The GDP of our country has been consistently above \400trillion since the early 1990s. However, since that “miracle” period the economic growth within Japan has effectively now been suspended for 20 years (the so-called “lost 20 years”). Due to the economic downturn, the amount of investment in the construction sector has been steadily decreasing since its peak in 1992. A direct result of the downturn is a parallel reduction in construction related man-power; which is down around 30% with notably the younger generation reluctant to enter the construction business field.
 In 2011 a huge earthquake shook Eastern Japan; a disaster which has led to several re-construction projects which are currently on-going. Furthermore, in 2013 Tokyo was awarded the XXXII Olympic Games to be held in 2020, which has put further strains on the already stretched resources in the Construction industry. The resultant impacts on the construction market are already showing in the forms of “plant” (machine and equipment) unavailability, inadequate material supplies and shortages of manpower. Unless clear strategies are established it is likely several public works projects (including some emergency cases) will remain un-contracted after tender.
 This paper draws on my experiences from being a representative in contractor organizations as well as considerations since joining the education field. I have utilized a text-mining technique to identify one of the major factors that can influence man-power availability in the construction field and formulate some basic ideas for resolution.

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 Safety management is an essential part of running a business among SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in the construction industry, but a large proportion of SMEs are faced with inadequate financial and organizational resources and have limited safety management capacity. Improving the safety performance of SMEs could therefore be crucially important.
 In this study, a questionnaire survey of actual condition of safety training was developed and administered to plumbing contractors who had completed safety training classes. Key findings from the questionnaire were as follow: 1) construction workers appeared to be less likely to take part in safety training classes and their level of understanding was not sufficient.; 2) self-employed craftsmen, employees of micro enterprises (fewer than 5 workers employed), and experienced workers received less safety training; 3) small scale construction enterprises did not effectively use case studies related to workplace accidents; 4) Sub-subcontractors might not undergo suitable safety training due to lack of information about measures to prevent recurrence of workplace accidents; 5) the classes were not properly understood though they were supposedly delivered in easy and clear manner; 6) participants from an old age group might not fully understand the classes; 7) safety education led by contractors was an effective way to enhance the awareness of the importance of workers' safety in SMEs; 8) safety promotion activities at each worksite and worksite support by administrative division were essential part of the accident prevention and safety measures; 9) an excess of confidence in workplace safety led workers to bad-decision making in safety activities if the enterprises could not meet the high safety standards.

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 This study focused on longitudinal change of the life satisfaction as the index of policy evaluation. Those indexes are affected by various factors and as a result those are affected by the difference of individual attributes. We introduced the concept of propensity score method and the matching method to reduce that effect. The comparison among the samples with medium level of propensity score indicated different result from the entire samples. That implies the conclusion of analysis will change if we consider the propensity score.

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 In this article, we verify the validity of introducing the equilibrium concept in import and export, in order to evaluate properly the multiplier effect of fiscal stimulus properly. It is said that the multiplier effect estimated by the Japanese Cabinet Office's macroeconometric model is smaller than the private company's estimations. As the characteristic of Cabinet Office's model, it has the equation of equilibrium concept in import and export. When we introduce the equation in a model, the multiplier effect estimated by the model greatly decreasesd. We verifyied that the equation of equilibrium concept in import and export lets a model estimate the multipli-er effect to be low.

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 Previous researches show that mass media contain certain “narratives” in their news and articles. We conducted a questionnaire survey in order to learn about the causal structures of support attitude toward economic policies based on Neo-Liberalism and Keynesian economics, and the effects of narratives based on these two ideologies toward the structure. As results of structural equation modeling, it is suggested that in both models, the narratives significantly affect the casual structure and support attitude towards policies. It is also suggested that people could support Neo-Liberalism policies no matter how unfair people recognize the processes of decision making are.

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 In the international construction project, the concurrent delay issue for the delay analysis, which identifies each responsibilities of the project delay , is one of the challenging issues. Because the concurrent delay can be a strong defense tool against the partner to a contract. There have been a lot of papers for concurrent delay issue, and there is no consistent agreement on what concurrent delay actually means and how to assign responsibility. The object of this paper is to identify the key elements of concurrent delay issue, identify what element to be determined and agreed among contracting parties in advance, and to propose new idea for apportionment of responsibility when the concurrent delay is identified.

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 In Indonesia, one of the marked economic growth countries in Southeast Asia, local independent power producers (IPPs) have been accelerated to develop mini-hydropower plants through the recently introduced new Feed-In-Tariff rate hike which aims to solve the country's serious energy shortage problem. On the other hand, some operating plants have experienced financial difficulties after failing to meet their electricity production targets set in the planning stage. Their causes include initial poor planning, designs or construction failures, but most of the time, the lack of experiences and know-how in the area of operation and maintenance (O&M) is the leading factor of failing to meet the electricity production and capacity factor targets. In this thesis, we discuss the concept of cloud-based O&M information system which aims to optimize O&M and maximize and maintain electricity production. And then we introduce the prototype system which we have developed for the model power plant on the local site, and lastly, discuss the potential utilization of asset management for mini-hydropower plants.

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 Recently, large-scale earth works structures sometimes suffer major damage by earthquakes and other natural disasters.
 Early recovery from the breakdown of the transportation system which is caused by disasters is desired. At the same time, depending on the situation of disaster area, it is also required to choose the construction method which enable the transportation system to recover efficiently and quickly.
 According to past documentary records, large sandbags were often chosen for temporary restoration in the disaster site. It is because they can cope with various situation flexibly and be removed easily. However, large sandbags are temporary structures. So they need to be removed after use. This process makes the restoration period longer. If we can reuse them for fully restoration, it is effective for shortening a restoration period and constructing safely.
 In this research, we confirm the deformation behavior of large sandbags by geotechnical centrifuge test and real scale experimental test. And get the possibility to utilize them as a permanent structure.

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 Local construction industry has been contributed to sustainable development of the region. Due to the reduction of the public works spending and decrease of employees, it is difficult to continue to do so. Currently whether to maintain the construction companies starategically by the local government has been discussed. However, the constructive discussion is discouraged because it is not clear such as how many companies should be maintained and how much social costs will be if the companies are not maintained. This study aims to develop the analytic framework for strategic maintenance of the local construction compamies in terms of the disaster recovery and demonstrates the usefulness by the numerical experiment.

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 In Japan, we have had such extremely high risk of natural disasters that construction firms have been playing important roles, not only in infrastructure management, but also in disaster prevention and economic development for our society. However, due to the recent impoverishment of the industry which afterward may cause lowering the quality level of the constructions, there has appeared to be an argument about how we redesign the tendering and contracting system.
 This study, reviewing the history of contracting system for public works, reveals that keeping construction quality and the existence and development of construction firms have so far been and should be considered properly on contracting system, considering the social impact the firms have in our society. Furthermore, the study concludes a fundamental direction to the future tendering and contracting system with a suggestion in which local construction function considered as ever.

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 Japanese contractors may be required to accumulate the knowledge on the Chinese style of construction contracting governance as a background of the extensive role of Chinese contractors in international markets for infrastructure development. However a standard form of construction contract in one country may be harmonized neither with the one in other countries nor the international standard since the content of contract generally reflects local custom of contracting. This study aims at explicating the custom of contracting in the construction market of China by analyzing the standard form of construction contract for public works compared with FIDIC, the international standard form of construction contract. The result implies that the structure of contracting rule in the standard form in China is almost same with the FIDIC form except the operation rule of dispute resolution process. We have pointed out that the substantial difference between these two standard forms arises from the existence of relational governance in Chinese construction market.

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 Construction contracts in public works projects are generally incomplete in nature, so clients and contractors may have discussions on contract change when there are any concerns over unexpected events. In quite a few cases, such discussions do not progress smoothly and then lead to con-tract disputes. In this study, the authors focus on the cases of disputes about the revi-sions to contracts for public work after the changes in design, and discuss the systematic problems with clients, such as account audit and congressional approval, and the obsta-cles to the execution of construction contracts, such as the involvement of two parties in the execution of contracts, and bureaucratic unilateralism and infallibility. Then, the authors propose the disclosure of the progress of discussions between clients and construc-tors for revising contracts (visualization of progress management systems) to a third party, in order to streamline the discussions.

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 3D information technologies have become a requisite for manufacturing industries to support the design and production processes. Construction Information Modeling (CIM) methods have increasingly been adopted in public works projects, however, it is not recognized as a mandatory requirement across the industry. One reason is that switching to CIM requires an investment of time and resources, but it is not clear exactly who benefits and how.
 This report articulates the CIM transformation process: how teams can adopt CIM in which phases of a project, expected benefits, and potential drawbacks. Finally, we will analyze current civil and infrastructure project challenges and suggest a future direction for the industry.

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 It is expected to improve the whole construction process by using the CIM (Construction Information Modeling/Management). Therefore, MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) has studied the introduction of the CIM, and has been attempted the CIM in several projects. It is one of the issue to clarify the role of the 3^rd party to make and revise three-dimensional model.
 In this paper, we reports the results of the trial for applying the 3^rd party to make and revise three-dimensional model in the embankment project that is in the construction stage. Based on the results of the trial, we describe the role of the 3^rd party to make and revise three-dimensional model in the construction stage.

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