Universities and research institutions have recently been preparing for open science. Open science includes various concepts such as open data and open access. Scientific activities participated in with citizens who are not specialists in the field are traditionally called citizen science. The recent developments of web-based information and communication technology (ICT) have further changed the methods and styles of citizen science. This new generation of web-based citizen science is referred to as "crowd science" in this study. Crowd science projects have gradually been launched in Japan as web-based data-collection and data-processing projects. However, what factors mainly contribute to the improvement of these Japanese projects are yet to be reviewed. In this article, six Japanese crowd science projects are reviewed and classified on the basis of levels of online citizen participation. It is suggested that super-volunteers, who are enthusiastic members of the project, should become key players for the growth of the project. Furthermore, it is revealed that online discussion forums have played a major role in enhancing participants' communication. These forums result in fruitful discussions and achievements of the project. Knowledge of these key components is beneficial not only for future project organizers but also for universities and research institutions.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The females of some catarrhines develop conspicuous sexual skin transformations in their hind limbs. Among macaques (one of the radiated and adapted catarrhine groups with diversified sexual skin transformations), differences in sexual skin colouration between the Japanese macaque Macaca fuscata and the rhesus macaque M. mulatta have not been quantitatively analysed. In this study, the sexual skin colouration of these macaques was spectrocolourimetrically measured in the non-mating season (NMS) and the mating season (MS) and represented in a CIELAB space with the variables L*, a* and b*. The variables L*, a* and b* represent positions on the light-dark, red/magenta-green, and yellow-blue axes, respectively. In the Japanese macaques the average ± SD of L*, a* and b* was 53.61 ± 3.31, 11.51 ± 4.57 and 6.66 ± 2.25 in the NMS and 46.60 ± 2.78, 19.97 ± 2.99 and 8.80 ± 1.34 in the MS, respectively, while in the rhesus macaques the average ± SD of L*, a* and b* was 60.09 ± 3.96, 5.99 ± 4.59 and 5.83 ± 2.37 in the NMS and 52.70 ± 6.54, 13.62 ± 6.86 and 8.07 ± 1.43 in the MS, respectively. The sexual skin of the Japanese macaques was consistently much redder (larger a*) and darker (smaller L*) than that of the rhesus macaques. The smaller L* suggested a greater dermal melanin content in the Japanese macaques. These closely related macaque species have similar but distinct sexual skin colourations. Spectrocolourimetry is thus useful to suggest the histophysiological background of the colouration.