Local content protection reconsidered: the case of domestic monopsonist

In this paper we examine how local content protection (LCP) affects the use of the domestic intermediates, the use of total intermediates and the domestic welfare when domestic intermediate-goods market is under monopsony. In the domestic intermediate-goods market under monopsony, the marginal expenditure cost (MEC) of using domestic intermediates has a discontinuous segment because the average expenditure cost (AEC) is a kinked curve. It is shown that there exists a case where because of the discontinuity of the marginal expenditure cost, LCP has no effect on the use of domestic intermediates and has a negative impact on the domestic final-goods producer. This paper provides a summary of the general effects of LCP on the domestic intermediate-goods market under monopsony in terms of resource allocations and the domestic welfare. Moreover, the effects of LCP under monopsony are compared with the case under perfect competition and under free trade.

How Effective are Emission Taxes in an Open Economy?

This paper compares emission taxes with other taxes from the viewpoint of emission reduction in an open economy. Using a simple monopoly model, we show that emission taxes may not be very effective to protect environment because of the spillover effects between markets stemming from non-constant marginal costs and transboundary externalities. Other taxes such as production taxes and tariffs are more effective under certain conditions. Thus, an easy application of emission taxes should be discreet in the open economy framework.

SPADExp: A photoemission angular distribution simulator directly linked to first-principles calculations

We develop a software package SPADExp (simulator of photoemission angular distribution for experiments) to calculate the photoemission angular distribution (PAD), which is the momentum dependence of spectrum intensity in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). The software can directly load the output of the first-principles software package OpenMX, so users do not need to construct tight-binding models as previous studies did for PAD calculations. As a result, we can calculate the PADs of large systems such as quasicrystals and slab systems. We calculate the PADs of sublattice systems (graphene and graphite) to reproduce characteristic intensity distributions, which ARPES has experimentally observed. After that, we investigate twisted bilayer graphene, a quasicrystal showing 12-fold rotational symmetric spectra in ARPES, and the surface states of the topological insulator $\mathrm{Bi}_2\mathrm{Se}_3$. Our calculations show good agreement with previous ARPES measurements, showing the correctness of our calculation software and further potential to investigate the photoemission spectra of novel quantum materials.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, Software has been developed in https://github.com/Hiroaki-Tanaka-0606/SPADEx

Computer-aided diagnosis of lung nodule using gradient tree boosting and Bayesian optimization

We aimed to evaluate computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) system for lung nodule classification focusing on (i) usefulness of gradient tree boosting (XGBoost) and (ii) effectiveness of parameter optimization using Bayesian optimization (Tree Parzen Estimator, TPE) and random search. 99 lung nodules (62 lung cancers and 37 benign lung nodules) were included from public databases of CT images. A variant of local binary pattern was used for calculating feature vectors. Support vector machine (SVM) or XGBoost was trained using the feature vectors and their labels. TPE or random search was used for parameter optimization of SVM and XGBoost. Leave-one-out cross-validation was used for optimizing and evaluating the performance of our CADx system. Performance was evaluated using area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operating characteristic analysis. AUC was calculated 10 times, and its average was obtained. The best averaged AUC of SVM and XGBoost were 0.850 and 0.896, respectively; both were obtained using TPE. XGBoost was generally superior to SVM. Optimal parameters for achieving high AUC were obtained with fewer numbers of trials when using TPE, compared with random search. In conclusion, XGBoost was better than SVM for classifying lung nodules. TPE was more efficient than random search for parameter optimization.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figure

Method to Develop Pseudo Three-dimensional Dental Image from Dental Panoramic Radiograph

Although three-dimensional imaging can be a powerful tool for dentists to explain treatments to patients, obtaining of three-dimensional image of teeth in general dental clinics is difficult. This paper proposed a method to develop pseudo three-dimensional dental image from conventional dental panoramic radiograph and dental impression. The method estimates imaging parameters of given panoramic radiograph through comparison with dental cast, and re-projects the radiograph into three-dimensional space. The developed pseudo three-dimensional image gives clear impression of the patient’s dental condition

Study of Sharing Patient Information by Nurses Between Inpatient and Outpatient Wards in Japan

Studies in Health Technology and Informatics Volume 284Shortening hospital stays increases communication needs between nurses in inpatient and outpatient wards. Smooth information sharing is required to reduce the workload of nurses and improve the quality of patient care. However, electronic medical records (EMR) system does not have sufficient functions to support information sharing between wards, because EMR has been developed mainly for recording. This study led to three improvements; unified communication tool, common patient list linked to EMR, and outpatient nursing diagnosis

Association between the size of healthcare facilities and the intensity of hypertension therapy: a cross-sectional comparison of prescription data from insurance claims data

Hypertension is a heterogeneous disease for which role sharing in treatment between specialized facilities and small clinics is needed for efficient healthcare provision. However, the Japanese healthcare system has a "free access" attribute; therefore, nobody can control treatment resource allocation. We aimed to describe the current situation of role sharing by comparing antihypertensive therapies among different types of medical facilities. We analyzed 1% sampled Japanese medical insurance claims data related to outpatient care as of October 2014. We divided the target patients into four groups according to the size of the facilities that issued the insurance claim for them. Among these groups, we compared the number of antihypertensive drugs and proportion of difficult-to-treat hypertensive cases and performed a stratified analysis. The proportion of patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus receiving renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system inhibitors (RAASis) as the first-choice drug was also compared. We identified 3465, 1797, 2323, and 34, 734 claims issued from large, medium-sized, small hospitals, and clinics, respectively. The mean number of hypertensive drugs was 1.96, 1.87, 1.81, and 1.69, respectively, and the proportion of difficult-to-treat hypertensive cases was 18.9, 17.0, 14.3, and 12.0%, respectively, with both showing significant differences. Stratified analysis showed similar results. The proportion of patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus receiving RAASis as the first-choice drug was higher in large hospitals than in clinics. In conclusion, facility size is positively associated with the number of antihypertensive drugs and proportions of difficult-to-treat hypertensive cases. This finding describes the current role sharing situation of hypertension therapy in the Japanese healthcare system with a "free-access" attribute

Visualizing the Cascade Effect of Redesigning Features in an EMR System

Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems are complex systems with interdependent features. Redesigning one feature of the system can create a cascade effect affecting the other features. By calculating the cascade effect, the designers can understand how each individual feature could be affected. This understanding allows them to maximize the positive effects and avoid negative consequences of their redesign activities. To understand the cascade effect, the designers can look at their computations’ results; a task that becomes more difficult when the number of features grows. To reduce their task load, we propose a tool for visualizing the cascade effect of redesigning features in an EMR system. Our preliminary evaluation with six graduate students shows that visualizing the cascade effect reduces the task load and slightly improves their performance when analyzing the cascade effect. Ways for improving the tool include (i) showing the computation results within the visualization, and (ii) allowing the designers to compare the cascade effect generated by redesigning different features

Development of a system for the assessment of a dual-task performance based on a motion-capture device

The authors produced a dual task (DT) that provided a dynamic balance task and a cognitive task in a game system using motion sensors and virtual images. There had been no DT where a cognitive task needs a dynamic balance task that requires full-body motions. We developed and evaluated a game system to assess the performance of the DT. The DT was to solve a Sudoku puzzle using full-body motions like Tái Chi. An ability to perform a DT is intimately related to risk of falls. To evaluate the developed system, we compared the performance of elderly people and young people. Generally, elderly people are at a higher risk of falls. Twenty elderly community-dwelling adults (mean age, 73.0±6.2 years) and 16 young adults (mean age, 21.8±1.0 years) participated in this study. To compare the two groups, we applied an independent-samples t-test. The time taken for the elderly people was 60.6±43.2 s, whereas the time taken for the young people was 16.0±4.8 s. The difference is statistically significant (p<0.05). This result suggests that the developed game system is useful for the evaluation of the DT performance