Revenue Strategies and Financial Viability for Emerging Nonprofit Sector in Japan:Commercialization or Diversification?

The issues establishing stable autonomous revenue and securing diverse financial sources stand in opposition for the nonprofit sector, and it is more difficult problem in the emerging nonprofit sector of Japan. However, the nonprofit organizations need to manage both conditions compatibly. We examine the relations of revenue structure and financial viability using the Financial Database of NPO Corporations in Japan. In this paper the size of total expense is used as a proxy variable of the short-term financial viability, and the equity size relative to total revenue is considered as the long-term financial viability. Our empirical results show that it is important to acquire diverse financial sources such as donations and membership fees in order to improve financially viable in the long-term, while increasing commercial revenues work effectively to the short-term financial viability. Thus, the nonprofit organizations in Japan concurrently need to seek two crucial revenue strategies, the commercial revenue expansion for immediate survival and the revenue diversification for future innovation.This work was supported partially by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number (25380486), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)

Consumer Policy and Market Norms: Routes of socioeconomic development abstracted from literature concerning consumer fraud and product safety (Japanese)

In recent years, the evaluation of the public-private partnership (PPP) has been an important issue in discussions relating to public service reform. The increasing trend of an overwhelming number of public services being provided through the private sector lies in the government's traditional approach of outsourcing. Meanwhile, new methods of using the private sector such as the private finance initiative (PFI), the designated manager system, and market testing also draw attention, but it appears that the introduction of these methods into local governments is not always a smooth process. While an effort is being made to overcome the institutional restrictions and problems associated with the introduction of these initiatives, differing attitudes of local governments toward the promotion of PPPs seem to have a significant impact. This paper aims to analyze and evaluate PPPs from an empirical perspective, looking at the public services that the government outsourced to private companies in various forms and then deriving policy implications. This paper consists of the following four studies: I. Factors for promoting PPP in local governments (YAMAUCHI Naoto, ISHIDA Yu, OKUYAMA Naoko) II. Does government spending trigger private contributions? (MATSUNAGA Yoshiho, OKUYAMA Naoko) III. Evaluation of PPPs in home-visit nursing care services (SUZUKI Wataru, HOTTA Satoko) IV. Outsourcing of waste collection and factors for its promotion (IWATA Kenji)

Latitudinal cline in the foraging dichotomy of loggerhead sea turtles reveals the importance of East China Sea for priority conservation

Special Issue: Biological traits, geographic distributions and species conservation in aquatic ecosystems[Aim]Quantifying the importance of habitat areas for conservation of highly migratory marine species with complex life histories can be challenging. For example loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) nesting in Japan forage both oceanically and neritically after their reproductive period. Here, we aimed to quantify the proportions of turtles using these two contrasting habitats (foraging dichotomy) to suggest priority conservation areas. [Location]North Pacific Ocean. [Methods]We examined the occurrence of foraging dichotomy at three nesting sites (Ishigaki, Okinoerabu Islands and Ichinomiya) based on stable isotope analysis of the egg yolks for 82 turtles and satellite tracking of post-nesting migration for 12 turtles. Moreover, we used the data of three other sites from previous studies (Yakushima Island, Minabe and Omaezaki). [Results]Two neritic foraging grounds (East China Sea and the coastal area of the Japanese archipelago), and an oceanic ground (North Pacific Ocean) were identified. We found a latitudinal cline with respect to the occurrence of foraging dichotomy; >84% of the females nesting at southern sites (Ishigaki and Okinoerabu Islands), 73% at middle sites (Yakushima Island and Minabe) and <46% at northern sites (Omaezaki and Ichinomiya) were neritic foragers; the proportion of oceanic foragers increased at northern sites. Based on the annual number of nests in the entire nesting region of Japan, satellite tracking and the latitudinal cline of foraging dichotomy, we estimated that 70% and 9% of annual nesting females in Japan utilize the neritic foraging habitat in the East China Sea and the coastal area of the Japanese archipelago, respectively, and that and 22% utilize the oceanic habitat of the North Pacific Ocean. [Main conclusions]The East China Sea represents a critical foraging habitat for the North Pacific populations of endangered loggerhead sea turtles. Our findings emphasize the need for international management to ensure their protection

A single nucleotide polymorphism in SPATA17 may be a genetic risk factor for Japanese patients with meiotic arrest

金沢大学医薬保健研究域医学系Genetic mechanisms have been implicated as a cause of some cases of male infertility. Recently, 10 novel genes involved in human spermatogenesis were identified by microarray analysis of human testicular tissue. One of these is spermatogenesis-associated 17 (SPATA17). To investigate whether defects in the SPATA17 gene are associated with azoospermia due to meiotic arrest, a mutational analysis was conducted, in which the SPATA17 coding regions of 18 Japanese patients with this condition were sequenced. A statistical analysis was carried out that included 18 patients with meiotic arrest, 20 patients with Sertoli-cell-only syndrome (SCOS) and 96 healthy control men. No mutations were found in SPATA17. However, three coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (cSNPs: SNP1-SNP3) were detected in the patients with meiotic arrest. No significant differences in the genotype or allele frequencies of SNP1 and SNP2 were found between patients with meiotic arrest and the others. However, the frequency of the SNP3 allele was significantly elevated in the meiotic arrest group (P < 0.05). This study suggests that SPATA17 may play a critical role in human spermatogenesis, especially in meiosis

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements