We conducted a fact-finding survey on lifestyles, nutrition, and sarcopenia in community-dwelling elderly residents. The objective was to obtain the basic data for developing health-support measures that would help elderly people live healthy and independent lives in their homes. In 120 elderly people 65 years of age or older who participated in a health checkup held at a regional commercial facility, a survey was conducted on lifestyle, nutrition, sarcopenia, and quality of life (QOL). Of all subjects, only 3 met the diagnostic criteria for sarcopenia. Most subjects were retired, while 70% of the subjects had healthy lifestyles and good nutritional status. Overall, QOL of the subjects was comparable to that of elderly people in the same age groups. Compared with men, fewer women exercised regularly. Even among the female subjects, very elderly women, those 75 years of age or older, walked significantly more slowly, showed lower physical measurements associated with physical activities, but had a higher body fat percentage than the women less than 75 years of age. For elderly people, It is important to perform activities inside and outside the home positively. Particularly for women 75 years of age or older, measures that help them build an exercise habit and increase physical activity are important.

Decline in quality of life(QOL) of nurses is a current issue.Decline in mental QOL, in particular ,may lead to incidents and accidents, and therefore,improvement of their QOL is desired.This study aimed to elucidate the factors affecting QOL of nurses working in hospitals,with a focus on resilience,which has been attracting attention in recent years as a psychological recovery force. A questionnaire survey on basic attributes,QOL(SF-8),and resilience was conducted for 454 nurses working at 10 medical facilities in the Kyushu area,and the association between parameters was investigated.The results showed that 337 subjects analyzed had mental and physical QOL scores lower than the national standard values, and their resilience scores were similar to those reported previously.When we examined factors affecting mental QOL by multiple regression analysis, social support and self-efficacy, which are subscales of resilience, and married two-shift workers were extracted.The results indicated that the mental QOL of nurses working in hospitals is affected by their own resilience.It was suggested that measures to improve resilience,such as continuously introducting training education for resilience improvement ,and support that achieves better work and family balance by considering shift works may potentially contribute to further improvement of QOL of nurses.

We developed a real-time rating method to track the emotionality of a stimulus using a touch panel display device. This study verified the validity and utility of this method by using International Affective Picture System (IAPS) as a criterion. The result indicated that rating value by the touch panel significantly correlates with the original score of IAPS. The response latency of the touch panel operation to the stimulus showed a similar tendency to that in the previous study that uses other user interface devices. Furthermore, we found that rating value by the touch panel needs approximately 3 seconds from the stimulus presentation to show a significant correlation with the original score of IAPS. These suggested that the real-time rating by the touch panel reflects subjective emotional content of at least still image stimulus.

Organization measures and improves intangible assets for sustainable development. TCI (Team Communication Interface) is a model that generalizes the organization's communication using the interface concept. This study examined the reliability and validity of TCIQ by conducting a questionnaire survey in Corporation A. A total of 330 people (average age=42.4 years) participated in the survey. The Cronbach’s α coefficients for the four interfaces of TCIQ were .933 (Mission recognition), .786 (Information transmission), .811 (Schedule management), and .907 (Evaluation awareness). Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient values between the four interfaces of TCIQ and three factors calculated from the BJSQ response values were from .256 to .459 (p<0.01). Results suggest that TCIQ has high reliability and criterion-related validity. TCIQ is able to identify differences in how members view their team, which is expected to be used for team development intervention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine effects of the Internet addiction tendency scale utilizing visual analog scale (VAS). 355 high-school students answered 7items about “Questionnaires relating to the sending and reception of messages on the Internet” and 10items about “Questionnaires relating to the participation attitude to the Internet”. As a result of this research, we could indicate the students who have any problems of the Internet addiction by univariate scatter plot and box-and-whisker plot. It is concluded that utilizing VAS to this scale is effective to investigate and analyze the Internet addiction tendency among high-school students.

Markov decision processes are applied to recommender system in previous research. Reinforcement learning methods using neural networks have been proposed in many fields. But a reinforcement learning method using neural networks has not been proposed in recommender system. In this research we propose a reinforcement learning method using fully connected neural networks in recommender system under the condition that the true parameters of Markov decision processes are unknown. The proposed method uses historical data of customers to represent customers’ properties. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by some simulations. The output of the proposed method is equal to the optimal solution in the simulation result.

Markov decision processes are applied to a healthcare support method in previous research. In the previous research the true parameters of Markov decision processes are known. In this research we propose a semi-supervised learning method for the healthcare support method under the condition that the true parameters of Markov decision processes are unknown. Learning data consist of complete data and incomplete data. In the proposed method EM(expectation-maximization) algorithm is used. The effectiveness of the proposed method is shown by some simulations. The result shows that the learning accuracy becomes higher as the learning data becomes bigger.

The study was conducted to identify and examine factors influencing difficulties experienced by psychiatric nurses in oral care to provide knowledge required to improve the quality of oral care. A questionnaire survey was conducted to examine factors influencing difficulties in organic and functional oral care, and valid responses obtained from 174 psychiatric nurses were analyzed. “Refusal of care by patients” was cited by the largest number of psychiatric nurses as a cause of difficulty in both “organic” and “functional” oral care. An analysis of the relationship between organic oral care and the basic attributes of the nurses suggests that elderly or skilled psychiatric nurses tended to recognize “situations in which the safety of patients may not be secured” as a factor influencing difficulty. Young nurses tended to recognize “when they have no time” as a factor influencing difficulty. There was no relationship between functional oral care and the basic attributes of the nurses. The results of the study suggest that it is necessary to implement oral care education while taking into consideration factors influencing those difficulties in organic and functional oral care.

The purpose of this research is to verify the ROCFT and to clarify the developmental process. The subjects are 414 elementary school 1st to 6th grade children. ROCFT was administered under three conditions of copying, immediate recall, and delayed recall. The result indicated that the total score of ROCFT increases markedly from 1st to 3rd grade and from 5th to 6th grade and that a reminiscence effect was found in 5th and 6th grades. This study is the first report that recognize the reminiscent effect in meaningless figure memory task. One dimensional structure was confirmed from the result of principal component analysis. The revised ROCFT was valid as a comprehensive index of visual information processing process in childhood.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of chronotype on task execution from the point of view of psychology, physiology and brain science. 224 university students were measured chronotype by Japanese version of the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire and fifteen Morning type and fifteen Evening type were selected. We conducted a series of psychological tasks in morning and evening respectively, and measured task execution, autonomic nerve activity during tasks, and the transition of oxygen saturation of prefrontal cortex with f-NIRS. As a result, we observed a significant difference in behavioral indicators in the early part of the task (optimal condition > non-optimal condition) and compensatory brain activities in non-optimal condition. The change in autonomic nerve activity was close to significance. These results suggest that chronotype affects the fundamental cognitive ability necessary for task execution.