"The Role of the Courts in Economic Development: The Case of Prewar Japan"

In this paper, we explore the role of the legal system in economic development, focusing on its relationship to the role of private mechanisms in contract enforcement. We use long-term prefecture-level panel data that cover the early stages of industrialization and urbanization in Japan. We found that industrialization increased the demand for civil lawsuits, but that this was conditional on urbanization. In other words, increased demand for civil suits occurred only where industrialization and urbanization simultaneously progressed. At the same time, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrial growth, but only conditional on urbanization. That is, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrialization only in urban areas. These findings suggest that community-based contract enforcement mechanisms worked in rural areas and that these mechanisms were replaced by the formal legal system as urbanization progressed and community ties declined.

The Role of the Courts in Economic Development: The Case of Prewar Japan

In this paper, we explore the role of the legal system in economic development, focusing on its relationship to the role of private mechanisms in contract enforcement. We use long-term prefecture-level panel data that cover the early stages of industrialization and urbanization in Japan. We found that industrialization increased the demand for civil lawsuits, but that this was conditional on　urbanization. In other words, increased demand for civil suits occurred only where industrialization and urbanization simultaneously progressed. At the same time, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrial growth, but only conditional on urbanization. That is, the inefficiency of the legal system impeded industrialization only in urban areas. These findings suggest that community-based contract enforcement mechanisms worked in rural areas and that these mechanisms were replaced by the formal legal system as urbanization progressed and community ties declined.Court, Law, Contract Enforcement, Economic Development, Japan

Risk, Transaction Costs, and Geographic Distribution of Share Tenancy: A Case of Pre-War Japan

This paper investigates determinants of geographic distribution of share tenancy and analyzes its efficiency implications in pre-war Iwate prefecture, Japan. The distribution of share tenancy was attributable to risk represented by yield variability, which in turn was affected by seasonal winds called Yamase and topographic features. That risk raised transaction costs of adopting a fixed-rent tenancy associated with the common custom of rent reduction in Japan that mitigated the problem of risksharing. Estimation results suggest that risk, wealth, and strength of community ties were the main determinants of contract choice.

"Risk, Transaction Costs, and Geographic Distribution of Share Tenancy: A Case of Pre-War Japan"

This paper investigates determinants of geographic distribution of share tenancy and analyzes its efficiency implications in pre-war Iwate prefecture, Japan. The distribution of share tenancy was attributable to risk represented by yield variability, which in turn was affected by seasonal winds called Yamase and topographic features. That risk raised transaction costs of adopting a fixed-rent tenancy associated with the common custom of rent reduction in Japan that mitigated the problem of risksharing. Estimation results suggest that risk, wealth, and strength of community ties were the main determinants of contract choice.

"Agrarian Land Tenancy in Prewar Japan: Contract Choice and Implications on Productivity"

This paper studies the determinants of agrarian tenancy contract choice and its implication on productivity in prewar Japan. Rapid agricultural growth under extensive tenancy relationships in prewar Japan was achieved with the prevalence of a unique rent reduction contract, which was more efficient than a share tenancy or a pure fixed-rent contract in terms of provision of incentives and risk-sharing. Despite its potential efficiency, a rent reduction contract incurred substantial transaction costs, which may have inhibited its adoption outside Japan. The prevalence of this contract in prewar Japan was likely due to the presence of villages that reduced such costs through informal governance of the private tenancy relationships. We found quantitatively at the village level that the choice of tenancy contract in prewar Iwate prefecture was affected by risk and possibly transaction costs. Furthermore, a sign of Marshallian inefficiency was found at the prefecture level, where the prevalence of tenancy and productivity is negatively correlated and such inefficiency was worse in prefectures with a greater proportion of share tenancy.

"History of Production Organizations"(in Japanese)

Based on the survey of the literature on production organizations in the field of economic history, business history and economics, we discuss the framework for a historical research on production organizations. Also, we analyze the choice of production organizations between the putting-out system and the factory, using the prefecture level panel data of the weavings industry in pre-war Japan.

Characterization of a bloom-associated alphaproteobacterial lineage, ‘Candidatus Phycosocius’: insights into freshwater algal-bacterial interactions

炭化水素産生藻類ボトリオコッカスの「衣」にドリルで穴をあけて住み着く共生細菌の発見 --藻類屋外大量培養と藻類ブルーム制御の鍵となる可能性--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-03-27.Marine bacterial lineages associated with algal blooms, such as the Roseobacter clade, have been well characterized in ecological and genomic contexts, yet such lineages have rarely been explored in freshwater blooms. This study performed phenotypic and genomic analyses of an alphaproteobacterial lineage ‘Candidatus Phycosocius’ (denoted the CaP clade), one of the few lineages ubiquitously associated with freshwater algal blooms, and described a novel species: ‘Ca. Phycosocius spiralis.’ Phylogenomic analyses indicated that the CaP clade is a deeply branching lineage in the Caulobacterales. Pangenome analyses revealed characteristic features of the CaP clade: aerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis and essential vitamin B auxotrophy. Genome size varies widely among members of the CaP clade (2.5–3.7 Mb), likely a result of independent genome reductions at each lineage. This includes a loss of tight adherence pilus genes (tad) in ‘Ca. P. spiralis’ that may reflect its adoption of a unique spiral cell shape and corkscrew-like burrowing activity at the algal surface. Notably, quorum sensing (QS) proteins showed incongruent phylogenies, suggesting that horizontal transfers of QS genes and QS-involved interactions with specific algal partners might drive CaP clade diversification. This study elucidates the ecophysiology and evolution of proteobacteria associated with freshwater algal blooms

Improvement of assurance including security for wireless sensor networks using dispersed data transmission

AbstractAssurance networks are one of the essential technologies of New-generation Networks. Assurance is defined as the capability of guaranteeing functional and non-functional system properties such as dependability, security, timeliness and adaptability to heterogeneous and changing requirements. Assurance is essential for sustainable networks and this research focused specifically on providing assurance for WSNs. Node capture attacks are one prospective kind of attack on WSNs. To reduce negative effect of node capture attacks, we have previously proposed secure decentralized data transfer. In this proposed method, it was assumed that multiple paths were in place. In this paper as well, we again propose using the multipath routing method. To make multiple paths fit our previously proposed method, we have modified ATR (Augmented Tree Based Routing). We have conducted simulation experiments using our proposed method in a network simulator. The results show that our previously proposed method is effective in both cases in which the network size is small or large. In addition, we conducted other simulation experiments to measure several aspects of the assurance of our method. We measured in terms of varying parameters such as node densities, distance between the source and the destination nodes, and so on. Additionally, our method is more assured than the single path-based method

A microtubule polymerase cooperates with the kinesin-6 motor and a microtubule cross-linker to promote bipolar spindle assembly in the absence of kinesin-5 and kinesin-14 in fission yeast

Accurate chromosome segregation relies on the bipolar mitotic spindle. In many eukaryotes, spindle formation is driven by the plus-end–directed motor kinesin-5 that generates outward force to establish spindle bipolarity. Its inhibition leads to the emergence of monopolar spindles with mitotic arrest. Intriguingly, simultaneous inactivation of the minus-end–directed motor kinesin-14 restores spindle bipolarity in many systems. Here we show that in fission yeast, three independent pathways contribute to spindle bipolarity in the absence of kinesin-5/Cut7 and kinesin-14/Pkl1. One is kinesin-6/Klp9 that engages with spindle elongation once short bipolar spindles assemble. Klp9 also ensures the medial positioning of anaphase spindles to prevent unequal chromosome segregation. Another is the Alp7/TACC-Alp14/TOG microtubule polymerase complex. Temperature-sensitive alp7cut7pkl1 mutants are arrested with either monopolar or very short spindles. Forced targeting of Alp14 to the spindle pole body is sufficient to render alp7cut7pkl1 triply deleted cells viable and promote spindle assembly, indicating that Alp14-mediated microtubule polymerization from the nuclear face of the spindle pole body could generate outward force in place of Cut7 during early mitosis. The third pathway involves the Ase1/PRC1 microtubule cross-linker that stabilizes antiparallel microtubules. Our study, therefore, unveils multifaceted interplay among kinesin-dependent and -independent pathways leading to mitotic bipolar spindle assembly.This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (KAKENHI Scientific Research [A] 16H02503 to T.T., a Challenging Exploratory Research grant 16K14672 to T.T., Scientific Research [C] 16K07694 to M.Y.), the Naito Foundation (T.T.), and the Uehara Memorial Foundation (T.T.)

Mail-in data collection at SPring-8 protein crystallography beamlines

A mail-in data collection system at SPring-8, which is a web application with automated beamline operation, has been developed