Dynamic motion and stability on p-tert-butyl-calix[4]arene is investigated. Three kinds of simulation programs are adopted to clarify various aspect of the Calix[4]arene. Using AMBER parameters, the structure of single Calix[4]arene is found to be not stable, and behave like a butterfly. Using THINKER, it is found that several stable structures are possible in case of more than two Calix[4]arenes. Owing to the attraction of OH-base, they can make layer structure, and also line in a inclined direction. Using DS-POLY, the inclusion energy given by Alavi et al. is reproduced by our simulation in 2x2x2 unit cells.

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Although advanced information technologies provide useful information to medical service workers, the workers in medical workplaces are offered no easy opportunities for enhancing relationships for the exchange of medical information. One reason for this is that it is difficult to find optimal relationships when a number of medical service workers are involved. In this article, we specifically focus on density analysis of medical service teams where medical service workers are connected via their medical work-related values. We apply a DNA computing method as a profound method by which to find optimal relationships for medical communications. The results of the density analysis show how efficient a DNA computing method approach can be in building a reinforced medical network system.

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For the exclusion of bad smell around a bedside, theoretical researches have been attempted. A simulated calculation of the air streams is solved based on two dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. Effects of the shape of the mouth of exhaust pipe are investigated for various cases. For each case, the flows of the air around the bed are visualized by flow vectors, and the change in the flow vectors is investigated. It is concluded that a design to get a large effect is possible. Cyclic system of the current which blows air from the outlet should be considered for one important candidate.

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In respect to the molecular targeting DDS, the interaction between cell tissue interface and nano-particle is quite important. DPD method is applied to the analysis of interaction between lipid bilayer and nano-particle. The DPD method can reproduce the lipid bilayer as almost same level as molecular dynamics simulation. According to the investigation on the effect of nano-particle movement, the control of the interaction duration between hydrophilic part and hydrophobic part is quite important to avoid the break-up or disturbance of lipid bilayer due to the nano-particle movement.

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The application of the Metropolis Monte Carlo method to the optimization of the repulsion parameter in Dissipative Particle Dynamics (DPD) simulation of nano-particle coated with dextran particle which is a contrast agent for MR and will be applied as a carrier in Drug Delivery System was discussed. In the method where several molecules are included in one DPD bead, conventional procedure doesn't give adequate interaction parameters. By using the alternative parameters based on proposed modified sampling method, corresponding simulation gave more proper results reproducing available experimental data.

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We proposed new basic theory and methods for quantum neurons and neuro-qunatum-circuits based on functional path integral of quantum theory. And then we concretely calculated probability amplitudes for quantum circuit and slit which have interferences and tunnel effects. We give operator expressions of switches and their circuits, and the diagrams of those systems correspond to potentials of Hamiltonian. Finally, we found that AND-circuit is represented by second order of perturbation, and OR-circuit looks upon as two particles scattering system We showed it is useful to design and to make tests for new quantum system and computers.

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Social factors potentially impacting the Japanese divorce rate were analyzed using multiple regression methods for prefectural social sanitary statistics obtained in 2003. The dependent variable was the social factors related to the Japanese divorce rate. The explanatory variables were divided into five categories, which were home ownership, economic status, social life, culture and physical geographical condition. Thirty elements were chosen from those five categories. These variables were confirmed to fit a normal distribution. Subsequently, a stepwise selection method allowed exclusion of multicollinearity from the regression models. Ultimately, multiple regression models containing explanatory variables were obtained. The main divorce promoting factors were found to be unemployment, dual career family, nuclear family, and savings. On the other hands, divorce retardation factors were found to be academic achievement and home ownership. Politics of home ownership was more effects than that of the increasing workfare facility for working youth & women's, which could be automatically compensated by the other politics.

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Microscopic interactions between particles and tissue elements were investigated to predict biological phenomena in the cell response by the energy transfer. Calculated results were demonstrated on cross sections and energy-angular distributions of secondary particle productions. The flux of terrestrial neutrons was also investigated for a study of the error rate of an implantable device.

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Risk management of medical accident is important to attain better "fabric administration", "Accident correspondence", and "field management". We performed an investigation for actual medical accidents cases. We classified the medical accidents into four factors by using cluster analysis and regression analysis. As a result, rates of malpractices caused by "Carelessness group" had about 49%, Which has much influence on maintaining for our quality of medical cares. We used analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and, from this result, determined strategy of prevention for "the accidents with various medical apparatus". As a result, most effective correspondence was "enlightenment education" and the next was "emergency measure", and then the third was "detailed research". We got the result that these plans are the most effective countermeasures. The AHP analysis countermeasure was thought to be useful tools in all in medical scene.

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A coding system by measuring the maximum and minimum of the filtered waveform has been developed by using a thread on a single processor system of the PC/AT compatible computer. The performance of the system has been modeled on the human short-term sensory memory, which preserves the acoustic trace for 200-300 ms, and thus the length of a ring buffer for the temporal store was determined. Because we were convinced that the latency of the file access had a critical influence on the deviation of the processing time under a multitask operating system, the frequency of saving the extremal data was limited to every sixteen blocks out of a ring buffer, which comprised a total of thirty-two blocks or 32 by 16,384 bytes for temporal use. Use of a thread has been promoted to realize processing of the 6-channel filter-bank and the extremal sampling at a bandwidth of 80-5, 120 Hz in accordance with the previous study, recording sound at a rate of 44.1 kHz. We have completed the multipurpose transcription system for the analysis of the acoustic structure, making the first step toward the construction of artificial intelligence.

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The use of a room has been visualized for a series of seven days based on the measurement of sound. Although sneaking in and out of a room was difficult to measure with an index of the sound pressure, daily activities including such a sneaking action could be detected by acquiring the rapid change of the higher harmonic components of sound, superimposed on the slow-varying noise under the acoustic circumstances. Because the higher spectral components are associated with the number of the maximum and minimum of the filtered data, the extremal sampler developed in the previous study has been utilized for monitoring daily noise. The number of extrema is dependent of the acoustic environment, so that the size of the extremal files varied from less than 30% on weekdays to less than 20% over the weekend, as compared with that of conventional recording. The author suggests that the proposed recording at a bandwidth of 80-5, 120 Hz could search for a sign of activities in a large amount of the worthless noise for home security use.

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The purpose of our study is to evaluate the quality of synthesized speech by measuring the mismatch negativity (MMN) of the event-related potentials (ERPs). The plosive consonant-vowel (CV) pair /ki/ was sinusoidally interpolated using two kinds of extrema. One was exact acquisition in the filtered speech with a passing bandwidth of one octave and a sampling frequency of 1 MHz, and another was the substitution with both the phase and quantization errors in the corresponding data at a low rate of 44.1 kHz. Subjects were presented with a repetitive stimulus of a conventional recording /ki/, randomly replaced at a 14.3% probability by a deviant stimulus. As compared with the MMN amplitude when presenting another plosive syllable /tsu/ for the deviant stimulus, the absolute value of MMN is significantly reduced by 2.63/μV at the left central site (C3) and by 2.31μV at the right (C4) when using the exact synthesis, and by 1.62μV at C3 and 1.98μV at C4 when using the substituted one. These results have been interpreted as the evidence, in which the synthesized speech was phonetically equivalent to conventional recording.

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The aim of this study is to estimate the maximum and minimum data of the 10-channel music waveforms, each of which contains the spectro-temporal information with a pass-band of one octave at a conventional rate of 44.1 kHz. The least-squares estimation by using a parabola function has approximated the upper or lower half of a period of the filtered waveform, so that 88.1% of the extrema measured in advance has significantly reduced phase error at a bandwidth of channels 3 to 9 (80-10,240 Hz) and also the quantization error for channels 7, 8 and 9 (2,560-10240 Hz). Because the small amplitude for 9.44% of the measured extrema is the primary impediment to the estimation, the neighboring data series around the peaks and/or valleys of the narrow-hand waveform is locally regarded as a simple and symmetric structure, which is supported by the auto-regression (AR) process. It is suggested that the appearance of the extrema in the filtered waveform is plausibly predictable in the human auditory system, and the extremal information plays a key role in encoding the acoustic structure, i.e., the phase-lock discharge in the acoustic nerve.

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Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a very convenient technique to stimulate the central nervous system noninvasively, almost painlessly. The repetitive TMS (rTMS) has developed for many years and many studies about the antidepressant effect of rTMS have been performed. And it has recently been licensed in some countries for the treatment of depression. Furthermore, rTMS has been applied for other psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and manic state. Nevertheless, it remains unclear that rTMS is conclusively effective in treating depression. This might be the reason why it has not yet become common tool for the treatment of depressive disorder in Japan. In this study, we performed clinical trials of high-frequency rTMS (20 Hz) for the treatment of refractory depression. We also measured plasma levels of catecholamine metabolites and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to clarify the mechanism of the action of rTMS in the treatment of depression. Twenty-six depressed patients who met the DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder participated in this study. Eleven were male, fifteen female. All patients were given left prefrontal 20 Hz rTMS at 80% motor threshold (MT) over ten daily sessions. The mean 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (Ham-D) score of 20.5±5.2 before rTMS decreased significantly to 15.6±7.3 after rTMS. Nine of 26 patients demonstrated some improvement (Ham-D≥25%) after rTMS. The levels of plasma MHPG were significantly reduced after rTMS treatment, and it was observed that the change in plasma MHPG levels had a negative correlation with the change in scores of agitation. Furthermore the plasma levels of BDNF were significantly increased in responders andpartial responders, but not in nonresponders, after rTMS treatment. These results suggest that rTMS treatment brings about some improvement in refractory depression, especially in depression with symptoms such as agitation.

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In this paper, we propose a new human-machine interface for manipulating 3-D contents in a display. Motions of a hand or both hands of a user are taken images by a simple USB camera. The motions are recognized by a PC and transformed into corresponding instructions such as translation, rotation and scaling. In addition, unintentional movement and unconscious movement are eliminated in the method and smoother operation is realized. The result of the manipulation is displayed in the screen. Experiments were performed using Google Earth and 3-D CG contents, and the proposed system successfully manipulated its rotation and scaling by some hand motions of the user.

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This paper aims to compare brain activities under different-contrast visual stimuli through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The stimuli were four kinds of Landolt rings, each ring having a different gap in the position of the circle. Twelve subjects were recruited, and the subjects with prism glasses lay on their back and alternately carried out two tasks in an fMRI measurement. In task A, the subject saw visual stimuli and sometimes pushed a certain button according to arbitrary timing. In task B, the subject gazed at the stimuli, and quickly pushed a button when a target stimulus was presented. In the group activation maps in response to task B versus task A, left occipital gyrus (BA17, 18) at high-contrast stimuli, and superior parietal lobule (BA7) and prefrontal cortex at low-contrast stimuli were activated. This result indicates that the difference of visibility affects the alteration of brain activity.

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The establishment of smooth breastfeeding decreases the stress experienced by new mothers. Therefore, to elucidate the physiological factors related to the establishment of smooth breastfeeding, we examined the body temperatures, sleep-wakefulness cycles and feeding abilities of 56 full-term neonates. Feeding ability scores were derived from a combination off eeding states, feeding rates and suckling frequencies. Neonates were awake for a cycle of approximately 40 min and were in non-REM sleep for about 70 min. REM sleep emerged as the predominant form of sleep; however, the cycle was difficult to discriminate. The thoracic core temperature remained nearly constant at approximately 3 7℃ during both sleep and wakefulness. The plantar subcutaneous temperature reached its lowest point at the period close to feeding and its highest point during non-REM sleep after feeding. Neonates with a peak plantar temperature less than 35℃ showed REM sleep or wakefulness and a relatively low feeding ability score, whereas neonates with a peak temperature in the range of 35-37℃ showed non-REM sleep and high feeding ability scores. There was a significant positive correlation between the maximum plantar temperature and the feeding ability score and a significant negative correlation between maximum plantar temperature and the level of consciousness. Thus, neonates with higher plantar temperatures had a tendency to have a higher feeding ability and a capacity for entering into non-REM sleep.

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