977 research outputs found
Understanding alcoholicsâ âdifficulty in lifeâ: An empirical comparison of alcoholics and nonalcoholics
The Japanese success rate for alcoholism treatment is approximately 30%, indicating high relapse rates. Although âdifficulty in lifeâ is thought to contribute to alcoholicsâ relapse, the characteristics of the phenomenon are unknown. This study examined the factors contributing to alcoholicsâ difficulty in life. Alcoholic self-help group members, who indicated the extent of their difficulty in life and described the factors that contributed to this difficulty, completed a self-administered questionnaire. Participantsâ hypersensitivity/grandiosity traits were also examined. A control group of nonalcoholic men also completed the questionnaire. Simple tabulation, descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U tests, and multivariate analyses were used to compare data between groups. Ultimately, 574 and 512 valid responses were received from the alcoholic (response rate: 27.1%) and nonalcoholic (response rate: 33.1%) groups, respectively. The proportion of alcoholics (54%) who indicated that they found life difficult was significantly higher relative to that of nonalcoholics (39.9%). Alcoholicsâ mean hypersensitivity score was significantly higher (2.67) relative to that observed for nonalcoholics (2.44). Significant between-group differences were observed for the following factors: building and maintaining relationships, satisfaction with life, self-distrust, cognitive bias, loneliness, empathic understanding, and self-acceptance. Multivariate logistic regression identified cognitive bias and building and maintaining relationships as factors contributing to alcoholicsâ difficulty in life. Alcoholicsâ social contexts, including broken families, social instability, and cross addiction, also contributed to this difficulty. Personal characteristics, such as hypersensitive-type narcissistic tendencies, relationship problems, and cognitive bias, were also associated with alcoholicsâ difficulty in life
Plant Productivity, Keiretsu, and Agglomeration in the Japanese Automobile Industry: An Empirical Analysis Based on Micro-Data of Census of Manufactures 1981-1996
Using plant-level data underlying the Census of Manufactures, total factor productivity (TFP) growth and its determinants are analyzed for the Japanese automobile industry since 1980s. The average annual TFP growth rate from 1981 to 1996 was only about 0.6 percent for the automobile assembly industry and about 1.3 percent for the auto parts manufacturing industry. In the Japanese auto parts manufacturing industry, we found that R&D spillovers from assemblers had a significantly positive effect on the parts suppliers' TFP growth and that parts suppliers located near an assembly plant achieved higher TFP growth.Automobile Industry, Total Factor Productivity, Keiretsu, Agglomeration, R&D Spillover
On the self-linking number of transverse links
We review a braid theoretic self-linking number formula and study its
applications.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Some discussion below Theorem 2.1 has been
modifie
Overtwisted discs in planar open books
Using open book foliations we show that an overtwisted disc in a planar open
book can be put in a topologically nice position. As a corollary, we prove that
a planar open book whose fractional Dehn twist coefficients grater than one for
all the boundary components supports a tight contact structure.Comment: 32 pages, 26 figures. Accepted by International Journal of
Mathematic
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