Under the growing awareness of the global environmental issues, the Japanese Government has been enacting various laws for energy saving and material recycling to promote the formation of environment-friendly society.The input-output analysis is a useful tool to examine economic structural problems concerning the economic growth, the industrial structure and the environment. Several researches have been conducted to identify the efficiency of resources and energy consumption of Japanese industries using input-output analysis. However, we have few researches on the relationship between the industrial structure and the resources and energy consumption in Japanese regions.The aim of this paper is to identify the trends in the industrial structure and the consumption of resources and energy in Japanese regions using Interregional input-output tables for the period 1975-1990. The relationships between the industrial structure and the efficiency of resources and energy consumption in Japanese regions are examined by calculating various coefficients and analytical methods on regional economic linkage; the induction coefficients for resources and energy supply sectors; the resources and energy induction coefficients; the interregional input-output analysis.The analysis of induction coefficients for resources and energy supply sectors for eight Japanese regions has revealed the efficient use of oil and coal materials had been achieved during 1975-1990. However, the other sectors, such as the mining, the electricity and the gas and water supply had not made much progress.The reduction of resources and energy induction coefficients in terms of input structure factors (i.e. technological improvements) and the structure of final demand had been proceeded throughout the study period. However, the efficiency deteriorated in a few regions and industrial sectors under the economic growth during the bubble economy period.The feedback effects for resources and energy supply sectors using interregional input-output model had been weakened in tertiary sector, whereas strengthened in the manufacturing industries in the eastern part of Japan. The regional disparities in terms of feedback effects for resources and energy supply sectors had been reduced in both manufacturing and tertiary sectors.
Recently the competition among retail activities has become severer in Japanese local regions. It is mainly due to the deregulation for large store locations and the changes in shopping behaviors of consumers. The decrease in small stores and the decline of shopping centers in the local cities have brought about the deterioration of living standard and the loss of economic vitality in surrounding areas. The rehabilitation of retail activities is now a key issue in Japanese city and regional planning.This paper aims to propose two analytical methods to examine the relationship between the accumulation of retail activities and the shopping behaviors in local municipalities. The first method decomposes the vitality of retail activities into four factors: the density of stores; the average size of stores; the average service ratio by the employee; and the labor productivity. The second method estimates the attractiveness of municipality as a shopping place by applying a linear regression model based on the Huff model.The methods have been applied to identify the trends in retail activities and shopping behaviors in 78 municipalities of Okayama prefecture. The study employs data from the Census of Commerce by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and the survey of shopping behavior of residents by the Okayama Economic Research Institute for the years 1991, 1994 and 1997.The main findings of the study have revealed that the vitality of retail activity had a close relationship with the average store size and the labor productivity. The result coincides with the rapid growth of large-scale shopping centers in local regions. The small stores and the conventional shopping centers in city centers have been reduced under the severe competition with large stores. The shopping behavior of local residents has been greatly influenced by the scale of retail activities in municipalities. The decline of retail activities in local regions might lead to the loss of shopping opportunities and the further depopulation through the deterioration of living standard.
Abstract Background New biomarkers are urgently needed to improve personalized treatment approaches for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Global DNA hypomethylation has wide-ranging functions in multistep carcinogenesis, and the hypomethylation of long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) has been generally considered to be related with increased retrotransposon activity and induced genome instability. However, little information is available regarding LINE-1 hypomethylation and its prognostic implications in HNSCC. Methods In this study, we analyzed LINE-1 hypomethylation levels in a well-characterized dataset of 317 matched pairs of HNSCC tissues and oral cavity cancer (OCC) circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) using quantitative real-time methylation and unmethylation PCR. This analysis was performed according to various clinical characteristics and prognostic implications. Results Our results demonstrated that LINE-1 hypomethylation levels were significantly higher in HNSCC tissues than in corresponding normal tissues from the same individuals (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed that high levels of LINE-1 hypomethylation were correlated with poor disease-free survival (DFS; log-rank test, P = 0.038), whereas multivariate analysis demonstrated that it is a significant independent prognostic factor for DFS (hazard ratio: 2.10, 95% confidence interval: 1.02–4.36; P = 0.045). Moreover, patients with high LINE-1 hypomethylation levels exhibited the greatest decrease in 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) levels and increase in tumor-suppressor gene methylation index (P = 0.006 and P < 0.001, respectively). Further ctDNA studies also showed that LINE-1 hypomethylation had high predictive ability for OCC. Conclusions LINE-1 hypomethylation is associated with a higher risk of early OCC relapse, and is hence, a potential predictive biomarker for OCC. Furthermore, 5-hmC levels also exhibited predictive potential in OCC, based on its inverse correlation with LINE-1 hypomethylation levels. LINE-1 hypomethylation analysis, therefore, has applications in determining patient prognosis and real-time surveillance for disease recurrence, and could serve as an alternative method for OCC screening.
In this article, we consider numerical schemes for polynomial diffusions on the unit ball, which are solutions of stochastic differential equations with a diffusion coefficient of the form $\sqrt{1-|x|^{2}}$. We introduce a semi-implicit Euler--Maruyama scheme with the projection onto the unit ball and provide the $L^{2}$-rate of convergence. The main idea to consider the numerical scheme is the transformation argument introduced by Swart for proving the pathwise uniqueness for some stochastic differential equation with a non-Lipschitz diffusion coefficient.
Abstract Background: New biomarkers are urgently needed to improve personalized treatment approaches for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Global DNA hypomethylation has wide-ranging functions in multistep carcinogenesis, and the hypomethylation of long interspersed nucleotide element-1 (LINE-1) has been generally considered to be related with increased retrotransposon activity and induced genome instability. However, little information is available regarding LINE-1 hypomethylation and its prognostic implications in HNSCC. Methods: In this study, we analyzed LINE-1 hypomethylation levels in a well-characterized dataset of 317 matched pairs of HNSCC tissues and oral cavity cancer (OCC) circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) using quantitative real-time methylation and unmethylation PCR. This analysis was performed according to various clinical characteristics and prognostic implications. Results: Our results demonstrated that LINE-1 hypomethylation levels were significantly higher in HNSCC tissues than in corresponding normal tissues from the same individuals (P < 0.001). Univariate analysis revealed that high levels of LINE-1 hypomethylation were correlated with poor disease-free survival (DFS; log-rank test, P = 0.038), whereas multivariate analysis demonstrated that it is a significant independent prognostic factor for DFS (hazard ratio: 2.10, 95% confidence interval: 1.02–4.36; P = 0.045). Moreover, patients with high LINE-1 hypomethylation levels exhibited the greatest decrease in 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) levels and increase in tumor-suppressor gene methylation index (P = 0.006 and P < 0.001, respectively). Further ctDNA studies also showed that LINE-1 hypomethylation had high predictive ability for OCC. Conclusions: LINE-1 hypomethylation is associated with a higher risk of early OCC relapse, and is hence, a potential predictive biomarker for OCC. Furthermore, 5-hmC levels also exhibited predictive potential in OCC, based on its inverse correlation with LINE-1 hypomethylation levels. LINE-1 hypomethylation analysis, therefore, has applications in determining patient prognosis and real-time surveillance for disease recurrence, and could serve as an alternative method for OCC screening.
