The COVID‐19 Pandemic and Families in Japan

This paper, which is authored by members of the Japanese Association of Family Therapy (JAFT), describes the COVID‐19 pandemic in Japan from a family systems perspective. The authors are active members of JAFT and include current and past presidents and officers. We describe the course of the pandemic and the ways in which government policies to mitigate the pandemic have affected Japanese families. Challenges that affect Japanese families include the inability to participate in family and social rituals, prescribed gender roles that specifically affect women, high suicide rates, and prejudice against those who are at risk of spreading the infection. The need to shelter in place has also forced family homes to function as a workplace for parents, classrooms for children, and day care services for frail elders, which has resulted in psychological distress among individuals and conflicts among families. We discuss ways that therapists have worked with Japanese families using online therapy.     

Influence of a home-based exercise program on the urine pH in elderly female subjects: a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial

Background

A low urine pH is a characteristic metabolic feature of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of a 12-week home-based bench step exercise on the urine pH status of elderly female subjects.

Methods

The current study is a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in which 59 postmenopausal female subjects were randomized to either the exercise group (n?=?29) or the control group (n?=?30). The subjects in the exercise group were instructed to perform home-based exercises using a bench step at the anaerobic threshold (AT), with a goal of performing ≥140 min/week at home for 12 weeks. The subjects in the control group were instructed to not change their normal lifestyle. Urine was collected after overnight fasting, and the urine pH was measured using a urinary test strip. The inter-group-differences at baseline and the pre-post changes within groups were assessed using the Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test, respectively. Additionally, the difference in the post-intervention urine pH levels of the two groups, adjusted for the pre-intervention values (the estimated effect size) and the precision (95% confidence intervals) were investigated using an analysis of covariance.

Results

The pre-post comparison of the urine pH data using Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test showed a significant increase in the urine pH levels of the exercise group (p?<?0.05); there was no significant change in the urine pH levels of the control group. However, the estimated effect size (0.15) was small and the confidence interval straddled 0 (?0.25–0.55).

Conclusions

Based on the results of the current secondary analysis of an RCT, we could not clearly conclude that exercise has a beneficial effect on the urine pH. Further well-designed RCTs should be conducted to determine whether aerobic exercise is truly able to ameliorate urine acidification.

Trial registration

The study was retrospectively registered in the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) as “Effect of step exercise on aerobic fitness and progression of atherosclerosis in the elderly” under the registration number UMIN 000026743 (the date of registration: March 28, 2017).

     

Behavior and mortality of the southern stink bugNezara viridula in Hawaii

Summary This paper is concerned with some aspects of the ecology of the southern green stink bug,Nezara viridula, in Hawaii. Dispersal studies on adults showed an asymetrical dispersal pattern. The rate of plant to plant to movement by the adults was 3.3–6.7 feet per day. Mortality studies showed that egg predation by ants,Pheidole megancephala, was as high as 80–90 per cent. Egg parasitism byTelenomus basalis was highest during February, 1965, and adult parasitism byTrichopoda pennipes was highest during July, 1964, to January of the following year. The population ofN. viridula declined during May, 1964, to May, 1965. This decline occurred simultaneously with the decline in the number of eggs produced per female. It has been speculated that this reduction in egg production was caused by parasitism byT. pennipes. Published with the approval of the Director of the Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station as Technical Paper No. 816. It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge with thanks the help that I received in various ways from the following: Dr. WallaceC. Mitchell, Dr. MervinKamran., Mr HarryKaya and Mr. HitoshiKamasaki.     

Returns to scale vs. damages to scale in data envelopment analysis: An impact of U.S. clean air act on coal-fired power plants

This study proposes a use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure Returns to Scale (RTS) of US coal-fired power plants. The power plants produce not only desirable outputs (e.g., electricity) but also undesirable outputs (e.g., CO₂ and NO_x) as a result of their plant operations. Therefore, the proposed use of DEA also measures a new concept, or “DTS: Damages to Scale” (corresponding to RTS for undesirable outputs). Both scale measures discussed in this study are a quick-and-easy approach for assessing RTS and DTS, but not an exact method, because it does not consider a direct linkage between the two measures. This study applies the proposed approach to examine the legal validity of U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA). We find that the CAA has been legally effective and influential on the operation of coal-fired power plants in the United States because their plant operations belong to increasing RTS on a desirable output and increasing DTS on three undesirable outputs. The increasing DTS indicates a need for managerial improvement and/or engineering innovation such as advanced clean coal technology. This empirical result implies that U.S. federal and state governments need to expand the legal scope of CAA to the emission control of CO₂ because the current CAA excludes the regulation on CO₂ emission that is now considered as a main source of the global warming and climate change.     

Large Deviation Results for Statistics of Short- and Long-memory Gaussian Processes

This paper discusses the large deviation principle of several important statistics for short- and long-memory Gaussian processes. First, large deviation theorems for the log-likelihood ratio and quadratic forms for a short-memory Gaussian process with mean function are proved. Their asymptotics are described by the large deviation rate functions. Since they are complicated, they are numerically evaluated and illustrated using the Maple V system (Char et al ., 1991a,b). Second, the large deviation theorem of the log-likelihood ratio statistic for a long-memory Gaussian process with constant mean is proved. The asymptotics of the long-memory case differ greatly from those of the short-memory case. The maximum likelihood estimator of a spectral parameter for a short-memory Gaussian stationary process is asymptotically efficient in the sense of Bahadur.     

Spatial relationships between mate acquisition probability and aggregation size in a gregarious coreid bug, (Colpula lativentris): A case of the ideal free distribution under perceptual constraints

Summary Spatial relationships of mate acquisition probability for individuals of both sexes of a gregariously-mating coreid bug,Colpula lativentris, were studied in relation to aggregation size. Operational sex ratio was always strongly male biased. Mate acquisition probability of females was rather constant and independent of aggregation size, as predicted by an ideal free distribution. Moreover laboratory experiments showed that both multiple mating and rearing density little affected female fecundity, suggesting ideal free distribution of females in terms of reproductive success. On the other hand, mate acquisition probability of males was higher in larger aggregations, where more receptive females were available. This male discrepancy from an ideal free distribution was similar to the patterns predicted by an ideal free distribution under perceptual constraints (Abrahams, 1986), but not by that under unequal competitive ability.     

Interannual fluctuations in recruitment and growth of the sardine,Sardinops melanostictus, in the sea of Japan and adjacent waters

Recruitment and growth of the sardineSardinops melanostictus fluctuated markedly in the Sea of Japan and adjacent waters between 1978 and 1993. Stock size was calculated using Virtual Population Analysis and average body length in each age class was determined by the number of annual rings on the scales. There is an inverse correlation between average water temperature at a depth of 50 m in the coastal area of the mainland of Japan in winter (January to March) and recruitmentR defined as the number of individuals at 1 year old. There is also an inverse correlation between spawning stock sizeE and reproductive success in (R/E). A multiple regression model using spawning stock size and water temperature in winter as independent variables can explain 73% of variance in reproductive success. It suggests that both density-dependent and density-independent factors perform important roles determining reproductive success. There is an inverse correlation between body length and stock size and this suggests that there is a density-dependent effect on the growth of the sardine.     

On Variance-Stabilizing Multivariate Non Parametric Regression Estimation

The mean squared error (MSE)-minimizing local variable bandwidth for the univariate local linear estimator (the LL) is well-known. This bandwidth does not stabilize variance over the domain. Moreover, in regions where a regression function has zero curvature, the LL estimator is discontinuous. In this paper, we propose a variance-stabilizing (VS) local variable diagonal bandwidth matrix for the multivariate LL estimator. Theoretically, the VS bandwidth can outperform the multivariate extension of the MSE-minimizing local variable scalar bandwidth in terms of asymptotic mean integrated squared error and can avoid discontinuity created by the MSE-minimizing bandwidth. We present an algorithm for estimating the VS bandwidth and simulation studies.