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In nonclinical safety studies for new drug development, healthy animals have been commonly used. However, in some cases, the use of animal models of human disease is considered to be more favorable in evaluating risks in patients. To elucidate the current status of the use of animal models for nonclinical safety assessment, an internal questionnaire from the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and surveys (questionnaire period: August 27 to September 30, 2015) of both common technical documents and review reports of approved drugs (approval period: May 1999 to May 2017) disclosed by the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Agency were conducted. Although there were some concerns and limitations raised, the survey results revealed that animal models have been used in nonclinical safety assessment on a case-by-case basis and that nonclinical safety studies using animal models were included in the data packages of several approved drugs in Japan. The survey results also revealed that nonclinical safety studies using animal models have become more frequent in the past few years. In almost all cases, useful information, such as signs of toxicity under disease conditions and mechanisms of toxic change, was obtained from the results of nonclinical studies using animal models. Note: This is an opinion article submitted to the Toxicologic Pathology Forum. It represents the views of the author(s). It does not constitute an official position of the Society of Toxicologic Pathology, British Society of Toxicological Pathology, or European Society of Toxicologic Pathology, and the views expressed might not reflect the best practices recommended by these Societies. This article should not be construed to represent the policies, positions, or opinions of their respective organizations, employers, or regulatory agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the COVID-19, it is very significant to explore the dynamic fluctuation of China's export growth to the international market and examine the causes of this fluctuation in a multi-dimensional way. The dynamic fluctuation level is measured in the short and medium-long cycle respectively based on monthly data. Factor decomposition of the dynamic fluctuation is made from the growth effect, the structure effect and the competitiveness effect by the improved CMS model, which results show that the growth effect has decreased first and then increased; The structure effects include market structure effects and commodity structure effects, and the former effect basically fluctuates around the X-axis while there is a negative commodity structure effect; There are different specific competitiveness effects on 21 categories of goods. China should rely on the RCEP agreement to strengthen and stabilize trade cooperation other countries, and strengthen its core position in the industry chain and value chain in the Asia Pacific region. The current paper creatively introduce the trade expansion margin including the ternary margin and product structure into the CMS model, explaining the internal relationship between the trade expansion margin analysis at the product- market level and the CMS analysis at the overall level; meanwhile, this paper analyses the dynamic fluctuation structure of China's export growth to Japan and South Korea through a CMS factor decomposition from the perspective of technological structure and factor ladder, and studies the source and dynamic distribution evolution of this growth pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. The significance of mutual-help in communities for disaster management is a fundamental important concept. However, the current societal state does not reflect this lesson. S&G (Simulation and Gaming) has the potential to overcome the challenges faced in promoting community-based disaster management. No scientific research is currently present that reviews their achievements in Japan. Aim. This paper analyzes the current achievements of S&G in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan. Method. The paper clarifies the theoretical advantages of S&G in enhancing community resilience in coping and adaptive capacity plus proposes a conceptual contribution framework of S&G in improving community resilience. Based on this framework, the paper analyzes some major games that tackle community resilience against earthquakes in Japan. Results. The paper demonstrates the achievements through the S&G spectrum that stresses the disastrous experience with specific resilience views on one side, while decision making for critical reflection from other players with more comprehensive resilience views on the other side. Conclusion. The paper showcases the current S&G achievements in enhancing community resilience against large-scale earthquakes in Japan using the proposed framework, which can be utilized by other disaster-prone countries to develop and evaluate applications of S&G for increasing community resilience against earthquakes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dealing with cultural diversity is one of the key challenges in contemporary societies, with Japan being no exception. However, relatively little is known about how minority group members are viewed by members of the dominant group. The current paper presents a study that evaluated three hypotheses that are related to these issues with a survey of 210 Japanese adult participants. The study also examines moderating roles of national identities in acculturation expectations and psychological functioning in the dominant group. Perceived security about the society in terms of national culture, and personal conditions in a multicultural society predict the most tolerant form of acculturation expectation. This association is mediated by one's multicultural ideology. Although acculturation expectations are not predictive of psychological functioning, particular national identity (i.e., internationalism) alleviates the negative effect of the closest form of expectation (exclusion) on psychological problems. The study implies the need for analysis on culture-specific constructs of multicultural society in perceptions and attitudes in the dominant group in Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces some regression models for a categorical dependent variable with data from egocentric social networks as covariates to analyze the determinants of the outcome for the subject and the determinants of the extent of agreement in the outcome between the subject and the people socially connected to the subject. The merits of the models introduced in this paper are their wide applicability to surveys that collect data on egocentric social networks and their ability to identify the determinants of agreement between subjects’ and their friends’ attitudinal or behavioral outcomes, controlling for the tendency to agree because of homophily in the choice of friends. An illustrative application from the Japanese General Social Survey data shows that several substantively distinct characteristics of egocentric networks affect subjects’ political party preferences and the extent of agreement between the political party preferences of subjects and their significant others. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper introduces new models for comparing several social mobility tables that provide various one-degree-of-freedom tests for two mobility tables on substantively meaningful structural components. These components include differences between mobility tables in (1) the strength of off-diagonal associations, (2) the strength of diagonal effects, and (3) the extent of structural mobility. Most of the models in this paper use association models and the Sobel-Hout-Duncan model but are specifically formulated to analyze three-way tables that have either nations or periods as the third dimension. American, British, and Japanese mobility tables are compared. Together, they show that equality of occupational opportunity is larger for the United States than for Great Britain, that Japan's mobility structure is closer to quasi-independence than that of the two other nations, and that Japan's mobility structure became more like that of the United States in 1975 rather than in 1955. These analyses also demonstrate that comparative mobility research based on indexing mobility has strong limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeking a remedy for the radiation fear in Japan, the author re-examined an article on radiation hormesis. It describes the background for this fear and evidence in the first UNSCEAR report of a reduction in leukemia of the Hiroshima survivors in the low dose zone. The data are plotted and dose-response models are drawn. While UNSCEAR suggested the extra leukemia incidence is proportional to radiation dose, the data are consistent with a hormetic J-shape and a threshold at about 100 rem (1 Sv). UNSCEAR data on lifespan reduction of mammals exposed continuously to gamma rays indicate a 2 gray/year threshold. This contradicts the conceptual basis for radiation protection and risk determination established in 1956-58. In this paper, beneficial effects and thresholds for harmful effects are discussed, and the biological mechanism is explained. The key point: the rate of DNA damage (double-strand breaks) caused by background radiation is 1000 times less than the endogenous (spontaneous) rate. It is the effect of radiation on an organism's very powerful adaptive protection systems that determines the dose-response characteristic. Low radiation up-regulates the protection systems, while high radiation impairs these systems. The remedy for radiation fear is to expose and discard the politicized science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A radiological emergency exists at the Fukushima Daiichi (Fukushima I) nuclear power plant in Japan as a result of the March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the massive tsunami that arrived later. News media misinformation related to the emergency triggered enormous social fear worldwide of the radioactivity that is being released from damaged fuel rods. The heroic recovery workers are a major concern because they are being exposed to mostly gamma radiation during their work shifts and life-threatening damage to the radiosensitive bone marrow could occur over time. This paper presents a way in which the bone marrow equivalent dose (in millisieverts), as estimated per work shift, could be used along with the hazard function model previously developed for radiological risk assessment to repeatedly check for potential life-threatening harm (hematopoietic system damage) to workers. Three categories of radiation hazard indication are proposed: 1, life-threatening damage unlikely; 2, life-threatening damage possible; 3, life-threatening damage likely. Categories 2 and 3 would be avoided if the whole body effective dose did not exceed the annual effective dose limit of 250 mSv. For down-wind populations, hormetic effects (activated natural protective processes) are much more likely than are deleterious effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares two case studies of prepaid card technology where the same "technology" is applied in two separate industries, the public telephone industry and the pachinko game industry in Japan. The different outcomes in the two areas are analyzed in terms of the functions of what is introduced here as "socio-technological aggregates" (STA). A socio-technological aggregate is composed of an initiating innovator component and heterogeneous components necessary for the technology to function in a given society. The analysis of technology as an STA gained insights from the phenomena of aggregates in other areas: the socio-literary aggregate created by Russell McCormmach in Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist; by the "collage" phenomenon created by Picasso, Braque; and others, and the socio-musical aggregates of John Cage. Two important aspects of an STA are: the bonding/managing component that dictates how a technology is applied; and the evaluator component that triggers multimodality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to describe the methods used in a phenomenological study aimed at understanding students' perceptions of volunteer experiences from the viewpoint of their existential meanings. In Japan, as volunteer activities have just been recently introduced to youth education, it is necessary to verify the effect of the activity on the students. The authors present phenomenological reduction, which is a fundamental concept in phenomenology, as a health care research method to elucidate the essence of people's lived experiences. The 22 statements presented from volunteer students' group discussion after their practices were redescribed by phenomenological reduction, a method of valid interpretation based on their embodiment and desire. The phenomenological approach allows us to understand the essence of students' perceptions in terms of their purpose in life, which suggests that educators could inspire the students to realize existential growth by participating in volunteer activities through practical communications with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of renal cell cancer has been increasing worldwide. Although the incidence of renal cell cancer in Japan is lower than the rates in the other industrialized countries, there is no doubt that it is increasing. In this paper, we would like to introduce the result of our studies, which evaluate the risk factors for renal cell cancer in Japan. Hypertension, diabetes mellitus, kidney diseases, fondness for fatty food and black tea showed an increased risk of renal cell carcinoma while an intake of starchy roots such as taro, sweet potato and potato reduced the risk of renal cell carcinoma. In Japan, however, drinking black tea may be a surrogate for westernized dietary habits while eating starchy roots may be a surrogate for traditional Japanese dietary habits. Further studies may be needed to evaluate risk factors for renal cell cancer because the number of renal cancer cases was small in our studies in spite of a large population-based cohort study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how multiple roles affect the mental health of the elderly in Japan and the United States, two countries with vastly different cultures. Hypotheses were drawn based on the cultural differences in role experiences, and these hypotheses are tested by analyzing nationally representative samples of the elderly in these countries. The results show that Americans are more likely to be involved in roles related to family, work, and community, while the Japanese are more likely to be involved in only those roles related to family and work. Multiple roles are also found to be less beneficialfor the mental health of Japanese elderly compared to American counterparts. National differences in the effects of individual roles and role configurations on mental health are also documented. Overall, the results show the importance of broad cultural contexts for understanding the relationship between roles and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis of the existence of a single economic market for the international coal industry, separated for coking and steam coal, and lo investigate market integration over time. This has been conducted by applying cointegration and error-correction models on quarterly price series data in Europe and Japan over the time period 1980-2000. Both the coking and the steam coal markets show evidence of global market integration, as demonstrated by the stable long-run cointegrating relationship between the respective price series in different world regions. This supports the hypothesis of a globally integrated market. However, when analyzing market integration over time it is not possible to confirm cointegration in the 1990s for steam coal. Thus, compared to the coking coal market, the steam coal market looks somewhat less global in scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, unlike in most other industrialized societies, the decline in marriage rates has been most pronounced among highly educated women. Theoretical interpretations of this distinctive pattern of change have typically emphasized increasing economic independence for women and reductions in the gains to marriage. In this paper, the authors develop and evaluate an alternative explanation that emphasizes women's continued dependence on men's economic resources and decline in the relative supply of highly educated men. Using data from four rounds of the Japanese National Fertility Survey, the authors decompose the observed decline in marriage rates into changes in the propensity to marry and changes in the educational composition of the marriage market. Results indicate that change in the availability of potential spouses accounts for one-fourth of the decline in marriage among university-educated women and explains a substantial proportion of the growing educational differences in marriage. The conclusion is that the relatively large decline in marriage among highly educated Japanese women likely reflects both increasing economic independence and continued economic dependence on men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relative performance of electricity distribution systems in the UK and Japan between 1985 and 1998 using cost-based benchmarking with data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) methods. The results suggest that the productivity gain in the UK electricity distribution has been larger than in the Japanese sector. In particular, productivity growth accelerated during the last years when the UK utilities were operating under tightened revenue caps. It also suggests that efficiency scores are higher for UK utilities. The findings also highlight the advantages of using multiple techniques in comparative analysis and in incentive regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the effects of information on residential demand for electricity, using data from a Japanese experiment. In the experiment, households had a continuous-display, electricity use monitoring device installed at their residence. The monitor was designed so that each consumer could easily look at graphs and tables associated, with the consumer's own usage of electricity at any time during the experiment. The panel data were used to estimate a random effects model of electricity and count data models of monitor usage. The results indicate that monitor usage contributed to energy conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration scholars have frequently emphasized the tremendous increase in international migration in recent years. But several advanced industrial countries -- Japan in particular -- have relatively small numbers of foreign workers. Most of the literature on labor migration relates only to "positive cases," i.e., countries that have actually experienced significant inflows of foreign workers. This article proposes considering Japan as a "negative case" of labor migration in the post-World War II period. There has been much recent interest in the growing numbers of foreign workers in Japan, but what is most interesting about Japan is the fact that the numbers are relatively small (as a percentage of the labor force) and I that they began to increase so late, in comparison to other countries. The main goal of the paper is to advocate consideration of negative cases in migration research; a proper theory of labor migration would distinguish between positive and negative cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Seminar of Population and the Economy: From Hunger to Modern Economic Growth, held in Toyonaka, Japan from January 7 to 10, 1997, was cosponsored by the Historical Demography Committee of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population and the International Association of Economic History. The seminar objective was to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of findings concerning the relationship between population and economic change in pre-industrial Europe and in non-European regions, both in the past and more contemporary times. Seminar organizers hoped to generate research that would bring us closer to filling existing gaps in our knowledge concerning Malthusian demographic-economic dynamics. Although the role of migration as both a short and long-term adjustment mechanism to population pressures and economic stress has been emphasized in the literature, people still have limited knowledge concerning this mechanism. In the first paper presented at the Session on Migration in Demographic Contexts, Massimo Livi-Bacci posited the hypothesis that nineteenth century European emigration served as an escape route from Mathusian population pressures. In the paper, Migration, Marriage, and Population in the Netherlands, 1500-1900, Jan de Vries considers the role of migration in the patterns of population growth, urbanization, and nuptiality in the Netherlands during the 1500-1900 period.

International comparisons of engineering graduate numbers are frequently used as indices of industrial development and measures of the responsiveness of the educational system to industrial requirements. Such comparisons make implicit assumptions about quality by assuming that like institutions or like qualifications are being compared. In this paper the concept of 'best practice' engineering education is derived from engineering manpower reports of German engineering education in order to address issues of both quantity and quality in comparing engineering education in Britain and Japan. Japan is found to have associated engineering education with relatively more prestigious institutions and to have attracted a higher proportion of more able male pupils to broad based engineering education compared to Britain. Yet there are some interesting differences between the model of 'best practice' engineering education based on Germany and Japanese practice, particularly in curricula, which underline the importance of the division of labour between education and employment in the education and training of engineers. Examining the responsiveness of educational systems through propositions derived from a model of 'best practice' rather than through simple output statistics underlines the importance of different patterns of institutional development, the role of the state, educational and occupational selection, and status within the curriculum for understanding the variety of contemporary engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most societies, there is an ongoing contest over who is the "we," to whom specific moral obligations apply, and who is the "they," to whom they do not. This paper explores and contrasts the most blatant forms of active exclusion, which includes genocide, and indirect exclusion, which is characterized by subtle forms of exclusion through social invisibility. In genocide, the targeted groups are not simply excluded from life integrity rights, but offenses against them are explicitly encouraged, rewarded, and sanctioned by the regime. In indirect exclusion, the exclusion is implicit in cultural and institutional practices and is often unintentional. I examine the difficulties and dilemmas involved in resisting and preventing active exclusion and in challenging the cultural codes that maintain indirect exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The elite coalition that pushes local industrial growth is composed of six actors: local state, business, and party and national state, business, and party. The question of which dominates the coalition reflects current debates about the structure of power in capitalist society. This paper addresses these debates through the detailed study of a growth coalition in a rural industrialization project in southern Japan. It traces the strategies and modes of influence of the six actors, their structure and process, through the 25-year history of the project. Contrary to the "strong state" image of Japan, national big business dominated the growth coalition. The rest of the society, including the state, adjusted around its motion. This resulted in policies which favored economic growth over social needs, giving some of the other actors legitimation problems. Yet, success at rapid growth prevented these from assuming crisis proportions. The findings run counter to state autonomy arguments and suggest closer attention be paid to multiple levels of structure and process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese women participate in the labor force at rates similar to women in Western industrial nations, but gender stratification patterns are sharper. Women in Japan are less apt to work as employees, a tendency that increases with age. Likewise, female employees tend to shift from larger to smaller firms across the life Cycle, whereas male employees do not. These aggregate pallets imply that Japanese women are seldom placed in career-track positions in large firms early in their careers. Analyses on labor market entry data from the 1984 "Survey on Work Patterns" substantiate this view. Although Japanese men and women enter large firms at equivalent rates upon leaving school, 22 percent of men and only 7 percent of women enter career ladders. The majority of women enter large firms as clerical workers, three-quarters of whom are in low-level "assistant clerical" positions. Causal processes governing entrance to large firms and career tracks are examined in the paper, with particular attention to the relative returns to different levels and types of education for Japanese men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports that the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA)'s 2003 postconference publication, "Gaming, Simulations, and Society: Research Scope and Perspective" is now published. Edited by Rei Shiratori, Kiyoshi Arai, and Fumitoshi Kato, the book consists of 30 selected papers from ISAGA 2003, together with the ISAGA 2003 program. During the weekend of November 6-7, 2004, the Japanese Association of Simulation and Gaming Annual Conference was held at Hitotsubashi University in Kunitachi, Japan. Organized by Toshinori Nemoto of Hitotsubashi University, the main theme of the conference was problem solving through simulation and gaming. The conference attracted many participants for a special lecture by Hiroshi Deguchi, paper presentations, and experiential sessions.

This article comments on the paper, Illegal Migrant Laborers in Japan, by Steven A. Spencer, published in the Fall 1992 issue of International Migration Review. The paper purports to describe an emerging immigration problem or dilemma in Japan. But it is misleading in at least three respects: illegal foreign workers in Japan nowadays are not in fact a relatively large magnitude; the recent inflow of such workers represents not so much a long-term developing labor shortage as the short-run business book of the late 1980s in Japan; Japanese social practices in normal times can fill low-level jobs with native workers. Spencer takes off from the trends of illegal workers apprehended in Japan: only 1,889 persons in 1982 but rising rapidly to a peak of 16,608 in 1989. This is indeed a nearly ninefold jump; but the numbers are no more than trivial if measured against the whole Japanese labor force. Spencer misconstrues the appearance of a labor shortage in Japan during the last five years. Those were boom years when many companies hired furiously, and the labor gap was filled to some degree by part-time workers. In other word, Spencer has taken a temporary scarcity of labor in Japan to represent a long-term rising trend that is not happening.

Presents updates related to computer simulations and gaming in Japan as of March 2003. Host of the 2003 International Simulation and Gaming Association conference in Chiba, Japan; Theme of the conference; List of papers and book reviews from the periodical 'Studies in Simulation and Gaming,' vol. 11, no. 2.

The author announces the publication of the article "Society of Toxicologic Pathology Position Paper on Pathology Image Data: Compliance with 21 CFR Parts 58 and 11" in volume 35 issue of the "Journal of Toxicologic Pathology." He claimed that the article was published after an agreement was signed between the Society of Toxicologic Pathology and Sage Publications. The author argued that the decision of the Japanese Society of Toxicologic Pathology (JSTP) to republish the article denotes a global cooperation among toxicologic pathology societies.