1,346 research outputs found
Coping with the rising yen: Japan's recent export experience
No full textDespite an appreciating yen, Japanese firms have managed to maintain strong export sales growth during the first half of the 1990s. Their strategies? Cutting the yen price of exports and shifting production to higher-value merchandise.Exports ; Japan ; Foreign exchange rates
Fei-yen wai-zhuan the true era of its birth and investigation of its author
No full textFei-yen wai-zhuan 飛燕外傳 (The Unofficial Biography of [Zhao] Fei-yen) is one of the classical-language fictions in traditional China, describing the famous romance between Emperor Cheng-di 成帝 and Zhao Fei-yen 趙飛燕 sisters in the Former Han Dynasty. The author is attributed with Ling Xüan 伶玄, who definitely had confessed that he was living with the Former Han Dynasty in his brief autobiography. However, it was too suspicious to believe, from the beginning of its appearance in the Southern Song Dynasty, scholars have been puzzled to determine the true era of its birth. Through their discussions, now it is widely accepted that Fei-yen wai-zhuan was born during the Six Dynasties, not in the Tang Dynasty, though it is still lacking in conclusive evidence. But some insist that it could be compared with the great masterpieces of Tang-tales, like Ying-ying zhuan 鶯鶯傳, Li Wa zhuan 李娃傳, Huo Xiao-yü zhuan 霍小玉傳, which belonged to the Tang Dynasty. Then should we say that Fei-yen wai-zhuan was a premature masterpiece? It still remains a great mystery to all, including its author Ling Xüan himself. This study, paying attention to the text itself, proves this tale should belong to the Tang Dynasty. Its main keywords are two, Zhen-la 眞臘 and Qi-chu Ling-hua jing 七出菱花鏡 (Water-chestnut flower shaped bronze mirror, circled by seven petals). The former, used first in the historical records in China was in the Sui Dynasty Da-ye 大業 12years(616), and the latter one likely appeared after reign of Empress Wu(690--705). These facts simply tell us Fei-yen wai-zhuan was born in the Tang Dynasty. The true author of this tale is Niu Seng-ru 牛僧孺, a famous prime minister of late Tang and was also a well-known writer of Tang-tales, who authored Xüan-guai lu 玄怪錄. We could know the close affinities between Fei-yen wai-zhuan and Xüan-guai lu. As a drafted scholar-official, all of Niu's life had been under the strife in bureaucracy with the factional parties at that time. Once the opposition party blamed Niu for violating his majesty, to write the tale Zhou Qin xing-ji 周秦行記 named Niu Seng-ru. Though its writer was anonymous, Niu was nearly accused of injury to the majesy (Lèse majesté). I contend Niu decided to write Fei-yen wai-zhuan under a pseudonym to make counterattack against a recreant writer in the same manner and to regain true pride for himself
Story of Adeline Yen Mah
No full textProducer, Eleanor Morris ; narrator, Connie Booth.Adeline Yen Mah, the author of Falling leaves, traces her and her family's life from Shanghai of the 1930s to the Cultural Revolution, through her life as a doctor in California
Exchange rates and profit margins: the case of Japanese exporters
No full textWhen exchange rates shift, exporters must decide whether it is more important to maintain profit margins or to maintain stable export prices. This examination of Japanese exporters finds that these firms have taken a middle course: By altering their profit margins to some degree, the exporters moderate the exchange-rate-induced changes in prices seen by their foreign customers. The analysis finds that in the three major exporting industries - industrial machinery, electrical machinery, and transportation equipment - a 10 percent rise in the yen leads firms to lower profit margins on exports by 4 percent relative to the margins on their sales in Japan. That is, the exporters pass on more than half of any change in the yen to the price seen by their foreign customers and absorb the remainder by adjusting profit margins on foreign sales.Foreign exchange rates - Japan ; Exports ; Prices ; Japan
[[alternative]]San Yen Study
No full text[[abstract]]\G0;
論文名稱：︽三言︾﹁發跡變泰﹂題材之研究\
校所組別：國立臺灣師範大學國文研究所\
畢業時間及提要別：八十四學年度第二學期碩士論文提要\
研究生：王吟芳\
指導教授：李鍌 先生\
論文提要：\
不同於正統文學的重義法、載道之說，話本、擬話本小說有如一條清
澈小溪，蜿 蜒的流過人們心田，他們盡情地描摹人之生活常態，表現
多彩的世俗人情，在芸芸眾 生中，林林總總的作品中，容易找到真實
的自我，他們正展現著人們的七情六欲，與 正統文學較量暑，選擇︽
三言︾，只因他較能輻射出五花八門的人間相。尤其是﹁發 跡變泰﹂
題材，更是人們關注的焦點，藉由跨越時空，得以抉發前人的願望心態，
體 現時代的新風貌，其對後代作品啟發良深，尤其是︽二拍︾，更是
凌濛初繼馮夢龍︽ 三言︾後的擬話本代表作，合稱為﹁三言二拍﹂，
對明代生活，特別是晚明社會之市 民意識的反映，更是深刻。\
第壹章緒論，首先澄清﹁發跡變泰﹂之詞意，次則確定研究範圍，選
擇篇章基準 ，並說明研究方法及動機，再則言明寫作價值。\
第貳章馮夢龍的生平與︽ 1
The Image of Ch'ao Yun in San-kuo Yen-i
No full textIn San-kuo Yen-i, Ch'ao Yün plays an active role as a general in the Kingdom of Shu 蜀. In the story, he is portrayed as "bold and careful". How does the author build up such an image for this protagonist? What kind of role has he assigned to Ch'ao Yün? These are two points that I shall examine in this paper. Juxtaposing San-kuo Yen-i and San-kuo-chih 三國志, we may easily notice that Ch'ao Yün plays a much more active role in the former story. However, there are scenes where the two books resemble each other closely. An example of which is the scene where Ch'ao Yün remonstrates with Liu Pei. Another point that should not be neglected is that the role of Ch'ao Yün in San-kuo Yen-i has become much more important than in the two sources upon which it is based, namely San-kuo-chih P'ing-hua 三國志平話 and the Yüan Tsa-chü 元雜劇. While retaining his intellectual image as portrayed in San-kuo-chih, the author exaggerates his valiant quality in San-kuo Yen-i. Thus Ch'ao Yün becomes both an intellectual as well as a militarist in San-kuo Yen-i. This also explains why he enjoys the status of being the third most competent general in the Kingdom of Shu, second only to Kuan Yü 關羽 and Chang Fei 張飛, although in history he has been ranked, at the most, as the fifth general. One of the reasons behind such a treatment of Ch'ao Yün in San-kuo Yen-i is that the author probably wishes to make him the counterpart of Chang Fei. Such a device is not unusual in Chinese novels. The contrast between Chang Fei and Ch'ao Yün in San-kuo Yen-i is obvious. While Chang is portrayed as a brave but emotionally unstable warrior, Ch'ao remains a calm and discerning person who almost never errs. Another reason perhaps is that the author has intended Ch'ao to be a character who can be summoned conveniently both as a warrior in the battle-scenes and as a thinker in the field of strategy. Finally, perhaps we may also look at Ch'ao Yün as a character to fill the gap when such leading figures as Liu Pei, Kuan Yü and Chang Fei have all passed away
The Study of Confucian Human Nature in\ue2San-Yen\ue2
No full textThis study starts with the conventional theory of Confucian human nature and then applies the academic trends of respecting a person\ue2s natural temperaments in thelate Ming Dynasty as the basis of the arguments of the historical context. The study aims to explore human nature with Feng Meng Long's San-Yen.
The first chapter explains the motivation and the aim of this study from the perspective of the historical context, function of the literary works and the author. The theme is the connection of the theory of Confucian human nature and Kant's theory of human nature illustrated with literature review. In the second chapter, the author discusses the essence of Confucian human nature from the lowest degree of moral status to the highest, that is, transforming the most primitive human nature to the moral discipline based on Gaozi, XunZi, and Zhu Xi's theories, exercising self-discipline with self-awareness based on Confucius, Menicus and Lu-Wang\ue2s temperament theories, and overcoming the most innate human nature, approving Confucianism's moral practice while at the same time illustrating selfishness is the human nature according to Li Zhi\ue2s theory in late Ming Dynasty. The third chapter proceeds to the text of San-Yen. The author discusses the characters' nature in San-Yen from their insatiable desire, temperaments and moral practice according to Mou Zhongsan's Neo-Confucian theory. The forth chapter divides the plot into the process of the making of the human nature, encouraging virtue and punishing evil, and sense of belonging to reveal the character\ue2s temperaments and its connotation following plot development. The fifth chapter provides Feng Meng Long's writing concept from his own writings and other relevant works he compiled. The author emphasizes the importance of educating people to adhere to morality from readers' interpretation in order to reach the standard of Confucian morality and thus curb the majority's moral weakness. The final chapter employs good and evil as a standard of value to criticize the characters' morality in San-Yen, and concludes that humans are born good, that humans are born evil, and that human are born neither good nor evil. Last but not least, the views on human nature of the characters in San-Yen are partially matched with and partially detached from the Confucian theory of human nature under the influence of Ming Dynasty's trend of thought
The Effects of the 1.03 million yen Ceiling in a Dynamic Labor Supply Model
No full textIn this paper I examine the e ects of a means-tested transfer system in Japan (“1.03 million yen ceiling”) in a dynamic labor supply model with endogenous retirement. In Japan, married women have reason to limit their annual earnings to no more than 1.03 million yen in order to receive a number of benefits available to low-income wives, and in fact often choose to do so. In a dynamic model, the optimal labor supply schedule follows a pattern that is not seen in a static framework, which I call the “spillover e ect.” The paper also examines the properties of dynamic welfare cost of this ceiling
Tagging of Biomedical Articles on CiteULike: A Comparison of User, Author and Professional Indexing
No full textThis paper examines the context of online indexing from the viewpoint of three different groups: users, authors, and professional indexers. User tags, author keywords and descriptors were collected from academic journal articles, which were both indexed in Pubmed and tagged on CiteULike, and analysed. Descriptive statistics, informetric measures, and thesaural term comparison shows that there are important differences in the use of keywords between the three groups in addition to similarities which can be used to enhance support for search and browse. While tags and author keywords were found that matched descriptors exactly, other terms which did not match but provided important expansion to the indexing lexicon were found. These additional terms could be used to enhance support for searching and browsing in article databases as well as to provide invaluable data for entry vocabulary and emergent terminology for regular updates to indexing systems. Additionally, the study suggests that tags support organisation by association to task, projects and subject while making important connections to traditional systems which classify into subject categories
On Yen Chih-ｔ'ui 顔之推
No full textYen Chih-t'ui (531-90?), author of the Yen-shih chia-hsun 顔氏家訓, who belonged to the Liang aristocracy, moved to the territory of the Northern Dynasty as a result of the great disturbances on the closing days of Liang. In his work we find his self-importance as a Southern Dynasty literati and, simultaneously, his criticisms on the Southern Dynasty aristocracy. The latter are, for example, expressed in his mentioning of lazy aristocratic life, political impotence, and diletantism in learning. Though his adverse attitude toward the aristocracy might have been partly due to his rather slight contact with the Southern Dynasty aristocracy, this was largely caused by his own ordeals resulted from his moving to the north. Such circumstances seems to have led him to expose and criticize the weaknesses of those people whose prestige depended on noble lineage, and to give the highest value to the lives of those who devoted themselves to learning. In the thought of Yen Chih-t'ui learning meant how to make good government
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