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.     

Values and happiness among Asian adolescents: a cross-national study

Despite policy efforts to increase adolescent happiness, their impact has been unsatisfactory. Their limited impact may be rooted from a discrepancy between values that adolescents pursued and those that the policies were based on. To provide policy implications, our study aims to identify prevailing values for South Korean, Japanese, and Chinese adolescents and to examine the relationship between the values and self-rated happiness (SRH). A cross-sectional study was conducted using survey data collected on approximately 2000 middle and high school students (7th to 12th school grade) from each country in 2008. Firstly, an explanatory factor analysis was conducted to identify salient adolescent values from each country. Subsequently, a multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted for each population group to examine the relationship between the identified values and adolescent SRH after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. We found that benevolence and altruism were positively associated with adolescent SRH in all three population groups. Patriarchy was associated with SRH positively in Chinese yet inversely in Japanese. Success pursuit was inversely associated with SRH in Korean. Policy efforts based on values of communities or social harmony may benefit adolescents’ SRH in these three countries.     

Finding environmentally important industry clusters: Multiway cut approach using nonnegative matrix factorization

This paper proposes an optimal combinatorial method for finding groups of industries with relatively large CO₂ emissions through industrial relations. Using an economic input–output table, we estimated a non-symmetric matrix describing how much CO₂ is emitted in producing the commodity of industry i, which was purchased to produce commodity of industry j, to meet the final demand for a specific commodity. A symmetric strength of relations matrix describing the CO₂ emissions associated with the industrial relations was further estimated using the non-symmetric matrix. The strength of relations matrix can be viewed as a representation of the supply-chain network of the final commodity. In this study, we estimated the strength of relations matrix associated with the final demand for automobiles and applied the multiway cut approach using nonnegative matrix factorization to the matrix in order to find environmentally important industry clusters in the Japanese automobile supply chain. According to our empirical results, the optimal number of industry clusters is 19, and 4 industry clusters are playing a key role in CO₂ emission reduction.     

Gender-specific labor market conditions and family formation

Slack labor market conditions for women relative to men increase the marriage rate in the USA. This paper examines the long-term consequences of such marriages. Despite the significant effect on marriage timing, labor market conditions experienced in youth do not affect the probability that a woman will marry by the age of 30. Further, labor market conditions at the time of marriage are uncorrelated with the probability of divorce, spouses?? characteristics, or the number of children. These findings suggest that labor market fluctuations induce only intertemporal adjustments for marriage timing without affecting reservation match quality or total fertility.     

The economic policy mix, policy cooperation, and protectionism: Some aspects of macroeconomic interdependence among the United States, Japan, and other OECD countries

In this paper we examine the macroeconomic interdependence of Japan and the United States using the McKibbin-Sachs global (MSG) simulation model of the world economy. Our goal is to determine how shifts in macroeconomic policies in the United States or Japan affect the other country as well as the rest of the world. In particular, we examine the following three issues: (1) the likely macroeconomic ramifications for the United States, Europe, and Japan of significant budget cuts in the United States; (2) the macroeconomic implications of a protectionist tariff imposed by the United States; and (3) the scope for policy coordination among the United States, Japan, and Europe.     

What Determines the Size of the Nonprofit Sector?: A Cross-Country Analysis of the Government Failure Theory

This article is an empirical examination of the government failure theory using a cross-country data set. The government failure theory is represented in the major existing literature as providing a sound explanatory basis for an interesting characteristic of the nonprofit sector, that is, there is a large variability in nonprofit sector size from one place to another. Salamon et al. (Social origins of civil society: An overview, Working Papers of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, 2000) examined this theory using the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (CNP) data set, and consequently rejected the government failure theory. However, by applying the panel analysis approach to the CNP data set, this article shows that the government failure theory should not have been so easily rejected.     

On our memory of gay Sullivan: a hidden trajectory

This article examines psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan's approach to the issue of homosexuality. Sullivan (1892-1949), well-known for his interpersonal theory of mental illness, is believed to have accomplished a high recovery rate in his treatment of schizophrenia during the 1920s. Most of his patients, as well as Sullivan himself, were concerned about their "homosexual" orientations. He encouraged physical affection between male patients and male attendants, believing that it would free patients from their guilt for their "unconventional" sexuality. But he kept his compelling practice hidden, not bringing it into open discussion to confront the definition of homosexuality as "sickness." This article traces the process in which the omission of the important aspect of Sullivan's practice began during his lifetime and continued in the scholarship since. In so doing, the article suggests a nuanced understanding of this important figure in the U.S. intellectual and cultural history of homosexuality.     

State expenditures on home and community based services and use of formal and informal personal assistance: a multilevel analysis

Despite wide state variation in commitment to home and community-based services (HCBS) for functionally impaired older persons, little is known about how such variation affects older adults' strategies to compensate for their functional limitations. This study examines the association of state HCBS expenditures with use of formal and informal personal assistance among non-institutionalized older Americans aged 70 and older with functional limitations. We conducted multilevel multinomial logistic regression analysis using data from the first wave of the Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old Survey, combined with data on state HCBS expenditures. Controlling for individuals' demographic, socioeconomic, and care needs factors, persons residing in states with higher HCBS expenditures were more likely to use formal personal assistance, but not less likely to use informal assistance. Our study suggests state variation in HCBS expenditures leads to inequitable access to formal personal assistance, especially among those with high functional limitations.     

Education and Social Mobility in Postwar Japan: Trends and Some Institutional Aspects

Abstract  This paper examines the trend in social mobility in postwar Japan, especially focusing on the mediating role of education. The data set is derived from the SSM (Social Stratification and Social Mobility) surveys. Applying log-linear models to the data of five periods, we analyze the trend of the relationship among origin, education, and destination. Occupations are classified according to type of job, and son's first job is used for the analysis. The result reveals that the unmediating transmission of position has declined, and education is becoming a more significant mediator between origin and destination. These changes proceed in the form of reduction in the random sphere of 'movers' as well as replacement of 'stayers' with 'movers'. However, the association between origin and destination has hardly changed for several decades. This stablity results from the inequality in educational resources available to families and the specificities, not universality, of relations surviving into the higher level of education.