The purpose of this special issue is to discuss the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake from the standpoint of physiological anthropology. The Stress Research Group in JSPA has acted since March in 1995 in order to organize and facilitate the academic activity focused on the earthquake disaster, namely earthquake stress and care. The six reports in this special issue conclude our activity and indicate some new important findings which will contribute to the understanding of earthquake stress and care.

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Cases of sudden death frdm cardiovascular disease and pneumonia increased transiently and suicide cases decreased tansiently after the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Kobe City. These events were more common among males than females. Suicide by individuals in their thirties and fifties particularly showed a reduction in 1995. Although mortality from direct and mechanical force by earthquake was more conlmon in females than males, acute and subacute psychological an/or physical stress after major quake was more prevalent in males than females.

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In this study, we conducted interviews three times after the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster, investigated some problems due to the environmental changes over time after moving into the Temporary Housing, and examined some mental changes in the sufferers. In sofware, friendship was deepened only inside the Temporary Housing, but was separated from the surrounding neighborhood. In hardware, sufferers scarcely felt the facilities improved. With the lapse of time, these problems decreased, but only one problem, "difficulties of household economy", became worse. About the feeling of satisfaction, their dissatisfaction decreased in general. However, with regard to differences of age, the younger generation felt more dissatisfaction than the older generation.

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Over 5,500 people were killed directly by the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster in 1995. About 90% of the fatalities were crushed or burnt to death due to the totally collapsed buildings. Over 50% of fatalities were the elderly and it could be seen that the fatality rate of female was slightly higher than that of male. This is a same tendency to those of the past some earthquakes. Therefore, an investigation of age and sex difference in casualties due to the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster was conducted. According to results of the investigation, the fatality rate of female was higher, slightly. However, it was not so clear as in case of the past tsunami or spread of fine by earthquake and flood high tide in typhoon. Sex difference in severely wounded persons was clear rather than of dead persons.

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Postdisaster stress responses of mothers and their preschool children over a three-year period following the 1995 Kobe Earthquake are described, and factors affecting preschoolers' and their mothers' stress are analyzed. The results indicate that stress responses of children and mothers after the earthquake were related to the degree of physical damage, and that children's expressions of stress are strongly related to the degree of mothers' daily stress. Based on these findings, the effects of disaster on the relationships between preschool children and their mothers are discussed from the perspective of support for mothers and fostering children's resilience from stress.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of seismic intensity (SI) and sex difference upon schoolaged children's stress reactions induced by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and to suggest some guidelines for stress management education. Know Yourself Questionnaire (KYQ) was used to assess children's stress reactions after disaster. The stress scores of Anxiety, Depression, Distraction, and Humanity were compared between Nishinomiya (SI=7;566 boys and 491 girls), Osaka (SI=4;462 boys and 445 girls), and children in protective institutions (SI=7;244 boys and 153 girls). KYQ was applied at 2 months, 6 months, and 1 year after the earthquake for Nishinomiya and Osaka, and at 9 months after the earthquake for protective institutions as a stress management education program. Results show that (1) the effect of seismic intensity was significant in all stress reactions, (2) significant sex difference was found in all scores, i.e., Anxiety, Depression, and Humanity scores were higher in females, but Distraction was higher in males, (3) the effect of seismic intensity interacted with sex in Depression and Distraction,and (4) children in protective institutions showed more severe stress reactions than those in Nishinomiya. These results suggest that early intervention such as our stress management education is needed for children,not only after the earthquake but also before the earthquake.

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After a disaster strikes, survivors received severe stressor. They tended to get various stress-related illness and/or they were driven to deviating actions. Although this fact is popularly known, a systematic stress management procedure for them has not been prepared yet. The aim of this study is to propose a guideline of stress management education for survivors who have experienced a disaster. This stress management guideline consists of seven stages which correspond to the afterdisaster period. With this feature, this is available to various mental situations of survivors, and this has a possibility of being applied for various disasters (earthquake, flood, typhoon and other accidents caused by artificial means).

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In this study, we examined how the height of the pillow on which a person's head rests affects the respiratory function. We measured tidal volume (TV), vital capacity(VC), expiratory reserve volume (ERV), forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV_<1.0>), percentage of forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV_<1.0>%), obstructive index (OI), and angle of the cervical region under the conditions of various pillow heights (3cm, 7cm, 11cm), pillow materials (urethane, buckwheat chaff feather), and postures (sitting position, supine position). The high pillow decreased VC, ERV and FEV_<l.0>, while increased OI. The subjects complained of a choking sensation in each of the experiments. The angle of the cervical region increased in direct proportion to the height of pillow and a choking sensation.

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The develops of mechanization and automation develop into inspectional and discriminative works which are performed by cognitive human functions. But the degrees of freedom in mechanical function is low;accordingly the work depending on human abilities anything but decreased. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of perceptible changes in the course of working and degrees of consciousness to movement r in visual information processing has on subjective-time and working accuracy, to grasp the characteristics of the time-estimation and to grope for an index to more proper working design. For the factor of movement, the stimulus represented in the three points is either green, yellow and red or all white. The time-intervals are 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8s. The objcctive-time on this operation is 60s. As a resuIt,based on fIuctuation in estimated time and working accuracy with the passage of time, direction of attention and tendency to time-estimation are grasped, and the guide for construction of productive working system become clear.

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We investigated tlle correlations between the bone stiffness index and activities of daily living (MDL) of aged women. We examined 53 Japanese women, whose mean age was 80.65.0 years. To deteImine bone stiffness, we used a Lunar tdtrasonic bone measuring instnlment. The degree of dementia was checked by Hasegawa's Questionnaire. The bone stiffness index of outpatients is higher than the bone stiffness index of inpatients. People with normal walking abilities fuld tllerefore comparatively high seLFreliance have a ltigher bone sfffness index than handicapped women. The bone stiffness index of tlle subjects who were getting on their feet is higher than that of subjects with low self-reliance.There is no conelation bertveen the degree of dementia and bone stiffness index. The physical stimuli to the bone snucture of subjects with high self-reliance in everyday-living is high, therefore sdficiently contributing preservation of bone stiffness.

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The purpose of this study was to develop an ergometer attachment as a fundamental material in order to develop an ergometer for multi-use and to investigate whether the relationship between the force and velocity in elbow flexion was applied to Hill's equation or not using a new developing ergometer attachment as a example of multi-use. Ergometer attachments consisted of a rotation drum for traction, a stepping permanent moter for detecting velocity and a computer for analizing. The application to Hill's equation was done in according to the following procedtJre; Hill's equations (P+a)(V+b)=(P0+a)b and its development (P+a)v=b(Po-P) were transformed to P=b×(P0-P)/v-a. The application to Hill's equation was judged by the relationship between P(Load) and (Po-P)/v (Energetic supplied velocity).

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