To investigate the changes of cortico-cortical connectivity during odor stimulation of subjects classified by occupation, the mutual information content of EEGs was examined for general workers, perfume salespersons and professional perfume researchers. Analysis of the averaged-cross mutual information content (A-CMI) from the EEGs revealed that among the professional perfume researchers changes in the A-CMI values during odor stimulation were more apparent in the frontal region of the brain, while for the general workers and perfume salespersons such changes were more conspicuous in the overall posterior temporal, parietal and frontal regions. These results indicate that the brains of professional perfume researchers respond to odors mainly in the frontal region, reflecting the function of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) due to the occupational requirement of these subjects to discriminate or identify odors. During odor stimulation, the perfume salespersons, although relatively more exposed to odors than the general workers, showed similar changes to the general workers. The A-CMI value is in inverse proportion to psychological preferences of the professional perfume researchers and perfume salespersons, though this is not the case with the general workers. This result suggests that functional coupling for people who are occupationally exposed to odors may be related to psychological preference.

A movable sweating thermal manikin the size of a two-year-old infant was developed in this study. Heat was supplied through manganese wires of 0.3 mm diameter which were glued to the outside of the manikin. The manikin had 32 sweating pores drilled on its surface at the ratio of one per 110 cm 2 of surface area. Water was supplied from a water bath through silicone tubes to each sweating pore with peristaltic pumps. The manikin was dressed in a tight-fitting cotton knit suit and a water-resistant/water vapor-permeable material to control body-surface wettedness. Joints such as shoulders, hips, and knees meant the manikin was able to be placed in a standing, sitting, or walking positions. The surface temperature of the sweating thermal manikin was maintained within 33Ϯ0.5°C for the duration of the experiment. Dry heat loss from the nude manikin was in good agreement with the value obtained by subtracting the evaporative heat loss from a 2year-old Japanese infant's metabolic rate at rest. The manikin's sweat rate was able to be controlled at ten different sweating rates. The wettedness of the manikin changed from 0.49 when the water was supplied at 294 g/h • m 2 to 0.83 when the water was supplied at 2184 g/h • m 2. It was confirmed in the present study that the skin temperature and the wettedness of the newly developed manikin were controlled precisely and the heat exchange between the manikin and the environment simulated those of a two-year-old Japanese infant.

This study evaluates wear comforts of water-vapor-permeable (WVP) garments through a measurement of various parameters such as skin and rectal temperatures, microclimate between skin and clothing, sweat rate, and subjective sensations (thermal, wet and comfort sensations) to correlate the physiological responses of the human body with its comfort feeling. Wear comfort during a specific exercise on a treadmill in a climatic chamber (temperature T = 20±0.5 o C and relative humidity H = 50±10%) were studied using eight men wearing seven sportswear outfits (a long sleeve shirts and a long pants) made with seven different WVP fabrics. A comfort sensation was found to be highly correlated with skin T (p<.001), microclimate (T and H) between skin and clothing (p<.001) and sweat rate (p<.05). A regression model correlating comfort sensations and physiological responses obtained from wearer trials could be established: Y = 14.167 − 0.362 × X1 + 0.424 × X2 − 0.238 × X3 − 0.561 × X4 + 0.253 × X5 + 0.214 × X6 − 0.393 × X7 + 0.023 × X8 − 0.043 × X9. (Y = comfort sensation, X1 = forehead skin T, X2 = forearm skin T, X3 = hand skin T, X4 = thigh skin T, X5 = T of chest microclimate, X6 = T of thigh microclimate, X7 = chest sweat rate, X8 = H of back microclimate, X9 = H of thigh microclimate. The regression model obtained in this work can be used by manufacturers to objectively estimate the comfort sensation of sportswear before it is introduced to the consumer market. This study provides salient information to sportswear manufacturers and sportswear consumers.

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