As one of the first British diplomats to be posted to Japan, Sir Ernest Satow (1843~1929) became a firsthand observer of the political situation in the country in the years immediately preceding the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Throughout his first posting in Japan (September 1862~February 1869) Satow kept a journal in which he recorded his experiences. Satow later edited this journal for publication as A Diplomat in Japan (henceforth, Diplomat ) published in 1921, many years after the events of the 1860s. The subtitle for the first edition of Diplomat was, ‘The inner history of the critical years in the evolution of Japan when the ports were opened and the monarchy restored, recorded by a diplomatist who took an active part in the events of the time, with an account of his personal experiences during that period.’ This study is an examination of Satow’s ‘personal experiences during that period’ relating to what he ate and drank, and the culinary hospitality he received. This paper will then briefly discuss what can be inferred about the eating habits of Westerners in bakumatsu Japan based on the evidence of Diplomat .

Taiwan is not a party to the Paris Agreement, but the impact of climate change on Taiwan is enough to be one. The Government of Taiwan has set a target of adjusting the power mix to 50% natural gas-fired, 30% coal-fired and 20% renewable energy by 2025, increasing the proportion of relatively low carbon emissions and renewable energy, and aiming to reduce GHG emissions as a climate change policy. One of the key aspects of Taiwan’s energy policy is to phase-out nuclear power generation by 2025, and to increase the share of renewable energy in the power supply configuration and reduce the use of coal-fired power. The phase-out of nuclear power plants was initially faster than the expansion of renewable energy, reducing CO2 emissions from electricity production as needed to a small amount. Nevertheless, since 2016, Taiwan has been evaluating the “energy transition” derived from Germany and is trying to decentralize its power supply using conventional large-scale, inflexible power generation systems. 　With regard to coal-fired power plants, Taiwan will accelerate the improvement of air pollution facilities at existing coal-fired power plants and implement utilization management measures in order to match air quality. Gas-fired and green energy power supplies will be the mainstays of power supply, which is the power stabilization target, in order to maintain 15% of the supply reserve rate. The government needs to plan supply-side measures and implement various tasks to save energy and reduce carbon emission in order to reduce electricity demand. To build clean energy systems and healthy living conditions, to promote the development of new green energy industries, to promote green employment, realize the spirit of energy empowerment, promote energy democracy and justice. Going forward, the focus will be on overall system integration, where all power supplies can ensure a sufficient level of revenue. In this study, we will consider Taiwan’s climate change and energy policy since the Paris Agreement, and summarize the current situation and issues.

We will discuss why Japan succeeded after the Meiji Restoration and why she has been stagnated since 1990s, and propose the conditions for the revitalization of the Japanese economy based on M.E. Porter’s factor condition and Michio Morishima’s view of population history. Michio Morishima maintains that the quantity and quality of population is the foundation of economy and society. This paper focus on values which is one of the qualitative aspects of human beings.

In this study, we present a new method for estimating input coefficient matrix with deep learning. We use the data of prefectures of Japan as the training data. However, the data is small and is likely to cause overfitting. Therefore, we attempt to avoid the over-fitting by creating new data of virtual areas aggregating multiple prefectures. The approach is based on the concept of data augmentation. As a result of predicting the input coefficient matrix of Yamaguchi prefecture and Gujo city, we showed that the method using deep learning can estimate the matrix with more stable accuracy than RAS method for these areas.

Germany's energy transition （Energiewende） is a paradigm shift into a low-carbon and nuclear-free economy. As part of the European Union's climate neutralization drive, aiming to reduce greenhouse gases to net-zero by the middle of the century. Generous financial support for wind and solar power has boosted renewable energy to produce more electricity than fossil fuels for the first time in 2020. Germany's energy transition is not a policy shift after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but a long-term process of policy making in response to public opinion and technological trends. Germany's energy transition is still underway and needs to be extended beyond the power supply. However, it may already be pushing more thoroughly through pricing and volume regulations, such as the European Emissions Trading Scheme （EU-ETS） and changes to the carbon tax, which provides incentives for changes to low-carbon technologies. This paper analyses Germany's energy transition and climate policy. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the actual conditions and issues of the reduction effects of greenhouse gas emissions, which are the main policy issues of the energy conversion policy that has been developed mainly on renewable energy for these 20 years.

This research aims to examine the relationship between political connections and bank performance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia, with data sample comprising banks listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange （IDX）. The study employed a panel data linear regression and found an insignificant positive influence of political connections on banks' profitability. However, the result also indicates marginally lower profitability in politically connected banks compared to non-connected peers, and the event-study methodology reveals the tendency for affiliated banks to obtain substantial negative abnormal returns during the pandemic. Therefore, there is a negative effect of COVID-19 on stock performance of politically connected banks.

マーケット・タイミング理論が提唱されて以降，それを巡った実証研究が数多く行われている。しかしながら，実証研究のほとんどは欧米企業を対象として行われ，日本ではその理論がまだ注目されていない。本稿はマーケット・タイミング理論に基づき，株式発行におけるマーケット・タイミング行動に注目し，それに関する実証研究をサーベイする。主な結果は以下の2点である。まず日本企業ではマーケット・タイミング行動の実証的証拠が多いが，マーケット・タイミング行動と資本構成の関係についての実証研究はまだ少ない点である。また，マーケット・タイミング行動の資本構成への影響について，先行研究の結果が分かれており，そして異なる特性を持つ企業では影響効果も異なっている点である。このサーベイを通して，この研究分野の現状と動向を示し，さらなる発展に寄与することを目指す。

Retail investors, who are the majority traders in the Chinese stock market, cannot participate in off-line roadshows of IPO firms. Online roadshows are an important channel for them to learn about the situation of IPO firms. This study takes the IPO firms which are new-listed in Shenzhen Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018 as the research subject, investigates the relationship between question-answers relevance in online roadshows and the first-day performance of IPO firms. According to the results, a high-level of question-answers relevance leads to a high first-day return and high liquidity. Furthermore, the additional analysis shows that the IPO firms with a high-level of question-answers relevance show stable long-term stock returns, on the contrary, the IPO firms with a low-level of question-answers relevance show the trends to decrease. Online roadshows could mitigate the information asymmetry between the investors and IPO firms, and play an important role in assessing firm values.

As climate change and various environmental pollution issues are becoming more serious, many countries are actively promoting energy transition. The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, is aimed at curbing the rise in global average temperatures to within 2℃ above pre-industrial levels and limiting temperature rises to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels. Taiwan is accelerating its path of energy transition to a "nuclear-free homeland" and “low-carbon economy” by phasing out all nuclear power generation in 2025 and imposing a legally binding goal of reducing coal-fired power generation from 47 percent to 26 percent. This paper investigates the impact of nuclear and coal power regulations on fuel mix CO2 emissions in the power sector by 2050 in Taiwan. Analysis is a future technology shift in the power sector called “Future Technology Transformations; FTT” for the power sector; Consider using the E3ME model linked to FTT: Power sub-model.