Search

Drawing on multi-year fieldwork in two wine regions in two emerging wine producing counties, namely Erlin in Taiwan and the Kofu Basin in Japan, this paper discusses key institutional arrangements contributing the development processes of wine sector in the New-New World. Unlike existing studies on the catch-up experiences of wine industries in the New World with emphases on the capability-enhancing mechanisms embedded in the state- or MNC-initiated trans-local networks, this paper finds that the development of Taiwanese and Japanese wine sectors in these two regions has been driven mainly by local actors' active exploration of competence residing in their regional networks. This article employs the Triple Helix (TH) and Innovation systems (IS) as principal frameworks to narrow the research focus on the industry-government-university interaction, and examine the development process and nature of critical institutions supporting the interactive learning and collaboration among the TH actors. Through studying the cases of Taiwanese and Japanese wine industries, this paper goes beyond stating "institutions matter" as in existing IS and TH literature, by illuminating on how to develop institutions to allow actors' interaction to occur and be boosted especially when their local TH are still in the early phase of formation. • This article explains key mechanisms influencing the development of two newly-emerged wine-producing countries. • It provides cases demonstrating the effectiveness of the Triple Helix and Innovation systems as principal frameworks. • It illuminates how to develop institutions to allow enhanced interaction between actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stigmatization of children with disabilities at school is a culturally widespread social justice challenge. The paper is the second of a two-part series. In the first paper (Haight, Kayama, Ku, Cho, & Lee, 2016), we described the problem of stigmatization from the perspectives of experienced elementary school educators in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US. In this paper, we focus on the solutions provided by these same educators; specifically, their perspectives on socialization practices to minimize stigmatization and support the development of self for children with disabilities and their typically-developing peers. We conducted cross-cultural analyses of individual, semi-structured, audio recorded interviews with 26 Japanese, 43 South Korean, 16 Taiwanese and 18 US educators, including school social workers. Educators from all research sites described socialization practices to support children with disabilities and their typically-developing peers. For children with disabilities, US educators focused on individualized support provided in private to minimize stigmatization. East Asian educators intentionally involved peers in supporting children with disabilities. For typically-developing peers, educators described cultivating empathy (Japan), providing formal disability awareness programs (South Korea), teaching moral values (Taiwan) and respecting individual differences (US). We discuss these socialization practices within educators' sociocultural-historical contexts. Educators' perspectives can be used to develop culture- and stigma-sensitive intervention programs for children with disabilities and their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stigmatization of individuals with disabilities is a widespread social justice issue. This paper introduces a study of disability, stigmatization and self for children with disabilities and their typically-developing peers. It is the first of two companion papers. It examines the problem of stigmatization from the perspectives of experienced elementary school educators practicing in diverse cultural contexts. We conducted cross-cultural analyses of individual, audio recorded interviews with 26 Japanese, 43 Korean, 16 Taiwanese and 18 US educators, including school social workers. Educators from all four cultural groups described disability and stigma as challenging children's development of self: children with disabilities may experience the self as isolated and inadequate, and typically-developing peers may experience the self as lacking culturally expected values of empathy and respect. Educators' understandings of children's experiences also were culturally nuanced. Educators variously described children with disabilities as experiencing a sense of not belonging [Japan], loss of motivation [South Korea], too much shame [Taiwan], and low self-esteem [US]. They variously described typically-developing children as challenged to show empathy [Japan], include children with disabilities in their peer group [South Korea], develop benevolence [Taiwan], and show respect for individual differences [US]. We contextualize educators' perceptions within their specific sociocultural-historical contexts. Our second paper will focus on solutions; specifically, educators' perspectives on how to minimize stigmatization and support the development of self for children with disabilities and their typically-developing peers. Together, these companion papers provide social workers with valuable perspectives for eliminating the stigmatization of children with disabilities in future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper compares the development of genomics as a form of state project in Japan and Taiwan. Broadening the concepts of genomic sovereignty and bionationalism, I argue that the establishment and use of genomic databases vary according to techno-political context. While both Japan and Taiwan hold population-based databases to be necessary for scientific advance and competitiveness, they differ in how they have attempted to transform the information produced by databases into regulatory schemes for drug approval. The effectiveness of Taiwan’s biobank is severely limited by the IRB reviewing process. By contrast, while updating its regulations for drug approval, Japan, is using pharmacogenomics to deal with matters relating to ethnic identity. By analysing genomic initiatives in the political context that nurtures them, this paper seeks to capture how global science and local societies interact and offers insight into the assessment of state-sponsored science in East Asia as they become transnational. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the practical experiences of the cluster development of the deep ocean water (DOW) industry in the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan. The DOW industry is emerging as a new sector for utilizing diverse applications in the water, aquaculture, agriculture, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, tourism, and energy industries. Porter''s perspective of the cluster is used to compare DOW commercialization in the three countries and to analyze their interactions with the economy, society, and technology. Using a multiple case study, this paper presents some implications beyond the geographical proximity, especially the triple-helix of academy, industry, and government within the borderless cluster. Finally, a comprehensive comparison among the three countries is examined to offer implications to managers and policy makers in the DOW industry. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As the market potential of social shopping is increased by social networking sites (SNSs), the social shopping research can be interesting and valuable for social shopping firms to clearly understand the determinants affecting consumers’ purchase intention toward social shopping sites (SSSs). The objectives of this study are to examine consumers’ purchase intention toward a target SSS in different countries and to understand these differences from a cross-cultural perspective. In order to explore the cross-cultural differences in consumers’ purchase intention toward a target SSS, we propose an analytic framework that consists of website quality (i.e. system, information, and service quality) and relationship quality (i.e. satisfaction, commitment, and trust) that the SSS provides. To identify the determinants of purchase intention of SSS, large-scale online surveys were conducted in Taiwan and Japan simultaneously with the same questionnaire. Results show that perceptions of the two types of quality for a target SSS are significantly different between Taiwan and Japan, and effects of the quality types on the degree of purchase intention derived from the SSS also vary across the two countries. This paper ends with a discussion and limitations of the study results, as well as future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediate Response Syndrome (IRS) is driven by the obsession that they must reply immediately once they receive an e-mail, and this is a state where they can’t release their mobile phone even for a moment. In this paper, we aimed to compare and examine the relationships between consciousness of AI Robots and IRS among Japanese and Taiwanese college students by questionnaire survey. As a result of ANOVA, it was found that Taiwanese students often use the Internet from Japanese students, and their IRS tendency is high. For AI Robots, Japanese college students tended to be higher than in Taiwan concerning [Expectation] [Anxiety] [Interest] [Concern] [Excite] [Useful] items. Regarding expected robots, for Japanese college students from Taiwan about robots active during disasters, rescuing activity robots such as rescue workers, robots serving dangerous work, cooking robots, security robots, and transportation industry robots. It is expected that the Taiwanese students are expecting from Taiwanese students about cleaning robots, answering machine robots, robots that oppose children, agricultural working robots, customer service robots, and family robots. 　　 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Provide a comprehensive overview of the solidarity in health and long-term care sectors. • The overall direction of reforms is developing toward universal coverage. • Reforms might be possible without overall consensus on solidarity. • The pay-as-you-go financial arrangements will require strong intergenerational solidarity. • The capacity of informal caregiving of family could be considered. Different from the development of health sector, there are significant variations in the underpinnings and formation timings of solidarity-based long-term care (LTC) systems. This paper compares the historical developmental trajectories and identifies factors of the transitions of the actual practices of solidarity - the scope of community, the scope of interdependence, and the costs of joint action - in the health and LTC sectors in four East Asian countries: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Comparative policy analysis. Healthcare tends to be considered a universal value such that its boundary should include all residents, while LTC is closer to an entitlement of citizens. The differing solidarity reflects path dependency as well as historical legacies and policy diffusion between the health and LTC sectors. In both health and LTC sectors, the costs involved in collective service provision are not distributed evenly between generations. Centralized governance is a prevailing feature of health and LTC sectors in East Asia, allowing solidarity-based institutional arrangements to be established without an overall sense of solidarity. The relationship between solidarity and health and LTC systems is complex and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The East China Sea offers rich fishery resources and is a very important fishing ground for both Taiwan and Japan. However, both parties have claimed 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, resulting in overlapping EEZ claims. Additionally, an issue of disputed sovereignty exists with regards to the eight uninhabited Islands between Taiwan, Japan and China in the southern part of the East China Sea, a situation further complicated by the fact that Taiwan and Japan have no formal diplomatic relations. Against this context, Taiwan and Japan have chosen to shelve their territorial disputes and address their fisheries conflict by signing a fisheries agreement in 2013, with the hope of resolving, or at least managing, the fisheries dispute within their shared waters. This paper aims to provide the analysis of the fisheries dispute caused by overlapping EEZs between Taiwan and Japan, the challenges encountered during the two sides׳ fishery negotiations, as well as the scope and the significance of the fisheries agreement signed by Taiwan and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to perform a comparative analysis of the competitive advantages of the national fleets of Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, and explore the effect of shipping aid policies on a national fleet׳s competitive advantage, employing gray relational analysis (GRA). We found that the factors best able to assess the competitive advantage of a national merchant fleet include number of vessels, gross tonnage and deadweight tonnage of the fleet, number of seamen, and cargo volume transported by the fleet. We further discovered that Korean national merchant fleet has the greatest competitive advantage, followed by the fleets of Taiwan and Japan in that order, and found that aggressive shipping aid policies are a more effective way to ensure good performance than passive shipping aid policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we cross-examine anomalies before four major earthquakes, Sumatra (Indonesia) 2004.12.26 M9.3; Pingtung (Taiwan) 2006.12.26 M7.0×2; Chuetsu Oki (Japan) 2007.7.16 M6.8; and Wenchuan (China) 2008.5.12 M8.0. Measurements of the crustal stress, infrasonic wave, and budgerigar jumping rate recorded at Institute of Earthquake Prediction are used to monitor in the lithosphere and atmosphere, while the total electron content over the four epicenters are employed to detect anomalies in the ionosphere. These cross-examinations allow us to have better understanding on the leading time of the four observed anomalies, the earthquake preparation process, and the lithosphere–atmosphere–ionosphere coupling before the earthquakes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper uses the traditional variance ratio test of Lo and MacKinlay (1988, 1989), the non-parametric-based variance ratio test of Wright (2000) and the multiple-variance ratio test of Chow and Denning (1993), to re-examine the validity of the weak form efficient market hypothesis for foreign exchange markets in four floating-rate markets in neighboring Asian economies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines). The results show that the random walk patterns of the exchange rate return series cannot be rejected, with the one exception of Taiwan, where inefficiency is shown to be most prominent. We therefore conclude that the foreign exchange markets of Japan, South Korea and the Philippines are weak form efficient, while the foreign exchange market of Taiwan is inefficient. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We study the interoccurrence time distributions of events by analyzing synthetic catalogues and three natural catalogues of the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), the Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) and the Taiwan Central Weather Bureau (TCWB). We find a universal feature, i.e. the Weibull–log Weibull transition, in the interoccurrence time statistics. This transition demonstrates that the interoccurrence time statistics of earthquakes possess the hybrid Weibull and log Weibull statistics. We further find that the crossover magnitude m c ⁎⁎ from the superposition regime to the pure Weibull regime is averagely proportional to the plate velocity. In the end of this paper we summarize a region-independent relation, i.e. m c ⁎⁎/m max =0.54±0.06, which represents a novel empirical relation related to the Weibull–log Weibull transition for earthquake processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Age determination of wild captured Pacific bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis, was conducted using sagittal otoliths of 806 specimens (47–260cm in fork length) caught in the waters off Japan and Taiwan. Otoliths were transversely sectioned and the opaque and translucent zones were analyzed. Opaque zones mainly appeared on the otolith edge from April to July, indicating that the opaque zone is formed annually. The opaque zones formed during later life (age 10+) were more distinct than the earlier zones. The estimated ages of specimens ranged from 1 to 26 years. Parameters of the von Bertalanffy growth function were estimated to be 249.6cm, 0.173, and −0.254 years for L ∞ , k, and t 0, respectively. Growth of younger fish was rapid up to 5 years old attaining about 150cm, and then growth rate decreased. After that, fish attained about 200cm at 9 years old and about 225cm (90% of L ∞ ) at 13 years old (50% of maximum age). This paper updates the biological information on length at age with a large size range to support stock assessment model analyses for this commercially valuable species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The paper reviewed studies about total gaseous mercury, atmospheric particulate of mercury and average dry deposition fluxes of mercury in Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan. This study compared sample collection and analytical methods for mercury in Asian countries. Analytical results indicated that the primary mercury sources are anthropogenic source (for example coal burning) and high temperature processes. This study also elucidates the sources, analytical tools, and the average concentrations for atmospheric mercury (Hg) for these Asian countries during 2000–2008. This study indicated that the total gaseous mercury concentrations were higher in urban area than that in suburban area in Asian countries (Korea, Japan, China and Taiwan). As for the seasonal variations, in general, the average total gaseous mercury concentrations were higher in winter than that in summer especially in China. In addition, the average total gaseous mercury concentrations were higher in mining areas than that in the rest of the other areas. And the total gaseous mercury concentrations were decreasing as this distance increasing. These phenomena revealed that the total gaseous mercury concentrations are reduced by long-distance transportation especially in the main land of China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper reviews recent studies of Holocene coastal uplift in tectonically active areas near the plate boundaries of the western Pacific Rim. Emergent Holocene terraces exist along the coast of North Island of New Zealand, the Huon Peninsula of Papua New Guinea, the Japanese Islands, and Taiwan. These terraces have several features in common. All comprise series of subdivided terraces. The highest terrace is a constructional terrace, underlain by estuarine or marine deposits, and the lower terraces are erosional, cutting into transgressive deposits or bedrock. The highest terrace records the culmination of Holocene sea-level rise at ca. 6–6.5 ka BP. Lower terraces were coseismically uplifted. Repeated major earthquakes have usually occurred at ka intervals and meter-scale uplift. The maximum uplift rate and number of terraces are surprisingly similar, about 4 m/ka and seven to four major steps in North Island, Huon Peninsula, and Japan. Taiwan, especially along the east coast of the Coastal Range, is different, reaching a maximum uplift rate of 15 m/ka with 10 subdivided steps. They record a very rapid uplift. Comparison between short-term (Holocene) and long-term since the last interglacial maximum (sub-stage 5e) uplift rates demonstrates that a steady uplift rate (Huon Peninsula) or accelerated uplift toward the present (several areas of Japan and North Island) has continued at least since isotope sub-stage 5e. Rapid uplift in eastern Taiwan probably started only in the early Holocene, judging from the absence of any older marine terraces. Most of the causative faults for the coastal uplift may be offshore reverse faults, branched from the main plate boundary fault, but some of them are onshore faults, which deformed progressively with time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As switching from GAAP to IFRS causes changes to accounting quality, predictability, and crash risk, this paper empirically investigates whether firms involved in corporate social responsibility (CSR) performed better under IFRS adoption. Our sample is broken down into three sub-periods (2002–2005, 2010–2012, and 2013–2015) to meet the EU mandate IFRS in 2005 and Taiwan in 2013, respectively. We find mandatory IFRS adoption results in reducing earnings management, improving in forecast accuracy leading to enhanced earnings predictive ability, and mitigating crash risk. Furthermore, CSR firms behave responsibly in constraining earnings management and increasing financial reporting transparency through interaction with IFRS. Following IFRS adoption, crash risk is significantly improved in Over-The-Counter (OTC) companies and the enhanced transparency attracts increased foreign investment to the OTC market. Finally, the results on IFRS and CSR interaction provide reference for global capital markets, especially for major capital markets without mandatory IFRS adoption, e.g., the US and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]