Ten healthy male subjects slept from 13:00 to 15:00 under ambient temperature and humidity maintained at 29°C and 70%RH, respectively. They slept under two conditions: wearing a cotton pajama (C) and wearing a newly designed cold touch pajama (L). A polysomnography, skin temperature, microclimate, bed climate, and subjective sensations were obtained.

The amount of stage 3 decreased significantly, while stage 4 tended to increase in L relative to C. Bed climate temperatures of the back area decreased significantly in the initial segment of sleep, and bed climate humidity in the waist area decreased in later sleep segments in L relative to C. Subjective thermal sensation during sleep was cooler in L relative to C. These results suggest that newly designed pajamas decreased bed climate temperature of the back area, reduced bed climate humidity in the waist area, and improved subjective thermal sensation during sleep onset period under mild heat exposure.

It has been reported that the maintenance of the health of the mouth and teeth plays an important role in improving the quality of life. However usage rate of auxiliary cleaning tools such as essential dental floss, interdental brush, and part for toothbrush should be estimated low from the viewpoint of maintenance of the mouth and teeth related health. Then, the authors investigated the consumers' awareness of mouth and teeth and actual use of auxiliary cleaning tools in order to promote products' development and construction of information to encourage the use of ancillary equipment. As a result, 5 factors, i. e., “unhealthy teeth”, “oral care focus”, “mouth discomfort”, “worry about the public eye” and “awareness teeth weak” were extracted by factor analysis of awareness and attitude items. The relationship was observed between the usage of auxiliary cleaning tool and other some variables: “oral care focus” factor, subjective health feeling, life satisfaction, and so on. It was suggested that the desirable strategy is to transmit information such as the effect of the usage of auxiliary cleaning tool on life satisfaction and health awareness, and importance of regular checkups by the dentist. Additionally, there were observed not a few cases that people with weak teeth did not use auxiliary cleaning even if they were conscious of the bad condition of the teeth. It can be concluded that steadily delivering information to the people of low consciousness is one of the most important subjects in the consumer education relevant to oral health care.

We improved our long selling sneakers with our concept for developing footwear that are “more comfortable and easy to walk with” while maintaining current production costs. Three experiments were conducted and the performances of the new sneakers were compared to those of the existing ones. Firstly, the transverse dispersion of the center of foot pressure (COP) was compared. As a result, the new sneakers enabled more stable walking. Secondly, shop workers wore the new and existing sneakers during their working time, and their muscle stiffness as well as change with foot shape before and after work was compared. As a result, the new sneakers restrained the increase of the calf circumference as well as the length and the width of the feet. The amount of swelling was also decreased and there were signs of effect with restraining arch reduction. Furthermore, the function evaluation resulted in restraining muscle stiffness on legs. Thirdly, the shock absorptions were compared, and 35% improvement was obtained. From the above three experimental results, it was suggested that the new sneakers materialized our concept.