THE JAPANESE STUDIES ON INNER ASIAN HISTORY

Russia and Japan : a historical survey : joint symposium of the SB RAS and the CNEAS TU / edited by Kyosuke Terayam

MRI-based Brain Healthcare Quotients: A bridge between neural and behavioral analyses for keeping the brain healthy

Neurological and psychiatric disorders are a burden on social and economic resources. Therefore, maintaining brain health and preventing these disorders are important. While the physiological functions of the brain are well studied, few studies have focused on keeping the brain healthy from a neuroscientific viewpoint. We propose a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based quotient for monitoring brain health, the Brain Healthcare Quotient (BHQ), which is based on the volume of gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of white matter (WM). We recruited 144 healthy adults to acquire structural neuroimaging data, including T1-weighted images and diffusion tensor images, and data associated with both physical (BMI, blood pressure, and daily time use) and social (subjective socioeconomic status, subjective well-being, post-materialism and Epicureanism) factors. We confirmed that the BHQ was sensitive to an age-related decline in GM volume and WM integrity. Further analysis revealed that the BHQ was critically affected by both physical and social factors. We believe that our BHQ is a simple yet highly sensitive, valid measure for brain health research that will bridge the needs of the scientific community and society and help us lead better lives in which we stay healthy, active, and sharp

Supportive intervention using a mobile phone in behavior modification

The authors previously developed a mobile ecological momentary assessment (EMA) system as a real-time data collection device using a mobile phone. In this study, a real-time advice function and real-time reporting function were added to the previous system as a supportive intervention. The improved system was found to work effectively and was applied to several clinical cases, including patients with depressive disorder, dizziness, smoking habit, and bronchial asthma. The average patient compliance rate was high (89%) without the real-time advice and higher (93%) with the advice. The trends in clinical data for patients using a mobile EMA with/without the new function were analyzed for up to several months. In the case of dizziness, an improving trend in its clinical data was observed after applying the real-time advice, and in the case of depressive disorder, a stabilizing trend was observed. The mobile EMA system with the real-time advice function could be useful as a supportive intervention in behavior modification and for motivating patients in self-management of their disease.</p

Association of Fatigue and Stress With Gray Matter Volume

Stress is associated with a greater risk for various health problems including reduced gray matter volume (GMV) and density in a number of brain regions. Previous studies show that neuroimaging could be a means to objectively evaluate stress. However, to date, no definite neuroimaging-derived measures are available to detect stress. In this research we used the gray-matter brain healthcare quotient (GM-BHQ), an MRI-based quotient for monitoring brain health based on GMV, as an objective scale to measure the association of stress with the whole brain. We recruited 63 healthy adults to acquire structural T1-weighted images and stress levels evaluated using three representative stress scales: the Profile of Mood States (POMS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Chalder Fatigue Scale (CFS). We found that the GM-BHQ was sensitive to fatigue and the interaction between fatigue and stress

Optimization temperature sensitivity using the optically detected magnetic resonance spectrum of a nitrogen-vacancy center ensemble

Temperature sensing with nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers using quantum techniques is very promising and further development is expected. Recently, the optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) spectrum of a high-density ensemble of the NV centers was reproduced with noise parameters [inhomogeneous magnetic field, inhomogeneous strain (electric field) distribution, and homogeneous broadening] of the NV center ensemble. In this study, we use ODMR to estimate the noise parameters of the NV centers in several diamonds. These parameters strongly depend on the spin concentration. This knowledge is then applied to theoretically predict the temperature sensitivity. Using the diffraction-limited volume of 0.1 micron^3, which is the typical limit in confocal microscopy, the optimal sensitivity is estimated to be around 0.76 mK/Hz^(1/2) with an NV center concentration of 5.0e10^17/cm^3. This sensitivity is much higher than previously reported sensitivities, demonstrating the excellent potential of temperature sensing with NV centers.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

A Sensorimotor Signature of the Transition to Conscious Social Perception: Co-regulation of Active and Passive Touch

It is not yet well understood how we become conscious of the presence of other people as being other subjects in their own right. Developmental and phenomenological approaches are converging on a relational hypothesis: my perception of a “you” is primarily constituted by another subject’s attention being directed toward “me.” This is particularly the case when my body is being physically explored in an intentional manner. We set out to characterize the sensorimotor signature of the transition to being aware of the other by re-analyzing time series of embodied interactions between pairs of adults (recorded during a “perceptual crossing” experiment). Measures of turn-taking and movement synchrony were used to quantify social coordination, and transfer entropy was used to quantify direction of influence. We found that the transition leading to one’s conscious perception of the other’s presence was indeed characterized by a significant increase in one’s passive reception of the other’s tactile stimulations. Unexpectedly, one’s clear experience of such passive touch was consistently followed by a switch to active touching of the other, while the other correspondingly became more passive, which suggests that this intersubjective experience was reciprocally co-regulated by both participants

RWC Music Database: Music Genre Database and Musical Instrument Sound Database

This paper describes the design policy and specifications of the RWC Music Database, a copyright-cleared music database (DB) compiled specifically for research purposes. Shared DBs are common in other research fields and have made significant contributions to progress in those fields. The field of music information processing, however, has lacked a common DB of musical pieces or a large-scale DB of musical instrument sounds. We therefore recently constructed the RWC Music Database comprising four original component DBs: the Popular Music Database (100 pieces), Royalty-Free Music Database (15 pieces), Classical Music Database (50 pieces), and Jazz Music Database (50 pieces). In this paper we report the construction of two additional component DBs: the Music Genre Database (100 pieces) and Musical Instrument Sound Database (50 instruments). For all 315 musical pieces, we prepared original audio signals, corresponding standard MIDI files, and text files of lyrics (for songs). For all 50 instruments, we recorded individual sounds at half-tone intervals with several variations of playing styles, dynamics, instrument manufacturers, and musicians. It is our hope that our DB will make a significant contribution to future advances in the field of music information processing

Development of two types of mite-allergen induced murine models of chronic asthma with different severity

Asthma is an allergic disease characterized by chronic airway inflammation, hyper-responsiveness (AHR), and reversible obstruction. The main inflammatory changes are induced by infiltration of eosinophils into the airway. Few animal models resemble the spontaneous history of asthma due to variations in the selection of the mouse strain, appropriate antigen, and exposure methods. Here, we prepared two different mouse models in which the mechanism was close to that of human asthma. We transnasally administered mite Dermatophagoides farinae (Df) allergen to BALB/c mice 10 times (Df-2) or 25 times (Df-5). After comparison with mice administered phosphate-buffered saline, the AHR and immediate asthmatic response were evaluated, in addition to the number of eosinophils in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF). Df-specific IgE and IgG1 levels in the serum, and Th2 cytokines (interleukin [IL]-5, IL-13) in the BALF were measured by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay. Immediate asthmatic response and AHR were enhanced in mite allergen-treated mice (Df-2 and Df-5) compared to PBS-treated mice. The number of eosinophils and IL-13 levels in the BALF, and specific IgE in the serum were greater in Df-5 than in Df-2 mice. We established two different murine chronic asthma models, in which the severity depended on the number of exposures to Df. Greater intranasal exposure to a Df allergen resulted in more severe asthma in a BALB/c mouse model