日本中小企业全球化经营的新趋势及其对我国的启示

中小企业在日本经济发展过程中一直扮演重要的角色。进入20世纪90年代以后,随着经济全球化和信息全球化趋势的日益加强,日本中小企业对外直接投资模式出现了新的发展变化,其在投资规模、投资地区结构、投资方式以及信息技术利用等方面都呈现出新的特征。研究日本中小企业全球化经营新特点和发展趋势,对我国中小企业如何开展对外投资具有重要的启示。     

Pondering personal privacy: a pragmatic approach to the Fourth Amendment protection of privacy in the information age

As technology with surveillance capacities has advanced, the debate over the rights of the citizenry to be free from governmental breaches of personal privacy has intensified. Within the United States, government actions legally challenged as intrusions into personal privacy have been analyzed under the Fourth Amendment, but Supreme Court rulings in such cases lack a clear and consistent rationale. Additionally, while more than a dozen federal privacy statutes have been enacted, each piece of legislation pertains to a specific type of information (e.g. driver’s license information, education records, and financial records). There is no overarching federal legislation which protects the individual’s private affairs from warrantless government inspection. A key issue underlying the scope of the debate and the variation in court decisions and public policies pertinent to invasions of privacy by government agencies is the lack of a clear and cogent definition of ‘privacy.’ By means of a review of the evolution of legal protections of privacy under the Fourth Amendment and a review of the evolution of technology with surveillance applications, it is suggested that there is a need for a sound operational definition of privacy. As a starting point for an informed and pragmatic dialogue on this matter, an operational definition of privacy built upon extant case and statutory law is provided.     

A Preliminary Study of Insect Succession in Al‐Ahsaa Oasis,in the Eastern Region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Rabbit carcass decomposition was examined in four seasons in Al‐Ahsaa Oasis. Decomposition rate was significantly faster in summer compared with other seasons. Fourteen insect species from four orders and seven families were recorded: Calliphoridae, Muscidae, Sarcophagidae, Formicidae, Histeridae, Dermestidae, and Tenebrionidae. Most of the fly maggots collected were Calliphoridae with only one species from both Muscidae and Sarcophagidae. Maggots of Calliphora vicina (R.‐D.) and Chrysomya albiceps (Wiedemann) colonized the carcasses in all seasons while both Ch. bezziana (Villeneuve) and Lucilia sericata (Meigen) were found in all seasons except for winter. Maggots of Chrysomya megacephala (F.) and Phormia regina (Meigen) were only collected in the summer and autumn, respectively. Four coleopteran species were collected: Hymenorus sp., Saprinus chacites (Illiger), Dermestes maculatus DeGeer and Blaps sp. One formicidian species, Pheidole megacephala (F.), was observed in all seasons. Insect richness was greater, and decomposition rate was faster in summer compared with other seasons.     

The importance of teaching dispute resolution in a twenty-first-century law school

Civil justice reviews over the past 20 years have encouraged the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and particularly mediation. Mediation is arguably now becoming more mainstream in terms of dispute resolution process choice. In some instances law changes have been introduced requiring parties in dispute to consider using mediation; similarly, lawyers have an ethical responsibility to provide advice to their clients about the range of dispute resolution processes available. What is lacking however is a corresponding appreciation of the changing attitudes to the teaching of dispute resolution in the majority of UK law schools, where the promotion of adversarialism within the curriculum appears to remain the focus as the primary and only method of dispute resolution. The article argues that this is unreflective of current attitudes and thinking towards dispute resolution in most common law countries, where litigation is no longer necessarily the primary dispute resolution process of choice. Whilst there was token appreciation of the importance of mediation advocacy and its inclusion recommended within the Bar Practice Training Course (BPTC), the recent Legal Education and Training Review was silent on any suggestions about the inclusion of dispute resolution based curriculum content at any stage of legal education in England and Wales. The article will explore the historical development of lawyers’ attitudes to dispute resolution within the civil justice arena and academics’ teaching of curriculum associated with it in UK law schools. The article will pose questions on why recent legal history suggests that law schools should now perhaps take a more socio-legal approach to their curriculum content and embrace the teaching of dispute resolution as a defined subject area for the twenty-first-century law school.     

Unusual suicides with band saws: Two case reports and a literature review

Suicides or suicide attempts with power saws (band, circular or chain saws) are rather rare events and only a few case reports exist in the forensic literature. The use of a band saw, in particular, has been extremely rare in cases of suicide.We report two cases of suicide that occurred in the same suburban area, three years apart. In each case, the victim was a carpenter and had a history of psychiatric disorder and/or of prior suicide attempts.We summarize the findings of the death scene investigations, the pertinent autopsy findings, and also summarize the world literature pertaining to suicide committed with power saws.     

The Direction of Violence Against Women Research and Evaluation

Although researchers have made numerous advances in the understanding of the nature, extent, and dynamics of violence against women (VAW), there is an ever-increasing need for data used in academic research and within policy decision-making to be collected via rigorous methodological designs to accurately measure the incidence and impact of VAW. What is now needed are research collaborations within an interdisciplinary research cluster that will expand understanding of the complex nature of VAW. The current article details an agenda or “call to action” to address deficiencies and advance VAW research, in addition to informing VAW intervention and prevention efforts.     

Misleading by Example: The Effects of a Manager’s Unfair Customer Treatment on Service Employee Performance and Perceived Managerial Trustworthiness

We explore service worker reactions to a supervisor’s fair treatment of customers (i.e., customer-directed fairness), utilizing the group-value model of fairness to formulate two distinct predictions: (1) a status cuing effect, in which employees internalize social cues from the supervisor’s behavior to determine the social value of customers, and adapting their own customer-oriented behaviors to reflect the supervisor’s cue, and (2) a character indictment effect, in which employees use customer-directed fairness to assess the trustworthiness of the supervisor’s character. Results from experimental and field data provide evidence for these dual effects and show how each ultimately affects the employee’s in-role and extra-role customer service behavior. Implications are discussed with regard to the group-value model of fairness, alternative theories of fairness, and practical applications.