The mixed evacuation problem

A dynamic network introduced by Ford and Fulkerson is a directed graph with capacities and transit times on its arcs. The quickest transshipment problem is one of the most fundamental problems in dynamic networks. In this problem, we are given sources and sinks. Then the goal of this problem is to find a minimum time limit such that we can send the right amount of flow from sources to sinks. In this paper, we introduce a variant of this problem called the mixed evacuation problem. This problem models an emergent situation in which people can evacuate on foot or by car. The goal is to organize such a mixed evacuation so that an efficient evacuation can be achieved. In this paper, we study this problem from the theoretical and practical viewpoints. In the first part, we prove the polynomial-time solvability of this problem in the case where the number of sources and sinks is not large, and also prove the polynomial-time solvability and computational hardness of its variants with integer constraints. In the second part, we apply our model to the case study of Minabe town in Wakayama prefecture, Japan.     

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.     

Meaningful learning in weighted voting games: an experiment

In April 2013, all of the major academic publishing houses moved thousands of journal titles to an original hybrid model, under which authors of accepted papers can choose between an expensive open access (OA) track and the traditional track available only to subscribers. This paper argues that authors might now use a publication strategy as a quality signaling device. The imperfect information game between authors and readers presents several types of Perfect Bayesian Equilibria, including a separating equilibrium in which only authors of high-quality papers are driven toward the open access track. The publishing house should choose an open-access publication fee that supports the emergence of the highest return equilibrium. Journal structures will evolve over time according to the journals’ accessibility and quality profiles.     

Effect of Changes in Living Conditions on Well-Being: A Prospective Top–Down Bottom–Up Model

Using the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examined life-satisfaction and housing satisfaction before and after moving (N = 3,658 participants from 2,162 households) with univariate and bivariate two-intercept two-slope latent growth models. The main findings were (a) a strong and persistent increase in average levels of housing satisfaction, (b) no increase in average life-satisfaction, (c) low stability in individuals’ level of housing satisfaction, and (d) high stability in individuals’ level of life-satisfaction. The results are discussed in the context of top–down and bottom–up models as well as adaptation theories of well-being. We conclude that moving or living in a better home is unrelated to life-satisfaction judgments for two reasons. First, housing makes a small contribution to life-satisfaction judgments. Second, positive effects of better housing are undermined by the greater costs of living in a better home. The results provide no support for the prediction of adaptation theory that shifting aspirations undermine the benefits of living in a better home.     

SUBJECT AND SUBSTRATUM : ON JAPANESE IMPERIAL NATIONALISM

This paper addresses the theoretical and philosophical questions concerning how an individual identified him/herself as a member of an ethnic, racial, or national community in the context of Japanese Imperialist discourse during the 1930's. The central focus is Tanabe Hajime. Together with his mentor Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe established the so-called Kyoto School of Philosophy in the 1920's. With his background in the philosophy of sciences and mathematics, and modern European metaphysics, Tanabe created a philosophical argument for the multi-ethnic nation-state, and proposed the universalistic concept of Japanese national identity which positively evaluates and integrates individuals of different ethnic backgrounds into one. He constructed the Logic of Species (Shu no Ronri) according to which a member of the Japanese Empire could identify with Japan precisely because she or he can participate in the Japanese State which represents the whole, inclusive of all the ethnic groups. Relying upon the Hegelian concept of negativity, he explained the two different levels of belonging: particularistic belonging to the specific identity (shu) such as ethnicity, and universalistic belonging to the generic identity (rui). And he further demonstrated that ethnic identity is far from fixed, and is brought into the subject's self-awareness only insofar as the subject negates it and is free from it. In other words, the subject becomes aware of her/his ethnic origin only when s/he negates it thereby participating in a higher order of social formation, the State, under which ethnic multiplicity is subsumed. Thus the species of ethnicity is constituted only insofar as it is negatively mediated by the genus, that is, the State. Tanabe saw the essential form of human freedom in this negative relation of the subject to his ethnicity, and understood a subject's belonging to a nation as a dialectic and negative process of mediation between the species and the genus. While postwar Japan was built upon the premises of ethnic nationalism, Japanese imperial nationalism of the pre-war period was afraid of ethnic nationalisms which could challenge the Empire's rhetoric of multiethnicity and pluralism. Tanabe's Logic of Species was a response to such needs of Japanese Imperialism and it represented a philosophical attempt to undermine ethnic nationalism. Not surprisingly, it served as a metaphysical foundation for the idea of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere.     

The social construction of reality in the artifacts of numeracy for distribution and exchange in a Nepalese Bazaar

This study explores street mathematics as they are embedded in the context of a governmental reorganization of the Nepalese bazaar. The forced introduction of the metric system caused merchants to organize a practice of mathematical conversions whereby the old system of measurement could be coordinated with the new allowing the merchants to comply with government requirements while responding to the public's distrust of the new system. The author argues that the invention and social organization of new artifacts for conversionfrom the old to the new system permitted the authority of the old system of measurement to be reconstructed in the new metric system. The social organization of the new system was an ideological practice which eventually “reified” or made real the new cultural artifacts in actual contexts of the institutionalized practice of distribution and exchange.     

A rooted-forest partition with uniform vertex demand

A rooted-forest is the union of vertex-disjoint rooted-trees. Suppose we are given a graph G=(V,E), a collection {R ₁,??,R _k } of k root-sets (i.e., vertex-sets), and a positive integer d. We prove a necessary and sufficient condition for G to contain k edge-disjoint rooted-forests F ₁,??,F _k with root-sets R ₁,??,R _k such that each vertex is spanned by exactly d of F ₁,??,F _k .     

中原平原农区回乡创业的现状——对周口市回乡创业者的问卷调查

"回乡创业"现象从上世纪90年代后期开始受到学者们的关注.近年来在中国,"回乡创业"已经形成了一个潮流.中原农村地区是典型的传统平原农区,工业化和城镇化进程较为缓慢,诸多矛盾在这里交织汇集."回乡创业"对促进这些地区的工业化、城镇化及农业现代化进程也许有更强的作用与更大的意义,同时,对解决广受社会关注的"留守儿童"及"留守老人"问题也做出了一些贡献.一般来说,回乡创业者具有相对高的学历,外出打工时,他们有学技术与本事的有关人力资本积累的动机;另外,他们外出打工时作为技术人员或经营班子成员的经历对他们以后的创业意义重大.但值得注意的是,"关系"(社会网络)在创业者的创业过程中作用较大;此外,政府的政策支持必不可少.     

Online graph exploration algorithms for cycles and trees by multiple searchers

This paper deals with online graph exploration problems by multiple searchers. The information on the graph is given online. As the exploration proceeds, searchers gain more information on the graph. Assuming an appropriate communication model among searchers, searchers can share the information about the environment. Thus, a searcher must decide which vertex to visit next based on the partial information on the graph gained so far by searchers. We assume that all searchers initially start the exploration at the origin vertex, and the goal is that each vertex is visited by at least one searcher and all searchers finally return to the origin vertex. The objective is to minimize the time when the goal is achieved. We study the case of cycles and trees. For the former, we give an optimal online exploration algorithm in terms of competitive ratio, and for the latter, we also give an online exploration algorithm which is optimal among greedy algorithms.