Trustworthy SNS for Institutional Repositories -presentation slide

DRF International Conference 2008 Open Access and Institutional Repository in Asia-Pacific (DRFIC 2008), 30th and 31st January, Osaka, JAPAN / デジタルリポジトリ連合国際会議2008 アジア・環太平洋地域におけるオープンアクセスと機関リポジトリ(DRFIC 2008), 平成20年1月30‐31日, 大阪大学 Poster Session No.6-presentation slide / ポスターセッション No.6-口頭発表スライ

Direct search for solar axions by using strong magnetic field and X-ray detectors

We have searched for axions which could be produced in the solar core by exploiting their conversion to X rays in a strong laboratory magnetic field. The signature of the solar axion is an increase in the rate of the X rays detected in a magnetic helioscope when the sun is within its acceptance. From the absence of such a signal we set a 95% confidence level limit on the axion coupling to two photons $g_{a\gamma\gamma}\equiv 1/M < 6.0\times 10^{-10}$ GeV$^{-1}$, provided the axion mass $m_a<0.03$ eV. The limit on the coupling is factor 4.5 more stringent than the recent experimental result. This is the first experiment whose sensitivity to $g_{a\gamma\gamma}$ is higher than the limit constrained by the solar age consideration.Comment: 11 pages, REVTeX, 4 eps figures included, submitted to PL

Initial Teacher Education for EFL:Accredited Higher Education Institutions Facing a New Phase

As of April 2014, more than 300 Japanese higher education institutions accredited by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology or MEXT provide the pre-service teacher education for English language. There has been a serious problem about student teachers having practicum trainings at school, particularly those acquiring a teacher’s license only or those lacking fundamental skills or aptitude. Presently MEXT requires each institution to maintain or improve its teacher training education, seeking the standardization of teaching credentials. This paper attempts to clarify the dilemmas of initial teacher education programs for EFL at colleges or universities under the MEXT reforms of standardization of teaching credentials, as well as the gap between the MEXT guidelines and the realities that initial teacher education providers and secondary schools are facing from the perspective of a person who has been in charge of English pedagogy at university for nearly 20 years

Trustworthy SNS for Institutional Repositories -poster

DRF International Conference 2008 Open Access and Institutional Repository in Asia-Pacific (DRFIC 2008), 30th and 31st January, Osaka, JAPAN / デジタルリポジトリ連合国際会議2008 アジア・環太平洋地域におけるオープンアクセスと機関リポジトリ(DRFIC 2008), 平成20年1月30‐31日, 大阪大学 Poster Session No.6-poster / ポスターセッション No.6-ポスタ

Trustworthy SNS for Institutional Repositories -Abstract

In recent years, SNS (Social Networking Service) are attracting attention in the field of web services. SNS is the communication system which focuses on social relations between users, such as a friend and a group, named a community. Thus, SNS is useful for the institutional repositories in the sense that they can 1) increase the time and frequency of use by users, and 2) categorize or utilize the contents using the community information. However in SNS nowadays, the increase of spam messages is becoming a problem. This is considered to be because a user authentication at the time of registration depends only on 1) the invitation from the existing user and 2) an effective mail address. In this presentation, the method of 1) authenticating the affiliation correctly at the time of registration, and of 2) exhibiting a real name only within affiliation and opening only an affiliation name to outside the affiliation, are shown based on literature [1], Moreover, its current state after an experimental installation are described. / 近年，Web サービスの分野で，SNS（Social Networking Service）というサービスが注目されている．SNS は，友人や，コミュニティという名のグループといった，利用者間の社会的なつながりを重視したコミュニケーションシステムである．このことからSNS は，1．利用時間と頻度を上げることができる，2．コミュニティの情報を用いて分類ができるという点で，機関リポジトリにとって有用である．ところが最近の一般のSNS においては，迷惑なメッセージが増えていることが問題になりつつある．これは，利用者の登録時の認証を，既存利用者からの招待と，有効なメールアドレスを登録するという2 点にのみ頼っている事が原因であると考えられる．本発表では，1．登録時に所属を確実に認証する，2．所属内でのみ実名を公開し，所属外の人には所属名のみ公開する，という方法とその実装を，文献[1]に基づいて紹介し，試験導入後の運用状況を述べる．DRF International Conference 2008 Open Access and Institutional Repository in Asia-Pacific (DRFIC 2008), 30th and 31st January, Osaka, JAPAN / デジタルリポジトリ連合国際会議2008 アジア・環太平洋地域におけるオープンアクセスと機関リポジトリ(DRFIC 2008), 平成20年1月30‐31日, 大阪大学Poster Session No.6-Abstract / ポスターセッション No.6-予稿集抄

Migration patterns of pregnant women after disasters

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (within Fukushima, Iwate, and Miyagi prefectures) was a complex disaster; it caused a tsunami and the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, resulting in radiation exposure. This study investigated the earthquake’s effects on the migration patterns of pregnant women and their concerns regarding radiation exposure. We also considered the following large-scale earthquakes without radiation exposure: Great Hanshin-Awaji (Hyogo prefecture), Niigata-Chuetsu, and Kumamoto. Pregnant women were categorized as outflow and inflow pregnant women. Data on the annual number of births three years before and after the earthquake were used as a denominator to calculate the outflow and inflow rates per 100 births. The odds ratios of annual outflow and inflow rates after the earthquake, using three years before the earthquake as the baseline, were calculated. The odds-ratio for outflow significantly increased for Hyogo, Fukushima, Miyagi, and Kumamoto prefectures after the earthquake, particularly for Fukushima, showing a significant increase until three years post the Great East Japan Earthquake (disaster year: odds-ratio: 2.66 [95% confidence interval: 2.44–2.90], 1 year post: 1.37 [1.23–1.52], 2 years post: 1.13 [1.00–1.26], 3 years post: 1.18 [1.05–1.31]), while the remaining three prefectures reported limited increases post one year. The inflow decreased after the earthquake, particularly in Fukushima, showing a significant decrease until 2 years post the Great East Japan Earthquake (disaster year: 0.58 [0.53–0.63], 1 year post: 0.76 [0.71–0.82], 2 years post: 0.83 [0.77–0.89]). Thus, pregnant women’s migration patterns changed after large-scale earthquakes, suggesting radiation exposure concerns possibly have a significant effects. These results suggested that plans for receiving assistance and support that considers the peculiarities of disaster related damage and pregnant women’s migration patterns are needed in both the affected and non-affected areas

ICU入室時の超音波による筋量測定の有用性についての検討

Background & aims: Muscle mass is an important biomarker of survival from a critical illness; however, there is no widely accepted method for routine assessment of low muscularity at intensive care unit (ICU) admission. We hypothesize that ultrasound-based partial muscle mass assessments can reflect the trunk muscle mass. Therefore, we aimed to investigate whether ultrasound muscle mass measurements could reflect trunk muscle mass and identify patients with low muscularity. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of prospectively obtained ultrasound data at ICU admission. We included patients who underwent computed tomography (CT) imaging at the third lumbar vertebra (L3) within 2 days before and 2 days after ICU admission. Primary outcomes included the correlation between the femoral muscle mass measurements using ultrasound and the cross-sectional area (CSA) at L3 obtained by CT. Low muscularity was defined as a skeletal muscle index of 36.0 cm2/m2 for males and 29.0 cm2/m2 for females. Secondary outcomes included the correlation with the ultrasound measurements of the biceps brachii muscle mass and diaphragm thickness. Results: Among 133 patients, 89 underwent CT imaging, which included the L3. The patient mean age was 72 ± 13 years, and 60 patients (67%) were male. The correlation between the femoral muscle ultrasound and CT was p = 0.57 (p < 0.01, n = 89) and p = 0.48 (p < 0.01, n = 89) for quadriceps muscle layer thickness and rectus femoris muscle CSA, and these had the discriminative power to assess low muscularity, with the areas under the curve of 0.84 and 0.76, respectively. The ultrasound measurements of the biceps brachii muscle mass and diaphragm thickness were correlated with CT imaging [p = 0.57 - 0.60 (p < 0.01, n = 52) and p = 0.35 (p < 0.01, n = 79)]. Conclusions: Ultrasound measurements of muscle mass were correlated with CT measurements, and the measurements of femoral muscle mass were useful to assess low muscularity at ICU admission