In this paper, I analyzed the 2020 "Children receiving Medical Care and Their Family Life Survey Report" by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and show the harsh living conditions that many children receiving medical care and their families face. Although support measures were strengthened by subsequent government legislation, the situation has still not yet improved and further support is expected. In particular, it is desirable to provide support without regional disparities by establishing a national support center for children receiving medical care.

Previous studies suggested a probability that hamstring muscles (HAM) can exert knee extension function in some specific hip and knee angles, even though HAM were classified knee flexors. However, it has been still unclear in what the hip and knee angles HAM exert knee extension function. The purpose of this study is to reveal the relationship between the hip and knee angles and hamstring muscles function on the knee joint by using numerical simulation. OpenSim, a free musculoskeletal model software, was used to construct the numerical simulation. Semimembranosus (SM), semitendinosus (ST), biceps femoris long head (BFLH), and biceps femoris short head (BFSH) were selected as the analysis targets. Induced acceleration analysis (IAA) was used to identify the muscle function on the knee joint. IAA could explain the cause-and-effect relationship between exerted muscle force and joint angular acceleration induced by the exerted muscle force. The hip and knee angles conditions were determined by combining the right hip flexion angle that ranged from -30°to 90°and the right knee flexion angle, which ranged from -10°to 90°. As a result, the present study revealed following three things; 1) SM, ST, BFLH, and BFSH function on the knee joint were dynamically changed depending on the hip and knee flexion angles, 2) SM, ST, BFLH exerted knee extension function in the specific hip and knee flexion angles, 3) BFSH did not exert knee extension function. These findings might be a fundamental data to explain the relationship between the hip and knee flexion angle and HAM function on the knee joint.

Purpose

This work studies the porting of B.T.V.T.I., a Bayesian inference visualization program for PCs, to smartphones and tablets. The function of the program’s operations was evaluated after porting and a user survey was conducted to evaluate its utility in learning and understanding Bayesian inference.

Method

The R and Shiny programming languages were used for the porting, while the survey was carried out via Google Forms.

Result

The BTVTI-R program, with its user interface re-arranged for smartphones, afforded a nearly identical reproduction of B.T.V.T.I. operations. However, screen size restrictions disabled the porting of those B.T.V.T.I. techniques that had several types of input data. A survey question asked to ascertain how interesting this app had made Bayesian statistics for its users revealed that 65.6% of respondents were interested in it.

Discussion

The connectivity of BTVTI-R with the server, believed to be unstable when the program was left unattended for a short period of time, was a cause of concern as it could impair the convenience of operations. As indicated by the survey results from respondents familiar with Bayesian inference, this application could, in combination with books and classroom lectures, be a useful tool for learning this topic. Further, it is possible that this simple application, if integrated into a smartphone, might spark interest about Bayesian inference in the minds of novice learners.

The ability to examine health information called health literacy is important. However, the use of so-called health foods is left to the decision-making and self-responsibility of the user, and judgment on health risks is also required. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was conducted to verify how the use of health foods was related to health literacy. Binary logistic regression analysis and multiple regression analysis were applied to identify the reasons for the relevant questions. Remarkable gender differences were found between health literacy and the consumption of health foods. Health literacy is commonly categorized into three literacies as functional, interactive and critical health literacy. Regarding use factors, it was shown that the interactive health literacy is composed of transmission and criticism was significant, it indicated that the probability of consuming healthy foods increased 1.4 times by each standard deviation of this interactive health literacy. In contrast, no significance was observed in women. Regarding factors related to the increase in use frequency, the interaction between transmission and criticism was significant among men, and the interaction of the function and transmission was significant among women. In other words, men used health foods after obtaining information and making critical decisions regarding them, while women tended to be more interested in health foods for beauty-related reasons. Therefore, health food information was effective for promoting the safe use of health foods by enhancing individual health literacy by emphasizing the different points of interest for men and women. Furthermore, it was thought that supplementing the lack of health literacy with education would lead to the safe use of health foods.