Analysis of the Socioeconomic Difficulties Affecting the Suicide Rate in Japan

This paper focuses on the drastic increase observed in the Japanese male suicide rate in the late 1990s and early 2000s and confirms unemployment and personal bankruptcy to be the associated socioeconomic factors behind the male suicide variation. Personal bankruptcy is also confirmed to be significant in the female suicide variation. The relationship is confirmed through a pooled data analysis by a middle-aged group and by prefecture. Further, the paper focused on the association between the unemployment rate and suicide mortality by incorporating the reasons for unemployment in the monthly regression. Next, we identified a significant association between male suicide variations and changes in some of the reasons for being unemployed. The interpretation of the results implies that the risk of unemployment among men has been mitigated by the unemployment insurance rather than the bias in the reasons reported and/or mental disorder in Japan.

Contributing Processes to Arctic Temperature Amplification for a Range of Forcing in MIROC GCM

第3回極域科学シンポジウム/第35回極域気水圏シンポジウム 11月30日（金） 国立国語研究所 ２階多目的

Agreement between patients' and radiation oncologists' cancer diagnosis and prognosis perceptions: A cross sectional study in Japan

This study assessed agreement between radiation oncologist- and cancer patient-reported perceptions about cancer diagnosis, time since diagnosis, treatment purpose, and whether life expectancy had been discussed; and described preferences for prognosis discussions. Adult cancer patients receiving radiotherapy at a Japanese hospital were invited to complete a touchscreen tablet survey. Patient survey responses were linked and comparisons made with a survey completed by their radiation oncologist. Among 146 cancer patient-oncologist dyads, there was almost perfect agreement on cancer diagnosis (ĸ = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.82–0.94), substantial agreement on time since diagnosis (ĸ = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.57–0.83) and moderate agreement on whether treatment goal was curative or palliative (ĸ = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.28–0.57; all p’s < 0.0001). Agreement about whether a life expectancy discussion had occurred was less than expected by chance (κ = -0.06, p = 0.9). Radiation oncologists reported that they had spoken to over two thirds of patients about this, whilst less than one third of patients stated that this discussion had occurred with their radiation oncologist. Over half of the patients who had not discussed life expectancy wanted to. Patients had variable preferences for whether they (80%), their radiation oncologist (78%) or their partner/family (52%) should decide whether they discuss their life expectancy. Although patient self-reported information about diagnosis and time since diagnosis appears to be reasonably accurate (compared with clinician-reported information), limitations of self-reported data about prognostic discussions were highlighted by poor agreement between patient- and clinician-reported information about whether prognostic discussions have occurred. Additional support is needed to improve prognosis communication and understanding in radiation oncology settings

Effectiveness and limitations of parameter tuning in reducing biases of top-of-atmosphere radiation and clouds in MIROC version 5

This study discusses how much of the biases in top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiation and clouds can be removed by parameter tuning in the present-day simulation of a climate model in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) generation. We used output of a perturbed parameter ensemble (PPE) experiment conducted with an atmosphere–ocean general circulation model (AOGCM) without flux adjustment. The Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 5 (MIROC5) was used for the PPE experiment. Output of the PPE was compared with satellite observation data to evaluate the model biases and the parametric uncertainty of the biases with respect to TOA radiation and clouds. The results indicate that removing or changing the sign of the biases by parameter tuning alone is difficult. In particular, the cooling bias of the shortwave cloud radiative effect at low latitudes could not be removed, neither in the zonal mean nor at each latitude–longitude grid point. The bias was related to the overestimation of both cloud amount and cloud optical thickness, which could not be removed by the parameter tuning either. However, they could be alleviated by tuning parameters such as the maximum cumulus updraft velocity at the cloud base. On the other hand, the bias of the shortwave cloud radiative effect in the Arctic was sensitive to parameter tuning. It could be removed by tuning such parameters as albedo of ice and snow both in the zonal mean and at each grid point. The obtained results illustrate the benefit of PPE experiments which provide useful information regarding effectiveness and limitations of parameter tuning. Implementing a shallow convection parameterization is suggested as a potential measure to alleviate the biases in radiation and clouds

The New Type of Lectures on the Development of Science Teaching Plans and Materials Tried in the Department ofEducation

岡山大学教育学部の理科教育講座に所属する3年生を対象に,理科教材･授業案開発を指向した新しい講義を始めたのでその報告を行う｡本講義では,近隣の小,中学校や公民館,科学館等の協力も得て実践の場を確保し,開発した教材や授業案を実践することで生きた教材開発の訓練を行なうことを目指している｡教科内容学担当教員と教科教育学担当教員の協働を模索すると同時に,大学教員の教科内容の専門知識や技量を教材や授業案に有効に活用できる講義を意識した。This is a report of the new type of lectures on the development of teaching plans and teaching materials attempted in the science class for 3rd grade students in the Department of Education Okayama Universlty. The students practiced the development of teaching plans and teaching materials, and they conducted their activities not only at university but also at the neighboring schools, the public hall, the science museum etc. We expected the development of further collaboration in the academic staffs in the science education course, and the science abilities will be helpful for the development of teaching plans and teaching materials

XTSS Builder: Graphical User Interface Builder for XTSS

We developed the graphical user interface (GUI) builder for XTSS， XTSS Buidler， which is a GUI system for Building GUI applications described by XTSS (X Toolkit Service System). XTSS language is a simple but a powerful one for integrating textual applications on the GUI environment and similar to the X Toolkit functions. Yet， it is hard to describe XTSS program for novice users. So， we provided XTSS Builder for them. XTSS Builder consists of two parts: Creator and Analyzer. Creator is used for con-structing XTSS applications. Users can select a widget class from the widget class tree of Athena widget， place it to the user's widget tree. Creator generates XTSS program automatically from the user's tree， and realizes the GUI. Users can also select the attribute of the widget and set the value to it. Analyzer is used for reconstructing the GUI application which was not coded by XTSS. Users can easily generate XTSS program by only pressing the mouse button on the GUI application. Users can also modify it visually， if they load the program on Creator

Comparison of Hospitalization Incidence in Influenza Outpatients Treated With Baloxavir Marboxil or Neuraminidase Inhibitors: A Health Insurance Claims Database Study

Background: Baloxavir marboxil (baloxavir) is a single-dose, oral antiinfluenza drug with a novel mechanism of action. We compared the incidence of hospitalization in patients treated with baloxavir vs neuraminidase inhibitors.Methods: In this retrospective, observational, cohort study, we used real-world patient data extracted from a Japanese health insurance claims database. The enrollment period was 1 October 2018 to 17 April 2019. On day 1, eligible patients (N = 339 007) received baloxavir, oseltamivir, zanamivir, or laninamivir. Baseline characteristics were standardized using the inverse probability of treatment weighting method. The primary end point was the incidence of hospitalization (days 2–14). Secondary end points included antibacterial use, secondary pneumonia, and additional antiinfluenza drug use.Results: Compared with the baloxavir group, the incidence of hospitalization was greater in the oseltamivir group (risk ratio [RR] and 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.41 [1.00–2.00]; risk difference [RD] and 95% CI, 0.06 [.01–.12]) and zanamivir group (RR, 1.85 [1.23–2.78]; RD, 0.11 [.02–.20]). Oseltamivir-treated patients were less likely to require antibacterials than baloxavir-treated patients (RR, 0.87 [.82–.91]). However, oseltamivir-treated patients were more likely to be hospitalized with antibacterials (RR, 1.70 [1.21–2.38]) or antibacterial injection (RR, 1.67 [1.17–2.38]) than baloxavir-treated patients (post hoc analysis). Compared with baloxavir-treated patients, additional antiinfluenza drug use was greater in oseltamivir-, zanamivir-, and laninamivir-treated patients (RR, 1.51 [1.05–2.18], 2.84 [2.04–3.96], and 1.68 [1.35–2.10], respectively).Conclusions: Baloxavir is an efficacious antiinfluenza treatment that may reduce hospitalization compared with oseltamivir and zanamivir.Clinical Trials Registration: University hospital Medical Information Network Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN000038159)