Reference values for the locomotive syndrome risk test quantifying mobility of 8681 adults aged 20–89 years: A cross-sectional nationwide study in Japan

Background The locomotive syndrome risk test was developed to quantify the decrease in mobility among adults, which could eventually lead to disability. The purpose of this study was to establish reference values for the locomotive syndrome risk test for adults and investigate the influence of age and sex. Methods We analyzed 8681 independent community dwellers (3607 men, 5074 women). Data pertaining to locomotive syndrome risk test (the two-step test, the stand-up test, and the 25-question geriatric locomotive function scale [GLFS-25]) scores were collected from seven administrative areas of Japan. Results The reference values of the three test scores were generated and all three test scores gradually decreased among young-to-middle-aged individuals and rapidly decreased in individuals aged over 60 years. The stand-up test score began decreasing significantly from the age of 30 years. The trajectories of decrease in the two-step test score with age was slightly different between men and women especially among the middle-aged individuals. The two physical test scores were more sensitive to aging than the self-reported test score. Conclusion The reference values generated in this study could be employed to determine whether an individual has mobility comparable to independent community dwellers of the same age and sex

竹炭添加乾燥生ごみがトウガラシ類の品質に及ぼす影響

竹炭添加乾燥生ごみは,竹炭の添加量を増加することで,水分以外の油分,塩分の含有量と臭気発生量が減少することがわかった。トウガラシ類の栽培実験では,生ごみに竹炭を5%加えて乾燥させたものでは,収穫量と根重量が増加したが,シシトウガラシの総アスコルビン酸と無機成分含有量,辛味発現と低温障害発生には,明らかな影響は見られなかった。以上より,竹炭を使うことで,地域環境の保全と,生ごみの肥料化への有効利用が図れることから,循環型社会における1つのモデルとして提案できると考える。本研究の一部は,文部科学省科学研究費(基盤研究B.1, 14380036)により行なわれた。The role of bamboo charcoal was studied that effect on the produce and the quality of peppers. It was also compared these results with three years. Production of total volatile compound (T) from dry garbage was 324 UN/ min/ g, nitrogenous compound (N) was 170 UN/ min/ g and sulfuric compound (S) was 627 UN/ min/ g. In no addition to 50% bamboo charcoal for fresh garbage addition, dry garbage content of water was increased 6% to 14%, the oil, salt and volatile compounds were decreased. The oil content was especially 27% to 5%, salt content was 8% to 2%. The volatile compounds of T was 1328 to 115, N was 172 to 58, S was 6913 to 633, respectively. Dry garbage added bamboo charcoal was well keeping off-flavor. The optimum culture condition of pepper yield was dry garbage including 5% bamboo charcoal for Shishitougarashi. It was found that no addition for Bell pepper, and 5% bamboo charcoal only for Manganji were a good crop condition. In var. Shishitougarashi, culture condition of the most hot taste occurrence was no addition and that of the least one was dry garbage with 5% bamboo charcoal. The compost of dry garbage including 5% bamboo charcoal had a good effect to produce of peppers. It is recommendation that utilization of bamboo charcoal to garbage compost is contributed the sustainable life style. (Accepted September 9, 2003

U-Net-Based Segmentation of Microscopic Images of Colorants and Simplification of Labeling in the Learning Process

Colored product textures correspond to particle size distributions. The microscopic images of colorants must be divided into regions to determine the particle size distribution. The conventional method used for this process involves manually dividing images into areas, which may be inefficient. In this paper, we have overcome this issue by developing two different modified architectures of U-Net convolution neural networks to automatically determine the particle sizes. To develop these modified architectures, a significant amount of ground truth data must be prepared to train the U-Net, which is difficult for big data as the labeling is performed manually. Therefore, we also aim to reduce this process by using incomplete labeling data. The first objective of this study is to determine the accuracy of our modified U-Net architectures for this type of image. The second objective is to reduce the difficulty of preparing the ground truth data by testing the accuracy of training on incomplete labeling data. The results indicate that efficient segmentation can be realized using our modified U-Net architectures, and the generation of ground truth data can be simplified. This paper presents a preliminary study to improve the efficiency of determining particle size distributions with incomplete labeling data