Effective Corporate Governance And Financial Reporting In Japan

This paper examines corporate governance in Japan since the 1990s. Its focus includes financial reporting, a key part of good governance. It offers an overview of various legal, institutional, and stakeholder aspects of governance, followed by an investigation of Japanese accounting, disclosure, and reporting. The paper presumes that accurate financial reporting is a prerequisite for good corporate governance. Bad governance often follows from fraudulent financial reporting. The paper also considers the status of international financial reporting standards, the nature of fraudulent financial reporting, the all-too-common practice of window dressing in Japan, the liabilities of corporate audit board members and financial auditors. Our findings suggest that the existing high quality laws, codes, guidelines, and institutional arrangements do improve corporate governance. Yet in practice, the quality of corporate governance in Japan has not matched the quality of its codes and regulations. The paper discusses Japan's new corporate governance code. It concludes that this code is excellent, but that more needs to be done to improve financial reporting. Finally, a number of suggestions are offered to enhance corporate governance and reduce fraudulent reporting

Melanie Glover and Marc Bremer in a Joint Senior Recital

This is the program for the joint senior recital of pianist Melanie Glover and tenor Marc Bremer. Pianist Donna Tan accompanied Bremer. The recital took place on March 13, 1978, in the Mabee Fine Arts Center Recital Hall

Characterization of an Aptamer Directed against 25-Hydroxyvitamin D for the Development of a Competitive Aptamer-Based Assay

Detection of the small molecule 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) as the most relevant marker for vitamin D supply suffers from a high variability of results using the current detection methods, such as high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and immunoassays. A new detection approach using a highly specific aptamer directed against 25(OH)D was established in this study based on the target-induced dissociation (TID) sensing approach. In this work, the aptamer was investigated regarding its structural properties as well as its binding affinity by using microscale thermophoresis (MST). Moreover, complementary oligonucleotides were designed based on the aptamer structure and were evaluated in MST experiments. Binding experiments of immobilized aptamers were conducted in microarray experiments. It could be shown that the aptamer exhibited the usual B-DNA structure and did not form any G-quadruplexes. The design of complementary oligonucleotides for the TID assay identified a putative 25(OH)D binding site within the aptamer. The limit of detection of the established competitive assay was determined to be 5.4 nM, which sets the stage for the development of a biosensor system

Определение оператора поворота вектора в квадриплексном пространстве

Рассмотрен один метод определения оператора поворота вектора в квадриплексном пространстве до совмещения с направлением, заданным другим вектором. Метод базируется на изоморфизме квадриплексных и бикомплексных чисел.Розглянуто один метод визначення оператора повороту вектора в квадриплексному просторі до суміщення з напрямком, який задано іншим вектором. Метод базується на ізоморфізмові квадриплексних та бікомплексних чисел.A method of determination of an operator of vector rotational displacement in quadruplex space before overlapping with a direction given by other vectors is considered. The method is founded on the isomorphism of quadruplex and bicomplex numbers

Extreme weather, climate variability and childhood: A historical analogue from the Orkney Islands (1903-1919)

Many small island communities are said to possess high levels of autonomous coping capacity, often linked to peripherality. This social resilience is dynamic rather than static, with environmental, social, and political drivers shaping local pattens of vulnerability, necessitating reflection on how choices in one area may potentially lead to new vulnerabilities or transfers of vulnerability to already sensitive groups, such as children. This article argues that a historical perspective can help shed light on these dynamics. Impacts of extreme weather and climate variability, and resultant impacts of community coping strategies, on children in early-20th-century Orkney are explored using school logbooks. It finds that extreme weather ‘shocks’ directly impact children’s ability to attend school, while adjustments to the school calendar for agricultural operations constitute an indirect impact of climate variability, with reduced recreation time an emergent effect. Contextualised amidst contemporary island scholarship, two key messages emerge. Firstly, that the mobility and/or work of children in island communities remain sensitive to climate stressors in the present day and, secondly, that the island context itself matters, as characteristics commonly associated with ‘islandness’ — such as smallness, remoteness, and high social capital — may intersect in ways that fundamentally impact children’s experiences of weather, work, and education

RGD-avidin–biotin pretargeting to αvβ3 integrin enhances the proapoptotic activity of TNFα related apoptosis inducing ligand (TRAIL)

Recombinant TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is considered a powerful and selective inducer of tumor cell death. We hypothesize that TRAIL’s potential as anticancer agent can be enhanced further by promoting its accumulation in tumor tissue. For this purpose, we developed TRAIL complexes that bind to angiogenic endothelial cells. We employed an avidin–biotin pretargeting approach, in which biotinylated TRAIL interacted with RGD-equipped avidin. The assembled complexes killed tumor cells (Jurkat T cells) via apoptosis induction. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the association of the RGD-avidin-TRAIL complex onto endothelial cells enhanced the tumor cell killing activity. Endothelial cells were not killed by TRAIL nor its derived complexes. Our approach can facilitate the enrichment of TRAIL onto angiogenic blood vessels, which may enhance intratumoral accumulation. Furthermore, it offers a versatile technology for the complexation of targeting ligands with therapeutic recombinant proteins and by this a novel way to enhance their specificity and activity

Troubleshooting coupled in vitro transcription–translation system derived from Escherichia coli cells: synthesis of high-yield fully active proteins

Cell-free coupled transcription–translation systems with bacterial lysates are widely used to synthesize recombinant proteins in amounts of several mg per ml. By using reporter green fluorescence protein (GFP) we demonstrate that proteins are synthesized with an unsatisfyingly low-active fraction of (50 ± 20)%. One reason is probably the T7 polymerase used, being up to eight times faster than the intrinsic transcriptase and thus breaking the coupling between transcription and translation in bacterial systems. The active fraction of the synthesized protein was improved by using either a slower T7 transcriptase mutant or lowering the incubation temperature to 20°C. A drop of protein synthesis observed after 7 h incubation time was not due to a shortage of nucleotide triphosphates, but rather to a shortage of amino acids. Accordingly, a second addition of amino acids after 10 h during an incubation at 20°C led to synthesis of up to 4 mg/ml of GFP with virtually 100% activity