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This thesis examines the life and work of Japanese jazz composer, pianist and band-leader Toshiko Akiyoshi (b. 1929), one of the most successful women in modern jazz. Over the course of her career, Akiyoshi performed and traveled extensively with musicians in Japan and in the United States, courting two audiences through and earning respect and success in both countries. Analysis of three pieces, from three albums representing different stages of her career, and a live performance from June 2010 are used to illustrate the maturation of Akiyoshi's work and how she combined American and Japanese musical traditions and styles, including bebop and Japanese Noh, to create her own style and a new type of jazz fusion.

This study investigated the relationship between seniors' travel behaviors and living environments and the ways they successfully adapt to the environments, using a sequential mixed method in which qualitative methods follow quantitative analyses. The data were collected from the members of social clubs who regularly visit a community center for the elderly in a mid-size city in Osaka prefecture, Japan. One hundred ninety three seniors participated in the questionnaire survey asking about their daily travel patterns, personal backgrounds, social relations, and environmental information. Twenty-one seniors shared their perceptions of the city and the ways in which they get around through face-to-face interviews, sketch mapping, and one-week travel diary. The findings highlighted cultural and gender influences on seniors' mobility and the proactive nature of their travel behaviors. The participants were relatively healthy and active seniors who travel primarily by bicycle. The statistical analyses indicated that gender did not determine overall or average travel frequency but did identify factors related to high travel frequency. Living near a bus stop and the perception of going out more often than in the past predicted men's high travel frequency (going out every day), while women's high travel frequency was predicted by travel modes (bicycling and walking), sidewalk safety, chores (grocery shopping), and social network (seeing friends and having fewer relatives). Furthermore, the results of qualitative analyses revealed that seniors invented, modified, and applied various adaptive strategies to maintain or enhance their mobility. The positive perceptions of their communities such as favorable memories and beautiful scenery fostered seniors' familiarity and sense of belonging. Seniors used and modified social and environment resources to ensure travel safety. In addition, changes in senior's life stages and travel means manifested gender differences in their adaptive strategies. Men tended to focus on maintaining good health to keep their driver's license, representing their social role as a provider, while women's adaptations related to adjustment to widowhood and travel safety.

This dissertation investigates why a substantial number of common stocks is held by companies in many countries, especially in Japan. Chapter 1 gives an overview of historical and legal issues regarding corporate shareholding in Japan. Chapter 2 reviews how researchers have, theoretically and empirically, approached corporate shareholding issues. Chapter 3 elaborates on a corporate shareholding model which incorporates a standard principal-agent model with Aoki's managerial risk sharing argument (Aoki, 1988). The model finds that a risk-averse manager of a firm invests in other firms if managerial reward is linked with the value of the firm she manages, and if the operating profits of investing and invested firms are negatively correlated. Corporate stock investment is larger if the invested (and/or investing) company's operating profit is less volatile and/or if the covariance in the operating profits of the companies is more strongly negative. Although a stronger link between corporate performance and managerial reward increases managers' incentive to exert efforts, it also increases the risk that managers must bear. If the risk is too high, managers would leave their companies. Corporate stock investment reduces the risk, and enables shareholders to offer a higher incentive to the managers and to earn a higher (expected) income. Chapter 4 examines three major arguments concerning the rationale behind the practice of corporate shareholding: the competitive-effect, risk-sharing, and control-rights arguments. Predictions drawn from those arguments are tested using panel data of 186 Japanese corporate group firms from 1980 to 1988. The main findings of this study are as follows. (1) The competitive-effect argument is clearly supported by the data. Firms in the same industry do tend to invest more in one another. (2) The evidence in favor of the risksharing argument is weaker — although firms with less risky operating profits tend to attract more investment, the relationship between investment and the covariance in the firms' operating profits is ambiguous. (3) The strongest empirical support is given to the control-rights argument. Indeed, the evidence confirms that a firm is more likely to invest in other firms that hold more of its own shares. Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation.

Although traditional depictions of gender in ancient Japanese mythology continue to help define gender in Japanese culture, such recent litigation as the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and the Childcare Leave Act signal change in these roles. This study explores the relationship between the Japanese hierarchical social structure and the parameters of the gender territories of women and men in a university club. Employing a single case (embedded) design, this study utilized the networks of former members (students who began their studies from 1953 to 1989) of Oendan (the "Cheering Club") at a private university in central Japan. Oendan's two sections, Leader-bu for men and Cheerleader-bu for women, have utterly different atmospheres. Leader-bu stresses daily rigorous and physically punishing practices in a highly disciplined atmosphere, whereas Cheerleader-bu more closely resembles its North American counterpart. To fully examine the differences between the two sections, I divided the case into three stages: (a) an historical analysis, (b) a survey, and (c) personal interviews. The results reflect an attitude that a perceived difference in physical strength and a strong sense of "tradition" inhibit true equality between the genders. Although most men may acquiesce in gender equality in an abstract sense, they also understand that, in reality, this is impossible because of the physical differences between the sexes. Leader-bu members continue to reinforce the importance of tradition year after year because they believe that they are benefiting, both personally and socially, from traditional beliefs and customs. Although victims of this belief system, they feel compelled to reproduce it. In reproducing it, however, they also must suffer from the lack of freedom that accompanies it.

This study examines subsistence-settlement systems and residential mobility of prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers in Japan. Raw data were collected from Moroiso Phase (ca. 5000 B.P.) sites of the Early Jomon Period in the Kanto and Chubu regions. Many archaeologists have assumed that the Jomon people were sedentary inhabitants of large villages, occupied throughout the year. However, recent developments in Jomon studies suggest that we must reevaluate the assumption of Jomon sedentism. In this study, Moroiso Phase settlement patterns, including intersite lithic assemblage variability, site size and site location, are examined in the context of an ethnographic model of hunter-gatherer subsistence-settlement systems. The results indicate that the Moroiso Phase settlement patterns correspond very closely to those of hunter-gatherers who are relatively sedentary but move their residential bases seasonally. Changes of settlement patterns over time within the Moroiso Phase are also examined, and the results are explained in relation to changes in the natural environment.

This thesis is about how medical knowledge is constructed by staff for patients and their families in a Japanese 'comprehensive care' facility for the treatment of epilepsy (the JEC). The thesis sets out to explain the possible reasons for differences between the number of surgeries of epilepsy performed at the JEC and the number performed in a Canadian institute. I will argue in the thesis that the fundamental difference between the two institutes lies in cross cultural and cross institutional differences in the uses and interpretations of the polysemic phrases 'comprehensive care' and 'quality of life'. They are ideological constructs embedded in a social process of knowledge production. Uncritical acceptance of these institutional objectives has significant ideological consequences in that it (1) justifies the unequal distribution of services, (2) legitimates the treatment program's objectives, and (3) masks the social relations out of which authoritative knowledge about epilepsy at the JEC is produced.

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This study is performed as an Archive, Library and museum master’s thesis in two years studies. The overall aim is to investigate and analyze what the term Manga means in a library and information science context. The concept of Manga has different meanings depending on whether we start from a Japanese or a Swedish context. Manga is integrated in the Japanese society while Manga often is associated with youth culture or a separate genre in Sweden. The first issue is to examine how the Manga literature lending statistics looks in Swedish public libraries in the years 2000-2011, which is illustrated through text and graphics. A dramatic increase in Manga literature lending statistics occurred 2004 which culminated in the year of 2009. From this statistics the study also investigates which genres are represented in the Swedish public libraries. This diversity of genres and subgenres in Manga literature is sharply reduced to a few genres in Swedish public libraries where romance, comedy, action, fantasy and adventure are dominant. The second question dealt with how to define and use the term Manga? I suggest that Manga can be sorted into the concepts of Manga Literature, Manga aesthetics and Manga culture with the intention of nuance and specify the subject areas content and discussion.The third issue in this examination is dealing with how Manga literature can conveniently be placed? What are the contextual components in Manga and how do they relate to each other?