JAPANESE JOURNAL OF BIOMETEOROLOGY
Online ISSN : 1347-7617
Print ISSN : 0389-1313
ISSN-L : 0389-1313
Volume 25, Issue 2
Displaying 1-7 of 7 articles from this issue
  • [in Japanese]
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 59
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: October 13, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Tetsumi HORIKOSHI, Yotaro KOBAYASHI, Tadahiro TSUCHIKAWA, Keitaro HIRA ...
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 61-67
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: October 13, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between human thermal sensation and comfort sensation during exposure to thermal transients. Experiments were conducted under the following conditions. Five young male subjects in sedentary posture were exposed to 15, 18, 23, 25 and 30°C air temperature for 90 minutes following one hour exposure to 23°C air temperature. The following results were obtained. 1) Significant difference was not observed between 5 minutes exposure and 90 minutes exposure in relation to air temperature and thermal sensation vote. However, there was a difference in relation to exposure time between thermal sensation vote and comfort vote. 2) Change of thermal sensation is probably greater than that of comfort sensation when air temperature suddenly changes. However, change of comfort sensation is greater than that of thermal sensation throughout exposure time in constant temperature after air temperature changes. 3) Subjects vote their sensation which is warmer than thermal neutral when they feel most comfortable, because experiments were carried out in winter.
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  • Kuniyoshi MAKINO
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 69-78
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: October 13, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    It is likely that effects of weather on mortality show variation according to some factors such as cause of death, place, period of year, age group and others. In this report, data on monthly mortalities from hypertensive disease (HTD), heart disease (HD), cerebrovascular disease (CD), pneumonia-bronchitis (PB), liver cirrhosis (LC) and senility (SN) were collected as well as data on the weather conditions in the Tokyo Metropolis during the period from 1952 to 1981. Data on monthly mortalities from liver disease (LD) including LC, ischemic heart disease (IHD), cerebral hemorrhage (CH), cerebral infarction (CI) were added to the previous mortalities for both sexes in two age groups (0-69 and 70-yr.) in 1980 and 1981.
    As the results from correlation and regression analyses between mortality and weather conditions in the fifteen two-year periods, mortalities from HTD, HD, CD and SN were closely associated with air temperature in every period. However, correlations of mortality from PB with air temperature clearly decreased and slopes in the linear regressions were also less steep in the later periods. On the other hand, trends of the correlations and regressions for mortality from LC in the fifteen periods brought about results contrary to those from PB. According to a comparison between average death rates during periods from March to June with a rise in air temperature and average death rates from September to December with a fall in air temperature using the death rates for the ten years from 1972 to 1981, HTD, PB and SN for the former months showed higher death rates than for the latter months. “Winter risk index” was defined as an index of quantification of risk of death in winter and the following results were obtained. First, the risks of many of the previous mortalities have distinctly decreased during the period from 1952 to 1981. Second, a higher risk was generally observed in the older than in the younger age group and for mortalities from HTD and SN among these causes, but the sex with the higher risk was different for each cause of death.
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  • Kuniyoshi MAKINO
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 79-88
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: December 10, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Effects of weather conditions on daily number of deaths for nine major causes in the Tokyo Metropolis during the period of 1 January in 1980 to 31 December in 1981 were studied in this report.
    1. According to correlation analyses by season, the deaths for almost all causes correlated significantly with Tmin (minimum air temperature) negatively in spring and positively in summer, particularly in an elder age group (70-yr) . However, these deaths did not correlate significantly with weather conditions in winter, the coldest seasons as described by some other reports.
    2. In spring, number of deaths for cerebrovascular diseases in the elder group increased with a rise in Tmin in the daily average Tmin for the previous seven days. This result indicated that the aged patients for circulatory diseases should be carefully attended in spring in which acute and large weather changes occur.
    3. Daily numbers of deaths compared between perio ds from March to June with a rise in temperature and from September to December with a fall in temperature were not equivalent for the same temperature. Particularly for pneumonia-bronchitis, more deaths were observed during the former period than the latter period and significant differences between number of deaths during the two periods were found in the wide range.
    4. In order to examine whether there was a time lag between Tmin and daily number of deaths, a correlation analysis was conducted for the seven days which followed the death. Deaths in summer had the most significant positive correlation in the day, i.e. there was no time lag, but with respect to deaths in the other seasons, it was estimated that there was a time lag of some days. Although death in winter were inferred to be unlikely to be associated with Tmin above mentioned, it was concluded in this study that they had significant association with Tmin in the two or three days before. In addition, cumulative effects of hot temperature on increased number of deaths were found for female, while cumulative effects of cold temperature on deaths were slightly found for male.
    5. Although the proportion of home-deaths, which may be affected by weather conditions near open air, to all death is not so large, it was estimated that data on all death should be used to analyze relationship between daily number of deaths and weather conditions, because daily variations of both deaths were closely associated with each other and the number of deaths in all places has smaller random flucturations, than those of the home-deaths.
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  • Tomoko SAKAMOTO, Yoshifumi YASUDA
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 89-95
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: October 13, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The changes of peripheral cold tolerance with respect to age and sex were examined by the digital vascular hunting reaction to cold water and the frequencies of chilblain. A total of 170 subjects of both sexes in 5 different age groups, ie 4-5 years, 10-11 years, 13-14 years, 16-17 years and the aged participated in the hunting reaction test. They immersed their forefinger into cold water controlled at 5°C for 12 or 15 min. The skin temperature of the finger tip was continuously measured using a thermistor thermometer before, during and after the immersion. The skin temperature at the first rise (TFR), the time of skin temperature rise (TTR), the highest skin temperature (HST) and the amplitude of skin temperature change (AT) were compared among different age groups and sex. The hunting reactions were inferior in the 10-11 and 13-14 years groups among males and in the 10-11, 13-14, 15-16 years among females. Sex difference in the hunting reaction was found only in 15-16 years group.
    The frequency of occurrence of chilblain was investigated by questionaires at age of 4-5, 7-8, 10-11, 13-14 and 16-17 years. The occurrence of chilblain significantly increased from about 30 to 60% between age 4-5 and 7-8 years in both sexes. This rate decreased after 7-8 years old among boys but not among girls. Sex difference was detected among those 13-14 and 16-17 years old. The tendency of the occurrence of chilblain in relation to age and sex were similar to that of the cold hunting reaction. From these results, it was suggested that the peripheral cold tolerance might be influenced by the factors of both growth and sex.
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  • Kazumichi EGASHIRA, Kazuhiko ABE
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 97-109
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: December 10, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Secular trends of suicide seasonality, both in Japan and in various other countries, were studied. In early periods studied, a peak in suicide deaths appeared in early summer, around June, in most countries. In Japan, however, two peaks in May and July were observed for the periods from 1900-09 to 1920-29. A small trough in June is probably related to the rainy weeks of June, which is characteristic of the Japanese climate. The magnitude of suicide seasonality has gradually decreased with time and the peak month has shifted towards earlier months around April in many countries. A linear relationship between the magnitude of suicide seasonality (S) and the proportion of suicide deaths occurring in the cooler months from November to February (Δ) was derived on a hypothetical curve for suicide seasonality. The observed values of suicide seasonality of Japanese males and females and in many other countries have decreased with time along this calculated curve for S as a function of Δ, where the lesser values of suicide seasonality were observed in the more developed countries. As the suicide seasonality has been changing with time, with a velocity proper for each country, its secular trends should be taken into consideration when two countries are compared.
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  • Tomie OHNO
    1988 Volume 25 Issue 2 Pages 111-114
    Published: August 01, 1988
    Released on J-STAGE: October 13, 2010
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Blood lipoperoxide (LP), free fatty acids (FFA) and β-hydroxybutyrate levels were measured in the warm controls (WA), cold-acclimated (CA) and heat-acclimated (HA) rats. In CA of 2 wk-cold exposure FFA level was higher than in WA, but no difference was observed between WA and CA of 4 wk-cold exposure. Beta-hydroxy butyrate showed the similar changes to that of FFA. LP did not show any significant changes during cold acclimation.
    In HA, FFA and LP levels were significantly lower during heat acclimation as compared with those in WA. Beta-hydroxybutyrate did not change during heat acclimation. The results suggest that the peripheral pathological changes and the shortened life-span previously reported for coldacclimated animals are not induced by greater formation rate of lipoperoxides.
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