Social participation and mental health: moderating effects of gender, social role and rurality

Background: Previous studies have reported that older people’s social participation has positive effects on their health. However, some studies showed that the impacts of social participation on health differ by gender. We sought to examine whether the effects of social participation on mental health differ for men and women in a Japanese population. We also examined the moderating influence of social position within the organization as well as urban/rural locality. Methods: We used two waves of the Aichi Gerontological Evaluation Study’s longitudinal survey, which targeted residents with aged 65 years or over (n = 2,728) in a central part of Japan. The first wave survey was conducted in 2003, and the second wave in 2006. Depressive symptoms of the study participants were assessed using the short version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). A multilevel logistic regression model was used with individual-level as level 1 and the school district-level as level 2. Results: We found that higher social participation and performing key roles in the organization had protective effects on depressive symptoms for women. However, there were no main effects of these variables for the mental health of men. We found an interaction between social participation, organizational position, and rural residence among men only. That is, men who occupied leadership positions in organizations reported better mental health, but only in rural areas. Conclusions: Our findings support the notion that increasing the opportunities for social participation improves older people’s heath, especially for women. However, in the rural Japanese context, offering men meaningful roles within organizations may be important

Studies on Pheromones of Female Eri-Silk Moth, III. Synthesis of (6Z, 11Z)-6,11-Hexadecadienal and Its Activity as Pheromone Mimics toward Male Eri-Silk Moth

Article信州大学農学部紀要 20(2): 213-218(1983)departmental bulletin pape

PCR random mutagenesis into Escherichia coli serine acetyltransferase: isolation of the mutant enzymes that cause overproduction of L-cysteine and L-cystine due to the desensitization to feedback inhibition

AbstractPCR random mutagenesis in the cysE gene encoding Escherichia coli serine acetyltransferase was employed to isolate the mutant enzymes that, due to a much less feedback inhibition by L-cysteine, cause overproduction of L-cysteine and L-cystine in the recombinant strains. The L-cysteine auxotrophic and non-utilizing E. coli strain was transformed with plasmids having the altered cysE genes. Then, several transformants overproducing L-cysteine were selected by detecting the halo formation of the L-cysteine auxotroph. The production test of amino acids and analysis of the catalytic property on the mutant enzymes suggest that the carboxy-terminal region of serine acetyltransferase plays an important role in the desensitization to feedback inhibition and the high level production of L-cysteine and L-cystine

A Discovery of a Peculiar Pulsar in the Small Magellanic Cloud

We report on a peculiar X-ray binary pulsar IKT1 = RXJ0047.3-7312 observed with XMM-Newton in Oct. 2000. The X-ray spectrum is described by a two-component spectrum. The hard component has a broken power-law with respective photon indices of 0.2 and 1.8, below and above the break energy at 5.8 keV. The soft component can be modeled by a blackbody of kT = 0.6 keV. The X-ray flux shows a gradual decrease and periodic variations of about 4000 s. The averaged flux in 0.7-10.0 keV is 2.9x10^-12 ergs/cm^2/s, which is ~10 times brighter than that in a ROSAT observation in Nov. 1999. In addition to the 4000-s variation, we found coherent pulsations of 263 +/- 1 s. These discoveries strengthen the Be/X-ray binary scenario proposed by the ROSAT and ASCA observations on this source, and confirm that most of the hard sources in the Small Magellanic Cloud are X-ray binary pulsars. A peculiar property of this XBP is that the coherent pulsations are found only in the soft component, and the folded light curve shows a flat top shape with a sharp dip. We discuss the nature of this XBP focusing on the peculiar soft component.Comment: 5 pages, 5figures, Accepted for publication in PAS

Sensorless parameter estimation of electromagnetic transducer considering eddy currents

This paper presents a method of estimating the parameters of an electromagnetic transducer without sensors. The proposed method utilizes the measured admittance of the electromagnetic transducer, and therefore position, velocity, and/or acceleration sensors are not necessary in this framework. Novel impedance models are proposed based on the basic physical principles of electromagnetics; in particular, the effect of eddy currents has been included in these proposed models. The validity of the proposed estimation method and models was experimentally demonstrated by comparing the parameter estimation and vibration control capabilities of the proposed models with three conventional models. © 2017 Elsevier LtdEmbargo period 12 month

An Annotated List of Culicoides Biting Midges in Yaeyama Islands in the Southwestern Part of Japan (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)

Species of Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) in Yaeyama Islands were listed. In total, 36 species were included in the list, in which C. palpifer Das Gupta and Ghosh was new to Japan and C. cylindratus Kitaoka, C. malayae Macfie and C. sasai Kitaoka were new to the islands. Taxonomic and biological notes for some species were also given