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This article reports on a paper bicycle frame designed by Yoshifumi Kato of the Japan Bicycle Technical Center in Inuyama that is both lightweight and recyclable. The frame, which is made from handmade paper fibers and epoxy with a thin plastic coating, weighs only 1,300 grams. Standard aluminum or carbon-fiber frames can weigh up to 1,800 grams and even the lightest racing bikes weigh 1,200. Furthermore, a frame is badly mangled in an accident can be dropped off at a recycling center instead of at the dump.

This paper is a summation of material drawn from 18 papers written by Professor Toshio Kuwako of the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The purpose of the paper is to present an overview of Kuwako's approach to consensus building and make it available to the English-speaking world. The papers written by Professor Kuwako are largely experiential accounts with reflection on and analysis of that experience. The organization given to the present paper is that of the present writer. Given that doubts are sometimes raised about consensus building in regard to intractable issues where no agreement seems possible, and that it is precisely these kinds of issues that are the focus of Kuwako's work, his contribution would seem important. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For many years Australia ignored or downplayed the role of values in foreign policy, preferring to focus on economic issues and engagement with Asia. Recently, however, values have re-emerged as a central aspect of Australian foreign policy, both rhetorically in government White Papers and through initiatives such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising the established democracies of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. This commentary charts the rise of values-based language in Australian and Japanese speeches and policy documents, and argues that core concepts such as shared democratic values have an important – and under-appreciated – relevance in the new era of a rising autocratic China and in the framing of the Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to establish a new statistical framework for measuring global flow of funds (GFF) based on its inherent mechanisms. It advances a previous theoretical discussion and develops a practical operational statistical matrix. Based on theoretical and practical possibilities the paper gets existing data from the International Investment Position, the Coordinated Direct Investment Survey, the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey, and International Banking Statistics are integrated for measuring GFF. The main outcome is a prototype GFF matrix that includes stock data geographically disaggregated by country/region and selected financial instruments. The paper presents a GFF Matrix compiled with the pattern of 'Country vis-à-vis Country' matrix, and through using the GFF matrix to analyze the basic status, mutual relationship and existing problems between China, Japan, and the United States in the external financial positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host country's economic growth is a widely explored issues in the existing economic literature. This study attempts to examine the role of foreign direct investment, capital formation, and expansion of female education on economic growth of Japan during the period 1971–2014, using time series observations. The study further makes a comparison regarding the association with FDI and economic growth with South Korea, another major OECD economy of Asia The study utilises the auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration to examine the long run causality association among the variables. Today, for sustainable economic development the social and institutional policy issues are important. The paper explores one such social issue, namely gender and economic prosperity. This paper has novel contributions in the current research on time series, econometric analysis for the following reasons: (1) it has investigated the relationship between economic growth, foreign direct investment and capital formation in a gendered differential framework (utilising the role of human capital formation among men versus women; (2) the study covers a long period and more recent time period (till 2014), which concurs with the upsurge of world FDI movements and (3) the study also explores the major structural breaks of the two economies and how economic growth is impacted thereof. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the professional career and contributions of Professor Masafumi Akahira of the University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. As stated, he was a research associate at the University of Electro Communications (UEC) in Tokyo from 1971 to 1976. He contributed a lot in the field of statistics which includes research on second and third order asymptotic efficiencies of estimators by the use of edgeworth expansion. A list of his publications is also presented.

This paper analyses the nature of war-related reporting in Japanese newspapers through a survey of how the quality national newspapers reported the eruption of the ‘comfort women’ issue in 1991–1992. It challenges the widespread assumption about the ‘homogeneity’ of the Japanese press, which is based in critiques of press clubs, and illustrates how Japanese newspapers have developed distinct ideological positions in war-related reporting. The paper also clarifies the contested nature of Japanese war memories, some of the key features of that contestation and the pivotal role that the ‘comfort women’ and gender issues have assumed in contemporary Japanese war discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of green infrastructure (GI) in regenerating brownfield sites has not yet been widely recognised in Japan. In contrast, post-industrial countries in Europe and North America have introduced a number of good practices for GI-led brownfield regeneration. Using GI to revitalise post-industrial areas offers multiple benefits, ranging from ecosystem restoration and increased property values, to improvements in personal well-being, and can serve as an effective climate change adaptation solution. In Japan, nature has traditionally been used to protect the built environment from disaster; for example, preserving forests to prevent landslides, or sand or wind erosion on the coast. Although the application of GI is not a new idea in Japan, its role in revitalising brownfields and building communities has not been widely discussed. This paper explores the potential role of GI-led brownfield regeneration in Japan. Key barriers and drivers in revitalising post-industrial sites through the use of GI are identified using three case studies from the Osaka Bay Area, home to some of Japan's largest brownfield sites. The paper concludes with highlighting opportunities and challenges for disseminating the concept of GI-led regeneration in the Japanese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital adequacy has become the main regulatory tool to achieve financial stability in the last twenty years. While most papers analysed the effect of capital adequacy on risk taking, there is a lack of evidence on the relationship between deleveraging and the return on equity capital. In this paper, we examine the evolution of the banking system in Japan over the period 2000–16, where the re-capitalization issue has already played a major role in policy making. Specifically, we estimate the shadow return on equity capital for both listed and unlisted banks by measuring the loans-funding-equity technology through the dual cost function, controlling for risk exposure and bad loans, and accounting for both the standard asset-based model of bank outputs, and income-based model. Such an approach is likely to be important if the central bank permits banks with unsustainable balance sheets to continue in existence, and we refer to this as zombie banking. Overall, our results show that deleveraging did reduce the shadow return on equity for the City banks. We also find that that the presence of 'zombie' banks was concentrated and large among the smaller less diversified Regional Banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom (UK) and Japan have conducted unprecedented military exercises as each other's closest security partners in Asia and Europe, respectively. Despite publicly avowed closeness, these military exercises were not predicated on formal alliance commitments or deterrence of common adversaries underpinned by shared threat perceptions. Addressing this puzzle, a hitherto-overlooked perspective of mutual strategic reassurance for trusted partners is proposed here. This paper derives hypotheses from existing – but relatively under-developed – literatures on military exercises and reassurances that locate the drivers of reassurance in the needs and weaknesses of the other. What stems from this starting premise is an importance placed on high-level diplomacy and adjusting military deployments to allay each other's strategic concerns. These hypotheses are tested by presenting original interview data supplemented with discourse analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The findings suggest that effusive diplomatic language vowing politico-strategic support for each other, reinforced by ground-breaking military exercises mutually reassured UK concerns about retaining post-Brexit global standing and Japan's apprehension over its dire geo-strategic context. While not quite deterrence or alliance, these military exercises enabled the UK and Japan to transform their predominantly trade-based relationship into a more defence-oriented one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the 'new trinity' reform of labour markets proposed in 2023, which is an integral part of Japan's New Form of Capitalism. After providing an overview of the reform's three components – reskilling/upskilling, inter-company mobility, and job-based employment – it discusses how the reform may contribute to reduction of labour shortages, skill shortages, and inequality among workers. It then assesses challenges to this reform, ways to overcome these challenges, and how Japan may hold answers for other countries facing similar labour market problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting with a broad overview of the need for urgent action concerning climate change globally, this paper then reviews the evolution of environmental policy in Japan up to and including green transformation (GX) measures taken under the Kishida administration, and an assessment of the changes still needed to achieve sustainability in Japan. An integrated approach has been adopted in Japan, encompassing the environment, the economy, and society, to achieve three transitions: first, to a de-carbonized society; second, to a circular economy; and third, to a 'nature-positive', decentralized society which co-exists with nature. This approach was signalled in the Regional Circular and Ecological concept in the Fifth Environmental Basic Plan of 2018, building on extensive discussions within the Ministry of Environment and with other ministries from 2014, in the wake of the 2011 triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade policy uncertainty (TPU) and its impact on the global economy have captured much attention of the policymakers in the last decade. This paper contributes to building an emerging literature strand by investigating TPU spillovers of United States, China, and Japan on stock returns and volatilities of fragile economies, namely, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico South Africa, and Turkey. This study confirms the existence of spillover effects employing Diebold and Yilmaz's (2012) methodology. The results show that USA and China are net shock transmitter of TPU, while Japan is a net receiver. Chinese TPU has the largest influence among the three countries followed by USA and Japan. This study also employs vector autoregression (VAR)-DCC-GARCH and VAR-ADCC-GARCH to capture the spillover effects on stock returns and volatility. We find that TPU of USA, China, and Japan transmits shocks that drive stock market returns of fragile economies. However, the sign of the spillover effects is country specific and depends on a country's TPU. Similar evidence was found for volatility spillover. In few cases, TPU of USA, China, and Japan stabilizes the stock market returns volatility. Hence, TPU has heterogeneous effects on stock market in Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico South Africa, and Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a critical engagement with endings in relation to formulations of crisis and futures through two sites that stage an encounter with the end. The first is the permanent exhibit at Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo. This site, I show, asks us to reflect on how we think about the end of civilisation as an immanent crisis to be overcome through an innovation that allows us to escape accountability for conditions in the present. As such, I argue, it ultimately encourages us to cultivate attention and accountability toward material and conceptual problems in the present. The discussion then takes the idea of cultivating attention to the present to northeast Japan. I show there how an ending inflicted on the coastal residents by the tsunami of March 2011 has made space for precisely this kind of attention and accountability to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To identify the prognostic value of the pretreatment geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) in colorectal cancer. Several electronic databases were searched up to March 15, 2022, for relevant studies. The primary and secondary outcomes were overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), respectively. The hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were combined. Bess's funnel plot and Egger's test were conducted to detect publication bias, and the trim-and-fill method was performed to identify potentially unpublished papers and their impacts on the overall results. Nine studies from Japan and China involving 3440 participants were enrolled in the current meta-analysis. The pooled results indicated that a low pretreatment GNRI was significantly associated with poorer OS (HR = 2.28, 95% CI: 1.69–3.07, P < 0.001; I2=63.5%, Pheterogeneity=0.005) and DFS (HR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.35–1.96, P < 0.001; I2=46.4%, Pheterogeneity=0.114). Subgroup analysis stratified by country and treatment showed similar results. Significant publication bias was manifested by the asymmetric Begg's funnel plot and P = 0.012 of Egger's test, but three potentially unpublished studies did not have a significant impact on the overall results. A lower pretreatment GNRI was a novel prognostic risk factor for Japanese and Chinese colorectal cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent Russian invasion, China's rise, and North Korean missile launches, there is an increased importance for the United States to strengthen its East Asian allies, South Korea and Japan. These two countries, however, have a long history of disputes that resulted from the legacy of the Second World War. One of them is the comfort women issue. More than 200,000 teenage Korean girls were taken by Japanese soldiers as sex slaves during the 1930s and 1940s. They are called comfort women. In December 2015, the South Korean and Japanese governments reached an agreement to resolve the issue of comfort women, getting an apology from the Japanese government. However, the surviving comfort women showed resentment toward this agreement and condemned the Korean government for reaching the agreement with the Japanese government. Why do the comfort women and many South Koreans reject this agreement? Also, two different understandings of the identically written accord have brought social conflict in South Korea. Where do these discrepancies in understanding the same accord come from? Applying the three conceptual frameworks—emic and etic approaches in cultural anthropology, the inclusive and restricted models of conflict resolution, and different levels of reconciliation—this paper analyzes the discrepancies in how people analyze and approach conflict resolution and highlights the importance of the cultural anthropological approaches in conflict resolution and reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the acceptance of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) in Japan, the UK and Germany and speculates on the implications for policy and practice. Three on-line surveys of 3,000 members of the public in total, which were conducted in January 2017 (Japan), March 2018 (UK) and November/December 2018 (Germany) were analysed using Principal Component Analysis and then with an Ordered Logit Model. It finds that acceptance of AVs was higher amongst people with higher expectations of the benefits of AVs, those with less knowledge of AVs, and those with lower perceptions of risk. It also finds frequent drivers and car passengers to be more accepting, but that socio-economic factors were mostly insignificant. Finally, there were significant cultural differences between the levels of acceptance between Japan (broadly positive), the UK (broadly neutral) and Germany (broadly negative). These findings suggest that AV promoters should raise (or at least maintain) expectations of AVs among the public; engage with the public to reverse the negative perception of AVs; address AV-generated fears; not bother targeting people by socio-economic group; target frequent car drivers and passengers with information about what AVs could do for them; and target countries where AVs already enjoy a positive image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the Japanese and Taiwanese dancers who—in the 1940s and under the auspices of the Japan Broadcasting Corporation—performed for the Japanese army on the frontlines of combat as a visiting entertainment troupe of comfort (Imon-dan). Imon-dan performers, unlike Ian-fu (comfort women), were professional artists even before the war. During the Sino–Japanese War, the Ministry of the Army deployed entertainment troupes of comfort who were professional performers to entertain soldiers stationed in the Japanese occupation area. Such troupes included Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese dancers because wartime Japan occupied Taiwan and Korea. This paper tracks one route to Burma in 1941 using new information from several people and a video recording. Consequently, the Japanese government used the Imon-dan in this instance to promote Japan's support for Burma's independence. These encounters resulted in modern dancers interacting with Taiwan and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Love, sex and marriage are recurrent themes in Kurahashi Yumiko's literature, especially in her early works. In the novel Divine maiden (1965) she approached those topics from a different perspective, through the form of shōjo shōsetsu (girl's fiction): she even went so far as to define Divine maiden as 'the last shōjo shōsetsu'. The protagonist of this novel is a young girl, Miki: the story revolves around Miki's incestuous relationship with her father, as it is depicted in her three diaries, read by a male narrator. Even though incest is a recurrent theme in Kurahashi's work, it has been pointed out that the incestuous relationship between father and daughter could be considered shōjo shōsetsu's grand finale. However, not much attention has been paid to the relationship between Divine maiden and shōjo shōsetsu as a literary genre; moreover, the meaning of love, sex and marriage in the novel has been left unexplored. This paper aims to analyse the girl's sexuality depicted in Divine maiden in the context of post-war Japan's junketsu kyōiku ('purity education'); through an analysis of Miki's diaries, I will explore the way Kurahashi has parodied the concept of 'democracy' in relation to the ideal of 'pure love'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether boundary changes lead to changes in the relationship between voters and politicians. We focus on the wave of municipal mergers in Japan that took place in the 2000s in order to examine this question. Municipalities with small population size, once they merge with their larger neighbours, would have a small number of voters relative to the size of the electorate in the post-merger municipalities. Therefore, municipal politicians in the post-merger municipalities do not have strong electoral incentives to receive support from geographic areas corresponding with pre-merger municipalities of small population size. Using a survey of voters in 89 locations corresponding with pre-merger municipalities, we demonstrate that voters who live in small municipalities that experienced mergers interact with politicians less frequently and have less favourable impressions of politicians than before the mergers. These patterns are not observed in municipalities that did not experience mergers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between patenting and publishing at the project level. It uses Japan's Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research database. Japan's Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research is the major funding source for academic researchers in Japan. This database provides information on inputs (budget, period, project members, etc.) and outputs (publications and patents) from each funded research project. The main finding is that patenting has a curvilinear correlation with higher impact, i.e. the number of higher impact publications from funded research projects increases with the number of patents only to a certain amount, and after a peak, it decreases. Our finding implies that if a finding is a relatively significant and marketable breakthrough, researchers who have the possibility of patenting in mind become less likely to share their results openly. Meanwhile, previous studies implicitly assumed that researchers have to make a choice between basic or applied research projects, or for a particular research project choose to make it more applied or basic. Another finding of this study is that the assumption applies to projects. Our findings imply that a heavy emphasis on patenting may reduce the amount of high-quality publishing of scientific research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) rights and same-sex partnership are framed and discussed at the macro-level of state discourse as well as the micro-level of individual negotiation of partnership in Japan. Drawing on but reformulating Puar's concept of homonationalism, we found that the Japanese state projects a progressive national identity that consists ironically in denying full citizenship to sexual and gender minorities. It invokes an alleged history of tolerance in Japan to frame its 'unique' and 'superior' approach to SOGI rights. It is an approach inextricably bound to the heteronormative institution of marriage and family as a system of ruling. Arguments in favour of same-sex marriage reproduce the same narrative of tolerance, while naturalizing marriage and removing it from its sociolegal context and biologizing sexual orientation. Individuals contemplating or registering partnerships likewise reinforce the sanctity of marriage, even without embracing it. We suggest that a thorough discussion of marriage in its legal framework and historical context is necessary to develop the critical potential of same-sex partnership. We also advocate exploring intra-Asian influences in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on migrants' experiences of moving house in the country of settlement, the study explores the housing pathways of Russian-speaking migrants in Japan over their life courses. This paper emphasizes the need for the anthropology of migration to consider not only the housing events but also the housing pathways experienced by cross-border migrants in receiving countries. It is argued that the act of moving from one accommodation to another plays a crucial role in how migrants develop their biographies and perceptions of self. In addition to investigating house relocation, the study borrows from the Russian formalist school of narratology to examine how migrants narrativize their experiences in stories that intertwine housing pathways and movers' identities. The study reveals how the instances of moving—and not necessarily the physical qualities of housing—emerge as dynamic forces that initiate migrants into their desired statuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the dynamic interaction of Japan's total factor productivity (TFP), GDP, stocks of domestic and foreign private and public as well as mission-oriented R&D, called GBARD in OECD statistics, in a vector-error-correction model (VECM) for Japan with stock data for the period 1987–2016. Permanent policy changes show the following main results: (i) GBARD as well as private and public R&D each encourage growth rates of the other R&D stocks and of TFP and GDP, and (ii) all have high internal rates of return; (iii) Japan's R&D policies affect and are affected by foreign R&D; in particular, Japan's public R&D has a positive impact on European private R&D, whereas other OECD countries' R&D has a negative one. Japan's R&D policies should be supported by education policies enhancing especially the number of PhDs and IT personnel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to reinterpret asylum theory (1954) propounded by Ortwin Henssler (1923–2017) as a free-space theory of education, as a way of grasping the problematic nature of 'pedagogical protection.' The theoretical potential of Henssler's thought has been more appreciated, accepted, and developed in Japan than in his native Germany. First, I outline Henssler's theory of asylum and show how his theory has been received and developed in Japan, especially in the fields of historical researches. Secondly, I discuss the possibility of reading Henssler's thought of asylum as a theory of 'pedagogical protection.' Thirdly, I consider whether it is possible to interpret 'free space' in education based on the model of asylum. Finally, I delineate some prospects for and challenges involved in connecting the theory of asylum to the theory of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2020, the Japanese government launched the Go To Eat campaign, a policy initiative involving the distribution of vouchers to households for use at restaurants, with the aim of supporting the food service industry, which had experienced a significant decrease in sales due to the government’s ‘self-restraint request’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper uses a nonparametric method to investigate the relationship between the Go To Eat campaign and the spread of COVID-19 in Japan by examining food service expenditures, mobility, positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, and the Indices of Industrial Production. The distribution of food service expenditures changed in October and November, when the campaign started, as well as in December, when the campaign ended. In addition, the distribution of mobility changed in January 2021, when a state of emergency was declared. The Go To Eat campaign was economically effective as a temporary subsidy, and it might have facilitated mobility in a way that was difficult to control for some time. As such, the indirect effect of the campaign on the rise in the number of positive PCR tests is undeniable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Japan, young people are becoming increasingly apathetic about politics, while at the same time they are experiencing a rightward leaning and a growing sympathy for totalitarianism and authoritarianism. To understand this contradiction, we need to look at the digital communication environment in which they engage in political discourse. One of the most representative opinion leaders in this regard is Hiroyuki Nishimura. In recent years, Hiroyuki has become widely known as the 'King of Refutation' and is immensely popular among the young generation. He is very active in political and social issues, arguing in a logical and neutral manner. However, despite his enlightened mode of argumentation, his arguments have been perceived as accommodative to totalitarian and authoritarian perceptions. This paper argues that at the heart of this mode of refutation is a process of 'decontextualisation' and 'recontextualisation' which has resulted in reducing the complexity of the issue, making it comprehensible to the majority while oppressing minorities. And this mode of refutation and the processes of 'decontextualisation' and 'recontextualisation' are at the centre of the various digital communication platforms that he operates and that have become hubs of political communication around the world: 2channel, 4chan, Nico Nico Douga and YouTube clips. In this sense, the totalitarianism and rightward leaning of the young generation is not due to a specific ideology but is strongly conditioned by the communication environment. 'Communication totalitarianism' can be used to describe the totalitarianism and right-wing tendencies taking place in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research has shown that pre-event measures of social impact are higher when worded in reference to a global other such as 'the event creates new friendships' instead of a more precise measurement referencing the self such as 'I create new friendships because of the event'. No research has yet investigated if this holds true both before and after events. Nor has research investigated which social impact scale relates most precisely to event support. This paper addresses both of these gaps. A pre- and post-event longitudinal research design surveyed 306 residents of Tokyo before (t = −3 months) and after (t = +4 months) the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. Participants responded to an other-referenced (OR) social impact scale followed by a self-referenced (SR) social impact scale. In the pre-event period, we confirm the tendency for respondents to overestimate both positive and negative social impacts regardless of the scale used, although the SR results were nearly a half-point lower, on average. The findings also demonstrate that the SR scale has more predictive power to explain event support intentions, indicating that reflecting on lived experiences matters when it comes to determining resident support for events. Wording social impact items in the first person is a more accurate reflection of reality to capture event impacts, particularly post-event and can better predict peoples' support for future events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way people communicate and convey information, particularly in public spaces. This paper investigates the use of language and signs in COVID-19-related directives in Japan from a pragmatic perspective. Using data collected through a linguistic landscape survey, the study qualitatively examines the use of politeness in linguistic formulation and the semiotic use of space through the combination of signs and objects. The analyses reveal the differences in politeness strategies used in top-down signs compared to bottom-up signs. Top-down signs, such as those produced by the government or large organizations, tend to use an invitation form and incomplete sentences, whereas bottom-up signs, created by individuals or small shops, often use more formal language and formulaic request expressions. The study highlights the role of addressers of bottom-up signs as "handlers" who play an active role in pragmatically utilizing space through the arrangement of semiotic signs. The study argues that a detailed linguistic and semiotic analysis is crucial in comprehending how meaning is co-constructed in the linguistic and semiotic landscape. This is particularly relevant in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where clear and effective communication is of utmost importance in order to maintain public health and safety. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into the use of language and signs in public spaces, and have implications for the development of effective communicative strategies in the context of the pandemic and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the predicted soil group map, the distribution area of the Gley Lowland soil group was reduced, while that of the Gray Lowland soil group was increased. While the Gley Lowland soil group predicted with high accuracy, the Lowland Paddy soil group and the Gray Lowland soil group were not clearly separated. B Original paper b B Using machine learning to prototype a large-scale agricultural soil-group map: learning from multipoint soil profile survey results, topographic indicators, and anthropogenic effects b Takashi Kanda SP a,† sp , Yusuke Takata SP a sp , Yuta Ise SP a sp , Mizuki Morishita SP 1 sp , Kunihiko Takehisa SP b sp , Hiroyuki Hasukawa SP b sp and Yuji Maejima SP a sp SP a sp Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, NARO, SP b sp Agricultural Technology Promotion Center of Shiga Prefecture, SP † sp Present address: Tropical Agriculture Research Front, Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences To adapt to precision agriculture, the current agricultural soil map's soil information must be updated. [Extracted from the article]

"Belt and Road Initiative" (BRI) is a Chinese initiative to promote multinational economic cooperation and enhance worldwide prosperity. This Initiative's impact on other countries' maritime law and policy is worth exploring. This paper discusses the BRI and its impact on Japanese shipping laws, emphasizing the importance of Sino-Japanese economic cooperation. It is observed that Japanese private enterprises appear to have a more open attitude than that of the Japanese government toward the BRI. By participating in the BRI, Japanese companies can be more involved in international multimodal transport, not only as shippers utilizing the improved rail and sea carriage network to ship their products but also as multimodal transport operators providing logistical services. This may further trigger the development of Japanese shipping law, so that Japan can better benefit from the connectivity brought by the BRI and address new geopolitical challenges created by it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese policy regarding arts education had not been well discussed. One of the reasons was the effects of the arts had not been highly regarded in Japan. This paper empirically addressed the effects of arts activities on years of schooling and income. Through path analysis, relationships were revealed between out-of-school activities and years of schooling, occupation, and income. Nationwide data -the Preference Parameters Study in 2013- is mainly utilized. For females, the results showed significant positive relationships between arts activities and years of schooling. For males, arts activities combined with sports and educational activities exhibited significant positive relationships with years of schooling. These results suggested creation of opportunities for all the students to take part in arts and other activities. This paper suggests the system, such as out-of-school voucher, for all the children to take the benefits of arts activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues the perceptions of relations between two nations involve not only the institutionalized national-boundary but also the perspectives of multiple symbolic boundaries. Based on a qualitative study, this paper aims to explain how different symbolic boundaries impact Japanese experts' perception of interrelations between Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The paper includes an analysis of opinion surveys, 20 semi-structured interviews with experts, and three focus group interviews with university students of Peace Studies Departments conducted throughout June and July of 2018 in Tokyo, Japan. These results advance existing scholarship by showing that Japanese experts use the following four symbolic boundaries to comprehend relations between Japan and South Korea: boundaries between (1) victims and perpetrators; (2) 'the West' and the Asian cultural and political space; (3) nationalistic and peaceful countries; and (4) a state and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper combines renewed attention to science diplomacy with the rising interest in material and ontological aspects of science studies. It examines nuclear diplomacy by reviewing negotiations over three tons of natural uranium that the Japanese government requested from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1958. The uranium was half the amount required for the Japan Research Reactor-3, which reached criticality in 1962 and became Japan's first domestically developed nuclear reactor. Japan's request provided an opportunity to reaffirm the IAEA's raison d'être and set in motion the process of establishing a safeguarding system against the military use of atomic energy. The IAEA Board of Governors deliberated on the issue from October 1958 to April 1959. Although Japan's request was generally welcomed, it sparked confrontations between countries that accepted IAEA safeguards and those against them. By analysing the IAEA Board's official records, this paper shows how the negotiations transformed the uranium into a 'diplomatic object'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan, like other countries, recognizes the need to shift the focus of the public communication of science and technology from science literacy via one-way communication to the public engagement of science and technology via dialogue. During the shift of perspectives, Japanese science policy tried to encourage science communication (SC) by cultivating the professional science communicator and communication capacity of scientists. This study aims to analyze the structural issues of developing science communication, particularly focusing on the gap between science policy and graduate education (GE) policy concerning the human resource development of scientists. The analyses found a lack of science communication development in graduate education policies, despite the emphasis on this in government science and technology (ST) policies. Simultaneously, it showed that there are few training courses for science communication and job recruiting for academic institutions. Discussions for systematic implementation of SC training in the GE system are expected to bridge higher education and ST policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the changing informal views of Japan held in Britain in the decade after 1931. It investigates the relationship between understanding and policy, and how the needs of policy, most significantly the subordination of Asia to Europe, impinged on understanding. In looking in microcosm at where Japan Watchers, made up of newspapermen, missionaries and businessmen, interacted with formal diplomats and government officials, this paper focuses on the lectures and journals of learned societies in London, especially the Royal Central Asian Society, which served as one conduit through which knowledge of Japan passed to an audience with a regional interest. A wider audience was reached through newspapers. In trying to influence the reading public, the importance of ideas having to resonate with the concerns of the reader is stressed. It is emphasized that influence on perception is often dependent on a particular time. The views of Old China Hands came to supplant those of Japan Watchers in influencing the British image of Japan by the late 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By extending the late Osamu Kanamori's notion of science fiction (sci-fi) as it "re-articulate[s] various issues that bioethical studies had formally discussed," this paper provides a cultural analysis of Japanese sci-fi stories from the 1990s with reference to the exchange of body parts. By focusing on the time when organ transplantation from brain-dead donors was part of many intensive debates, this paper pays particular attention to the fictional representations of humanity, which feature body-part exchanges between the living and the dead, in genres ranging from Noh 能dramas to manga 漫画. In this paper I shed light on two issues: (1) how sci-fi representations described the matter of humanity vis-à-vis exchanging parts of the body, and (2) in what ways and on what terms bioethical discourses relating to Japanese organ transplant medicine from brain-dead donors were rearticulated through these sci-fi narratives. I also argue that such rearticulated values were inscribed in the process of constructing the bioethical code of practice in transplant medicine and deathbed care that took place during the late 1990s. By doing so, this paper confirms the role that sci-fi plays in bioethical imaginations, as Kanamori has pointed out and as can also be seen in East Asian societies like Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese concept of kokoro no kea (care for mind) is a local notion based on the global concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This localized concept has contributed to raising awareness of the need for post-disaster psycho-social support and establishing a disaster mental health system. Despite its intention to reduce the mental health-related stigma by expressing that mind can be injured in the same way as body can, the reluctance to seek support still persists. This paper aims to explore the challenges underlying the notion of kokoro no kea in changing the help-seeking behaviour of disaster victims through examining Japanese cultural concepts and political history. The literature review suggests that the semantic ambiguity embedded in the concept does not fully reflect the double-natured structure of consciousness in Japan which is related to an interdependent self in a society where cohesiveness and social inclusion are emphasized. Nor is the concept able to adequately signify the way that societal power relations have produced the collective experience of suffering. This paper concludes by reiterating that the cultural configuration of the self, language use, and the socio-political aspect of collective trauma are crucial elements in addressing the mental health needs of disaster victims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses the articles in this issue that focus on research misconduct cases in East Asia, including political interests in research in South Korea, the STAP Cell research case in Japan, and postproduction misconduct in China.

Here the author shares his attempt to add, without financial cost, substantive and dynamic international experiences to the secondary social studies teacher education program he facilitates. He provides thick descriptions of (1) the overarching goals of a collaborative, online, international learning project, (2) the curriculum materials he helped design and the classroom experiences he orchestrated, and (3) the project's international context. Moreover, this paper advocates for internationalization by describing a 5-week, inquiry-based project that featured university students in Japan and the US using an online video discussion platform to asynchronously introduce themselves to international peers, share their understanding of powerful social studies instruction, explore similarities in social studies education between the two nations, refine their understanding of international education, and share ideas for a wise-practice classroom activity that could be taught to secondary students in both nations. Because this article shares the project's rationale, schedule, assignments, and assessment rubrics, it may prove helpful for teachers and teacher educators as they envision ways to further prepare students to think and act globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative users can not only generate ideas for new products, but also self-select whether to share their ideas with peers or producers. Different innovative users have different degree of lead userness, and their ideas are usually rooted in tacit need-related knowledge. Because it has been well established that the characteristics of innovators and their innovations can influence the diffusion of an innovation, there is a conjecture that lead userness and tacit need knowledge can associate with innovative users' diffusion channel selection. In this paper, we report the first empirical exploration. Based on survey data from 414 innovative users in Japan, we found that lead userness increases their likelihood of commercial diffusion versus peer diffusion and that this relationship is stronger when their needs-related knowledge is relatively explicit. We discuss the implications and limitations of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines early impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak on stock returns of 11 sectors using the firm-level stock price data from 10 countries. Results show that investors across sectors and countries respond differently during the outbreak. Communication Services, Consumer Staples, Health Care, Information Technology, and Utilities sectors consistently perform relatively well, compared to other sectors, in all countries except Italy, Japan and U.S. Conversely, Energy sector suffers greatest abnormal negative returns, among all sectors, in countries including Canada, Italy, U.K. and U.S. Furthermore, Japan and U.S. have highest numbers of abnormally and negatively affected sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the causal links between intergenerational living arrangements and marital fertility in Japan, using data from the 2010 and 2015 Japanese National Fertility Surveys (N = 1308). The results indicate that coresidence with the husband's parents is positively associated with completed marital fertility in the unmatched sample in which confounders of coresidence are not balanced between married couples who do and do not coreside with their parents. However, the propensity score matching estimators show that this association is reduced to a non-significant level once the matching technique corrects the covariate imbalance. These findings suggest that intergenerational coresidence has only limited direct effects on marital fertility in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes a critical look at the sovereignty claims surrounding the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands. The dispute has long plagued Sino-Japanese relations and is considered one of the key regional security hotspots, with the People's Republic of China mounting an active challenge to Japanese administrative control. This article reviews the case for sovereignty under both the discovery and the prescription principles. However, the article concludes that one cannot find a compelling case for sovereignty under either principle in favour of either claimants. The paper argues that this is due to the traditional insignificance of the islands prior to UNCLOS establishing exclusive economic zones. Rather, the article suggests that to facilitate a resolution to the disputes, the islands should not be classified as islands under UNCLOS as they do not meet the legal threshold for such a classification, either today or historically. If anything, the weakness of claims that contributes to the intractability of the dispute today shows that traditionally neither China nor Japan has considered these territories as islands in a manner that would be in the spirit of UNCLOS. While such a reclassification would not immediately resolve the dispute, it would be a significant step to remove incentives for the further pursuit of conflicting sovereignty over the islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the labor shortage has become a significant problem in Japan and other countries due to aging societies. However, service robots can play a decisive role in relieving human workers by performing various household and assistive tasks. Restroom cleaning is one of such challenging tasks that involve performing motion planning in a constrained restroom setting. In this study, we propose a mobile manipulator to perform various tasks related to restroom cleaning. Our key contributions include system integration of multiple tools on an arm with high DoF mounted on a mobile, omni-directional platform capable of versatile service cleaning and with extended reachability. We evaluate the performance of our system with the competition setting used for the restroom cleaning task of the Future Convenience Store Challenge at the World Robot Summit 2020, where we obtained the 1st Place. The proposed system successfully completed all the competition tasks within the time limit and could remove the liquid with a removal rate of 96%. The proposed system could also dispose of most garbage and got an average garbage disposal rate of 90%. Further experiments confirmed the scores obtained in the competition with an even higher liquid removal rate of 98%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Mr. Science and the May 4th Movement was a significant chapter in the global history of science. To contextualize the story better, I will adopt three broad interpretive frames. First, I shall place Mr. Science and May Fourth in a longer view than the particular events in the 1910s–1920s. This will allow us to trace the historical changes and the evolving institutions, discourses, and practitioners of science over a few generations. Second, I shall highlight the most relevant global conditions. Western imperialism was of course a crucial setting, but there were more specific historical moments that also deserve attention. Finally, comparisons and connections; it is necessary to examine the transmutations of ideas, knowledge, and institutions across political and cultural borders. In other words, we should study Mr. Science and May Fourth in the mode of global intellectual history. Other than China, my main comparative cases are India and Japan, though I will also refer to Ottoman Turkey. Taken together, these examples provide a range of comparisons central to our inquiry into Mr. Science and the global history of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades Japanese criminal syndicates, collectively known as the yakuza, enjoyed a highly visible and semi-legal status that positioned them in a grey area. Accordingly, also much of the yakuza's business lies in a grey zone: night-entertainment, different forms of gambling, front companies and (fake) social movements. However, following the introduction of new stricter regulations, the yakuza are struggling to keep operating in the legal and semi-legal areas of their business, and have been pushed to explore new modi operandi, using (semi)legal actors and loopholes. Based on fieldwork conducted in Japan with current and ex-yakuza members, this paper analyses the yakuza's response to the reduced opportunities to engage in legal activities. It is argued that this determined an increased involvement with predatory crimes for low-ranking members, while the decreased power in controlling markets allowed for the emergence of novel forms of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines new Japanese primary source materials to reassess the significance of Japanese rearmament during the early stages of the Cold War in two ways. First, the paper shows how, in the area of submarine development, the post-war navy approached rearmament as an opportunity to address wartime failures with the support and professional mentorship of the US Navy. Second, whilst submarines were considered as outside the scope of Japanese defence posture, the navy had a crucial agency role in shaping how this branch of naval warfare was integrated into the country's strategy with significant consequences for the later stages of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]