Compatibility between Independent Activities in the Course of Study for Schools for Special Needs Education and ICF Categories

In the 2009 amendment to the course of study for schools for special needs education, the new teaching guideline "independent activities" was introduced to teach skills that ease difficulties in learning and daily living. The present study aimed to clarify compatibility between the independent activities and ICF categories by conducting a survey of teaching staff in schools for special needs education. The independent activities consist of 6 major items accompanied by a total of 26 sub-items. The ICF involves 4 components: body functions and structures, activities and participation, environmental factors and personal factors. Thirty items at the first level of classification were employed for the present investigation, excluding personal factors. The independent activities were linked not only to activities and participation in the ICF, but also body functions and structures and environmental factors. Amongst the independent activities "psychological stability" had the largest degree of compatibility with ICF items (15 items); while "health care" and "understanding situations" had the smallest number (6 items). The results suggest that a combined use of independent activities and ICF categories provides a more useful and quantitative foundation to assess the independent activities and to facilitate individual teaching plans

Associations between Mobility Restriction and Motor and Intellectual Impairments, and the Impact of Environmental Factors in Children with Disabilities

The present study was conducted to clarify associations between motor and intellectual impairments and mobility restriction, and the impact of environmental factors on the mobility of children in residential institutions for children with motor impairments. Mobility restriction was assessed using the 1^st and 4^th qualifiers defined in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). Motor and intellectual impairments were characterized by gross motor function and intelligent quotient, respectively. The relationship between mobility restriction and the two impairments was examined using Spearman\u27s rank correlation analysis. The 1^st and 4^th qualifiers in mobility were moderately correlated to both motor and intellectual impairments. The correlation coefficient for the 1^st qualifier was somewhat smaller than that for the 4^th qualifier. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated that the 1^st qualifier was significantly smaller than the 4^th qualifier in mobility (p<0.001). The present results suggest that mobility restriction is influenced not only by motor impairments, but also by intellectual impairments. The contextual assistances are considered to play an important role in reducing the impact of motor and intellectual impairments and improving mobility

Supercooling of Homogeneous Liquid Phase of Liquid Metals and Alloys -Poor Supercooling around the Eutectic Composition of Liquid Ni-Nb System

To study the supercooling of many liquid metals with high melting temperatures, the investigation was performed for the cooling curves of electrostatic levitation (ESL) experiments, which had been originally obtained for the measurements of many physical properties. The largest supercooling over the literature values was found for liquid Ru (428 K), Ta (721 K), W (601 K), and Ir (438 K), where temperatures in the parentheses mean the supercooling of respective liquid metals. This indicates the validity of ESL for the supercooling experiments of liquid metals and alloys because of being rather free from the heterogeneous nucleation. This ESL was applied to the study of supercooling of homogeneous liquid phase in the composition range from 29 at% Nb to 71 at% Nb of eutectic Ni-Nb system, whose eutectic point is present at 40.5 at% Nb and 1448 K. The experimental result shows a poor supercooling tendency of homogeneous liquid phase around the eutectic composition in spite of large supercooling far apart from this eutectic composition. This characteristic feature was discussed based on the classical nucleation theory coupled with the knowledge recently found, the existence of concentration fluctuations in the homogeneous liquid phase near the eutectic point

Electrostatic Levitation Furnace for the ISS

JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) has just started the development of Electrostatic Levitation Furnace to be launched in 2014 for the ISS. This furnace can control the sample position with electrostatic force and heat it above 2000 degree Celsius using semiconductor laser from four different directions. The announcement of Opportunity will be issued soon for this furnace. In this paper, we will show the specifications of this furnace and also the development schedul

Thermal Infrared Imaging Experiments of C-Type Asteroid 162173 Ryugu on Hayabusa2

The thermal infrared imager TIR onboard Hayabusa2 has been developed to investigate thermo-physical properties of C-type, near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu. TIR is one of the remote science instruments on Hayabusa2 designed to understand the nature of a volatile-rich solar system small body, but it also has significant mission objectives to provide information on surface physical properties and conditions for sampling site selection as well as the assessment of safe landing operations. TIR is based on a two-dimensional uncooled micro-bolometer array inherited from the Longwave Infrared Camera LIR on Akatsuki (Fukuhara et al., 2011). TIR takes images of thermal infrared emission in 8 to 12 μm with a field of view of 16×12∘ and a spatial resolution of 0.05∘ per pixel. TIR covers the temperature range from 150 to 460 K, including the well calibrated range from 230 to 420 K. Temperature accuracy is within 2 K or better for summed images, and the relative accuracy or noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) at each of pixels is 0.4 K or lower for the well-calibrated temperature range. TIR takes a couple of images with shutter open and closed, the corresponding dark frame, and provides a true thermal image by dark frame subtraction. Data processing involves summation of multiple images, image processing including the StarPixel compression (Hihara et al., 2014), and transfer to the data recorder in the spacecraft digital electronics (DE). We report the scientific and mission objectives of TIR, the requirements and constraints for the instrument specifications, the designed instrumentation and the pre-flight and in-flight performances of TIR, as well as its observation plan during the Hayabusa2 mission

AKARI infrared imaging of reflection nebulae IC4954 and IC4955

We present the observations of the reflection nebulae IC4954 and IC4955 region with the Infrared Camera (IRC) and the Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) on board the infrared astronomical satellite AKARI during its performance verification phase. We obtained 7 band images from 7 to 160um with higher spatial resolution and higher sensitivities than previous observations. The mid-infrared color of the S9W (9um) and L18W (18um) bands shows a systematic variation around the exciting sources. The spatial variation in the mid-infrared color suggests that the star-formation in IC4954/4955 is progressing from south-west to north-east. The FIS data also clearly resolve two nebulae for the first time in the far-infrared. The FIS 4-band data from 65um to 160um allow us to correctly estimate the total infrared luminosity from the region, which is about one sixth of the energy emitted from the existing stellar sources. Five candidates for young stellar objects have been detected as point sources for the first time in the 11um image. They are located in the red S9W to L18W color regions, suggesting that current star-formation has been triggered by previous star-formation activities. A wide area map of the size of about 1 x 1 (deg^2) around the IC4954/4955 region was created from the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky survey data. Together with the HI 21cm data, it suggests a large hollow structure of a degree scale, on whose edge the IC4954/4955 region has been created, indicating star formation over three generations in largely different spatial scales.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in PASJ AKARI special issu

High prevalence of hepatitis C in patients with thalassemia and patients with liver diseases in Myanmar (Burma).

We conducted Myanmar-Japan cooperation studies on hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus markers in patients with thalassemias and those with liver diseases. Among the 102 patients with liver diseases, 92% had a history of hepatitis B virus infection (antibody to hepatitis B core antigen positive), 35% were hepatitis B surface antigen positive, 39% were positive for anti-HCV. Among 28 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, 46% had hepatitis B surface antigen, 21.4% had antibody to hepatitis C virus, and 7% were positive for both hepatitis B surface antigen and anti hepatitis C virus. The history of HCV infection among blood recipients at the Haematology Department of the Yangon General Hospital and at the Yangon Children's Hospital was found to be 55.5% and 46.7%, respectively, which is comparable to the history of hepatitis B infection (66.7% and 46.7%, respectively). This preliminary survey also encountered 2 cases positive for anti-HCV among 34 voluntary blood donors. This survey is the first one to report that hepatitis C is at the epidemic stage in Myanmar. As there is no effective treatment for hepatitis C in this country, a screening program for blood used in transfusion should be started immediately.</p