Health Support of Recipients by Welfare Caseworkers : Analysis of a Questionnaire Implemented at Urban Welfare Offices

【目的】生活保護受給者の自立支援の基礎となるのは健康への支援である。生活保護ケースワーカー（以下、CW）による受給者の健康支援を促進する要因と健康支援に関連する認識を明らかにすることを研究目的とした。【方法】3都市10福祉事務所のCW212人に質問紙を配布し、有効回答178人分を分析対象とした。作成した尺度に基づき健康支援得点を算出し、それを目的変数として関連要因を明らかにするために重回帰分析を行った。また、健康支援得点で2群（高群、低群）に分け、重要と考える健康課題、健康支援方策および職場環境整備の必要性についてCWの認識を比較した。【結果】健康支援得点には、CWとしての受給者への姿勢、高い仕事のやりがい感、職場における事例検討が有意に関連していた。重要と考える健康支援の課題は、精神保健と母子保健の領域の課題をあげるものが多く、健康支援得点の高群は低群に比し、児童虐待をあげる割合が有意に高かった。また、健康支援得点の高群は、健康支援方策では保健医療専門職との連携、栄養教室の開催、患者会や当事者グループ等の活用をあげる割合が有意に高く、職場環境の整備では、職場内での助け合い、他部署との友好な連携、支援策の相談と助言、保健医療専門職の配置などの項目すべてでかなり必要であると答える割合が高かった。【結論】CWによる健康支援を促進するには、CWの志気の高さとそれを支える職場内の取り組みが重要である。受給者の健康課題は、精神保健や母子保健の領域に多く認められた。健康支援に積極的に取り組んでいるCWは、健康支援方策についてより多くの方策が必要と考えており、また、職場環境整備の必要性についての意識もより積極的であった。受給者の健康支援では、世帯を担当するCWが受給者の健康状態への気づきやアセスメント力を高め、医療専門職との協働・連携につなげていける職場環境や体制づくりが重要である。[Purpose] Health support is fundamental of various supports for public welfare recipients. This study aimed to clarify promotion factors and awareness related to health support for recipients among welfare caseworkers (CWs). [Methods] Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 212 CWs at ten welfare offices in three different cities, and analysis was conducted on valid answers from 178 respondents. Health support scores were calculated based on a scale created for the study; using the score as the dependent variable, multiple regression analysis was conducted to clarify related factors. In addition, according to the health support score respondents were divided into two groups (the high score group and low score group), and CWs\u27 awareness of the importance of health issues, health support measures, and improvement of workplace environment were compared. [Results] A significant relationship was found between the health support score and the attitudes of CWs toward recipients, a strong sense of the work being worth doing, and case study meetings in the workplace. The health issues that the CWs considered important were those that involved mental health and maternal and child health, and the rate of child abuse being considered important in the high score group was significantly higher than in the low score group. Regarding health support measures, significantly higher rates were shown in the high score group than low score group in terms of cooperation with health professionals, holding nutrition classes, and cooperation with self-help groups. As improvement of workplace environment, the high score group showed higher rates in all of the items, such as helping others within the workplace, favorable cooperation with other sections, consultations and advice for support measures, and placement of health professionals. [Conclusions] For the promotion of health support by CWs, high levels of morale among the CWs themselves and supporting initiatives within the workplace are essential. Many health issues were identified in the areas of mental health and mother and child health. CWs who proactively make efforts for health support thought that larger numbers of health support measures were necessary, and they also had a stronger awareness of the necessity of workplace environment improvement. To promote health support of welfare recipients, it is necessary to enhance CWs\u27 assessment skills toward recipients health need, and workplace environment that assure cooperation with health professions is also important.黒田研二教授退職記念

Conductance of a single molecule anchored by an isocyanide substituent to gold electrodes

The effect of anchoring group on the electrical conductance of a single molecule bridging two Au electrodes was studied using di-substituted (isocyanide (CN-), thiol (S-) or cyanide (NC-)) benzene. The conductance of a single Au/1,4-diisocyanobenzene/Au junction anchored by isocyanide via a C atom (junction with the Au-CN bond) was $3 \times 10 ^{-3} G_{0}$ ($2e^{2}/h$). The value was comparable to $4 \times 10 ^{-3} G_{0}$ of a single Au/1,4-benzenedithiol/Au junction with the Au-S bond. The Au/1,4-dicyanobenzene/Au molecular junction with the Au-NC bond did not show well-defined conductance values. The metal-molecule bond strength was estimated by the distance over which the molecular junction was stretched before breakdown. The stretched length of the molecular junction with the Au-CN bond was comparable to that of the Au junction, indicating that the Au-CN bond was stronger than the Au-Au bond.Comment: 3 figures, to be appear in Appl. Phys. Let

Preferred Lattice Orientation of Quartz in Shear Deformation

The quartz fabrics of shear belts in granite of the Teshima district, Kagawa Pref., Japan, have been examined, in order to understand the nature of preferred lattice orientation of quartz developed by shear deformation. The strains in the shear belts are referred to the type of two dimensional strain with rotation. The stable pattern of the c-axis fabric of quartz in the shear belts appears in shear strain larger than ca. 1.80 and is characterized by two maxima with wide spreading on "pseudo-two-girdle", showing approximately orthorhombic symmetry whose symmetry planes are parallel to the principal planes of the strain ellipsoid of mean strain of the system concerned. The positions of two maxima coincide with the intersecting points of the "pseudo-two-girdle" which are situated on the plane containing the shortest and the intermediate principal axes of strain ellipsoid at the angle of ca. 30° to the latter axis. The one component girdle of the "pseudo-two-girdle" is a partial great-cicle girdle containing the two maxima and the intermediate principal axis, and the other component girdle would be regarded as two cro-ssed small-circle-like girdles, which cut across the plane of the longest and the shortest principal axes of the strain ellipsoid at the angle of ca. 40° to the latter axis, and whose intersecting points correspond to the positions of the two maxima. It has been concluded that the c-axis fabrics of quartz in the shear belts are mainly determined by the principal strain

On the Backbending Mechanism of 48^{48}Cr

The mechanism of backbending in $^{48}$Cr is investigated in terms of the Projected Shell Model and the Generator Coordinate Method. It is shown that both methods are reasonable shell model truncation schemes. These two quite different quantum mechanical approaches lead to a similar conclusion that the backbending is due to a band crossing involving an excited band which is built on simultaneously broken neutron and proton pairs in the ``intruder'' subshell $f_{7/2}$. It is pointed out that this type of band crossing is usually known to cause the second backbending in rare-earth nuclei.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Enzymatic one-step ring contraction for quinolone biosynthesis.

The 6,6-quinolone scaffolds on which viridicatin-type fungal alkaloids are built are frequently found in metabolites that display useful biological activities. Here we report in vitro and computational analyses leading to the discovery of a hemocyanin-like protein AsqI from the Aspergillus nidulans aspoquinolone biosynthetic pathway that forms viridicatins via a conversion of the cyclopenin-type 6,7-bicyclic system into the viridicatin-type 6,6-bicyclic core through elimination of carbon dioxide and methylamine through methyl isocyanate

Multi-Metric Near-Optimal Image Denoising

It is necessary to optimize the parameters for each image input to achieve the maximum denoising performance because the performance of denoising algorithms depends largely on the selection of the associated parameters. The commonly used objective image quality measures in quantitatively evaluating a denoised image are PSNR, SSIM, and MS-SSIM, which assume that the original image exists and is fully available as a reference. However, we do not have access to such reference images in many practical applications. Most existing methods for no-reference denoising parameter optimization either use the estimated noise distribution or a unique no-reference image quality evaluation measure. In the chapter, for BM3D, which is a state-of-the-art denoising algorithm, we introduce a natural image statistics (NIS) based on the generalized Gaussian distribution (GGD) and the elastic net regularization (EN) regression method and propose its use to perform the BM3D parameter optimization for PSNR, SSIM, and MS-SSIM, respectively, which are the popular image quality evaluation measures, without reference image and knowledge of the noise distribution. Experimental results with several images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach

A training data selection in on-line training for multilayer neural networks

金沢大学大学院自然科学研究科情報システムIn this paper, a training data selection method for multilayer neural networks (MLNNs) in on-line training is proposed. Purpose of the reduction in training data is reducing the computation complexity of the training and saving the memory to store the data without losing generalization performance. This method uses a pairing method, which selects the nearest neighbor data by finding the nearest data in the different classes. The network is trained by the selected data. Since the selected data located along data class boundary, the trained network can guarantee generalization performance. Efficiency of this method for the on-line training is evaluated by computer simulation