POPULATION-BASED QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY ON HEALTH EFFECTS OF AIRCRAFT NOISE ON RESIDENTS LIVING AROUND U.S. AIRFIELDS IN THE RYUKYUS—PART I: AN ANALYSIS OF 12 SCALE SCORES

A questionnaire survey was made of health effects of aircraft noise on residents living around Kadena and Futenma airfields using the Todai Health Index. Aircraft noise exposure expressed by L_dnranged from under 55 to over 70 in the surveyed area. The number of valid answers was 7095, including 848 among the control group. Twelve scale scores were converted to dichotomous variables based on scale scores of the 90 percentile value or the 10 percentile value in the control group. Multiple logistic regression analysis was done taking 12 scale scores converted into the dependent variable andL_dn , age (six levels), sex, occupation (four categories) and the interaction of age and sex as the independent variables. Significant dose-response relationships were found in the scale scores for vague complaints, respiratory, digestive, mental instability, depression and nervousness. The results suggest that the residents living around Kadena and Futenma airfields may suffer both physical and mental effects as a result of exposure to military aircraft noise and that such responses increase with the level of noise exposure (L_dn).     

POPULATION-BASED QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY ON HEALTH EFFECTS OF AIRCRAFT NOISE ON RESIDENTS LIVING AROUND U.S. AIRFIELDS IN THE RYUKYUS—PART II: AN ANALYSIS OF THE DISCRIMINANT SCORE AND THE FACTOR SCORE

Discriminant function values of psychosomatics and neurosis are calculated using the 12 scale scores of the Todai Health Index, a general health questionnaire, obtained in the survey done around the Kadena and Futenma U.S. airfields in Okinawa, Japan. The total number of answers available for the analysis is 6301. Factor analysis is applied to the 12 scale scores by means of the principal factor method, and Oblimin rotation is done because the factors extracted are considered likely to correlate with each other to a greater or lesser extent. The logistic regression analysis is made with the independent variables of discriminant function (DF) values and factor scores and with the dependent variables of L_dn, age (six levels), sex, occupation (four categories) and the interaction of age and sex. Results indicate that the odds ratio of the DF values regarding psychosomatic disorder and of the score of somatic factor have clear dose-response relationship. The odds ratios of the DF value of neurosis and of the score of the mental factor increase in the area where noise exposure is very intense.     

Improved Method of Molecular Imprinting of Cyclodextrin on Silica-gel Surface for the Preparation of Stable Stationary HPLC Phase

By using N-(3-triethoxysilyl)propylacrylamide (TPAAm), vinyl groups were introduced onto the surface of silica-gel. On the surface of this silica-gel, β-CyD was molecularly imprinted by using a redox initiator, and the composite was used as stationary phase of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The pump pressure was sufficiently low and did not increase even after continuous elution for 24 h. In order to prepare still more stable columns, a new polymerization process was developed. There, the redox initiator was first mixed with the surface-modified silica-gel and then vinylated β-CyD, crosslinker, and the template were added. This modification promoted the immobilization of β-CyD copolymer to the silica-gel, resulting in still lower pump pressure. Concurrently, the imprinting efficiency was increased in comparison with previous method where the redox initiator was directly added to the mixture of the β-CyD–template complex, crosslinker, and surface-modified silica-gel. The molecularly imprinted β-CyD column, prepared by this new method, efficiently discriminated the enantiomers of N-benzyloxycarbonyltyrosine.     

Hysteresis and ferroelectric liquid crystal displays

One cause of the hysteresis in the voltage-transmittance curve is polarization in the alignment layers brought about by the spontaneous polarization of FLC molecules. The hysteresis was reduced by increasing the conductivity of the alignment layers. The structural changes on switching were examined by measuring time-resolved shifts of FT-IR peaks of selected groups. The shifts of selected groups in the IR peak can be attributed to changes in the local dielectric constants of the ambient environment during switching by molecular orbital calculations. The orientation on switching in the SmC* phase was found to be similar to that in the N* phase.