Around the Mt. Wuzhishan in ainan Island, China, tourism development has been rapidly progressed by the government and private companies since the 1980s, especially since the late 1990s, d consequently the living conditions of the Li ethnic minority people in Shuiman village, located in its center, have been drastically changing. As expected by the govern-rnent, the villagers' income has increased by means of wage labors, selling the local products to the tourists, and compensatory payments for crops grown in the customary land when its use right was transferred to the company. Various changes in their lifestyle have contributed to the release from poverty and the overall improvement in basic human needs and primary health care. The villagers' flexible decision-makings on their living and environ-ment use, with application of their traditional knowledge for resource uses, have been effective for sustainable human-environment relations, though further changes due to orders and requests of the government and companies may lead to environmental deterioration. Furthermore, inter-household differentiation in income and the perception on tourism development and agricultural development has been enlarged. These situations are discussed from the viewpoint of community-based sustainable development.

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The present study compared between Japanese and Vietnamese subjects living in Hanoi, the local evaporation rate by sweating and the tympanic temperature during legs immersion in warm water. Seven Vietnamese and seven Japanese (who had lived in Hanoi for 1-2 years) participated in the experiments, which were performed in April, 2001 in Hanoi (Vietnam). It was found that the tympanic temperature at which subjects started to sweat in the forearm was significantly higher in Vietnamese than in Japanese. In addition, the local amount of evaporation was significantly lower in Vietnamese subjects. We discussed the physiological reason for such different thermoregulatory responses in terms of different levels of set-point in the core temperature between Vietnamese and Japanese. It was concluded that the Vietnamese inhabitant commenced the sweating at higher tympanic temperature to identical warm stimuli and had lower sweating rate and higher tympanic temperature during the 40 min immersion of both legs to warm water than the Japanese inhabiting Hanoi for 1-2 years.

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Handloom is one of the oldest cottage industries in India, particularly in West Bengal, where a considerable number of rural people are engaged in weaving. Purposes of the present investigation were to clarify the prevalence of repetitive strain injuries in upper extremities among the handloom weavers and to identify the risk factors leading to its development. Fifty male handloom weavers were randomly selected from the population. A questionnaire (Kourinka et al., 1987) method including Borg scale assessment of pain, checklist analyses of the work, and time-motion studies for analyzing the repetitiveness/non-repetitiveness of the job were implemented. The time-motion analyses demonstrated that weaving occupied over 50% of the work cycle time for majority of subjects, and thus could be regarded as a repetitive activity. Statistical analyses revealed a highly significant correlation between the intensity of pain feeling and the repetitiveness on one hand, and the year of experience as a weaver on the other. By contrast, no significant relationship was observed between chronological ages of weavers and the pain intensity. These results suggested that highly repetitive works engaged for a long time could increase the intensity of the pain felt and would lead to repetitive strain injuries.

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Inter-generation differences in foot dimensions were examined using ANCOVA to determine whether aging or secular change is the more important causal factor. In examining the results, bone size was assumed not to change after the end of linear growth, while foot arches were assumed to become flatter rather than higher if there were any changes in skeletal structure. Changes in overall body build according to age were examined using statistical data collected by the government through population-follow-up. Secular changes in foot length (FL) and foot breadth, diagonal (FB) as well as the changes with age in FB were examined using data measured at ages younger than 50 years. The effects of overall body build were examined using the body mass index (BMI). Compared to the 1970 group (birth year: 1960-78)of the same FL, the 1930 group (birth year: 1909-39) had larger foot circumferences, wider breadth measurements, higher dorsal arches and ball, and greater toe 5 angle, but had shorter fibular instep lengths and shorter 5th metatarsal bones. The 1930 groups tended to have larger FB than the 1970 group of the same foot circumference. No inter-generation differences were observed in the heights at the medial and lateral malleoli, toe 1 angle, or the relationship between FB and heel breadth. These findings are discussed in terms of the effects of weight increase after the end of linear growth, changes in skeletal structure, overall body build as young adults, socioeconomic status during the growth period, as well as differential growth rates of foot bones. The conclusions are 1) changes in foot length and longitudinal arches due to aging are negligible, 2) the large circumferences, breadths, and higher dorsal arches and ball of the 1930 group for their foot length are better explained by their robust bones than by the increase in soft tissue after the end of linear growth, and 3) the larger FB of the 1930 group for their foot circumference is partly explained by their shorter fibular instep length. As a whole, factors affecting growth (secular change) are more important than changes after the end of growth (aging) in the inter-generation differences in foot morphology.

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The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of complex aural stimuli on mental performance. A series of experiments were designed to obtain data for two different analyses. The first analysis is a "Stimulus" versus "No-stimulus" comparison for each of the four dependent variables, i.e. quantitative ability, reasoning ability, spatial ability and memory of an individual, by comparing the control treatment with the rest of the treatments. The second set of analysis is a multi-variant analysis of variance for component level main effects and interactions.The two component factors are tempo of the complex aural stimuli and sound volume level, each administered at three discrete levels for all four dependent variables. Ten experiments were conducted on eleven subjects. It was found that complex aural stimuli influence the quantitative and spatial aspect of the mind, while the reasoning ability was unaffected by the stimuli. Although memory showed a trend to be worse with the presence of complex aural stimuli, the effect was statistically insignificant. Variation in tempo and sound volume level of an aural stimulus did not significantly affect the mental performance of an individual. The results of these experiments can be effectively used in designing work environments.

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