Eye tracking has been used to investigate gaze behaviours in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, traditional analysis has yet to find behavioural characteristics shared by both children and adults with ASD. To distinguish core ASD gaze behaviours from those that change with development, we examined temporo-spatial gaze patterns in children and adults with and without ASD while they viewed video clips. We summarized the gaze patterns of 104 participants using multidimensional scaling so that participants with similar gaze patterns would cluster together in a two-dimensional plane. Control participants clustered in the centre, reflecting a standard gaze behaviour, whereas participants with ASD were distributed around the periphery. Moreover, children and adults were separated on the plane, thereby showing a clear effect of development on gaze behaviours. Post hoc frame-by-frame analyses revealed the following findings: (i) both ASD groups shifted their gaze away from a speaker earlier than the control groups; (ii) both ASD groups showed a particular preference for letters; and (iii) typical infants preferred to watch the mouth rather than the eyes during speech, a preference that reversed with development. These results highlight the importance of taking the effect of development into account when addressing gaze behaviours characteristic of ASD.

This article examines the diffusion of Japanese television programs in Hong Kong and China. It demonstrates how dramas designed for the Japanese younger generation proliferated in the form of pirated video compact disks (VCDs), without being on the air and without marketing campaigns. Far from being cultural imperialism pushed from the economic center, the Chinese people have actively initiated the in-flow of these dramas. The complex combination of local demand, digital technology and the Chinese people’s highly developed literacy in regard to Japanese popular culture made this flow possible. Tokyo was not even participating in the diffusion when the dramas crossed the border into China. To better illustrate globalization processes, this article argues that we should not focus solely on the story of corporate-led cultural flow, but should also examine its twists and turns from the perspectives of unforeseen consumers and unauthorized intermediaries.

RESUMO Os países altamente endividados, particularmente os latino-americanos, apresentaram resultados econômicos negativos na década de 1990, que são a consequência da “estratégia de crescimento com poupança externa”, ou o Segundo Consenso de Washington. Juntamente com a liberalização dos fluxos financeiros internacionais, tal estratégia, que não fez parte do primeiro consenso, levou os países, na onda de um novo ciclo mundial de fluxos de capital, a déficits elevados em conta corrente e aumento da dívida externa, ignorando a restrição da solidez e o limiar da dívida. Em termos práticos, envolvia moedas supervalorizadas (baixas taxas de câmbio) e altas taxas de juros; em termos políticos, a tentativa de controlar o déficit orçamentário enquanto o déficit em conta corrente foi ignorado. A consequência paradoxal foi a adoção, pelos países altamente endividados, do “populismo cambial”, uma forma menos óbvia, mas mais perigosa, de populismo econômico.

Following the 1995 Hyogoken-nambu (Kobe) earthquake, various integrated efforts have been directed toward upgrading seismic performance of vulnerable school buildings. In this paper, damage statistics of school buildings due to the Kobe earthquake, criteria to identify their vulnerability, the subsidy program for seismic rehabilitation, and their implementation examples, are briefly described, together with recent challenging efforts for further promotion of seismic rehabilitation on a nationwide basis.

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