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Simple Summary: This research explores the initial skepticism and bewilderment among zoo staff about animal welfare and environmental enrichment introduced in Japanese zoos in the mid-1990s. Based on the results of a 2001 questionnaire survey conducted by the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums and publicly available literature, this paper demonstrates that this skepticism and confusion are not simply due to wariness of a new initiative but to a complex combination of factors, including inadequate information, historical and cultural context, and differing perceptions of animal care in the legal system. For example, it was shown that in the early 2000s, environmental enrichment was misinterpreted as exhibit strategy, leading to resistance from zoo staff. This misinterpretation and resistance can be traced back to the post-World War II popularity of mobile zoos and the legal perception of animals as mere "living beings", not "sentient beings" under Japan's Animal Protection Law. Through the analysis of a case study in Japan in the early 2000s, this paper aims to identify some of the early challenges to introducing and practicing animal welfare and environmental enrichment in non-Western cultures and contribute to better understanding and practice. Despite regional differences, this study aims to contribute to understanding and improving the universal acceptance and application of animal welfare. This study examines the Japanese zoo staff's initial skepticism and bewilderment regarding animal welfare and environmental enrichment in the mid-1990s. Utilizing a 2001 questionnaire conducted by the Japanese Association of Zoos and Aquariums and existing literature reveals that this resistance stemmed from inadequate information, cultural history, and legal perspectives on animal care. Specifically, environmental enrichment was initially misunderstood as an exhibition strategy, partly due to post-WWII trends in mobile zoos and legal views of animals as non-sentient under Japan's Animal Protection Law. The research highlights the early hurdles in adopting animal welfare and environmental enrichment in non-Western settings, aiming to provide insights for other regions dealing with similar transitional challenges. It also addresses misperceptions about environmental enrichment in the context of empathetic relationships and professional ethics in Japanese zoology, offering insights into regions facing similar issues. Additionally, the paper discusses the progression of animal welfare practices in Japanese zoos and related managerial challenges, acknowledging cultural and institutional factors. Despite regional differences, this study aims to contribute to understanding and improving the universal acceptance and application of animal welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Flutter framework with Dart programming allows developers to effortlessly build applications for both web and mobile from a single codebase. It enables efficient conversions to native codes for mobile apps and optimized JavaScript for web browsers. Since utilizing a wide range of widgets in Flutter ensures consistent experiences on various devices for users, it becomes crucial in programming education by providing a unified environment for learning app development while reducing the need for platform-specific knowledge. However, the setup of the Flutter environment is challenging for novice students due to its multiple steps, such as installing dependencies and configuring environments. To support independent learning for these students, it is essential to simplify the setup by providing user-friendly instructions and automated tools. In this paper, we present a Docker-based environment for Flutter app developments across Windows, Linux, and Mac through Visual Studio Code, ensuring a unified learning experience. This paper aims to simplify complex configurations and address the obstacles encountered by students when initiating Flutter projects. For the evaluation, we prepared three simple Flutter projects along with the setup environment in a Docker container. Then, we asked 24 Master's students at Okayama University, Japan, to install the environment and modify the source codes in the projects independently by following the given instructions. The results show that all the students successfully completed the assignments, which confirms the efficiency and validity of our proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global energy landscape transitions towards a more sustainable future, hydrogen has emerged as a promising energy carrier due to its potential to decarbonize various sectors. However, the economic competitiveness of hydrogen production by water electrolysis strongly depends on renewable energy source (RES) availability. Thus, it is necessary to overcome the challenges related to the intermittent nature of RESs. This paper presents a comprehensive techno-economic analysis of complementing green hydrogen production with grid electricity. An evaluation model for the levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) is proposed, considering both CO2 emissions and the influence of RES fluctuations on electrolyzers. A minimum load restriction is required to avoid crossover gas. Moreover, a new operation strategy is developed for hydrogen production plants to determine optimal bidding in the grid electricity market to minimize the LCOH. We evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach with a case study based on data from the Kyushu area in Japan. The results show that the proposed method can reduce the LCOH by 11% to 33%, and increase hydrogen productivity by 86% to 140%, without significantly increasing CO2 emission levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After nearly a decade of rapid development, woody biomass has been widely used in Japan for power generation and heating. However, it has faced bottlenecks in recent years, leading to a decline in its popularity. This study aimed to elucidate the current status of woody biomass utilization in Japan by reviewing relevant research papers on upstream resource supply and downstream case studies in the supply chain. The supply potential of woody biomass estimated by reviewed articles ranges from 1.2 to 5.5 m3/year/ha, yet a significant portion of this potential cannot be exploited. The utilization of government subsidies, mechanization, and aggregated forests can substantially enhance the availability. The utilization of woody biomass has garnered widespread attention from the Japanese government and private enterprises, presenting an economic impact ranging from 66 to 249 million JPY/t, along with a GHG emission reduction spanning from −17.29 to 202.44 kg-CO2eq/GJ. However, balancing cost and scale remains the primary challenge facing woody biomass utilization in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, Japan's discharge of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear disaster into the ocean has attracted widespread attention. To effectively address the challenge of separating uranium, the focus is on finding a healthy and environmentally friendly way to adsorb uranium using biochar. In this paper, a BP neural network is combined with each of the four meta-heuristic algorithms, namely Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Differential Evolution (DE), Cheetah Optimization (CO) and Fick's Law Algorithm (FLA), to construct four prediction models for the uranium adsorption capacity in the treatment of radioactive wastewater with biochar: PSO-BP, DE-BP, CO-BP, FLA-BP. The coefficient of certainty (R2), error rate and CEC test set are used to judge the accuracy of the model based on the BP neural network. The results show that the Fick's Law Algorithm (FLA) has a better search ability and convergence speed than the other algorithms. The importance of the input parameters is quantitatively assessed and ranked using XGBoost in order to analyze which parameters have a greater impact on the predictions of the model, which indicates that the parameters with the greatest impact are the initial concentration of uranium (C0, mg/L) and the mass percentage of total carbon (C, %). To sum up, four prediction models can be applied to study the adsorption of uranium by biochar materials during actual experiments, and the advantage of Fick's Law Algorithm (FLA) is more obvious. The method of model prediction can significantly reduce the radiation risk caused by uranium to human health during the actual experiment and provide some reference for the efficient treatment of uranium wastewater by biochar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a method for applying forging to high-density wood. A cylindrical container was formed using a closed die, and the appropriate conditions for temperature and punch length were evaluated. Ulin, which is a high-density wood, and Japanese cedar, which is a low-density wood and widely used in Japan, were used as test materials. The pressing directions were longitudinal and radial based on wood fiber orientation, and the shape and density of the resulting containers were evaluated. In the case of ulin, cracks decreased by increasing the temperature, while temperature had little effect on Japanese cedar. Containers without cracks were successfully formed by using a punch of appropriate length. The density of the containers was uniform in the punch length l = 20 and 40 mm in the L-directional pressing and l = 20 mm in the R-directional pressing when using ulin, with an average density of 1.34 g/cm3. This result indicates the forging ability of ulin is high compared to that of commonly used low-density woods. In summary, this paper investigated the appropriate parameters for forging with ulin. As a result, products of more uniform density than products made by cutting were obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maritime route connecting the Chinese continent and the Japanese archipelago facilitated a significant exchange of commercial goods and sociocultural knowledge throughout the Southern Song dynasty. Within this context, Japanese pilgrim monks traveling along this route acted as key conduits for the transmission of Buddhist teachings. Their journeys profoundly influenced the establishment and development of new Buddhist monasteries in Japan. Focusing on biographical accounts that portray the experiences of these pilgrim monks during their twelfth- and thirteenth-century sea voyages, this paper aims to explore how these accounts drew on intertextual links with existing Buddhist records to fulfill the compilers' intentions. Specifically, this paper examines the structure and sources of biographical accounts detailing miraculous encounters between pilgrim monks and Buddhist deities during perilous situations at sea. By interpreting the role of these deities in the corpus of Buddhist literature and within Japanese Buddhist monasteries founded by pilgrim monks, this paper argues that the increasing emphasis on pilgrim monks' attainment of divine protection in their biographical records suggests a growing concern for reinforcing the authority of their dharma lineages. Moreover, the composition and reception of these miraculous accounts reflected the changing religious needs and reshaped strategies for promoting specific Buddhist sects in subsequent periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how historical inter-firm syndication networks influence venture capitalists' (VCs) propensity to invest in startups pursuing novel, uncertain technologies, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). We theorize that VCs' positional attributes within cumulative syndication networks determine their access to external expertise and intelligence that aid AI investment decisions amidst informational opacity. Specifically, reachability to prior AI investors provides referrals and insights transmitted across short network paths to reduce ambiguity. Additionally, VC brokerage between disconnected industry clusters furnishes expansive, non-redundant information that is pivotal for discovering and assessing AI opportunities. Through hypotheses grounded in social network theory, we posit network-based mechanisms that equip VCs to navigate uncertainty when engaging with ambiguous innovations like AI. We test our framework, utilizing comprehensive historical records of global venture capital investments. Analyzing the location information of VC firms in this database, we uncovered a history of 14,751 investments made by Korean and Japanese firms. Using these data, we assembled an imbalanced panel dataset from 1984 to 2022 spanning 230 Korean and 413 Japanese VCs, with 4508 firm-year observations. Negative binomial regression analysis of this dataset reveals how historical relational patterns among venture capital firms foster readiness to evaluate unfamiliar innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a replacement for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) have been widely used and detected in different indoor environments all over the world. This paper comprehensively describes the concentration levels and distribution information of 11 kinds of OPFRs from 33 indoor dust and 10 air environments, from which TBOEP, TCIPP, and TDCIPP were observed to have higher concentrations in indoor environments. The ΣOPFRs displayed higher concentrations in indoor dust than in indoor air due to the higher molecular weight and vapor pressure of ΣOPFRs in building decoration materials, specifically for TCIPP and TDCIPP compounds. Considering that it is inevitable that people will be exposed to these chemicals in the indoor environments in which they work and live, we estimated their potential health risks through three human exposure pathways and found that the ingestion exposure to TBOEP for toddlers in Japan may reach up to 1270.80 ng/kg/day, which comprises a significant pathway compared to dermal contact and indoor air inhalation. Specifically, the combined total exposure to OPFRs by air inhalation, dust ingestion, and dermal contact was generally below the RfD values for both adults and toddlers, with a few notable higher exposures of some typical OPFRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A web-based Java programming learning assistant system (JPLAS) has been developed for novice students to study Java programming by themselves while enhancing code reading and code writing skills. One type of the implemented exercise problem is code writing problem (CWP), which asks students to create a source code that can pass the given test code. The correctness of this answer code is validated by running them on JUnit. In previous works, a Python-based answer code validation program was implemented to assist teachers. It automatically verifies the source codes from all the students for one test code, and reports the number of passed test cases by each code in the CSV file. While this program plays a crucial role in checking the correctness of code behaviors, it cannot detect code plagiarism that can often happen in programming courses. In this paper, we implement a code plagiarism checking function in the answer code validation program, and present its application results to a Java programming course at Okayama University, Japan. This function first removes the whitespace characters and the comments using the regular expressions. Next, it calculates the Levenshtein distance and similarity score for each pair of source codes from different students in the class. If the score is larger than a given threshold, they are regarded as plagiarism. Finally, it outputs the scores as a CSV file with the student IDs. For evaluations, we applied the proposed function to a total of 877 source codes for 45 CWP assignments submitted from 9 to 39 students and analyzed the results. It was found that (1) CWP assignments asking for shorter source codes generate higher scores than those for longer codes due to the use of test codes, (2) proper thresholds are different by assignments, and (3) some students often copied source codes from certain students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]