In order to clarify the situation where older adults feel inconvenient when carrying out various Web operations, the differences of Web search behavior between young and older adults were examined using Web sites with different layered structures. The following two situations were used to address the issue above: (1) operation of a Back button, and (2) operation of a hyperlink. When the operation of Back button was necessary, the task completion time of older adults was 2.3 times as long as that of young adults. Such a difference must be obtained, because older adults need more time to recognize and understand the layered structure. When operation Back button in a raw, the task completion time of older adults was 3.9 times as long as that of young adults. Moreover, the task completion time of older adults increased in case of searching in the deep layered Web site due to the slower and declined cognition and judgment. When selecting a hyperlink, the task completion time of older adults was 12.1 times as long as that of young adults. On the basis of this tendency, we inferred that older adults took more time and became more careful when selecting a hyperlink.
Interleukin-1 (IL-1) is a mediator in some critical conditions such as septic shock and multiple organ failure. Acute pancreatitis is one of the noted causes of multiple organ failure but the mechanism by which local inflammation progresses to systemic disease is unknown. In this study, we used an IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) to investigate whether multiple organ failure due to acute pancreatitis is mediated by IL-1, as in other causes such as severe infection, trauma, and major surgery.Prospective, randomized, controlled trial.Research laboratory of a university medical school.Specific pathogen-free male Wistar rats weighing 200 to 250 g.Necrotizing pancreatitis was induced by retrograde injection of deoxycholate solution into the biliopancreatic duct. IL-1ra was injected intravenously at a dose of 10 mg/kg 15 mins before induction of acute pancreatitis and then infused continuously at a rate of 5 mg/kg/hr for the following 24 hrs.Although treatment with recombinant human IL-1ra did not affect the degree of local pancreatic insult, it significantly reduced mortality, improved urine output as an indicator of the state of shock, and ameliorated the accumulation of neutrophils into the lung in a rat experimental pancreatitis model.We concluded that multiple organ failure in severe pancreatitis is mediated, at least in part, by IL-1 through the activation of neutrophils. Furthermore, we concluded that circulatory collapse may also be important in the mechanism of the lethal effect of pancreatitis.
This paper reveals the chaotic properties of the voluntary single arm and two arms movements in various conditions based on the movement frequency and movement modes (single arm mode, in-phase mode and anti-phase mode). The chaotic analysis of rhythmic forearm movement were performed, and it was confirmed that the chaotic characteristics represented by the correlation dimension and the largest Lyapunov exponents were included in the rhythmic forearm movements. Furthermore, it was clarified that there existed the difference in the values of the Lyapunov exponents and fractal dimensions between right-left forearms and consequently the left forearm movements was more complex than the right forearm movements.
The aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of behavioral evaluation measures for predicting drivers' subjective drowsiness.Behavioral measures included neck bending angle, back pressure, foot pressure, COP (center of pressure) movement on sitting surface and tracking error in driving simulator task.Drowsy states were predicted by means of the multinomial logistic regression model where behavioral measures and subjective evaluation of drowsiness corresponded to independent variables and a dependent variable, respectively.First, we compared the effectiveness of two methods (correlation coefficient-based method and odds ratio-based method) for determining the order of entering behavioral measures into the prediction model.It was found that the prediction accuracy did not differ between both methods.Second, the prediction accuracy was compared among the numbers of behavioral measures.The prediction accuracy did not differ among four, five and six behavioral measures and it was concluded that entering at least four behavioral measures into the prediction model is enough to achieve higher prediction accuracy.Third, the prediction accuracy was compared between the strongly drowsy and the weakly drowsy groups.The prediction accuracy differed between the two groups and the proposed method was effective under the condition where drowsiness was induced to a larger extent.
Recently, accidents or scandals due to organizational violation-based error frequently occur. One of the causes might be maladjustment to environmental changes surrounding organization from relief to global society. In this study, the following proposition was hypothesized: Social intelligence (SI), ability to evaluate appropriately the reliability of others, ability to carry out communication smoothly in organization, and emotional aspects (behavior on the basis of emotion or reasonability) are important factors and keys to prevent violation-based organizational error. A questionnaire which included items related to social intelligence (SI: social awareness and social facility), emotional intelligence (EI), ability to evaluate the reliability of others, ability to communicate smoothly in organization, behavioral characteristics (emotional- or reasonability-based behavior), and ability to make decisions and judge situations. An attempt was made to verify the hypothesis above by a survey using the questionnaire.