The Speed–Density Relationship: Road Traffic Flow Analysis with Spatial Panel Data

In this paper, we focus on the fundamental speed–density relationship of aggregated vehicular traffic flow in the entire urban area. We use aggregated observations on routes that are treated as cross-section units in three time intervals and examine the speed–density relationship. We consider a variety of routes and road networks for our spatial panel data analysis. We apply the estimator of Kelejian and Prucha (1999) to the usual panel data case, based on certain restrictions on the evolution of spatial dependence over time

The Cost and Benefit of Relaxing Floor Area Ratio Requirements in Urban Centers - Including the Impact of Congestion Charges via ITS (Japanese)

Office-based businesses located in central business districts (CBD), which are a foundation of urban production, are subject to agglomeration economies. Thus, the promotion of office concentration in CBD's will result in higher productivity. At the same time, however, the concentration of office buildings in CBD's will lead to traffic congestion. As a means to control over such congestion, floor area ratio requirements are being implemented in CBD's. But these regulations have the side effect of reducing agglomeration in CBD's and reducing productivity. There are two possible ways of curbing congestion while minimizing productivity loss. One method is to raise the maximum floor area ratio for residential buildings in CBD's, thereby promoting the development of urban dwellings and reducing the crowding on commuter trains; the second method is to alleviate road congestion by introducing a road pricing scheme utilizing an intelligent transportation system (ITS). The present paper estimates the effect of simultaneously implementing these two measures.

The Benefits of Urban Agglomeration: Is Tokyo a Unique Case? (Japanese)

The greater the density of working population in the vicinity of an office building, the greater the potential number of face-to-face contacts per day, and the greater the productivity of office operations. Such is the benefit of urban agglomeration. The productivity of offices located in central Tokyo is far greater than the productivity of those located in other Japanese cities. Is this high productivity essentially attributable to the greater agglomeration in Tokyo? Or is a totally different production function occurring due to the uniqueness of goods and services produced there, or because Tokyo is Japan's capital? This paper analyzes these issues. Office rents are relatively high in areas with a high degree of agglomeration. Taking advantage of this correlation, a production function for office operations within a single city has been estimated. In this paper, the same measurement method is applied to a number of cities. Based on the micro-data on seven major government-decreed cities, the paper shows that output-input relationships occur in all but one city, Sapporo. This can basically be explained by a single production function. In other words, it demonstrates that even if a dummy variable corresponding to the respective cities is added to the production function, it does not produce a statistically significant effect. This analysis has found that the productivity difference between Tokyo and other cities stems fundamentally from the difference in the economy of scale, and is neither attributable to the uniqueness of goods and services produced in Tokyo, nor to its being the national capital.

Effect of Continuous Feeding of Ayu-Narezushi on Lipid Metabolism in a Mouse Model of Metabolic Syndrome

Ayu-narezushi, a traditional Japanese fermented food, comprises abundant levels of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and free amino acids. This study aimed to examine the potential beneficial effects of ayu-narezushi and investigated whether ayu-narezushi led to improvements in the Tsumura Suzuki obese diabetes (TSOD) mice model of spontaneous metabolic syndrome because useful LAB are known as probiotics that regulate intestinal function. In the present study, the increased body weight of the TSOD mice was attenuated in those fed the ayu-narezushi-comprised chow (ayu-narezushi group) compared with those fed the normal rodent chow (control group). Serum triglyceride and cholesterol levels were significantly lower in the Ayu-narezushi group than in the control group at 24 weeks of age. Furthermore, hepatic mRNA levels of carnitine-palmitoyl transferase 1 and acyl-CoA oxidase, which related to fatty acid oxidation, were significantly increased in the ayu-narezushi group than in the control group at 24 weeks of age. In conclusion, these results suggested that continuous feeding with ayu-narezushi improved obesity and dyslipidemia in the TSOD mice and that the activation of fatty acid oxidation in the liver might contribute to these improvements

On-line microdevice for stress proteomics

The handing of the cells or tissues is essential for proteomics research or drug screening, where labor is not avoidable. The steps of cell wash, protein extraction, protein denaturing are complicated procedures in conventional method using centrifugation and pipetting in the laboratory. This is the bottle-neck for proteome research. To solve these problems, we propose to utilize the nanotechnology, which will improve the proteomics methodology. Utilizing the nanotechnology, we developed a novel microseparation system, where centrifugation and pipetting are needless. This system has a nanostructured microdevice, by which the cell handling, protein extraction, and antibody assay can be performed. Since cell transfer is needless, all cells are corrected without any loss during the cell-pretreatment procedures, which allowed high reproducibility and enabled the detection of low amount of protein expression. Utilizing the microdevice, we analyzed the stress induced proteins. We further succeeded the screening of food that was useful for immunity and found that an extraction from seaweed promoted the apoptosis of T-lymphoblastic cells. Here, we present an on-line microdevice for stress proteomics

Changes in Cerebral Hemodynamics during Complex Motor Learning by Character Entry into Touch-Screen Terminals

Introduction Studies of cerebral hemodynamics during motor learning have mostly focused on neurorehabilitation interventions and their effectiveness. However, only a few imaging studies of motor learning and the underlying complex cognitive processes have been performed. Methods We measured cerebral hemodynamics using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in relation to acquisition patterns of motor skills in healthy subjects using character entry into a touchscreen terminal. Twenty healthy, right-handed subjects who had no previous experience with character entry using a touch-screen terminal participated in this study. They were asked to enter the characters of a randomly formed Japanese syllabary into the touchscreen terminal. All subjects performed the task with their right thumb for 15 s alternating with 25 s of rest for 30 repetitions. Performance was calculated by subtracting the number of incorrect answers from the number of correct answers, and gains in motor skills were evaluated according to the changes in performance across cycles. Behavioral and oxygenated hemoglobin concentration changes across task cycles were analyzed using Spearman\u27s rank correlations. Results Performance correlated positively with task cycle, thus confirming motor learning. Hemodynamic activation over the left sensorimotor cortex (SMC) showed a positive correlation with task cycle, whereas activations over the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) showed negative correlations. Conclusions We suggest that increases in finger momentum with motor learning are reflected in the activity of the left SMC. We further speculate that the right PFC and SMA were activated during the early phases of motor learning, and that this activity was attenuated with learning progress

Formation of Thermally Stable, High-Areal-Density, and Small-Diameter Catalyst Nanoparticles via Intermittent Sputtering Deposition for the High-Density Growth of Carbon Nanotubes

We report the formation of thermally stable catalyst nanoparticles via intermittent sputtering deposition to prevent the agglomeration of the nanoparticles during thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and for the high-density growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The preparation of high-areal-density and small-diameter catalyst nanoparticles on substrates for the high-density growth of CNTs is still a challenging issue because surface diffusion and Ostwald ripening of the nanoparticles induce agglomeration, which results in the low-density growth of large-diameter CNTs during high-temperature thermal CVD. Enhancing the adhesion of nanoparticles or suppressing their diffusion on the substrate to retain a small particle diameter is desirable for the preparation of thermally stable, high-areal-density, and small-diameter catalyst nanoparticles. The intermittent sputtering method was employed to deposit Ni and Fe metal nanoparticles on a substrate for the synthesis of high-areal-density CNTs for Fe nanoparticle catalyst films. The metal particles deposited via intermittent sputtering with an interval time of over 30 s maintained their areal densities and diameters during the thermal CVD process in a vacuum for CNT synthesis. An interval of over 30 s was expected to oxidize the metal particles, which resulted in thermal stability during the CVD process. The intermittent sputtering method is thus a candidate process for the preparation of thermally stable catalyst films for the growth of a high density of long CNTs, which can be combined with the present CNT production process

Monitoring of Bip promoter activation during cancer cell growth by bioluminescence imaging technique at single cell level

Cancer cells require the regulation of organelle-specific unfolded protein responses, such as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, because of their increased metabolic activity during rapid proliferation and cell growth, which are executed through the activation of diverse signaling pathways. In this study, we focused on the dynamic regulation of ER stress in accordance with cancer cellular demand, and we performed real-time monitoring of the activation of the binding immunoglobulin protein (Bip) promoter, which is one of the most responsive genes to ER stress during cancer cell growth, in two and three dimensional (2D and 3D) cell culture using bioluminescence imaging at the single-cell level. Bioluminescence images were obtained from living single cancer cells after transient transfection of the reporter gene, and we observed Bip promoter activation during cell growth. Bip promoter activation was also observed in 2D and 3D culture using stably transfected glioblastoma cancer cells with the reporter gene. The Bip promoter was activated especially in dividing cells during cell growth. We then performed real-time monitoring of Bip promoter activation by bioluminescence imaging in tissue slices obtained from U251/pBipPro-Luc tumors. Luminescence intensity was not constant and was different in individual regions of the tumor slices, and the Bip promoter was activated in several regions during monitoring in vitro. These results show that real-time monitoring by bioluminescence imaging at the single-cell level is a suitable tool for not only gene analysis of signal transduction and regulation of the dynamics of the unfolded protein response in cancer cells but also for the evaluation of the efficacy of anti-cancer agents, and could provide additional information that has been difficult to obtain using conventional assays

Spin-polarized semiconductor surface states localized in subsurface layers

A pair of different surface-state and surface-resonance bands has been identified on Bi/Ge(111)-(√3×√3)R30° by a combined experimental and computational study. The wave functions of the states have negligible amplitude at Bi atoms and are extended over more than 20 subsurface layers. These bands exhibit characteristic spin structure, which is ascribed to the combined Rashba and atomic spin-orbit interaction (SOI). Unlike previously known surface Rashba systems, the spin polarization is induced by SOI of a light element (Ge) with negligible contribution of a heavier one (Bi)