiyoshi at the Swimming School" (Seven Seas Japan 1980, Statik UK 1982, Lyrics by Chris Mosdell)
• "Blue Colour Worker" (with Sandii, Lyrics by Chris Mosdell)/"Mirrormanic" (Seven Seas Japan 1980)
• "Drip Dry Eyes (single version)"/"Charge" (single version)" (Alfa UK 1981, Lyrics by Chris Mosdell)
• "Drip Dry Eyes (album version)"/"New Red Roses" (Alfa Spain 1981, Lyrics by Chris Mosdell)
• "Disposable Love"/"Flashback (single version)" (Alfa UK 1982)
• "School Of Thought"/"Stop In The Name Of Love" (Statik, UK 1982, Lyrics by Chris Mosdell) - plus remixed 12 inch version
• "Are You Receiving Me?"/"And I Love You" (Yen Japan 1982)
• "Maebure"/"Another Door" (Yen Japan 1983)
• "Stranger Things Have Happened (single version)"/"Kill The Thermostat" (Pick-Up/Warners Germany 1984)
• "Stranger Things Have Happened"/"Bounds Of Reason"/"Metaphysical Jerks" (with Mick Karn and Bill Nelson) (Cocteau UK 1985)
• "Poisson D'Avril (single version)"/"Kimi ni Surprise!" (Yen Japan 1985)
• "Weekend"/? (Pony Canyon 1986)
• "Stay Close" 12 inch EP with Steve Jansen (Pony Canyon Japan, Rime Records UK 1986)
• "Look Of Love"/? (Toshiba EMI Japan 1988)
• "Fait Accompli" (promotional single, Japan 1989) - with Steve Jansen
• "1 percent no Kankei" (Toshiba-EMI 1990)
• "Stronger Than Iron" (Toshiba-EMI 1991)
• "Xmas Day In The Next Life" EP of Christmas songs (Toshiba-EMI 1991)
• "Genki Nara Ureshiine" (Toshiba-EMI 1993)
• "Seppai No Hohemi" (Toshiba-EMI 1994)
• "Watermelon" (with Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra) (Toshiba-EMI 1995)

Filmography[link]

• A Y.M.O. FILM PROPAGANDA （1984）
• Tenkoku ni ichiban chikai shima （1984）: Katsuki Jirô
• Shigatsu no sakana （1986）: Nemoto Shôhei
• The Discarnates （1988）
• Otoko wa sore gaman dekinai (2006)
• 20th century boys: Chapter 3-Our flag (2009): Billy
• Norwegian Wood (film) (2010): Gatekeeper

References[link]

External links[link]

• More complete Japanese Discography
• Yukihiro Takahashi at Allmusic
• Album Reviews

Kiko Mizuhara (水原 希子, Mizuhara Kiko^?), born Audrie Kiko Daniel, October 15, 1990, is a Japanese model and actress. She is a former exclusive model for the Japanese magazine ViVi and the Japanese edition of Seventeen.^[1]

Mizuhara was born in Dallas, Texas to a Zainichi Korean mother and an American father. She made her modelling debut with Seventeen magazine. She later worked for ViVi magazine, but then terminated her contract when she became a regular model for Nylon Japan. She made her film debut in Norwegian Wood (2010), directed by Tran Anh Hung based on Haruki Murakami's novel of the same name.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Kiko Mizuhara at the Internet Movie Database
• Nippon Cinema profile

This biographical article about a model is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article about a Japanese actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Kurt Schneider (7 January 1887 – 27 October 1967) was a German psychiatrist known largely for his writing on the diagnosis and understanding of schizophrenia, as well as personality disorders then known as psychopathic personalities.

Biography[link]

Schneider was born in Crailsheim, Kingdom of Württemberg, and trained in medicine in Berlin and Tübingen. He was drafted for and completed military service in World War I and later obtained a postgraduate qualification in psychiatry. In 1931 he became director of the German Psychiatric Research Institute in Munich, which was previously founded by Emil Kraepelin.

Disgusted by the developing tide of psychiatric eugenics championed by the Nazi Party, Schneider left the institute (when?) and served as an army doctor (for who?) during World War II. After the war, anti-Nazi academics were appointed to serve in, and rebuild Germany's medical institutions and Schneider was given the post of Dean of the Medical School at Heidelberg University. Schneider kept this post until his retirement in 1955.

Contributions to psychiatry[link]

Schneider was concerned with improving the method of diagnosis in psychiatry. He contributed to diagnostic procedures and the definition of disorders in the following areas of psychiatry:

Mood disorders[link]

Schneider coined the terms endogenous depression, derived from Emil Kraepelin's use of the adjective to mean biological in origin, and reactive depression, more usually seen in outpatients, in 1920.^[1]

Psychosis[link]

Like Karl Jaspers, he particularly championed diagnoses based on the form, rather than the content of a sign or symptom. For example, he argued that a delusion should not be diagnosed by the content of the belief, but by the way in which a belief is held.

He was also concerned with differentiating schizophrenia from other forms of psychosis, by listing the psychotic symptoms that are particularly characteristic of schizophrenia. These have become known as Schneiderian First-Rank Symptoms or simply, first-rank symptoms.^[2]

First-Rank Symptoms in schizophrenia[link]

• Audible thoughts (thought echo)
• Voices heard arguing
• Voices heard commenting on one's actions
• Somatic/thought passivity experiences (delusions of control)
• Thought withdrawal
• Thought insertion - Thoughts are ascribed to other people who intrude their thoughts upon the patient
• Thought broadcasting (also called thought diffusion)
• Delusional perception (i.e. taking a normal sensory perception to mean a bizarre situation such as taking seeing an aeroplane as indicating the patient should be the next president)

The reliability of using first-rank symptoms for the diagnosis of schizophrenia has since been questioned,^[3] although the terms might still be used descriptively by mental health professionals who do not use them as diagnostic aids.

A memory device that is frequently used to remember the first rank symptoms is ABCD: Auditory hallucinations, Broadcasting of thought, Controlled thought (delusions of control), Delusional perception.

Psychopathic personalities[link]

Schneider also played a key role in developing concepts of psychopathy, used in a broad sense to mean personality disorder or particularly antisocial personality disorder. He published the influential 'The Psychopathic Personalities' in 1923. This was based in part on his earlier 1921 work 'The Personality and Fate of Registered Prostitutes' where he outlined 12 character types.

Schneider sought to put psychopathy diagnoses on a morally neutral and scientific footing. He defined abnormal personality as a statistical deviation from the norm, vaguely conceptualised. He thought very creative or intelligent people had abnormal personalities by definition, but defined the psychopathic personality as those who suffered from their abnormal personality or caused suffering to society because of it. He did not see these as mental illnesses as such - thus adding to a divide, contrary to Eugene Bleuler for example, between those considered psychotic and those considered psychopathic.

Schneider's unsystematic typology was based on his clinical views. He proposed 10 psychopathic personalities: those showing abnormal mood/activity; the insecure sensitive and insecure anankastic (drifting, feckless); fanatics; self-assertive; emotionally unstable; explosive; callous; weak-willed; asthenic.

Schneider's work in this respect is said to have influenced all future descriptive typologies, including the current classifications of personality disorders in the DSM-IV and ICD-10. Nevertheless, Schneider is considered to not exactly have succeeded in his attempted and claimed production of a value-free non-judgemental diagnostic system.^[4] In fact, Schneider's mixing of the medical and the moral has been described as the most noteworthy aspect of this work, which has been linked back to German reception of Cesare Lombroso's theory of the 'born criminal', redefined by Emil Kraepelin and others (see also Koch) in to psychiatric terms as a 'moral defect'. After World War I it lived on in Schneider's 'gemutolos' (compassionless) psychopaths, or what Karl Birnbaum called 'amoral' psychopaths. It has been described as remarkable that Schneider criticized Kraepelin and others for basing their personality diagnoses on moral judgements, yet appeared to do so himself. For example, Schneider admitted that the 'suffering of society' was a 'totally subjective' and 'teleological’ criterion for defining psychopathic personalities, but said that in 'scientific studies' this could be avoided by operating by the broader statistical category of abnormal personalities, which he believed were always congenital and therefore largely hereditary. The attempt to finesse the problem of value judgments has been described as 'clearly unsatisfactory'.^[5]

See also[link]

• Karl Jaspers
• Schizophrenia

References[link]

1. ^ Schneider, Kurt (1920). "Die Schichtung des emotionalen Lebens und der Aufbau der Depressionszustände". Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 59: 281–86. DOI:10.1007/BF02901090. 
2. ^ Schneider, K. Clinical Psychopathology. New York: Grune and Stratton. 1959.
3. ^ Bertelsen A (2002). "Schizophrenia and related disorders: experience with current diagnostic systems". Psychopathology 35 (2–3): 89–93. DOI:10.1159/000065125. PMID 12145490. 
4. ^ Henning Sass & Alan Felthous (2008) Chapter 1: History and Conceptual Development of Psychopathic Disorders in International Handbook on Psychopathic Disorders and the Law. Edited by Alan Felthous, Henning Sass
5. ^ Richard F. Wetzell (2000) Inventing the criminal: a history of German criminology, 1880-1945 pg 148 & 297