Personality, subjective well-being, and the serotonin 1a receptor gene in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus)

Studies of personality traits in common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) indicate that there are five or six constructs—Sociability, Dominance, Neuroticism, Openness, and two related to Conscientiousness. The present study attempted to determine whether our earlier study of laboratory-housed individuals only yielded three—Dominance, Sociability, and Neuroticism—because of a low amount of between-subjects variance. To do so, we increased our sample size from 77 to 128. In addition, we ascertained the reliability and validity of ratings and whether polymorphisms related to the serotonin 1a receptor were associated with personality. We found Sociability, Dominance, and Negative Affect factors that resembled three domains found in previous studies, including ours. We also found an Openness and Impulsiveness factor, the latter of which bore some resemblance to Conscientiousness, and two higher-order factors, Pro-sociality and Boldness. In further analyses, we could not exclude the possibility that Pro-sociality and Boldness represented a higher-level of personality organization. Correlations between personality factors and well-being were consistent with the definitions of the factors. There were no significant associations between personality and genotype. These results suggest that common marmoset personality structure varies as a function of rearing or housing variables that have not yet been investigated systematically

Relation between psychosocial variables and the glycemic control of patients with type 2 diabetes: A cross-sectional and prospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This cross-sectional and prospective study used a variety of psychological inventories to evaluate the relationship between psychosocial factors and the glycemic control of patients with type 2 diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants were 304 patients with type 2 diabetes who were treated as outpatients at diabetes clinics. All participants were assessed for HbA_1cand completed the following self-report psychological inventories: 1) Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire (DTSQ), 2) Problem Areas in Diabetes Survey (PAID), 3) Well-being Questionnaire 12 (W-BQ12), 4) Self-Esteem Scale (SES), 5) Social Support Scale, and 6) Self-Efficacy Scale. HbA_1cwas again measured one year later. The relationships between the psychosocial variables obtained by analysis of the psychological inventories and baseline or one-year follow-up HbA_1cwere determined.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Baseline HbA_1cwas significantly correlated with age, diet treatment regimen, number of microvascular complication of diabetes, and the total scores of DTSQ, W-BQ12, PAID, SES and the Self-Efficacy Scale. Hierarchical stepwise multiple regression revealed that significant predictors of baseline HbA_1cwere total DTSQ and PAID scores, along with age, diet treatment regimen, and number of microvascular complication of diabetes after adjustment for demographic, clinical and other psychosocial variables. Two hundred and ninety patients (95.4% of 304) were followed and assessed one year after baseline. Hierarchical stepwise multiple regression analysis showed the significant predictors of follow-up HbA_1cto be total DTSQ and PAID scores, along with age and diet treatment regimen. However, the correlation between baseline and follow-up HbA_1cwas so high that the only other variable to retain significance was diet treatment regimen once baseline HbA_1cwas included in the regression of follow-up HbA_1c.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The DTSQ and the PAID predicted both current and future HbA_1cto a similar and significant degree in patients with type 2 diabetes.</p

Improvement of Automatic Physics Data Analysis Environment for the LHD Experiment

The physical data of the Large Helical Device (LHD) project have been serviced by the Analyzed Data Server system, and approximately 600 kinds of physical data are served. In order to execute simulation programs for the LHD experiment, one must gather sets of physical data. Because the Automatic Analyzed Server (AutoAna) calculates the physical data automatically, it eases the scientist’s task of collecting these physical data. The AutoAna has provided better computing environments for the scientists. Thus, the scientists, having recognized its benefits, make various requests as issues arise. In this paper, the authors introduce the current status of the AutoAna system

Relaxin-3-Deficient Mice Showed Slight Alteration in Anxiety-Related Behavior

Relaxin-3 is a neuropeptide belonging to the relaxin/insulin superfamily. Studies using rodents have revealed that relaxin-3 is predominantly expressed in neurons in the nucleus incertus (NI) of the pons, the axons of which project to forebrain regions including the hypothalamus. There is evidence that relaxin-3 is involved in several functions, including food intake and stress responses. In the present study, we generated relaxin-3 gene knockout (KO) mice and examined them using a range of behavioral tests of sensory/motor functions and emotion-related behaviors. The results revealed that relaxin-3 KO mice exhibited normal growth and appearance, and were generally indistinguishable from wild genotype littermates. There was no difference in bodyweight among genotypes until at least 28 weeks after birth. In addition, there were no significant differences between wild-type and KO mice in locomotor activity, social interaction, hot plate test performance, fear conditioning, depression-like behavior, and Y-maze test performance. However, in the elevated plus maze test, KO mice exhibited a robust increase in the tendency to enter open arms, although they exhibited normal performance in a light/dark transition test and showed no difference from wild-type mice in the time spent in central area in the open field test. On the other hand, a significant increase in the acoustic startle response was observed in KO mice. These results indicate that relaxin-3 is slightly involved in the anxiety-related behavior

Integrated physics analysis of plasma start-up scenario of helical reactor FFHR-d1

1D physics analysis of the plasma start-up scenario of the large helical device (LHD)-type helical reactor FFHR-d1 was conducted. The time evolution of the plasma profile is calculated using a simple model based on the LHD experimental observations. A detailed assessment of the magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and neo-classical energy loss was conducted using the integrated transport analysis code TASK3D. The robust controllability of the fusion power was confirmed by feedback control of the pellet fuelling and a simple staged variation of the external heating power with a small number of simple diagnostics (line-averaged electron density, edge electron density and fusion power). A baseline operation control scenario (plasma start-up and steady-state sustainment) of the FFHR-d1 reactor for both self-ignition and sub-ignition operation modes was demonstrated

Effect of Rotational Transform on Thermal Transport in Stellarator-Heliotron Plasmas on LHD

Experimental evidence that indicates a positive effect of rotational transform on thermal transport has been shown for electron cyclotron heated plasmas on large helical device (LHD). Although this positive dependence was suggested by earlier scaling studies on energy confinement time, there was a concern that rotational transform is strongly correlated with another major non-dimensional parameter, that is, aspect ratio, in stellarator–heliotron systems. A careful experiment to exclude correlation between these two non-dimensional parameters was carried out on LHD by means of combining helical coil pitch control and limiter insertion. Plasmas with similar aspect ratio but different rotational transform have been compared in terms of global energy confinement time and local heat diffusivity. Energy confinement time increases with the rotational transform. Also the comparison of plasmas dimensionally similar in terms of normalized gyro-radius, collisionality, normalized pressure and aspect ratio has indicated that thermal transport improves with rotational transform. Since the plasmas studied here are dominated by turbulent transport rather than neoclassical transport, the identified feature, common to toroidal plasmas with tokamak, will stimulate the challenge to resolve the origin of the favorable effect of poloidal field and the compatibility with drift turbulence theory

X-ray study of ferroic octupole order producing anomalous Hall effect

放射光でついに見えた磁気オクタポール --熱を電気に変える新たな担い手--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-27.Recently found anomalous Hall, Nernst, magnetooptical Kerr, and spin Hall effects in the antiferromagnets Mn₃X (X = Sn, Ge) are attracting much attention for spintronics and energy harvesting. Since these materials are antiferromagnets, the origin of these functionalities is expected to be different from that of conventional ferromagnets. Here, we report the observation of ferroic order of magnetic octupole in Mn₃Sn by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism, which is only predicted theoretically so far. The observed signals are clearly decoupled with the behaviors of uniform magnetization, indicating that the present X-ray magnetic circular dichroism is not arising from the conventional magnetization. We have found that the appearance of this anomalous signal coincides with the time reversal symmetry broken cluster magnetic octupole order. Our study demonstrates that the exotic material functionalities are closely related to the multipole order, which can produce unconventional cross correlation functionalities

Strong suppression of impurity accumulation in steady-state hydrogen discharges with high power NBI heating on LHD

Strong suppression of impurity accumulation is observed in long pulse hydrogen discharges with high power NBI (neutral beam injection) heating (Pnbi  >  10 MW) on the large helical device (LHD), even in the impurity accumulation window where the intrinsic impurities such as Fe and C are always accumulated into the plasma core. Density scan experiments in these discharges demonstrate to vanish the window and a new operational regime without impurity accumulation is found in steady state hydrogen discharges. Impurity pinch decreases with increasing ion temperature gradient and carbon Mach number. The peaking of the measured carbon profiles shows strong anti-correlations with the Mach number and its radial gradient. An external torque has a big impact on impurity transport and strong co-current rotation leads to an extremely hollow carbon profile, so-called \u27impurity hole\u27 observed in high ion temperature modes. Impurity pinch in the plasmas with net zero torque input (balanced NBI injection) is also strongly reduced by increasing ion temperature gradient, which can drive turbulent modes. The combination effect of turbulence and toroidal rotation plays an important role in the impurity transport

Response of plasma toroidal flow to the transition between nested and stochastic magnetic field in LHD

Response of the plasma toroidal flow to the forward and backward transition between the nested and the stochastic magnetic field is studied using the charge exchange spectroscopy in the large helical device (LHD). Abrupt damping of toroidal flow associated with a transition from nested magnetic flux surface to a stochastic magnetic field is observed when the magnetic shear at the rational surface decreases to 0.5 after the exchange of the neutral beam injection (NBI) direction from co- to counter-direction in LHD. The stochastization of magnetic field occurs only in a narrow range of magnetic shear near 0.5 and spontaneousback-transition from stochastic to nested magnetic field (healing) is observed in the steady-state phase of magnetic shear. When the NBI direction is changed from counter- to co-direction, the healing of magnetic field occurs associated with the increase of magnetic shear