《中国抗战画史》与曹聚仁的“日本观”

《中国抗战画史》是由国民党中央通讯社战地特派记者曹聚仁撰文、舒宗侨配图,上海联合画报社1947年5月出版的一部全面记录中国八年抗战始末的战史。曹聚仁从日本社会、文化与民族性入手,细致地剖析了日本军国主义发动侵华战争的根源及战争胜负的深层因素。该书存信史、究成败、诫来者,显示了作者化繁为简的"史笔"和高屋建瓴的"史眼"。曹聚仁的"日本观",在近代以来中国认知日本的文化链条上具有承前启后的重要价值。

Responses of some landscape trees to the drought and high temperature events during 2006 and 2007 in Yamaguchi, Japan

Extreme weather events were analyzed based on the meteorological data from the year of 1967 to 2007 for Yamaguchi, Japan. The responses from landscape trees were also investigated mainly by the analysis of image pixel and spectral reflectance, Results show that after the dry, hot and windy summer in 2007, many landscape trees in Yamaguchi City tended to respond the extreme weather events by re- ducing their leaf surface area and receiving less radiation energy. Premature leaf discoloration or defoliation appeared on some landscape tree species and leaf necrosis occurred on tip and margin of many Kousa dogwood （Comus kousa） trees at unfavorable sites. Described by image pixel analysis method, the leaf necrotic area percentage （LNAP） of sampled dogwood trees averaged 41.6% and the sampled Sasanqua camellia （Camelia sasanqua） tree also showed fewer flowers in flower season of 2007 than that in 2006. By differential analysis of partial discolored crown, it presented a logistic differential equation of crown color for sweet gum （Liquidambar styraciflua） trees. It suggested that the persistent higher temperature and lower precipitation could be injurious to the sensitive landscape trees at poor sites, even in relative humid area like Yamaguchi.

Lung tissue flap repairs esophagus defection with an inner chitosan tube stent

AIM： TO repair the partial esophagus defect with a chitosan stent, a new esophageal prosthesis made of pulmonary tissue with vascular pedicie.METHODS： Fifteen Japanese big ear white rabbits were divided into experimental group （n = 10） and control group （n = 5）. Esophagus defect in rabbits of experimental group was repaired using lung tissue flap with a chitosan tube stent, gross and histological appearance was observed at week 2, 4 and 8 after operation, and barium sulphate X-ray screen was performed at week 10 after operation. Esophagus defect of rabbits in control group was repaired using lung tissue flap with no chitosan tube stent, gross and histological appearance was observed at week 2, 4 and 8 after operation, and barium sulphate X-ray screen was performed at week 10 after operation.RESULTS： In the experimental group, 6 rabbits survived for over two weeks, the lung tissue flap healed esophageal defection, and squamous metaplasia occurred on the surface of lung tissue flap. At week 10 after operation, barium sulphate examination found that barium was fluent through the esophagus with no stricture or back stream, the creeping was good. In the control group, 4 rabbits survived for two weeks, the lung tissue flap healed esophageal defection with fibrous tissue hyperplasia, barium sulphate examination found that barium was fluent through the esophagus with a slight stricture or back stream, and the creeping was not good at week 10 after operation.CONCLUSION： Esophagus defect can be repaired using lung tissue flap with an inner chitosan tube stent.

Japanese Stock Price Determination： What Is Important？

This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between recent Japanese stock prices and macroeconomic variables For the Japanese stock prices, the level and rate of that are both used for analysis. The results show that exchange rates have not been a significant determinant of the ＂level＂ of Japanese stock prices, but on the other hand, have been a significant determinant of its ＂rate＂. The ＂rate＂ has been used to analyze determinants of the stock prices. However, it is dangerous to use it without taking into account its level. Many stock traders usually look at the level. Interest rates, especially the domestic interest rate, have not impacted the Japanese stock prices. Japanese interest rates have been quite low as the Bank of Japan has implemented quantitative easing instead of interest-based policies. Recently, the U.S. stock prices, particularly in the first few days after a change, have been significantly influencing the Japanese stock prices.

Responses of the East Component of Beijing GNSS Continuous Observation Stations to the 2011 Japan M_W 9.0 Earthquake

Several new demands have been put forward for the application of the Beijing continuous GNSS observations due to some particular reasons, such as the limited coverage of the observation network, the different construction and management criterion executed by different units and the intense interference resulting from human activity. In this paper, necessary processing of data is carried out, including more accurate calculation, corrections to the replacement, outliers and relocation of equipment, and elimination of linear trends in the E-component for every station. The E-components of the 16 available stations showed a lower sawtooth wave anomaly （slowly westward propagating） before the 2011 Tohoku Mw9. 0 earthquake, a coseismic step rebound （rapid eastward propagating） and a post-seismic D-shaped recovery. These steps constituted a complete earthquake process which was rarely seen before in the GNSS observations and provides a good example for further study. Moreover, the rapid eastward propagating during the earthquake is not influenced by the size of the given normal values, which may play a significant role in earthquake forecasting and early warning.

A Study on Visual Diversity of Japanese Residential Streetscapes

This study was conducted to find out the available visual diversity in Japanese residential streetscapes. The visual diversity occurs when the visual elements on streetscapes are different to each other. In this study, a field survey as a subjective method and the entropy as an objective method were used as measures of visual diversity. Data were collected from 80 residential streetscapes from four sites in the Saitama Prefecture, Japan. The sequential perspective views of streetscapes were analyzed for eight visual elements： shape of houses, shape of roofs, shape of windows, positions of the main openings of houses, availability of the ornaments on houses, height, color and the appearance of the boundary walls of premises to calculate the entropy. A field survey with multicultural subjects was used to find out the correlation between entropy and the human perception on the visual diversity. According to the results, the residential streetscapes displayed high diversity variations largely due to the shape of the roofs, shape of the windows and the appearance of the boundary walls of the premises. Moreover, the results concluded that the residential streetscapes at the study area are neither visually diverse nor visually uniform in considering the visual diversity aspect.

A comparative analysis of Japanese firm productivity： Solow residual and Malmquist productivity index

For some time, two major kinds of Total Factor Productivity （TFP） have existed independently of each other： the Solow residual and the Malmquist Productivity Index （MPI）. The Solow residual was introduced in macro economic growth models, and the MPI has been used in micro economics and management studies. As both indices were developed independently, few studies utilize both together and compare the results. This paper uses the same data to compare the two productivity indices by setting to determine the economic implications of combining the two indices. We discovered that we could decompose TFP with each aspect of the Soiow residual and MPI. We could then interpret their relationship in the business cycle. Our results indicated that the frontier shift in MPI of Japanese firms often occurred when the Solow residual increased, meaning that improving oroductivitv with the Solow residual could be generated by a firm that could shift new production frontiers.

Literary Art as a Vehicle for the Diffusion of Cultural Imperialism in the Nigerian Society： The Example of Chimamanda Adichie＇s Purple Hibiscus

This paper takes a cursory look at the conceptual framework of what cultural imperialism entails with particular study of its socio-political consequences in contemporary Nigerian society, and a closer look at the transportation and importation of western cultural values and the implantation of same in Nigeria thereby almost completely eclipsing the hitherto African cultural conservatism of the Nigerian state. Clear examples of this cultural transplant are given in this work, including but not limited to the use of English language in place of the indigenous languages for communication even when there are no foreigners, smoking of cigarettes, ladies putting on trousers, abortions as a means of birth control, free premarital and extramarital sexual relationships, and homosexuality and gay practices. These which were viewed as an anathema to Nigeria＇s cultural values have supplanted the traditional conservatism of the Nigerian people. This work particularly looks at Chimamanda Adichie＇s Purple Hibiscus and distills classical cases of cultural imperialism. Adichie through the character Eugene, captures cultural imperialism as seen in the life of this vastly brainwashed ＂been-to＂ who is clearly portrayed as an imperial lackey, capitalist, and apologist. Also, the character of Rev. Father Benedict, a Briton, who often found any indigenous songs in St. Agnes Parish was quite offensive. The work also captures cultural imperialism in the ironical contempt with which the catholic devotee, Eugene, treats his own father, Papa Nnukwu, steeped in the traditional African cultural values, and Eugene viewes him as Godlessness. The essay concludes by identifying the cultural crises that cultural imperialism creates in the Nigerian state, and recommends ways of diluting and diffusing the present cultural imperialism as a solution to the myriad of socio-political crises currently experienced by the Nigerian society.

Economic Consequences of Tahoku Earthquake of March 11, 2011 in Japan

The paper considers the economic consequences of Tahoku earthquake occurred on March 11,2011 at 5：46：23 （UT） at the distance of 70 km from the northeast shore of Japanese coast Honshu. This earthquake had a magnitude of 9 and became the strongest in the whole history of the seismological observations in this part of the planet. The generated tsunami killed more than 15,700 people, damaged 332,395 buildings and 2,126 roads. The total economic loss in Japan was estimated at $309 billion. The catastrophe in Japan also impacted global economy. To reveal its impact, the authors used regional and global stock indexes, production indexes, stock prices of the main Japanese, European and US companies, and import/export dynamics. The authors demonstrated that the catastrophe substantially affected the markets and on the short run in some indicators it exceeded the effect of the global financial crisis. The authors concluded that it is necessary to treat possible strong earthquakes in different regions of the world as one very important factor that can affect the world economy.

An improved constraint method in optimal estimation of CO2 from GOSAT SWIR observations

We propose an algorithm that combines a pre-processing step applied to the a priori state vector prior to retrievals, with the modified damped Newton method （MDNM）, to improve convergence. The initial constraint vector pre-processing step updates the initial state vector prior to the retrievals if the algorithm detects that the initial state vector is far from the true state vector in extreme cases where there are CO2 emissions. The MDNM uses the Levenberg-Marquardt parameter ~,, which ensures a positive Hessian matrix, and a scale factor a, which adjusts the step size to optimize the stability of the convergence. While the algorithm iteratively searches for an optimized solution using observed spectral radiances, MDNM adjusts parameters ）, and a to achieve stable convergence. We present simulated retrieval samples to evaluate the performance of our algorithm and comparing it to existing methods. The standard deviation of our retrievals adding random noise was less than 3.8 ppmv. After pre-processing the initial estimate when it was far from the true value, the CO2 retrieval errors in the boundary layers were within 1.2 ppmv. We tested the MDNM algorithm＇s performance using GOSAT Llb data with cloud screening. Our preliminary validations comparing the results to TCCON FTS measurements showed that the average bias was less than 1.8 ppm and the correlation coefficient was approximately 0.88, which was larger than for the GOSAT L2 product.