Persistence of vision| Hamaya Hiroshi's Yukiguni and Kuwabara Kineo's Tokyo Showa 11-nen in the transwar era

<p> Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) disproportionately affects Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. They account for more than half of infected individuals with HBV. Untreated HBV may ultimately lead to liver failure. Asian Americans have the lowest HBV screening rates; yet, they have the highest incidence of liver disease. A better understanding of HBV among Asian Americans is needed. This study explored factors associated with knowledge of HBV and perceived risks of HBV. A convenience sample was recruited at a faith-based organization and through the Asian Pacific Islander Network in Long Beach, California. Participants completed a self-administered questionnaire. Bivariate correlation coefficients were computed. Results indicated that knowledge of HBV was moderately low, even amongst the sample with a high level of education. Programs are needed to increase HBV screening for Asian Americans from all levels of education. Public health social workers can lead the charge. </p>

<p> This article considers the gendered processes of social change in Nepal. In particular, I examine how young working class women in urban Nepal articulate their modern subjectivities. In the last thirty years women have been making significant inroads into Nepal&rsquo;s public sphere, troubling long-held normative assumptions about women&rsquo;s place in modern Nepal. In particular, historically dominant high-caste Hindu norms that disapprove women&rsquo;s public visibility and mobility are challenged by new opportunity structures for women and an emergent structure of feeling advocating women&rsquo;s equal participation in Nepal&rsquo;s development projects. Rapid democratization of the political sphere, urbanization, and expansion of capitalist markets has precipitated enormous shifts in Nepal&rsquo;s social organization including how women from diverse caste and ethnic backgrounds participate in the newly monetized economy as laborers and consumers. Young working class women have unprecedented access to disposable income. With their wages, they enjoy the pleasures of purchasing power and, through consumptive practices, craft their identity as modern commodity consumers. At the same time, as participants in the public sphere of wage labor, working class women are deeply aware of the social risks they are taking as publicly visible women. These risks include the danger of being labeled &ldquo;over modern&rdquo; and &ldquo;open&rdquo;&ndash;descriptors with undertones of sexual immorality. Drawing on 20 months of ethnographic research conducted with one group of young working class women: female trekking guides, I contextualize my informants&rsquo; experiences of wage earning and consumption. I explore the justifications my informants use to legitimate their public visibility and the pleasure they take in commodity consumption as well as the strategies they deploy to counter negative stereotypes associated with their status as public women. I end with a discussion of anxiety as a productive force in the lives of my informants and show how tensions between the pleasures of purchasing power and the dangers of being labeled &ldquo;over modern&rdquo; bracket their experiences of day-to-day living.</p>

<p> The Filipino culture recognizes the elderly as part of its human resources. As a culture that considers family as a basic unit of society, the elderly play a central role. When elderly Filipinos, those that are 65 years of age and older, migrate to the United States, they expect that their families are able to take care of them. However, work demands and living situations among family members prevent them from receiving proper care.</p><p> With the increasing population of elderly Filipinos in Palm Springs, demand for a new Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE) is important. Agbayani's Residential Care Facility for Elderly Filipinos in Palm Springs, CA will offer supportive, quality, and long-term care for institutionalizing family in the facility. This business plan will show how Agbayani's RCFE intends on providing elderly Filipinos the quality of service and community they are accustomed to while maintaining a viable business.</p>

<p> Of the thousands of Buddhist manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang, there are many examples of non-official <i>s&umacr;tras</i> and <i> dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;</i> collections more difficult to identify than those with titles identical to canonical <i>s&umacr;tras</i>. Manuscript collection catalogs are the first sources consulted when one undertakes research involving manuscripts and in order to be a truely valuable resource, they need to reflect current scholarship. This thesis studies the Dunhuang manuscript, Pelliot <i>chinois</i> 3538, from different perspectives, examining its ritual, iconography, and textual variances. It compares its iconographical program to manuscript <i>s&umacr;tras</i> and canonical scriptures, uncovering new information regarding the content of multiple manuscripts. From this research it is apparent that P.3538 is an Avalokite&sacute;vara <i> dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;</i> ritual that is iconographically informed from a variety of canonical texts: <i>s&umacr;tras</i> in the <i> N&imacr;lakan&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;ha</i>/Qianshou cluster, the <i> Mah&amacr;pratisar&amacr; dh&amacr;ran&dotbelow;&imacr;s&umacr;tra</i> and its corresponding amulet culture, and <i>s&umacr;tras</i> connected with the bodhisattva&rsquo;s narrative history. In examining other manuscripts from Cave 17, we have found that it is a member of a Dunhuang manuscript cluster and is visually represented in an ink on paper altar diagram, Stein no. Ch.00189, from the British Museum. Integrating these findings would enrich descriptive catalogs for future research.</p>

During the second half of the nineteenth century, peasant smallholders in the Bengal delta – an alluvial tract formed out of the silt deposits of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river-systems – expanded their cultivation of jute, a fibrous plant that was the world’s primary packaging material. Jute fibres were spun and woven into course cloths used to pack the world’s commodities – its grains, sugar, coffee, cotton, wool, and so forth – in their journey from farms and plantations to urban and industrial centres of consumption. The fibre connected the Bengal delta and its peasant smallholders to the vicissitudes of global commodity markets. This dissertation examines connections between the delta and international commodity markets from the 1850s to the 1950s – it is a local history of global capital. I explore how the commodity shaped the delta’s economic, political and intellectual history, how economic lives, social and cultural formations, and political processes in eastern Bengal were informed and influenced by the cultivation and trade of jute fibres. First, I look at how commodity production changed peasant households’ economic lives, particularly intensifying peasant interactions with markets. I focus on peasant households’ market-based consumption, and argue that consumption informed peasant politics during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Second, I look at how the circulation of the commodity transformed the physical and ecological landscape of the delta. I focus on the emergence of jute-specialized market towns along the delta’s rivers and railways, where jute was bulked, assorted and packaged before being dispatched to metropolitan Calcutta. Third, I look at how the commodity emerged as a political and intellectual concept, as imperialists, anti-colonial nationalists, post-colonial statesmen, intellectuals and poets imbued fibre with meaning – relating jute to ideas of poverty and prosperity, religious ethics and practice, economic development and modernization and territorial nationalism. / History

<p> This study analyzes the connection between U.S. foreign policy and its mechanisms for either the resolution or protraction of conflict using the case of North Korea. This case is particularly ripe for resolution with regard to the United States&rsquo; recent &ldquo;Pivot to Asia.&rdquo; Moreover, now that North Korea is under the new leadership of the young, relatively unknown leader Kim Jong-un, this may be an essential the time to explore and implement alternative methods for ending this conflict. The purpose of this study is to enquire whether combining conflict analysis and resolution (CAR) tools and practices with alternative and dynamic soft foreign policy efforts might play a positive role in resolving this conflict. This study was conducted by analyzing current and historical documents on U.S. foreign policy, studying its desired or stated effects and comparing them to the known actual effects on the North Korean regime and its people. To help understand these effects, this study also sought the unique foreign policy perspectives, opinions, needs and desires of former North Korea refugees. The significance of this is in understanding and evaluating where CAR opportunities surface by promoting the participation of stakeholders as catalysts for change from the group of people directly affected by foreign policy: North Koreans themselves. The findings show that the U.S. foreign policy approach towards North Korea has not significantly evolved over the past 60 years. Moreover, even those North Koreans interviewed who steadfastly support a continued U.S. hard policy approach toward their former homeland conceded that positive change would also require alternative approaches that promote direct and indirect high quality contact. The findings also show even in a controlled interview environment, North Korean Refugees can change how they think, interact, and receive information, based on direct HQC and the positive repositioning of self and other. Many also had sustained contact with their loved ones still living in the North, and provide them with aid. Most North Koreans interviewed had received indirect and or direct information about the outside world when they had lived in North Korea including such things as listening to radio, watching movies or drama and receiving aid, which had a positive effect on them. While most North Koreans (still in the north) do not believe in religion, it can be an effective tool for change. The regime has continued for so long due to the structural violence and deprivation it has over society. Finally, local markets in North Korea play a key role in changing the lives of North Koreans and that North Korean diaspora can help change North Korea. The analysis provides innovative conflict resolution methods and offers potential tools and recommendations for a multi-dimensional foreign policy approach, which may affect and alter foreign policy discussions and decisions. This study, the results and recommendations are intended to be an initial step toward rethinking U.S. foreign policy for purposes of &ldquo;provention.&rdquo; </p>

<p>This dissertation examines the place of traditional songs in the Tibetan Buddhist culture of the former Himalayan kingdom of Ladakh. I look at how Buddhism and pre-Buddhist religion informed the texts and performance contexts of traditional songs, and how Ladakhi songs represent cultural self-images through associated musical, textual, and visual tropes. Many songs of the past, both from the old royal house and the rural Buddhist populations, reflect the socio-political structure of Ladakhi society. Some songs reflect a pan-Tibetan identity, connecting the former Namgyal dynasty to both the legendary King Gesar and Nyatri Tsangpo, the historical founder of the Tibetan Yarlung dynasty. Nevertheless, a distinct Ladakhi identity is consistently asserted. A number of songs contain texts that evoke a mandala or symbolic representation of the world according to Vajrayana Buddhist iconography, ritual and meditative visualization practices. These mandala descriptions depict the social order of the kingdom, descending from the heavens, to the Buddhist clergy, to the king and nobles, to the common folk. </p><p> As the region has become more integrated into modern India, Ladakhi music has moved into modern media space, being variously portrayed through scholarly works, concerts, mass media, and the internet. An examination of contemporary representations of &ldquo;tradition&rdquo; and ethnic identity in traditional music shows how Ladakhis from various walks of life view the music and song texts, both as producers and consumers. </p><p> Situated as it was on the caravan routes between India, Tibet, China, and Central Asia, Ladakhi culture developed distinctive hybrid characteristics, including in its musical styles. Analysis of the performance practices, musical structures, form, and textual content of songs clearly indicates a fusion of characteristics of Middle Eastern, Balti, Central Asian, and Tibetan origin. Looking at songs associated with the Namgyal dynasty court, I have found them to be part of a continuum of Tibetan high literary culture, combined with complex instrumental music practices. As such, I make the argument that these genres should be considered to be art music. </p>

<p>While nationalism remains a vital element in the production of the political and economic landscape, it is often treated as a static container for other processes or neglected altogether. Rather, it must itself be treated as a process&mdash;a nationalizing project&mdash;emerging from a constellation of often contradictory social forces. One such process of nationalization is the development of large-scale transportation infrastructure, such as railroads. These projects produce both new spheres of circulation and new understandings critical to navigating these novel environments, which together radically transform the relation between people, government, and territory. </p><p> In early twentieth century China, the complicated contest over railroad rights produced and was produced by a fractured political economic geography. Understandings of both identity and space remained fragmented, cohering only partially into a singular entity, thus demonstrating the intimate interrelation between state power, political identity, and territories both real and imagined. </p>

<p> To live in contemporary Korean society as a Highly Educated Woman has multiple meanings. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the HEKW's identity and explore their identity construction process from a holistic perspective. </p><p> Data were collected through in-depth interviews, which gave participants voice by allowing the opportunity to tell their stories. The study revealed that HEKW discover and confirm their identity by balancing and harmonizing actualization of their Personal Aspiration (PA) and fulfillment of Social Expectations (SE). </p><p> When society's needs harmonize with the "real me," HEKW experience well-being and security in their identity. Moreover, this dynamic identity construction process continues until reaching the "transformed-contribution stage," in which HEKW actualize their PA by contributing to society's well-being. Nevertheless, this is not the end. HEKW's identity continues to develop as they engage in their context of choice. </p><p> Based on the research findings this study's implications touched on: (a) Adult identity construction, (b) Koreans' global role, (c) Education and identity, (d) Character development education&mdash;from feminine virtues (care, relatedness) to universal virtues, (e) The need for community, (f) Life-long learning, and (g) Social participation. </p><p> Recommended topics for further research included: (a) the role of marital status in identity construction, (b) the effect of socio-cultural context on identity construction, and (c) the role of religion in gendered identity construction and confirmation.</p>