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This study aims to evaluate a human rights-informed dementia prevention program promoting better health and social care among older adults. In this study, the authors examined whether a dual-task training would improve cognition in healthy older adults.

Individuals attending the systematic health education program for older adults based in Japan were recruited for study inclusion, and divided into a dual-task training group (TG) and a control group (CG). The TG underwent 90 min of a weekly dual-task training for 12 weeks. Severity of dementia was measured using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) test. Brain function was assessed using a go/no-go task paradigm, during which cerebral blood flow was additionally measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy to quantify oxyhemoglobin (oxy-Hb).

MMSE total score, number of errors in the go/no-go tasks and oxy-Hb values showed significant improvements in the TG.

Owing to the small number of participants allocated to the CG, the results must be interpreted with caution. Replication and further validation based on large-scale, randomized-controlled trials is warranted.

This study highlights potential benefits of incorporating an early prevention training for dementia into a human rights-friendly health education program.

This study suggests a potential means to reduce costs of social security and health care by introducing a human rights-informed dementia prevention program.

The results suggest that dual-task training may improve cognitive function in healthy older adults, thereby contributing to better health and improvement of social health care, based on a human rights-informed health education program for the prevention of dementia.

The purpose of this paper is to produce an upper garment model for three-dimensional (3D) pattern making. This model will take into account ease allowance and silhouette, and will be used to propose a size-changing method.

The authors used two real garment bodices with a surface suitable for pattern development. The garments were fitted to a designated dummy body and scanned. Using the scanned data, the authors made those upper garment basic models suitable for 3D pattern making. Using one model, the authors produced two bodice patterns, one with the original seam lines and the other with seam lines that differed from the original ones, and then compared them with the original jacket bodice. To construct garment models that were different in size from the basic model, the authors calculated multiplication factors of cross-sectional dimensions (in the front, back and lateral directions) between the basic garment and the actual garment shape worn on a body for each basic model. Using the multiplication factors, the authors made two different size garment models from two different size dummies for each basic model. The authors used these models to make patterns and garments.

The reproduced jackets had similar shapes, silhouettes and ease allowances to the original jacket. Two garments of different sizes for each original jacket were made using the multiplication factors, and these garments also had similar silhouettes to the original jacket.

The implications of the work could be the new size-changing method.

Using the modeling method, the authors were able to make complex new garment models that take into account ease allowance and silhouette. The ability to size these models up or down using multiplication factors could be a substitute for the grading method.

Purpose: The aim is to explore how family relations are affected by societal changes in relation to informal and formal caregiving and self-determination of older adults.

Design/methodology/approach: Care managers (CMs)/social workers (SWs) (N = 124) participated in a comparative vignette study including Japan, South Korea, and Sweden. Systems theory was used.

Findings: Japanese CMs/SWs clearly describe their efforts to create networks in a relational way between formal and informal actors in the community. South Korean CMs/SWs balance between suggesting interventions to support daily life at home or a move to a nursing home, often acknowledging the family as the main caregiver. In Sweden, CMs/SWs highlight the juridical element in meeting the older adult and the interventions offered, and families primarily give social support. Regarding self-determination, the Japanese priority is for CMs/SWs to harmonize within the family and the community. South Korean CMs/SWs express ambivalent attitudes to older adults’ capability for self-determination in the intersection between formal and family care. Swedish CMs/SWs adhere to the older adult’s self-determination, while acknowledging the role of the family in persuading the older adult to accept interventions. The results suggest emerging defamilialization in South Korea, while tendencies to refamilialization are noticed in Japan and Sweden, albeit in different ways.

Research limitations/implications: In translation, nuances may be lost. A focus on changing families shows that country-specific details in care services have been reduced. For future research, perspectives of “care” need to be studied on different levels.

Originality/value: Using one vignette in three countries with different welfare regimes, discussing changing views on families’, communities’ and societal caregiving is unique. This captures changes in policy, influencing re- and defamilialization.

This paper aims to propose a simple method for stabilizing silica-coated silver iodide (AgI/SiO₂) core-shell particles, of which a colloid solution functions as an X-ray contrast agent.

A colloid solution of AgI nanoparticles was prepared by mixing silver perchlorate and potassium iodide in water. The AgI/SiO₂ nanoparticles were fabricated by a sol-gel method using NaOH, H₂O and tetraethylorthosilicate in ethanol in the presence of AgI nanoparticles surface-modified with 3-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane.

The silica shells of AgI/SiO₂ particles were dissolved near the AgI nanoparticle surface, when they were washed by a process composed of centrifugation, removal of supernatant with decantation, addition of water as a washing solution and a shake with a vortex mixer. In contrast, the shells were not damaged by using ethanol as the washing solution, i.e. ethanol-washing. An X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy spectrum of the silica was changed after the ethanol-washing, which indicated that the ethanol-washing had an effect on the chemical bonds in silica. The effect also acted on the silica shells of AgI/SiO₂ particles, which did not damage the core-shell structure, i.e. controlled the dissolution of shell.

The paper demonstrates that the ethanol-washing is quite useful for stabilizing the core-shell structure composed of the silica shells.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate participants' contributions to the development of discussion and knowledge creation as organizational knowledge management, and thereby help them better develop the discussion.

To evaluate participants' contributions more accurately, a method which analyzes discussion structures by Discourse Semantic Authoring was employed, which represents discussion structures explicitly in terms of discourse and dialogue relations.

The method successfully evaluates participants based on the content of their comments rather than their number. More fine‐grain semantic structure should be considered in order to improve the accuracy of this evaluation.

This paper presents a first attempt to analyze discussion structures to evaluate participants' contributions.