Music Intervention Reduces Persistent Fibromyalgia Pain and Alters Functional Connectivity Between the Insula and Default Mode Network.

Objective: The aims of the present study were to examine the effects of short-term music interventions among patients with fibromyalgia (FM) and to clarify the alterations in functional connectivity and persistent pain.

Design: Pilot study.

Setting: All participants were evaluated at Juntendo University from November 2017 to January 2019.

Managing disasters amid COVID-19 pandemic: Approaches of response to flood disasters.

The world faces difficulties managing disasters while making efforts to slowing the spread of COVID-19. The paper aims at proposing policies and approaches to manage dual disasters of flooding and COVID-19. It reviews on-going efforts of organizations in the humanitarian assistance, water and sanitation, disaster management and health sectors.

Ethnic Violence and Birth Outcomes: Evidence From Exposure to the 1992 Conflict in Kenya.

This study is an examination of the effect of intrauterine exposure to electoral violence on child birth weight, an outcome that has long-term effects on an individual's education, income, and health in later life. We consider the electoral violence that resulted from the introduction of multiparty democracy in Kenya as an exogenous source of shock, using a difference-in-differences method and a mother fixed-effects model. We find that prenatal exposure to the violence increased the probabilities of low birth weight and a child being of very small size at birth by 19 and 6 percentage points, respectively.

Decomposing gender inequality in functional disability among older people in Vietnam.

Objectives: This study compared functional disability in older men and women, and examined the extent to which social determinants contribute to the difference in functional disability between Vietnamese older men and women.

Methods: A nationally representative sample of persons aged 60 and older in Vietnam, taken from the 2011 Vietnam Aging Survey, was analyzed (N = 2,693, consisting of 1,622 women and 1,071 men). Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) was used to identify factors associated with functional disability in men and women, while Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition for linear models was applied to examine how much of gender inequality in functional disability was attributed by the distribution of the social determinants.

Understanding the slum-health conundrum in sub-Saharan Africa: a proposal for a rights-based approach to health promotion in slums.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's least urbanized region but is ironically also the region with the largest proportion of urban slum dwellers. However, there exists limited understanding of the impact of slums on health in the region. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted a systematic search in PubMed, Google, and Google Scholar to identify and review studies examining the slum-health relationship in sub-Saharan African cities.

Farmers' risk preferences and rice production: Experimental and panel data evidence from Uganda.

Although rice has been a prominent cash crop in areas with access to lowland in Uganda, the adoption of rice and area expansion have stagnated despite the Government of Uganda's 2009 National Rice Development Policy and its commitment to doubling rice production over 10 years. Using panel data collected in 2010 and 2017 as well as risk preference data elicited via lab-in-the-field experiments conducted in rural Uganda, we find that farmers with higher loss aversion are less likely to grow rice and expand their rice cultivation areas. This study affirms that risk preferences play a critical role in agricultural production decisions.

Universal health coverage and primary care, Thailand.

Thailand's policy on universal health coverage (UHC) has made good progress since its inception in 2002. Every Thai citizen is now entitled to essential preventive, curative and palliative health services at all life stages. Like its counterparts elsewhere, however, the policy faces challenges.

Evaluating anthropogenic and environmental tritium effects using precipitation and Hokkaido snowpack at selected coastal locations in Asia.

Tritium dating requires a good understanding of the tritium and water inputs into hydrologic systems, including their main trends due to latitudinal, seasonal and altitudinal effects. Although tritium reached ambient levels at the end of the 20th century, tritium released from nuclear facilities and bomb tests since then has the potential to confound use of tritium for age dating. We therefore collected precipitation and snowpack samples for tritium analysis to confirm that tritium levels in Japanese precipitation had not exceeded ambient levels following the North Korean nuclear tests in January 6th 2016 and September 3rd 2017.

Reducing the gender gap in academic activities: a 10-year progress report by the Japan Endocrine Society Women Endocrinologists Association (JES-We-Can).

The Japan Endocrine Society (JES) has the largest ratio of female membership among societies associated with Internal Medicine in Japan; half of female members are in their 20s or 30s at present. In 2009, JES organized the "JES-We-Can" committee to promote women's career development. To evaluate the effectiveness of JES-We-Can, we investigated the gender balance of various activities at JES in fiscal 2009 and 2017.

SPACIA1/SAAL1 Deletion Results in a Moderate Delay in Collagen-Induced Arthritis Activity, along with mRNA Decay of Gene.

This study was performed to elucidate the molecular function of the synoviocyte proliferation-associated in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) 1/serum amyloid A-like 1 (SPACIA1/SAAL1) in mice CIA, an animal model of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and human RA-synovial fibroblasts (RASFs). -deficient mice were generated and used to create mouse models of CIA in mild or severe disease conditions. Cell cycle-related genes, whose expression levels were affected by small interfering RNA (siRNA), were screened.

[Body weight and bone/calcium metabolism. Bone and calcium metabolism in anorexia nervosa.].

Osteoporosis is one of chief complications of anorexia nervosa. Their calcium intake decreases and 84%are lack of vitamin D. The abnormal bone metabolism in severely emaciated patients with anorexia nervosa involves both a reduction in bone formation and an increase in bone resorption.

Putting a premium on altruism: A social discounting experiment with South African university students.

This paper reports on a social discounting experiment conducted with university students in South Africa. In line with other social discounting task experiments, participants identify target individuals at different degrees of intimacy in their social network and then make 10 choices involving sums of money for themselves or their targets. For an altruism premium to exist, senders' donations to recipients should be positive, statistically and economically significant, and independent of relationship closeness.

Children of Migrants: The Cumulative Impact of Parental Migration on Children's Education and Health Outcomes in China.

Since the end of 1990s, approximately 160 million Chinese rural workers migrated to cities for work. Because of restrictions on migrant access to local health and education systems, many rural children are left behind in home villages to grow up without parental care. This article examines how exposure to cumulative parental migration affects children's health and education outcomes.

End-Of-Life Medical Spending In Last Twelve Months Of Life Is Lower Than Previously Reported.

Although end-of-life medical spending is often viewed as a major component of aggregate medical expenditure, accurate measures of this type of medical spending are scarce. We used detailed health care data for the period 2009-11 from Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Taiwan, the United States, and the Canadian province of Quebec to measure the composition and magnitude of medical spending in the three years before death. In all nine countries, medical spending at the end of life was high relative to spending at other ages.

Impact of the Local Public Hospital Reform on the Efficiency of Medium-Sized Hospitals in Japan: An Improved Slacks-Based Measure Data Envelopment Analysis Approach.

Objective: To assess the change in efficiency and total factor productivity (TFP) of the local public hospitals in Japan after the local public hospital reform launched in late 2007, which was aimed at improving the financial capability and operational efficiency of hospitals.

Data Sources And Data Collection: Secondary data were collected from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on 213 eligible medium-sized hospitals, each operating 100-400 beds from FY2006 to FY2011.

Study Design: The improved slacks-based measure nonoriented data envelopment analysis models (Quasi-Max SBM nonoriented DEA models) were used to estimate dynamic efficiency score and Malmquist Index.

Associations of employment status and educational levels with mortality and hospitalization in the dialysis outcomes and practice patterns study in Japan.

Background: Socioeconomic status (SES) factors such as employment, educational attainment, income, and marital status can affect the health and well-being of the general population and have been associated with the prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD). However, no studies to date in Japan have reported on the prognosis of patients with CKD with respect to SES. This study aimed to investigate the influences of employment and education level on mortality and hospitalization among maintenance hemodialysis (HD) patients in Japan.

Automated Estimation of Mouse Social Behaviors Based on a Hidden Markov Model.

Recent innovations in sensing and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have enabled researchers in animal behavior to collect an enormous amount of data. Consequently, the development of an automated system to substitute for some of the observations and analyses that are performed currently by expert researchers is becoming a crucial issue so that the vast amount of accumulated data can be processed efficiently. For this purpose, we introduce a process for the automated classification of the social interactive status of two mice in a square field on the basis of a Hidden Markov model (HMM).

The impact of spousal bereavement on subjective wellbeing: Evidence from the Taiwanese elderly population.

Bereavement is an inevitable event in our life. This paper employs the Taiwanese panel Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly (SHLSE) to evaluate the impact of losing a spouse on self-assessed health and subjective well-being measured by depression and life satisfaction. Propensity score matching methods are used to generate a hypothetical bereavement date and a weight for the non-bereaved to create a comparable non-bereaved cohort and a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach is used to estimate the impact of spousal bereavement.

Relationship between bicultural identity and psychological well-being among American and Japanese older adults.

In a large national sample of American and Japanese older adults, this study investigated how bicultural identity affects perception of health and well-being in 11 individual psychological variables (i.e. positive well-being: self-esteem, optimism, subjective well-being Japanese equivalent, gratitude, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-positive adjectives, and satisfaction with life; negative well-being: depression, pessimism, social anxiety, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-negative adjectives, and perceived stress).

Don't ask for fair treatment? A gender analysis of ethnic discrimination, response to discrimination, and self-rated health among marriage migrants in South Korea.

Background: Ethnic discrimination is increasingly common nowadays in South Korea with the influx of migrants. Despite the growing body of evidences suggests that ethnic discrimination negatively impacts health, only few researches have been conducted on the association between ethnic discrimination and health outcomes among marriage migrants in Korea. This study sought to examine how ethnic discrimination and response to the discrimination are related to self-rated health and whether the association differs by victim's gender.

Influence of Staff Encouragement on Perceived Burden of Dietary Restriction Among Patients Living Alone.

To help relieve the burden of dietary restrictions experienced by many hemodialysis (HD) patients, dialysis staff may encourage patients, with no consideration to the degree of family support. Here, we clarified the effect of staff encouragement and living conditions on the burden of dietary restrictions in HD patients. This retrospective cohort study was conducted using data from the Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study (DOPPS) I and III.

Factors associated with caregiving burden and mental health conditions in caregivers of patients with anorexia nervosa in Japan.

Background: There are no studies about the caregiving burdens in families of patients with eating disorders in Japan, and only limited studies on the role of caregivers' stress coping, social support, and mental health. This study examines caregiving burdens, mental health conditions, and associated factors in caregivers of anorexia nervosa (AN) patients in Japan.

Methods: Seventy-nine principal caregivers (70 mothers, 5 fathers, 3 spouses and 1 grandmother; mean age 56.

Self-Construals, Anger Regulation, and Life Satisfaction in the United States and Japan.

Previous studies have reported evidence that indicates differences between Western and East Asian cultures in anger regulation and its psychological consequences. However, many of these studies have focused on a specific anger regulation strategy and its relation with a psychological consequence. Here, we developed an integrated model that can comprehensively examine three different anger regulation strategies (anger suppression, expression, and control), independent and interdependent self-construals as the psychological antecedent, and life satisfaction as the psychological consequence.

PTH-dependence of the effectiveness of cinacalcet in hemodialysis patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism.

Cinacalcet lowers parathyroid hormone levels. Whether it can prolong survival of people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) complicated by secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) remains controversial, in part because a recent randomized trial excluded patients with iPTH <300 pg/ml. We examined cinacalcet's effects at different iPTH levels.