Yamamura Gakuen College

Cross-national assessment of students’ competences in higher education is becoming increasingly important in many disciplines including economics but there are few available instruments that meet psychological standards for assessing students’ economic competence in higher education (HE). One of them is the internationally valid Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE), which has been adapted and employed successfully in HE systems in various countries, but the test results have seldom been used for international comparisons of students’ Economic Content Knowledge (ECK). Here, we compare the German and the Japanese test adaptations of the TUCE with reference to the American original in order to determine their suitability for comparative analyses of ECK in HE among these countries. Having critically examined the two test adaptations, we present a comparative analysis of students’ test scores in Germany and Japan and evaluate potential differences with regard to students’ acquisition of ECK while investigating country-specific influence factors.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between the beginning period of walking alone and the beginning period of fundamental movements. The subjects are 1, 252 children aged from 2 to 6 years. The fundamental movement items in the questionnaire consist of 24 types of movements. The results are as follows;If the beginning period of walking alone is early, the beginning period of fundamental movement is early as well. It was considered that the positive relationship also was found in beginning period between walking alone and 15 types of fundamental movements. Fifteen types of fundamental movements which indicated the positive relationship were as follows; climbing down, passing through, hiding oneself, running, climbing up, hanging down, jumping from a height, body rolling, walking on a balance beam, leaping, climbing up a tree, inverted supporting, kicking, catching, throwing. Their beginning periods were earlier among fundamental movements' ones.

Total body fat mass was estimated in a group of 65 healthy male and 39 healthy female Japanese aged 40-77 using the D2O dilution method, and by measurement of skinfold thickness at 14 sites. The weights of skin, and subcutaneous and internal adipose tissue were calculated. The women had a higher total adipose tissue weight than the men (p<0.01). Absolute subcutaneous adipose tissue weight in women was about double that in men. However, absolute internal adipose tissue weight and internal adipose tissue weight as a percentage of body weight showed no significant sex difference. The relationship of total and subcutaneous adipose tissue weight with age showed a correlation of r=-0.283 (p<0.05) and r=-0.367 (p<0.01), respectively, for men and r=-0.329 (p< 0.05) and r=-0.428 (p<0.01), respectively, for women. The correlation of internal adipose tissue weight with age was not significant, but the internal adipose tissue weight/total adipose tissue weight ratio increased steadily with age in both sexes.

The graft copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) onto cellulose was attempted in non-swelling (CH3OH:C6H6=1:2, 18% swelling) or swelling (H2O:CH3OH=4:1, 120% swelling) solvent. Some properties and fine structures of the resulting MMA grafted cellulose were investigated and the following results were obtained.1) The value of the wet or dry strength (tensile-, burst-strength and folding endurance) of the cellulose papers MMA-grafted in non-swelling solvent was higher than that of those MMA-grafted in swelling solvent.2) The hygroscopicity of the cellulose papers MMA-grafted in swelling solvent was higher than that of those grafted in non-swelling solvent.3) The value of the wet or dry strength and hygroscopicity of the cellulose papers MMA-grafted in non-swelling solvent having a smaller number of branches of high molecular weight were higher than those of the MMA-grafted cellulose papers having a larger number of branches of low molecular weight.4) The layer openings of the fibrous structure of cellulose pulps occurred more often in the graft copolymerization of MMA in swelling solvent than in that in non-swelling solvent. The degree of the openings between layers appeared to increase with an increase in the degree of grafting.5) The lowering of crystallinity of cellulose and birefrigence of the cellulose pulps MMA-grafted in swelling solvent was larger than that of the cellulose pulps MMA-grafted in non-swelling solvent.6) It seemed that poly MMA (PMMA) grafted onto cellulose pulps in non-swelling solvent was crystalline and the crystallinity of PMMA increased with an increase in the degree of grafting, though PMMA grafted in swelling solvent was amorphous.These results suggest that the differences of the strength and the hygroscopicity of the cellulose MMA-grafted in non-swelling or swelling solvent are due to the differences of the orientation and the crystallinity.

In order to prepare high-molecular weight (abbreviated as hmw in the text) cationic polymer available as flocculant, both cationic 2-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate (DM) and nonionic acrylamide (AM) were graft copolymerized onto hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC). The graft copolymers were then purified by means of fractional precipitation. The flocculating action of HEC-DM-AM graft copolymers was examined in comparison with that of HEC-DM graft copolymers reported in the previous paper1) It was found that: 1) the sedimentation with HEC-DM-AM was faster than that with HEC-DM; 2) in the case of hmw HEC-DM-AM, the larger a molar percentage of AM was, the faster the sedimentation was, though the transmittance was scarcely affected by the DM/AM ratio; 3) the flocculating action of HEC-DM-AM was superior to that of HEC-DM or commercial cationic polymer flocculants, and the suspensions did not tend to redisperse easily at their large dosage, which was distinct from the case of other cationic polymer flocculants. These results lead to the conclusion that effective hmw cationic flocculants can be prepared by means of the graft copolymerization of both DM (10-20 mole-% in the grafted branch) and AM onto HEC.

Acryronitrile (AN) or methyl methacrylate (MMA) was graft copolymerized onto slightly methacrylated paper and the various kinds of papers grafted by the high and low molecular weight branches were prepared. The effects of the molecular weight and the number of the grafted branches on the strength, the acid and alkali resistance and the hygroscopicity of the paper were examined.The following results were obtained. 1) The wet or dry strength of the paper grafted by the high molecular weight branches with the smaller number of the branches was higher than the corresponding strength of the paper grafted by the low molecular weight branches with the larger number of the branches, in comparing the same degree of grafting. The wet strength of the AN-grafted paper was much higher than those of the original and the MMA-grafted ones. 2) The acid and alkali resistances of the paper increased on grafting, but the hygroscopicity decreased. The acid and alkali resistances of the paper with the high molecular weight branches and small number of branches were superior to those of the paper with the low molecular weight branches at the same degree of grafting. The hygroscopicity of the paper with the low molecular weight branches was higher than that of the paper with the high molecular weight branches at the same degree of grafting. These results suggest that the high molecular weight branches (the small number branches) do not so change the fine structure of the cellulose fibers as the low molecular weight branches (the large number branches) do.It is concluded that the properties of the grafted paper depend on the difference in the number and the molecular weight of the grafted branches even if at the same degree of grafting. This must be kept in mind in investigating the properties of any other grafted paper.