Deregulation has been at the top of Japan's economic policy agenda for many years. Now, in the midst of a financial crisis that engulfs all of Asia, pressures on the Japanese government for substantial reform--coming from both inside and outside forces--are stronger than ever.

But is Japan actually making the changes necessary to reduce market controls, encourage competition, and create new opportunities for imports? To most outside observers, regulatory reform in Japan is an incomprehensible blur of grandiose proposals and byzantine political maneuvering, which masks developments that could be of tremendous significance to the world at large.

In this book, experts from the United States and Japan cut through the fog that surrounds Japanese regulatory reform. They review the characteristics of Japanese regulation and analyze the content of regulatory reforms proposed to date as well as the political dynamics that shaped them. The book also examines the nuts-and-bolts issues of reforms in major economic sectors and the implications of deregulation for access to Japanese markets for foreign imports. By focusing on both the larger political, economic, and strategic contexts and on the way in which the micro and macro aspects of regulatory reform are interconnected, this volume makes comprehensible the tidal wave of proposals and posturing coming out of Japan.

In addition to the editors, the contributors are Miyajima Hideaki, Elizabeth Norville, Kosuke Oyama, and Yul Sohn.

Lonny E. Carlile is an assistant professor of Japanese Studies in the Center for Japanese Studies/Department of Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Mark C. Tilton is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University.

The International Congress on Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology and Immunology, held in 1990 (RAMI-90) in Helsinki Espoo, Finland, attracted considerable interest from the international scientific community. This reflects both the rapid progress and numerous new challenges in the field covered by RAMI-90. New biotechnical approaches, such as the polymerase chain reaction, recombinant gene products and synthetic peptides are gaining wide acceptance. New important pathogens have emerged, such as hepatitis C, Helicobacter pylori, Borrelia burgdorferi, herpes virus 6 and Chlamydia pneumoniae. "Super streptococci" are recognized again as well as the agent responsible for bovine spongiform enceph alopathy. The current diagnostic methods are clearly unsatisfactory for many of these and other microbes. Moreover, there is an increas ing need for more accurate microbial control of our environment, and of the food and water we consume. What is needed are rapid, sensitive and reliable procedures which, on the one hand, should be suitable for automation and, on the other hand, presented in a cost-effective version suitable for field use. We view these needs as a clear and loud challenge for future RAMI congresses. This volume provides an up-to-date presentation of the highlights of RAMI-90 and prospects for the future. For the preparation of this volume we wish to thank Dr. Maija Leinonen for her invaluable con sultation and Ms. Virpi Tiilikainen for secretarial assistance. ANTTI V AHERI RICHARD C. TILTON ALBERT BALOWS Contents Nucleic Acid Detection Controlled Synthetic Oligonucleotide Networks for the Detection of Pathogenic Organisms M. S. Urdea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

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