ジュニア キ ウンドウ センシュ ノ シンタイ ハツイク ト エイヨウ ソ トウ セッシュ リョウ ノ カカワリ

ジュニア期サッカー選手および野球選手の身体組成と栄養素等摂取状況の実態を把握し,ジュニア期運動選手の身体づくりにおける食事,栄養素等摂取の関わりについて考察することを目的とした。方法:15歳から17歳のサッカー選手(29名)および野球選手(42名)を対象に,生体インピーダンス法による身体組成測定と食物摂取頻度調査法による栄養素等摂取状況調査を実施した。結果:サッカー選手と野球選手はともに平均6.8年の競技歴があった。このとき,サッカー選手は15歳から17歳で身体組成および栄養素等摂取量に年齢の違いによる有意な差が見られなかったのに対し,野球選手は17歳で体重や体脂肪率が増加し,栄養素等摂取量も増加した。身体組成と栄養素等摂取量との関わりを検討した結果,ジュニア期運動選手においては除脂肪体重とエネルギー摂取量および炭水化物摂取量との間に有意な正の相関が見られた。結論:ジュニア期運動選手における除脂肪体重の増加には,炭水化物摂取の重要性が示唆された。The aim of this study was to estimate body composition and nutritional intakes, and to take basal data for dietary assessment of junior athletes. Methods:we estimated height, body weight, and body compositions such as body fat and lean body mass by bio-impedance methods, and nutritional intakes by food frequency questionnaire methods. Twenty-nine football players and forty-two baseball players 15yr to 17yr of age participated in this study. Results:Body mass, body fat percentage and nutritional intakes in 17yr significantly increased in baseball players compared with those in football players. In football players, there is no significant difference in body composition and in nutritional intake among the three different ages. On the other hand, in 17yr baseball players, body mass, muscle mass and body fat mass, and energy intakes were significantly higher than those of 16yr of age. There are significant correlations between lean body mass and intakes of energy or carbohydrate, but not protein or lipid. Conclusions:These results indicate that high school junior athletes might have suitable body composition and have done sufficient nutritional intakes, suggesting that it might be important for increasing lean body mass to have sufficient carbohydrate intakes

Is Estrogen Effective for Full-Thickness Cutaneous Wound Healing in Young Male Mice ?

The aim of this study is to show the effects of estrogen upon its topical application on the wound healing process in young male mice. Fifty-six male mice aged 7 weeks old were divided into 4 groups: sham operation, castration, estrogen treatment after sham operation, and estrogen treatment after castration. Wound healing was observed daily until day 14 after wounding. Specimens were harvested on days 3, 7, 10, and 14, and stained to evaluate reepithelialization, inflammation, contraction, and collagen accumulation. Wound healing periods of all groups were almost the same, although the concentration of serum estrogen in the estrogen-applied mice was very high, and that in the nonapplied groups was low. The numbers of macrophages in the castrated, estrogen-treated after sham operation, and estrogen-treated after castration groups were significantly decreased compared with that in the sham group in the inflammatory phase; however, the ratio of wound area in these groups did not decrease, and other histological data did not reveal any effects of estrogen. These results indicate that estrogen may show limited effectiveness for full-thickness cutaneous wound healing in young male mice, and decreased inflammation may not always be associated with decreased wound area

New Approach to Teaching Japanese Pronunciation in the Digital Era - Challenges and Practices

Pronunciation has been a black hole in the L2 Japanese classroom on account of a lack of class time, teacher\u2019s confidence, and consciousness of the need to teach pronunciation, among other reasons. The absence of pronunciation instruction is reported to result in fossilized pronunciation errors, communication problems, and learner frustration. With an intention of making a contribution to improve such circumstances, this paper aims at three goals. First, it discusses the importance, necessity, and e ectiveness of teaching prosodic aspects of Japanese pronunciation from an early stage in acquisition. Second, it shows that Japanese prosody is challenging because of its typological rareness, regardless of the L1 backgrounds of learners. Third and finally, it introduces a new approach to teaching L2 pronunciation with the goal of developing L2 comprehensibility by focusing on essential prosodic features, which is followed by discussions on key issues concerning how to implement the new approach both inside and outside the classroom in the digital era

Axenic culture of Brachionus plicatilis using antibiotics

The rotifer Brachionus plicatilis culture is composed of complex microcosms including bacteria, protozoans, algae, and fungi. Previous studies reported methods to establish axenic rotifer cultures, but further refinement of these techniques is needed, for molecular biological research which requires pure culture to isolate nucleic acids from rotifers only. In order to render rotifer culture axenic, we tested five antibiotics: ampicillin (Amp), chloramphenicol (Cp), kanamycin (Km), nalidixic acid (Na), and streptomycin (Sm) at 30-100 μg/ml. Except for Cp, which reduces rotifer reproduction, all other antibiotics at the tested concentrations did not affect rotifer reproduction or show any toxic effects. A rotifer disinfection method was finally established by treating the resting eggs with 0.25% (w/v) sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) for 3 min, washing with sterilized sea water, and then exposing the neonates to an Amp, Km, Na, and Sm mixture. Using four nutrient media, we confirmed that this protocol renders the rotifer culture bacterial and fungus free. The axenic rotifer culture generated here is useful not only for genetic analysis of Brachionus plicatilis, but for studying the rotifer life cycle without bacterial influence

Effects of speaking rate and vowel length on formant frequency displacement in Japanese

This study examined effects of phonemic vowel length and speaking rate, two factors that affect vowel duration, on the first and second formants of all vowels in Japanese. The aim was to delineate the aspects of formant displacement that are governed by the physiological proclivity of vowel production shared across languages, and the aspects that reveal language-specific phenomena. Acoustic analysis revealed that the phonemic long vowels occupied a more peripheral portion of the F1 × F2 vowel space than the phonemic short vowels (effect of vowel length), but effects of speaking rate were less clear. This was because of the significant interactions of the two effects: the formants of phonemic short vowels were more affected by speaking rates than the phonemic long vowels. Regression analyses between F2 and duration revealed that formant displacement occurs when vowels are less than 200 ms. Similarities and differences found for Japanese and English are discussed in terms of physiological proclivity of vowel production versus language-specific phonological encoding.21 page(s

Does the native language use of duration affect the perception of non-native length contrasts?

This study compared native Italian (NI) and American English (NE) speakers’ abilities to perceive Japanese phonemic length contrasts. Japanese has both vowel and consonant length contrasts, Italian has only consonant length contrast, and English has neither. The study examined to which extent the differential use of duration in their native languages affects their abilities to perceive length contrasts in an unfamiliar language. Twenty-two mono- lingual NI speakers perceived Japanese words in isolation and in sentences and were asked to identify the number of moras in target words, e.g., /o.do.t.ta/ as four moras. Their test scores were compared to those of 18 NE participants (Hirata 2004) in an analysis of variance. Group (NE, NI) was a between-subjects factor, and context isolation, sentences and word type long vowels, geminates, combination, and short segments were within- subjects factors. While there was no main effect of group (NI: 44.6%; NE: 39.5%), there was a significant three-way interaction. The NI group scored significantly higher than the NE group on words with geminates spoken in sentences (43.3 vs 31.1%). Results are discussed as to whether the perception of non-native length contrasts is driven by language-specific ability (McAllister et al. 2002) or by more general auditory ability (Bohn 1995)

Metaphoric Gestures Facilitate Perception of Intonation More than Length in Auditory Judgments of Non-Native Phonemic Contrasts

It is well established that hand gestures affect comprehension and learning of semantic aspects of a foreign language (FL). However, much less is known about the role of hand gestures in lower-level language processes, such as perception of phonemes. To address this gap, we explored the role that metaphoric gestures play in perceiving FL speech sounds that varied on two dimensions: length and intonation. English speaking adults listened to Japanese length contrasts and sentence-final intonational distinctions in the context of congruent, incongruent and no gestures. For intonational contrasts, identification was more accurate for congruent gestures and less accurate for incongruent gestures relative to the baseline no gesture condition. However, for the length contrasts, there was no such clear and consistent pattern, and in fact, congruent gestures made speech processing more effortful. We conclude that metaphoric gestures help with some—but not all—novel speech sounds in a FL, suggesting that gesture and speech are phonemically integrated to differing extents depending on the nature of the gesture and/or speech sound

Cross-language perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts : comparison of listeners from different first language backgrounds

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to compare the perception of Japanese vowel length contrasts by 4 groups of listeners who differed in their familiarity with length contrasts in their first language (L1; i.e., American English, Italian, Japanese, and Thai). Of the 3 nonnative groups, native Thai listeners were expected to outperform American English and Italian listeners, because vowel length is contrastive in their L1. Native Italian listeners were expected to demonstrate a higher level of accuracy for length contrasts than American English listeners, because the former are familiar with consonant (but not vowel) length contrasts (i.e., singleton vs. geminate) in their L1. Method: A 2-alternative forced-choice AXB discrimination test that included 125 trials was administered to all the participants, and the listeners' discrimination accuracy (d?) was reported. Results: As expected, Japanese listeners were more accurate than all 3 nonnative groups in their discrimination of Japanese vowel length contrasts. The 3 nonnative groups did not differ from one another in their discrimination accuracy despite varying experience with length contrasts in their L1. Only Thai listeners were more accurate in their length discrimination when the target vowel was long than when it was short. Conclusion: Being familiar with vowel length contrasts in L1 may affect the listeners' cross-language perception, but it does not guarantee that their L1 experience automatically results in efficient processing of length contrasts in unfamiliar languages. The extent of success may be related to how length contrasts are phonetically implemented in listeners' L1.10 page(s

Perception of vowel length contrasts in Arabic and Japanese : preliminary data from American English, Japanese and Thai Listeners

This study examined the discrimination of short and long vowels in two quantity-sensitive languages (Arabic and Japanese) by five groups of listeners differing in their first language (L1) backgrounds and experience with Japanese. Listeners’ L1s were American English, Japanese and Thai. One group each of American and Thai listeners was studying Japanese in their home countries (US and Thailand, respectively) and the other group had no experience with Japanese. None of the listeners had any experience with Arabic. As expected, the native Japanese (NJ) listeners discriminated the Japanese length contrasts more accurately than did non-native listeners (95 vs. 77-84%). Five groups did not differ in their discrimination accuracy for the Arabic vowels. The between-group difference in the response patterns suggests that only American learners of Japanese have experienced a shift in their long-term cognitive representations and approximated to the NJ group to a greater extent than the other groups.4 page(s

Perception of Italian and Japanese consonant length by native speakers of Australian English and Italian : a pilot study

We examined the perception of Italian (IT) and Japanese (JP) consonant length contrasts (singleton vs geminate) in two groups of listeners: native speakers of IT and Australian English (OZ). Our preliminary results suggest that the IT listeners’ experience with singleton/geminate contrasts was more beneficial than the OZ listeners’ experience with vowel length contrasts in processing JP singleton and geminate consonants. Contrary to the previous literature, the OZ listeners identified stop length contrasts less accurately than fricative and affricate contrasts in both IT and JP. The IT listeners showed a manner effect only for JP with affricate length contrast being misperceived most.4 page(s