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This scoping review explores the professional literature in allied healthcare to determine which self-assessments of mentor skills are the most valid and reliable for use in occupational therapy doctoral capstone programs. The aims of this scoping review include mapping evidence related to mentor assessments in healthcare, exploring implications for occupational therapy doctoral mentor training programs, and identifying common characteristics of mentor self-assessments for occupational therapy programs to consider when developing capstone mentoring resources. Researchers applied and reported via PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). A librarian and authors formulated keywords and database selections to search PubMed/MEDLINE/PMC, and Embase were searched from across healthcare professions for training outcomes, mentor self-assessment, mentor attributes, and use of researcher-developed assessments. The search was limited to English publications from the last 20 years. Data were extracted for quantitative information regarding study characteristics and qualitative information about mentoring skills. A total of 852 results were delivered across all databases. Nineteen papers met the final eligibility criteria and were included in the data extraction. Populations were included from several healthcare professions, including 11 nursing, four healthcare researchers, one pharmacy, one midwifery, one medicine, and one medical dietetics. Countries included the United States (n = 7), Finland (n = 5), United Kingdom (n = 4), Japan (n = 1), South Africa (n = 1) and Canada (n = 1). The authors identified four valid self-assessment tools, demonstrating III and IV levels of evidence, that may be implemented by occupational therapy programs as they develop resources for mentor programs. Occupational therapy programs can use the mentor attributes found in this scoping review to create their own mentor assessment measures or may choose to use a validated tool. The authors recommend additional research in mentor education and mentor skill acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Teaching Expertise in Three Countries project is used as an example to show the significance and contribution of international comparative research and to think about the possible implications for policy in early childhood education. The project studied the development of expertise in preschool teaching in Japan, China, and the United States by employing 'video-cued multivocal ethnography' to explore how teaching expertise is defined in each of these countries and what processes help teachers acquire advanced teaching skills. This project has shown similarities and culturally specific notions, in what the participants have to say about characteristics of less and more experienced teachers. These research findings raise issues and challenges in early childhood education that resonate with the situation not only in the three countries but also possibly in other countries, such as problematizing the role of remembering and reflection in professional practice and the value of experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the modern Japanese state employed overseas cultural promotion as a way to maximise its interests and image not only in international contexts but also at home. By juxtaposing the Takarazuka Revue’s performances in the United States and Japan during the postwar period, this paper argues that the overseas promotion of this Japanese theatre troupe both depended upon and reinforced the Japanese populace’s nationalistic pride in its culture. The paper also addresses the ways in which the Japanese government used Takarazuka’s theatrical presentations as a means of pursuing its domestic and diplomatic agendas: improving Japan’s international position by proposing shared aspects of popular culture with the US and increasing its sense of nationalism by propagating cultural pride. In doing so, the paper explicates the ways in which Japanese popular cultural considerations interfaced with political concerns in the shaping of postwar Japan’s national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on my own experience as both a student and a teacher, this paper illuminates the “gap” between the systems of anthropology education in Japanese and American universities, and argues that the major “gap” between the Japanese and the American systems of anthropology education lies in the number of professional anthropologists in the unit of teaching and that small Japanese programs with just a handful of anthropologists can offer only general apprenticeship-type training while large American departments with at least fifteen or more anthropologists can provide a wide range of courses and advisory committees of specialists matching the areas of concentration chosen by graduate students. I conclude that this “gap” in the size and style of anthropology education explains why more “star” anthropologists are produced in America than in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rationale: Public health and preventive medicine (PHPM) has been recognized internationally as a physician specialty, but national parallels and differences exist between training contexts. This paper reviews PHPM training and employment in Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA. Methods: Information gathered from relevant accreditation bodies and literature searches was used to create descriptive profiles of national training demographics and structure and a narrative outlining trends and challenges facing the specialty. Results: Notable similarities and differences exist between national contexts. Key themes were differences in training strategies and practice scope, specialty stakeholders, certification structure, and funding. Recognition challenges faced the specialty across all six countries. Other challenges included unclear competencies and training strategies and a need for PHPM specialists to highlight their role in combating population health threats. Additional differences existed between comparator countries on the structure of training, funding sources for training programs, availability of training posts, and linkages with other physician specialties. Conclusion: Highlighting these themes is a first step to fostering training collaborations between PHPM specialist physicians to augment transnational action on global public health challenges and also supports PHPM physician educators with innovative solutions from abroad that might address domestic specialty challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution and diversity of institutions across the United States, the EU and Japan, and the timing of the medical device framework splitting off from the drug regulatory framework, are striking. Regulatory agencies face a new landscape: the combination of industry-paid user fees and appropriations, and a general pro-business climate coupled with dramatic advances in medical technology, shortage in skilled experts trained in the latest state-of-the-art science, and necessary legal and administrative changes. This paper seeks explanations for the complex structure of medical device regulation by focusing on the meaning of the “life cycle” concept, opportunities for patient voices, and the scope of, and potential for conflicts of interest of, industry, physicians, scientific advisors and regulatory authorities. The paper concludes that the initial international differences between medical device frameworks tend to be mitigated by voluntary global harmonization, but that actual, effective integration into the national regulatory framework significantly depends on each nation's and the EU's embedded norms, rules and procedures, and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sets forth the history of the academic activities of the Asian American Literature Association (AALA) in order to explore the evolution of Asian American Studies in Japan. When the AALA was established in 1989, several scholars had already published research papers on Asian American literature, as had researchers involved energetically in the study of Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans. Around the time when AALA was established, other research groups focusing on immigration studies were formed. In 1993, several members of the AALA presented their papers at the annual meetings of other associations and, as a result, the activities of the AALA became known to a wider academic community. In 1994, the AALA published its first annual journal and, around 1995, the number of papers on Asian American literature and culture accepted by authoritative journals in Japan began to increase. By the end of the 1990s, Asian American studies made its presence conspicuous in the field of American studies in Japan. Since the turn of the century, a growing number of Asian Americanists in Japan have become engaged in interdisciplinary studies, thus providing new perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the significance of engaging in Asian American studies in Asia, with examples drawn primarily from Japan. It asks: what happens when this US-based racial minority studies is relocated to the place where Asians do not constitute racial minorities? The paper argues that, on the one hand, the intellectual encounter between Asia and Asian America encourages the US-based minority studies to examine their implications in American imperialism in their perceptions towards Asia. On the other hand, Asian American studies as the racial minority discourse forces ethno-racial majority Asians, with all our ethnic, national, and other differences, to reflect upon the racial, ethnic, and (neo)colonial relations in our own lands while critiquing the inequalities that are taking place in and across Asia. The paper looks at the forms of minority struggles in Japan, zainichi Koreans and Okinawans, in order to propel the US Asian American scholars to decentralize their work and perspectives. It is my hope that this new perspective generated from Asia-based Asian American studies will help construct a place of mutual learning, where we can engage in conversation to ask new questions, to challenge and transform Asian American studies as we know it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores John Hersey's Hiroshima (1946) and Nagai Takashi's The Bells of Nagasaki (1949). These two best-selling books published in the US and Japan in the late 1940s portray the experiences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although they appeared in a similar period—a postwar transition and a herald of the Cold War—their reception was strikingly different. Hersey's piece acquired international currency when the representations of the atomic bombings in Japan were censored under the US Occupation. Since then Hiroshima has virtually remained the ‘first and only’ text about the atomic bomb victims widely read in the US. Nagai's memoir, a rare exception allowed to be circulated nationwide under the censorship, and elevated to a canonical voice of Nagasaki's experience, however, has been the subject of controversies in Japan from the 1970s. The paper argues that despite these differences, both works share parallels in narratological strategies, such as historical emplotment, the personalization of the event, compassionate identification, the valorization of the power of the atomic bomb, and the promotion of compartmentalized knowledge. These effects create a psychological deterrent for readers not to confront larger political and ethical problematics of Japanese colonialism and postwar US hegemony in Asia. Their discursive entanglement and ostensible dissociation symbolize the ways in which trans-Pacific knowledge on the atomic bombings has been shaped postwar for many decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1939 to 1945 the Imperial Japanese Navy made heavy use of a series of additive cipher systems generically named JN-25 by the cryptanalytic unit of the United States Navy. Most of these consisted of a code-book assigning a five-digit ‘group’, always a multiple of three, to each word or phrase in a very long list and encrypting these by ‘false’ (non-carrying) addition of a five-digit group (‘the additive’) taken from a long table of essentially random such groups. These ‘false sums’ were transmitted, usually by radio, to the intended recipient. The American jargon for these was GATs, or groups as transmitted. (Note 1 given after the main text discusses changes in the source of additives introduced in the later stages of the Pacific War. This is not relevant to the mathematical consequences of such use of only multiples of three, which is the main theme of this paper.) The author's earlier paper explains how this use of multiples of three provided a route for relatively rapid recovery of the additive and, thus, the decryption of intercepts. Another quite different and rather surprising source of insecurity inherent in this use of multiples of three was noted only in 1943 and became the basis of a process code-named ‘Mamba’ needed in 1944. This paper explains one consequence of the statistics underlying Mamba: the use of multiples of three in JN-25 codebooks betrays itself very quickly. Note 2 mentions other aspects of Mamba. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper introduces a sociological approach to the study of art and literature and demonstrates its value as a methodological intervention in the field of comics studies. Known as the 'production of culture' perspective, this approach argues that all artistic work - including comics - is the product of collective, often routinized, human activity. Therefore, it is not sufficient merely to study the text and/or the artist to whom the work is directly attributed. Rather, to fully understand any artistic work, one must also study the larger social and organizational context of its production and dissemination. In the first part of the paper, I will provide an overview of the production of culture approach, discussing some of its foundational theorists and their respective intellectual contributions. Sociologists covered will include Howard Becker, Pierre Bourdieu, and Richard A. Peterson. In the second part of the paper, I will present an example of how this approach may be applied in scholarly practice. Using the transnational comics publishing industry in Japan and the United States as a case study, I will show how the conditions and mode of production help to determine the particular sorts of texts that are actually created. Finally, I will conclude with a discussion of the limitations of the production of culture approach and possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tells a story about miscegenation between US military personnel and Okinawan women from 1945-1952, which includes sexual violence, the establishment of 'entertainment districts,' and the emergence of international marriage. Whereas this history has been mobilized by leftists as a truth-weapon in the struggle for political sovereignty from the US military, this paper takes an explicitly genealogical approach. Drawing on Foucault's work on biopower, this paper shows how Okinawans were transformed into 'petitioning subject' - subjects that negotiated the sexual exploitation of their bodies in tandem with the radically changing relationship between their bodies and the territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents comparative analyses of societal impacts of civic legal participation in Japan and the U.S. In 2001, the Japanese government announced the introduction of the quasi-jury system, called "Saiban-in Seido," which begins its first trial in 2009.2 Research, limited mostly to the analysis of American juries, has demonstrated that civic legal participation is effective in democratizing the criminal process and building broader public confidence in the system of justice. At present, Japan relies on a grand jury system called "kensatsu shinsa-kai," also known as the Prosecutorial Review Commission (PRC). The commission consists of eleven citizens, randomly selected from voter rolls in local jurisdictions, and reviews the appropriateness of prosecutors' decisions not to indict. The data for the present research was collected from more than 200 individuals who have served in these commissions. They were asked about their experiences and views on Japanese legal procedures. Additional surveys were conducted of more than 2,500 prospective jurors at the Dallas County Courthouse in Texas in March and April, 2006. Furthermore, both Japanese and American college students were asked to respond to the same questions concerning lay participation in the justice system. Analytic findings suggest that both Japanese and American respondents with prior jury experience exhibited a heightened sense of civic responsibility, greater feelings of trust toward government agencies, and a greater sense of community identity and self-efficacy. Lastly, the paper provides important suggestions to build an effective system of civic lay participation in Japan, as well as in other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this U.S.-Japan joint seminar series is to provide a cross-disciplinary and international forum for discussing and identifying outstanding science and technology issues in the area of nanoscale thermophysics and energy conversion and to foster collaboration among researchers in these areas. The first of this seminar series, championed by the late Professors Chang-Lin Tien and Kunio Hijikata, was held in Kanazawa, Japan, in June of 1993. Subsequent meetings have been held every three years, alternating venues between the United States and Japan. The Sixth U.S.-Japan Joint Seminar on Nanoscale Transport Phenomena—Science and Engineering was held in Boston, Massachusetts, July 13-16, 2008, and was organized by Professors Gang Chen from MIT, Fushinobu Kazuyoshi from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Shigeo Maruyama from Tokyo University, and Pamela Norris from University of Virginia. Nearly 100 scientists participated in the seminar. (The agenda of the seminar is attached at the end at this report[14].) The seminar included keynote sessions and invited sessions, as well as a dedicated poster session of selected presentations from an open call for papers. All papers presented in the regular sessions, the invited sessions, were upon invitation by the organizers. Invited sessions used a mixed form of communication: each speaker gave a 5-minute summary of his work followed by a 30-minute poster session of just the papers summarized orally, and then these speakers came back to the podium, serving as panelists to answer questions regarding their papers and session themes. This format offered good opportunities for the presenters to discuss their work with the participants. Reports for each session were summarized by session chairs. Following is a brief summary of the sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolving situation of mature manufacturing small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) in Japan and the United States and considers some of the key challenges they now face in an era of globalization and rapid technological change. The rationale and justification for policy intervention to support mature SMEs is considered. A review is offered of illustrative policy initiatives in three areas: framework policies, industrial services, and regional industrial cluster policies. The convergence of manufacturing and regional policies is noted. The relative strengths and weaknesses of Japanese and US strategies are assessed. The paper concludes with a comparison of Japanese and US approaches to retaining manufacturing SMEs, interpreted through the various and at times interactive ways through which each country's innovation system develops and evolves technology and business support policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gross value of Australia's agriculture industry in 2001/2002 was A$38.4 billion with 65% allocated to exports. The major exports markets are South East Asia, Japan, USA, and the EU. Products include wool, beef, wheat, cotton, sugar, and wine. For Australia there have been significant changes over time in markets and production arrangements in the international arena. This is also true of the domestic market especially in the area of meat products. Australians, once dominant red meat eaters, have now ‘gone chicken.’ The total yearly consumption of meats averages around 110 kg per person. Beef up until recent years has always been the dominant player. However, in the last 30 years chicken consumption has risen from being a marginal food item to being a product that is expected to eclipse beef consumption in the very near future. This paper explores the trends and examines the changes as they are reflected by the behaviour of consumers and market chain drivers. The paper provides suggestions that could he gainfully employed at the consumer behaviour levels for other meat producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider the negotiating positions adopted by the US and Japan for the liberalisation of trade in educational services under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). We argue that the US adopts a position of hegemon and freerider in the development of a liberalisation regime in education. The aggressive character of the US position is profoundly influenced by: (1) a strong federal government level faith in service liberalisation; (2) high levels of domestic privatisation in the fields of higher education, training, testing and evaluation; (3) active lobbying by educational services providers. Nonetheless, the US is cautious about allowing foreign competition into domestic education markets. This stems in part from active resistance of the public education sector; and in part because of the delicate jurisdictional questions it would raise given the constitutional right of states to control educational policy. Ironically, US reticence also seems to be related to the relatively high levels of private educational expenditures in the US. In contrast, the Japanese government's approach is motivated primarily by bet-hedging and legitimation concerns. Japan is not a net-exporter of educational services and cannot be said to have comparative advantage in this field. However, three things seem to be influencing what might be seen as Japan's surprising decision to join the group of only four (World Trade Organization)WTO member nations who have submitted negotiating proposals for trade in educational services. First, the Japanese are strongly interested in the expansion of trade in other service areas, and may be willing to negotiate in education in order to further negotiations in these other areas. Secondly, Japan's decade-long economic crisis has contributed to an important policy shift in the government's plans for higher education. Questions about the relevance and competitiveness of Japanese higher education have recently led the Japanese government to commit itself to this sector's 'internationalisation'. To this end the government is also considering legislation that allows for the accreditation of 282 K. Mundy & M. Iga foreign higher education within Japan. Nonetheless, the Japanese government's negotiating proposal on trade in educational services is much more tentative than that presented by the European Union (EU) and New Zealand, for example. Japan places unique emphasis on the importance of regulatory control mechanisms for foreign service providers. As in the US, at least some part of the Japanese reticence seems to be driven by relatively high levels of private educational expenditure in the country. This paper is organised as follows. In Sections I-V we briefly trace the history of the WTO, the GATS, and the inclusion of educational services in the GATS. Here we emphasise the strong role played by the US in the inclusion of services in international trade negotiations, and its part in the collapse of 'embedded liberalism' as a foundation for a multilateral trade regime. We also look briefly at the contentious aspects of the current round of negotiations in the education sector and describe their current state of play. In Sections VI and VII, we look more closely at the political economy of the negotiating positions adopted by the US and by Japan. We situate the negotiating approaches of these two countries within a comparative analysis of their relative share of current trade in educational services. In our concluding section, we begin to answer two questions. First, what theoretical framework best explains the content and direction of the American and Japanese negotiating frameworks? Second, what can the negotiating positions of these two important WTO members tell us about the overall direction and likely outcomes of the Doho round of negotiations on educational services? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the evolution of APEC and the rejection of Japan's 1997 AMF proposal reflect a failure of Japanese and US leadership. Not only have the two countries failed to exercise either individual or shared regional leadership. Instead, both have used their considerable structural power negatively to block the other's proposals for regional collective action, rather than positively to exercise leadership. After developing the concepts of leadership and blocking power, the paper provides case studies of the APEC and AMF. It concludes that if a post-hegemonic US no longer has the willingness and/or the ability to undertake collective action single-handedly, and if in a post-Cold War world neither the US nor Japan has sufficient incentives to bridge their differences and sacrifice some interests to achieve a unified stance, then continued stalemate and under-supply of regional collective goods can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent research, it has been argued that effective professional learning would continue over the long term and is best suited for a school community that promotes learning. This requires an examination of the teachers on a daily basis. In order to develop such a community, it becomes increasingly important for teachers to mutually observe and jointly reflect on practices at the classroom level. Educators in the United States have begun paying close attention to the Japanese tradition of lesson study. This paper aims to discuss the chief findings and issues that have hitherto been raised with respect to research on lesson study and to clarify current progress and limitations in the research in the United States and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The emergence of Japanese professional schools began in 2003 as part of the government-led university education reform. As the newly launched public policy schools continue to produce policy professionals each year, finding career opportunities for prospective graduates has become an important institutional agenda. This paper attempts to clarify critical issues currently faced by Japanese public policy schools and their graduates, particularly from the job placement and career development perspectives, and seek potential remedies for the issues raised through comparative learning based on the distinct history, characteristics, and environments surrounding policy schools in the US and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does America's greater focus on Asia impact the security policies of Japan and Australia? How does it change the nature of the Japan-US-Australia security partnership? This paper attempts to answer these questions by looking at Japanese and Australian responses to the Obama Administration's new security policy toward Asia called “rebalancing.” After examining them, it argues that the regional allied response to America's new security posture has generated greater momentum for both allies to collaborate in wider areas in a more timely and effective way than before. It concludes asserting that, in the era of rebalance, Japan, the United States, and Australia have not only deepened their existing cooperation, but also have expanded potential areas of cooperation toward a more “dynamic” partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One question often raised when ozone professionals gather is “How much ozone capacity is installed?” Although the use of ozone for industrial purposes is growing, the largest use for ozone resides in the use of treatment of municipal drinking and wastewater. It is very difficult to summarize ozone capacity for industrial applications as much data are kept confidential. A number of reports have been published over the years on installed ozone capacity. Ozone capacity estimation is a moving target as plants are built and others removed from service for a number of reasons. This paper summarizes, using data available, ozone capacity for drinking water and wastewater. Focus is on the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan. IOA members and member companies are encouraged to submit additional data to enable this summary to be as accurate and relevant as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explains one of the central roles of alliance contracts, the prevention of undesirable military entanglement. The existing literature on alliances argues that entrapment is a major concern for potential and actual alliance partners, but it is difficult to point out clear cases of entrapment. I provide two answers to this puzzle: First, entrapment is a narrower concept than others have realized, and it is rarer than the literature suggests. Second, leaders anticipate entrapment and carefully design alliance agreements before and after states form alliances. I examine the second argument through case studies of us alliance agreements with South Korea, Japan, and Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western European nations, along with the USA and Japan, have been recognised as the world's most competitive economies. Eastern European nations have generally been considered to lag. This paper explores whether these descriptions remain accurate and the prospects for change over the coming decade. The Georgia Tech 'High Tech Indicators' (HTI) contribute to the US National Science Foundation (NSF) Science & Engineering Indicators. We cover 33 highly developed and rapidly industrialising countries. Our model of technological competitiveness contains four components - National Orientation, Socioeconomic Infrastructure, Technological Infrastructure, and Productive Capacity - contributing to 'Technological Standing.' We present indicator values, derived from survey and statistical panel data, for 13 European nations (plus the USA as a benchmark), for 1993-2005, and draw inferences about future high tech competitiveness. We see limited technological progress of the Eastern European nations. European prospects appear somewhat uncertain given the dramatic competitive thrusts from Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the macro-determinants of Korea's persistent bilateral trade deficit with Japan but her trade surplus with the US using Johansen's cointegration-error correction model, which includes bilateral trade balance and real exchange rate, domestic and foreign incomes and relative money supply. The empirical results show that all variables included affect bilateral trade balances and there exists a long-run equilibrium among them. Especially, Korean won depreciation improves Korea-US trade balance according to the Marshall-Lerner condition while the J-curve effect between Korea and Japan exists with a little improvement of deterioration of trade balance followed by Korean won depreciation. In addition, domestic economic growth is found to improve persistent trade deficits against Japan and mitigate trade surplus with the US. The short- and long-run effects of monetary policy on Korea-US trade balance are opposite to those on Korea-Japan. The exogenous US income contributes to increase Korea-US trade balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security of rights against oppressive government was one of the major goals of the American occupiers who drafted the 1947 Japanese Constitution. The framers expected that the judiciary in Japan would play the same role in protecting individual rights that the courts played in the United States. After six decades of experience, however, it is clear that the Japanese Supreme Court refuses to emulate the US Supreme Court. This paper examines the extent to which political institutions and political processes have stepped into the void left by the judiciary's attitude of deference to the government. Political will in this area of public policy, however, is weak, and new efforts to secure and extend individual rights depend largely on external pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence is an important public health issue. Because of a substantial variability in the intensity and frequency of violence worldwide a socio-cultural perspective is required for the better understanding of violent behaviours. This paper describes the current status of youth violence in Japan and the USA to elucidate critical points for mental health intervention. Although the profiles of youth violence in these two countries are quite different, violent behaviours in youths, including murder, are becoming more serious problems for both countries. From the experience in the USA a dual perspective, clinical and social/community, is proposed to understand youth violence. To prevent and treat youth violence, effective mental health service systems are needed and should be community-based and easily accessible for children and adolescents and their families as considered in the 'systems of care' philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a survey at six universities in China to analyze university students' views on China's energy problems. It finds that gender, the nature and location of a student's original community, and their level of education affects students' views about China's energy problems, as well as the types of solutions that are deemed to be most appropriate to manage this looming crisis. University students are quite concerned about China's energy situation. For them, it is already a crisis. They fear China will be controlled due to resource dependency, see the US as China's primary energy competitor, all the while advocating a more hawkish attitude towards Japan in the East China Sea. But, they look foremost to domestic solutions to this crisis, such as enhanced conservation, more efficient use of energy, new technologies, enhancing China's strategic reserve, and increased government taxation, particularly of large enterprises. When they look abroad, they support diversifying energy sources, increasing energy cooperation, particularly with Russia and Central Asia (but not with Japan), and some increase of the navy's role in enhancing sea lane and energy security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's constitutional revision and resultant remilitarization can affect the balance of power in the international system beyond its national borders. This paper critically analyzes the constitutional revision debate in contemporary Japan and the implications for Japan's foreign relations if or when it becomes constitutional for the island nation to possess military forces. It argues that justification for constitutional revision is based on political myth rather than historical reality and rational analysis, and also that a militarized Japan will not enhance its independence or international prestige. Rather, there is the great fear that a new Japan will be further subordinated to the United States as a critical part of the latter's global strategy and defense mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In October 2005 UNESCO produced its Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. This was largely a response to the worries of countries, especially in Europe and not least of which France, which feared the damaging effects to their cultures if trade in entertainment products remained too one-sided. Generally the argument of this paper is that while initial tensions between the United States and Europe were motivated by the usual commercial concerns, Europeans were increasingly worried about the cultural impact of this commerce. The Japanese, however, have not been nearly so concerned as the Europeans about becoming 'Americanized'. This lack of tension between the United States and Japan in the area of film and television is due to several factors. First, there is a complementarity between American entertainment and the Japanese electronics industry. Second, the Japanese are major players in some aspects of the entertainment industry, most especially in the area of animation, and they are especially influential in Asia. Finally, issues of cultural conflict between the United States and Japan are simply less salient to Tokyo than those which characterize Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines US, Japanese, and European political economy approaches to China, and their effect on US-Japan and US-EU relationships. Great powers with a greater security concern in dealing with another major country care more about power while those with less of a concern are preoccupied with calculations for wealth. China's rise and its actions have posed a far greater security challenge to the United States and Japan and are driving the two countries closer together. The political economy game involving China reveals a dominant welfare motive among the advanced market economies. The ambition to transform China politically has diminished. China's integration into the global market makes a relative gains approach difficult to implement. Globalization simply limits the ability of a state to follow a politics-in-command approach in the absence of actual military conflict, which explains why the political economy approaches of the United States, Europe, and Japan are not that different in the scheme of things. China's own grand strategy to reach out to the world to outflank the US-Japan alliance has also contributed to a divergent European policy toward China although there are severe limitations to Beijing's ability to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional financial arrangements and monetary integration in East Asia and Europe have made considerable progress in recent years. This paper discusses whether governments in both regions, Japan and Germany as the most advanced regional economies in particular, can use the new dynamics as levers to raise their status vis-à-vis the United States. It will be argued that activities are defensive rather than offensive, aiming at protecting the respective region from financial risk. Japan, in particular, would find it difficult to raise its status vis-à-vis the United States significantly by promoting regional financial and monetary integration, principal reasons being actor heterogeneity, the role of China, hesitation to bear burden and risk, and the historical legacy of a bank-oriented system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'new' terrorism has not escaped Southeast Asia. Within this region, the Malay Archipelago has the world's largest Muslim population and Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country. In the context of the struggle between radical Islam, and the West and its allies, the region assumes great, long-term strategic significance, particularly to the USA. The threat of terrorism to Australia, as demonstrated by the terrorist attacks at Bali in 2002 aimed at its citizens, has also ensured Australia's active interest and engagement with the littoral states of the Malay Archipelago. In addition, arguably the world's most strategic waterway and chokepoint, the narrow Straits of Malacca, is located within this cauldron. More than half the world's trade and oil passes through this strategic straits. By comparison, oil flows through the straits are three times more than through the Suez, and fifteen times greater than the Panama Canal. Not surprisingly, key Western states and their allies that have a deep interest in the security of the Straits of Malacca and in the global war on terrorism have paid special attention to the Malay Archipelago. Indeed, the idea of a Trilateral Security Dialogue centred on the USA, Japan and Australia was first mooted in 2001, and has since involved discussions on Asian security between senior officials of all three countries. In 2005, it was elevated to the level of the foreign ministers of Japan and Australia, and the US Secretary of State. This dialogue process is the third leg in the triangle between the two bilateral US alliances with Japan and Australia. It is obvious that all three are key strategic partners in Asia, with a strong common interest in maritime security and terrorism issues, particularly in Southeast Asia. It is the contention of this paper that this evolving trilateral extra-regional security nexus has benefited greatly from cooperation with Singapore, which has been doing everything it can to encourage and facilitate the regional involvement of these extra-regional powers. In fact, Singapore has become a critical regional ally of all three. On Singapore's part, this represents a striking success in foreign policy as security, political and economic allies enhance its own ability to better manage the new terrorist threats that have emerged since 9-11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the federal government's decisions regarding the suppression of the Japanese "enemy language" press in the United States in the early months of World War II. While military officials wanted total suppression, civilian officials insisted on preserving and utilizing the Japanese press to support the nation's war policies, and the inter-departmental Committee on War Information (CWI) derided in favor of the civilian officials' goals. These officials then considered implementing a foreign-language press control law, but they eventually withdrew the idea. Thus, the Japanese-language press was exempted from total suppression or any other specially tailored legal regulations. However, it was still subject to a lesser degree of control throughout the war by the Army, and the papers, except in Utah, Colorado, and the internment camps, stopped publishing by mid-May 1942. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the linkage between strategic variables and the export performance of firms in the United Stales, Germany, and Japan. R&D Intensity, Capital Intensity, Average Collection Period, Debt Leverage, and Labor Productivity are used as measures of strategic variables. R&D intensity and Labor Productivity are found to have a strong and positive association with export performance in all three countries. Capital intensity and average collection period also have significant relationship with export performance in the United States and Japan, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper utilizes cointegration and vector autoregression (VAR) to assess integration or segmentation of the Malaysian equity market both prior to the Asian crisis and after the imposition of capital controls. We consider both regional and international financial forces represented respectively by the ASEAN markets and the advanced markets of US and Japan. We form three systems of share prices: (i) ASEAN markets; (ii) US, Japan and Malaysia; and (iii) US, Japan and ASEAN. Our findings suggest no long run relation among share prices in all systems either before the Asian crisis or after the imposition of capital controls. However, there are substantial short run dynamic interactions among regional markets of ASEAN. We note significant responses of the Malaysian market to ASEAN shocks regardless of the sample periods. By contrast, its responses to innovations in US and Japan, while significant before the Asian crisis, turn insignificant after the imposition of capital controls. The US market is comparatively more influential in accounting for fluctuations in the ASEAN markets. From these results, we contend that capital controls played some role in insulating the Malaysian market from international disturbances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes Japanese newspaper editorials on the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York to test the validity of the three major assumptions of current critical scholarship. Are Japanese newspaper editorials homogeneous; polarized into a majority Left and a minority Right; or diversified within the framework of this political opposition? The results suggest that all three are partially correct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the uncharted terrain of the ‘remote city’, an ubiquitous modern urban space. Concentrating on four cities to the north-east of Tokyo and New York, it argues that worldliness is hardly a monoply of ‘world cities’; that historical narratives of connection not only construct the ‘locality’ of many places, but establish imperatives for regular re-engagement. The remote, local, historical and small are revealed as aspects of globality, rather than alternatives. The worldly narratives of Bangor and Lewiston, Maine (US), and Hakodate, Japan, are contrasted not only with each other, but with the studied non-worldliness of the larger but still remote Japanese city of Niigata. The essay ends with a possible explanation for why ‘heroic’ or local worldliness actually flourishes in an era of the global mundane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the evolving Australia--Japan bilateral relationship. Key issues discussed include the `drift' and `neglect' in bilateral relations in the 1990s, the current state of the economic relationship, the proliferation of Free Trade Agreements and future directions. A central theme is the importance of bilateral ties for both countries and that shared visions such as building regional cooperation through APEC might be compromised by the proposed Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period after 9/11 has been labeled the new post Cold War or 'post post Cold War': 1 an era of increased asymmetrical threats and terrorism, deeper global cooperation concerning counter-terrorism and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), growing US unilateralism as well as isolation and the birth of the Bush Doctrine. Beyond 9/11, what is the meaning of the new post Cold War for the US-Japan alliance? This paper will address this question from the perspectives of both the United States and Japan in this new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated system of political-economic relations that has prevailed in the Pacific since the September 1951 treaty of peace with Japan, known here as the San Francisco System, is distinctive in comparison with subregional systems elsewhere in the world. This paper outlines key defining features, such as (1) a dense network of bilateral alliances; (2) an absence of multilateral security structures; (3) strong asymmetry in alliance relations, both in security and economics; (4) special precedence to Japan; and (5) liberal trade access to American markets, coupled with relatively limited development assistance. After contrasting this system to analogous arrangements elsewhere, especially in the Atlantic, it explores both the origins and the prognosis of this remarkably durable political-economic entity. Complementary domestic political-economic interests on both sides of the Pacific, reinforcing a brilliant original Japan-centric design by John Foster Dulles, account for persistence, it is argued, while forces for change center on the dynamic emerging role of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comparative analysis of text and images in Japanese and English software manuals, recipes and other procedures. The Japanese procedures are found to be more elaborate in the extent to which they engage the reader/viewer, in the degree of detail with which they represent the portrayed action, and in the explicitness of marking the procedures' stages. An attempt is made to account for these differences by reference to differences in the socio-cultural context between the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study identifies specific preferences of Japanese visitors staying in U.S. hotels. Relevant literature is reviewed in an attempt to identify guest services which Japanese visitors prefer. This paper offers hotel operators suggestions about what they need to understand in order to attract and retain Japanese visitors. The results of the study will help hotel operators select appropriate products and services in order to better serve Japanese customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the formal and informal aspects of Japan's robust bilateralism on issues of external and internal security and discusses a variety of embryonic multilateral arrangements that have sprung up in the 1990s. Asian-Pacific multilateralism is not yet a strong and unquestioned collectively held norm in either Tokyo or any of the major capitals in the Asia-Pacific. What matters instead are political practices shaped by a strong tradition of bilateralism and, only very recently, by an incipient multilateralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes Tokyo's regeneration of informal diplomacy, lobbying, and public relations in Washington during the first fifteen years of the post-World War Two era. Relieved by the Allied Occupation from official responsibility for conduct of Japan's foreign relations and even denied opportunities for foreign travel and communication, Japan's conservative national élite worked deftly through American individuals and organizations pursuing compatible agendas to counter Occupation reform efforts they considered excessive or ill-advised. Following recovery of national sovereignty in 1952, Japan's Lobby managers diversified and expanded their US operations, focusing energy on maintenance of the political status quo in the bilateral economic relationship that had been established at the outset of the Cold War. The Article concludes that Tokyo's Lobby managers adapted successfully to changes in their domestic and international environments during the early post-war era and provided critical support for Japan's primary national objective of rapid economic reconstruction and growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing an argument of convergence on a sample of employed males in Japan and the United States, this paper compares young (18-24 years) with older (45-55 years) workers within each country on work-related attitudes, education and employment, mobility, interest in the company, characteristics of superiors, and job satisfaction. Comparisons of these attitudes are also made within age-group cross-nationally. Our general finding, which is upheld when company size, type of job, and educational attainment are controlled for, is that cultural diversity is (still) a better explanation than convergence when applied to work-related attitudes. Aging per se seems to have some similar effects in both societies, e.g., a positive relationship between age and work satisfaction. Attitudes affected more by historical changes in work organization, however, exhibit stronger cultural differences than age differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the well documented increases in the number of elderly in the United States and Japan, families are facing growing responsibilities for elders who cannot care for themselves. Many of the traditional caregivers (women) are now employed. These demographic and social changes profoundly affect family life, work organizations, community services, and government. This paper summarizes the magnitude of the problem of managing work and parent care roles in each country; summarizes government, workplace, and community responses to solving the family care problems; and analyzes country responses from their ideological perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an introduction to the journal "Inter-Asia Cultural Studies" of November 2003. The first paper, by Park Keunho, "The Vietnam War and the "Miracle of East Asia", focuses on South Korea and examines the relationship between the Vietnam War and the rapid economic development of Asia. "Okinawa's Postwar" by Toriyama Atsushi demonstrates how the mainland Japanese at the end of the Second World War forgot Okinawa and how the US took advantage of such Japanese national amnesia by turning Okinawa into its permanent military base. Tanaka Yasuhiro in his "The Media Representation of Okinawa" illustrates how the image of Okinawa as a southern paradise has been reproduced in the postwar Japanese media.