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The article presents a study that aims to compare the key academic journals in Japan and Great Britain. The articles found in the "Studies on Social Work of Japan" journal in 1997 were compared to the articles in the "British Journal of Social Work." These articles were categorized based on the work of Toyomichi Sato. To analyze those articles, Sato has used 61 items which were arranged and sorted into five groups including study methods, social work process studies, explanation study, social work skills and treatment study, and social work practice model and approach study. Some of the findings revealed that the largest number of articles which comprised of 38.6% in the Japanese journal, was on the explanation study group, while only 8.7% fell on social work skills and treatment study.

The article presents a research paper on the images of Japan that readers of U.S. newspapers may create and the images of the U.S. that readers of Japanese newspapers might develop. It states that citizens of both countries would unlikely to reach accommodation on mutual conflicts if the potential for the development of equivalent images does not exist in both the U.S. and Japanese newspapers. It discusses systematic content analysis and impressionistic description of news in selected newspapers from the U.S. and Japan. It adds that readers from both countries are likely to gain different mental images on U.S.-Japan political and economic relations.

This paper examines English teacher identity of Japanese "non-native" English-speaking teachers through a multi-layered analysis of discourses and identity. Informed by poststructuralist views of identity, it explores dominant discourses surrounding "non-native" English-speaking teachers by analyzing their portrayal in national English education policy in Japan. This analysis is combined with qualitative data analysis of interview accounts of five Japanese high school "non-native" English-speaking teachers, which allows for examination of the interrelation between dominant discourses and their teacher identities. The data analysis demonstrates how the policy documents portray "non-native" English-speaking teachers, framing them within two competing discourses: the discourse of teaching professionals vis-à-vis students and the discourse of "nonnative" teachers vis-à-vis imagined "native" speakers of English. This discursive portrayal corresponds to the "non-native" English-speaking teacher identity illuminated by narrative accounts from the participant teachers, manifesting the paradoxical and conflicting nature of teacher identity. The discussion concludes with implications and recommendations for English education policy design and teacher education with a heightened sensitivity to identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have overlooked how partnerships between public and private actors (PPPs) play out as an effect of cultural and historical conditions in the context of a smart city. Our analysis investigates the peculiar context of Japan, where smart city initiatives stem from a historically and culturally embedded "partnership" between government and businesses. Unlike other smart city settings, the adoption of a neoliberal logic of an all-embracing market world by prioritizing business interests over other civic issues is not inevitable. This paper contributes to the literature on PPPs and smart cities by presenting the case of a partnership between public and private actors that overcomes the antagonistic and transactional relationship problematized in previous studies. We demonstrate that the workings of PPPs are historically and culturally embedded. Thus, we caution policy-makers against adopting a universal framework for partnerships in smart city initiatives. In the case of Japan, we advocate for long term orientations of projects instead of the short-term goals espoused by smart city initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For unidirectional thermoplastic composite materials, it is preferable to use tab-less specimens in tensile tests owing to the low adhesive performance between specimens and tabs, as well as considerable warpage in laminates due to compression molding. In this study, round-robin tests are performed for unidirectional laminates in the 0° and 90° directions by two types of thermoplastic composites – carbon/polyamide 6 and carbon/polypropylene. The purpose of the round-robin test is to examine the difference between tab-bonded and tab-less specimens. Statistical analyses determined the degree to which tab-less specimens influenced their evaluation of the mechanical performance. In addition, from the detailed experiments, precisely controlled gripping force, fine roughness of grip surfaces, and a few inserted abrasive papers had significant impact on the 0° tensile strength of tab-less specimens. Based on the results, 0° tab-less strength of the proposed gripping method was shown to be almost equal to that of tab-bonded specimens recommended by the present tensile test standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines members' practices involved in accounting for discrimination against their own group in interaction. Applying membership categorization analysis to interviews conducted with Chinese international students in Japan, I show that membership categories and category-based knowledge constitute crucial resources for target-of-discrimination group members' making discrimination intelligible and reasonable. Specifically, interviewee accounts for discrimination by bounding certain activities/traits to the membership category being discriminated against. Meanwhile, those activities/traits are displayed as sanctionable given the social relation the discriminating and the discriminated sides are embedded in. Consequently, discrimination becomes reasonable and understandable in its given context. Interviewer, drawing upon common-sense knowledge about social categories, regularly challenges interviewee's account by problematizing the association between the proposed activities/traits and the membership category and by contending the proposed sanctionable nature of those activities/traits. Interviewee can either persist through such challenges by further categorization work or modify their original account of discrimination. As such, target-of-discrimination group members' accounting for discrimination as reasonable and intelligible is collaboratively accomplished through participants' categorization work in interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has entered a period of depopulation and aging ahead of any other country. One concern in an aging population is increases in the generation of used disposable diapers. The use of disposable diapers, which are largely composed of plastic, can be an important issue as we work towards building a carbon-free society and break away from using fossil-derived plastics. This study aimed to develop a model to project the future generation of used disposable diapers in each municipality in Japan through 2045 and to identify the effects on municipal solid waste (MSW) management. We revealed the per capita generation of used disposable diapers, distinguishing disposable diaper products, urine and faeces in an online survey of 2000 respondents. The generation of used disposable diapers was estimated to increase in general, but the amount was projected to decrease in rural areas where the population of elderly people would decline. The proportion of used disposable diapers in combustible waste was projected to increase by 2045 in almost all municipalities of Mie Prefecture. Based on the scenario in which disposable diaper products would become lighter in the future because of technical improvements, we concluded that the impact of the decrease in the lower heating value (LHV) of used disposable diapers on the incineration process cannot be ignored in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much work has examined the phenomenon of dispute escalation, whereby the concrete measures state actors take edge them closer to war. Less attention has been devoted to the ways in which state actors' perceptions of what is at stake in a dispute can also change, with important consequences for the likelihood of conflict. This paper examines the phenomenon of dispute inflation – wherein a contest over an object or issue assumes ever greater stakes and significance for its protagonists – and identifies three different mechanisms that can generate increasing non-material stakes. The upshot is that theoretically even a minor dispute can grow into a major conflict due to swelling stakes, especially when dispute inflation spirals. To illustrate these dynamics at work, this paper looks to recent developments in the dispute between the People's Republic of China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media content includes an unprecedented number of personal documents reflecting our time. Few countries or regions have established legal grounds for securing long-term access to these documents, while paper-based publications have been exhaustively accumulated under legal deposit systems. However, archiving social media through national libraries, as a sort of state intervention, could bring about chilling effects on free speech in unexpected ways. The article aims to present empirical data of public concerns concerning social media content, focusing on Twitter's public tweets archived by third parties, through two questionnaire surveys involving university students (Research I) and the public (Research II). The surveys were designed based on three settings: researchers, organisations to which the respondents belong and the National Diet Library in Japan. Consequently, approximately 30% and 47% of the respondents in Research I (n = 197) and II (n = 728), respectively, disagreed with any hypothetical scenario. An ordered logistic analysis to reveal the inter-relations of variables suggests the existence of other factors; thus, neither variables related to Twitter/Internet use nor demographic variables influenced people's perceptions of the archival issue. While protecting privacy rights and copyrights was the primary reason for disagreements regarding third-party archival of tweets, many respondents intuitively displayed a negative reaction without any specific reason. Those who question its value and feel uncomfortable with an authoritative intervention were also identified. To nurture acceptant attitudes, advocating the archival of personal documents and adopting more restrictive archival procedures like taking down posts and anonymisation, public debates on the intervention of public bodies and demonstration of archival values should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I describe and analyse learner task-based interactions from a multimodal perspective with the aim of better understanding how learners’ interpersonal relationships might affect task performance. Task-based pedagogy is focused on classroom interaction between learners, yet analysis of tasks has often neglected the analysis of this interaction. The empirical studies that have occurred have mostly looked at the relationship between task-design and task-performance, ignoring other aspects of context, such as friendship groupings. Friendship groupings among learners are argued to impact upon classroom interaction and affect what we do as teachers and, as such, require attention. In the project reported on here I undertook a multimodal analysis of the interactions of one class of Japanese EFL learners, focusing in this paper on one particular learner performing a task in two different groups. The discussion suggests that his interpersonal relationships with the other learners do affect his task performance and success in engaging with the aims of the task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What happens when expertise is forced to face disasters of unprecedented scales? How is knowledge produced in critical moments when every action and decision is a matter of life and death? And how are local social networks mobilized to cope with unforeseen crisis? This paper addresses these questions by examining the emergence of disaster medicine expertise in the aftermath of Fukushima nuclear disaster that struck Japan in 2011. Studies on Fukushima's impact have to date revolved around the suffering of Tōhoku citizens and the development of Japan's nuclear energy industry. Acknowledging the gravity of such work, this paper offers an alternative, but equally crucial angle on the disaster: that of the medical caregiving and public health system built in response to radiation hazards resulting from the triple meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Through detailed interviews conducted with eight medical practitioners in Fukushima Prefecture, this paper analyses the significance and impact of Japan's most recent radiation disaster on its public health infrastructure. To describe the contingent nature of radiation disaster medicine developed in response to radiation risk in Fukushima, we draw on Jasanoff's characterization of scientific knowledge as 'serviceable truths' with regards to public policy and the law, suggesting that expertise in relation to disasters is usefully understood in analogous terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes, analyses and illuminates complex unnoticed aspects of the 'Sunshine' project in Japan. The 'Sunshine' project was launched by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) as a large-scale and long-term project with the aim of developing 'new energy' technology. It continued from the 1970s through the early 1990s. Particular reference is made to the unexpectedly complex relationship between the ocean thermal energy conversion technology developed by the project and stratospheric ozone depletion. The paper shows that the unexpected and complex relationship between 'new energy' technology development and irreversible environmental change can be reduced to the problems of assessment and decision-making in situations of uncertainty. Based on this insight, a model for assessing large-scale, long-term technological development projects through a reflexive 'feedback-for-learning' channel is proposed. Finally, the paper introduces a sociological implication of the study: the principle of 'mild freezing', a perspective that builds upon and complements the precautionary principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This quasi-experimental study reports on the outcomes of a video-synchronous learning program in which an element of project-based foreign language learning was integrated. The project chosen was to cooperatively create a homepage. American students learning Japanese in the United States and Japanese students learning English in Japan made pairs and communicated in both their native and target languages via Skype to complete the project. The goals of this educational program were to increase intrinsic motivation in learners and improve their target language oral abilities, and identify challenges and problems with implementation. The program was conducted during the spring semester in 2017 and evaluated both quantitatively (via pre- and posttests) and qualitatively (via surveys and reflection papers). The results show that both groups of students had improved their mean length of utterance in their target language, a strong indicator of increased speaking ability. Furthermore, qualitative analysis showed their motivation levels increased as compared to previous similar programs. Although the majority of the students were interested in creating a homepage, there were some technical problems with the homepage creation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper analyzes the political implications of aesthetic mimicry in the popular mobile game, Onmyoji. Created by the Chinese company, NetEase, Onmyoji takes advantage of the expansive network of signifiers revolving around the historical Japanese figure, Abe-no-Seimei, and co-opts this network to display a recognizable Japanese popular aesthetic. By remixing elements of Japanese culture, Onmyoji presents a commodifiable and mediated image of Japanese cultural authenticity that is recognizable globally. Mimicry and the co-opting of another nation's cultural signifiers initiates a negotiated process of ambivalent national self-empowerment that has since resulted in shifting labor flows within the digital entertainment industries in East Asia. The malleability of cultural signifiers allows for the purposeful framing of global media texts. Such multivalent encodings of recognizable symbols emerge from the provocative slippages between media boundaries. This, in turn, engages with the dialectical processes of nation branding within the framework of transnational co-production models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After eminent thinkers in the 1960s submitted critical views on technology, some philosophers of technology extended their macro perspectives. Since then, many historians and sociologists of technology steadily marginalized their general claims through richly empirical, constructivist case studies of concrete engineering processes. Some recent efforts have begun to bridge these two diverging orientations. This paper participates in such efforts with a case study of relationships between macro cultures and engineering processes. It shows that behind the adoption of systems engineering by engineers and managers who led the Apollo programme was a macro current of social values in the USA. Post-war American society saw the rise of highly individualistic social norms that valued mobility, meritocracy and clear-cut contractual working relationships. Such norms triumphed most conspicuously in the federal government during the 1960s. Engineers and managers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) headquarters, who tended to share such values, refined the formalized, depersonalized methods of systems engineering, which enabled them to perfect space technology. In order to show such a correlation between macro values and micro practices, this paper draws a comparison between engineering communities in different cultural settings in the USA and Japan. This paper thus explores the macro social environment that gave rise to systems engineering, which, in turn, continues to function as a skeletal structure for our technological society today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Rescue System institute has been established in Japan to promote research and development of key technologies for the realization of practical search-and-rescue robots, anticipating future large-scale earthquakes and other catastrophic disasters, in this paper wepmpose a new paradigm called "snakes and strings", for developing practical mobile robot systems that may be useful in such situations. "Snakes" stands for snake-like robots, which can skillfully move among the debris of the collapsed buildings. "Strings ", on the other hand means robotic systems using strings or tethers, such as proposed in the "hyper-tether" research. Tethers can continuously supply energy, accomplish reliable communication links, and also exhibit high traction force. In this paper we present many new mechanical implementations of snake-like robots developed in our laboratory, and we also explain in detail the new paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most of the studies on assistance in talk-in-interaction from the conversation analytic perspective presuppose that the actor who receives assistance already has or is expected to have problems, issues, needs, or demands, assistance can be offered without the expression or existence of plausible expectations of problems, issues, needs, or demands. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, this study explores how service providers frame their offer-related actions as assistance without the customer's expression of concrete needs or demands or their expected emergence by analyzing the sequences in which salespersons offered customers to try the jewelry. The results of the analysis show that salespersons were motivated to execute pull-based offer-related actions in which assistance is provided in response to the expression or anticipation of customer needs, as they could lead to successful sales outcomes. Salespersons employed various techniques to frame their offer-related actions as assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relationship between Japan and U.S. which is figured out in the three U.S. dailies. It states that the three newspapers that have been positively chosen were "New York Times", "Los Angeles Times" and "Chicago Tribune" that were based on geographical location, city size and its extent to the coverage of international news between U.S. and Japan. It mentions that press cannot be involved in the process of foreign policy-making but press reportage can play important part in determining the attitude of the two country, they can control the flow of international news and can influence its character by interpretation. It tells that the three papers have called down the illusion of the Japanese faults which stood for liberal trade policy.

With a simple model of land use and market arbitrage, this paper investigates the impact of population decline – when existing homeowners compete to attract a small number of new residents – on homeownership and land use. We show that, if a strictly positive cost is required for ownership abandonment, selling used houses is impossible in the periphery, while leasing is possible. We also show that only long-life-quality houses, which require a larger initial investment and sustain greater utility for longer than conventional ones, attract new residents to the periphery. Social welfare may decrease, because the government has to maintain the slowly shrinking, less densely inhabited urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents several multi-modal 3D datasets for the problem of categorization of places. In this problem. a robotic agent should decide on the type of place/environment where it is located (residential area, forest, etc.) using information gathered by its sensors. In addition to the 3D depth information, the datasets include additional modalities such as RGB or reflectance images. The observations were taken in different indoor and outdoor environments in Fukuoka city, Japan. Outdoor place categories include forests, urban areas, indoor parking, outdoor parking, coastal areas, and residential areas. Indoor place categories include corridors, offices, study rooms, kitchens, laboratories, and toilets. The datasets are available to download at http://robotics.ait.kyushu-u.ac.jp/kyushu_datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste reduction and recycling at the city level will acquire greater significance in the near future due to rising global volumes of waste. This paper seeks to identify policy-relevant drivers for successful promotion of waste reduction and recycling. Factors influencing the success of waste reduction and recycling campaigns are identified. Two case study cities in Japan which depict the successful use of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle) at the municipal level are presented. In these cases, the existence of incinerators, which are generally considered as disincentives for recycling, was not functioning as a disincentive but rather as an incentive for waste reduction. Owing to the high cost of incineration facilities, the movement to close incinerators has become a strong incentive for waste reduction and recycling in these two cities. The study suggests that careful consideration is necessary when making decisions concerning high-cost waste treatment facilities with high installation, maintenance and renewal outlays. In addition, intensive source separation and other municipal recycling initiatives have a high potential for producing positive results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a quantitative methodology and two empirical case studies in Japan on modeling household solid waste (HSW) generation based on individual consumption expenditure (ICE) and local waste policy effects by using the coupled estimation model systems. Results indicate that ICE on food, miscellaneous commodities and services, as well as education, cultural, and recreation services are mainly associated with the changes of HSW generation and its components in Okayama and Otsu from 1980 to 2014. The effects of waste policy measures were also identified. HSW generation in Okayama will increase from 11.60 million tons (mt) in 1980 to 25.02 mt in 2025, and the corresponding figures are 6.82 mt (in 1980) and 14.00 mt (in 2025) in Otsu. To better manage local HSW, several possible and appropriate implications such as promoting a green lifestyle, extending producer responsibility, intensifying recycling and source separation, generalizing composting, and establishing flexible measures and sustainable policies should be adopted. Results of this study would facilitate consumer management of low waste generation and support an effective HSW policy design in the two case cities. Success could lead to emulation by other Japanese cities seeking to build and maintain a sustainable, eco-friendly society. Moreover, the methodologies of establishing coupled estimation model systems could be extended to China and other global cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries understood as a micro-level caring profession, recently social work is dramatically changing its goals due to structural changes in societies, climate change, migration and political instability. The article employs cross-cultural comparisons that aim to reveal the invariant structure of the social work field, which is realized through the unique manifestations of social work practices in different cultural contexts in Lithuania, Japan, and the United States. The research identifies four social work practices in the professional fields and presents them based on the concepts of field, habitus, and capital, highlighting the similarities and differences between countries in the application of rules of the social field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The papers in this volume seek to broaden the concept of ‘varieties of unionism’ by comparing the labour movements of six countries in the Asia-Pacific region: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Australia. While there is a great diversity of economic, socio-cultural and ethnic factors which have influenced the nature of industrial relations and unionism in each country, all have experienced the impact of globalisation on their labour markets to varying degrees. The repertoire of revitalisation strategies used by unions in Asia are similar, in many ways, to those adopted in western market economies, but their specific forms differ. The authors of the studies in this volume examine the factors which have helped and/or hindered union revitalisation in each of the countries studied. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In many parts of the world, water is supplied by very small, local undertakings. In recent years, there has been a move to consolidation of these utilities in a number of countries. This paper looks at the economic effects of consolidation of Japanese water utilities in the period 1999–2006 using translog cost functions with a hedonic output specification. The results clarify what factors have been most affected in terms of the cost structure of the water utilities after consolidation. Overall, the finding is that consolidation has had some beneficial impact on cost effectiveness, but that the result is surprisingly limited. This appears to be because cost savings from an improvement in the use of scarce water resources have been offset by extra expenditure on supplying water to areas with lower population density. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper attempts to examine the possibilities of the Classroom Language Assessment Benchmark (CLAB) as a professional development tool for EFL teachers in Japan. Two questionnaire surveys were carried out several months after the last day of the graduate course (both in 2006 and 2007) where CLAB was used as a self- and peer-assessment tool of teachers' classroom English in their trial lesson. The questionnaire results show that the Classroom English Observation Program (CEOP) using CLAB and the Classroom Language Assessment Sheet (CLAS) is a useful approach for raising trainees' awareness of their classroom English and helping them to strive for improved classroom language proficiency, suggesting that CLAB should be used not as a tool for their qualification assessment but as a tool for their professional development. The paper concludes that an improved, simplified benchmark and assessment sheet should be developed so that when used together they would serve as an important means for language teachers' professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite some progress, municipal solid waste (MSW) still poses pressure on cities and remains one of the major challenges in environmental management. There is no single solution to the problem since the drivers behind MSW systems may vary significantly from city to city. In this context, the development of a common strategy to attain a sustainable management has been increasingly difficult. This paper presents an issue-driven analytical framework to evaluate the past, present and future MSW management strategy for the cities of Yokohama and Boston considering four driver categories while evaluating if the relevance of these drivers has changed over time. These categories represent: (i) legal drivers (e.g. laws and regulations); (ii) technology development and institutional drivers (e.g. available technologies); (iii) regional and international drivers (e.g. solid waste flow as recyclable resources); and (iv) socio-economic drivers (e.g. population trends and public awareness). The analysis indicated that solid waste management capacity for both cases was under stress due to different reasons. In the case of Boston, the moratorium for disposal facilities played an important role while increasing population was a key driver for the city of Yokohama. The future management scenario suggests that various waste-to-energy alternatives and strong solid waste reduction policies will play a key role for Boston. In Yokohama, a shift on waste composition and generation triggered by a demographic change may open the path for new technologies while also considering the international demand of solid waste as a recyclable resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of disagreement strategies used by Japanese learners of English (JLEs) studying at language schools in New Zealand. The study stemmed from an observation that JLEs were unwilling to express disagreements in exchanges with high-power (+P) interlocutors, possibly due to the threat of face-loss and the consequences of offending a +P interlocutor. Two questions were considered: (1) How did the JLEs perceive power distance between themselves and native speakers (NSs), and how did this affect their selection of disagreement strategies with NS interlocutors? (2) How might their perception of power distance affect how they learned disagreement strategies? Data was collected from 12 JLEs using a discourse completion task, a series of role-plays and a weekly task sheet. The data revealed that, though the participants were capable of disagreeing with power-equals, they were reluctant to disagree with +P interlocutors. In symmetrical exchanges they employed extended, relatively complex disagreeing strategies, but in power-unequal exchanges they often used short, previously-internalized strategies. The JLEs regarded teachers as power-unequal interlocutors, and consequently they often avoided classroom disagreements, potentially reducing their opportunities to learn and rehearse approaches to disagreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a questionnaire survey carried out in the first and last classes of a single semester English 'conversation' class at a national university in Japan. While the time frame is obviously limited, the project focuses on changes in attitude to using the Learners' Mother Tongue displayed by students with regards to use by both the teacher and the students themselves. It is my contention that after experience in high school the student is unsure of the rationale for English conversation, and therefore it is interesting to understand students' initial attitudes and to examine if and how attitudes have changed. By the administration of questionnaires it can be seen if learners are more positive towards the teaching approach adopted by their classroom teacher and thus they may become even more prepared to negotiate and use practical effective communicative strategies to overcome language deficiencies. The study will attempt to explain the results and discuss classroom implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the instability of party identification among eligible Japanese voters, using a seven-wave panel survey covering the period from 1993 to 1996. We found that only about a quarter of our sample consistently identified with the same parties, suggesting that party identification of eligible Japanese voters is very unstable. We also examined the individual characteristics influencing the stability of party identification and found that membership in religious organizations and favourable opinions toward major pre-existing political parties (the LDP, the CGP and the JSP/SDP) have a stabilizing effect on party identification. On the other hand, favourable opinions toward new parties and minor, pre-existing parties (the JCP and the DSP) have a destabilizing effect on party identification. Furthermore, political dissatisfaction, reformative ideology, and the absence of a belief in voting as a duty have a destabilizing effect on party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes a number of theories that have been used to analyse government formation in West European parliamentary democracies and applies them to the government formation process in Japan after the 1996 general election. These models underline the continuing importance of the LDP in the government formation process, despite the loss of its overall majority. The application of government formation models to the Japanese case also highlights the weakness of the typical assumption that sees parties as unitary actors. The paper thus concludes with some speculations as to how this assumption might usefully be relaxed to incorporate party factions, splits and fusions and thereby generate more dynamic models of the making and breaking of governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the relationship between the adoption of a newly-imported religion and social change on the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, focusing upon the case of the village of Bora on Miyako Island, where the author has done research for several years. This paper also refers to the case of Sokagakkai and Iesu no Mitama Church. Interested in the problem of the adoption of Christianity in isolated villages of Japan, the author has been doing socio-religious research in the village of Nishiamuro on Kakeroma Island since 1966. In contemporary society, mass conversion and the adoption of Christianity culminating in baptism are considered to be exceptional phenomena. Field research done by the author in Okinawa (Ryukyu Islands) brought to light a similar example of mass conversion on the island of Miyako. In observing the adoption of new religion and the performance of field research, various standards are possible. The author has focused upon the following points: 1) the way by which Catholicism was brought to Bora; 2) the socio-cultural factors which made this adoption possible; 3) personal factors as the way of thinking, the religious consciousness, and the human relationships of the converts, and changes in them.

Citizen distrust towards the rival country is a defining feature of protracted international rivalries, undermining meaningful cooperation that can lead to mutual benefits. How might governments establish a public opinion base that is more supportive of cooperation with the rival country? We argue that information about ongoing environmental cooperation with the rival country makes citizens more supportive of non-environmental cooperation by changing their beliefs about the rival's trustworthiness and facilitating extrinsic reciprocity. We investigate this potential micro-level cooperation spillover in the context of the longstanding rivalry between Japan and South Korea. Our survey-based experiment finds that information about cooperation on marine plastic pollution shapes the public's willingness to cooperate in terms of the economy and security. Importantly, however, we find asymmetric results in Japan and Korea. While Koreans are more receptive to our positive cooperation treatment, which increases their willingness to cooperate in other domains, Japanese respondents react more strongly to the negative non-cooperation treatment, which reduces their willingness to cooperate in other domains. We offer explanations for these divergent reactions based on prior interactions between the two countries. Our findings have important policy implications for conflict-ridden areas of the world beyond East Asia that increasingly face common environmental challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looking back, the process in which Ulrich Beck’s epoch-making work of Risikogesellschaft was introduced and translated into Japanese attracted great public interest there. This paper revisits the significance of the concept ‘risk society’ in the context of postwar Japan. Facing both the natural and artificial disasters caused by the huge earthquake in Fukushima in 2011, Japanese society was compelled to reconsider its atomic energy policy implemented after the end of the Second World War. While the general public has strongly embraced an anti-nuclear sentiment after witnessing the 3/11 disasters, the government and leading LDP are still eager to restart the atomic plants that have been suspended since the tragedy in Fukushima. Considering those complicated sociopolitical conditions concerning the legitimacy of the atomic energy policy in Japan, Risikogesellschaft redux might be a useful way through which we can envisage a future direction to take. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of libraries’ compliance with copyright laws is unclear. This study aims to make clear libraries’ positions in relation to copyright concerns as well as the extent of their compliance with copyright laws. A comparative content analysis of libraries’ copyright information in Japan and China, as stated on university library websites, was utilized here in order to identify similarities and differences in libraries’ compliance with national copyright law. Findings were that Japanese libraries mentioned copyright more than their Chinese counterparts. Moreover, Japanese libraries devoted more efforts to providing copyright information than their Chinese counterparts. In addition, Japanese library websites provided copyright information in more locations than their Chinese counterparts. Japanese libraries were engaged in copyright activities; conversely, none were detected in their Chinese counterparts (except for Hong Kong). The paper concluded with recommendations for both countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The village as trope represents “tradition” in contrast to “modernity,” periphery in contrast to core, and the past in contrast to the present. This paper explores Pai Tau Village, a settlement in the Shatin District of Hong Kong. While it is recognized by local heritage organizations as an ancestral village, Pai Tau is neither distant nor separate from emblems of Hong Kong as a major cosmopolitan city, but rather is located at the edge of a large mega-mall – a center of commerce, consumerism, fashion, and business. This article suggests that the relationship between modernity and tradition is not necessarily oppositional, but symbiotic. Via an exploration of this duality, it also addresses globalization and transnationalism via consumer exchanges among Japan, Hong Kong, and mainland China, and addresses contemporary contradictions in anthropological fieldwork and theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earthquake and tsunami which occurred in the Tohoku region of Japan (northern Japan) on 11 March 2011 have taken the lives of more than 15,000 people. The disaster and the accident in the nuclear reactors in Fukushima have left about 330,000 people homeless. The catastrophe has affected not only Japanese politics, economics, society and people’s mentalities, but also its cultural industries. This article attempts to investigate two contemporary issues tracing the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake (the Tohoku Disaster) on Japan’s media landscape: its impact on Japanese media production and distribution, particularly of its most transnationally famous forms, manga and anime; and how perceptions of ‘soft power’ have fluctuated in this difficult media moment. The research uses a cultural and industrial studies approach based on discourse analysis, focusing on the period immediately following the Tohoku Disaster in order to map significant shifts and unexpected results and responses from within Japan’s cultural industries to the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima power plant disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-assessment has been used to assess second language proficiency; however, as sources of measurement errors vary, they may threaten the validity and reliability of the tools. The present paper investigated the role of experiences in using Japanese as a second language in the naturalistic acquisition context on the accuracy of the self-assessment. Results revealed that experiential factors played a significant role in the measurement errors introduced by the self-assessment. The asymmetry pattern emerged, whereby less experienced second language speakers appeared to overestimate their ability, whereas those with more experience underestimated their language skills. The Rasch analysis identified poor-fit items in the self-assessment survey, and the subsequent qualitative analysis of the items indicated that the greater misalignment was related to items including more difficult tasks, with which participants had relatively little experience. Implications for development and use of self-assessment are thus discussed in relation to experiential factors in self-assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Fukushima catastrophe has led to important practical and conceptual shifts in contemporary Japanese architecture which in turn has led to a re-evaluation of the influential 1960s Japanese modern architecture movement, Metabolism. The Metabolists had the ambition to create a new Japanese society through techno-utopian city planning. The new generation of Japanese architects, after the Fukushima event, no longer seek evolutionally social change; rather, the disaster has made them re-consider what architecture is and what architects can do for people who had everything snatched from them by technology (nuclear power station) and nature (earthquake and tsunami). Drawing on the architectural projects of Tange Kenzo and Metabolists in the 1960s and Ito Toyo’s ‘Home-for-All project’ in 2011, the paper explores this major paradigm shift in Japanese architectural theory and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article historicises and examines the implications of internet-distributed television for televisual culture and viewing in Japan. It challenges the simplistic media discourse of ' terebi banare ' (i.e. the audiences' departure from television), which overlooks the complexities of evolving viewing practices. It explains why, largely due to the dominance of major terrestrial broadcasters in the media ecosystem, online consumption of television was slower to take hold in Japan than in other developed countries. It also demonstrates how, while Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have popularised pay online viewing from the late 2010s, the content Japanese viewers consume online remains inclined towards local outputs from terrestrial broadcasters. By elaborating on how terrestrial broadcasters have continued to play an important role in shaping audience experiences with their evolving content, frames, and services, this article provides a critical account of the meaning of terebi banare in the age of streaming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an investigation into how the prompt may influence the discourse of group oral tests. The group oral test, in which three or four participants are rated on their ability to discuss a prompt, is a format for assessing the spoken ability of language learners. In this study, 141 Japanese university students were videoed in 41 group orals of three or four test-takers. Although the four different prompts written for the test were supposed to be of equal difficulty, they were found to be substantially different in the type and number of questions that comprised them. Analysis of the transcribed interactions revealed significant differences in turns taken, syntactic complexity and fluency of the interactions they elicited. A qualitative examination revealed that the two prompts that elicited longer, more complex turns did so by encouraging test-takers to explain their family circumstances or speculate about their future. Prompts with more factual content elicited shorter, less complex turns and the prompt that test-takers responded to with the least fluency required the test-takers to talk about a more personal subject. The implications for rating and creating prompts are discussed, and the need to tailor them to the purpose of the test. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido is popularly viewed as a frontier space. This stems from a pre-modern conceptualization of the island as barbaric, its contemporary image as pastoral, and the downplaying of its colonization in between. In Hokkaido, dairying is an occupation that is profoundly influenced by negotiations with modernity, regional identity and the “West”. Thus, the image of the dairy industry is usually promoted through two tropes; dairy as foreign and dairy as a modern health benefit coalescing with conceptualizations of idealized foreign physical and political bodies. These perceptions link the contemporary industry to idyllic Euro-American pastoral images and imaginations. However, as in much of the northern world, Hokkaido dairy farming has rapidly industrialized. Until the 1980s Hokkaido dairy farms rarely exceeded 50 head. The norm was that members of a single farm family would intimately know their livestock through the embodied sharing of space and interaction; especially in relation to the twice daily process of milking. But, over the last generation a shift to rotary parlor milking systems has occurred. This high-tech and high-cost equipment enables the “automated” and simultaneous milking of up to 60 cattle at any given moment presided over by only four human staff whose work involves attaching suction devices and observing readouts. Such unskilled dairy workers are often not from farm families. Increasingly they are transient urban youth remaining on the job for less than a year, or international migrants with little interest in farming. This paper is based on 19 months of ethnographic and archival fieldwork and examines how the boundaries between animal, human, and technology have shifted and may further shift in Hokkaido. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper outlines some findings of a three-month investigation into the effects of students’ interpersonal relationships on communication in two EFL classrooms in a Japanese university. Data was collected to identify and describe the various social subgroups that existed within the classes, and samples of classroom discourse were then analysed to investigate how students’ social positioning in the classroom affected the observed interaction. The analysis suggests that the relationships that students develop in the classroom do have implications for interaction, and that conducting research into those relationships could have a positive impact on teachers management of classroom interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the findings of a longitudinal study in which two instructional methods to teach agreement features to first-year university students specializing in Spanish in Japan are compared. On the one hand, the control group was exposed to the traditional top-down teaching of agreement paradigms and were instructed to practice them through pattern repetition. On the other, a bottom-up move informed by Vygotsky and Gal’perin’s theories of conceptual formation was induced in the experimental group by using schemata and verbalization during the task of using agreement features. The data suggest that (a) the material expression of conceptual relationships (e.g. through schemata) and (b) the verbal rendition of rules or conceptual connections, and (c) the overall framing of the task as a bottom-up move actually helped acquirers in their mastery of gender and number agreement. The results of the intervention also support Kim and Kellogg (2006) and Centeno-Cortés and Jiménez Jiménez’s (2004) paradoxical view that L1 conceptual elaboration and organization aimed at solving L2 language tasks plays an important role in L2 acquisition. The data seem to indicate that there is room for encouraging learners’ hypothesis-making in the L1 under certain conditions, such as the kind of guided induction designed for this research and the one advanced by Herron and Tomasello (1992), and Tomasello and Herron’s (1988a, 1988b). L2 native instructors who dismiss or suppress acquirers’ talk in their L1 in their communication classes should assess if that talk is part of an important process of hypothesis-making or verbalization of language rules or not and act accordingly. L1 exchanges linked to hypothesis-making or task organization seem to foster L2 development and therefore should not be treated like a waste of time by ‘Communication’ instructors. In sum, the bottom-up move within Vygotsky’s ZPD is suggested as a feasible, although more elaborate intervention, as the findings on the intervention suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of probation in Japan is similar in some respects to probation in England and Wales (E&W) and unrecognizable in others. This article provides an outline of the structure and operation of probation in Japan and draws comparisons and contrasts with probation in England and Wales. It is intended to provide an overview for those who know little about Japanese criminal justice in general and about Japanese probation in particular. The focus in on accessible English language sources that will enable readers to follow up their interest and deepen their knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the changing ‘style’ of urban order in Japan through the example of mega events, drawing on the architectural critique of Taro Igarashi and the historical sociological analysis of Masachi Ohsawa. It argues that construction for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics was typical of a ‘concrete aesthetic’ that reflected a Japanese version of ‘control society’, at once modern and post-modern. Ironically, this period has since been re-imagined through ‘Showa nostalgia’ as shown in the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and the 2005 Aichi Expo. This nostalgia has been a resource for a globalising form of urban order, seen in more recent mega events like the FIFA World Cup 2002, the 2005 World Expo in Aichi and the 2007 World Athletics Championship in Osaka. This order combines a new aesthetics of visibility through technocratic surveillance with authoritarian governance that seeks to render invisible the marginal, particularly homeless people and foreign migrant workers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In April 2009, Japan Council for Quality Health Care (JCQHC) launched the Project to Collect Incidents within Community Pharmacies, a national project of self-and-voluntary reporting of incidents among community pharmacies. While there have been several studies and projects to collect and analyze incident reports among a set number of community pharmacies across the globe, it is still rare for an incident collecting project to exist at a national level. This paper introduces the new project in Japan. A retrospective analysis of community pharmacy participation across the country and cause of reported incidents based on the data released by JCQHC. Among the total number of reported incidents (1,460 cases), the most frequently reported incidents were related to the task of filling out prescriptions (92.0%). The most frequently answered cause of the incident was due to a "failure to check thoroughly" with 1,293 (96.3) out of 1,343 reported cases of incidents from community pharmacies. In a comparison of incidents reported between hospital pharmacies and community hospitals, both types of pharmacies reported a "failure to check thoroughly" as the leading cause of incidents. In hospital pharmacies, however, only 3,265 (84.7%) cases out of 3,857 were reported with "failure to check thoroughly" as the cause of incident. The rates between hospital pharmacy and community pharmacy for this cause differed significantly (P < 0.05). As the main cause of incidents was due to "the failure to check thoroughly", the need for confirmation systems within community pharmacies has become ever more evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Property rights in land are often regarded as among the most inflexible of the institutional structures that shape urban change, particularly when enshrined in a written constitution. This paper argues that the meaning and specification of property rights in the city are continually contested and in flux and that the evolving practice of city planning is a significant element that contributes to change. A better understanding of the mechanisms of such change is valuable for our understanding both of city planning and of property rights. A historical institutionalist analysis suggests that property rights display significant elements of path dependence, yet also show characteristic patterns and processes of incremental change over time. This analysis of evolving systems to regulate permissible development in Japanese cities during the period since the environmental crisis of the 1960s is revealing of the structured ways in which property rights are contested and change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the issue of public health governance in a globalized context through the lens of nutrition policy in contemporary Japan. I focus upon the case of shokuiku (food education), institutionalized in the 2005 national-level Basic Law on Food Education. First, I consider the emergence of shokuiku within the context of recent public health policy developments, specifically, a shift towards a decentralized and personalized view of public health in Japan. Second, I examine the policy discourses around shokuiku and how they convey the relationships between food and public health. These discourses centre upon the notion of a healthy and traditional Japanese food culture practiced in the home, only recently interrupted by modernity. When presented within a health promotion framework focused upon lifestyle diseases, such ideas can enable and reinforce neoliberal approaches to public health and food security where the locus of governing authority lies largely outside the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]