Firms’ Perceptions of the Business Cycle and Their Managerial and Financial Conditions

Perception of the business cycle can differ among firms, which has been confirmed by extensive survey data. The question we want to answer in this paper is "What causes differences in business cycle perception?" by utilizing a newly designed questionnaire. Specifically, we match properties emphasizing the absolute level of economic activities or the direction of their changes and indicators of a firm's managerial and financial conditions, and examine the relationship between them. Based on our results, we could not find a particular indicator for the properties of firms that indicate level or trend change. However, a higher level of capital or number of employees suggests a tendency to emphasize change or rate of change, rather than the level of the business survey index. With regards to the time horizon of the business cycle, profit ratios (profit against sales or total assets) in general are good indicators. Firms with a high debt ratio tend to be myopic. Regression analysis shows that firms with high rates of investment/sales significantly tend to have a long-term vision.business cycle perception, financial indicators, managerial indicators, firm, Regression analysis

明治の西洋動物学の黎明―木下熊雄

The Meiji era (1868-1912)is the period of the dawn of zoology in Japan that laid the foundations for the current state of the science. The difference between Western Zoology and Asian natural history is ascribed to cultural differences in their purpose and perspectives. Western zoology aspires to an understanding of the “Systematics of Nature”. In contrast,Japanese,Chinese and Asian natural history have their roots deep in herbalism and aspire to understanding “Nature from a human perspective” (Isono 1999a).This manuscript focus on Dr. Kumao Kinoshita (1881-1947) who did research work on Cold-Water Octocoral(CWOC during the Meiji period and his name remains in honor because of his scientific achievement. His papers are still referred as the basic of the scientific literature in the CWOC field. He is one of those who lived through both the Asian natural history and the early Western-systematic zoology period in Japan. He studied octocoral (Coelenterete: Anthozoa: Octocorallia), which including CWOC, at the Zoological Laboratory of the Imperial Univeritiy of Tokyo (University of Tokyo)and disserted his Ph.D.Thesis in 1912. He also undertook very fruitful expeditions to the Uji Islands (1907, 1908) and the Koshikijima Islands (1910) of Kagoshima prefecture and the Kashiwajima Islands of Kochi prefecture (1909)(Matsumoto umpublishd data, Anonymous 1907, Kinoshita 1909b). His family was very famous as one of the great landed gentry of Higo- Kumamoto-han (Kumamoto prefecture)from the time of Daimyo “Kiyomasa Kato”,the military chieftain and feudal lord of Kumamoto castle (1588-1611) (Inudou 2000; Kinoshita 1983; Kinoshita 2009; Matsumoto 2003; “Kinoshita family and Tamana”). Kumao’s father, Sukeyuki Kinoshita, was also a leading figure of the landed gentry during the Yedo era. He become the president of the Kumamoto prefectural assembly and a member of the House of Representatives of the first Imperial Diet (Kinoshita 1983; Kinoshita 2009, “Kinoshita family and Tamana”). Kumao’s uncle was the famous Ison Kinoshita (1805-1867) who was a private teacher of a feudal lord and the heir apparent Higo-Kumamoto-han during the Yedo era. He was president of the official school of Kumamoto-han, the so called “Kinoshita school”where about 900students studied. One of his students, Kowashi Inouye (1843-1895), later held the portfolio of Education in the Meiji government and Torao Yoneda become the grand chamberlain of the Emperor Meiji (Inudou 2000). Kowashi Inouye married the daughter of Ison Kinoshita, who was a cousin of Kumao. The first president of the Imperial University of Kyoto, Hirotugu Kinoshita, was a cousin of Kumao and Hirotugu’s wife was Kumao’s sister. Their son, Michio Kinoshita, Kumao’s nephew, was vice-grand chamberlain of the Emperor Showa, Hirohito (Kinoshita 2009). Michio married Kumao’s other niece (Fuwa 2008). Ritsuko Harada (Kinoshita), lady-in-waiting of the Empress Showa, was Kumao’s distant relation (Kinoshita 2009). Kinoshita’s family was the foundation-stone of the state in the transitional period from the Yedo era to the Meiji era in every sort of area. They fulfilled the role of bridgebuilder between Western civilization and Yedo- Asian-culture, as with the joining of western zoology and Asian natural history which Dr.Kumao Kinoshita did. Unfortunately,most Japanese scientists have lost the philosophy of the Yedo Asian-culture in recent years. This manuscript concludes that the time has come for scientists to transvalue and learn about the Yedo-Asian natural history that aspired to understanding “Nature from a human perspective”

明治の西洋動物学の黎明 Ⅱ―木下熊雄とそのグローバル性の背景

Dr.Kumao Kinoshita was a researcher on Cold-Water Octocoral(CWOC) during the Meiji period (1868-1912). He studied octocoral (Coelenterate: Anthozoa:Octocorallia)at the Zoological Laboratory of the Imperial University of Tokyo (University of Tokyo). He wrote several English,German and Japanese scientific papers and reports but never had any foreign visit in his life. However, he always had the global view from inside of Japan. This manuscript focus on the background of the international and global of Dr. Kumao Kinoshita (1881-1947)from same marine biologist’s standpoint as Dr. Kinoshita, not from the bibliography writer’s or local history researcher’s standpoint. For the general information of Dr. Kinoshita’s life, please refer Matsumoto 2011. First, the global background of locality Ikura, Kumamoto prefecture where Dr.Kinoshita has born,spent and ended his life. Ikura was the international trade port over several centuries. The city has been international and the people from China and maybe from other foreign countries lived in this city. His families and his neighbor often used vessels and Japanese boats for transporting and traveling because the city was located in front of Ariake sea. Second, the period of the last days of the Shogunate (Bakumatsu)-Meiji require a preparation for the national defense from foreign countries. Because of the colonial policy on Asia by western countries, several foreign countries prowled around Japan those days. Family Kinoshita had a roots of sword maker for the federal load Kiyomasa Kato of Higo-Kumamoto han. And therefore they had a role to make firearm during the period for the defense purpose and carefully watch out the world trends with teaching coast guards of Higo-Kumamoto han. Third, important background of Dr. Kumao Kinoshita was the people of family and interfamilial relationship. His father Sukeyuki Kinoshita and his grandfather Hatsutaro Kinoshita were leading figure of the landed gentry of Tamana, Higo-Kumamoto han (Kumamoto prefecture). Family Kinoshita always had global view and perspectives for the current state and for the education as landed gentry. They have contributed to make school and system to teach the fundamental knowledge and view for the dynamic world. The Bakumatsu-Meiji was the period that Japanese learned the way of Western culture and science. Most of scientist blindly obey everything the western literature said. However Dr. Kinoshita alerted that not to obey barbarian’s word without thinking the meaning of data set by yourself for the science. These three background in this manuscript compose Dr. Kumao Kinoshita’s globalism and perspectively for the worlds

「 うたかたの恋」皇太子ルドルフのサンゴ オーストリア＝ ハプスブルク帝国と海洋

Habsburg Empire is the Empire of Austria which continue since 16th centuries until early 20th centuries. In the end of 19th century, Austria promoted large ocean explorations such as world cruises,Red sea expedition and Arctic expedition cruise. To store the outcomes of these expeditions, there were constructed museums in Wien, Austria during 1872-1891.It was found that the some Japanese Octocoral specimens deposited in the Natural History Museu Wien (Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) in 2012 by author. Two of them are labeled with the name of“Kronprinz Rudolf”,who is the crown prince of Habsburg and the son of Kaiser Franz Josef I of Austria (1830-1916)and Kaiserin Elisabeth (1837-1898). These two specimens were recorded at the catalogue of the museum (NHMW)in 1875.The first purpose of the manuscript is to review the relations between Austria and Japan with a view of Marine politics to Asia and Natural History Study by Austria. The second is to find that how the Japanese octocoral specimen has come to the hand of Kronprinz Rudolf and NHMW Collection.According to the reviewed history between Japan and Austria and the detailed data of the specimens, there are many possibilities that could collect Kronprinz Rudolf’s Japanese octocoral specimens. Among all, the most possible expedition is suggested to be the Japan Expedition conducted by Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1873

Tazobactam/piperacillin for moderate-to-severe pneumonia in patients with risk for aspiration: comparison with imipenem/cilastatin.

BACKGROUND: Treatment of aspiration pneumonia is becoming an important issue due to aging of populations worldwide. Effectiveness of tazobactam/piperacillin (TAZ/PIPC) in aspiration pneumonia is not clear. PURPOSE: To compare clinical efficacy between TAZ/PIPC (1:4 compound) and imipenem/cilastatin (IPM/CS) in patients with moderate-to-severe aspiration pneumonia. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In this open-label, randomized study either TAZ/PIPC 5 g or IPM/CS 1 g was intravenously administered every 12 h to patients with moderate-to-severe community-acquired aspiration pneumonia or nursing home-acquired pneumonia with risk for aspiration pneumonia for average 11 days. The primary outcome was clinical response rate at the end of treatment (EOT) in validated per-protocol (VPP) population. Secondary outcomes were clinical response during treatment (days 4 and 7) and at the end of study (EOS) in VPP population, and survival at day 30 in modified intention-to-treat (MITT) population. RESULTS: There was no difference between the groups in primary or secondary outcome. However, significantly faster improvement as measured by axillary temperature (p < 0.05) and WBC count (p = 0.01) was observed under TAZ/PIPC treatment. In patients with gram-positive bacterial infection, TAZ/PIPC was more effective at EOT in VPP population (p = 0.03). CONCLUSION: TAZ/PIPC is as effective and safe as IPM/CS in the treatment of moderate- to-severe aspiration pneumonia

Machine learning-based segmentation of the rodent hippocampal CA2 area from Nissl-stained sections

The hippocampus is a center of learning, memory, and spatial navigation. This region is divided into the CA1, CA2, and CA3 areas, which are anatomically different from each other. Among these divisions, the CA2 area is unique in terms of functional relevance to sociality. The CA2 area is often manually detected based on the size, shape, and density of neurons in the hippocampal pyramidal cell layer, but this manual segmentation relying on cytoarchitecture is impractical to apply to a large number of samples and dependent on experimenters’ proficiency. Moreover, the CA2 area has been defined based on expression pattern of molecular marker proteins, but it generally takes days to complete immunostaining for such proteins. Thus, we asked whether the CA2 area can be systematically segmented based on cytoarchitecture alone. Since the expression pattern of regulator of G-protein signaling 14 (RGS14) signifies the CA2 area, we visualized the CA2 area in the mouse hippocampus by RGS14-immunostaining and Nissl-counterstaining and manually delineated the CA2 area. We then established “CAseg,” a machine learning-based automated algorithm to segment the CA2 area with the F1-score of approximately 0.8 solely from Nissl-counterstained images that visualized cytoarchitecture. CAseg was extended to the segmentation of the prairie vole CA2 area, which raises the possibility that the use of this algorithm can be expanded to other species. Thus, CAseg will be beneficial for investigating unique properties of the hippocampal CA2 area