An Urban Economic Model over a Continuous Plane with Spatial Characteristic Vector Field - Consideration of Heterogeneous Geographical Conditions -

Among others Beckmann (1952) firstly introduced the concept of a two dimensional continuous space into economics. This great step had unfortunately not shown further expansion in economics. Through several papers related to Beckmann's initiation, Beckmann and Puu (1985) at last reached a systematic treatment of the continuous spatial economics. Although their achievement is fascinated by employing a partial differential equations approach, Beckmann's original philosophy, that is, the gradient law has still been inherited. Following their achievement, Puu (2003) alone developed their theory by using many computer simulations to visually show the significance of their theory. Beckmann and Puu's book (1985) aims to study formation of urban configuration in a two dimensional continuous space, focusing on flows of commodities. However, consideration of households and firms location is not necessarily sufficient, resulting in reconsideration from a new urban economics point of view. As another exceptional urban economic study of a plane city, Lucus and Rossi-Hansberg (2002) is pointed out. They were inspired by Fujita and Ogawa (1982), and indicate endogenous land use pattern over a plane city. However they neglect commodity market to simplify the analysis. Well discussion about formation of urban configuration is summarized in Anas, Arnott, and Small (1998). Differing from Beckmann and Puu's studies, Miyata (2010) introduces bid rent functions (Fujita (1989)), which are familiar in the new urban economics, for land of households and firms, and then it studies how the results of Beckmann and Puu are rigorously modified by using the theory of partial differential equations (Courant and Hilbert (1953, 1962). However Miyata (2010) deals with a symmetric equilibrium which seems to be a little unrealistic. This article extends the author's previous study introducing spatial characteristic vector field in the model which stands for heterogeneity in geographical conditions in a city, and try to show asymmetry in land use pattern and endogenous formation of transport networks in a two dimensional continuous space.

A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Electric Vehicle Society in Toyohashi City, Japan

Since the industrialization, the appearance of cities has been enhancing great changes of people's lives by mass production and mass consumption. Because of the human society has been developing through industrialization and urbanization, many environmental problems, such as Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, waste generation have been occurring as well. Thus, city planners and urban policy makers look forward for designing a compact city to attain a sustainable urban system. Because the form of compact city contributes to improve harmful effects of urban sprawl and offers us many benefits, such as less car dependency thus lower emissions, reduce energy consumption, etc. An influential study in 'Cities and Automobile Dependence: An International Sourcebook, 1989' by Peter Newman and Jeff Kenworthy show that the denser urban areas in the developed countries have a greater mixture of land use and lower car dependency, thus trends to lower energy consumption and emissions. However, the suburban cities in the developed countries have a common trend of high car dependency, thus increasing energy consumption and emissions. Thus, in order to reduce GHG (especial focus on CO2) emissions from the suburban areas, this research takes vehicle as subject and is dedicated to introduce an electric vehicle and the low-carbon society. The great advantage of electric vehicles will be to reduce CO2 emissions, but only when the electric automobiles are powered by natural energy, like solar power. If EVs are powered by the electricity generated from coal, gas, petroleum etc., there will be no significant impact for reducing CO2 emissions. Thus, solar energy comes first to our mind to reduce CO2 emissions. We set Toyohashi City as the study region and apply a static computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze the economic impact of realization of electric automobile oriented society in Toyohashi City. Our model will show us how large the economic impact of spread of electric automobiles is, and will offer us a new industrial structure in a Low Carbon Society (LCS) in the world. And this model could be easily extended in other areas of Japan and in other countries to reduce GHG emissions and energy consumption. Keywords: Electric Vehicle (EV), Green House Gas, Low-Carbon Society.

Economic Impacts of a New Road Network in San-En Region, Japan: A Spatial Computable General Equilibrium Model

In this paper, we aim to evaluate impacts of a new road network on the regional economy in San-en, Japan. San-en area is a boundary region between Aichi and Shizuoka Prefectures where the industrial sector is concentrated. The regional economy in San-en strongly depends on the regional transportation networks. Recently, a new road construction is planned in the region. The efficiency of road investment is expected for the regional economy. We construct a spatial computable general equilibrium model to evaluate the border economy. The spatial economic impacts of a new road construction are analyzed by the numerical simulation under several scenarios.

Measuring the Economic Impact of a Road Construction Project in an Area in Japan - A Simplified Spatial Computable General Equilibrium Modeling Approach -

The study region named San-En-Nanshin region (includes Aichi, part of Nagano and Shizuoka prefecture) is considered as a model of integrated dispersed regions and taken into the National Comprehensive Development Plan of Japanese government under Regional Revitalization Project. A large scale expressway connecting north and south named San-En-Nanshin Expressway is under construction in the study region. It is expected that with the completion of the expressway, the trade, production and consumption pattern of the region will significantly be changed. Therefore this research idea is to develop a model and to test empirically the impact of distance/ commuting time after construction of San-En-Nanshin Expressway upon firm's profit maximization and households' utility maximization behavior in San-En-Nanshin region. The research aims to draw an outline of a new integrated prefectural cross-border economic model of transport, land choice and the economy at firm and household level. In later parts, this research also intends to draw the location choice behavior and corresponding market equilibrium conditions based on transportation demand. As the results, combining this model and the short cut method for the evaluation of economic benefit of a transportation project under the general equilibrium framework, the total annual benefit after construction of San-En-Nanshin Expressway was estimated as 24.3 billion yen, at which 6.3 billion yen for business objective and 18 billion yen for leisure objective. The economic impact of San-En-Nanshin Expressway on Hamamatsu, Nanshin is largest as about 9.7 billion yen. Mito, Otawa, Ichinomiya, Tsukude get little impact. The total project cost of San-En-Nanshin Expressway is estimated as 500 billion yen or 1 trillion yen. If the project cost is about 500 billion yen, the construction of San-En-Nanshin Expressway passes the cost benefit criteria. In case of project cost of 1 trillion yen, this project is rejected under the cost-benefit principle. In this case, one must consider the way of increasing the benefit of the expressway by promotion of economic resource endowment in the sense of quality.

The Satb1 Protein Directs Hematopoietic Stem Cell Differentiation toward Lymphoid Lineages

SummaryHow hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) produce particular lineages is insufficiently understood. We searched for key factors that direct HSC to lymphopoiesis. Comparing gene expression profiles for HSCs and early lymphoid progenitors revealed that Satb1, a global chromatin regulator, was markedly induced with lymphoid lineage specification. HSCs from Satb1-deficient mice were defective in lymphopoietic activity in culture and failed to reconstitute T lymphopoiesis in wild-type recipients. Furthermore, Satb1 transduction of HSCs and embryonic stem cells robustly promoted their differentiation toward lymphocytes. Whereas genes that encode Ikaros, E2A, and Notch1 were unaffected, many genes involved in lineage decisions were regulated by Satb1. Satb1 expression was reduced in aged HSCs with compromised lymphopoietic potential, but forced Satb1 expression partly restored that potential. Thus, Satb1 governs the initiating process central to the replenishing of lymphoid lineages. Such activity in lymphoid cell generation may be of clinical importance and useful to overcome immunosenescence