Association of pneumococcal and influenza vaccination with patient-physician communication in older adults: A nationwide cross-sectional study from the JAGES 2016

BACKGROUND: Increasing the coverage of vaccinations recommended by the World Health Organization in the older adult population is an urgent issue, especially in the context of avoiding co-epidemics during the current coronavirus disease 2019 crisis. The aim of this study was to examine factors associated with the quality of perceived patient-physician communication and whether this variable was associated with increased odds of vaccination. METHODS: We used cross-sectional data from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study conducted from October 2016 to January 2017. The participants were 22, 253 physically and cognitively independent individuals aged 65 or older living in 39 municipalities in Japan. Multilevel logit models were used to estimate the odds of vaccination. RESULTS: Among the participants, 40.0% and 58.8% had received pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations as per the recommended schedule, respectively. People with low educational levels were more likely to have a family physician but rate their experience in asking questions lower than those with higher educational levels. Having a family physician and high rating for physicians' listening attitude were positively associated with increased odds of pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations. High rating for patients' questioning attitude and shared decision-making, compared to an ambiguous attitude toward medical decision-making, were positively associated with increased odds of pneumococcal vaccination. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that promotion of having a family physician, better patient-physician communication, and shared decision-making may encourage older adults to undergo recommended vaccinations

Miniature Space GPS Receiver by means of Automobile-Navigation Technology

Miniature space GPS receivers have been developed by means of automobile-navigation technology. We expanded the frequency sweep range in order to cover large Doppler shift on orbit. The GPS receiver was modified to output pseudorange data with accurate time tag. We tested the performance in low earth orbits by means of a GPS simulator. The range error caused by the receiver is measured to be 0.9 meter in RMS. Receiver was on-boarded on INDEX (“REIMEI”) satellite, which was launched in 2005. Cold start positioning was confirmed repeatedly to finish within 30 minutes on orbit. The orbit determination was performed to evaluate the random position error of GPS receiver by means of the residual error. The random error of GPS position is as large as 2 meter for PDDP=2.5 on orbit. The RMS value of range error is evaluated to be 0.6m from the flight data. These results on orbit are consistent with the simulation results in use of a GPS simulator. This miniature space GPS receiver is at present in commercial market

Role of PERK in mitochondrial function

Mitochondria play a central role in the function of brown adipocytes (BAs). Although mitochondrial biogenesis, which is indispensable for thermogenesis, is regulated by coordination between nuclear DNA transcription and mitochondrial DNA transcription, the molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial development during BA differentiation are largely unknown. Here, we show the importance of the ER-resident sensor PKR-like ER kinase (PERK) in the mitochondrial thermogenesis of brown adipose tissue. During BA differentiation, PERK is physiologically phosphorylated independently of the ER stress. This PERK phosphorylation induces transcriptional activation by GA-binding protein transcription factor α subunit (GABPα), which is required for mitochondrial inner membrane protein biogenesis, and this novel role of PERK is involved in maintaining the body temperatures of mice during cold exposure. Our findings demonstrate that mitochondrial development regulated by the PERK–GABPα axis is indispensable for thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue

Development and evaluation of the programs supporting for social studies class improvement: Structure of the online and handbook programs applyed to pre/in-servise teachers

The purposes of this paper are to develop the online and handbook programs for the social studies teachers’ rational development and their class improvement, and to evaluate their effects for the teacher training and professional development. The structure of these two programs was designed based on modified Korthagen’s theory. The present results suggested that the usefulness for the social studies teachers was perceived by (1)pre-service and (2) in-service teachers, in addition, the possibility for application was also recognized by the teacher educator as (1) university professor who teach the methods courses, (2) mentor teacher who supervise the student teacher, and (3) senior supervisor who is in charge of designing the professional development curriculum, but they illustrated their different petterns of the significances, limits and utilizations according to their awareness of their problem involved as well as their responsibility. The authors implicated the necessity of the further linkage of online and handbook programs to strengthen their usability for any cases in order to support the teacher training and professional development

The position of institutional repository in Japanese university libraries by comparison with "digital library"

DRFIC2008 Poster Session No.16DRFIC2008 ポスターセッション資料 16