Home-Based Cognitive Intervention for Healthy Older Adults Through Asking Robots Questions: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Asking questions is common in conversations, and while asking questions, we need to listen carefully to what others say and consider the perspective our questions adopt. However, difficulties persist in verifying the effect of asking questions on older adults' cognitive function due to the lack of a standardized system for conducting experiments at participants' homes. Objective: This study examined the intervention effect of cognitive training moderated by robots on healthy older adults. A focus on the feasibility of the intervention at participants' homes was also maintained. Feasibility was evaluated by considering both the dropout rate during the intervention and the number of questions posed to each participant during the experiment. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial with 81 adults older than 65 years. Participants were recruited through postal invitations and then randomized into 2 groups. The intervention group (n=40) received sessions where participants listened to photo-integrated stories and posed questions to the robots. The control group (n=41) received sessions where participants listened to photo-integrated stories and only thanked the robots for confirming participation. The participants participated in 12 dialogue sessions for 2-3 weeks. Scores of global cognitive functioning tests, recall tests, and verbal fluency tasks measured before and after the intervention were compared between the 2 groups. Results: There was no significant intervention effect on the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status-Japanese scores, recall tests, and verbal fluency tasks. Additionally, our study successfully concluded with no participant dropouts at follow-up, confirming the feasibility of our approach. Conclusions: There was no statistically significant evidence indicating intervention benefits for cognitive functioning. Although the feasibility of home-based interventions was demonstrated, we identified areas for improvement in the future, such as setting up more efficient session themes. Further research is required to identify the effectiveness of an improved cognitive intervention involving the act of asking questions.

An analysis of damage to Hanshin elevated expressway during 1995 Hyogoken Nambu earthquake

Damage to Hanshin Expressway "Kobe Route"(P1 to P718) is described with structural characteristics. It is shown that many single pier suffered large residual inclination due to seismic-induced plastic deformation. Damage to the section from P200 to P300 is investigated in detail and it is found that almost all the single RC piers in this section received either severe damage above the ground level or large residual inclination. the observed damage mode of the circular RC pier, i.e. flexure and/or shear, is in good agreement with the mode predicted from the strength analysis. however, the agreement is not so good in the case of rectangular RC pier and the reason id discussed. Finally, nonlinear dynamic FE-based response analysis of a single RC pier (P223) with fixed base is conducted, but large residual inclination obsrved is not simulated even when there is a mass eccentricity at the pier top.(AU)

Optimal design parameters of brigde bearings for seismic protection

In this paper, optimization of bearings and dampers to improve seismic performance of bridgefs is studied. At the first half of the paper, general optimization procedure for seismic response reduction is constructed. The seismic excitation is modeled by stationry gaussian wthite noise for the convenience of the analysis, and the expected peak response is expressed in terms of the response spectra by applying simple approximation on peak factors. Then, optimal design values are derived by minimizing mean square responses of interest. Following the construction of the general method, optimal design of deck connections and bearings are demonstrated using simple linear two-degree-of-freedom structural models. Analytical expressions for optimal design values are also developed for these devices. The validity of the proposed optimization procedure and design values are studies using the observed ground motions of 1941 El Centro earthquake, and 1995 Kobe aerthquake. (AU)