Part-Paid Stock, Corporate Finance, and Investment: Economic Consequences of the Part-Paid Stock System and Supplementary Installments in the Early 1930s of Japan

Under Japanfs prewar capital stock system of joint-stock companies, rather than paying the full face value of a share in one lump sum, shareholders paid for stocks in multiple installments. This system was transplanted from industrialized Western nations during the Meiji Era to make it easier for investors to buy company shares and to promote capital concentrations. Company directors determined the amount of supplementary installments on part-paid stocks and when these installments were paid. The Commercial Code and Corporate articles of association specified sanctions for nonpayment, giving companies the backing needed to call in supplementary installments. Supplementary installments functioned as a last resort for corporate fund-raising in times of financial distress and played a role in corporate cash management and investment. Studies of historical documents such as financial statements and company histories show that in the early 1930s of the Great Depression, in a time of tight financial markets, many companies raised funds through supplementary installments, applying these funds to make investments and repay debts. As part of our study, we construct a new corporate financial data set with data on supplementary installments encompassing 174 firms, based on the Mitsubishi Economic Research Institutefs Honpo Jigyo-Seiseki Bunseki (Performance analysis of Japanese companies) and Toyo Keizaifs Kabushiki Gaisha Nenkan ( Company Year Book) and estimate cross-sectional investment functions for the fiscal year of 1932. Regression results suggest that while corporate investments were subject to liquidity and debt constraints, supplementary installments stabilized corporate cash management and promoted corporate investment activities.part-paid stock, joint-stock company, corporate finance, investment, financial system, interwar period, Great Depression

Software Defined Media: Virtualization of Audio-Visual Services

Internet-native audio-visual services are witnessing rapid development. Among these services, object-based audio-visual services are gaining importance. In 2014, we established the Software Defined Media (SDM) consortium to target new research areas and markets involving object-based digital media and Internet-by-design audio-visual environments. In this paper, we introduce the SDM architecture that virtualizes networked audio-visual services along with the development of smart buildings and smart cities using Internet of Things (IoT) devices and smart building facilities. Moreover, we design the SDM architecture as a layered architecture to promote the development of innovative applications on the basis of rapid advancements in software-defined networking (SDN). Then, we implement a prototype system based on the architecture, present the system at an exhibition, and provide it as an SDM API to application developers at hackathons. Various types of applications are developed using the API at these events. An evaluation of SDM API access shows that the prototype SDM platform effectively provides 3D audio reproducibility and interactiveness for SDM applications.Comment: IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC2017), Paris, France, 21-25 May 201

Endoscopic Resection of Zenker's Diverticulum

We report an endoscopically assisted total diverticulectomy for Zenker's diverticulum. Skin incisions were made at the anterior axillary line, the center of the sternum, and the neck as portals for endoscopical instruments. The skin was retracted with hooks which provided an excellent view of the working space. The diverticulum was fully exposed and resected by using a multifire endoscopic stapler. This approach is minimally invasive in comparison with the conventional open cervical approach

Preheating of the nonminimally coupled inflaton field

We investigate preheating of an inflaton field $\phi$ coupled nonminimally to a spacetime curvature. In the case of a self-coupling inflaton potential $V(\phi)=\lambda \phi^4/4$, the dynamics of preheating changes by the effect of the negative $\xi$. We find that the nonminimal coupling works in two ways. First, since the initial value of inflaton field for reheating becomes smaller with the increase of $|\xi|$, the evolution of the inflaton quanta is delayed for fixed $\lambda$. Second, the oscillation of the inflaton field is modified and the nonadiabatic change around $\phi=0$ occurs significantly. That makes the resonant band of the fluctuation field wider. Especially for strong coupling regimes $|\xi| \gg 1$, the growth of the inflaton flutuation is dominated by the resonance due to the nonminimal coupling, which leads to the significant enhancement of low momentum modes. Although the final variance of the inflaton fluctuation does notchange significantly compared with the minimally coupled case, we have found that the energy transfer from the homogeneous inflaton to created particles efficiently occurs for $\xi<-60$.Comment: 13pages, 11figure

CRYSTAL GROWTH OF RARE EARTH COMPOUNDS IN CLOSED SYSTEM

Remarkable improvements have been made on the crystal growth of rare earth pnictides and chalchogenides by the development of new growth technique and the construction of several new equipments for the crystal growth such as electron beam welding system of tungsten crucible provided with large glove box and vacuum HF furnace. This system has really worked on obtaining excellent quality of single crystals and made easier to explore unknown materials of rare earth compounds. Interesting and attractive physical properties of these compounds were obtained from the crystals produced by this system and contributed to extend a new scope of the heavy Fermion physics

Resonant particle production with non-minimally coupled scalar fields in preheating after inflation

We investigate a resonant particle production of a scalar field $\chi$ coupled non-minimally to a spacetime curvature $R$ ($\xi R \chi^2$) as well as to an inflaton field $\phi$ ($g^2\phi^2\chi^2$). In the case of $g < 3 \times 10^{-4}$, $\xi$ effect assists $g$-resonance in certain parameter regimes. However, for $g > 3 \times 10^{-4}$, $g$-resonance is not enhanced by $\xi$ effect because of $\xi$ suppression effect as well as a back reaction effect. If $\xi \approx -4$, the maximal fluctuation of produced $\chi$-particle is $\sqrt{}_{max} \approx 2 \times 10^{17}$ GeV for $g < 1 \times 10^{-5}$, which is larger than the minimally coupled case with $g \approx 1 \times 10^{-3}$.Comment: 33pages, 12figures. to appear in Physical Review

Colossal Magnetoresistant Materials: The Key Role of Phase Separation

The study of the manganese oxides, widely known as manganites, that exhibit the ``Colossal'' Magnetoresistance (CMR) effect is among the main areas of research within the area of Strongly Correlated Electrons. After considerable theoretical effort in recent years, mainly guided by computational and mean-field studies of realistic models, considerable progress has been achieved in understanding the curious properties of these compounds. These recent studies suggest that the ground states of manganite models tend to be intrinsically inhomogeneous due to the presence of strong tendencies toward phase separation, typically involving ferromagnetic metallic and antiferromagnetic charge and orbital ordered insulating domains. Calculations of the resistivity versus temperature using mixed states lead to a good agreement with experiments. The mixed-phase tendencies have two origins: (i) electronic phase separation between phases with different densities that lead to nanometer scale coexisting clusters, and (ii) disorder-induced phase separation with percolative characteristics between equal-density phases, driven by disorder near first-order metal-insulator transitions. The coexisting clusters in the latter can be as large as a micrometer in size. It is argued that a large variety of experiments reviewed in detail here contain results compatible with the theoretical predictions. It is concluded that manganites reveal such a wide variety of interesting physical phenomena that their detailed study is quite important for progress in the field of Correlated Electrons.Comment: 76 pages, 21 PNG files with figures. To appear in Physics Report

Time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography reveals early structural changes in channelrhodopsin

X線自由電子レーザーを用いて、光照射によるチャネルロドプシンの構造変化の過程を捉えることに成功. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-03-26.Channelrhodopsins (ChRs) are microbial light-gated ion channels utilized in optogenetics to control neural activity with light . Light absorption causes retinal chromophore isomerization and subsequent protein conformational changes visualized as optically distinguished intermediates, coupled with channel opening and closing. However, the detailed molecular events underlying channel gating remain unknown. We performed time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallographic analyses of ChR by using an X-ray free electron laser, which revealed conformational changes following photoactivation. The isomerized retinal adopts a twisted conformation and shifts toward the putative internal proton donor residues, consequently inducing an outward shift of TM3, as well as a local deformation in TM7. These early conformational changes in the pore-forming helices should be the triggers that lead to opening of the ion conducting pore

Alzheimer random walk

Using the Monte Carlo simulation, we investigate a memory-impaired self-avoiding walk on a square lattice in which a random walker marks each of sites visited with a given probability p and makes a random walk avoiding the marked sites. Namely, p = 0 and p = 1 correspond to the simple random walk and the self-avoiding walk, respectively. When p> 0, there is a finite probability that the walker is trapped. We show that the trap time distribution can well be fitted by Stacy’s Weibull distribution \hbox{$b\left(\frac{a}{b}\right)^{\frac{a+1}{b}}[\Gamma(\frac{a+1}{b})]^{-1}x^a\exp\left(-\frac{a}{b}x^b\right)$} where a and b are fitting parameters depending on p. We also find that the mean trap time diverges at p = 0 as ~p− α with α = 1.89. In order to produce sufficient number of long walks, we exploit the pivot algorithm and obtain the mean square displacement and its Flory exponent ν(p) as functions of p. We find that the exponent determined for 1000 step walks interpolates both limits ν(0) for the simple random walk and ν(1) for the self-avoiding walk as [ ν(p) − ν(0) ] / [ ν(1) − ν(0) ] = pβ with β = 0.388 when p ≪ 0.1 and β = 0.0822 when p ≫ 0.1