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This paper aims to present the design and a prototype experiment of a robotic joint module for tokamak in-vessel manipulator-related research; the results will promote the adaptation of current in-vessel inspection manipulator to achieve full tokamak in-vessel environment compatibility.

A flexible metallic bellow-enclosed working chamber is used to protect the main servo drive components, the active cooling method for high temperature protection and the servo control structure simplification for high radiation endurance. A joint module prototype is manufactured and tested under a similar in-vessel environmental condition for extreme condition protection validation and basic servo control ability evaluation.

The joint module prototype successfully survived the similar in-vessel environment tests and proved good mobility via closed-loop servo control. A conceptual design of a serial linkage manipulator with joint module structure is proposed for future in-vessel inspection manipulator development.

The proposed joint module uses common industrial servo components to achieve its full extreme in-vessel environment compatibility. Different from traditional metallic bellow application in a vacuum environment to produce a linear movement result, the proposed joint module aims to achieve rotating movement directly from the metallic bellow structure, thereby reducing the joint structure space requirement, simplifying the vacuum environment movement transmission structure and increasing the vacuum environment compatibility degree.

This paper aims to present the design and experimental tests of an active circulating cooling system for the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in-vessel inspection manipulator, which will help the current manipulator prototype to achieve a full-scale in-vessel high temperature environment compatibility.

The high-temperature effects and heat transfer conditions of the manipulator under in-vessel environment were analyzed. An active circulating cooling system was designed and implemented on the manipulator prototype. A simulative in-vessel inspection task in a high temperature environment of 100°C was carried out to evaluate the performance of the active circulating cooling system.

The proposed active circulating cooling system was proved effective in helping the manipulator prototype to achieve its basic in-vessel inspection capability in a high temperature environment. The active circulating cooling system performance can be further improved considering the cooling structure coefficient differences in different manipulator parts.

For the first time, the active circulating cooling system was implemented and tested on a full-scale of the in-vessel inspection manipulator. The experimental data of the temperature distribution inside the manipulator and the operating status of the circulating system were helpful to evaluate the current active circulating cooling system design and provided effective guidance for improving the overall system performance.

Asia's traditional experiences with care provision differ considerably from those of the West given the prevalent family‐based social norms about care and policies in this region. In recent decades, Asia has experienced profound social and demographic transformations and is thus faced with significant challenges around care. However, care in Asian countries is a relatively less studied topic. There is an urgent need for a comparative study on recent policy and practice changes in care for the elderly and young children in different regions of Asia. The purpose of this special issue is to examine complicated boundary shift in care provision and financing between the state, market, community and family in East, Southeast and South Asia and to explore the implications of these changes in care policies and practices for social stratification by class and gender in Asia.

The introduction to this special issue gives an overview of the social and demographic transformations and new strains on care in Asia as a background and introduces the framework of welfare mix employed in this special issue, especially the concepts of social care and the welfare/care diamond.

The introduction summarizes the variations in regard to the governance and provision of care between different Asian countries and compares the differences in the state involvement between Asia and Europe.

The authors also discuss some of their contributions to methodological approaches and analytical frameworks in studying care and the implications of the current research for future studies.

The economic reforms which turned the centrally planned economy to a market economy have profoundly changed the tripartite relationship between the state, work unit, and citizen in urban China and brought significant changes to the institutional care provision for young children. The aim of this paper is to investigate the changes to the institutional care since 1980, with particular emphasis on the most recent years from mid‐1990s, and explore how the institutional care has changed over the recent decades without a clear institutional basis.

The analysis draws on second‐hand materials from published literature, a range of longitudinal national and local statistics and policy documents, and also on first‐hand information which was collected in Beijing from in‐depth interviews with key informants and case studies of different kinds of kindergartens.

The paper finds that the previous work‐unit based public care system has changed to a much more complicated care mix in which the roles of the state, employer, community, market and the informal sector of the family in terms of provision and funding have all changed significantly.

The findings of this paper may help to inform appropriate policy responses in Chinese child care provision. The study suggests that formal care provision should be expanded towards universal access regardless of people's income and employment status in China.

The paper questions and complicates the “state withdrawal” representation of social welfare change and argues that it is not “the state” but “the work unit and community organization” retreat from public care provision. It also argues that the change in the role of the state has been multifaceted, and not a simple one‐directional movement of marketization in which the state retreated from welfare provision in entirety.

This paper aims to present a different cooling method (water cooling) to protect all the mechanical/electrical components for Tokamak in-vessel inspection manipulator. The method is demonstrated effective through high temperature experiment, which provides an economical and robust approach for manipulators to work normally under high temperature.

The design of cooling system uses spiral copper tube structure, which is versatile for all types of key components of manipulator, including motors, encoders, drives and vision systems. Besides, temperature sensors are set at different positions of the manipulator to display temperature data to construct a close-loop feedback control system with cooling components.

The cooling system for the whole inspection manipulator working under high temperature is effective. Using insulation material such as rubber foam as component coating can significantly reduce the environmental heat transferred to cooling system.

Compared with nitrogen gas cooling applied in robotic protection design, although it is of less interest in prior research, water cooling method proves to be effective and economical through our high temperature experiment. This paper also presents an energetic analysis method to probe into the global process of water cooling and to evaluate the cooling system.

The two East Asian developmental states of Japan and South Korea share very similar familialistic male breadwinner welfare regimes. However, in the recent years, both countries have made significant social policy reforms that are gradually modulating their familialistic male breadwinner welfare regimes. Both countries have extended public support for the family and women by provisioning, regulating, and coordinating childcare, elder care, and work‐family reconciliation programs. At the same time, labour market deregulation reforms have also made employment more insecure, and created greater pressures on women to seek and maintain paid work outside the home. The purpose of this paper is to compare recent social policy reforms in Japan and Korea and discuss their implications for welfare state changes and gender equality. More specifically, it asks whether this signals the end of the old developmental state paradigm and a shift to a more gender equal policy regime.

To answer this question, the paper examines recent social policy reforms in conjunction with economic and labour market policy reforms that have also been introduced since 1990.

The analysis of social and economic policy reforms in Japan and South Korea shows a combination of both progressive and instrumentalist motivations behind social care expansions in these countries. Social care reforms in both countries were responses to the evident need for more welfare and gender equality determined by the structural and ideational changes that were taking place. But they were also a remodelling of the earlier developmental state policy framework. Indeed, social care expansions were not merely timely family friendly social policies that aimed to address new social risks; they were also important complements to the employment policy reforms that were being introduced at the same time. By investing in the family, the Japanese and Korean governments sought to mobilize women's human capital, encourage higher fertility, and facilitate job creation in social welfare and care services.

This paper shows how Japanese and South Korean developmental states might be changing and remodelling themselves in the recent decades, and how new social policies are evolving in close coordination with economic and labor market policy reforms.

The purpose of this study is to examine inter‐generational arrangements in Thailand for personal care provided to older members and provided by them as grandparents to young children.

Results are based on analysis of the 2007 Survey of Older Persons in Thailand. Consideration focuses on persons aged 60 and older.

The results document the primary role of the family, especially adult children and spouses, in providing personal care to older members. For those with only one or two adult children compared to those with four or more, spouses are considerably more likely and children less likely to be the main care provider. At the same time, older family members, as grandparents, make significant contributions to the care of young children, especially for those whose parents migrated. In most such situations, however, the grandchild's parents cover the main financial support.

Trends towards smaller family size and increased migration of adult children have already contributed to a steady decline in coresidence with adult children and increased proportions of older persons living alone or only with a spouse. How this will affect elder and grandchild care requires careful monitoring to guide social policy in relation to the roles of family, state, and voluntary sector.

The availability of representative data on the older population in Thailand provides an unusual opportunity to highlight the challenges posed by the changing demographic context of inter‐generational family care in a context of rapid population ageing in a developing country setting.

This article aims to explain how a transnational “retirement industry” in Southeast Asia has emerged recently as a result of interplays between various national and transnational forces, particularly in the domain of elderly care. “Retirement industry” refers to business operations related to the relocation of foreign retirees, primarily Japanese pensioners, who seek affordable social care and alternative retirement life.

This paper is based on extensive documentary studies and multi‐sited ethnographic research from 2004 to date. In‐depth interviews with retirees and relevant agencies were carried out in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

This article delineates how demographic and economic changes in Japan create demand for the transnational retirement industry, and how Southeast Asian countries actively promote the industry as a national development strategy. As such the boundaries between nation‐state and between the market and the state are simultaneously crossed. The industry opens new transnational routes and spaces and thus further complicates the transnationalization of elderly care in Asia.

Current research on social welfare remains dominated by methodological nationalism, and this article calls attention to the transnational dimension in understanding recent changes in social care. By engaging the predominant paradigm of “care diamond”, the article shows that how boundaries shift between various care providers within nation states is inextricably related to how borders are crossed between nation states.

This article provides an overview and analysis of care as a concept and object of policy makers' attention in Europe, mindful especially of the lessons that can be drawn from the European experience. The aim of this paper is to set out a framework to understand care and also to offer an account of the way that different European countries have provided for care (of children and older people) and how existing policies are being reformed and rethought.

The article underlines the complexity of care as a concept and domain of policy and suggests the need for a broad‐ranging approach to its analysis.

It shows that the policy configuration has to be thought of as being embedded in and in many ways a function of the primary location and forms of care, the values and culture surrounding care and the arrangements around the mix of providers and modes of governance. While there are many positive lessons from the extent to which European states have become involved in making provision for care – offering financial and other forms of support to families and those needing care and enabling women to pursue a life not completely defined by their care‐related obligations – there are also negative ones such as the outstanding need to connect up policies for care across the life spectrum (in the term used in this article: a care configuration) and to view care in a global way.

This article takes an overview of recent developments in Europe and draws out the implications of developments in Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate in the context of the persistent low fertility that contributes to an ageing society, what might be the shifting roles of state and family in caring for children?

This paper aims to address this research question by drawing on the conceptual framework of “social care” (Daly and Lewis), and on data collected through a qualitative study concerning the state's population policies aimed at encouraging childbearing among citizens in Singapore.

Three themes from the interview data relate to the various dimensions of care: first, in terms of care‐as‐responsibility, interviewees consider childbearing a long‐term commitment. In this context, they perceive the current Baby Bonus scheme only as a short‐term benefit, having limited effects. Second, regarding care‐as‐costs, interviewees pointed out that some important social services are not universally affordable. In particular, they expressed a need for more state funding to put education and healthcare within the reach of the general public. Third, in terms of care‐as‐labour, care‐giving for young children by family members continues to be seen as ideal. However, there is a gap between such an ideal and the reality.

These findings suggest a greater financial and regulatory role for the state in childcare provision is increasingly vital.

As it stands, there is a mismatch of people's expectations and available policy initiatives, and this mismatch possibly undermines the success of the government's policy of encouraging childbearing.

This research complements existing studies based on content analysis of policy or statistical analysis of survey data.