Impediments to International Air Transportation Services in Japan: Measuring the Border Effect in Main Japanese Airports

In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of international passenger air transportation services in Japan by quantifying the “border effect.†In order to measure the border effect, we employ the basic gravity model for explaining intra- and international passenger flow in Japan as a benchmark model at first. And then, “border effect†dummy variable is introduced to quantify the diminishing effect to passenger flow in case of international travel. If the dummy variable has negative and statistically significant coefficient, international passenger flow in Japan is smaller than intranational flow. Bilateral passenger flow data among main Japanese airports and between Japanese airport and foreign one is used for our empirical estimation, and the dummy variable shows negative coefficient. This result implies that international passenger flow is diminished by some impediments such as political regulation, institutional inefficiency, and so on. For instance, entry barrier for new carrier or market access restriction to airport services in international airline may have decreasing effect to international passenger flow because of high services cost, and poorly established infrastructure like international air terminal or tiresome immigrant / emigrant procedure may decline passengers’ incentives for traveling abroad or visiting Japan. Unfortunately we cannot specify the reason why international passenger flow is so small because we just measure the difference between international and intranational flow. However, if there are really some impediments in international air transportation services, those may be disadvantageous for Japanese airports to compete with other Asian international hub airports.

Forecasting skewness in stock returns: Evidence from firm-level data in Tokyo markets

Although it is well known that the market rate of return tends to show negative skewness, we find that the return distribution of individual stocks has shown positive skewness in the two principal Tokyo markets from 1980 to 2001. This is consistent with the results reported for the US market. Positive skewness in the returns is more evident for smaller firms. From our analysis of pooled cross-section data of individual stocks from 1990 to 2001, we find that there is clear evidence of the predictive power in the information up until the current period for the skewness in the following period. Specifically, a higher volatility and skewness in the return distribution of the current period is followed by a higher value of skewness in the following period. Also, the up trends in own returns in the preceding periods may explain the rather negatively skewed return distribution in the following period. Hong and Stein's (2003) model predicts a relation between turnover and skewness. For 1990 to 2001, negative relation to the skewness has been found to hold for smaller cap firms with past de-trended turnover. Furthermore, after the regulatory change in short-selling enacted in February 2002, we find more supportive evidence that high trend-adjusted turnover predicts more negative skewness in returns. Overall, our empirical evidence suggests that conditional skewness is partly explained by previous de-trended trading proxies, however, the results are not conclusive for the data in Tokyo markets

Molecular cloning of Na+-ATPase cDNA from a marine alga, Heterosigma akashiwo

AbstractWe cloned novel Na+-ATPase (HANA) cDNA from marine alga Heterosigma akashiwo. The full-length HANA cDNA was 4467 bp long and coded for a 1330 amino acid protein with a molecular weight of 146 306. The deduced product exhibited around 40% identity in amino acids with Na+/K+-ATPase α-subunits. A hydrophilic sequence of 285 amino acid residues that showed no homology with any sequence listed in databases existed in the M7–M8 junction of HANA. This is the first report on the primary structure of putative Na+-transporting ATPase from plant cells

Effects of Nurse and Care Worker-led Foot-Care Program on Older People's Foot Conditions: Before and After Intervention Study

Introduction: An increasing number of older people with frailty in Japan use geriatric day care centers. Older people who have been certified as requiring long-term care attend centers during the day and receive nursing care help with bathing, excretion, meals, and functional training services. Many older people have foot problems with need foot care by nurses and care workers (NCWs) at geriatric day care centers.Objective: This study explored the effects of NCWs' foot-care programs on the foot conditions of older people attending daytime services.Methods: A before-after intervention study was conducted at geriatric day care centers for older people, where the footcare program was presented by NCWs for two months. The foot conditions of 23 clients (8 men, 15 women, mean age= 78.6 years, standard deviation = 9.2) were assessed before and after the program. Changes in foot condition and clients' perceptions after the study were analyzed through descriptive statistics, McNemar, and paired t-tests.Results: Although dramatic changes in foot conditions were not observed, some conditions were improved or maintained. Changes were observed in mean dry skin scores (p 1.1, left foot: 1.6 -> 1.1), skin lesions and long nails (skin lesions R: 0.2 -> 0.1; long nail R: 1.4 -> 1.0 L: 1.1 -> 0.8), and edema (R: 43.5%-> 39.1%, L: 52.2%-> 47.8%). Further, clients started perceiving that foot health is important and discussed their feet with staff more often.Conclusion: The NCWs' foot-care program was effective in maintaining and improving foot health in older people and positively affected their perception of foot care