Production Networks in East Asia: What We Know So Far

Production networks in East Asia, particularly in the manufacturing and machinery industries, are well recognized as the most advanced in the world, in terms of their magnitude, extensiveness, and sophistication. This paper tries to link various economic studies on related topics, to see how much we understand about production networks in East Asia. After providing a brief overview of international trade statistics, the paper reviews a number of academic papers concerning (i) the structure and mechanics of production networks, (ii) the conditions for production networks, and (iii) the properties and implications thereof.fragmentation; agglomeration; vertical specialization; multinational enterprises; foreign direct investment

International Production Networks in Machinery Industries: Structure and Its Evolution

This paper intensively employs annual international trade statistics obtained from the UN Comtrade and examines to what degree East Asian countries have participated in global production networks in comparison with countries in other regions and whether East Asia’s intra-regional trade in machinery is different from extra-regional trade and transactions by other regions. It provides strong evidence of the formation of East Asian production networks, particularly in the form of expansion of exports and imports of parts & components, often ICT-related. It also traces the development of intra-regional markets of both parts & components and finished products since 2000.

On the Role of Technical Cooperation in International Technology Transfers

We investigate whether and how technical cooperation aid (TC) facilitates technological diffusion from developed to developing countries, comparing it with foreign direct investment (FDI) and external openness. Extending the model of Benhabib and Spiegel (2005), we estimate the degree to which these three channels contribute to countries total factor productivity (TFP) growth rates. Our econometric model also allows us to identify whether a country will catch up to or diverge from the technological leader nation over time. Two sets of robust findings emerge. First, TC, FDI and openness all contribute to facilitate international technology transfers. Yet, among these three channels, openness seems to contribute the most, followed by TC. Also, TC seems to compensate for the lack of sufficient human capital in developing countries. Second, around 6 to 17 countries out of 85 in our sample fail to catch up to the technological leader over the 36 years. These results suggest that TC can play an important role in facilitating the technological catch up of developing countries.

A Case Report of Lipid-Rich Carcinoma of the Breast Including Histological Characteristics and Intrinsic Subtype Profile

A 57-year-old Japanese woman with schizophrenia, who had received long-term treatment with neuroleptics, noticed a painless, pea-sized lump in her right breast. She was admitted to our hospital and a malignant tumor was diagnosed. The patient underwent a conservative radical mastectomy (Patey's operation). The excised tumor measured 2.0 × 1.2 × 1.1 cm in diameter, and its cut surface was grayish-white. Histologically, tumor cells with clear to foamy cytoplasm were invariably Oil Red O-positive and periodic acid Schiff-negative with or without diastase digestion. The tumor was diagnosed as a lipid-rich carcinoma accompanied by an in situ component. Neuroleptics increase serum prolactin levels by interfering with dopaminergic inhibition of prolactin secretion. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that, although prolactin was not detected, the tumor cells expressed prolactin receptor, indicating prolactin as the genesis of this neoplasm. In immunohistochemical intrinsic subtype analysis, the tumor was negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, human epidermal growth factor receptor 1 and 2, and basal cytokeratins (CK5, CK6, and CK14), indicating an unclassified (all-marker negative) subtype. Axillary lymph nodes were free of metastasis (stage I), and the patient has been well for 20 years without any evidence of recurrence

空港の渋滞解消に向けたイベントモデルの応用

九州大学応用力学研究所研究集会報告 No.20ME-S7 「非線形波動の数理と物理」RIAM Symposium No.20ME-S7 Mathematics and Physics in Nonlinear waves本稿では、イベント会場などの人の出入りがある場所における混雑状況をマクロに把握するためのツールとしてイベントモデルを提案する。さらにイベントモデルの拡張を行なって、拡張されたモデルの安定性・振動性を議論する。本モデルの数値シミュレーションと成田空港の入国審査場における計測の比較を行なう

Introduction of Frictional and Turning Function for Pedestrian Outflow with an Obstacle

In this paper, two important factors which affect the pedestrian outflow at a bottleneck significantly are studied in detail to analyze the effect of an obstacle set up in front of an exit. One is a conflict at an exit when pedestrians evacuate from a room. We use floor field model for simulating such behavior, which is a well-studied pedestrian model using cellular automata. The conflicts have been taken into account by the friction parameter. However, the friction parameter so far is a constant and does not depend on the number of the pedestrians conflicting at the same time. Thus, we have improved the friction parameter by the frictional function, which is a function of the number of the pedestrians involved in the conflict. Second, we have newly introduced the cost of turning of pedestrians at the exit. Since pedestrians have inertia, their walking speeds decrease when they turn, and the pedestrian outflow decreases. The validity of the extended model, which includes the frictional function and the turning function, is verified by both a mean field theory and experiments. In our experiments, the pedestrian flow increases when we put an obstacle in front of an exit. The analytical results clearly explains the mechanism of the effect of the obstacle, i.e., the obstacle blocks pedestrians moving to the exit and decreases the average number of pedestrians involved in the conflict. We have also found that an obstacle works more effectively when we shift it from the center since pedestrians go through the exit with less turning

Value of late gadolinium enhancement by magnetic resonance in patients with cardiac sarcoidosis: characteristic findings and clinical utility

73rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Japanese Circulation Society 2009年03月 Osak

The Yuu-yuu Health Circle as a Place for Learning and Playing

The Yuu-yuu Health Circle is a place for students to learn and deepen their understanding and interest by putting into practice the knowledge and skills they have gained in class at the university. This chapter introduces its maintenance and promotion activities for older adults in the community that were participated by students of the Departments of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy at Kinjo University before and during the coronavirus pandemic. The activity method and contents changed significantly during the pandemic. However, as a medical and welfare university, its job to develop human resources that deal with people has not changed. As an educational method toward such purpose, the activities helped students, who need to actively communicate with people of different ages and improve their interpersonal communication skills even during the pandemic