A qualitative investigation of trainees＇ adjustment in Japan：A case study of trainees from Indonesia

In Japan, there is a residence status known as “the trainee”. This is the status for residents who undertake “activities to learn and acquire the technology, skills, or knowledge at public or private organizations in Japan”. With the introduction of the Industrial Training Program in 1993, trainees have been permitted to extend their stay in Japan for education and employment purposes up to a maximum of three years. This study aims to investigate the adjustment styles of trainees and to consider the changes in their attitudes toward Japan in the course of this adjustment. Six male Indonesian trainees （mean age=23.83） were invited to a semi-structured interview. They were employed at the same factory, involved in the manufacture of car components, and were trainees in their first-, second-, and third-years. The interview mainly focused on the trainees＇ Japanese language skills, the changes in their images of Japan or Japanese people, the communication between them and their Japanese colleagues, and the difficulties they encountered during their stay in Japan. The results revealed that there were clear differences between the first, second, and third trainees. As the trainees＇ Japanese language skills improved, their communication with the Japanese colleagues increased. Subsequently, they developed more positive images of Japan and Japanese people and hoped to have more informal communication with Japanese people.     

Gaps in management education： A case study of University of Management and Technology

This paper aims to identify the gaps in management education highlighted by 3 primary stakeholders： students, faculty and alumni. The study tries to address the issue of relevance and compatibility of management education and investigates areas of improvement perceived by respondents. The paper assumes that business departments of universities have to bring changes in learning strategies to meet the requirements of stakeholders. This research takes UMT （University of Management and Technology） as a case study and presents gaps in management education. Data are collected from all the 3 stakeholders： students, faculty and alumni of MBA （Master in Business Administration） program offered at UMT. The survey is administered using an exclusively-designed research instrument and the data set of 211 students, 55 faculty members and 145 alumni is analysed using appropriate statistical techniques. The management of business schools should develop an integrated and well-coordinated mechanism to share common vision and strategies among stakeholders. A need to revise current MBA curriculum is identified, which emphasizes on the development of different types of skills among MBAs to make the program compatible with the existing corporate sector. The universities dealing in management education are recommended to redesign their curriculum in a more integrated and coordinated way in anticipation with aspiration of the existing corporate sector, which would then help reduce the identified gaps among stakeholders. The management of business schools should have a continuous assessment mechanism incorporating the feed back of all stakeholders, particularly students, faculty and alumni. The paper makes a fruitful contribution to the existing academic literature through an empirical investigation in Pakistani environment. A critical discussion is carried out, and gaps in management education are highlighted, which may motivate management institutions to revise their curriculums.     

The study of teachers＇ task values and self-efficacy on their commitment and effectiveness for technology-instruction integration

The city of Taipei has been considered as a leading role of information technology education in Taiwan. However, many questions have been waited to be answered. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current situations and problems of primary school teachers＇ technology-instruction integration. By implementing the approach of cognitive motivators and the human performance technology （HPT） theory, this study also investigated the relationships among teachers＇ cognitive motivators （self-efficacy and task values） and their commitment and effort on technology-instruction integration. The researchers delivered 2,952 questionnaires via Internet, e-mail and airmail in January 2008. Finally, 1,549 questionnaires replied back and turned out to be ok. The findings were described as below. The situation of＂high-tech schools, low-access technology＂ also happened in Taipei primary schools. The time teachers devote to use technology into instruction is about 1-3 hour（s） per week and the level of technology implementation to use was low. Besides, teachers＇ self-efficacy and task values have impact on their commitment and effort on technology-instruction integration. Teachers＇ age and the length of teaching presented opposite correlations with their commitment and effort on technology-instruction integration. Teachers have huge difficulty on comprehending and designing computer-animation related multimedia materials to help students clear their abstract learning concept to concrete. In the future, they hope to take more workshops related with multimedia design principles, how to integrate technology with learning areas, and other multimedia related theories.     

Continuous frequency and phase spectrograms： a study of their 2D and 3D capabilities and application to musical signal analysis

A new lighting and enlargement on phase spectrogram （PS） and frequency spectrogram （FS） is presented in this paper. These representations result from the coupling of power spectrogram and short time Fourier transform （STFT）. The main contribution is the construction of the 3D phase spectrogram （3DPS） and the 3D frequency spectrogram （3DFS）. These new tools allow such specific test signals as small slope linear chirp, phase jump case of musical signal analysis is reported. The main objective is to and small frequency jump to be analyzed. An application detect small frequency and phase variations in order to characterize each type of sound attack without losing the amplitude information given by power spectrogram     

Interaction of activity involvement and recreational location selection behavior in Lowland City： A case study of public parks in Saga City, Japan

INTRODUCTION Public parks are representative of city green ar-eas that provide numerous recreation opportunities to the people in the community. At the same time, public parks offer social, economic, and environmental benefits. High quality park service contributes to urban quality, but requires a large city government budget on personnel, parks resources, and admini-stration to maintain public parks’ high quality of ser-vice. In order to maintain and explain the budget for public parks…