A Bridge Builder or a Raconteur? How Japan Manoeuvres the Global Development Discourse within the TICAD Process

Japan has been a major actor in the field of development cooperation for five decades, even holding the title of largest donor of Official Development Assistance (ODA) during the 1990s. Financial flows, however, are subject to pre-existing paradigms that dictate both donor and recipient behaviour. In this respect Japan has been left wanting for more recognition. The dominance of the so called ‘Washington Consensus’ embodied in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank has long circumvented any indigenous approaches to development problems. The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) is a development cooperation conference that Japan has hosted since 1993 every five years. As the main organizer of the conference Japan has opted for the leading position of African development. This has come in the wake of success in the Asian region where Japan has called attention to its role in the so called ‘Asian Miracle’ of fast growing economies. These aspirations have enabled Japan to try asserting itself as a major player in directing the course of global development discourse using historical narratives from both Asia and Africa. Over the years TICAD has evolved into a continuous process with ministerial and follow-up meetings in between conferences. Each conference has produced a declaration that stipulates the way the participants approach the question of African development. Although a multilateral framework, Japan has over the years made its presence more and more felt within the process. This research examines the way Japan approaches the paradigms of international development cooperation and tries to direct them in the context of the TICAD process. Supplementing these questions are inquiries concerning Japan’s foreign policy aspirations. The research shows that Japan has utilized the conference platform to contest other development actors and especially the dominant forces of the IMF and the World Bank in development discourse debate. Japan’s dominance of the process is evident in the narratives found in the conference documents. Relative success has come about by remaining consistent as shown by the acceptance of items from the TICAD agenda in other forums, such as the G8. But the emergence of new players such as China has changed the playing field, as they are engaging other developing countries from a more equal level.

Northern agriculture : constraints and responses to global climate change

Selostus: Maatalous pohjoisilla äärialueilla: ilmastolliset rajoitukset ja ilmaston muutosten vaikutukset viljelyyn

Impact of global warming on potato late blight : risk, yield loss and control

Selostus: Ilmaston lämpenemisen vaikutus perunaruttoon

New, low estimate for carbon stock in global forest vegetation based on inventory data

Abstract

Educating Pulp and Paper Engineers for the Global Forest Industry

Vol.23, No. 5, pp. 1024-1037, 2007.

Coarse Global Visual Localization of a Mobile Robot

Localization, which is the ability of a mobile robot to estimate its position within its environment, is a key capability for autonomous operation of any mobile robot. This thesis presents a system for indoor coarse and global localization of a mobile robot based on visual information. The system is based on image matching and uses SIFT features as natural landmarks. Features extracted from training images arestored in a database for use in localization later. During localization an image of the scene is captured using the on-board camera of the robot, features are extracted from the image and the best match is searched from the database. Feature matching is done using the k-d tree algorithm. Experimental results showed that localization accuracy increases with the number of training features used in the training database, while, on the other hand, increasing number of features tended to have a negative impact on the computational time. For some parts of the environment the error rate was relatively high due to a strong correlation of features taken from those places across the environment.

Outsourcing and Subcontracting Strategy Creation in a Global Manufacturing Company

Työn tavoitteena oli tutkia lähestymistapoja ostaa-valmistaa - päätöksentekotilanteessa. Näillä päätöksillä voi olla lopputulemana joko oma valmistus tai ulkopuolisen toimittajan käyttäminen, jolloin puhutaanjoko ulkoistetusta tai alihankitusta valmistuksesta. Päätökseen vaikuttavista tekijöistä merkittävimmät on koottu viitekehykseen, joka opastaa huomioimaan eri tekijät, jotka toistuvat olosuhteista riippumatta. . Toimittajakentän mahdollisuuksilla on vaikutusta päätöksentekotilanteessa. Olennainen osa ulkoistamis- ja alihankintastrategiaa liittyy toimittajavalintaan, sekä valittavaan yhteistyömalliin.

Information and Communication Society's Impact on Global Paper Consumption

Tämän tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää informaatio- ja kommunikaatioyhteiskunnan vaikutusta paperin kulutukseen maailmanlaajuisesti. Tarkoituksena on löytää informaatio- ja kommunikaatioyhteiskuntaa kuvaavia mittareita, joiden avulla voidaan vertailla kehittyneitä ja kehittyviä markkina-alueita keskenään. Tutkimusongelmaan haetaan ratkaisua tutkimalla sekä kirjallisuutta että tilastoja, ja vertaamalla niitä esitettyihin teorioihin informaatio- ja kommunikaatioyhteiskunnan kehityksestä. Tutkielman avulla pyritään arvioimaan ja kuvaamaantoimintaympäristön muutoksia paperin kulutuksen suhteen pitkällä aikavälillä informaatio- ja kommunikaatioyhteiskunnan näkökulmasta.