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The concept of the industrial revolution remains central to most accounts of the birth of the modern world, including, whether consciously or not, standard interpretations of Japan's modern history. However, recent decades have seen a burgeoning of research into the onset of industrialisation in Britain and elsewhere in Europe that has led to a significant reassessment of what the classic industrial revolution actually involved. Historians of Japan understandably have little time to take such developments on board and have therefore tended to rely on what is now an out-dated model as the background against which to describe the Japanese experience of industrialisation and modernisation. The purpose of this 'think-piece'/literature survey is therefore to outline the ongoing reconceptualisation of the industrial revolution and to provide some examples, using the English-language literature, of the ways in which the work of historians of Japan in various fields might be viewed from the new angle that it offers. In this light, such work can be seen as opening a rare window on to ordinary lives over the distinctive course of the first non-Western example of a reconceptualised industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of demographic transition and falling birth rates has affected all industrialized countries for many years, and also most emerging countries. However, Japan is undoubtedly the one in which the consequences are already and will be the most extensive. The previously second economic power in the world has been overtaken by China, and the rivalry with this country is not only about industrial development but also about geopolitics. Indeed, the declining population of Japan threatens the long term economic, strategic and geopolitic future of the country. We explore three scenarios for the decades to come. In the first scenario, Japan takes no measures against its demographic plunge and needs to increase its military deterrence to secure its independence. In the second scenario, a moderate openness to immigration may mitigate the geo-economic consequences of the demographic issue. In the third one, the Chinese strategic threat may endanger the independence of Japan itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is often surrounded by the myth of featuring a unique "love for nature", and its traditional culture and lifestyle as having been "in harmony with nature" before it was corrupted by modernization and Westernization. In this paper, I employ three examples to delineate images of nature in different times of Japanese history and point out the discrepancy between discourse on nature and physical engagement with nature. I argue that the environmental destruction that peaked in the Meiji period (1868–1912) is not primarily derived from a new, dualistic Euro-American understanding of nature. Rather, I demonstrate that environmental harm was already inherent in premodern Japan and was reconcilable with the respective concepts of nature. Therefore, industrialization and the adoption of Western technology solely released the potential for large-scale environmental impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I use new evidence from servant contracts, 1610–1890, to estimate male farm wages and the length of the work year in Japan. I show Japanese laborers were surprisingly poor and could only sustain 2–3 adults relative to 7 adults for the English. Japanese wages were the lowest among pre-industrial societies and this was driven by Malthusian population pressures. I also estimate the work year and find peasants worked 325 days a year by 1700, predating the "industrious" revolution in Europe. The findings imply Japan had a distinct labor-intensive path to industrialization, utilizing cheap labor over a long work year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1950s, historians have sought to explain industrial modernization in Meiji Japan as a model for developing countries. They typically attribute Japan's success to single factors such as accumulated knowledge or capital, visionary leadership, or technological choice. This article moves beyond mono-causality to examine technology transfer's role in industrial modernization. Tomioka Silk Filature and Osaka Cotton Spinning Mill make the case that components of industrialization were interrelated and a new socio-technological system was essential for technology transfer to affect a Kuhnian-style paradigm shift. Tomioka is an example of ad hoc industrialization, the gradual integration of transferred technologies, and creation of associated regimes leading to a new socio-technological system. In contrast, Osaka Cotton Mill embodies the creation of a new industrial paradigm for Japanese industry, demonstrating the essentiality of integrating numerous socio-technological elements such as adapted artifacts, bio-materials, accumulated knowledge, factory management, and geographic location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's Meiji oligarchs put a premium on technologies that projected "civilization" and "modernity" and operated under the assumption that industrial technologies could be operationalized reasonably promptly. Their faith flew in the face of production experience. The case of metallurgical coke manufacturing offers an example of what happened when imported technological systems dead-ended on the fctory floor. Examining the production records of a Meiji-era chemical start-up, this article brings to focus the scope and scale of the creative labor needed to make imported technologies work on the ground. In so doing, it showcases innovative forces that formed the fabric of Japan's early industrialization as a corrective to the much-criticized but resilient notion that the country's industrial takeoff was enabled largely by technology transfer and local appropriation. By highlighting the creativity involved in designing coal inputs, this article opens new perspectives on the history of coals in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the implementation of the production tests in permafrost and offshore regions in Canada, US, Japan, and China, the study of natural gas hydrate has progressed into the stage of technology development for industrial exploitation. The depressurization method is considered as a better strategy to produce gas from hydrate reservoirs based on production tests and laboratory experiments. Multi‐well production is proposed to improve gas production efficiency, to meet the requirement for industrial production. For evaluating the applicability of multi‐well production to hydrate exploitation, a 2D model is established, with numerical simulations of the performance of the multi‐well pattern carried out. To understand the dissociation behavior of gas hydrate, the pressure and temperature distributions in the hydrate reservoir are specified, and the change in permeability of reservoir sediments is investigated. The results obtained indicate that multi‐well production can improve the well connectivity, accelerate hydrate dissociation, enhance gas production rate and reduce water production as compared with single‐well production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines early disaster recovery and prevention planning projects in fishing port cities in the northern part of Japan after the 1933 Sanriku tsunami, the later modernization of those cities, and their current recovery from the 2011 Great Northern Japan earthquake. This work reframes the goal of disaster recovery and of disaster prevention planning in our society as social resilience —the ability of a community to cope with and adapt to stresses such as social, political, environmental, or economic change. Drawing on the author's field research in Kesennuma, this study also describes postwar economic and industrial development in fishing ports that changed social and spatial structures. It shows that postwar administration and planners ignored the prewar disaster recovery and prevention planning based on local social systems, which caused fundamental problems in redevelopment and disaster prevention planning after 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to measure the predictive value of future scenarios prepared using horizon scanning. The future scenarios prepared at the initiative of the Japanese Government have had low predictive value. They have frequently failed to contribute to industrial development and caused social loss. Horizon scanning, which is a key methodology applied in foresight activities, has begun to be used in countries as part of their national innovation systems in lieu of conventional forecasting methods based on the assumption of technological innovation. Research was conducted to actually measure the predictive value of future scenarios prepared using horizon scanning. Design/methodology/approach: An online survey in Japan was conducted on ordinary people's attitudes. The questionnaires presented 20 scenarios regarding future society, which were created with the conventional method or horizon scanning method. Findings: Survey results verified that horizon scanning-based scenarios provided significantly higher predictive value than scenarios prepared using conventional methods. Practical implications: Implication 1: By eliminating bias in input data and perspectives adopted when considering scenarios, it may be expected that scenarios will be derived that have even higher "predictive value." Implication 2: By setting the layers of anticipated outputs high and the fields broad, it may be expected that scenarios will be derived that have even greater "change." Originality/value: The relatively high rate for the predictive value of the horizon scanning method, more than 40%, validated in this study was significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the communication network of the Japanese pharmaceutical industry operated around the turn of the century to create spatial interactions across the national medicine market during a period of intense industrialization. In 1901, pharmaceutical wholesalers in Osaka compiled The Telegraph Codebook of Pharmacies in Japan to facilitate national trade in medicine, although its use was restricted to only the 177 pharmacies that joined the Pharmaceutical Telegraph Communication Alliance. This alliance had close ties with wholesalers in Osaka and comprised national-level qualified chemists. The use of this communication network by telegraph enabled the integration and progression of the Japanese pharmaceutical market in the early 20th century; however, pharmacies also began to build different and layered communication networks that corresponded to their respective business styles. Findings indicate that pharmacies used different communication networks of different spatial scales, thereby operating regional specialization and national integration networks simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a wise choice for a backward country to explore overseas education bases to find the training for urgently needed talents. In 1900, the Qing government began actively sending students to study advanced technology in Japan. From that time, Tokyo Higher Technical School (THTS) became an indispensable overseas base for Chinese students studying abroad. Although the educational resources of THTS were not superior to those of the imperial universities, returning THTS graduates played a greater role in the industrial modernisation of China than the graduates from imperial universities. This article shows that the role of importers of technology is not only determined by the technology they have acquired, but also highly influenced by a variety of factors, such as opportunity and social demand, presenting a complex and changeable pattern in different contexts. For developing countries, the 'appropriateness' plays a more important role than the 'progressiveness' of the imported technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several drowsiness detection technologies have been developed to combat traffic accidents. Drowsiness evaluation has been attempted using the time‐series changes in nasal skin temperature. However, constructing a detection model based on this has been difficult because recent studies have reported an individual difference in skin temperature behaviors. In this study, the conventional method of extracting features was revised. The model of the level of drowsiness was constructed based on facial skin temperature distribution using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The drowsiness level was developed by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization as an objective drowsiness evaluation index based on facial expressions. With CNNs, features related to learning can be observed as feature quantity distributions. As a result, a general model created has a lack of generality and it is thought that not only the response to drowsiness, but also face shape, exhibit individual differences. Consequently, different features were found in each subject. Through feature maps in individual models, it is believed that skin temperature changes have both reproducible and individual response characteristics to drowsiness, due to the asymmetric left–right change in feature quantity distribution depending on the observed drowsiness level. This method was compared with the conventional method of extracting other features related to drowsiness. It suggested that the skin temperature of not only the nasal region but also the entire face changes as drowsiness increases. Consequently, each discrimination rate calculated by the CNN was at least 20% higher than that obtained via conventional methods. © 2019 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1880 and 1910, Japanese exports increased in volume, changed composition, and shifted from leading industrialized countries toward poorer Asian neighbors. Using a new dataset disaggregated by product and trade partner for the universe of Japanese exports, we find extensive margins accounted for 30 percent of export growth, with trade costs and market size associated with successful market entry. There was also considerable persistence in maintaining market presence and exit was rare. These stylized facts provide insight into both the country's economic development, as reflected in its exported products, as well as the demand conditions of its trade partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on shaping of Modern Japan during the time of Tokugawa Shogunate. Topics including extraordinary growth in production, population and urbanization, rapid industrialization due to the economic surplus and the development of both reliable and effective transportation during the time period of Samurai and ways in which farming became more productive with improved patterns of cropping and the use of fertilizers.

This article analyzes how strategies for capitalist accumulation drove the industrialization of chicken husbandry and increased consumption of chicken products in Japan. By the start of the Showa era, leaders in the Japanese chicken industry sought to promote larger and more productive operations through the adoption of Western breeds. Following the upheaval of World War II, the US facilitated three major changes for Japanese chicken husbandry: expanded grain exports from the US in the 1950s; the importation of specialized breeds in the 1960s; and the Japanese industry’s emulation of American corporations in the 1970s. The connections between Mitsubishi and KFC-Japan illustrate how Japanese firms implemented new organizational structures that allowed them to profit from the chicken industry in multiple ways. I suggest that the increases in consumption of chicken meat and eggs in the Japanese diet indicate the advancement of capitalist strategies for overcoming the barriers to industrialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A once-dominant family of interpretations of the beginnings of Japanese and Russian development claimed that policies adopted by the two states were inadequate to modernize agrarian property relations, and so both states were required to mediate between premodern agriculture and “hot-house” modern industry. More recent accounts have insisted that despite the limited reforms to agrarian property relations, agriculture in both countries in fact dynamically participated in economic development. This paper contends that these revised accounts’ one-sided focus on market opportunities leaves unresolved key puzzles. Why did productivity growth jump higher after the Meiji reforms in Japan? Why did only some regions participate in agricultural development in Russia? To answer these questions, this paper argues it is necessary to return attention to the ways agrarian property relations did and did not change following reforms adopted by the two states in the 1860s and 1870s. The key theoretical upshot of this analysis is that the initiation of capitalist development required a political process in which institutions that had previously guaranteed non-market access of rural households to subsistence were dismantled in favor of the domination of market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial structure adjustment is one solution for responding economic slowdown and environmental problems occurred during China’s rapid industrialization. Such an adjustment may also lead to carbon emission reduction since it encourages industrial innovation and resource efficiency. However, few studies have been conducted on examining the effect of industrial structure adjustment on carbon emission reduction. Under such a circumstance, this study develops an integrated evaluation model based on Input-Output Analysis and Social Network Analysis to quantify the evolutionary trends of industrial structure, demonstrate the inner-relationship between different sectors and investigate the industrial structure-related carbon emissions. China and Japan were selected as case study countries. Results show that industrial structure was gradually improved in China and various connections were established between different sectors. For Japan, the industrial network densities were lower than for China and exhibited a downward trend that reflected the weakened relationship between different industries. Service sectors dominated the Japanese economy, as shown by the relatively higher degree centrality and betweenness centrality of service sectors. The electricity and heat production sector was further investigated to illustrate the industrial structure-related carbon emissions. Finally, this study concluded that compared to the industrial structure features in a developed country, such as Japan, China’s industrialization is still in its infancy. Thus, it is crucial to prepare industrial structure adjust policies so that the overall social-economic performance can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Robert Bellah's engagement with Japan in formulating his communitarian critique of American individualism. Bellah's early contribution to post–World War II modernization studies, Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan, embraced the Weberian framework of social development, but it also described a system that departed from Weber's narrative of liberalization and rationalization in important ways. Bellah argued that in early modern Japan, the profit motive was contained by social obligations and ethical rules. Through his explorations of Japan, Bellah articulated a critique of liberal individualism, drawing on Japanese cultural nationalism in his search for a modern, capitalist system that could be contained by overarching cultural and moral values. One finds a surprising resonance between Bellah's ideal of American “civil religion” and the ideas of interwar philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō and Watsuji's own critique of liberalism and popular democracy as lacking cultural foundations. Bellah's engagement with Watsuji reveals the tensions within Bellah's thought and in his subsequent call for community in America as a means of overcoming the excesses of American individualism. This article considers both the contributions and the limits of Bellah's attempt to invoke Japan as an alternative modernity in Japan studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation has challenged the way industrial development takes place. Fragmented and decentralised global production and the rapid growth of consumer markets in emerging economies demand a more sophisticated framework to analyse development paths than does the dichotomy of export orientation and import substitution. This article proposes a typology based on (a) specialisation in the global value chain and (b) market orientation to distinguish different development trajectories and then applies the typology to mobile phone manufacturing in four East Asian countries. This study finds that globalisation does not lead to the convergence of development paths, but promotes cross-national divergence depending on countries’ positions in the value chain and market niches. Both Korea and Taiwan emerge as key players in global markets, yet in different parts of the global value chain. Their common orientation toward global markets strikingly contrasts the inability of Japanese firms to translate their domestic success overseas. Finally, Chinese firms concurrently engage in different development paths, making the country’s multi-path approach unique. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of industrial development in East Asia in an era of globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To develop appropriate recycling industries, EID practices should be based not only on technologies but also on user practices, regulations, infrastructure, and social norms especially policy. The Ministry of Environment, Japan (MOEJ) has attempted to promote the effectiveness of recycling activities in Eco-Towns and improve recycling activity by implementing policies. The aim of this study is to evaluate how to make EID initiatives more effective through the implementation of recycling activities. In particular, we analyzed comparatively the performance improvement effect of implementing recycling boundaries and local and national policies on recycling industries located from 2007 to 2012 in Eco-Towns after the cessation of the Eco-Town program. The SMC blocks policy and the advanced Eco-Town program have played important roles in supporting recycling business after the program. Main results were three points as the analysis on these policies. First, changes in the operating rates varied by the waste type. Second, operating performance had improved slightly in the targeted period. Third, the relationship between the recycling boundary and operational performance is a crucial point, and especially importance of supply side policy, which means recycled product purchase support. The idea of waste supply chain management should be applied to recycling policy and Japanese empirical analysis would be useful for provision of general framework. Maintaining this type of temporal monitoring would be useful to better understand the mechanisms of recycling activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrialization was a kingpin in Japan's fast transition from an isolationist country to a great power, beginning in the last decades of the nineteenth century. As industrialization demands a technical know-how, and self-sufficiency was a main point in Japan's development goals, basic scientific higher education, especially in physics, played an important role in its nation building project. Relying on secondary sources, the present article shows how Japan proceeded from a stage of policy experimentation and foreign assistance to a stage of effective organization and independence as a country, in a system where educational, governmental and military institutions worked closely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term urban resilience requires urban systems with the capacity to respond to change and disturbance and to enhance the conditions for lasting wellbeing. Over the past century Tokyo has demonstrated impressive resilience, especially a capacity to reorganise and rebuild in response to successive major disturbances. Throughout these recoveries, the city-region maintained a focus on re-establishing, improving and maintaining international competitiveness through industrial development. Green spaces in Tokyo provided a flexible, but gradually disappearing resource. Today, to meet the needs of its ageing and minimally expanding population for enhanced wellbeing, Tokyo requires active transition planning covering many intertwined factors, but the adaptive capacity provided by the green space resource is no longer available. The Tokyo case underscores the risk inherent in the depletion of non-renewable resources (in this instance, green space) to secure immediate recovery and accommodate growth and short-term resilience at the expense of long-term resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We empirically analyzed the relationship between the change in industrial structure and urbanization using post-WWII data from Japanese prefectures. This study used three concepts of industrial structure, standard industrialization (enhancing of the non- agricultural sector), service industrialization, and the industrial upgrading (enhancing specialized service industries). We also focused on the different patterns of migration in the process of urbanization: intra-prefectural and inter-prefectural migration. The main results of the regression analysis are (1) during the period of rapid economic growth in Japan, industrialization induced population inflow from other prefectures, and this effect promoted urbanization in those prefectures. (2) During the same period, prefectures with relatively high shares of manufacturing attracted many migrants from other prefectures, and this effect promoted the urbanization. (3) Entering the period of economic stagnation, in the prefectures where industrial upgrading is advanced, intra- prefectural migration was active, and urbanization was also advanced by this effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese gastronomy relies upon seasonality and centuriesold Zen Buddhist principles in methods of cooking, types of ingredients, and colors of food on the plate. But its practitioners and proponents have also mythologized its high-end cuisine. At the same time as Japan was undergoing the most rapid industrialization in history, fantasies about nature, and its role in cooking, developed. These fantasies exist within Japan as well as when its gastronomy is discussed with outsiders to the culture. Long ago, the fantasies served Japan's expansionist goals, and nowadays they contribute to the creation of a global brand--the idea that Japanese food has a native superiority. In addition, the fantasies distract consumers from environmental insult; the talk of Japanese love and respect of nature is at odds with the reality of its industrialization and urban sprawl. When Japanese chefs discuss the ideas behind the food they cook, they can resort to fables, and the psychology of what the food is said to be about has little to do with the pragmatic demands of what goes on in the kitchen. In fact, Japanese gastronomy, as is true of any other national cuisine, has examples of food that represent the nation, but are not rooted in myth. Such food has more to do with cooking than myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National material stock (MS) accounts have been a neglected field of analysis in industrial ecology, possibly because of the difficulty in establishing such accounts. In this research, we propose a novel method to model national MS based on historical material flow data. This enables us to avoid the laborious data work involved with bottom-up accounts for stocks and to arrive at plausible levels of stock accumulation for nations. We apply the method for the United States and Japan to establish a proof of concept for two very different cases of industrial development. Looking at a period of 75 years (1930-2005), we find that per capita MS has been much higher in the United States for the entire period, but that Japan has experienced much higher growth rates throughout, in line with Japan's late industrial development. By 2005, however, both Japan and the United States arrive at a very similar level of national MS of 310 to 375 tonnes per capita, respectively. This research provides new insight into the relationship between MS and flows in national economies and enables us to extend the debate about material efficiency from a narrow perspective of throughput to a broader perspective of stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's Hokkaido region is popularly known as “Milkland,” underscoring the importance of the local dairy industry. Nevertheless, milk production costs in Japan are much higher than in surrounding nations and in order to bolster the domestic industry, for example justifying large subsidies, a constant “crisis state” has to be maintained by government and related agencies. In this paper I argue that the rhetoric of food security has a particular and lengthy history in Japan. It is generally communicated in terms of safety, risk, and self-sustainability, the need to protect Japan and Japanese from a series of ever-contingent threats both real and imagined. Concomitantly, there are essential misunderstandings between governmental agencies and dairy farmers rooted in the different identities and livelihoods that arise in “culturing” differing agricultures. As a result, official agencies claiming to protect the dairy industry in fact, through a mix of nationalist imagination and bio-scientific ignorance, work against it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Under the pressures of rapid industrialization and urbanization, many Asian countries are facing the challenge of reducing air pollution and CO2 emissions simultaneously while maintaining their economic growth. Under such a circumstance, a growing attention is focused on successful implementation of co-benefit policies that are designed to reduce both air pollutants and CO2 emissions. However, the concept of co-benefit policies must be developed further in order to identify its quantitative and qualitative validity, which can be assessed using a reliable methodology for the estimation of co-benefits and through clarification of the importance of this approach for stakeholders in urban environmental policy-making. Based on a systematic review of co-benefit research and air pollution control policies in Japan, we investigated the local air pollution control policy in Kawasaki City, one of the industrial centers of Japan, and confirmed that it has contributed both to the sharp decline of atmospheric sulfur dioxide (SO2) levels and to energy efficiency improvements in local industries. Our results suggest that preventive actions and local-scale compliance enforcement tools (that are uniquely designed and act as a form of agreement between government and individual firms) could contribute significantly to successful implementation of co-benefit policies in the long-term. We conclude our paper with a discussion of linkages between low-carbon technology innovations and policy designs that could further nurture co-benefits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study focuses on a comparison of the three most popularsakariba(entertainment districts) in Tokyo of the late 1920s and 1930s to highlight the new role of leisure in everyday life as Japan industrialized and urbanized. The comparison of Asakusa, Ginza and Shinjuku shows that even as Japan became a mass society, leisure practices and patterns became stratified and diversified. This stratification and diversification reflected class, age and cultural tastes. The threesakaribadeveloped distinctive characters and attractions for consumers, raising challenges to mass culture critics’ assumption that the rise of mass culture and commodity culture would lead to homogenization of taste and recreational products and a lack of consumer choice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information on the social development in Japan, with reference to Meiji Restoration. It states that Japan has enforced its social and cultural infrastructures necessary for modern industrial society through rapid social development since the Meiji Restoration. It mentions that first established domestic imperial reign in ancient Japan is called the Yamato Imperial court.

The Heat Transfer Society of Japan (HTSJ), herein “the Society,” was founded in 1961. A series of events have been held to commemorate its 50th anniversary during 2011–2012. I participated in the events, talking and writing on the history of the Society. This article is based on the materials I collected for my roles in the events, my recollections of the past, and my personal considerations about the Society and heat transfer research. Throughout the article I attempt to explain the Society's history in the light of organizational, technological, and industrial developments that have proceeded in the universities and the industry in the past 50 years. The Society made its start as a nationwide coalition of study groups organized by the founding academics. A symbolic feat of heat transfer research at the time, known as the Nukiyama curve, is briefly described. The evolution of the Society in subsequent years mirrors the industrial developments in Japan. The Society's commitments to the international heat transfer community are summarized. Also, the issue of industry/academia collaboration is discussed. Finally, a short discussion on the present and future generations of HTSJ members concludes the article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the emergence of eco-cities in Japan from a much needed historical perspective. Since Japan's rapid industrialization in the late nineteenth century, there has been an emphasis on economic growth at all costs. Despite the introduction of the concept of the Garden City in Japan in the early twentieth century, industrialization continued unabated. After a disastrous World War II, the nation rebuilt and enjoyed rapid economic growth in the 1950s and 1960s. Japan is still coming to terms with the cost of that economic growth. The paper examines three cities: Minamata, Kitakyūshū, and Kawasaki. Minamata has transformed itself from being a polluted city to a green tourism destination. The city of Kitakyūshū embraced an eco-town strategy in 1997 to promote a structural shift away from heavy industries to green industries. That year, Kawasaki (close to the Tokyo Metropolitan area), too, was designated an eco-town and Minamata received the same title in 2001. This paper identifies key features of eco-cities/eco-towns in Japan, the importance of retrofitting, and examines the roles of citizens, the government, and the private sector. What is surprising is the international orientation of Japanese eco-cities. These cities represent not only Japan's future, but also its efforts to deal with its industrial past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-speed rail in infrastructure construction has become a priority worldwide, and vast investments have been made; therefore, it has become increasingly necessary to appropriately assess regional economic impact, and more importantly, to deliberate policy to improve regional industrial development. This paper looks at the impacts of Shinkansen lines on industrial locations in Japan. Unlike previous research, this study investigates both socioeconomic factors and physical determinants through an empirical industrial location model and multivariable stepwise regressions. The results indicate that during the period of 1990-2000, the dominant driving force of industrial location has changed from industrial transaction interdependence to population consumption demand. The elasticity of accessibility to the Shinkansen network has also shown an increasing trend from 1990 to 2000. Further expansion of Shinkansen lines would encourage the development of several industries, such as real estate, commerce, and services, and would thus contribute to forming the regional economic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The recent events at the Fukushima power plants (PP) have brought to light key issues which have to be discussed concerning the position of nuclear energy in the energy mix, in the context of global warming, of waning petroleum resources, of an increasing world population, and of its industrial development. These questions are addressed here from the viewpoint of physical facts; and, without proposing definite choices, this article aims to provide information on the equipment required to benefit from the fission chain reaction, while explaining the possible incidents and accidents, and the possible hidden military misuse of nuclear matter. Specific issues, such as risk assessment and risk management, will be considered, under the constraints of dealing with international non-proliferation safeguards and France energy resources independence. A special emphasis will be given on the fuel cycle, on the variety of time scales involved, and on the requirements of developing the next generation of nuclear power plants, and more specifically the fast breeder option. The lessons to be drawn from the Fukushima accident, resulting mainly from the residual power of used fuel and the loss of cooling source, are outlined, and the consequences to be drawn about the various relevant time scales are emphasized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The mortality rate in Japan increased from the late nineteenth century until World War I. However, immediately after the influenza pandemic (1918–1920), the Spanish flu, the mortality rate began to decrease. While it is generally recognized that one of the major factors for this phenomenon was the decreasing mortality rate in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, there are a few studies regarding the regional variation of mortality rate in this period. Actually, trends of mortality rate fluctuated with prefecture and cause of death and were obviously different from the trends in metropolitan areas in particular causes of death. Respiratory tuberculosis is a typical example of such a cause of death. Youth accounted for the large part of victims of tuberculosis in the between-war period. The high mortality of youth female factory workers was recognized as an especially serious social problem. Thus, the issue of tuberculosis should be discussed from the viewpoint of not only an individual's health but also its implications on national efficiency, economic management, and rural life. In this study, we focus on the regional variation of tuberculosis mortality and analyze it by a quantitative approach adopting socioeconomic variables. As a result, we present a risk model of regional variation of tuberculosis mortality. The model suggests that the regional variation can be explained as an effect of urbanization and industrialization. Therefore, it could be concluded that tuberculosis mortality was a proxy variable for human cost of economic growth in modern Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary The notion of a (socio-) metabolic transition has been used to describe fundamental changes in socioeconomic energy and material use during industrialization. During the last century, Japan developed from a largely agrarian economy to one of the world's leading industrial nations. It is one of the few industrial countries that has experienced prolonged dematerialization and recently has adopted a rigorous resource policy. This article investigates changes in Japan's metabolism during industrialization on the basis of a material flow account for the period from 1878 to 2005. It presents annual data for material extraction, trade, and domestic consumption by major material group and explores the relations among population growth, economic development, and material (and energy) use. During the observed period, the size of Japan's metabolism grew by a factor of 40, and the share of mineral and fossil materials in domestic material consumption (DMC) grew to more than 90%. Much of the growth in the Japanese metabolism was based on imported materials and occurred in only 20 years after World War II (WWII), when Japan rapidly built up large stocks of built infrastructure, developed heavy industry, and adopted patterns of mass production and consumption. The surge in material use came to an abrupt halt with the first oil crisis, however. Material use stabilized, and the economy eventually began to dematerialize. Although gross domestic product (GDP) grew much faster than material use, improvements in material intensity are a relatively recent phenomenon. Japan emerges as a role model for the metabolic transition but is also exceptional in many ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a retrospective look at the Japanese model of industrial development. This model combined an institutional approach to production based around the Japanese Firm (Aoki's, J-mode) and strategic state intervention in industry by the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). For a long period, the alignment of state and corporate interests appeared to match the wider public interest as the Japanese economy prospered. However, since the early 1990s, the global ambitions of the corporate sector have contributed to a significant ‘hollowing out’ of Japan's industrial base. As the world today looks for a new direction in economic management, we suggest the Japanese model provides policy-makers with a salutary lesson in tying the wider public interest with those of the corporate sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Korea’s space development program was created almost 40 years behind those of the advanced countries but it has nevertheless made remarkable progress. Korean space development has been focused on technology catch-up, where commercialization and growth of industrial competitiveness are important rationales. However, the program has several problems, including: lack of a space equipment manufacturing industry, total system companies in the space manufacturing industry and communication between industry and researchers, and much concentration of projects and initiatives in the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). This study analyzes the problem by comparing space agencies and programs in Korea and other countries, particularly Japan and the USA. It is shown that the role of a national laboratory is critical in space industry development and argued that KARI should make greater efforts to promote the Korean space industry by encouraging technology transfer, sharing equipment and communication between companies. For successful space development, the main organization – usually the national research institute – should change its role from a research-only laboratory to manager and supporter of space development and industry. Such a move would invigorate Korea’s space industry and allow it to catch up with countries with a similar environment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT An empirical regularity designated as the Number-Average Size (NAS) Rule was first identified for the case of Japan by , and subsequently extended to the United States by . This rule asserts a negative log-linear relation between the number and average population size of cities where a given industry is present. In this paper, we utilize the cluster-identification methodology developed by to sharpen this notion of 'industrial presence' by focusing only on cities that constitute at least part of a significant spatial agglomeration for the given industry. Our key result is to show that the NAS rule continues to hold (even more strongly) under this sharper definition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the standpoint of Eriksonian theory, this study examined the growth of a virtue called competence, and the effects of competence on the development of industry based on identity, by analyzing two cases which were extreme opposites. The Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki and Ryunosuke Akutagawa were both born in the Meiji Era in Tokyo, achieved good records at school, and became popular novelists while still young, yet their competence virtues were opposites. Why was their virtue of competence opposite despite their very similar careers? The results of a comparative analysis of their biographies showed that Tanizaki was unconditionally loved, disciplined with tolerance, and that he developed firm competence based on his previous virtues. On the other hand, the early growth of Akutagawa's virtues was impeded by an environment with strict discipline but without mutual regulation, and he developed a precocious conscience. Therefore, Akutagawa could not show initiative, his virtue of "purpose" was limited, and ultimately he could not develop a sense of competence. Tanizaki continued to display industry based on the identity of a novelist, while Akutagawa could not choose a novelist's identity and continued to display compulsive output based on his precocious conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The north Kanto area is about 150 km north of the heavily populated and industrialized Tokyo metropolis, and local emissions of photochemical oxidants (Ox) precursors are limited because of little anthropogenic emission. Nevertheless, high Ox concentrations exceeding the warning level for Ox (>120 ppbv, 1-h average) are often observed there. We recently reported that high Ox concentrations in the north Kanto area occur under the coupled conditions of a southerly extended sea breeze transporting Ox from the southern urban area and a subsidence inversion layer restricting vertical dispersion. However, these meteorological conditions do not always lead to high Ox concentrations. To identify other conditions affecting the occurrence of high Ox concentrations in north Kanto, we examined meteorological conditions. Key meteorological structures were two thermal lows occurring on sunny days in districts neighboring the Kanto district on the west and north. When both thermal lows persisted in their morning positions until evening, a southerly sea breeze toward the thermal lows was maintained throughout the afternoon, transporting high levels of Ox formed in south Kanto, including Tokyo, to north Kanto. When a thermal low present only in the western district moved eastward to cover the central Kanto area during the afternoon, isobars in north Kanto acquired an east–west orientation and observed wind direction became consistently northerly, thus restricting transport of high Ox from south Kanto. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the twentieth century Japan embarked on an economic developmental path that came to be known as the Flying Geese Model. The geopolitical milieu after the Second World War provided Japan with favourable conditions for rapid economic growth and industrialization. By the 1950s, many had noticed the success of the model and it was subsequently adopted by other East Asian countries. They too enjoyed decades of remarkable economic growth. An important element of the model is growth driven by export to the USA and Europe. As a result of the 2008 financial crisis, the traditional markets of the geese are shrinking. The new situation poses grave challenges to both the existing flying geese economies and latecomer economies which wish to follow the model. East Asian countries are responding to the situation by broadening and deepening their existing economic linkages and developing new ones. This represents a continuation of East Asian regionalism in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

Abstract: This paper assesses the potentials of the available time series (50 years+) from historical records of the pre-industrial period until c. 1850–1950. A number of historical records from commercially important fish species are available for examining natural variability of fish stocks. Especially for North Atlantic and Japanese fisheries historical data have been retrieved from archives and museums, which cover time spans of 50–350 years. This makes it possible to examine natural variability of fish stocks over a much longer time span than what is normally possible with modern survey data and commercial catch data. Furthermore, historical evidence from the pre-industrialized period have the benefit of stemming from a period in time, when fishing had an insignificant impact on the abundance of open sea fish stocks. The best material comes from cod and herring fisheries, where it is possible to reconstruct CPUE as accurate as catch per boat per day absent, as well as changing spatial distribution over longer time periods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper aims to present and discuss social change and social policy in Japan after the mid-20th century from a sociological viewpoint. Japanese social change and social policy from the mid-20th century onward can be categorized into three models in chronological order: escape from mass poverty by means of industrialization, improvement of the social security system to establish a welfare state, and parallel progress of aspiration for a welfare society and workfare. Defined concretely, these are (1) the period that established and improved social security, which started immediately after the end of World War II and ended in 1973, when Japan began to suffer from low growth after enjoying high growth; (2) the period in which finance for social security was adjusted, halfway through which the country experienced a bubble economy; and (3) the period after the 1990s, in which the structural reform of social security went hand-in-hand with labor policy and the advent of globalization. In each of the three periods, the direction of social policy was affected by factors that caused changes in such areas as industrial structure (the decline of agriculture), demographic structure (an aging society), and family structure and work pattern (the growing trend of nuclear families, single-person households, and irregular employment). In Japan, life security now attracts increasing attention, and employment security rather than social security has been the central issue. As it is greatly affected by globalization, employment security grows less conspicuous and makes the vulnerability of social security grow more conspicuous. Social policy has the potential to become an area with which to struggle for national integration and fissures between social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Industrial growth in Japan''s largest cities has followed patterns that are distinctive, and are significantly different from those that have been adduced in the recent literature on North America. This paper focuses on Tokyo, and in particular its north-eastern part, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that a process of ‘industrial urbanisation’ occurred in Japan''s capital city, a process that was shaped by the existence of a large proto-industrial base and sophisticated consumer economy and characterised by dynamic but disorderly growth in factories largely supplying consumer goods to the urban market. The paper reviews the disparate, not to say confused, nature of industrial growth in Tokyo, noting the variety in factory size and products as well as production methods. Central to the argument of this paper is that industrialisation preceded attempts at urban planning and that the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation occurred concurrently, laying the base thereby for the large mixed-function districts that became a common feature of Japanese cities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents the research on the industrialization and the building of Modern Japan. It mentions several perspectives on how the Meiji period economy of Japan, from 1868-1912, came in the modern era. It mentions the succeeding modernization of South Korea and Taiwan whose economic systems have gained in some point from competing the policies of Japan and constructing their colonial legacies. It states that the urban orientation of manufacturers and the advancement from low to high value-added fabrication demonstrate the feasibility of changing the foreign practices and the technology to settings of non-Western.

Until today a utilitarian approach subsists to analyze the human effects of the process of economic-technological change called industrialization. In this essay we review the extraeconomic costs that this process has meant in the case of Japan, the second economic power of the global world, from a multidisciplinary perspective. We focus in the observable most recent phenomena in the social sphere that resulted from the reindustrialization of Japan under the regime of the Occupation led by the United States. In this paper we indicate if the USA's hegemony in Japan caused a development of most egalitarian and sustainable society in ecological terms, or, on the contrary a market society serving the best interest of USA dependent and incapable to contribute to the formation of a market society centered on world-wide scale in Eastern Asia and based on a greater equality between the civilizations of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has been a key player in the global competition based on scientific and technological innovation. Through a series of Science and Technology Basic Plans, the national government sought to restructure the country's approach to scientific and technological development, with initiatives ranging from a fundamental restructuring of public universities to major investments in regional clusters. Collaboration with business has likewise been a centerpiece of the Japan strategy, as has high level political leadership of the broad initiative. This paper examines the international and national context of Japanese innovation, outlines the core elements of the Japanese innovation strategy, and provides preliminary observations about the first decade of the country's extensive efforts to establish Japan as a global leader in the commercialization of science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]