Use of electric money in Japan

This paper will take a look at electric money and demonstrate that it cannot entirely replace cash in Japan. With the progress of Information Technology (IT), Electronic Commerce (EC, e-commerce) has recently expanded into the society in Japan. However, since Japan is still a developing nation in IT, the government has decided to advance the plan eJapan in 2001 that aims to make Japan the leading IT nation in the world within five years with all of the citizens actively using IT (IT Square, 2003). In the plan, the government has largely focused on five projects, which are the construction of the high-speed network infrastructure, the spread of IT training, the realization of an electronic government, the realization of keeping high security and credibility in the Information network, and the development of e-commerce (Fujisawa, 2001). The government has planned to activate the country\u27s economy with the spread of e-commerce. In this context, electric money is in the spotlight as a payment tool of the next generation. Although some ways of settlement such as credit cards are now used, it is projected that electric money will become more popular in the future because of its advantages such as high security or instant settlement in comparison to other ways of payment. Besides, it is also predicted that electric money could replace cash (NTT, 2000). However, the currency of electric money is still in the tentative stage, and the adoption of electric money among the general public is still low. In addition, there are various problems or barriers preventing the prevalence of electric money. For example, all the past tests of popularizing electric money in Japan ended in failure due to the inconvenience of using it. There is a strong custom that the Japanese people mainly use cash for the shopping, whereas checks or credit cards are universal in the Western countries. There are other challenges. People are worried about crimes such as forgery and robbery of electric money in terms of security. The definition of electric money in the law is also very complicated. All of these affect the spread of electric money. There are different opinions about electric money in Japan. One is that cash could be superseded by electric money in the future. The other is that the former opinion is rather wishful thinking, and electric money will only partly prevail as one of the payment ways. At any rate, it is said that people will readily use electric money if it is really convenient and safe to use. Both the public and the government have taken note of the future of electric money. In this connection, it is worthwhile to examine electric money and show its possibilities. First, this paper will briefly explain the basics of electric money such as its origins, varieties and characteristics of electric money. Second, this paper will examine some examples of the past experiments and the current conditions of electric money in terms of usability. Third, this paper will examine the security of electric money. Fourth, this paper will inspect the law for supporting the use of electric money. Fifth, this paper will discuss the culture that affects on the prevalence of electric money. Finally, this paper will draw a conclusion that electric money could not entirely replace cash in Japan, namely it could only be an alternative payment way with collecting these bases

Multi-Sensor Integration of Vegetation Index Products for Long-Term Monitoring of Vegetation Dynamics: A Case Study from MODIS to VIIRS

Spectral vegetation index (VI) time series data from moderate resolution sensors, such as Earth Observing System (EOS) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), have widely been used to identify "hot spot" areas of vegetation changes and to characterize long-term trends of vegetation changes. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) sensor series of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program is slated to continue the highly calibrated data stream initiated with MODIS. The first VIIRS sensor has operationally been acquiring Earth-reflected radiation since March 2012. The second VIIRS sensor (NOAA-20) was launched in November 2017, which is to continue the measurements made by the first VIIRS sensor. In this study, we examined an integrated use of MODIS and VIIRS VI time series data on capturing vegetation dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region using their overlapped period of observations (2013-2017). Three VIs, the "top-of-canopy (TOC)" normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), TOC enhanced vegetation index (EVI), and TOC two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2), were investigated. For all the three VIs, VIIRS VIs were systematically higher than the MODIS counterparts due mainly to their spectral bandpass differences. However, both VIIRS and MODIS VIs showed the comparable spatial patterns in their temporal variations. Empirical spectral corrections allowed to merge the two data streams, which slightly improved the temporal resolution of the VI temporal profiles. These results suggest the suitability of VIIRS data to extend and merge into the MODIS VI record for long-term vegetation dynamics studies

Use of EO-1 Hyperion Data for Inter-Sensor Calibration of Vegetation Indices

Numerous satellite sensor systems useful in terrestrial Earth observation and monitoring have recently been launched and their derived products are increasingly being used in regional and global vegetation studies. The increasing availability of multiple sensors offer much opportunity for vegetation studies aimed at understanding the terrestrial carbon cycle, climate change, and land cover conversions. Potential applications include improved multiresolution characterization of the surface (scaling); improved optical-geometric characterization of vegetation canopies; improved assessments of surface phenology and ecosystem seasonal dynamics; and improved maintenance of long-term, inter-annual, time series data records. The Landsat series of sensors represent one group of sensors that have produced a long-term, archived data set of the Earth s surface, at fine resolution and since 1972, capable of being processed into useful information for global change studies (Hall et al., 1991)

Utility of commercial high‐resolution satellite imagery for monitoring general flowering in Sarawak, Borneo

General flowering (GF), irregular synchronous mass flowering of multiple tree species across multiple families, is a unique biological phenomenon of the mixed lowland dipterocarp forest in Southeast Asia. Characterizing the spatial extent and temporal dynamics of GF is essential for an improved understanding of climate–vegetation interactions and the potential climate change impact on this species-rich rainforest. We investigated the utility of newly available high-temporal (daily) and high-spatial (3–4 m) resolution remote sensing by the PlanetScope commercial satellite constellation for detecting flowering trees in a dipterocarp rainforest at Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia. Our study was focused on the latest GF event known to have occurred in the region in the year 2019. PlanetScope successfully acquired 13 clear-sky or minimally cloud-contaminated scenes over the park during a study period of January 1, 2019 to August 31, 2019 encompassing the 2019 GF event. In situ phenology observations verified that the PlanetScope images detected the flowering crowns of tree species that turned into white or orange. This multitemporal image dataset also captured the flowering peak and species differences. The correlation coefficients between the multitemporal image signatures and in situ phenology observations were moderate to very strong (0.52–0.85). The results indicated that the 2019 GF event was a whole-park phenomenon with the flowering peak in May. This study reports the first successful satellite-based observations of a GF event and suggests the possibility of regional-scale characterization of species-level phenology in the dipterocarp forest, key information for biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia

Long-term, gridded standardized precipitation index for Hawai‘i

Spatially explicit, wall-to-wall rainfall data provide foundational climatic information but alone are inadequate for characterizing meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, or ecological drought. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is one of the most widely used indicators of drought and defines localized conditions of both drought and excess rainfall based on period-specific (e.g., 1-month, 6-month, 12-month) accumulated precipitation relative to multi-year averages. A 93-year (1920–2012), high-resolution (250 m) gridded dataset of monthly rainfall available for the State of Hawai‘i was used to derive gridded, monthly SPI values for 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, 12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month intervals. Gridded SPI data were validated against independent, station-based calculations of SPI provided by the National Weather Service. The gridded SPI product was also compared with the U.S. Drought Monitor during the overlapping period. This SPI product provides several advantages over currently available drought indices for Hawai‘i in that it has statewide coverage over a long historical period at high spatial resolution to capture fine-scale climatic gradients and monitor changes in local drought severity

Performance of Three Reflectance Calibration Methods for Airborne Hyperspectral Spectrometer Data

In this study, the performances and accuracies of three methods for converting airborne hyperspectral spectrometer data to reflectance factors were characterized and compared. The “reflectance mode (RM)” method, which calibrates a spectrometer against a white reference panel prior to mounting on an aircraft, resulted in spectral reflectance retrievals that were biased and distorted. The magnitudes of these bias errors and distortions varied significantly, depending on time of day and length of the flight campaign. The “linear-interpolation (LI)” method, which converts airborne spectrometer data by taking a ratio of linearly-interpolated reference values from the preflight and post-flight reference panel readings, resulted in precise, but inaccurate reflectance retrievals. These reflectance spectra were not distorted, but were subject to bias errors of varying magnitudes dependent on the flight duration length. The “continuous panel (CP)” method uses a multi-band radiometer to obtain continuous measurements over a reference panel throughout the flight campaign, in order to adjust the magnitudes of the linear-interpolated reference values from the preflight and post-flight reference panel readings. Airborne hyperspectral reflectance retrievals obtained using this method were found to be the most accurate and reliable reflectance calibration method. The performances of the CP method in retrieving accurate reflectance factors were consistent throughout time of day and for various flight durations. Based on the dataset analyzed in this study, the uncertainty of the CP method has been estimated to be 0.0025 ± 0.0005 reflectance units for the wavelength regions not affected by atmospheric absorptions. The RM method can produce reasonable results only for a very short-term flight (e.g., < 15 minutes) conducted around a local solar noon. The flight duration should be kept shorter than 30 minutes for the LI method to produce results with reasonable accuracies. An important advantage of the CP method is that the method can be used for long-duration flight campaigns (e.g., 1-2 hours). Although this study focused on reflectance calibration of airborne spectrometer data, the methods evaluated in this study and the results obtained are directly applicable to ground spectrometer measurements

Synthesis and circularly polarized luminescence properties of BINOL-derived bisbenzofuro[2,3-b:3′,2′-e]pyridines (BBZFPys)

A series of optically active bisbenzofuro[2,3-b:3′,2′-e]pyridine (BBZFPy) derivatives was synthesized starting with the readily available (S)- and (R)-1,1′-bi-2-naphthols through a palladium-catalyzed multiple intramolecular C-H/C-H coupling as the key ring-closure step. The effect of terminal tert-butyl substituents on the BBZFPy skeleton was systematically investigated to uncover a unique aggregation-induced enhancement of CPL characteristics in the solid state. The crystal structures of the coupling products were also evaluated by single crystal X-ray analysis and the well-ordered intermolecular stacking arrangements appeared to be responsible for the enhanced CPL.Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2020, 16, 325–336. doi:10.3762/bjoc.16.3

Discrimination And Biophysical Characterization Of Brazilian Cerrado Physiognomies With Eo-1 Hyperspectral Hyperion

The savanna, typically found in the sub-tropics and seasonal tropics, are the dominant vegetation biome type in the southern hemisphere, covering approximately 45% of the South America. In Brazil, the savanna, locally known as "cerrado," is the most intensely stressed biome with both natural environmental pressures (e.g., the strong seasonality in weather, extreme soil nutrient impoverishment, and widespread fire occurrences) and rapid/aggressive land conversions (Skole et al., 1994; Ratter et al., 1997). Better characterization and discrimination of cerrado physiognomies are needed in order to improve understanding of cerrado dynamics and its impact on carbon storage, nutrient dynamics, and the prospect for sustainable land use in the Brazilian cerrado biome. Satellite remote sensing have been known to be a useful tool for land cover and land use mapping (Rougharden et al., 1991; Hansen et al., 2000). However, attempts to discriminate and classify Brazilian cerrado using multi-spectral sensors (e.g., Landsat TM) and/or moderate resolution sensors (e.g., NOAA AVHRR NDVI) have often resulted in a limited success due partly to small contrasts depicted in their multiband, spectral reflectance or vegetation index values among cerrado classes (Seyler et al., 2002; Fran a and Setzer, 1998). In this study, we aimed to improve discrimination as well as biophysical characterization of the Brazilian cerrado physiognomies with hyperspectral remote sensing. We used Hyperion, the first satellite-based hyperspectral imager, onboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) platform

A Feasibility Study on the Simultaneous Sensing of Turbidity and Chlorophyll a Concentration Using a Simple Optical Measurement Method

We have been developing a wireless sensor network system to monitor the quality of lake water in real time. It consists of a sensor module and a system module, which includes communication and power modules. We have focused on pH, turbidity and chlorophyll a concentration as the criteria for qualifying lake water quality. These parameters will be detected by a microfluidic device based sensor module embedded in the wireless sensor network system. In order to detect the turbidity and the chlorophyll a concentration simultaneously, we propose a simple optical measurement method using LED and photodiode in this paper. Before integrating a turbidity and chlorophyll a concentration sensor into the microfluidic device based pH sensor, we performed feasibility studies such as confirmation of the working principle and experiments using environmental water samples. As a result, we successfully verified our simultaneous sensing method by using a simple optical setup of the turbidity and the chlorophyll a concentration