• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.312-318
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• 2014

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Due to recent changes in social structure, single-person households are on the rise worldwide and therefore the interest in the quality of life of singles is increasing, but the research on the relationships related to their diet-related quality of life is scarce. This research analyzes the structural relations in the effect of convenience food satisfaction and quality of life according to dietary style of Korean, Japanese and Chinese singles. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The targets of this study were Korean, Japanese, and Chinese singles, identified as adults between the ages of 25 and 54, having economic capabilities or working and living alone, either legally or in actuality having no partner. A statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS12.0 for Windows and SEM using AMOS 5.0 statistics package. The reliability of these findings was supported by a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.6 and higher for all the factors. In an attempt to study the level of satisfaction with convenience food in accordance to dietary style and the quality of life of singles, a structural equation model was constructed and analyzed. RESULTS: Of the three countries, regarding the effect of dietary style on singles' quality of life, the convenience-oriented style was found to have a negative effect on Korean singles' overall quality of life, but a positive effect on Japanese singles' overall quality of life, and a negative effect on Chinese singles' positive psychological aspect of quality of life. In addition, although Chinese singles have a high level of interest in health, they have an overall high level of satisfaction regarding fast food and its nutritional value. CONCLUSIONS: The number of singles in Korea, Japan, and China has been consistently increasing in recent years, and there is a need for continuous interest in their healthy dietary lifestyles in terms of convenience, economy, and taste.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.1023-1029
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• 2014

Background: The purpose of our study was to elucidate the joint effects of combined smoking and alcohol intake on esophageal cancer mortality in Japanese men through a large cohort study with a 20-year follow-up period. Materials and Methods: The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study for Evaluation of Cancer Risk (JACC Study) was established in the late 1980s, including 46,395 men and 64,190 women aged 40 years and older and younger than 80. Follow-up of these participants was conducted until 2009. We used the Cox proportional hazards model to analyze data for 42,408 people excluding female participants, 411 people with histories of malignant neoplasms, and 3,576 with unclear smoking and drinking data. Results: The joint effects of age at start of smoking and amount of alcohol consumed per day were compared with non-smokers and non-drinkers or those consuming less than one unit of alcohol per day. The mortality risk was 9.33 (95% confidence interval, 2.55-34.2) for those who started smoking between ages 10 and 19 years and drinking at least three units of alcohol per day. Regarding the joint effects of cumulative amount of smoking and alcohol intake, the risk was high when both smoking and alcohol intake were above a certain level. Conclusions: In this Japanese cohort study, increased cancer mortality risks were observed, especially for people who both started smoking early and drank alcohol. Quitting smoking or not starting to smoke at any age and reducing alcohol consumption are important for preventing esophageal cancer in Japan.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.61-95
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• 2003

This paper investigates the characteristics of Japanese vocational education and training(VET) system and its recent changes with regard to the labour market changes under the long-term economic depression. The employment system model of Marsden(1999) is used as an analytical framework. By the review of 'the debate of intellectual skill', it is pointed out that the fundamental characteristic of Japanese VET system lies in forming multi-functional workers by the internal promotion in connection with the OJT-focused enterprise training along the job-competency rank system. In this system 'the skill as work-competency' is not institutionalised. By the long-term depression this type of internal labour market (ILM) has been under serious changes. By the policy analyses it is made clear that the direction of its change is not toward the collapse of the ILM. A series of labor market and VET policies does aim at sustaining the ILM by the introduction of the unified job qualification system, which is expected to institutionalise the widening external labour market into the craft-based labour market.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.2847-2852
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• 2016

Background: Although the breast cancer incidence rate in Japan is lower than in western countries, the age-specific rates have markedly increased in recent years, along with the problems of declining birth rate and an aging population. Materials and Methods: We examined past trends of age-specific breast cancer incidence using data from the Osaka Cancer Registry from 1976 to 2010, and estimated future trends until 2025 based on the changes observed and population dynamics using a log linear regression model. Results: The age-specific breast cancer incidence rate has increased consistently from the 1970s, and the rates have caught up with those of Japanese-Americans in the US. Assuming the increasing tendency of age-specific breast cancer incidence to be constant, the average annual incidence of breast cancer will increase 1.7-fold from 2006-2010 to 2021-2025. Furthermore, the number of patients aged 80 years should increase 3.4-fold. Conclusions: The medical demand for breast cancer care in Japan may increase explosively in the future, particularly among the elderly. We need to prepare for such a future increase in demand for care, although careful monitoring is needed to confirm these results.

• Diabetes and Metabolism Journal
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.488-495
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• 2018

Background: Skeletal muscle plays a major role in glucose metabolism. We investigated the association between thigh muscle mass, insulin resistance, and incident type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) risk. In addition, we examined the role of body mass index (BMI) as a potential effect modifier in this association. Methods: This prospective study included 399 Japanese Americans without diabetes (mean age 51.6 years) who at baseline had an estimation of thigh muscle mass by computed tomography and at baseline and after 10 years of follow-up a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test and determination of homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). We fit regression models to examine the association between thigh muscle area and incidence of T2DM and change in HOMA-IR, both measured over 10 years. Results: Thigh muscle area was inversely associated with future HOMA-IR after adjustment for age, sex, BMI, HOMA-IR, fasting plasma glucose, total abdominal fat area, and thigh subcutaneous fat area at baseline (P=0.033). The 10-year cumulative incidence of T2DM was 22.1%. A statistically significant interaction between thigh muscle area and BMI was observed, i.e., greater thigh muscle area was associated with lower risk of incident T2DM for subjects at lower levels of BMI, but this association diminished at higher BMI levels. Conclusion: Thigh muscle mass area was inversely associated with future insulin resistance. Greater thigh muscle area predicts a lower risk of incident T2DM for leaner Japanese Americans.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.357-376
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• 2011

Ground motion models predict the mean and standard deviation of the logarithm of spectral acceleration, as a function of predictor variables such as earthquake magnitude, distance and site condition. Such models have been developed for a variety of seismic environments throughout the world. Some calculations, such as the Conditional Mean Spectrum calculation, use this information but additionally require knowledge of correlation coefficients between logarithmic spectral acceleration values at multiple periods. Such correlation predictions have, to date, been developed primarily from data recorded in the Western United States from active shallow crustal earthquakes. This paper describes results from a study of spectral acceleration correlations from Japanese earthquake ground motion data that includes both crustal and subduction zone earthquakes. Comparisons are made between estimated correlations for Japanese response spectral ordinates and correlation estimates developed from Western United States ground motion data. The effect of ground motion model, earthquake source mechanism, seismic zone, site conditions, and source to site distance on estimated correlations is evaluated and discussed. Confidence intervals on these correlation estimates are introduced, to aid in identifying statistically significant differences in correlations among the factors considered. Observed general trends in correlation are similar to previous studies, with the exception of correlation of spectral accelerations between orthogonal components, which is seen to be higher here than previously observed. Some differences in correlations between earthquake source zones and earthquake mechanisms are observed, and so tables of correlations coefficients for each specific case are provided.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.185-192
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• 2019

The purpose of this study examines the effects of corporate CSR on corporate image, customer satisfaction, and customer citizenship behavior in order to provide implications for CSR. To verify hypotheses, we conducted a questionnaire survey on university students using Apple, Sony, Sharp, and Kyocera mobile phones, and used structural equation model analysis for 294 units. As a result, four factors, economic responsibility, legal responsibility, ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility were derived from corporate social responsibility, and all three factors except for ethical responsibility factors were proved to have a positive effect on corporate image. In addition, corporate image has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and customer civic behavior. As an implication, Japanese companies will need to take a systematic approach to CSR to help them understand their CSR and improve the level of CSR they can sympathize with.

• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.8 no.spc1
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• pp.555-582
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• 2005

This is a case study on the new model of Graduate School recently established by 22 government-sponsored research institutes, focused on the University of Science and Technology(UST). It first deals with the necessity of authorized education system in government-sponsored research institutes not only for nourishing highly caliber manpower but also for activating research institutes. And then it analyzes the general status of the UST and Japanese graduate school model and its comparison. Finally it points out some suggestions for future development of the UST.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.265-283
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• 2013

This research was prompted by the paucity of specific code provisions regarding the design of short columns for shear. The purpose of this paper was to investigate whether the use of the normal shear design procedure of various codes may or may not be applied to reliably calculate the shear strength of short columns. Provisions of the codes American ACI 318M-08, Canadian CSA A23.3-04, Japanese AIJ Guidelines, New Zealand NZS 3101, European EN 1998 (EC8) parts 1 and 3, combined with EN 1992-1-1 (EC2), and draft fib Model Code 2010, as well as a strut-and-tie model are applied on short columns tested under cyclic loading that failed in shear. Actual shear resistances are compared to predictions, and the resulting shortcomings of the codes are identified. EN1998-3 appears to be the only code among those considered that may be reliably applied to estimate the shear resistance of short columns. Further, the proposed strut-and tie model can be a useful tool for the detailed design and assessment of short columns.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.301-314
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• 2012

In this paper, two new approaches to align English-Arabic sentences in bilingual parallel corpora based on the Multi-Class Support Vector Machine (MSVM) and the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) classifiers are presented. A feature vector is extracted from the text pair that is under consideration. This vector contains text features such as length, punctuation score, and cognate score values. A set of manually prepared training data was assigned to train the Multi-Class Support Vector Machine and Hidden Markov Model. Another set of data was used for testing. The results of the MSVM and HMM outperform the results of the length based approach. Moreover these new approaches are valid for any language pairs and are quite flexible since the feature vector may contain less, more, or different features, such as a lexical matching feature and Hanzi characters in Japanese-Chinese texts, than the ones used in the current research.