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To prevent malpractices, medical staff has adopted inventory time-outs and/or checklists. Accurate inventory and maintenance of surgical instruments decreases the risk of operating room miscounting and malfunction. In our previous study, an individual management of surgical instruments was accomplished using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate a new management method of RFID-tagged instruments.

The management system of RFID-tagged surgical instruments was used for 27 months in clinical areas. In total, 13 study participants assembled surgical trays in the central sterile supply department.

While using the management system, trays were assembled 94 times. During this period, no assembly errors occurred. An instrument malfunction had occurred after the 19th, 56th, and 73th uses, no malfunction caused by the RFID tags, and usage history had been recorded. Additionally, the time it took to assemble surgical trays was recorded, and the long-term usability of the management system was evaluated.

The system could record the number of uses and the defective history of each surgical instrument. In addition, the history of the frequency of instruments being transferred from one tray to another was recorded. The results suggest that our system can be used to manage instruments safely. Additionally, the management system was acquired of the learning effect and the usability on daily maintenance. This finding suggests that the management system examined here ensures surgical instrument and tray assembly quality.

This study surveys the money market integration literature over the past three decades. Generalizations include (1) global money market integration is increasing over time although evidence of remaining market segmentation is prevalent and (2) emerging Asian capital markets are rapidly becoming an integral part of world markets.

In Japan, one of the countermeasures used to avoid the symptoms of hay fever (HF) is a hygiene mask; however, a mask can cause discomfort. The authors believe that co-occurrence analysis, which has been widely in the sciences, will be valuable to this issue. The purpose of this paper is to identify problems associated with the use of hygiene masks and recommend improvements in their function and comfort. The goal of this study was to obtain information for the development of effective hygiene masks for HF sufferers and therefore, improve their quality of life.

The authors conducted a survey of university students with HF (n=1,519) to identify problems with hygiene masks. Students completed self-report questionnaires and co-occurrence analyses were used to examine the data from a holistic perspective. Moreover, technical data, relative to the problems of wearing a mask were acquired experimentally using thermal, hygroscopic, and airflow properties.

Among Japanese university students, hygiene masks were the most popular countermeasure against HF symptoms. In addition, it was found that wearing a mask was not influenced of the type of symptoms. Most problems were related to the masks’ thermal, hygroscopic, and airflow properties.

The paper proposed the use of co-occurrence analysis to analyze problems with hygiene masks. Most problems appear to be related to the thermal, hygroscopic, and airflow properties of the masks. Moreover, such phenomena have been experimentally demonstrated.

The purpose was to investigate what effect an intervention of low-dose, high-frequency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training with feedback for one month would have on professionals' subjective self-assessment skill of CPR.

This study had a quantitative approach. In total, 38 firefighters performed CPR for two minutes on a Resusci Anne QCPR. They then self-assessed their CPR through four multiple-choice questions regarding compression rate, depth, recoil and ventilation volume. After one month of low-dose, high-frequency training with visual feedback, the firefighters once more performed CPR and self-assessed their CPR.

With one month of low-dose, high-frequency training with visual feedback, the level of self-assessment was 87% (n = 33) correct self-assessment of compression rate, 95% (n = 36) correct self-assessment of compression depth, 68% (n = 26) correct self-assessment of recoil and 87% (n = 33) correct self-assessment of ventilations volume. The result shows a reduced number of firefighters who overestimate their ability to perform CPR.

With low-dose, high-frequency CPR training with visual feedback for a month, the firefighters develop a good ability to self-assess their CPR to be performed within the guidelines. By improving their ability to self-assess their CPR quality, firefighters can self-regulate their compression and ventilation quality.