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The core issue underlying the bulk of scholarly research into the Japanese political economy is the relationship between the bureaucracy and the politicians. My study investigates whether there has been a relative decline in bureaucratic influence and whether politicians are displaying more independence in the policy making process than they did during previous decades. My main hypothesis is that the loss of bureaucratic influence has largely been a function of the declining position of former bureaucrats within the ruling Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), and that it has largely been politicians who were able to enter the Diet at a young age due to hereditary recruitment who have gained influence. Their ability to build up seniority has placed them at an advantage in promotion to key party and government posts due to the adoption of a seniority system of selecting cabinet ministers and party leaders. . I use probit and logit analysis of LDP cabinet and Diet members (1955-2003) to demonstrate the decline of former bureaucrats within the LDP in terms of their overall numbers and their occupancy of key posts. I use cross case study analysis of the work of three major blue-ribbon administrative reform panels (the Provisional Administrative Reform Commission established in 1962, the Second Provisional Administrative Reform Commission established in 1981, and the Administrative Reform Council established in 1996) to demonstrate how the lack of former bureaucrats within the LDP left the Ministry of Finance vulnerable to reform that stripped it of authority and altered its traditional policy preferences. My case studies analysis shows that following the founding of the LDP in 1955, former bureaucrats in the party supported delegating substantial authority to the bureaucracy and resisted attempts to curtail bureaucratic influence, acting as conduits for bureaucratic influence in the LDP. However, over time as former bureaucrats lost their pre eminent position within the LDP, attempts to reduce bureaucratic influence were successful. I conclude that the reforms implemented on the recommendations of the Administrative Reform Council fundamentally changed Japanese financial administration and altered financial policy in a way that was a major departure from traditional bureaucratic preferences.

This study investigated the distribution of Reactive Tokens in natural conversation by male and female speakers of Japanese. According to Clancy et al. a reactive token (RT) is "a short utterance produced by an interlocutor who is playing a listener's role during the other interlocutor's speakership" (1996, p. 355). Clancy et al. classify RTs into five types: backchannels, reactive expressions, collaborative finishes, repetitions, and resumptive openers. This study investigated the distribution of these five types of RTs. In particular, it studied their use in turn management and their distribution by gender. To identify the distribution of the five types of RTs more clearly, all five types of Reactive Tokens were divided into two levels: those that occurred at the boundary of a Pause-bounded Phrasal Unit (PPU) and those that occurred within a PPU.The participants in this study were 82 pairs of native speakers of Japanese: 82 female and 82 male native speakers of Japanese between 18 and 22 years of age. All pairs consisted of classmates or friends in the same university.Participants were audiotaped during 20 minutes of natural conversation. Six minutes from each conversation were extracted, and RTs were identified and coded using WaveSurfer (Sjölander & Beskow, 2000). Frequencies of RTs per minute were then calculated for each participant.Using principal components analysis, three coherent components were identified among the ten categories (five RT types each at two different levels). These three components were labeled sequential RTs, accompanying RTs, and repetitive RTs. Also, MANOVA and ANOVA revealed significant differences between Japanese male and female RT use, with females using more accompanying RTs than males.These findings suggest that different types of Reactive Tokens serve different turn-taking functions in Japanese, and that factors besides language, such as gender, may affect a speaker's choice of a particular type of Reactive Token.

We present results from an adaptive optics survey conducted with thePalomar and Keck telescopes over 3 years, which measured the frequency ofstellar and sub-stellar companions to Sun-like stars. The survey samplecontains 266 stars in the 3-10000 million year age range atheliocentric distances between 8 and 200 parsecs and with spectral typesbetween F5-K5. A sub-sample of 101 stars, between3-500 million years old, were observed in deep exposures with acoronagraph to search for faint sub-stellar companions. A total of 288candidate companions were discovered around the sample stars, which werere-imaged at subsequent epochs to determine physical association with thecandidate host stars by checking for common proper motion. Benefitting froma highly accurate astrometric calibration of the observations, we wereable to successfully apply the common proper motion test in the majorityof the cases, including stars with proper motions as small as20 milli-arcseconds/year.The results from the survey include the discovery of three new brown dwarfcompanions (HD 49197B, HD 203030B, and ScoPMS 214B), 43 new stellar binaries,and a triple system. The physical association of an additional, apriori-suspected, candidate sub-stellar companion to the star HII 1348 isastrometrically confirmed. The newly-discovered and confirmed young browndwarf companions span a range of spectral types between M5 and T0.5, andwill be of prime significance for constraining evolutionary models ofyoung brown dwarfs and extra-solar planets.Based on the 3 new detections of sub-stellar companions in the 101 starsub-sample and following a careful estimate of the survey incompleteness,a Bayesian statistical analysis shows that the frequency of 0.012-0.072solar-mass brown dwarfs in 30-1600 AU orbits around young solar analogsis 6.8% (-4.9%, +8.3%; 2-sigma limits). While this is a factor of 3lower than the frequency of stellar companions to G-dwarfs in the sameorbital range, it is significantly higher than the frequency of browndwarfs in 0-3 AU orbits discovered through precision radial velocitysurveys. It is also fully consistent with the observed frequency of0-3 AU extra-solar planets. Thus, the result demonstrates that theradial-velocity "brown dwarf desert" does not extend to wideseparations, contrary to previous belief.

The telecommunications industry has evolved into a very competitive industry since 1980. Aggressive competition is the norm in the long distance, equipment, operator services and many other segments of the industry. The remaining segment of the market without widespread meaningful competition is the "last-mile" wireline service to the customer premise. Incumbent local exchange carriers enjoy a monopoly to serve nearly all residences and most business customers, collecting over 99% of all local exchange service revenues. Using their monopoly status, incumbents have developed a cross-subsidy system which uses the rates paid by some customers to lower the rates paid by others to support a policy known as "universal service." This policy has resulted in telephone service reaching 94% of America's households. Carriers claim that this policy cost them $20 billion annually, potential entrants claim the true cost is as low as $4 billion and the rest is profit.In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress ordered the end of the local exchange monopoly and opened the local markets to competition. Congress also specified the continuation of universal service, specified that telephone penetration should be increased and specified that the universal service concept will be applied to America's schools, libraries and rural health centers. Congress also specified that, unlike today, all carriers will contribute fairly and equitably fairly to the universal service fund and that all carriers providing local service, including new competitors, will be eligible to receive support from the fund. The cost to meet these requirements in a competitive environment totals $7.2 billion, or 5.1% of net carrier revenue.This thesis addresses the definition of universal service and the services that should be eligible for support, the new competitive environment, how to collect the universal service support fund, and how to best distribute the funds to customers targeted to receive support from the system: those in high-cost areas, low-income consumers, and schools and libraries for advanced communications services.

We examine the census of star-forming galaxies and their extinctionproperties at redshift z~2, when a large fraction of the stellar massin the universe formed. We find a good agreement between the X-ray,radio, and de-reddened UV estimates of the average star formation rate(SFR) for our sample of z~2 galaxies of ~50 Msun/yr, indicating thatthe locally calibrated SFR relations appear to be statistically validfrom redshifts 1.5

Is there a qualitative difference between memory functions in adults and children? Given the relevance of memory processes for virtually every aspect of everyday life and the complex interactions between memory development and general cognitive abilities, surprisingly little is known about memory abilities in childhood.In four experiments with children aged 6-12 years and young adults, the developmental trajectories of two separate mechanisms underlying recognition memory - familiarity and recollection - were examined using event-related potentials (ERPs). Developmental changes were evident in both mechanisms of recognition memory. The data also revealed some surprising similarities across the life-span and emphasize the importance of strategic modulation of memory retrieval. Furthermore, the present investigation of memory development highlights age-related changes in cognitive processes and the maturation of the brain structures underlying these developmental changes.

Economic sanctions have been used as an instrument of American foreign policy ever since the Taft administration adopted the Dollar Diplomacy. This dissertation analyzes the trade Embargo the United States imposed upon Cuba after the Revolution from different perspectives: from the political, considering the main guidelines of American foreign policy toward Latin America, especially during the Cold War, and from the juridical, considering different perspectives of customary international law. Since the embargo was imposed only after American property had been expropriated without compensation, the dissertation analyzes the legality of expropriation, seen from the perspective of both capital-importing and capital-exporting countries, and the legality of economic sanctions as a legitimate peaceful reprisal. Due to the fact that the American embargo against Cuba is quasi-total, that is, consists of a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of these, and finally, to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Many books and articles have been written about this very controversial embargo, almost as old as the Cuban Revolution itself. For the Cubans, it constitutes and "economic blockade", and a violation of Cuba's right to free trade; for the Americans, it is a reprisal for the confiscation of American property. Nonetheless, since the embargo, as stated above, is not a sanction itself but a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of the sanctions that comprise the embargo and its legality, according to customary international law. Another aim of this dissertation is to prove why the American embargo against Cuba has only enhanced Castro's power and further centralized it. A brief chapter about the economic sanctions the United States imposed upon Chile under President Salvador Allende and the fall of his regime serves to compare the two cases with some similarities where sanctions were applied- in the first without success and in the second with success. Finally, the dissertation aims to prove that a lifting of the American embargo against Cuba is highly unlikely unless there is a change of regime in that nation of the Caribbean.

Since 1991, the Russian Federation has dealt with extreme political, economic, and social change. On the national level and at the local level, opponents of democratic reforms have retained their control of many important offices. This has resulted in contradictions and confusion in regards to national and local laws and policies, and has had little impact on local educational policies and practices. Added to this general crisis of Russian education reform is the inability of so-called Western education experts to comprehend the complexities and cultural differences of Russia and its education system when compared to the west. There have been several studies of business management ideology since the breakup of the Soviet Union, but American and Russian comparative educational leadership studies are not to be found. Inquiry has produced no empirical studies in Russia, and only two American empirical studies that have direct bearing on this research. Also, studies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and the World Bank have looked at the total educational system with little or no specific study of educational administration. The purpose of this descriptive study is to obtain an impression of how secondary school educators in the Russian Federation and the United States perceive their job responsibilities and organizational structure. This research study is of interest in terms of realizing the similarities and dissimilarities of Russian and American educational leadership. The survey instrument, based on Hofstede's Values Survey Module 1994, was distributed among secondary school administrators and faculty at Colquitt County High School in Moultrie, Georgia and their professional counterparts at Secondary Comprehensive School No. 56 in Novokuznetsk, Russia. The collected data may help in understanding organizational dynamics in general and allow for the judgment of cultural contexts on Russian and American educational leadership. This research study makes broad use of materials drawn from Russian and Western publications, government documentations, and other scholarly analyses.

Technological cooperation is not only costly and time consuming, but also has a high attrition rate. Most literature on strategic cooperation focuses mainly on issues related to cooperation formation and the reasons why firms form these cooperative partnerships. However, a successfully formed cooperation is not always managed well enough to achieve a satisfactory performance. The knowledge of cooperative formation is necessary, but insufficient to achieve a satisfactory performance. The literature suggests that scholars know little about the underlying factors affecting cooperative performance.A comprehensive literature review was conducted to establish the possible effects of key factors on the performance of international technological cooperation, and the possible relations between key factors. A qualitative pilot study was implemented to verify the practical relevance of those 12 key factors, of which 6 factors have a relatively more significant effect on performance than the other 6 factors. By applying theoretical modeling techniques, the research framework was then constructed according to the postulated relations between 7 key factors (6 relatively more significant factors and the focal concept, performance). Strictly based on the definition of key factors, measurement items of each key factor were carefully reviewed and selected. Following the process of structural equation modeling, the structural equation model in this research was constructed. Unlike most previous cooperation studies, a structural equation model allows researchers to examine simultaneously all the relations amongst key factors. The data were collected from mangers who had experience in managing a technological cooperative project with foreign partners, and were then analyzed by LISREL, a longstanding and widely distributed structural equation modeling computer program.The result suggests that symmetric opinions, commitment, dependence, relationships, partner analyses, and rewards have effects on the performance of international technological cooperation, which confirms the results of the thorough and comprehensive literature review and of the qualitative pilot study. In addition, in the structural equation model of this research, relationships and rewards have effects on commitment, and partner analyses and rewards have effects on dependence, which are also consistent with the literature review. The findings have contributed to theory advancement in cooperation studies, and to the knowledge of international business. Managerial implications from the findings also provide advices, which managers can proactively take, to avoid the odds of success.

Young stars are surrounded by massive, rotating disks of dust and gas, which supply a reservoir of material that may be incorporated into planets or accreted onto the central star. In this dissertation, I use high angular resolution observations at a range of wavelengths to understand the structure, ubiquity, and evolutionary timescales of protoplanetary disks.First, I describe a study of Class I protostars, objects believed to be at an evolutionary stage between collapsing spherical clouds and fully-assembled young stars surrounded by protoplanetary disks. I use a Monte Carlo radiative transfer code to model new 0.9 micron scattered light images, 1.3 mm continuum images, and broadband spectral energy distributions. This modeling shows that Class I sources are probably surrounded by massive protoplanetary disks embedded in massive infalling envelopes. For the best-fitting models of the circumstellar dust distributions, I determine several important properties, including envelope and disk masses, mass infall rates, and system inclinations, and I use these results to constrain the evolutionary stage of these objects.Second, I discuss observations of the innermost regions of more evolved disks around T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars, obtained with the Palomar Testbed and Keck Interferometers. I constrain the spatial and temperature structure of the circumstellar material at sub-AU radii, and demonstrate that lower-mass stars are surrounded by inclined disks with puffed-up inner edges 0.1-1 AU from the star. In contrast, the truncated inner disks around more massive stars may not puff-up, indicating that disk structure depends on stellar properties. I discuss the implications of these results for disk accretion, terrestrial planet formation and giant planet migration.Finally, I put these detailed studies of disk structure into a broader context by constraining the mass distribution and evolutionary timescales of circumstellar disks. Using the Owens Valley Millimeter Array, I mapped the millimeter continuum emission toward >300 low-mass stars in the NGC 2024 and Orion Nebula clusters. These observations demonstrate that the average disk mass in each cluster is comparable to the "minimum-mass protosolar nebula," and that there may be disk evolution on one million year timescales.

The purpose of business is to employ capital factors in such a manner as to generate value for its customers and profits for its owners. To achieve these ends, management must make at least three distinct decisions - the operating, investment, and financing decisions. The purpose of this study is to formulate a modeling methodology that harmonically analyzes and explains how the investment decision and capital elasticity influence competitive advantage. The research explores the descriptive literature for the current states of computational modeling, accounting theory and practice, managerial finance, macroeconomics, capital theory, and harmonic analysis in order to provide evidence supporting the content validity of a proposed modeling framework, which encodes, modulates, and transforms raw financial data into waveforms suitable for harmonic analysis. The framework is operationalized algebraically, translated into a high-level computational language, and subsequently tested using simulation methods in order to analyze the computational robustness of the implementation. Finally, empirical testing shows a significant correlation exists between the model's reported results and the profitability of sole proprietorships in the U.S. providing initial evidence of the framework's construct validity. Additional empirical testing shows that the relationship between the model's reported results and net profitability is stronger than results returned from the use of raw capital magnitudes providing evidence of the model's positive capacity for recommending decisions. The study uses extant financial data obtained from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which maintains and releases Federal tax information extracted from its archives into the public domain through its Statistics of Income (SOI) programs.