The Japanese version of the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire: Reliability and validity assessment.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire as a measure of sleep among intensive care unit patients in a Japanese hospital. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. METHODS: The Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire was initially translated into Japanese using the back-translation method. Validity was evaluated by determining the association between sleep efficiency, measured using simplified polysomnography, and the total score on the Japanese version of the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire. Adult non-intubated intensive care unit patients who completed the five-item visual analogue scale underwent polysomnography for one night. Reliability was tested using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. RESULTS: Thirty-three patients were included in the analysis. After excluding four patients with subsyndromal delirium, the Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.602 (p = 0.001). Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.911. CONCLUSION: The Japanese version of the Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire could be used as an alternative to polysomnography when assessing sleep quality in lucid intensive care unit patients.

Characterization of growth-phase-specific responses to cold in Arabidopsis thaliana suspension-cultured cells.

To understand complex responses of plant cells to low temperatures, suspension-cultured cells of Arabidopsis thaliana (line T87) were characterized during cold treatment. Freezing tolerance of cells collected at the lag or log phase was quite different: an increase in freezing tolerance during cold treatment was only detectable with cells at the lag phase. Although there were little differences in the osmolality of cells at the two growth phases, sugar content increased during cold treatment only in lag phase cells. Abscisic acid (ABA) content was greater at the lag phase than at the log phase throughout the cold treatment, and increased only in lag phase cells. Interestingly, ABA treatment resulted in an increase in freezing tolerance only in lag phase cells. Expression of cold-responsive genes such as DREB1A/CBF3, COR15a and RD29A occurred in cells at the two growth phases; however, the extent of the induction of COR15a and RD29A was somewhat greater in cells at the lag phase than at the log phase. Microarray analysis revealed that cold-regulated genes (COR genes) were categorized into three groups: up- or down-regulated consistently during cold treatment, transiently after 1 d and later after 2 d of cold treatment. Among genes that were up-regulated throughout or transiently after 1 d of cold treatment only in lag phase cells, functions in upstream of signal transduction such as kinase and transcription factor were often deduced. These results collectively suggest that these genes seem to be associated with induction of freezing tolerance by cold treatment in cells at the lag phase.