Individual Education Support System Using ICT for Developmental Disabilities

Children with developmental disabilities require special support to help them in different aspects of daily life, and individual educational support is a crucial part of such support. We developed a collaborative system for supporting children with developmental disabilities using ICT to be used by teachers, parents, and supporters. This chapter introduces this system, which provides close and immediate support through instantaneously sharing daily behavior information about the child between teacher-parent-supporters. In addition, storing the data in a highly secure cloud system facilitates passing information to children’s next educational level. Moreover, AI can match support needs and support services according to the characteristics of individual children by using ICF codes for suggesting immediate, dynamic support

The Early Detection and Case Management of Skin Diseases With an mHealth App (eSkinHealth): Protocol for a Mixed Methods Pilot Study in Côte d’Ivoire

Background: There is a high prevalence of skin diseases sub-Saharan Africa, including skin neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that could lead to lifelong disabilities and deformities if not diagnosed and treated early. To achieve early detection and early treatment of these skin diseases, we developed a mobile health app, eSkinHealth.Objective: This paper outlines a protocol for evaluating the effect of our eSkinHealth app in the early detection and effective management of skin diseases in Côte d’Ivoire.Methods: A mixed methods pilot trial will be conducted in Côte d’Ivoire and will consist of 3 phases: (1) the development and improvement of the eSkinHealth app, (2) a pilot trial to evaluate the usability of the eSkinHealth app for local medical staff in Côte d’Ivoire, and (3) a pilot trial to evaluate the effectiveness of early detection and case management of targeted skin NTDs (Buruli ulcer, leprosy, yaws, and lymphatic filariasis) with the eSkinHealth app in Côte d’Ivoire. The pilot study will be implemented as a 2-arm trial with local health care providers and patients with skin NTDs over a 3-month follow-up period. The local health care providers will be assigned to an intervention group receiving the eSkinHealth app to be used in their daily practices or a control group. Training will be provided on the use and implementation of the app and the diagnostic pipeline to the intervention group only, while both groups will receive training on skin diseases. Our primary outcome is to evaluate the early detection and effective management of skin diseases using the eSkinHealth app in Côte d’Ivoire by the number of cases diagnosed and managed. Additionally, we will evaluate the eSkinHealth app with validated questionnaires and in-depth interviews. Procedures of our methods have been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Ministry of Health, Côte d’Ivoire and by Tulane University in 2021.Results: This study was funded in 2021. We started the enrollment of patients in February 2022, and data collection is currently underway. We expect the first results to be submitted for publication in 2023.Conclusions: Our eSkinHealth app is a field-adapted platform that could provide both direct diagnostic and management assistance to health workers in remote settings. The study will provide evidence for the usability and the effectiveness of the eSkinHealth app to improve the early detection and case management of skin NTDs in Côte d’Ivoire and, furthermore, is expected to contribute to knowledge on mobile health approaches in the control of skin NTDs

An attenuated vaccinia vaccine encoding the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 spike protein elicits broad and durable immune responses, and protects cynomolgus macaques and human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 transgenic mice from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 and its variants

As long as the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues, new variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) with altered antigenicity will emerge. The development of vaccines that elicit robust, broad, and durable protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants is urgently required. We have developed a vaccine consisting of the attenuated vaccinia virus Dairen-I (DIs) strain platform carrying the SARS-CoV-2 S gene (rDIs-S). rDIs-S induced neutralizing antibody and T-lymphocyte responses in cynomolgus macaques and human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) transgenic mice, and the mouse model showed broad protection against SARS-CoV-2 isolates ranging from the early-pandemic strain (WK-521) to the recent Omicron BA.1 variant (TY38-873). Using a tandem mass tag (TMT)-based quantitative proteomic analysis of lung homogenates from hACE2 transgenic mice, we found that, among mice subjected to challenge infection with WK-521, vaccination with rDIs-S prevented protein expression related to the severe pathogenic effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection (tissue destruction, inflammation, coagulation, fibrosis, and angiogenesis) and restored protein expression related to immune responses (antigen presentation and cellular response to stress). Furthermore, long-term studies in mice showed that vaccination with rDIs-S maintains S protein-specific antibody titers for at least 6 months after a first vaccination. Thus, rDIs-S appears to provide broad and durable protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, including current variants such as Omicron BA.1 and possibly future variants

Comparison of the mental burden on nursing care providers with and without mat-type sleep state sensors at a nursing home in Tokyo, Japan: Quasi-experimental study

BACKGROUND: Increasing need for nursing care has led to the increased burden on formal caregivers, with those in nursing homes having to deal with exhausting labor. Although research activities on the use of internet of things devices to support nursing care for older adults exist, there is limited evidence on the effectiveness of these interventions among formal caregivers in nursing homes. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate whether mat-type sleep state sensors for supporting nursing care can reduce the mental burden of formal caregivers in a nursing home. METHODS: This was a quasi-experimental study at a nursing home in Tokyo, Japan. The study participants were formal caregivers who cared for residents in private rooms on the fourth and fifth floors of the nursing home. In the intervention group, formal caregivers took care of residents who used sleep state sensors on the fourth floor of the nursing home. The sleep state sensors were mat types and designed to detect body motion such as the frequency of toss and turning and to measure heartbeat and respiration. One sensor was placed on a bed in a private room. When body motion is detected, the information is instantly displayed on a monitor at a staff station. In addition, the mental condition of the formal caregivers was measured using a validated self-reported outcome measure—the Profile of Mood States (POMS), Short-Form, 2nd edition. Formal caregivers in both groups received the POMS at baseline, midpoint (week 4), and endpoint (week 8) to identify changes in these domains. The primary outcome was the difference in total mood disturbance (TMD) of the POMS at baseline and week 8. RESULTS: Of the 22 eligible formal caregivers, 12 (intervention group) utilized sleep state sensors for 8 weeks. The remaining 10 formal caregivers (control group) provided nursing care as usual. As for the primary outcome of the difference between TMD at baseline and week 8, TMD in the intervention group improved by –3.67 versus 4.70 in the control group, resulting in a mean difference of –8.37 (95% CI –32.02 to 15.29; P=.48) in favor of the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The present 8-week study showed that sleep state sensing for elderly residents might not be associated with reduced mental burdens on formal caregivers in nursing homes

Acceptance of care technologies to support activities of daily living by middle-aged and older adults in Japan: A cross-sectional study

10.1016/j.ijnsa.2021.100042International Journal of Nursing Studies Advances310004

Effectiveness of technology-based interventions on psychological morbidities, quality of life for informal caregivers of stroke survivors: A systematic review and meta-analysis

10.1111/jan.15130Journal of Advanced Nursing784947-96

Alien or native to Japan? : whether has a planktonic copepod recently described from Shimizu Port as a new species been introduced?

The planktonic calanoid copepod Centropages maigo Ohtsuka, Itoh & Mizushima, 2005 has been described from Shimizu Port, Middle Japan, as a new species, which was supposed to have been introduced from southeastern Asia via ballast water. Since it was first discovered from a sample collected from Japan in 1979, additional records of its occurrence all over Japan have been rapidly increasing. Whether this species is alien or native to Japan was investigated on the basis of the biology and zoogeography of other planktonic copepods. It is likely that C. maigo is widely distributed around Japan as a native species