Search

Objective. To sort out the literature related to conjunctival bacteria and summarize research hotspots and trends of this field. Materials and Methods. The relevant literature data from 1900 to 2019 was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. After manual selection, each document record includes title, author, keywords, abstract, year, organization, and citation. We imported the downloaded data into CiteSpace V (version 5.5R2) to draw the knowledge map and conduct cooperative network analysis, discipline and journal analysis, cluster analysis, and burst keyword analysis. Results. After manual screening, there were 285 relevant papers published in the last 28 years (from 1991 to 2019), and the number is increasing year by year. The publications of conjunctival bacteria were dedicated by 1381 authors of 451 institutions in 56 countries/regions. The United States dominates this field (82 literatures), followed by Germany (23 literatures) and Japan (23 literatures). Overall, most cited papers were published with a focus on molecular biology, genetics, nursing, and toxicology. Most papers fall into the category of ophthalmology, veterinary sciences, and pharmacology and pharmacy. The only organized cluster is the "postantibiotic effect," and the top 5 keywords with the strongest citation bursts include "postoperative endophthalmiti(s)," "infectious keratoconjunctiviti(s)," "conjunctiviti(s)," "resistance," and "diversity". Conclusion. The global field of conjunctival bacteria has expanded in the last 28 years. The United States contributes most. However, there are little cooperation among authors and institutions. Overall, this bibliometric study organized one cluster, "postantibiotic effect", and identified the top 5 hotspots in conjunctival bacteria research: "postoperative endophthalmiti(s)," "infectious keratoconjunctiviti(s)," "conjunctiviti(s)," "resistance," and "diversity". Thus, further research focuses on these topics that may be more helpful to prevent ocular infection and improve prophylaxis strategies to bring a benefit to patients in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Information-sharing and flexibility are considered to be major tools for risk mitigation and supply chain resiliency. However, less light has been shed on the role of information-sharing as an enabler to utilize flexibility capabilities before and after supply chain disruptions. The aim of this paper is to provide indications on how digitalized information-sharing (DIS) enhances flexibility capability utilization. Design/methodology/approach: The methodology follows a qualitative approach, including 31 transcribed semi-structured interviews with supply chain experts in Germany and Japan. Findings: The findings indicate that DIS supports flexibility capability utilization in pre- and post-disruptive supply chain management. First, the enhancement of estimated transport time accuracy supports rapid supplier and transport mode adjustment. Second, while the effects of DIS in manufacturing are limited without pre-existing flexibility capabilities, steady internal and external DIS utilizes exciting manufacturing flexibility to cope with disruptions beyond production. Third, track and trace technologies enhance the value of shared data and allow flexibility in the form of demand-oriented distribution, but companies unable to adopt technologies can still enhance flexibility capabilities with DIS using the existing infrastructure. Originality/value: This paper highlights the essential role of digital information-sharing for flexibility utilization in supply chain risk management. While existing studies engaged with flexibility and information-sharing in supply chain risk management, this study contributes by emphasizing digital information-sharing as a key triggering enabler for flexibility in pre- and post-disruptive phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, although Japan's and Germany's energy transition paths differ in detail, a trend towards decentralisation is clearly evident in both countries. Based on comprehensive screening, own stocktaking and the results of a stakeholder dialogue, this paper highlights the motivation for different local actors to enter the energy market in both countries. Although there are challenges to success in a market dominated by large energy companies, this paper argues that the benefits to local communities outweigh the efforts. Overall, it is shown that democratisation and the decentralisation of the energy system are suitable to facilitate a successful transformation process in both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the InCites tool of Thomson Reuters, this study compares normalized citation impact values calculated for China, Japan, France, Germany, United States, and the UK throughout the time period from 1981 to 2010. InCites offers a unique opportunity to study the normalized citation impacts of countries using (i) a long publication window (1981 to 2010), (ii) a differentiation in (broad or more narrow) subject areas, and (iii) allowing for the use of statistical procedures in order to obtain an insightful investigation of national citation trends across the years. Using four broad categories, our results show significantly increasing trends in citation impact values for France, the UK, and especially Germany across the last thirty years in all areas. The citation impact of papers from China is still at a relatively low level (mostly below the world average), but the country follows an increasing trend line. The USA exhibits a stable pattern of high citation impact values across the years. With small impact differences between the publication years, the US trend is increasing in engineering and technology but decreasing in medical and health sciences as well as in agricultural sciences. Similar to the USA, Japan follows increasing as well as decreasing trends in different subject areas, but the variability across the years is small. In most of the years, papers from Japan perform below or approximately at the world average in each subject area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Asia Pacifi c War (1937-1945), the Japanese Imperial Army forced women in Japanese East Asian colonies to work as so-called “comfort women” (sex workers). The justice movement for these women is an international intersectional alliance of feminists from Japanese ex-colonies in East Asia, the former colonial power Japan, and other societies, such as Australia, Germany, and the USA. This long-term feminist justice movement has campaigned for an apology and compensation from the Japanese government, as well as for recognition of “comfort women‘s” suff ering and of sexual violence in war in cultural memory. Through researching this justice movement from a processual intersectionality perspective, this paper shows that it gained power and legitimacy from refl ecting and working on its internal intersectional inequalities. This included refl ecting on the class hierarchies between many former “comfort women”, who had power of defi nition, and intellectual feminist activists, as well as on the postcolonial divide between former Japanese colonies and the former colonial power Japan, leading it to develop horizontal cooperation and practices. Following an overview, the paper outlines the movements in South Korea, Japan, and Germany, and highlights the different postcolonial constellation between East Asia and Germany, the main actors, and their aims. While the Japanese government rejected the justice movement‘s demands and the right wing mobilised against it, has been able to infl uence cultural memory to widely recognize sexual violence in war and the dignity of the “comfort women”. [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]

Peace Education is considered to be an important pillar in preventing armed conflict and promoting positive peace. The aim of this article is to understand if education systems help development of peace processes in post-conflict settings and if the idea of implementing Peace Education into the formal curriculum could advance prospects for peace. In the paper three case studies are investigated more deeply – Japan, Germany and the South Caucasus. The article uses secondary sources to present the issue. The literature review includes academic books, articles, and official declarations of international organizations. The paper concludes that examples of integrating Peace Education principles in formal school education curriculums are not numerous, and the lack of a comprehensive data on Peace Education around the world could have been the reason that prevented governments from seeing the importance of implementing Peace Education within their national education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to identify the most prolific countries in the field of special education and to discuss the widespread impact of their papers by taking into account the country's h-index. Through a bibliometric analysis, the data were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection category "Education, Special" in the Social Science Citation Index during 2011-2020. The 25 most prolific countries in the field of special education were determined in terms of paper productivity, and it was seen that the leading country was undisputedly the USA (54.42%). Meanwhile, a strong positive correlation was found between the h-index and the number of papers published by the countries (r=0.864). On the other hand, when the ranking in terms of the number of papers was reconfigured by the h-index, it was relatively changed. The possible reasons for this change for the countries with the most changing rankings were discussed by considering some definitive criteria such as the journal quartiles, the percentage of international and domestic, and the percentage of open access papers. This study reports a positive correlation between the quality and quantity in the field of special education for the publications of countries. It has been shown that where the positive correlation deviates, then especially, the journal quartiles, the percentage of international collaboration and the percentage of open access papers have a significant effect. The bibliometric findings may be useful to enrich the discussion about the widespread impact of papers and debate whether the use of h-index is acceptable for cross-national comparisons.

Environmental issues are among the most critical issues nowadays. These issues are no longer confined to individual countries, and international society has been progressing in building global dialogues since the early 1970s. Within these international efforts, Germany and Japan have played essential roles in global environmental governance. However, there are major differences in nation-level environmental policies in both countries. Governance based on network structure is more efficient than that based on hierarchy for solving complex problems. The network structure is formed through horizontal cooperation among various autonomous actors, and the relationship intensity among actors is one of the key concepts in the governance. Using social network analysis as a framework to explain complicated societal structures explains how interaction among actors creates networks, and these networks further affect their interactions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structure of environmental policy governance as collaborative governance in Germany and Japan. To address this goal, this paper analyzes the relationship between the informational dimension of governance networks and its complement resource-sharing networks in both countries. The results show that the information-sharing networks have lower-level network influence on the resource-sharing networks as higher-level networks even if not all of the information factors have singular influences. The results suggest that the information-sharing networks may be one of the pieces of the puzzle for explaining this phenomenon in environmental governance in Germany and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Railway Standard Design is the property of Railway Standard Design Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Involving the global issues as listed in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education is necessarily done in the education process, especially in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. Exposure to global issues is known to improve students' understanding, awareness, and ability to solve urgent issues faced by global society. This paper aims to find out the trend of research on the coverage of SDGs in students' learning process. This systematic literature analysis was done by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Method. A total of 25 studies were recognized through a systematic search by using Sustainability, SDGs, and EFL as keywords. The result shows that the trend of associating SDGs with EFL settings was done mostly in Indonesia. In the recent year 2022, it reached the highest number of studies in the particular matter with 7 total of research. It was also found that the study involving SDGs on EFL learning was mostly done in the tertiary setting, compared with K-12, junior high school, secondary, high school, and other educational institutions. It was also discovered that the specific area of study enhances EFL students' learning achievement, environmental awareness, global citizen values, as well as students' levels of self-norms, beliefs, and self-value.

Purpose Elders' ICT usage is one of the central subjects of ISG. The cabinet office of Japan has conducted "The International Comparative Survey on the Daily Life and Attitudes of the Elderly" every five years, covering individual men and women aged 60 and over (excluding institutionalized residents) in Japan and three foreign countries. The survey provides information on matters related to home life, health and welfare, economic life, employment, housing and living environment, and social relations and purpose in life of the elderly in the countries. The latest 2021 survey has been done in Japan, Germany, Sweden, and the US (https://www.e-stat.go.jp/statsearch/files?page=1&layout=dataset&toukei=00100106&metadata=1&data=1). In Japan and Sweden, 2,500 participants each country were invited by mail. In Germany and the US, 1,000 participants per country were asked by phone. All participants were chosen by random sampling. The survey period was from Dec. 2020 to Jan. 2021. The result of the survey was open for further analysis and research. Survey data was counted and provided as simple tables or cross tables. In this paper, we chose Q.34, Usage of ICT devices, and Q.35, Reason for not-to-use of such devices. The latter question was asked to participants who responded that they are not using any ICT devices. We have analyzed survey data with Correspondence Analysis to reveal four countries of elders' ICT usage features. Method Two question branches are analyzed in this research. Q34 has nine activity categories. All appropriate activities should be answered (multiple answers): 1. Fax to family members and friends, 2. PC e-mail to family and friends, 3. Mobile phone calls (including mail) to family and friends, 4. Net search for information and/or net shopping, 5. Using SNS, 6. Home Page making or Blogging, 7. Netbanking / Net trading, 8. E-government (tax etc.), 9. No ICT usage. Q35: 1. No needs regarded, 2. ICT devices are hard to understand, 3. Have interest, but no clues for purchase/shop, 4. Have no one to instruct device usage, 5. The problem of price/money, 6. The display is unreadable, 7. other reasons. Correspondence analysis was computed with the FactoMineR package (http://factominer.free.fr/), developed by statisticians at d'Agrocampus Rennes. Analysis was done on statistical computing environment R 4.1.2. Results and Discussion Figures 1 and 2 show the ICT device usage. Japanese favor Mobile phone talk and mail. In Japan, Fax and No ICT usage has larger than in other countries. SNS, HP/blogging, E-government, and Netbanking are relatively minor. US participants favor SNS, PC mail, and HP/blogging. Swedish more favors SNS, Netbanking, and E-government. Germans favor Net searching and shopping and are close to the countries average. Figures 3 and 4 show the reasons for not-to-use ICT devices. Germans with negative ICT device attitude tend to think they do not need to use them. A negative attitude in the US is slightly close to having no instructor. Japanese negative attitude is close to readability problem and understanding device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role that vocational education and training (VET) in ICT subject areas plays in contributing to the gender and social class structuring of ICT occupations, focusing in particular on education and employment data from the UK. The paper also makes reference to similar data about ICT VET in Germany and Japan to argue that the new areas of 'soft' ICT skills - in education and in occupations - have become feminised, and channel women into low skilled and low paid work. Unlike university level ICT education, which has opened opportunities for women and students coming from families with no experience of higher education, sub-degree level ICT VET seems to be continuing to reproduce gender and socio- economic class within and through ICT occupations. I argue that those concerned with gender equity research and interventions in ICT need to work with an analysis that disaggregates what are now appearing to be quite different skills sets, and different career opportunities often misleadingly conflated under the umbrella term 'ICT'. I also argue for better analytical models for the gendering of ICT than those offered by the 'leaky pipeline' or 'critical mass' models, and for new analyses that would incorporate both a structural analysis and new ways of looking at women's choices, such as Hakim's 'orientation to work'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether variations in demographic structure have influenced stock prices. The study employs a nonparametric approach based on the Fourier Flexible Form representation, which relates variations in the entire age distribution to the normalized stock price under a flexible functional form. The main findings of this paper are that there is a significant impact from prime working-age consumers on the stock price, and that this impact is robust for all G5 countries (France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA). These findings survive many robust tests, and are consistent with the predictions from the life-cycle models. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the process of diffusion and decay of knowledge from university, public laboratories and corporate patents in six countries and tests the differences across countries and across technological fields using data from the European Patent Office. It finds that university and public research patents are more cited relatively to companies’ patents. However these results are mainly driven by the Chemical, Drugs & Medical, and Mechanical fields and US universities. In Europe and Japan, where the great majority of patents from public research come from national agencies, there is no evidence of a superior fertility of university and public laboratory patents vis à vis corporate patents. The distribution of the citation lags shows that knowledge embedded in university and public research patents tends to diffuse more rapidly relative to corporate ones in particular in the US, Germany, France and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Countries have been shown to be competitive in specific industries. This paper contends that this industrial specialization can be understood in terms of an affinity between national 'models of capitalism' and the characteristics of industrial task environments. Put differently, industry-specific competitiveness is conceived to arise out of a fit between patterns of national business systems and patterns of industrial task environments. Specifically, the paper will propose a relationship between the communitarian or individualistic nature of national business systems and the organization-specificity of knowledge in an industry. More communitarian business systems are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a high organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that rely more on the long-term accumulation of organization-specific knowledge within tightly-knit corporate communities. More individualistic business systems, on the other hand, are thought to enjoy a competitive advantage in industries with a low organization-specificity of knowledge, i.e. in industries that thrive more on the speedy dissemination or reallocation of company-unspecific knowledge through a constant reconfiguration of social relationships. The paper will offer some illustrations of these proposed relationships in terms of the competitive profiles of the United States, Japan, Germany and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines WWII forced labour memory politics in Germany and Japan by drawing from Barkan's concept of amending historical injustices. After lengthy negotiations, germany reached in 2000 a milestone agreement compensating victims individually, while in Japan, settlements, consolation payments and apologies have been overshadowed by a revival of revisionist historical narratives and victim denial. It is argued that the official recognition of forced labour as historical injustice made a mutually acceptable outcome possible in Germany and helped to shape a genuine historical memory in victim nations. In Japan, by contrast, an alliance of politicians, bureaucrats and academics has been reconsecrating revisionism as official position. The revisionist inability to recognize victims and admit mistakes has implications for South Korea as the rift between right-wing pro-revisionists and left-wing nationalists divides the country and prevents the formation of a shared collective memory. unintended consequences have dimmed prospects for a settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we develop a comprehensive Vector Autoregression Model consisting of five variables; the stock market and price indices of pairs of countries, as well as their bilateral nominal exchange rate. Then, we show that under certain long-run restrictions, our approach encompasses a large number of specifications encountered in the voluminous literature on testing for capital integration with cointegration techniques. This approach minimizes the risk of accepting the null of no cointegration between the equity price indices because of the introduction of additional stochastic trends through the transformation of those indices on a "real or nominal US dollar" basis. Furthermore, other interesting long run specifications emerge either with I(1) only stochastic shocks or with the presence of some I(2) disturbances characterizing the system. We apply the testing methodology on monthly data for the US, UK, Germany, and Japan for the period January 1980-May 2019. The main findings provide partial support in favor of cointegration, and therefore for capital markets integration, among stock market indices when proper attention is given to issues like the identification and temporal stability of the cointegration vectors as well as the choice of units that the stock indices are expressed in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American business practices and views on Japanese management tend to dominate the management literature worldwide. This domination is at odds with the relatively meager attention given to the management practices of other successful countries in the world. This paper focuses on Germany, Europe's "economic giant." In 1990, West Germany produced 40 percent of the European Community's manufactured output (Warner and Campbell, 1993). Its export power is unparalleled; Germany's volume of world trade nearly equals that of the much larger United States. Its exports are, and have been since the 1960s, twice as high, per capita, as Japan's (e.g., Heiduk and Yamamura, 1990; The Economist, 1993). This paper aims to identify the key to German-style management, by which we mean the unique, culturally embedded management practices within Germany. In order to provide a realistic picture of a national management style, one has to consider behavioral as well as institutional aspects of the business system (see Whitley, 1992, 1994). In this paper, both types of aspects are combined in an integrative fashion. Compared with management in other European countries, German-style management has received a lot of academic attention. Surprisingly, however, the number of empirical studies on this topic is rather limited. In order to identify the key to German-style management, we analyzed a representative set of empirical research studies that focused on management styles and systems in different countries, including Germany. To enrich our analysis, we also considered essays and noncomparative literature on German management. These essays provide information on the background conditions of the German business system which cannot be neglected in order to achieve an understanding of German-style management. After characterizing the empirical literature, this paper offers an overview of the unique features of German-style management. Attention is then focused on the current economic situation in Germany and the future potential of German-style management. The epilogue points out knowledge gaps and formulates needs for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Starting from industry 4.0 in Germany and followed by the New Strategy for American Innovation in the USA and the smartization strategy in Japan, developed countries are pushing nation-wide innovation strategies. Similarly, China is pursuing the Made in China 2025, and Korea announced the Manufacturing Industry Innovation 3.0 strategy. However, few researchers have identified the industrial structure that establishes the foundation of the 4th Industrial Revolution or have derived strengths and weaknesses to provide implications on policy formulation through quantitative comparison with developed countries. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the spillover effect of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry (the foundation of the 4th Industrial Revolution) and machinery·equipment industry (the foundation of smart manufacturing through convergence with ICT industry).Design/methodology/approach This study examines the industrial spillover effects of the ICT industry and machinery·equipment industry in the USA, Germany, Japan, China and Korea by using the World Input–Output Table from 2000 to 2014.Findings The results showed that backward linkage effect of the ICT Industry are high in the order of Korea≑China>Japan>the USA≑Germany, and forward linkage effect of the ICT industry are high in the order of Japan ≑> the USA≑Korea ≑> China ≑> Germany. Backward linkage effects of the machinery·equipment industry are high in the order of China>Japan≑Korea>the USA>Germany, and forward linkage effects of the machinery·equipment industry are high in the order of China>Korea>Germany≑Japan≑the USA.Practical implications China and Korea encourage active government investment in ICT and machinery·equipment industries, especially the intentional convergence between ICT and machinery·equipment industries is expected be generate higher synergy. The "innovation in manufacturing" strategy in the USA that utilizes its strength in ICT services seems appropriate, whereas Germany needs to revitalize the ICT industry to strengthen its manufacturing industry. Japan's strategy is to focus its ICT capabilities on robot sector. While the scope of innovation is limited, its synergy is worth expecting.Originality/value This study attempted to provide a theoretical approach to the determination of national policy strategies and provide practical implications for response to the impacts of the 4th Industrial Revolution, by comparing the inducement effects of ICT and machinery·equipment industries between major countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porter has argued that the U.S. capital investment system is deficient relative to those in Germany and Japan and this has caused a decline in the competitiveness of U.S. corporations. He suggests the increasing importance of financial institutions has led to transient ownership which encourages firms to focus on the short term. This paper argues that the openness and diversity of opinion encouraged by the U.S. financial system has significant advantages and transient ownership is consistent with firms taking a long view. It is suggested that the competitiveness of German and Japanese corporations may he due to the managerial incentives made possible by high growth rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the association between the use of advanced manufacturing practices and the choice of information and reward systems, and explores the impact of these choices on organizational performance. Although advanced manufacturing practices such as total quality management (TQM) have been widely adopted over the past decade, surveys indicate that most of these initiatives have not yielded significant economic benefits (e.g., Mathews and Katel [1992] and The Economist [1992]). Many accounting researchers charge that the poor performance of many new manufacturing initiatives is due in part to continued reliance on traditional management accounting systems that do not provide appropriate problem-solving data, performance measures, and reward systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The projected introduction of conditional automated driving systems to the market has sparked multifaceted research on human–machine interfaces (HMIs) for such systems. By moderating the roles of the human driver and the driving automation system, the HMI is indispensable in avoiding side effects of automation such as mode confusion, misuse, and disuse. In addition to safety aspects, the usability of HMIs plays a vital role in improving the trust and acceptance of the automated driving system. This paper aggregates common research methods and findings based on an extensive literature review. Empirical studies, frameworks, and review articles are included. Findings and conclusions are presented with a focus on study characteristics such as test cases, dependent variables, testing environments, or participant samples. These methods and findings are discussed critically, taking into consideration requirements for usability assessments of HMIs in the context of conditional automated driving. The paper concludes with a derivation of recommended study characteristics framing best practice advice for the design of experiments. The advised selection of scenarios and metrics will be applied in a future validation study series comprising a driving simulator experiment and three real driving experiments on test tracks in Germany, the USA, and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of opportunity in higher education and the recognition of the influence of academic research on economic development have motivated policy reforms in many national systems of higher education including Japan. Many of these national reforms involve facilitating market forces in higher education, which is a new context for many universities. What has been learned about the impacts of these policies on the university sector? This paper will review research on the three primary policy instruments for creating market competition in a sector: policies altering the basic conditions of a market -- the framework laws and values within which universities operate; policies affecting market structure -- the number of buyers and sellers, the pricing of goods and services, freeing and simulating markets; and policies directly affecting the conduct of buyers and sellers -- government regulation and the provision of information. Given the recent regulatory developments in Japanese higher education, the paper will particularly focus on the design of quality assurance policies in the university sector.

What is it about afterschool that gives it so much potential to powerfully influence educational best practices around the world? This paper will explore what truly defines "afterschool" beyond the time- and location-based pedagogy of the term and will make the case for the use of "expanded learning" or "expanded opportunities" as the terms that most clearly describe this critical time of youth learning and development. This paper will explore the cultural and bureaucratic differences countries have that influence how young people spend their time and what those differences say about a country's views on child development and its aspirations for its youth. Beyond an exploration of cultural differences, this paper will also discuss the trends that are influencing our international efforts to shift the view of expanded learning programs beyond a safe place to keep children occupied while their parents work, toward a fundamental space for child development and educational innovation.

Abstract: A growing research stream has expanded the level of analysis beyond single buyer–supplier relations to the network, including supplier–supplier relations. These supplier–supplier relations may constitute a missing link between the traditional analysis of the dyadic and the network level of analysis that are often treated separately. This paper explores the interplay of the supplier–supplier and network of analysis by focusing on the inherent tension between cooperation and competition, using a multiple case study design in the Japanese and German automobile industries. It is argued that the buyer is able to exert influence not only on the coopetition level, so within “horizontal supply chain relations,” but that the coopetitive tension in the overall network can in fact be managed through the active establishment and maintenance of such relations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary The Great Recession triggered a resurgence of short-time work (STW) throughout the OECD. Several countries introduced STW from scratch or significantly expanded the scope of the programmes already in place. In some countries like Italy, Japan and Germany between 2.5% and 5% of the workforce participated in STW schemes at the trough of the recession. In this paper we analyse the rationale for STW benefits and their effects on labour adjustment from both a cross-country and a time-series perspective. We find that STW actually contributed to reduce job losses during the Great Recession. However, the number of jobs saved, according to our macroeconomic and microeconomic estimates, is smaller than the number of participants in these schemes and the full-time equivalent jobs involved, pointing in some countries to sizeable deadweight costs. Other institutions, like plant-level bargaining over hours, wages and employment levels, may be more effective than STW in encouraging adjustment along the intensive margins in the presence of temporary shocks. Our results also suggest that STW cannot be readily extended to countries having much different institutional configurations as the demand for STW is very much affected by other institutions such as employment protection legislation and the degree of centralization of collective bargaining. Furthermore, STW must be temporary as during upturns may actually negatively affect employment. We also find that specific design features of STW - such as experience-rating and disincentives to 100% reductions in working hours - are important in improving the cyclical properties of STW. - Tito Boeri and Herbert Bruecker [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]