Medical services at the 2017 Sapporo Asian winter games: injury and illness epidemiology at a 34-nation multisport event.

OBJECTIVES: We describe the medical services provided and report the injuries and illnesses that occurred at the eighth Asian Winter Games 2017. METHODS: A total of 2010 athletes and team officials from 32 National Olympic Committees and 2 guest countries attended this event; medical services were provided for 16 days. Medical data (medical care and physiotherapy) were collected for the same period by the organising committee for athletes and non-athletes (team officials, workforce, media and spectators) and recorded on the electronic medical record system at the medical rooms in the venues and the team residences. RESULTS: We recorded 745 medical encounters (medical care, 443; physiotherapy, 302), of which 549 (74%) were among athletes. There were 214 injuries as well as 144 illnesses and other medical conditions. Of the 1164 athletes, 549 (47%) utilised the services. Ice hockey, snowboarding and alpine skiing had high rate of medical encounters. More than half of the delegations were not accompanied by team doctor, and rate of medical encounters was high in these teams. The vast majority of patients transferred to hospital for further care were mostly athletes (n=36 out of 41), mostly alpine skiers and ice hockey players. CONCLUSION: Injuries and illnesses varied depending on NOC medical staffing and sport events. These data will serve organisers of medical and physiotherapy services in the Asian Winter Games and similar large events.

[Current situation and measures to promote anti-doping activities in Japan].

After the Ministry of Edcation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan has ratified the UNESCO "International Convention Fight against Doping in Sport" in December 2006, the government increased its support to Anti-Doping activities. About 5 years ago, the total number of doping control samples a year in Japan was around 2000, and this number was not enough to demonstrate Japanese athletes' cleanness to the rest of the world. However, after the government's ratification of the UNESCO international convention, the government increased its support both financially and politically. By receiving the increased support from the government, testing number has increased and reached 5000 samples a year. 5 years ago, our target athletes range was only international level athletes who compete in the Olympics or international events. As we expanded our testing numbers, the target range of the athletes was also expanded and national level athletes also became our targets. As a result, athletes without having adequate knowledge about anti-doping regulations became our target. This situation caused inadvertent anti-doping rule violation cases. Most of those anti-doping rule violations were the result of taking over-the-counter medicines, etc. In order to cope with those inadvertent anti-doping rule violation problems, we, Japan Anti-Doping Agency launched "Sport Pharmacist Project" in cooperation with Japan Pharmaceutical Association. In this project, we provide anti-doping information/regulation to the pharmacists and make those pharmacists knowledgeable about the current anti-doping rules and regulations.

[An attempt to integrate the dual route cascaded model and the triangle model for reading English words aloud].

In this article, I discuss the implementation of neural network models for reading English words aloud. Since 1989, there has been existing a debate about the models of reading English words aloud. One is the Dual Route Cascaded (DRC) model. The other is the Triangle model, whose original version was developed in 1989. Because there are arbitrary variables of both models, we did not decide which model gives better accounts for the numerous data given by psychological experiments and neuropsychological evidence. Therefore, in order to give a solution of this debate, an attempt to integrate both models was made. Introducing the Mixture of Experts Network, an elegant solution to overcome the arbitrariness of both models could be given. The Mixture of Expert Network can include both the models as a special case of this Network. From the Mixture of Expert Network's point of view, the difference between the Dual Route Cascaded model and the Triangle model would be able to describe as the quantitative difference of the dispersion parameters.