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This paper investigates the performance assessment of liner shipping industry and presents a multi-dimensional evaluation framework to ensure both financial and non-financial monitoring. The traditional performance assessment approach is based on the financial indicators such as ratio analysis, but it is limited to the fiscal perspective. The meaning of performance has dramatically changed and non-financial (and intangible) assets increased their importance in recent years. Under these circumstances, the multi-attribute performance assessment methods play a critical role to combine many aspects of the business. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is originally developed for the multi-attribute performance assessment and its philosophy on business process evaluation pioneered the importance of key performance indicators and the quality management issues including the internal customer. Service quality and the business performance assessment are some of the hot issues in the liner shipping industry and the long term competitiveness is a critical concern in the recent liner shipping business. The BSC method is utilized to ensure a cumulative analysis of the short/long and tangible/intangible indicators of performance and computes the weight of each criterion by using Fuzzy-AHP method in the liner shipping industry.

The national logistics policy report published by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tourism in 2011 proposes to establish international logistics strategy teams in 10 different regions around Japan to satisfy the increasing demand for advance transportation infrastructure and stay competitive in Asia Pacific. The globalization of world economies creates many opportunities as well as challenges for international logistics companies to gain more business chances in this changing environment. The purpose of this paper is to improve service quality of international logistics companies and explores the quality function deployment in terms of quality evaluation method. The logistics service is particularly characterized by offering a series of transport solution and including other logistics activities. The major customers of the logistics services are the industrial clients. The customer satisfaction is key managerial mission since the competitiveness is a growing issue in this industry. The quality function deployment is one of the unique procedures to expose the requirements of customer and transform them into managerial tasks by cross correlation analysis between requirements and technical measures. The empirical study is performed to investigate service quality of the logistics industry by focusing on a group of leading logistics companies.

From a forced renunciation in 1946 of war as a tool of international relations, Japan progressed during the next 58 years – first pushed by a former enemy, then entrained by world events and a renewed emergence of nationalism at home – to de facto repudiation of a position of studied neutrality. Armed Japanese troops are today once again present in a theatre of war.

In the 1990s, the renewed scholarly interest in community policing includes more comparative and historical research, with many studies focusing on Japan. This article presents historical evidence that the highly‐touted Japanese police system was an American invention originating from the post‐World War II occupation of Japan. A review of the facts indicates that not only did the USA reform the Japanese police system, but insisted on re‐creating it according to American models.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) has become the world’s most important container-export area in the world because of the huge growth of container volume from China. Shanghai, the gateway of the YRD, handles most of the cargoes. But the nature of river port has restricted its development, which forced China to built the Yangshan deepwater port to act as the mega hub in the region. In response to the emergence of the YRD and Yangshan, two traditionally transshipment centers in the region, Busan and Kaohsiung, have implemented strategies to in response to the emergence of YRD and Yangshan. This paper analyzes Busan’s and Kaohsiung’s strategies and tries to forecast the development of these ports. Research result shows Busan is aggressive and ambitious but that Kaohsiung has little chance of becoming the mega-hub in the region.

The Lockheed scandal was exposed during the 4 February 1976 hearings of the Sub-Committee on Multinational Corporations of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. These hearings revealed that Lockheed Aircraft Corporation paid illegal payments in several countries including Japan to promote the sale of its planes to prevent bankruptcy. The Securities Exchange Commission obtained documents showing that Lockheed paid more than US$10 million to Yoshio Kodama, a “fixer” and Lockheed's secret representative, and the Marubeni Corporation, which was Lockheed's agent in Japan since 1959. During the same hearings on 6 February, A. Carl Kotchian, vice president of Lockheed, informed the committee that a senior Japanese government official received US$2 million from Marubeni and that his company relied on Kenji Osano, a close associate of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, as an intermediary in its efforts to sell 21 Lockheed's L-1001 Tristar airbuses to All Nippon Airways (ANA) (Macdougall, 1988, pp. 193–195).

This chapter examines the role of political recycling – the practice of repeated utilization of former high-level politicians in government – in forestalling or, at least, minimizing conflicts among political players. Drawing upon observations from recent political experiences of Japan, the chapter first demonstrates that political recycling in Japan is deeply embedded in the society's cultural practices rather than in the system of liberal democracy, which its leaders espouse. Political recycling in Japan, in fact, exhibits features that are antithetical to liberal democracy. The dynamic relationship between political recycling and conflict prevention in Japan are then analyzed as well as the implications of the analysis for places in Africa where political conflict has been rampant.

DURING much of the Second World War, the affairs of the Library Association were conducted for the Council by an Emergency Committee. The record of its meeting on 10th June 1941, includes the following: “A resolution having been received suggesting that a committee be formed to consider post‐war reconstruction, it was resolved that by means of a notice in the LIBRARY ASSOCIATION RECORD, Branches and Sections should be invited to formulate suggestions for the consideration of the committee. A draft questionnaire for the purpose of an enquiry into the effects of the war on the public library service was approved”. In July, the Committee reported “further arrangements … for carrying out an exhaustive survey designed to give the necessary data for full and detailed consideration and ultimate recommendation as to the future of public libraries, their administration and their place in the social services”. The promised notice appeared as an editorial in September.

Comparing international history textbooks creates a perfect opportunity for students to see the complexity and controversy of history interpretation of certain events. Such a critical comparative approach helps students understand how people in different countries perceive and interpret the Korean War, its aftermath, and its effects on current international relation-ships. In this article, we suggest that teachers approach the Korean War and the Six-Party Talks in two ways: Six-Party Discussion Table motivation activities and analysis of middle school history textbook excerpts about the Korean War in the six countries. Detailed lesson plans and handouts are provided for teachers to facilitate these discussions. These include the directions and procedures for the activities, teachers' guide, suggested answers, textbook excerpts from the United States, and textbook excerpts translated into English China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, and South Korea.