EST Case Studies and Perspectives in Japan

Results and discussion of the Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) Case Study for Japan are introduced within this paper. According to procedures defined in the EST project by the OECD, the targets for a major reduction of environmental load within the transport sector are defined to be CO2, NOx, PM, and VOC. Three scenarios to accomplish these reduction targets, with respect to these environmental loads are detailed: a technooptimistic scenario (EST1), a transport demand management scenario (EST2), and a composite scenario (EST3). All of the scenarios are examined and compared to the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. Policy instruments to realize these scenarios and their socioeconomic impacts were, to date, not assessed within the study. Utilizing a “back casting” methodology, expected changes in technology and transport behavior in order to meet an ultimate target of emissions reduction were examined by each of the scenarios. The objective areas consisted of a national study, encompassing the whole of Japan, and a regional (Aichi prefecture) study. The forecasts indicate that CO2 emissions increase by about 10% in Japan but are almost stable in Aichi prefecture. NOx and HC emissions in 2030 are about half, and PM emissions around one quarter of those in 1990 in Aichi prefecture. The results of the back casting indicate that CO2 and NOx reduction targets have severely restrictive conditions. The achievement of targets utilizing only EST1 and EST2 is totally unfeasible. Even in the combined EST3 scenario, and in light of current trends requirements must include strong recommendations for change such as the significant wide spread use of fuel cell vehicles and the reduction of freight transport demands, and hence the scenario still needs to be discussed further

ROLE OF TAXI SUBSIDY SCHEME AS PUBLIC SERVICE FOR MOBILITY OF ELDERLY PEOPLE IN RURAL AREAS OF JAPAN

Public transportation in rural areas faces increasing challenges with increasingly aging populations. The elderly and disabled people who cannot drive by themselves highly rely on public transport for traveling. Therefore, to ensure the mobility needs for individual door-to-door services in depopulated areas with dispersed populations, several local authorities in Japan are implementing the taxi subsidy scheme (TSS) for the elderly. However, during the implementation, many issues relating to this policy, such as subsidy amount, usage time and number of distributed tickets, settings for target persons, and target area have been encountered. Based on this fact, we examined TSS from three perspectives: the local government that supports the policy with subsidy; small- and medium-sized taxi operators whose business management is influenced by TSS; and the elderly people with their outing status and TSS usage status. Furthermore, based on the trends of national policies, we examined the effective utilization of TSS as a public mobility service for the elderly in rural areas. As a result, for local governments, the TSS was found to be widely known as a support for vulnerable groups and for those who have returned their licenses, and the burden on residents is often not a large expense. From the viewpoint of taxi operators, TSS has considerably contributed to business management. Additionally, many business operators want to increase the usage time and number of people eligible for subsidies. The elderly survey showed that TSS users use taxi for various purposes and are less likely to be influenced by high prices compared with non-TSS users. In other words, it is suggested that the TSS should be the “ideal public transportation” by narrowing down the target users and improving the service

Expression pattern of CXC chemokine receptor-4 is correlated with lymph node metastasis in human invasive ductal carcinoma

BACKGROUND: The stromal cell-derived factor-1/CXC chemokine receptor-4 (SDF-1/CXCR4) signal has been shown to be important in various immunological reactions. Recent studies have suggested that CXCR4 is expressed in certain cancer cells and that they use this chemokine receptor efficiently for metastasis formation. METHOD: The expression of CXCR4 was evaluated by immunohistochemical study in 79 surgically resected invasive ductal carcinomas, and the relation between the staining pattern and clinicopathological features was examined. RESULTS: CXCR4 was diffusely and homogeneously expressed in 59 cancers, which were further divided into 28 high-expression and 31 low-expression cancers by their staining intensity. The other 20 cancers showed heterogeneous immunoreactivity in tumor tissue, which was defined as focal type. In comparison with the diffuse type, focal type tumors showed significantly more extensive lymph node metastasis, because the number and extent of metastatic nodes were larger in the focal than the diffuse type. In the diffuse type, the rate of node-positive cases did not show a difference in staining intensity. However, high-CXCR4 tumors showed more extensive nodal metastasis in comparison with low-expression tumors. In contrast, the expression pattern of CXCR4 did not have a significant correlation with hematogeneous metastasis. The overall survival of these patients tended to be better in the diffuse type than in the focal type, although the difference was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: The expression pattern of CXCR4 was significantly correlated with the degree of lymph node metastasis in breast cancers. Our data suggest that CXCR4 might be particularly important in facilitating metastasis through the lymphatic system

Srs2 and RecQ homologs cooperate in mei-3-mediated homologous recombination repair of Neurospora crassa

Homologous recombination and post-replication repair facilitate restart of stalled or collapsed replication forks. The SRS2 gene of Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes a 3′–5′ DNA helicase that functions both in homologous recombination repair and in post-replication repair. This study identifies and characterizes the SRS2 homolog in Neurospora crassa, which we call mus-50. A knockout mutant of N.crassa, mus-50, is sensitive to several DNA-damaging agents and genetic analyses indicate that it is epistatic with mei-3 (RAD51 homolog), mus-11 (RAD52 homolog), mus-48 (RAD55 homolog) and mus-49 (RAD57 homolog), suggesting a role for mus-50 in homologous recombination repair. However, epistasis evidence has presented that MUS50 does not participate in post-replication repair in N.crassa. Also, the N.crassa mus-25 (RAD54 homolog) mus-50 double mutant is viable, which is in contrast to the lethal phenotype of the equivalent rad54 srs2 mutant in S.cerevisiae. Tetrad analysis revealed that mus-50 in combination with mutations in two RecQ homologs, qde-3 and recQ2, is lethal, and this lethality is suppressed by mutation in mei-3, mus-11 or mus-25. Evidence is also presented for the two independent pathways for recovery from camptothecin-induced replication fork arrest: one pathway is dependent on QDE3 and MUS50 and the other pathway is dependent on MUS25 and RECQ2

A Fast Simulation Method Using SPH and Wavelet for Turbulent Flow

20th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexiste+G25+H25:J25+H25:H25:S25This paper presents a fast simulation method for turbulent flow which uses a particle method and wavelet analysis. To simulate fluid flow, the method uses smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), which discretizes the fluid into a collection of particles, and detects regions where turbulent flow will occur by using wavelet analysis without a spatial grid. By taking the curl of wavelet noise, the turbulent flow is then appended as a divergence-free turbulence velocity field. Additionally, by using a particle splitting, which characterize the vortex features of turbulence, a sub-particle-scale representation of turbulent flow is proposed. Implementing almost all processes on a graphics processing unit (GPU), simulations are performed in near real tim

Applications of CCSDS recommendations to Integrated Ground Data Systems (IGDS)

This paper describes an application of the CCSDS Principle Network (CPH) service model to communications network elements of a postulated Integrated Ground Data System (IGDS). Functions are drawn principally from COSMICS (Cosmic Information and Control System), an integrated space control infrastructure, and the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Core System (ECS). From functional requirements, this paper derives a set of five communications network partitions which, taken together, support proposed space control infrastructures and data distribution systems. Our functional analysis indicates that the five network partitions derived in this paper should effectively interconnect the users, centers, processors, and other architectural elements of an IGDS. This paper illustrates a useful application of the CCSDS (Consultive Committee for Space Data Systems) Recommendations to ground data system development

加温後のtsAF8細胞の細胞周期

Thermotolerance in tsAF8 cells develops during incubation at 34℃ after heating at 45℃, while it is suppressed by the following incubation at a non-permissive temperature of 39.7℃ after the same heating. The incubation temperature after heating may affect the cell cycle and consequently thermotolerance. In the present study, a relationship between the thermotolerance and the cell cycle of tsAF8 was investigated. The cell cycle fractions and DNA synthesis were measured by flow cytometry using double staining with propidium iodide and bromodeoxyuridine. When the tsAF8 cells were heated at 45℃ for 20 min, and thereafter incubated at 34℃, bromodeoxyuridine uptake in the S phase cells (DNA synthesis) was recovered to 65.1% 6 h after the heating, and the cells showed gradual accumulation in the G(2)/M phase. When the cells were incubated at 39.7℃ after heating at 45℃ for 20 min, then showed inhibition of thermotolerance development, the DNA synthesis was recovered to 15.1% temporarily 6 h after the heating, but it became 0% after 12 h, and the cells did not remarkably accumulate in any phases of the cell cycle. This inhibition of DNA synthesis at 39.7℃ was considered to be the result of cell survival decreasing by a step-down heating. However, the relationship between the thermotolerance and the cell cycle was not found out in tsAF8 cells, because the cells did not accumulate in any phases of the cell cycle under the inhibitory condition of thermotolerance.tsAF8細胞は45℃の加温後34℃で培養すると温熱耐性が速やかに発現するが,加温後,制限温度である39.7℃で培養すると温熱耐性の発現が抑制される｡加温後の培養温度が細胞周期に影響し,その結果として温熱耐性発現に影響を与えている可能性があることから,今回,Propidium Iodide(PI)とbromodeoxyuridine(BrdU)でtsAF8細胞を二重染色し,フローサイトメトリーによって温熱耐性と細胞周期の関係の有無について調べた｡tsAF8細胞を45℃20分の加温後34℃で培養すると,6時間後にはG(1)期の細胞が減少し,12時間後にはG(2)/M期への蓄積が見られた｡しかし,加温後39.7℃で培養した場合には細胞周期の進行がほとんど見られなかった｡BrdU の取込みは,加温せずに39.7℃で培養した場合には活発に行われ,また,45℃20分加温後34℃で培養した場合には,6時間後にはBrdUの取り込みは65.1%まで回復した｡しかし,温熱耐性発現の抑制が観察される45℃20分加温後39.7℃で培養した場合には,BrdUの取込み量は6時間後に一時的に15.1%に回復するが,12時間後には取込み量はゼロとなった｡BrdUの取り込みが阻害されたのはstep-down heatingの現象による細胞生存率の減少が原因だと考えられたが,温熱耐性発現の抑制が観察される条件下では細胞周期の特定の時期への集積がなかったことから,温熱耐性と細胞周期との関係はtsAF8細胞においては見い出されなかった