Assessment of study abroad outcomes in Chinese as a second language: gains in cross-cultural adaptability,language contact and proficiency

Participants were 109 American college students studying Chinese in a study-abroad programme in Beijing. Following Kelley and Meyer, intercultural competence was defined as cross-cultural adaptability involving four dimensions (emotional resilience, flexibility/openness, perceptual acuity and personal autonomy) and was measured with a survey. A language contact questionnaire was used to document the amount of time spent on social activities. Language proficiency was measured with a standardised Chinese test. Results revealed that intercultural competence and language contact combined explained 37.7% of the proficiency gains. Language contact had direct effects on proficiency, but intercultural competence had indirect effects, mediated by language contact.     

The dynamic impacts of M&A on employment in Japan

This paper provides empirical evidence on the dynamic effects of merger and acquisition (M&A) on employment in Japan. The main contributions to the gaps in existing literature are: targeting employment effects of M&A, examining them by the deal type (merger and acquisition) and by the sector (manufacturing and non-manufacturing), tracing the effects in the long term, using large dataset with 9,880 sample firms and 2,530 M&A cases for the period from 1995 to 2008, and focusing on the case of Japan. Our main findings are: the “acquisition” with the key role of “extension and growth” proved to have positive effects in the dynamic terms on target firms’ employment, mainly in manufacturing sector with high labor productivity. On the other hand, the “merger” with key function of “consolidation” turned out to have negative impacts dynamically on post-merger firms’ employment, mainly in non-manufacturing sector with low labor productivity. The strategic implication might to be that the different employment responses to M&A events between manufacturing and non-manufacturing reflect the difference in labor productivity between them, i.e. the dual structure of Japanese economy.     

Quality engineering in japan

For controlling quality of products, there are two things we have to consider; how to measure the quality and how to improve it. The former is discussed in section 2 by introducing the difference in quality levels between Japan and USA. After briefly introducing all countermeasures for improving quality of products, an on-line quality control system design is proposed as the one which is more economical than removing defec- tives after manufacturing by conducting inspection. It has been ma?y Japanese companies' policy to keep pro- cess conditions at best in order to produce uniform products as far as possible. This paper discusses the optimum feed-back process control system design by checking either quality characteristics or process pa- rameters after introducing overall quality countermea- sures starting with product design.     

Preoperative sexual status of Japanese localized prostate cancer patients: comparison of sexual activity and EPIC scores

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between sexual activity and sexual function using questionnaires distributed to middle-aged Japanese patients with localized prostate cancer.

Methods: A total of 145 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy were enrolled in the survey reported on herein. Sexual activity and sexual function were investigated via the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite (EPIC) and an original self-reported questionnaire.

Results: Of participants, 24.1% and 20.7% had sexual activity within a month period as investigated via the EPIC and original questionnaire, respectively. However, 29.7% of all those who reported sexual activity rate reported “about once every 2?months to a year,” as shown in the original questionnaire. Regarding sexual function as addressed through EPIC, no results within that questionnaire’s measure of sexual function showed significant differences among patients with a rate of actual sexual activity.

Conclusions: The present survey showed that more than quarter of preoperative middle-aged Japanese prostate cancer patients surveyed had actual sexual activity, though not within the preceding 4?weeks. To precisely evaluate sexual function of middle-aged Japanese patients, it is necessary to consider actual sexual activity.     

A note on current research of immigrant groups in Japan

"This article seeks to present a statistical summary of Japan's immigrant groups and a review of current research on these groups, with the aim of discovering what crucial ethnic problems are faced both by the immigrant groups and the Japanese people themselves."     

Multiple criteria decision making for maritime investment policy in the developing countries

This model for multiple criteria decision making enables one to select an optimal investment policy for developing the marine industry in developing countries. The model is composed of: the mathematical model of national economy (LP model) for optimizing an investment scheme under economic and technological constraints; the model of I-O analysis for estimating the change of industrial structures induced by the investment; and the decision making model to which the results of the preceding models are fed back so as to enable the policy planner to select a feasible policy based on his own multiple criteria such as the value of GDP growth rate, international payments, unemployment rate, etc. Due consideration is paid in this study to the role of the marine industries, e.g. shipping and ports, which can be said to be the pivot of economic development in a developing country in connection with its foreign trade policy. A case study is carried out to verify this hypothesis.