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Governance by authorities has established order in large groups since the birth of civilization, and at the same time, it has sometimes led to dictatorships and tyranny, resulting in tragedy. In this study, we develop an experiment named the Kingdom Game (KG), which simply models the governance structure. Using KG, we aim to examine the factors that distinguish whether a governor is driven by self-interest and leads to tyranny or whether he or she leads a good government for the benefit of group members. In particular, by manipulating the profits when citizens leave the group, we expect that governors will be more likely to tyrannize when it is less beneficial for citizens to leave their group.

This study evaluated the suitability of groundwater quality for domestic use and irrigation in Vinh Chau District, Soc Trang Province, Vietnam. Water samples from 30 domestic-use and 10 irrigation groundwater wells were collected and their physicochemical parameters were analyzed. Results indicated that, based on WHO and Vietnamese standards, the groundwater quality had good suitability, generally to the medium level, but for drinking purposes some areas were found to require water treatment. Six water quality parameters—sodium adsorption ratio, soluble sodium percentage, permeability index, sodium percentage, residual sodium carbonate, and magnesium adsorption ratio—were calculated and employed for evaluating suitability for irrigation, in addition to electric conductivity. The results showed that the six parameters stayed at the permissible level for irrigation, whereas high sodium and salinity were a concern for irrigation. Use of the Piper trilinear diagram to analyze hydrochemical facies and groundwater types showed that the groundwater samples were in the sodium-potassium-chloride-sulfate category and that sodium water type was dominant.

In the northern-most Island of the Japanese archipelago, Hokkaido, there live indigenous hunter-gathers known as the Ainu. Among the Hokkaido Ainu, each nuclear family lived in a house, called chise. Each chise contained a sacred window, rorun-puyar (or kamuy puyara) at the opposite side of the entrance and the skull of a ritually killed bear during the Iomante (sacred bear ritual) would be carried into the house through this window. Previous ethnographic research has suggested that the sacred window was facing east, but regional variation in the direction of the window has also been observed. Among 1,034 burials from the Pre-Modern Ainu Period (circa. 13 to 17 century), there is a strong tendency for burials to be oriented toward the east, but in this case too local variation exists. The orientations of houses and burials seem to have been decided based on several other factors, such as river orientation, land slope, and various others. Ainu villages were typically arranged along a river and the river’s upstream movement towards a sacred mountain was just as important as the eastward orientation noted above. Thus, we need to develop a more integrated view of the ways Ainu understand nature and orientation in order to increase our comprehension of these questions.

In this paper, we focus on three large public research institutes (PRIs) in Japan—National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)—and investigate their roles in helping Japan's industry by examining their patents. First, the background and history of the development of these institutions are described briefly. We employ four measures drawn from patent data (inventor forward citation, examiner forward citation, family size, and generality index) to describe the inventive activities of PRIs. Universities' and firms' patents are used as benchmarks. The impact of the PRIs' research collaboration with the private sector is analyzed as well. We found that each of the three PRIs has been playing a unique role in Japan's innovation system. In addition, we found out that universities' patenting activity has been facing difficulties particularly in recent years. Finally, we discuss the factors that might affect the research outcome.

Research on innovation provides fundamental insights for productive discourse on science and technology policy. However, there has been little analysis conducted in Japan on the innovation indicators using patent statistics. The indicators typically used to date such as research and development investment amount and the simple count of number of patents. Apparently, there is a need for more sophisticated indicators. This paper focuses on the importance of patents as a first step to construct more informative innovation indicator. We used Technology Trend Surveys published by the Japan Patent Office which select important patents using expert opinion, then considered possible indicators to identify important patents. The findings show that the number of citations received is effective as an indicator of the importance of patents, and that the number of inventors and the number of patents cited are also effective indicators. In the life sciences, however, the findings demonstrate that while the number of research papers cited (science linkage) in important patents tends to be high, a high science linkage does not necessarily serve as an indicator for identifying important patents.

Japanese industry has finally emerged from the prolonged economic slump and, partly helped by expanded tax incentives, companies have begun to accelerate research on and development of future technologies. In order to achieve this goal, Japan needs to secure and develop human resources for R&D. In this paper, we examine Britain's approach to the development of human resources through cooperation among business, government and academia, which has been praised as the "best practice" of its kind. Then, drawing on the case of Britain, we explore policy measures for developing human resources in science and technology which also promote technology transfer from universities to industry via people, thereby laying a foundation for competitiveness.

The effect of R$50D on productivity growth in Japanese manufacturing industries is examined. Using more accurate firm R$50D expenditure data than widely used data based on financial statements, series of R$50D capital are constructed. Then, rate of return on R$50D investment is estimated. In addition, the impact of other industries' R$50D on the productivity growth of an industry is also estimated. An attempt is made to determine the effect of electronics technology upon the productivity growth of other industries through the transaction of the intermediate electronics goods with improved quality, and through the diffusion of the new technological knowledge discovered. Japanese Technology Trade 1977-1981 Copyright 1989 by MIT Press.