Population Synthesis via k-Nearest Neighbor Crossover Kernel

The recent development of multi-agent simulations brings about a need for population synthesis. It is a task of reconstructing the entire population from a sampling survey of limited size (1% or so), supplying the initial conditions from which simulations begin. This paper presents a new kernel density estimator for this task. Our method is an analogue of the classical Breiman-Meisel-Purcell estimator, but employs novel techniques that harness the huge degree of freedom which is required to model high-dimensional nonlinearly correlated datasets: the crossover kernel, the k-nearest neighbor restriction of the kernel construction set and the bagging of kernels. The performance as a statistical estimator is examined through real and synthetic datasets. We provide an "optimization-free" parameter selection rule for our method, a theory of how our method works and a computational cost analysis. To demonstrate the usefulness as a population synthesizer, our method is applied to a household synthesis task for an urban micro-simulator.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) 201

Seasonal changes of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios for dominant species: chironomid larvae, phytoplankton, and benthic diatom inhabiting strongly acidic Lake Katanuma

Lake Katanuma is a colcanic, strongly acidic lake (average pH of 2.2), located in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. Only a few spieccies are found in Katanuma; Chironomus acerbiphis larvae as benthic invertebrate, Pinnularia baunii as benthic diatom, and Chlamydomonas acidophila as phytoplnkton. We tried analyzing seasonal changes of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope raios foethese spicies in Lake Katanuma. Food souece analysis by isotope ratios clearly showed main food source for Chironomus acerbiphilus larvae was P.braunii (benthic diatom). δ1C values of P.braunii varied seasonally, while those of POM (mainly phytoplankton) remained fairly stable. The difference of stable isotope ratios in these orfanisms discussed.Article信州大学山地水環境教育研究センター研究報告 2: 25-28(2004)departmental bulletin pape

End-state comfort effects in adults with intellectual disabilities: A pilot study

This study investigated the end-state comfort (ESC) effect in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). The ESC effect represents a tendency to maximize comfortable hand and arm postures at the end of an object manipulation task. Participants were 22 adults with non-specific ID. The ESC effect was assessed using a simple object manipulation task. Difficulties were found with manifestation of the ESC effect in adults with non-specific ID. Only four participants displayed the ESC effect. The participants' intellectual function was correlated with expression of the ESC effect. These results were assessed in terms of competition between a goal-directed system and habitual systems in adults with ID

Gender difference in the relationships between vision and hearing impairments and negative well-being.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the association of hearing impairment, vision impairment and their combination (dual sensory impairment) with negative well-being such as depression, subjective poor health and the reduced functional ability in community-dwelling older adults, and to determine whether any association varies by gender. METHODS: Between 2005 and 2006, we objectively examined vision and hearing impairment (using best-corrected visual acuity and pure-tone audiometric test) in 843 people aged 65 years and older (351 males, 492 females) in a rural Japanese town. Through a home visit interview survey using a structured questionnaire, we also collected information on depression (the five-item Geriatric Depression Scale), subjective poor health, and reduced functional activity (the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology's Index of Competence). RESULTS: We observed gender differences in the association between sensory impairment and depression. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that hearing impairment in males (adjusted odds ratio: 2.22, 95% confidence interval; 1.07-4.61) and vision impairment in females (1.91, 1.14-3.21) were related to depression. Vision impairment and dual sensory impairment were also associated with subjective poor health and reduced functional activity in both sexes. CONCLUSIONS: Sensory impairment is significantly associated with negative well-being in older persons, and its association with depression may differ between males and females

Design and properties of polymides with electrodeposition ability for high performance insulators

Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Serum levels of retinol and other antioxidants for hearing impairment among Japanese older adults.

BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to assess the relation between serum levels of retinol and other antioxidants and hearing impairment in Japanese older adults. METHODS: This is a community-based cross-sectional study comprising 762 residents aged 65 years or older in Kurabuchi, Gumma, Japan. We measured serum retinol and other antioxidants (alpha- and gamma-tocopherols, and carotenoids including beta-cryptoxanthin, alpha- and beta-carotenes, lycopene, and lutein plus zeaxanthin) by high-performance liquid chromatography and divided each measurement into quartiles. Hearing impairment was defined as a failure to hear a 30-dB hearing level (HL) signal at 1 kHz and a 40-dB HL signal at 4 kHz in the better ear in pure-tone audiometric tests. The odds ratios (OR) for hearing impairment were calculated for each of the upper three quartiles of retinol and other antioxidant levels relative to the lowest quartile. RESULTS: Crude analysis showed that serum levels of retinol and provitamin A carotenoids (beta-cryptoxanthin, and alpha- and beta-carotenes) were inversely related to the prevalence of hearing impairment. The multiadjusted ORs (95% confidence intervals) for the highest quartile of retinol and the provitamin A family (combinations of provitamin A carotenoids) compared with the lowest were 0.51 (0.26-1.00) and 0.53 (0.27-1.02), respectively. A dose-response relationship was observed for retinol (p = .03) and provitamin A (p = .09). CONCLUSION: Increased serum levels of retinol and provitamin A carotenoids were clearly associated with a decreased prevalence of hearing impairment

Preliminary studies on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios analysis of food web in Lake Chany of Western Siberia

Lake Chany is an inland moderately saline lake in Western Siberia. Itconsists of three lakes, Bolshye (Large) Chany, Malye (Small) Chany and Yarkul Pool. Field survey of Lake Chany was carried out at four parts of the lake with different salinity to analyze their food web structures using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope as natusral tracers. The intruding river rigion (St.1) and Malye Chany (St.2) wwkth low salinity (0.9%), the central part of Bolshye Chany (St.3) with salinity of 5.7% and the innermost part of Bolshye Chany (St.4) with the highest salinnity of 6.3% were selected as study sites. Comparison of the isotope ratios of benthis incertebrate (Chironomidae; Diptera) among the sampling sites showed the lowest δ13C and δ15N values at St.1 and highest values at St.4. The benthic invertebrates at St.3 showed similar δ13C and δ15N values to those of St.4 and St.1, respectively. Similar trends but different values of the isotope raions among the sampling stations were observed in zooplankton, POM and sediment samples, indicationg the initial substances of the food chains were different at different parts of the lake.Article信州大学山地水環境教育研究センター研究報告 2: 21-24(2004)departmental bulletin pape