Measurement and comparison of individual external doses of high-school students living in Japan, France, Poland and Belarus -- the "D-shuttle" project --

Twelve high schools in Japan (of which six are in Fukushima Prefecture), four in France, eight in Poland and two in Belarus cooperated in the measurement and comparison of individual external doses in 2014. In total 216 high-school students and teachers participated in the study. Each participant wore an electronic personal dosimeter "D-shuttle" for two weeks, and kept a journal of his/her whereabouts and activities. The distributions of annual external doses estimated for each region overlap with each other, demonstrating that the personal external individual doses in locations where residence is currently allowed in Fukushima Prefecture and in Belarus are well within the range of estimated annual doses due to the background radiation level of other regions/countries

A new computerized assessment battery for cognition (C-ABC) to detect mild cognitive impairment and dementia around 5 min.

This study aimed to develop a new computerized assessment battery for cognition (C-ABC) to detect mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia. We performed C-ABC in subjects with dementia (n = 422), MCI (n = 145), and normal cognition (NC; n = 574), and analyzed by age stratum (50s, 60s, and 70-85 years). To distinguish MCI from NC, the C-ABC total combined score, which were calculated by dividing the C-ABC total score by the C-ABC required time, revealed the best area under the curves (AUC) at 0.838 and 0.735 in the 50s and 60s age groups, respectively; notably, this entire procedure took approximately 5 min. To distinguish dementia from NC and MCI, the partial items of C-ABC (items 3 + 6 combined score) revealed the best AUCs at 0.910, 0.874, and 0.882 in the 50s, 60s, and 70-85 age groups, respectively. Furthermore, the items 3 + 6 combined score established the best AUC at 0.794 in the 70-85 age group to distinguish MCI from NC; this entire procedure took around 2 min. Hence, this study suggests that C-ABC could be a useful tool for detecting dementia or MCI in a short time