The mood of the first U of M U.S.-Japan Auto conference in January 1981 could only be described as electric. People wanted to know what our problems were and how we could begin to solve them. ...Inherent in the latter issue was the questions, what could we learn from the Japanese? One left the conference with a sense that there was a call for action, a mandate to address the problems facing industry. The mood, about a year later, at the March 1982 U.S.-Japan Auto Conference was far more subdued. While undoubtedly this reflected the stream of statistics confirming the continually depressed state of the industry, another dynamic was possibly operating as well. Whereas the 1981 conference was "electric," a state of mind which flowed from a certain frustration at seemingly overwhelming difficulties and often vague expectations of what we might learn from the Japanese, the 1982 conference was more "workmanlike" in the sense that speakers discussed specifically what progress was being made in addressing problems. This more subdued, pragmatic approach continued throughout wand was reinforced by workshops held the day after the main conference. Instead of discussing the virtues of the Just-In-Time system in Japan, speakers addressed the practical problems of introducing such a system in the U.S. firms. Instead of railing about the benefits or failings of regulation of the industry, they discussed what we could reasonably expect from regulation. Instead of exhorting the industry to adopt Japanese practices willy-nilly, they focused on some of the limitations of the Japanese model in a range of different areas. Instead of trying to identify some magic key to Japanese success in the automotive industry, they discussed the interrelationships among various factors. At the same, they continued to explore the basic issues transforming the auto industry worldwide. In this connection, they sought to unravel some of the complexities associated with the internalization of the auto industry and trade obligations under the GATT.
The Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran have attracted increasing interest in recent years. These texts predate the “sectarian" Dead Sea scrolls, and they are contemporary with the youngest parts of ...the Hebrew Bible. They offer a unique glimpse into the situation before the biblical canons were closed. Their highly creative Jewish authors reshaped and rewrote biblical traditions to cope with the concerns of their own time. The essays in this volume examine this fascinating ancient literature from a variety of different perspectives. The book grew out of an international symposium held at the University of Copenhagen in August 2017.
Through his influential work on cultural capital and social mobility, the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has provided critical insights into the complex interactions of power, class, and culture ...in the modern era. Ubiquitous though Bourdieu's theories are, however, they have only intermittently been used to study some of the most important forms of cultural production today: cinema and new media. With topics ranging from film festivals and photography to constantly evolving mobile technologies, this collection demonstrates the enormous relevance that Bourdieu's key concepts hold for the field of media studies, deploying them as powerful tools of analysis and forging new avenues of inquiry in the process.
This volume presents the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Pharmacy and Medicine in Ancient Egypt (Barcelona, October 2018) showcasing the most recent pharmaceutical and medical ...studies on human remains and organic and plant material from ancient Egypt, together with discussions on textual and iconographical evidence.
Language acquisition is a human endeavor par excellence. As children, all human beings learn to understand and speak at least one language: their mother tongue. It is a process that seems to take ...place without any obvious effort. Second language learning, particularly among adults, causes more difficulty. The purpose of this series is to compile a collection of high-quality monographs on language acquisition. The series serves the needs of everyone who wants to know more about the problem of language acquisition in general and/or about language acquisition in specific contexts.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights: Conscience for the World examines the strategies pursued and results achieved by the UN's top human rights officials to end atrocities and ...promote justice, equality, and protection worldwide.
In this volume, the theoretical and methodological approaches of household archaeology are applied to the rich data set of Bronze and Iron Age Israel, providing an innovative construct for ...interpreting material culture and inciting new avenues for future research.
How stem cells behave is very much a factor of their local microenvironment, also known as the stem cell niche. Physical, chemical, or electrical signals from the neighboring cells or biochemical ...signals from distant cells are crucial in the cell fate decision process. A major challenge of tissue engineering is to mimic the natural cell environment by designing very sophisticated scaffolds able not only to mechanically support cells, but also to release signals biologically relevant for governing stem cell fate. In addition, increasing evidence suggests that abnormal interaction of stem cells with their niche is responsible for altered cell function leading to malignant transformation. This book discusses some of the recent advances in stem cell research that may help understanding the properties of the niche that govern stem cell fate. Technical topics discussed include:Stem cell biologyCancer stem cellsStem cell interactions with biomaterialsEngineering the stem cell microenvironmentStem cells in tissue regeneration and repairThe Disputationes Workshop series is an international initiative aimed at disseminating stem cell related cutting edge knowledge among scientists, healthcare workers, students and policy makers. This book emerges as a result of the scientific contributions presented and discussed during the fifth Disputationes Workshop held in Aalborg (Denmark) in April 2014. The stem cell microenvironment and its role in regenerative medicine and cancer pathogenesis is ideal for academic staff and master/research students in biomedical and health sciences
Culture Matters in Russia--and Everywhere discusses modernization, democratization, and economic and political reforms in Russia and elsewhere, and asserts that these reforms can be accomplished ...through the reframing of cultural values, attitudes, and institutions. The contributors--who include three Nobel Laureates--strive to analyze and understand the role of culture in modernization, particularly relevant to Russian culture as tensions between Russia and the West heighten to levels not seen since the Cold War.
This collection draws strength from its cross-disciplinarity, featuring contributions by scholars who investigate Bracciolini's contribution to many fields of knowledge in the Western tradition, ...spanning across politics and historiography, material and print culture, philology and manuscript studies, calligraphy and palaeography. The essays touch upon intertwined aspects of early Renaissance in its recovery of the classical tradition where the concept of humanitas extends to the manuscript itself. “This distinguished collection of essays adds a wealth of scholarly detail to our understanding of the myriad-minded Renaissance humanist Poggio Bracciolini. And, in doing so, it also managed to capture much of the range and flavour of this extraordinary figure: his learning, his passionate interest in antiquity, his civic pride, and his brilliance in calligraphic design, as well as his ceaseless self-promotion , his enmities, his taste for obscenity, and his penchant for moralizing. Poggio's startling energy and the energy of the whole period course through these pages" (Stephen Greenblatt)
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