"Long Term Loans and Investment in Japan: An Empirical Analysis Based on the Panel Data of Japanese Firms"

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether that the policy-based allocation of long-term funds played an important role in promoting the high economic growth in post-war Japan. Using the panel data functions of Japanese firms, we estimate Tobinfs Q investment functions in two different sample periods | 1972-84 and 1985-96. In 1972-84, we find that the long-term loan ratio had an additional positive effect on investment. In particular, the result holds true regardless of the size of corporate cash flows or the type of corporate groupings. However, in 1985-96, we cannot find that a higher ratio of long-term loans increased the Japanese firmfs investment. The result indicates that the size of long-term loans had a great influence on the firmfs investment only before the financial liberalization in Japan.

The development of “Ultimate Rudder” for EEDI

EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index) came into effect mandatory in Jan. 2013, and the ship owners definitely required a higher efficiency propulsion system than ever before. Hence, the shipyards have been conducting an optimization of ESD (Energy Saving Device) system in self-propulsion test for each project. As the results, the shipyards have installed a rudder bulb as an effective ESD. The rudder bulb is a popular ESD system from a long time ago. Mewis1) described that the rudder bulb was developed by Costa in 1952 and the efficiency improve by the rudder bulb for a container vessel was 1% on average. Fujii et al.2) developed “MIPB (Mitsui Integrated Propeller Boss)” as an advanced rudder bulb. The feature of MIPB was a streamlined profile from propeller cap to rudder. According to their paper, the efficiency improve by installing MIPB was 2-4%. Recently, NAKASHIMA PROPELLER Co., Ltd. developed ECO-Cap (economical propeller cap)3) as a new ESD with FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastics). The strength of FRP is higher than that of NAB (Nickel Aluminium Bronze), therefore ECO-Cap was able to adopt thin fins on propeller caps for low resistance. Although the material used for the energy- saving propeller cap was generally NAB, the research results on FRP showed that FRP could be used as ESD due to their properties such as lightweight and flexibility. As explained above, the authors thought that there was a possibility to evolve the rudder bulb profile using the easily moldable FRP compared with NAB. This paper described about the development of “Ultimate Rudder” of new design concept by FRP. The authors optimized the profile of “Ultimate Rudder” by CFD and confirmed the efficiency increase from 4.9 to 5.4% in self-propulsion test

Tracking the Evolution and Diversity in Network Usage of Smartphones

ABSTRACT We analyze the evolution of smartphone usage from a dataset obtained from three, 15-day-long, user-side, measurements with over 1500 recruited smartphone users in the Greater Tokyo area from 2013 to 2015. This dataset shows users across a diverse range of networks; cellular access (3G to LTE), WiFi access (2.4 to 5GHz), deployment of more public WiFi access points (APs), as they use diverse applications such as video, file synchronization, and major software updates. Our analysis shows that smartphone users select appropriate network interfaces taking into account the deployment of emerging technologies, their bandwidth demand, and their economic constraints. Thus, users show diversity in both how much traffic they send, as well as on what networks they send it. We show that users are gradually but steadily adopting WiFi at home, in offices, and public spaces over these three years. The majority of light users have been shifting their traffic to WiFi. Heavy hitters acquire more bandwidth via WiFi, especially at home. The percentage of users explicitly turning off their WiFi interface during the day decreases from 50% to 40%. Our results highlight that the offloading environment has been improved during the three years, with more than 40% of WiFi users connecting to multiple WiFi APs in one day. WiFi offload at offices is still limited in our dataset due to a few accessible APs, but WiFi APs in public spaces have been an alternative to cellular access for users who request not only simple connectivity but also bandwidth-consuming applications such as video streaming and software updates. Categories and Subject Descriptors General Terms Measurement Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Study on the rudder characteristics of ultimate rudder by numerical calculation

The authors invented Ultimate Rudder3) as the rudder with bulb. The authors calculated the rudder characteristics of the normal rudder and Ultimate Rudder by CFD at several steering angles and compared these values. The result showed that regardless of the presence or absence of the bulb, signs of separation appear on the control surface with a steering angle of 20 deg. to 30 deg. and regarding the steering torque coefficient, it was found that the steering torque coefficient of Ultimate Rudder is larger than the normal Rudder when the steering angle is less than 20 deg. and also the steering torque coefficient can be decreased by changing the shape of the rudder bulb

ニホン ノ ジョセイ コヨウ ニ オケル ペイ エクイティ ペイ エクイティ デノ ショクム ヒョウカ ノ ユウコウ セイ

本稿では、雇用管理に於ける女性の人権保護を主としてペイ・エクイティの視点から分析解明しようとするものである。それは、同一価値労働では同一賃金を支払うとの考え方によるものである。それは、男女の差別があってはならない。男女の別なしに同一価値労働では同一賃金を支払う必要があるのである。しかし、現実には男女の差別があり、同一価値労働で同一賃金が成立しているとは言えない。法的には労働基準法(以下労基法)第4条で「女性の平均勤続年数が男性より短いこと、女性の多くは主たる生計維持者ではないこと、といったような女性のおかれた平均的な状況や先入観に基いて差別的取扱いをすることを禁止しているものと解釈されて…現行条文のまま100号条約の要請を満たしている」と言及している。国際労働事務局(以下ILO)は日本に対して「男女同一価値労働同一報酬原則を明確に表現する規定とするために法改正の措置を取るように求める」と指摘している。つまり、法的にも諸外国と比して遅れている状況下になる。また、労基法で規定しているように「女性の勤続年数の短さ」「主たる生計維持者」でないことが、実際の差別が生じている背景になっている。現実として、年下の高卒の男子現業職が年上の先輩である大卒の女子事務職よりも給料が高いことは一般によくあることである。企業はこの不公正な現状に対して、職務内容の違いで説明をしている場合が多い。つまり、ペイ・エクイティを実現するには違った職務内容でも比較対照できる基準を作る必要がある。具体的にはケアワークなどの典型的な女性職とされる職務と建設技術者などの典型的な男性職との職務の分析と評価を正確に比較対応しなければならない。その結果、公正な正当な賃金に是正させることを行い、性別職務分離での性差別賃金を是正し異なる職種、職務の職務評価を行う必要がある。職務評価の方法としては、労働環境、責任、負担、技能の評価要因により性差別無く中立的に行う必要がある。評価内容としては、職務の性質である。それは個人が所持する技能ではなく、職務を行うのに必要な技能であり人事考課とは異なるものである。欧米では、特に30年以上前から法制化されており、その日本への適応も念頭に考察して日本の女性雇用に於けるペイ・エクイティを論じて行くことにする。Women’s human rights protection concerning employment management is analyzed and explicated from the viewpoint of pay equity in this monograph. A worker must receive equal remuneration for work of equal value. Sexual discrimination shall not affect remuneration. The same remuneration must be paid for work of equal value irrespective of sex. However, sexual discrimination exists in reality and pay equity has not been fully enforced for work of equal value. The legal announcement that “women must not be treated discriminatorily from the biased conceptions based on the women’s average situation and preoccupations, such as women’s average working years being shorter than that of men, major percentage of women not being the primary person to support the family livelihood, etc. … and the present article fulfills the requirements of C100 Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951” is declared in Article 4, Labor Standards Act. However, the International Labour Organization (ILO) requested Japan to take measures regarding the legal amendment in order to distinctly regulate the principle of pay equity for both sexes for work of equal value. The Japanese legal situation lags other countries. As specified as negative examples in the Labor Standards Act, “short years of women employment” and “not a primary person to support family livelihood” has been identified as the major causes of the background of discrimination. Actually it is commonly observed that the shorter employed, younger high school graduate male workers receive higher salary than the longer employed, elder university graduate female workers. Many companies explain that this unfair situation occurs due to different types of worker’s job contents. Therefore, it is necessary to establish criteria that can be compared and evaluated for fair remuneration among the different types of job contents in order to materialize pay equity. For example, the job contents of care workers (the typical female occupation) and architect-engineers (the typical male occupation) must be precisely analyzed, compared and evaluated to establish pay equity. As a result, if unfairness exists in remuneration due to gender, remuneration must be corrected to be fair and just. The sexual discriminated remuneration among the different types of jobs must be corrected while the job contents are analyzed and evaluated. The elements of job evaluation can be listed as working conditions, responsibility, efforts and skills. The job evaluation must be evaluated in a neutral way without gender bias. Jobs are evaluated on its own merit. It is not the skills that the employee possesses. It is the skills necessary to perform the job that is evaluated. Equal remuneration was legislated thirty years ago in the Western countries. This monogram examines pay equity for women employment in Japan and considers the adaptation of Western legislation to Japan

ニホン ノ ダンジョ コヨウ キカイ キントウ ホウ ノ ゲンジョウ キュウホウ ト シンポウ ノ ヒカク オ チュウシン ニ

本稿では、雇用における女性保護を男女雇用機会均等法の旧法と新法との比較を中心に論じていくことにする。雇用における女性保護は1972年(昭和47年)に「勤労婦人福祉法」が制定、施行されて保護が拡大していった。国連で成立した女子差別撤廃条約を批准するために1985年(昭和60年)に男女雇用機会均等法が制定、施行された。法律の制定にあたって、旧来とは異なった考え方を取り入れていった。また、それらの考え方も労働基準法にも反映されて妊婦の育児時間、出産前後の育児休暇の規定なども取り入れられた。しかし、この均等法が施行されたが女子差別撤廃条約を批准したことと、1985年(昭和60年)が国連で規定した「女性の10年の最後」の年にあたるためによく議論、検討を重ねて制定、施行したとは言いがたい。なぜなら、多くの「努力目標」があり司法、行政などにより企業が違反してもそれに強制力を持って解決できないようになっている。これでは男女雇用機会均等法の現実的な運用に限界があると言わざるをえない。だから、その後の1999年(平成11年)、2007年(平成19年)の改正で企業の禁止項目を増やし、男女平等を基本としながらも女性保護を進めてきた。少しずつ改善されてきているが現状としては、社会の指導層の中の女性の比率は依然として低いままである。どうして、いまだにそういう状況が継続しているのか。アメリカやカナダの事例も含めて真の男女の雇用における平等を論じて行くことにする。This monograph discusses the protection of female workers focusing on the comparison between the old and new Equal Employment Opportunity Acts. Employed women’s protection has expanded since the Female Worker Welfare Act （enacted in 1972 （Showa 47））. Furthermore the Equal Employment Opportunity Act （enacted in 1985 （Showa 60）） was enforced to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women enacted by the United Nations. This act introduced new ideas that were different from the usual considerations. These new ideas were also introduced to the Labor Standards Act such as the provisions of child care time for pregnant woman, child-care leave before and after childbirth, etc. However, because the equality act was enacted in the final （10th） year of the United Nations regulated International Women’s Year （1985, Showa 60）, and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women was ratified, it was difficult to say that the enactment and enforcement of the equality act were sufficiently discussed and verified. This act included many provisions of “goals to work toward” and these provisions had no administrative and legal effects to solve violations by companies. There was a limit to enforce the Equal Employment Opportunity Act in real situations. Therefore the company’s prohibition clauses were increased in the revised Equal Employment Opportunity Act in 1990 （Heisei 11） and 2007 （Heisei 19） to promote female protection based on the equal rights of both sexes. Equality has gradually improved. However, female workers’percentage in social leaders is still low. This monograph considers the reasons why such a situation still continues and studies the ideal sex equality in employment including the consideration of American and Canadian case

Two Categories of Approximately mu-tau Symmetric Neutrino Mass Textures

Our approximately \mu-\tau symmetric neutrino mass textures fall into two different categories, whose behaviors in the \mu-\tau symmetric limit are characterized by either \sin(theta_{13})->0 (referred to as C1)), or \sin(theta_{12})->0 (referred to as C2)). We present ten phenomenologically viable neutrino mass textures: two for the normal mass hierarchy, three for the inverted mass hierarchy, and five for the quasi degenerate mass pattern. Tiny \mu-\tau symmetry breaking ensures that \sin^2(theta_{13}) << 1 for C1), and \Delta m^2_\odot/\Delta m^2_{atm} (\equiv R) << 1 for C2). A correlation among small quantities is provided by \cos 2(theta_{23}) \sim \sin(theta_{13}) for C1), and by either \cos(2theta_{23}) \sim R, or \cos(2theta_{23})\sin(theta_{13}) \sim R for C2). It is further shown that \tan(2theta_{12}) \sim \cos(2theta_{23})/\sin(theta_{13}) is satisfied for C2). We find specific properties for each mass ordering, which are discussed in this article.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures (High-resolution figures can be downloaded from http://www.sp.u-tokai.ac.jp/~yasue/two_categories_of.pdf.tar.gz

Renal shear wave velocity by acoustic radiation force impulse did not reflect advanced renal impairment

[Aim] Acoustic radiation force impulse is a noninvasive method for evaluating tissue elasticity on ultrasound. Renal shear wave velocity measured by this technique has not been fully investigated in patients with renal disease. The aim of the present study was to compare renal shear wave velocity in end‐stage renal disease patients and that in patients without chronic kidney disease and to investigate influencing factors. [Methods] Renal shear wave velocities were measured in 59 healthy young subjects (control group), 31 subjects without chronic kidney disease (non‐CKD group), and 39 end‐stage renal disease patients (ESRD group). Each measurement was performed 10 times at both kidneys, and the mean value of eight of 10 measurements, excluding the maximum and minimum values, was compared. [Results] Renal shear wave velocity could be measured in all subjects. Renal shear wave velocity in the control group was higher than in the non‐CKD group and in the ESRD group, and no difference was found between the non‐CKD group and the ESRD group. Age and depth were negatively correlated to the renal shear wave velocity. In multiple regression analysis, age and depth were independent factors for renal shear wave velocity, while renal impairment was not. There was no difference between the non‐CKD group and the ESRD group, even when ages were matched and depth was adjusted. [Conclusion] Renal shear wave velocity was not associated with advanced renal impairment. However, it reflected alteration of renal aging, and this technique may be useful to detect renal impairment in the earlier stages