Job strain and smoking cessation among Japanese male employees: a two-year follow-up study

The purpose of the present study was to assess the association between job strain and smoking cessation among Japanese male employees. In 1997, a baseline questionnaire was given to 2,625 (2,113 males and 512 females) employees of an electronics firm in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. The self-administered questionnaire was a set of questions on smoking habits and consisted of items on socio-demographic variables and smoking habits, including the Japanese version of the Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). The JCQ consists of scales of job control, job demand, supervisory support, coworker support, job insecurity, physical demands, and isometric load. A total of 733 male smokers were then followed for 2 years, with 446 completing a follow-up questionnaire in 1999 (follow-up rate, 61%). Logistic regression analyses were performed to examine associations between job strain and smoking cessation. Among the 446 participants, 38 had quit smoking. After adjusting for age ((odds ratio: OR) = 0.38, 95% (contidence interval: CI) = 0.15-0.94), men with a high level of physical demands at baseline showed a lower smoking cessation rate at follow-up than did those with a low level. However, when adjustments were made for age and other socio-demographic variables, the odds ratio of smoking cessation showed marginal significance (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.16-1.29). There was no significant association between other job strain variables and smoking cessation at the 2-year follow-up. No significant association was found between job strain and change in the number of smoked cigarettes per day. The present study did not support the hypothesis that higher levels of job stressors are associated with a lower rate of smoking cessation among men.</p

Non-Gaussian isocurvature perturbations in dark radiation

We study non-Gaussian properties of the isocurvature perturbations in the dark radiation, which consists of the active neutrinos and extra light species, if exist. We first derive expressions for the bispectra of primordial perturbations which are mixtures of curvature and dark radiation isocurvature perturbations. We also discuss CMB bispectra produced in our model and forecast CMB constraints on the nonlinearity parameters based on the Fisher matrix analysis. Some concrete particle physics motivated models are presented in which large isocurvature perturbations in extra light species and/or the neutrino density isocurvature perturbations as well as their non-Gaussianities may be generated. Thus detections of non-Gaussianity in the dark radiation isocurvature perturbation will give us an opportunity to identify the origin of extra light species and lepton asymmetry.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure

Comparison of performance of the 2016 ACR-EULAR classification criteria for primary Sjögren\u27s syndrome with other sets of criteria in Japanese patients

Objectives To compare the performance of the new 2016 American College of Rheumatology (ACR)-European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) classification criteria for primary Sjögren\u27s syndrome (SS) with 1999 revised Japanese Ministry of Health criteria for diagnosis of SS (JPN), 2002 American-European Consensus Group classification criteria for SS (AECG) and 2012 ACR classification criteria for SS (ACR) in Japanese patients.Methods The study subjects were 499 patients with primary SS (pSS) or suspected pSS who were followed up in June 2012 at 10 hospitals in Japan. All patients had been assessed for all four criteria of JPN (pathology, oral, ocular, anti-SS-A/SS-B antibodies). The clinical diagnosis by the physician in charge was set as the ‘gold standard’.Results pSS was diagnosed in 302 patients and ruled out in 197 patients by the physician in charge. The sensitivity of the ACR-EULAR criteria in the diagnosis of pSS (95.4%) was higher than those of the JPN, AECG and ACR (82.1%, 89.4% and 79.1%, respectively), while the specificity of the ACR-EULAR (72.1%) was lower than those of the three sets (90.9%, 84.3% and 84.8%, respectively). The differences of sensitivities and specificities between the ACR-EULAR and other three sets of criteria were statistically significant (p<0.001). Eight out of 302 patients with pSS and 11 cases out of 197 non-pSS cases satisfied only the ACR-EULAR criteria, compared with none of the other three sets.Conclusions The ACR-EULAR criteria had significantly higher sensitivity and lower specificity in diagnosis of pSS, compared with the currently available three sets of criteria

Non-Gaussianity from Isocurvature Perturbations : Analysis of Trispectrum

Non-Gaussianity may exist in the CDM isocurvature perturbation. We provide general expressions for the bispectrum and trispectrum of both adiabatic and isocurvature pertubations. We apply our result to the QCD axion case, and found a consistency relation between the coefficients of the bispectrum and trispectrum : tau_{NL}^(iso)~10^3 [f_{NL}^(iso)]^{4/3}, if the axion is dominantly produced by quantum fluctuation. Thus future observations of the trispectrum, as well as the bispectrum, will be important for understanding the origin of the CDM and baryon asymmetry.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures; minor corrections; to appear in JCA

The higher the farther : distance-specific referential gestures in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

チンパンジーのボディランゲージ、距離に応じて使い分け. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2017-11-17.Referential signals, such as manual pointing or deictic words, allow individuals to efficiently locate a specific entity in the environment, using distance-specific linguistic and/or gestural units. To explore the evolutionary prerequisites of such deictic ability, the present study investigates the ability of chimpanzees to adjust their communicative signals to the distance of a referent. A food-request paradigm in which the chimpanzees had to request a close or distant piece of food on a table in the presence/absence of an experimenter was employed. Our main finding concerns the chimpanzees adjusting their requesting behaviours to the distance of the food such that higher manual gestures and larger mouth openings were used to request the distant piece of food. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that chimpanzees are able to use distance-specific gestures

Individual data (visual and audio-visual signals; height of the hand; mouth opening) from The higher the farther: distance-specific referential gestures in chimpanzees (<i>Pan troglodytes</i>)

Referential signals, such as manual pointing or deictic words, allow individuals to efficiently locate a specific entity in the environment, using distance-specific linguistic and/or gestural units. To explore the evolutionary prerequisites of such deictic ability, the present study investigates the ability of chimpanzees to adjust their communicative signals to the distance of a referent. A food-request paradigm in which the chimpanzees had to request a close or distant piece of food on a table in the presence/absence of an experimenter was employed. Our main finding concerns the chimpanzees adjusting their requesting behaviours to the distance of the food such that higher manual gestures and larger mouth openings were used to request the distant piece of food. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that chimpanzees are able to use distance-specific gestures