The Development of a Self-rating Questionnaire for Screening Dementia

Few self-rating questionnaires have been developed for use in screening for dementia due to technical difficulties. We were required to develop a self-rating questionnaire for dementia for the first-stage screening of a 1995 dementia prevalence study in the Nagasaki Prefecture. In our pilot study, we drafted a questionnaire of 43 items and applied it to 399 subjects in attendance at educational programs for senior citizens, and residing in institutions for senior citizens and in nursing homes for the aged. 185 subjects (71 males, 114 females ; average age, 77.3 years) successfully completed the questionnaire, including 39 subjects with medically diagnosed dementia. We conducted a discriminant analysis on these subjects\u27 responses to the original 43 items, and extracted 13 items which most contributed to discrimination of dementia. The sensitivity of discrimination by the final questionnaire was 0.82, and the specificity was 0.89. In the prevalence study of dementia in Nagasaki Prefecture, we could re-examine the validity of the questionnaire. The high sensitivity and moderate level of specificity of the questionnaire was considered reasonable for use in screening dementia

Nagasaki Schizophrenia Study : Outcome of a 15-year Follow-up of an Incident Cohort

The Nagasaki World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Mental Health conducted the WHO Coordinated Multi-Center Study of the Long-term Course and Outcome of Schizophrenia as a part of the International Study on Schizophrenia (ISoS). The study used 107 patients who were initially diagnosed as having ICD-9 schizophrenia for the WHO Collaborative Study on the Determinants of Outcome of Severe Mental Disorders (DOSMeD). Subjects were first collected in 1979-1980 for an incidence study of schizophrenia in Nagasaki. In this 15-yearfollow- up study, 7 subjects died, 43 subjects were lost to follow-up and 57 were successfully traced. Among the 7 death cases, 4 suicides were confirmed and 1 was suspected. During the 15-year period, 25 (44%) of the 57 living subjects displayed continuous psychotic course type schizophrenia. During the last 2 years, 14 (25%) were not psychotic ; 31 (54%) were continuously psychotic. Global Assessment of Functioning Scale for Symptomatology (GAF-S) indicated symptomatological outcomes : 16 (28%) had severe symptoms (GAF-S70). Social outcome was evaluated using the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale for Disability (GAF-D): 28 (49%) showed poor adjustment (GAF-D70). The overall time trend was almost evenly divided in thirds : 20 (35%) were getting better, 18 (32%) were the same and 19 (33%) were worse. The present study showed that the outcome of schizophrenia is not always poor, although some patients display a continuous course and poor outcome

High-density Integrated Linkage Map Based on SSR Markers in Soybean

A well-saturated molecular linkage map is a prerequisite for modern plant breeding. Several genetic maps have been developed for soybean with various types of molecular markers. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) are single-locus markers with high allelic variation and are widely applicable to different genotypes. We have now mapped 1810 SSR or sequence-tagged site markers in one or more of three recombinant inbred populations of soybean (the US cultivar ‘Jack’ × the Japanese cultivar ‘Fukuyutaka’, the Chinese cultivar ‘Peking’ × the Japanese cultivar ‘Akita’, and the Japanese cultivar ‘Misuzudaizu’ × the Chinese breeding line ‘Moshidou Gong 503’) and have aligned these markers with the 20 consensus linkage groups (LGs). The total length of the integrated linkage map was 2442.9 cM, and the average number of molecular markers was 90.5 (range of 70–114) for the 20 LGs. We examined allelic diversity for 1238 of the SSR markers among 23 soybean cultivars or lines and a wild accession. The number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 7, with an average of 2.8. Our high-density linkage map should facilitate ongoing and future genomic research such as analysis of quantitative trait loci and positional cloning in addition to marker-assisted selection in soybean breeding

Sessile Organisms on PVC Panels in the Waters around a Coral Reef of Ishigaki Island, Yaeyama Islands, Japan, Immediately after the Catastrophic Coral Bleaching in 1998

Sessile organisms on PVC panels suspended inside and outside coral reef at Ishigaki Island, Yaeyama Islands, Japan, was monitored for 20 days just after the wide-spread incident of coral bleaching in September, 1998. The settlement of a total of 16 species of algae and invertebrates was recorded. Generally, Enteromorpha sp. (Chlorophyceae) dominated the panels. The percentage area cover, number of species, biomass and algal growth were significantly greater in waters outside the reef

PRELIMINARY STUDY TO PREVENT INCIDENTAL CAPTURE OF SEA TURTLES BY POUND NET

Southeast Asia Sea Turtle Associative ResearchBangkok, Thailand, 16-19 December 2002To mitigate incidental catch of sea turtles by pound net fishery, we tested the efficiency of the specially designed pocket nets to release turtles selectively. The experiments were carried out using a pound net in operation in a lagoon of Ishigaki Island, southernmost Japan. Immature green turtles, Chelonia mydas, were put into the pocket net and their behaviors were captured with underwater video. The turtles showed back and forth motion in the pocket net between two funnels or between the funnel and the cod-end. An escape hatch with a flap was equipped above the base of the funnels on the pocket net. Three designs of the escape hatch were examined. Using these gears, unintended capture of sea turtles by pound net is expected to reduce by about 60 %

Reconstructing the population history of the sandy beach amphipod Haustorioides japonicus using the calibration of demographic transition (CDT) approach.

Calibration of the molecular rate is one of the major challenges in marine population genetics. Although the use of an appropriate evolutionary rate is crucial in exploring population histories, calibration of the rate is always difficult because fossil records and geological events are rarely applicable for rate calibration. The acceleration of the evolutionary rate for recent coalescent events (or more simply, the time dependency of the molecular clock) is also a problem that can lead to overestimation of population parameters. Calibration of demographic transition (CDT) is a rate calibration technique that assumes a post-glacial demographic expansion, representing one of the most promising approaches for dealing with these potential problems in the rate calibration. Here, we demonstrate the importance of using an appropriate evolutionary rate, and the power of CDT, by using populations of the sandy beach amphipod Haustorioides japonicus along the Japanese coast of the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Analysis of mitochondrial sequences found that the most peripheral population in the Pacific coast of northeastern Honshu Island (Tohoku region) is genetically distinct from the other northwestern Pacific populations. By using the two-epoch demographic model and rate of temperature change, the evolutionary rate was modeled as a log-normal distribution with a median rate of 2.2%/My. The split-time of the Tohoku population was subsequently estimated to be during the previous interglacial period by using the rate distribution, which enables us to infer potential causes of the divergence between local populations along the continuous Pacific coast of Japan

Colonization of coral rubble by motile cryptic animals: Differences between contiguous versus raised substrates from the bottom

Recent studies have demonstrated that interstices of coral rubble harbor rich and diverse assemblages of motile cryptic animals. Habitats of coral rubble are prone to frequent physical disturbances, so colonization is an important process to maintain the assemblages of these cryptic animals. In order to examine the pattern of colonization, field experiments were carried out using mesh traps with defaunated coral rubble: one treatment placed on the bottom and the other raised 15 cm above the bottom (throughout as "raised") to restrict colonizers to only organisms that are able to invade via the water column. Results of nMDS and PERMANOVA showed significant differences between the assemblages of the bottom and raised treatments. Species-specific variations in the rate of colonization, which were estimated by fitting the von Bertalanffy equation, contributed to the variations in the cryptic assemblages. Generally, decapods and gastropods colonized via the benthic pathway with colonizing individuals moving on the surface of the bottom substrate, while copepods and non-shelled gammarids colonized via the planktonic pathway. Variations in cryptic assemblages in coral rubble microhabitats may be partly due to differences in contributions via the two colonization pathways