On the Desirability of a Regional Basket Currency Arrangement

This paper considers a theoretical model to examine an optimal exchange rate regime for (Asian) emerging market economies that export goods to the U.S., Japan, and neighboring countries. The optimality of the exchange rate regime is defined as minimizing the fluctuation of trade balances, in the environment where the yen-dollar exchange rate fluctuates. Since the de facto dollar peg regime is blamed as one of the factors that caused the Asian currency crisis, the question of the optimal exchange rate regime is quite relevant in Asia. The novelty of this paper is to show how an emerging market economy's choice of the exchange rate regime (or weights in the basket) is dependent on the neighboring country's. The dollar weights in the currency baskets of the two countries are determined as a Nash equilibrium. In general, there are multiple equilibria, and a coordination failure' may result.

Everyday cycling mobilities and tourist behaviour : the emergence of cycle tourism as COVID-secure activity

The extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic have evidently led to increased levels of cycle commuting and cycle tourism closer to and around the home (we refer to this as everyday cycling mobilities). Cycling is a popular tourism pursuit in Japan and in the pandemic era, is acknowledged to be a COVID-secure activity. In response to, and drawing from the theory of planned behaviour, examining the relationship between the COVID-secure perspective and the intention to perform tours via cycling mobilities in Japan is the underlying aim of this exploratory study. Further, analyses are informed by an online survey approach and contextualised with hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Findings emphasise that COVID-secure perspective is negatively associated with intention to tour as part of everyday cycling mobilities, whereas attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control show positive association. This has implications for everyday cycling mobilities and cycle tourism. COVID-related advice should be developed and disseminated not only to cycling enthusiasts but also to the general public in order to emphasise and reinforce the COVID-secure nature of this mode of tourism. Consequently, the rise in popularity of everyday cycling mobilities and touring, sounds a clarion call to ensure that any ensuing expansion pays heed to responsible tourism concerns

Thermal Decomposition of Lower-GWP Refrigerants

The use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) has been widely restricted. They have been replaced with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in order to protect the ozone layer. However, the leakage of refrigerant into air from active or end-of-life air conditioners has been a serious environmental issue owing to the high global warming potential (GWP) of HFCs. It has therefore been widely recognized that the replacement of HFCs with lower-GWP refrigerants is a reasonable solution of the problem. In Japan, the lower-GWP refrigerants such as R1234yf, R1234ze, and R32 are considered as candidate alternatives for conventional HFC refrigerants. However, these lower-GWP refrigerants are often chemically unstable. To assess the risks when lower-GWP refrigerants are exposed to high-temperature solid surface, it is necessary to clarify their decomposabilities and products. However, the high reactivities of products like hydrogen fluoride (HF) make this quantification difficult. Moreover, in case of combustion, some researchers proposed that the reactivity of a molecule with more fluorine atoms than hydrogen atoms, like R1234yf, is affected by humidity. Thus, its flammability limits and product composition are influenced by temperature and humidity. In this study, to discuss on the effects of temperature and humidity in thermal decomposition, mixtures of refrigerants and air were decomposed in heated tube and the products were analyzed with FT-IR to quantify decomposed refrigerants and hydrogen fluoride which was the main toxic product. The tested refrigerants were R1234yf, R32 and R134a. The temperature of the heated tube and humidity in the mixture were systematically changed. Because the concentration of hydrogen fluoride was influenced by the tube material due to the chemical reaction between hydrogen fluoride and the tube material, several kinds of heated tubes, made with ceramics, Inconel alloy or stainless steel, were used. The thermal decomposition characteristics of lower-GWP refrigerants were compared with those of conventional non-flammable refrigerants

Involvement of Aberrant Glycosylation in Thyroid Cancer

Glycosylation is one of the most common posttranslational modification reactions and nearly half of all known proteins in eukaryotes are glycosylated. In fact, changes in oligosaccharides structures are associated with many physiological and pathological events, including cell growth, migration and differentiation, and tumor invasion. Therefore, functional glycomics, which is a comprehensive study of the structures and functions of glycans, is attracting the increasing attention of scientists in various fields of life science. In cases of thyroid cancer, the biological characters and prognosis are completely different in each type of histopathology, and their oligosaccharide structures as well as the expression of glycosyltransferases are also different. In this review, we summarized our previous papers on oligosaccharides and thyroid cancers and discussed a possible function of oligosaccharides in the carcinogenesis in thyroid cancer

To What Extent Was the Shift from an Elite System of British Higher Education to a Mass One Successful in the Late 20th Century?

The purpose of this paper is to discuss to what extent the shift from an elite system of British higher education to a mass one succeeded in the late 20the century. Although the British higher education system was successful in expanding quantitatively in terms of participation rate, it faced challenges to make a shift from its elite higher education system from a qualitative aspect such as a curriculum structure.本稿では20 世紀後半においてイギリスの高等教育制度がどの程度大衆化に成功したのかを論じる。進学率など量的な側面においては確かにイギリスの高等教育制度は大衆化したと言えるかもしれないが、カリキュラムの構造など質的な面においては課題が残る