Raised dot patterns are commonly used to display drawings on tactile guide maps. However, there is a lack of quantitative data regarding the discrimination of raised dot patterns by older visually impaired persons. In this study, we investigated the influence of dot distances on discrimination of raised dot patterns in tactile guide maps by older visually impaired persons. We made test pieces with nine different dot distances for dot patterns, and conducted experiments to identify easily discriminable dot pattern combinations by comparing pairs of dot patterns. Participants included 10 older sighted persons as tactile guide map beginner users and 10 older visually impaired persons as expert users. The results showed that dot patterns with more than 5 mm differences in dot distances were easily discriminable for older visually impaired persons. In detail, these were 5 mm for older beginner users, 4 mm for older expert users.

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The purpose of this study is to identify a ‘kansei’ space for ‘kandoh’ evaluation model that considers individual characteristics. We performed two experiments that attempted to construct such kandoh models for a younger age group and a mature age group. In the first experiment, 69 suitable words for evaluating the image quality were selected from 150 Japanese words to express kandoh. In the second experiment, using the selected kandoh words, the kansei space for each age group was identified and analyzed by individual differences in scaling, multi-dimensional scaling, and cluster analysis. Based on the results, we observed differences in the interpretation of the words between age groups. Thus, the constructed kansei spaces were shown to also have differences depending on the age group.

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The Specific Health Checkup aimed at preventing metabolic syndrome was initiated in 2008 in Japan. Through this guidance, people considered at high risk of metabolic syndrome's progressing are expected to be made aware of their own problems in their daily lifestyle choices and to improve their daily life behaviors by themselves. To support this national endeavor, we have introduced the idea of data mining techniques by building a Bayesian network (BN) corresponding to the framework and the data configuration of the Specific Health Checkup. In this paper, we analyze data on 11,947 anonymized individuals, extracting major factors from questionnaire data related to lifestyle and consider the possibility of generalizing our BN by introducing these lifestyle questionnaire factors as nodes of the BN. This proposed method is found to provide good performance, and its usefulness is revealed by evaluating the level of change of the responses to the questionnaire. Introducing the lifestyle questionnaire factors nodes into the BN would be expected to make it a more useful risk assessment tool.

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Aiming at guiding a policy for information behavior management that supports the continuing education of nurses, our purpose is to develop a scale to clarify the conceptual configuration and examine its reliability and validity. Using a self-administered questionnaire, we conducted the test-retest method on 455 nurses from 10 facilities in 5 prefectures. The scale comprised 42 items grouped into the following six subscales: “working environment,” “self-confidence as a nurse,” “interest in career building,” “information utilization using ICT,” “human support,” and “empowerment.” The Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.932 and the correlation within grades for each retest factor ranged from 0.780 to 0.933. The t-value of the total scale score was -4.514 for the chief nurse and over group (n = 69) and the general job position group (n = 263). As the result, it is suggested that the ability of “information utilization using ICT” affects each nurse's behavior associated with the continuing education of nurses.

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In this study, the authors focus on whether test items should be disclosed or not ( referred to as “test item disclosure” ). It is because “test item disclosure” has a great influence on designing appropriate tests. Furthermore, there are diverse value judgments to consider when deciding on “test item disclosure”. The purpose of this paper is to clarify a structure of value judgments in “test item disclosure”. First, the authors clarify factors related to “test item disclosure” in the case of Japanese national examinations. Next, the structure of value judgments is presumed using a pattern classification of these factors. As a result, the following factors were found: (1) the timing of the lowest pass-fail score announcement (before or after the examination), and (2) the examination fee. Then, the structure of value judgments in “test item disclosure” in the case of Japanese national examinations was presumed using the aforementioned factors.

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In this paper, we carried out a subjective evaluation on the perceptual difference in female speech to show the gender difference in its likability and analyzed a relationship between the acoustic features and subjective scores. This subjective evaluation used female speech uttered by 21 speakers as the stimuli, and 127 subjects (47 males and 80 females) attended it. The results suggested that there was the speech preferred without the gender difference and preferred by one gender. We then analyzed the correlation between subjective scores and five acoustic features: fundamental frequency, formant frequency, amplitude difference, spectral centroid and spectral tilt. In female subjects, statistically significant correlations were observed in all features. In male subjects, significant correlation was observed only in spectral tilt. In particular, correlation in spectral tilt showed the inverse trend between male and female subjects. These results suggest that the spectral tilt is effective in the gender difference.

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This study examined how viewers' video watching was affected by the impact the display of video content on an L-shaped news ticker that shows textual information in the margin of a TV screen. By establishing video replay conditions using the L-shaped ticker and the normal screen, we analyzed the viewer's gaze fixation, and their sense of comprehension and degree of recall of the video contents. Differences in the distribution of fixation durations between the two conditions were confirmed; indicating that viewing video on the L-shaped ticker rather than on the normal screen decreased the frequency of longer fixation durations and shortened the total fixation durations when viewing video. No difference was observed in the sense of comprehension and degree of the video contents between the two conditions. Based on these findings, we discussed the possible effects of L-shaped news tickers on viewers' video recognition and the application of the results.

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