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We examine determinants of retail transaction and list prices for gasoline using cross-sectional data for gas stations in inland Japan. The study makes two original contributions: it examines inland Japan where gasoline prices at proximate stations theoretically should be identical, and it analyzes retail transaction and list prices for gasoline. Empirical analysis yields three results. First, the concentration of stations correlates negatively with gasoline prices, but its effects are attenuated by increased numbers of uninformed consumers. Second, stations should set retail prices that include markups based on location, their service features, and brand affiliation. Third, they should charge different markups for different grades of gasoline based on concentration of stations and location. Our findings suggest that consumers’ search for stations that set lower price could significantly influence pricing and that providing price information could reduce search costs and gasoline prices, thereby raising social welfare.

text, 学術雑誌論文 / Journal Article

This study examines whether the Japanese scheme of nontransferable water rights results in technical inefficiency. Using data on 1,263 Japanese retail water suppliers for 2008, their technical efficiency is measured employing data envelopment analysis. Next, a bootstrapped truncated regression model is specified to examine the determinants of technical efficiency. The estimation results reveal that the nontransferability of water rights leads to technical inefficiency of retail water suppliers. Furthermore, the costs of this efficiency amount to about 462 billion yen. This result suggests the government should reallocate water rights flexibly in order to ensure efficiency.

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake triggered an unexpected water demand fluctuation in Japan’s Abukuma river region. Using this context, this study examines whether demand fluctuations result in technical inefficiency in the Japan’s water sector. Technical efficiency is measured using a data envelopment analysis of water suppliers in the region from 2008–2014. Next, a bootstrapped truncated regression model is specified to examine the determinants of technical efficiency. The estimation results reveal that inefficiency arises when water suppliers with water rights face declining demand. A counterfactual scenario, whereby excess water rights are reallocated to increase water suppliers’ efficiency, improves technical efficiency by 7.19%. This result suggests that the government should permit the reallocation of water rights under a trading scheme.

BACKGROUND : Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is a tryptophan catabolic enzyme involved in immune tolerance and tumor immune escape processes. Recently, IDO expression has been found to correlate with the prognosis of malignant tumors, but the implication of IDO in glioma progression remains unknown. OBJECTIVE : To investigate the relationship between IDO expression and histological malignancy in gliomas. METHODS : IDO expression was examined in a total of 75 surgical specimens obtained from 68 patients with glioma using immunohistochemical staining. The 75 specimens included 15 diffuse astrocytomas, 21 anaplastic astrocytomas, and 39 glioblastomas. Six of 39 glioblastomas were secondary glioblastomas, transforming from grade II or III gliomas that had been determined at the first surgery. IDO expression rate was compared in each histological grade, and patient survival was analyzed. RESULTS : Expression of IDO was found in 72 of 75 gliomas at varying intensities. Stronger expression of IDO was more likely to be observed in malignant gliomas compared with low-grade gliomas. IDO expression in the 6 cases of secondary glioblastoma was stronger than in the initial low-grade glioma. Survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier method revealed that grade IV patients with strong IDO expression had significantly worse overall survival rates (P = .04) than patients with weak IDO expression. CONCLUSION : IDO is expressed more strongly in both primary and secondary glioblastoma tissue than low-grade glioma and may affect clinical outcome. If IDO promotes glioma cells to escape from the immune system, IDO may be a crucial therapeutic target for malignant gliomas.

In recent years, there have been diverse ways to correspond to the increasing elderly population in Japan. These include public administration, nursing service, medical service, NPO, private organization (profit organization) and local community. Although Japan's population is expected to decrease in the future, there is concern about rapid aging population. Especially in small provincial cities, it is predicted that implementing countermeasure action for elderly citizens will be difficult. Then, this study is comprised of the following research and analysis.1. A method of extracting the area in need for elderly citizen countermeasures that reflect the distribution of elderly population and each household situation.2. The realities grasp and opinion exchange of watch activities in region.

We have developed a novel bright reflective color display, which combines the polymer network liquid crystal (PNLC) containing dichroic fluorescent dyes and the ultra-low-power driving technology. The high reflectance, 60% at the maximum, was achieved by enhancement of the external light emission from the dyes due to the light-scattering effect of PNLC.

In this study, based on the statistical data and future estimates, the number of the elderly who are likely to use elderly housing with life support service (“elderly” hereinafter is used in this context) in 2025 was calculated, and the derivation method of basis for estimating the quantity of elderly housing needed to be constructed or improved was demonstrated as an essay. In addition, by specifying the minimum living expense in case of living in elderly housing and by comparing this figure to the data of income levels used as bases for determining premiums for long-term care insurance, the balance between the number of elderly housing in need for public financial support, such as housing benefit or construction aid, and the number of the same deemed possible to be developed in the market was examined. The trial calculations in this study were made with the cooperation of 7 local municipalities, most of which are in the Tokyo metropolitan area that is supposed to have high demand for elderly housing.The result showed that, as elderly people's situation is greatly different area to area, it is necessary to establish a standard on elderly housing construction and improvement on a municipality-by-municipality basis taking into account the local circumstance of each area.

This study considers an agricultural land use plan using multi-agent simulation in the agricultural area of Nakhon Pathom Prefecture, Thailand, where small-scale croplands of various products exist...

This paper reports on the kindergarten user’s aspects of working and their needs for child-care based on the result of questionnaire survey at Tama-City, Tokyo. We broke users’ condition and conation of working (working types) and their consideration of working and social child-care from their children’s young age (consideration types) down into patterns. And guardians’ consideration to working and nurturing, the selection reason for the kindergarten, needs for social child-care, and the working conditions of double-income guardians were understood. As a result, it was pointed out that there was the necessity of social child-care or “Child-nurturing support” in the wide sense including the working style etc. to the kindergarten users that had been thought that “Child care” needs were few.

Dwellings for the elderly may be classified into three types: one's own home, housing for the elderly, and nursing home, in which the housing for the elderly are said to be least developed. However, looking ahead, it is expected that the number of people who move to housing for the elderly will grow resulting from the increase in elderly population and the change in household composition. The object of this study is to obtain insight into high quality housing for the elderly. On that purpose, analyses were conducted using the following two methods:1. Understanding of the nation-wide quantity of developed housing for the elderly,2. Analysis of the trends of development of housing for the elderly from the perspective of architectural characteristics, user identification and attendant circumstances of relative services.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the effect of units for population aggregation on calculation precision of the road distances from the residents to the nearest regional facilities. To this end, the distances from the central point of municipality subdivision areas were compared with the average distances from the central points of basic unit blocks in Japanese Census weighted by population in Kanagawa Prefecture. The results show that the error increases in the western part where the road network is sparse and that the relative error is high if the distance is less than one kilometer.

This paper investigates a small size wave power device with an impulse turbine installed in the breakwater near Niigata Port, Japan. The device consists of an air chamber, a turbine, a generator and pressure-relief valves. This study reveals the characteristics of each component in this system with impulse turbine and a direct current dynamo the power of which is consumed by a constant resistor. In this paper special features of the impulse turbine are found, and the system characteristics are briefly represented. The overall plant performance was analyzed using mathematical model of an oscillating water column (OWC) based on linear water wave theory and the special features of the impulse turbine.

The purpose of this study is to develop a method for location planning of regional facilities considering topographical condition and aging society. To this end, this article aims to express the regional reconstruction method by using converted distance, which we developed by considering resistance of topographical features and changes in physical strength by age in the previous study. As a result, the study shows the regional reconstruction method that is utilizing the neighborhood centers which exists in an old-new town and is considering the daily life of senior citizens.

The practice of TAKUROSYO has extended. TAKUROSYO means a frame of services and facilities that has multi-service of the [Daycare (established Day-Service function)], [Staying (established Short-Staying function)], and the [Residence (established Group-Living function)]. Therefore, the senior citizen's life can be supported continuously in TAKUROUSYO. In this research, "Small-scale nursing care facilities for elderly people based on day service" including TAKUROSYO were analyzed. In this paper, the regional difference of the management modality and nursing needs of these facilities is analyzed. It was expected that was different according to such as the aging of population, how much can the family nurse, and how many senior citizen support facilities are there at the locality. A lot of parts of the TAKUROSYO management based on fl exible service with local conditions are contradictory to a managerial vision under the new system that is uniform regulations throughout the country. Danger of destroying the senior citizen's life is involved to the system management that doesn't consider the regionality.

A novel reflective color LCD without polarizer has been developed with using PDLC and retro-reflector. Bright color images including moving images are available with utilizing ambient light. Our novel LCD will create a new application area such as electronic paper.

港湾施設を高波などから守る防波堤は，我が国ではケーソン式が多く用いられている。ケーソン式防波堤は，長年の波浪により損傷を受けることがある。その場合，ケーソン内部の中詰砂が流出し，その結果ケーソン内部に空洞が発生する。通常，ケーソン内部の空洞を確認するには目視調査や測量調査などにより防波堤表面の状態や形状の変化などを観察し，その後ボーリング調査を行って，内部に防水カメラなどを挿入して行う。しかし，この方法は非効率的で，調査費用も嵩む。 一方，地下やコンクリート構造物の背面の空洞調査には地中レーダが用いられている。しかし，パルス波方式の地中レーダ探査は，コンクリート背面の空洞探査に対しては1m程度までの深さしか探査できない。 筆者らは，コンクリートの厚さが数mの防波堤内部の空洞の有無とある程度の厚さを推定するためにFM-CW方式の地中レーダ探査装置を製作し，ケーソン内部の診断システムを開発した。空洞の有無の判定には，技術者による個人差をなくすために自動診断プログラムを開発した。 この自動診断プログラムには，コンクリートの比誘電率が必要である。そのため，コンクリートコア試料を採取して，製作した装置と同じ周波数帯域で電気特性（比誘電率及び導電率）の測定を行った。 測定した電気特性の値を用いて防波堤内部の電磁波伝搬の数値計算を行い，自動診断プログラムの判定基準を検討した。この自動診断プログラムにより，現地で直ちに結果が得られるようになった。 本稿では，開発した診断システムの技術的な特徴を示し，新潟東港及び金沢港で得られた成果について報告する。

This paper aims to report on the actual management states of the integrated facilities within functions of nursery school and nursery in various cases. Then, we tried to arrange merits and issues on management of these facilities, and gain foundational knowledge to plan these facilities. For this purpose, firstly we conducted hearings with many local governments and flagship, facilities, and observational survey at those facilities. Secondly, we grasped and arranged following points in each local governments and flagship facilities,: 1) the actual management states, 2) the process and backbround of introducing the integrating, 3) the detail consideration to whole concept of these integrated facilities, 4) merits and issues on managemeting the integrating.

Invasion of tumor cells into the surrounding normal brain tissues is a prominent feature of malignant gliomas. Malignant glioma cells secrete thrombospondin-1 which participates in the motility of glioma cells and binds cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan. To clarify the invasion mechanism of tumor cells, expression of the syndecans (syndecan-1, -2, -3, and -4), a major cell surface heparan sulfate proteoglycan family, was analyzed in malignant gliomas. Involvement of nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB) on syndecan-1 expression was also investigated. Using reverse transcription-PCR, the authors analyzed the expression of syndecan-1, -2, -3, and -4 in 10 malignant glioma cell lines, 2 glioblastoma specimens, and 2 normal brain specimens. All malignant glioma cell lines and glioblastoma specimens expressed all types of syndecan mRNA, except in one glioma cell line that lacked syndecan-3 expression. On the other hand, normal brain specimens expressed syndecan-2, -3, and -4 mRNA, but did not syndecan-1 mRNA. Syndecan-1 protein was localized in the cell surface of all malignant glioma cell lines by flow cytometry. Various levels of active nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappaB) was detected in all malignant glioma cell lines using immunoblotting. The expression of active NF-kappaB and syndecan-1 increased in U251 glioma cells after tumor necrosis factor-alpha or interleukin-1beta treatment, which can activate NF-kappaB. The amplification of active NF-kappaB and syndecan-1 by tumor necrosis factor-alpha or interleukin-1beta was suppressed by an inhibitor of NF-kappaB activation (emodin). Emodin also downregulated the expression of syndecan-1 mRNA in U251 cells. These results indicate that malignant glioma cells express all types of syndecans and suggest that NF-kappaB participates in the upregulation of the syndecan-1 expression at the transcriptional level, and increased expression of syndecan-1 could associate with extracellular matrices including thrombospondin-1.

Five malignant glioma cell lines (YMG1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) were established from surgical specimens obtained from patients with glioblastoma or anaplastic astrocytoma, and these lines were partially characterized. Three glioma cell lines (YMG1, 3, and 5) were weakly positive for GFAP by Western blot analysis and two cell lines were negative. S-100 protein was positive in all glioma cell lines. The expression of p53, p16, p15, cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4), and EGF receptor (EGFR) proteins was examined by Western blotting. YMG1 and 2 cell lines showed accumulation of p53 protein and loss of p16 and p15 expression. YMG3 and 4 showed accumulation of p53 protein and expression of p16 and p15 proteins. YMG5 revealed weak expression of p53 protein, suggesting wild-type p53, and loss of p16 and p15 expression. All cell lines expressed various levels of CDK4 protein. YMG1, 2, and 3 showed higher EGFR protein expression and YMG4 and 5 showed lower EGFR expression compared to U251 glioblastoma cells, which express high levels of EGFR. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis for EGFR gene expression did not show any amplification in the glioma cell lines. Immunohistochemical studies revealed that the patterns of p53 and EGFR expressions in the original tumor tissues were mostly correlated with those in the malignant glioma cell lines. These results suggest that the characteristics of p53 and EGFR expression in the malignant glioma cell lines were passed over from the original tumor tissues. These newly established malignant glioma cell lines can be used for further analysis of the mechanisms of tumor growth and progression.

Malignant glioma cells secrete thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) which participates in the motility of glioma cells, and binds to cell surface alphavbeta3 and alpha3beta1 integrins, and syndecan-1. This study evaluated the amount of TSP-1 secretion from malignant glioma cells, and the expression of alphavbeta3 and alpha3beta1 integrins, and syndecan-1. The amounts of TSP-1 in the supernatants from 10 malignant glioma cell lines and eight non-glioma malignant tumor cell lines were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Expression of alphavbeta3 and alpha3beta1 integrins, and syndecan-1 were examined by flow cytometry. The amounts of TSP-1 secreted by malignant glioma cells were 43 to 2431 ng/l x 10(6) cells/24 h (mean +/- SD = 626 +/- 792). Seven of 10 glioma cell lines secreted more than 100 ng of TSP-1 and three of these cell lines secreted more than 1 microg. Seven of eight non-glioma cell lines secreted less than 100 ng of TSP-1. All glioma cell lines expressed alpha3beta1 integrin and syndecan-1, and seven of 10 glioma cell lines expressed alphavbeta3 integrin. Treatment of the glioma cell lines with TGF-beta2 did not change the expression of alphavbeta3 integrin. These results suggest that malignant glioma cells secrete high levels of TSP-1, which may be important in the migration of glioma cells via interactions with alphavbeta3 and alpha3beta1 integrins, and syndecan-1.