"The Effect of Innovation and Technological Change on Information Flows, Authority and Industry Associations in Japan"

How did innovation and technological change affect information flows and the degree of legitimacy afforded authorities such as industry associations? In this paper, six cases from the photography industry are analyzed over time. The findings indicate first that changes in innovation affected information flows and the degree of legitimacy afforded authorities such as industry associations. Second, in response to changes spurred by technological innovation, the legitimacy of authority that was lost could be regained.

Rewriting Myth: New Interpretations of La Malinche, La Llorona, and La Virgen de Guadalupe in Chicana Feminist Literature

La Malinche, the Mayan translator for Cortes; La Llorona, the mythic figure of the \u27crying woman;\u27 and La Virgen de Guadalupe, an icon of the Catholic Church in Mexico, are often considered to be the three iconic figures which shape images and expectations of women in Chicano culture. This paper looks at the different ways that the writings of contemporary Chicana feminist authors Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Ana Castillo, and Sandra Cisneros reinterpret and reclaim these figures. Through their essays, plays, and novels, these authors complicate myths, challenging and subverting the traditional female archetypes of virgin, mother, and whore

Visual function and visual disability in glaucoma

The aims of this study were a) to identify what constitutes visual disability resulting from glaucoma by means of a questionnaire developed for this purpose, b) to examine visual function in glaucoma using a wide range of psychophysical tests and c) to assess the relationship between objective visual function and patients' perception of their visual disability. The study was carried out in two phases. Firstly, a pilot questionnaire on visual disability in glaucoma was tested on 63 glaucoma patients. Results suggested that there were four main areas of difficulty in the daily life of glaucoma subjects: outdoor mobility, glare and lighting, household tasks and personal care. A significant correlation between self- reported disability and a measure of visual field loss was shown. The questionnaire was subsequently modified for the purpose of the main study and completed by 49 glaucoma subjects with various degrees of visual field loss and 20 normal controls. A range of psychophysical tests was carried out including automated perimetry, contrast sensitivity, critical flicker frequency, glare sensitivity, stereoacuity, colour perception and dark adaptation. Using factor analysis, the most frequently reported problems were grouped into the following five categories: central and near vision, peripheral vision, dark adaptation and glare, personal care and household tasks and outdoor mobility. These five factors accounted for 79% of the variability in the patients questionnaire responses. Fifteen questions related to the factors dark adaptation and glare, peripheral vision, outdoor mobility and central and near vision were found to be significantly correlated with the extent of visual field loss (p= 0.0001, r = -0.6) and could discriminate between patients and normals and also between groups with mild and severe visual field loss. Patients with moderate visual field loss did not experience significantly greater disability than patients with mild visual field loss (p= 0.08), although there was a trend towards significant difference. A strong relationship was found between the severity of visual field loss and all psychophysical tests (p<0.01), except colour vision. When comparing normals and early glaucoma patients, the best results were obtained for dark adaptation (p= 0.013), glare disability (p= 0.023) and the contrast sensitivity test (p= 0.039). When comparing objective visual function and self-reported visual disability, a strong relationship was found between the questionnaire performance index and all psychophysical tests (p <0.05), with the exception of colour vision. Glare disability (p<0.0001), contrast sensitivity (p <0.0001) and dark adaptation (p= 0.007) appear to be the tests that give the best information about quality of life issues. Glare disability, dark adaptation and contrast sensitivity appear to be the tests which give the best information about the quality of life in glaucoma. In addition these tests best separated early glaucoma from normal controls and deserve more attention in future research work on glaucoma

Service management case study: Registrar\u27s office reorganization

This case study documents the reorganization of the RIT Registrar\u27s Office which was a successful attempt to improve customer service, enhance staff satisfaction, and keep pace with computer technology. Reporting structure, work distribution, empowerment, team building, and training are analyzed. Quality customer service, costs and benefits of service quality, managing for quality and productivity, managing supply and demand, networks, staff development, and team concepts are discussed relative to their applications in reengineering a team of 12 people. Findings are documented with team maturation ratings, an experiential team building summary, customer focus group input, and benchmarking results. It is concluded that the benefits of reorganization include greatly improved cross-training of staff which enhances internal and external customer satisfaction. Recommendations include continual training of frontline staff, annual assessment of team maturation, continued use of customer focus groups, benchmarking with similar and diverse industries, and on-going assessment of the reorganized structure of the Registrar\u27s Office

A History of the Public Lands Debate

22 pages

Rivalry and cooperation: how the Japanese photographic industry went global

This thesis analyzes the postwar political economy of the global photography industry, i.e. camera/lens and film, up to 1995 and finds that the Japanese industry has met unprecedented success. The question addressed in this thesis is: who drove the success of the Japanese photography industry, the government or firms? The words 'rivalry' and 'cooperation' are used in this thesis because they most aptly describe the three main relationships in the photography industry during the postwar period: bureaucrat-politician, government-industry and firm-firm. Cooperation and rivalry always existed in these relationships, but one often took precedence over the other. The camera/lens makers in Japan's photography industry benefited from cooperative relationships through export promotion and import protection policies from 1950 to 1973. Export promotion was effective because Japanese camera/lens firms began to 'export' to US military postal exchanges in Japan during the Allied Occupation (1945-1952). After that time, the US market was wide open to Japanese exports due to Japan's balance of payments problems and America's mounting security concerns in Asia. Exports of cameras/lenses to the US and Europe expanded throughout the 1950s and 1960s, while photographic film manufacturers (who also produced cameras/lenses) caught up technologically and enjoyed a protected domestic market for film. After 1974, rivalry increased in the three main relationships primarily due to changes in the international trading regime and within Japan. In particular, firm-firm rivalry in cameras/lenses and film grew throughout the 1970s and intensified during the 1980s as new technological advances raised the stakes for global market shares. This thesis shows that some firms have been successful despite government involvement in the industry, while others have been successful because of it. Cooperation between the government and industry was important in the early years because of the tight controls placed on industry (up to the early 1970s). But the influence of the government waned as the firms within the photography industry went global and rivalry among firms increased. Additional sectoral studies of Japan's early export industries (e.g. sewing machines, bicycles, clocks/watches) are needed to provide additional evidence of the extent to which there was cooperation and/or rivalry in the three main relationships in Japan's postwar political economy

Drug Testing in the Federal Government

When the President\u27s Commission on Organized Crime issued its March 1986 report recommending that federal employees and contractors be subject to drug testing, there was little indication that drug testing would become one of the hottest political and media issues of 1986