This paper focuses on the structure and spatial pattern of R&D networks in Japan and considers the case of the Consortium R&D Project for Regional Revitalization. It applies social network analysis to the structure and innovation of joint research projects.
By making the structure visible and calculating the network indices, the following findings were obtained. First, the structure of regional blocks is divided into two types. One is the “decentralized type,” i.e., a multicore structure with many joint research units. The other is the “concentrated type,” with a limited number of cores. Second, the value of centrality is closely related to innovation. Third, this paper argues that the ratio of R&D depends on the range of distance in each technical field and the distance between actors. Spatiality is considerably different depending on whether the technical field is manufacturing based or science based. In addition, some universities and technical colleges play a critical role in long-distance joint research.

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After the 1990s, the automotive industrial area in Thailand (AIAT) expanded from the Bangkok metropolitan region (BMR) to surrounding areas. Although Japanese automotive parts firms are located in several industrial estates, the Amata Nakorn Industrial Estate (ANIE) is home to the most numerous. The ANIE did not host an assembly plant until 2004, however. Moreover, the plant does not assemble mass production-type models, but medium- to large-sized trucks and buses in small-quantity production lots. Generally, the location of one automotive assembly plant leads to the agglomeration of automotive parts firms. Therefore, it is important to clarify the reason for and process of the formation of the automotive parts firm agglomeration in the ANIE. In addition, previous studies related to industrial agglomerations in Asian developing countries mainly examined the linkages between assembly firms and their first-tier suppliers. However, it is necessary to analyze the linkages of interparts firms to clarify the dynamism in the automotive industry. Therefore, this paper examines the process by which the agglomeration of Japanese automotive parts firms occurred and the linkages in the ANIE to describe the dynamism in the AIAT. The process of firm agglomeration occurred as follows.
1) Japanese automotive parts firms evaluated ANIE strategies to ensure the feasibility of commuting from the central district of Bangkok to the estate. Furthermore, they determined that firms located in the ANIE could receive more privileges from the Board of Investment than those in the BMR.
2) As a result of the expansion of the AIAT, the ANIE was located in the center of the AIAT. Therefore, Japanese automotive parts firms with numerous local customers relocated to the ANIE because they were able to reduce physical distribution costs.
3) Engine parts firms that hoped to supply engine assembly firms in the ANIE relocated to the estate.
4) The participation in the development and management of the ANIE by Japanese business firms and Japanese staff provided firms in the estate with a sense of security and trust. Large-scale development made the ANIE a well-known industrial estate. That subsequently resulted in an increase in the labor force and the number of automotive parts firms.
Linkages mainly formed between the Japanese firms located in the industrial estate. Some engine parts firms also have strong ties with intra-ANIE linkages as another form of linkage. In addition, horizontal linkages occur between the same hierarchies, i.e., semi-lattice structure linkages have resulted.

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This paper highlights the underlying orientations shared by Japanese theorists of resource studies who were active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Resource studies, once a popular prime topic in geography, have ceased to be so since the late 1970s, but that does not mean that the subject is no longer important. The waning popularity of the subject is not due to a decline in importance but rather to the absence of efforts to identify and claim early contributions to resource studies, which have often been understood only as a generic category of studies related to natural resources without original content. By closely examining the arguments of the major scholars of resources, such as Motosuke Ishii, Tohru Ishimitsu, Toshiro Kuroiwa, and Kazukiyo Kurosawa, I found the following three commonalities that deserve renewed appreciation today: 1) locating resource problems as social problems; 2) intellectual efforts to grasp the particular and generalize from that; and 3) a human-centered philosophy that engages with the general public. It is currently recognized that economic development and environmental conservation must be pursued in harmony. It is not too late to make full use of the essence of early resource studies to overcome fragmentation in addressing resource problems today.

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This study examined the expansion of abandoned cultivated land and factors related to that expansion in a marginal hamlet in hilly and mountainous areas by focusing on the farmers' decision making in agricultural management, with social changes in Japan as the background. At the same time, the effectiveness of direct payment for hilly and mountainous areas is examined. In view of the changes in agricultural management and land use, agricultural trends in the study area are divided into two periods. In the first period to the end of the 1980s, tree planting was conducted due to the rice production adjustment and mechanization of agriculture. In the second period from the 1990s, the retirement of principal farmers from agriculture increased and accelerated the expansion of cultivation abandonment. Although borrowing and lending of cultivated land increased in this period, they were not sufficient to prevent cultivation abandonment. The direct payment plays a certain role in sustaining agriculture. However, it has room for improvement in the area designation.

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The supply system of Japanese tourism to Canada has been changing with the increase in the number of Japanese travelers to Canada since the restriction on overseas travel was lifted in 1964. This paper examines long-term changes in the tourism supply system to Canada by analyzing the relationship between intermediaries' strategies and destinations.
By the 1970s, the tourism supply system for Japanese travel to the USA included that to Canada, where outbound travel agencies established by Japanese-Canadians played an important role in the local operations of Japanese travel to Canada. Japanese destinations in Canada therefore were a part of travel to North America.
In the 1980s, Japanese tour companies began to offer numerous package tours to Canada, some of which covered the off-peak season. At the same time, tour companies in Japan established subsidiaries in Vancouver, starting flexible tour operations. The tourism supply system to Canada therefore became independent of that to the USA.
From the mid-1990s, after the peak in the number of Japanese travelers to Canada had been reached, some larger Japanese tour companies have been able to maintain both numerical and functional flexibility of their labor force in terms of the seasonality of Japanese travel to Canada.

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In recent years, models based on cellular automata (CA) have been developed to explain urban land-use changes and urban sprawl. These models are used to predict the shapes of cities and to extract factors leading to urban sprawl. The aim of CA is to explain complex phenomena based on interactions among locales. Previous case studies in the field of geography produced good results for study areas in PR China and the USA. This paper aims to verify the applicability of CA to the spatiotemporal dynamics of decades-old urban sprawl in Japan and identify its characteristics. The selected study area was the northeastern sector of the Osaka metropolitan area during the Japanese high economic-growth era of the 1960s and 1970s, when urban sprawl became the most marked. In this case study, the author used the standard CA model for simulating urban sprawl, in which the transition from rural to urban land use is determined using transition probabilities and stochastic procedures. The transition probabilities used here are composed of land-use suitability, accessibility, and zoning along with neighborhood effects, which are generally basic elements of existing CA models. Empirical data on built-up areas in the study from 1961 and 1974 were used to verify the results of simulation. For the verification, overlying empirical land-use changes and simulated results and fractal dimensions were used.
The results of the simulations can be summarized as follows. Although the geometric characteristics of spatial distribution are well reproduced, comparison of the simulated results and empirical data produced less coincidence than expected. Actual urban sprawl tends to overcome geomorphologic constraints, and large-scale planned residential development often occurred in detached areas including the eastern hilly area or southern Kadoma from existing built-up areas. These characteristics are due to the structure of housing site provision considered to have been distinct aspects of Japanese urbanization in the high economic-growth era. The simulation results also showed that neighborhood conditions, in which size is roughly equivalent to a city block, and zoning contributed to urban expansion, although the immediate effects of accessibility conditions cannot be confirmed. On the other hand, the simulated results of urban sprawl, which tends to occur on the periphery of the metropolitan built-up area, matched empirical phenomena. These results suggest the usefulness of the notion that macro-scale urbanization can be modeled by the accumulation of micro-scale interlocational interactions. These results explain why this region of Osaka is characterized by these urbanization processes.

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