Cultural Change and Gender Identity Trends in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract  As in most capitalist countries, the advent of the "consumer society" has brought about radical cultural change in Japanese society. In this paper I aim to illustrate the undercurrents of this change, focusing on the transformation of social consciousness and gender identity as it is reflected in the popular and youth cultures. In order to show these changes, I have sellected several bestsellers from youth fictions ( sekhun-shousetsu ) as my main object of study and have presented several diagrams to illustrate the apparent relationship between this type of fictions and the so-called "aprgs-guerre" generation, the "gang of sun," the "baby-boomers," the "moratorium generation," the "mutant generation." While analyzing the historical trend of youth fiction for the last 45 years and refering to the other types of popular culture (films, popular songs, comics etc.), I shall attempt to throw light upon the substance of these changes and predict what directions the Japanese culture is likely to take in the future.     

Tests of four hypotheses on soldier production, by using wild colonies ofPheidole fervida F. Smith (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Following four hypotheses on the production of soldiers were tested in thePheidole fervida colonies collected in the natural field:

关羽与貂蝉

文章通过分析关羽与貂蝉故事的演变,探讨这些故事的背景,首先讲述《三国演义》怎么描写关羽与貂蝉;然后,介绍“关羽斩貂蝉”故事以及新的关羽与貂蝉的故事;最后,探讨这些故事的背景。     

Yoga stretching for improving salivary immune function and mental stress in middle-aged and older adults

Protection against age-related immune suppression is important in elderly individuals. This study determined the effect of yoga on mucosal immune function and mental stress. Saliva samples were collected from 23 adult women (age: 60.4 ± 10.4 years) before and after 90 minutes of yoga stretching or rest to measure secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), cortisol, and testosterone. The SIgA concentration and secretion rate were significantly higher after yoga than before (p < .05). The cortisol concentration and secretion rate were lower and testosterone secretion rate higher after yoga (p < .05). Yoga stretching can reduce stress and enhance mucosal immune function in elderly women.     

Social capital and its relevance to the Japanese-model welfare society

Current debates and initiatives relating to the welfare regime in Japan focus on the contributions of informal and community networks. In this article, we adopt the concept of social capital, which is assessed according to three categories – structural social capital, experiential individual social capital and anticipatory individual social capital – in order to evaluate the assumptions and strengths of community in Japan. The findings are based on a small-scale survey conducted in the Greater Kobe area in 2002. The study revealed that the level of structural social capital is 'average' and the level of experiential individual social capital is 'rather low'. However, the anticipatory individual social capital, which is the expectation of future assistance whether conditional or unconditional, is higher than the experiential individual social capital. The findings suggest that, in Japan, people's belief that they will receive assistance in the future has a significant impact on their level of achievement. Such findings may help us understand the nature of the welfare regime in Japan: it depends on a sense of general trust, which effectively supports the informal groups and community networks that provide assistance to their members.     

The spillover effects of population aging, international capital flows, and welfare

This paper considers how a rise in old-age survival probability in a country with a higher old-age dependency ratio (the home country) influences the welfare of a country with a lower old-age dependency ratio (the foreign country). In a dynamically efficient steady-state equilibrium, we show that the old-age survival probability in the home country, when relatively low (high), has a positive (negative) effect on the welfare of the foreign country. We also show that the reform of a social security program in the home country may improve not only domestic welfare but also the welfare of the foreign country.     

The Impact of Oil Price Hike on the Belarusian Economy

This paper attempts to empirically examine the impact of oil price hike on the macro-economic activities in the Republic of Belarus. In order to capture both short-run and long-run dynamic effects, we use a co-integrated vector auto-regression (VAR) model with the data from the first quarter of 1996 to the second quarter of 2008. The analysis leads to the finding that a 1% increase in oil prices contributes to real GDP growth by 0.3% in the long run, whereas it has almost no effect in the short run (12 quarters). Additionally, it was found that exports and inflation rate are, respectively, positively and negatively related to the oil shock in the preceding period. In particular, the latter is significant.     

Origin and evolution of endemic plants of the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands

The Bonin Islands are typical oceanic islands, located at the western part of the North Pacific Ocean and approximately 1,000 km south of mainland Japan. This archipelago consists of about 20 small islands. Although floristic diversity is low due to the small area and limited environmental diversity, the Bonin Islands harbor unique endemic flora as in other well-known oceanic islands. This paper presents a brief summary of the results obtained from recent studies on the endemic flora of the Bonin Islands. The results are reviewed in relation to the four stages of the evolution of endemic flora in the oceanic islands; migration, establishment, enlargement and diversification. The ancestors of the flora originated mostly from tropical and subtropical Southeast Asia or mainland Japan by rare events of long distance dispersal. The proportion of bird-dispersed species is relatively high as for other oceanic islands. Genetic data sets obtained from allozyme variation in some endemic species suggest that migration occurred several million years ago and genetic diversity is correlated with current population size. At the time of establishment, self-compatible plants are expected to have an advantage. However, the percentage of dioecious plants is relatively high. This is partly due to evolutionary changes from hermaphroditic ancestors to dioecy which occurred in two genera in the Bonin Islands. In addition, there are some examples of evolutionary changes from herbaceous ancestors to woody endemics. Adaptive radiation is found in some genera, although the number of congeneric endemic species is less than five. Studies of allozyme variation inPittosporum, Symplocos andCrepidiastrum showed that genetic identity is generally very high between congeneric species in spite of their distinct morphologies. This result suggests that divergence of these species occurred rather recently and distinct morphological differences are based on a limited number of genetic changes.