This study investigated the changes in attitudes of Japanese first and second grade children who were exposed to microcomputers in school. Eight hundred and three first-and second-grade children were selected from six Japanese public schools. Approximately half of the subjects were selected from urban, suburban, and rural schools using computers, while the remaining subjects were from schools not using computers. The Young Children's Computer Inventory was the instrument used for this study. It was derived from a questionnaire originally developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and contained four subscales: Attitudes Toward Computers, Motivation to Study, Empathy, and Creativity. A Japanese language version of the questionnaire was mailed to the principal of each school, where teachers distributed the questionnaires.for the subjects to complete with their parents at home. Ninety-one percent of the students returned completed questionnaires. Demographic information was also collected for each classroom.

Article examining the logical implications and philosophical possibilities of a utopian realm, and coming to three conclusions. First, the realms described by near-death experiencers (NDErs), if taken at face value, are far from utopian. Second, any truly utopian postmortem society is so far removed from our present world as to be morally irrelevant to our own. And third, only an ideational postmortem utopia, of the sort exemplified by Pure Land Buddhist theology, can avoid both the non-utopian nature of NDErs' descriptions and the irrelevance of postmortem utopias.

Japan's war reparations following World War II came in two stages. In the first, 1946-1949, U.S. and allied governments arranged for U.S. occupation authorities to ship about $160 million in Japanese industrial equipment to China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and the British colonies in East Asia.

This report provides information and analysis for use by Members of Congress as they deliberate on the Japanese response to the Gulf crisis and, perhaps more important, what it may mean for future U.S.-Japanese relations. The first chapter briefly reviews Japanese government actions in response to the crisis, from August 1990 to February 1991. A second section examines in detail the various factors and constraints that affected Japanese policy. The final section offers conclusions and examines implications of the episode for future U.S.-Japanese relations. Published sources for the report are cited in footnotes.

Both the Bush Administration and the new Japanese Government headed by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa had given considerable importance to the President,s planned trip to Tokyo in late November, now postponed in the interest of attending to domestic concerns.

American companies are facing increased competitive pressures from foreign firms. Many observers feel that U.S. firms lag behind their foreign competitors in the development, application, and marketing of new technologies and techniques. The Japanese industrial enterprise is characterized by a large proportion of private sector financing and many other factors, which this report analyzes at length. The question being debated by Congress is whether or not U.S. government programs and policies are an acceptable and effective means of supporting the efforts of American industries to operate in a manner consistent with success in world markets.

Resale price maintenance occurs when manufacturers control the prices charged by wholesalers or retailers of their products. In Japan, such activities are prohibited, although certain exemptions are allowed. The U.S. concern over the practice is that it could allow Japanese firms to generate a secure profit base in their home market in order to finance aggressive price competition abroad.

In both Japan and in the United States, industrial associations play an important role in enhancing government understanding and interaction with industries and in easing cooperative efforts among firms. This report examines the role of industrial associations and related organizations in high-technology policymaking and in accelerating technological development.

The following references to the current periodical literature are taken from CRS, public policy literature file (PPLT). Congressional users may request full text of items by phoning 707-5700. Others users should consult their local library.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield once classified U.S. Japanese relations as "the most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none." Over the past decade, tensions between the two nations increased markedly, due largely to U.S. concerns over the sharp rise in the U.S. Japan bilateral trade imbalance and to the growing competitive challenge posed by Japan. This paper provides a chronology of major trade events between the United States and Japan from 1980 through 1990 in order to provide a perspective of major trade issues between the two nations. The appendix provides selected data on trade between the two countries over this period.

Trade relations between the United States and Japan in the 1980s were marked by U.S. efforts to pressure Japan to absorb increasingly greater amounts of U.S. exports. The United States sought to improve its steadily worsening bilateral trade deficit with Japan by negotiating to lower barriers to U.S. exports through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Market Oriented, Sector Selective Talks, the Super 301 process, the Structural Impediments Initiative, and other bilateral fora. The United States succeeded in having Japan take some market-opening measures, and despite fluctuations, U.S. exports to Japan of most of the products which were the subject of negotiations by the two countries between 1985 and 1990 have increased.

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's concurrent two-year term as president of the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) and Prime Minister of Japan expires at the end of October 1991. The May 1991 death of Shintaro Abe, the front runner to replace him, opened the field to nearly a dozen candidates. These include Kaifu for another term, senior LDP faction leaders Kiichi Miyazawa, Michio Watanabe, and Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, and several others. A clear favorite from this group has not emerged, in part because most except Kaifu are rumored to be involved in current and past stock market and banking scandals.

This report describes recent changes in U.S. burdensharing relationships with NATO, Japan and South Korea and, in the process, identifies some implications for U.S. foreign policy.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.