In this study, the relation between pressure values and the feeling of pressure of the top part of men's socks (hereafter, the top) is investigated to design and develop socks that provide wearing comfort. Leg size, tensile properties and pressure values of the top are measured, and the pressure feeling is evaluated. When the tops of men's casual socks are stretched to a certain extent this induces stress relaxation and the feeling of pressure changes depending on wearing time. In this study, a certain stable pressure value is observed 2 hours after wearing the socks. The pressure value of the anterior surface of the leg has a great influence on the feeling of pressure. The pressure value of the top when the subjects feel "comfortable" is 2.02 & p l u s m n ; 0.29 kPa. Furthermore, the minimum girth of the lower leg and the girth of the heel influence the wearing comfort of socks.

No abstract

In many countries, especially poor countries, a heavy burden of taxes, fees, bureaucratic hassles, and bribes drives many producers into an informal sector. This paper shows that we can attribute the existence of a large informal sector to the fact that, because productive endowments contain important unobservable components, the state cannot adjust the amounts that it extracts from producers in the formal sector finely according to each producer's endowment. Given this fact, we find that if the endowment of well-endowed producers is sufficiently large relative to poorly endowed producers, or if their number is relatively large, or if the quality of public services is sufficiently low, then the state extracts a large enough amount from producers in the formal sector that poorly endowed producers choose to work in the informal sector. This result obtains both for a proprietary state, which maximizes its own net revenue, and for a hypothetical benevolent state, which would maximize total net output. But, we also find that there exist combinations of the distribution of endowments and the quality of public services such that the policies of a proprietary state, but not the policies of a hypothetical benevolent state, would cause poorly endowed producers to work in the informal sector. Copyright 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

To clarify differences in the compressive properties of different kinds of pantyhose fabrics on the market in Japan, cylinder-elongation experiments and wear experiments are conducted, with Zokki, kohhen, sheer, wooly, and conjugate kinds of pantyhose are used as samples. Their compressive properties, which include compressive energy, compressive resilience, and fabric thickness, differ remarkably according to the types and the sites of hose and posture while being worn.We have been making fundamental studies of the touch of pantyhose that even women susceptible to dermatological hazards can comfortably wear, and this study is one of them. In previous papers, we clarified differences in touch between pantyhose with different yarn structures [4], and also studied differences in the morphology of fabric surfaces of pantyhose in real contact with a rigid plate in order to research the cause of hand differences in touch [5].We can postulate that the compressive properties of pantyhose are also very important factors related to touch. In general, pantyhose have high elongation properties, but the compressive properties must substantially change according to the grade of elongation. For example, when women with big or thicker legs wear pantyhose, the grade of their elongation becomes higher, and the pantyhose fabrics then have harder compressive properties. But when women with small or thin legs wear them, the grade becomes lower and the fabrics softer. These changes will also be affected by the sites of hose or posture when standing, sedentary, and &dquo;seiza,&dquo; a special Japanese posture. Harder compressive properties of fabrics cause inferior touch and possibly skin irritation, so it is necessary to study the compressive properties of pantyhose with simple elongation and with wear.There are five kinds of typical pantyhose on the market in Japan, i.e., zokki, kohhen, sheer, wooly, and conjugate. As we reported in the previous paper [4], there are differences in their touch, and because their yarns have different structures, their compressive properties also differ.This study assesses the compressive properties (energy and resilience) and the fabric thickness of swatches taken first from pantyhose held at three different extensions , on cylinders, and second from pantyhose on a human subject as she pauses after standing, walking, and sedentary in the Japanese posture. The swatches in the former used in the cylinder-elongation experiments and those in the latter for the wear experiments are described below. In this study, cylinder-elongation experiments determine the basic compressive properties of pantyhose by simple elongation using cylinders, and wear experiments provide practical data during wear. These data can then be used in conjunction with subjective touch data collected in another experiment with a view to understanding the nature of the relationship between perceived touch and pantyhose characteristics.We could not find any published studies on the compressive properties of pantyhose, although there are...

This paper develops a theoretical model of the inequality in wages and salaries associated with differences in years of schooling (educational inequality, for short). Our model assumes that in the long run individual decisions to become more educated equalize the lifetime earnings of more educated workers and comparable less educated workers. Given this assumption, our model implies that innovations that increase the relative demand for more educated labor, and which cause short-run increases in educational inequality, in the long run induce offsetting increases in the relative supply of more educated labor. But our model also has the novel implication that innovations that increase differences between the wages and salaries received by workers with the same years of education who are more or less able (ability premiums, for short) cause a smaller fraction of workers to choose to become more educated. Consequently, innovations that increase ability premiums in the long run also cause educational inequality to be larger than otherwise. In applying our theory to recent changes in educational inequality in the USA, we suggest that, to the extent that innovations that increase ability premiums are contributing to educational inequality, the increases in educational inequality during the 1980s and 1990s are unlikely to be reversed soon.