The human development index: A search for a measure of human values.

The thesis investigates methods of evaluating indexes that measure concepts of human values. My understanding of indexes, especially on how they relate to the real world and concepts (that are the objectives of the measurement), is influenced by my study of literature on models used in economic and in physics. We learn from this study of models the following: (1) regularities described in theories do not represent real world phenomena, which consist of many different forces acting simultaneously; (2) but such regularities are true in models, because they describe specific conditions under which regularities in nature are displayed; (3) there are more than one model that can represent the same phenomenon depending on which particular aspect of the phenomenon to focus on; and (4) the success of a model has to be evaluated partly by criteria that are independent from theoretical ones. Since the role indexes play in relation to real world and concepts are similar to the role models play in relation to theories, I have applied the above knowledge to propose the following three criteria to evaluate successful indexes: (1) Purpose-dependent criteria: criteria that are based on particular motivations of the measurement project; (2) Theory-dependent criteria: criteria that are reflected in the theories that expressly or implicitly guide the development of the project of measurement; and (3) Conditions-dependent criteria: criteria that are based on the conditions under which the index measures what it is designed to measure. I apply these three criteria of successful indexes to examine two projects of measuring human values, one called the Human Development Index developed by the United Nations Development Programme and the other called the Life Satisfaction Indicator developed by an officer at the Economic Planning Agency in Japan. Among the findings from the examination of those two indexes are that they can be the products of a mixture of concerns that include convenience, conventions, practicality, politics and consistency with relevant theories, and some of these concerns may conflict with each other. Another important finding is that because there are many assumptions made and simplifications applied in order to choose a quantitative representation of a human value, the application of the measure is limited. I conclude that both in using and in evaluating indexes of human values, it is important that we are aware of such limitations, so that we can more effectively know both how to avoid misusing the indexes and how to improve them over time

A study on recording and analysis conditions of polysomnography for automated computer analysis of sleep stages.

自動解析装置を用いて終夜睡眠ポリグラフを解析する際の記録条件と解析条件を検討した。対象は若年成人女性10名で,解析には0xford社製睡眠ポリグラフ記録･解析装置Medilog SAC 847 Systemを用い,第3夜の記録を視察判定と比較した｡徐波睡眠の指標となるδ波の最小振幅基準を初期設定の基線から±31/μVと,これより低い±25/μVに設定すると,徐波睡眠量,徐波睡眠率とも視察による判定とほぼ同じ解析結果が得られた。眼球運動の入力感度はREM睡眠量,REM睡眠率に影響しなかったが,オトガイ筋電図の入力感度を初期設定の1.5VにするとREM睡眠がほとんどみれなくなる例が多く,1.0VではREM睡眠量がこれまでの報告より少ないものの,視察判定に近い結果が得られた｡以上の研究結果から,我々が用いた自動解析装置では,オトガイ筋電図の入力感度を1.0V,δ波の最小振幅基準を±25～31/μVに設定すれば,視察判定とほぼ同じ解析結果が得られると考えられた｡Recording and analysis conditions of polysomnography were examined in 10 young adult female by using sleep analysis computer Medilog SAC 847 system (Oxford). The quantity and percentage of slow wave sleep were consistent with those of visual inspection when the minimum delta amplitude was adjusted at ± 25～31μV from the baseline. The gain amplitude of mandibular electromyogram dramatically affected recognition of REM stage by the computer. Percentage of REM sleep was almost same as that of visual inspection when the gain potentiometer was adjusted to read 50μV peak-to-peak calibration signal as 1.0V, while REM stage was not recognized when　the gain potentiometer was adjusted to 1.5V. In contrast, the gain amplitude of electropthalmogram　did not affect the recognition of REM stage

Changes of Student Nurses' views and Images of the Elderly before and after Practicing at Nursing Homes

A questionnaire survey was done by 76 third year-students of the nursing course before and after practicing at the two nursing homes in 1989. The same questions about their views and images of the aged person were given twice and compared. Question to image consists of 38 paired items respectively opposed to be rated on a seven-point scale. The results showed that their views and images had changed from idealistic to realistic as a result of their practices. These were some differences found in these changes by the home and the period of practice

A study on olders from the view point of learning support : regarding members\u27disengagement in the Senior Citizen\u27s Club

A deal of learning opportunities have been provided for active elderly. But it has not mentioned the fact that soon or later elderly will face their physical and mental changes and their slow declines will persuade them to abandon continuing learning. Similarly, Senior Citizens\u27Clubs positively participating in social activities have been subsidized for further promotion of their activities. But it is not easy to join social activities unless they have confidence in health and physical strength. The more active oriented the clubs are, the more older members are discouraged from participating club\u27s activities and take a less active role in their clubs. This article, regarding the membership in the Senior Citizen\u27s Club, mentions the importance of care for the older learners who are actually in disengagement process

Influence of patient characteristics on duration of seclusion/restrain in acute psychiatric settings in Japan

Peer reviewe

Investigation of the feasibility of a simple method for verifying the motion of a binary multileaf collimator synchronized with the rotation of the gantry for helical tomotherapy

In this paper, we suggest a new method for verifying the motion of a binary multileaf collimator (MLC) in helical tomotherapy. For this we used a combination of a cylindrical scintillator and a general-purpose camcorder. The camcorder records the light from the scintillator following photon irradiation, which we use to track the motion of the binary MLC. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the feasibility of this method as a binary MLC quality assurance (QA) tool. First, the verification was performed using a simple binary MLC pattern with a constant leaf open time; secondly, verification using the binary MLC pattern used in a clinical setting was also performed. Sinograms of simple binary MLC patterns, in which leaves that were open were detected as "open" from the measured light, define the sensitivity which, in this case, was 1.000. On the other hand, the specificity, which gives the fraction of closed leaves detected as "closed", was 0.919. The leaf open error identified by our method was -1.3 +/- 7.5%. The 68.6% of observed leaves were performed within +/- 3% relative error. The leaf open error was expressed by the relative errors calculated on the sinogram. In the clinical binary MLC pattern, the sensitivity and specificity were 0.994 and 0.997, respectively. The measurement could be performed with -3.4 +/- 8.0% leaf open error. The 77.5% of observed leaves were performed within +/- 3% relative error. With this method, we can easily verify the motion of the binary MLC, and the measurement unit developed was found to be an effective QA tool.ArticleJOURNAL OF APPLIED CLINICAL MEDICAL PHYSICS. 13(1):27-43 (2012)journal articl

Effects of Dynamical Evolution of Giant Planets on Survival of Terrestrial Planets

The orbital distributions of currently observed extrasolar giant planets allow marginally stable orbits for hypothetical, terrestrial planets. In this paper, we propose that many of these systems may not have additional planets on these "stable" orbits, since past dynamical instability among giant planets could have removed them. We numerically investigate the effects of early evolution of multiple giant planets on the orbital stability of the inner, sub-Neptune-like planets which are modeled as test particles, and determine their dynamically unstable region. Previous studies have shown that the majority of such test particles are ejected out of the system as a result of close encounters with giant planets. Here, we show that secular perturbations from giant planets can remove test particles at least down to 10 times smaller than their minimum pericenter distance. Our results indicate that, unless the dynamical instability among giant planets is either absent or quiet like planet-planet collisions, most test particles down to ~0.1 AU within the orbits of giant planets at a few AU may be gone. In fact, out of ~30 % of survived test particles, about three quarters belong to the planet-planet collision cases. We find a good agreement between our numerical results and the secular theory, and present a semi-analytical formula which estimates the dynamically unstable region of the test particles just from the evolution of giant planets. Finally, our numerical results agree well with the observations, and also predict the existence of hot rocky planets in eccentric giant planet systems.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, published in Ap