A One-Message Question in a Structured Interview: Investigating Psychological Needs of Children and Adolescents with Eating Disorders Directed toward Their Mothers

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychological needs of children and adolescents with eating disorders (ED) directed toward their mothers. Patients with ED have low self-assertion and various abnormal eating behaviors. Therefore, mothers face difficulty in understanding their children's psychological needs, and the mother-child relationship is sometimes strained. We developed a One-Message Question (OMQ)-structured interview. The OMQ was easy to answer, and it helped the patients with ED. We examined the relationship between psychological needs and illness phase of the children and adolescents, and we discuss the viability of implementing the OMQ in clinical settings. The subjects were 23 patients and their parents. Their parents were just asked about the patients' background. The mean age of the patients was 15.8 years, and the average age of ED onset was 13.5 years. The EDs were anorexia nervosa (n＝20) and bulimia nervosa (n＝3). The phases of patients' illness were identified as anorexic (n＝5), bulimic (n＝7), chronic (n＝3), and stable (n＝8). All subjects provided specific responses to the OMQ-structured interview. Data analyses revealed the following seven categories of patients' psychological needs directed toward their mothers:attachment, cooperation in meeting their goals, longing for love, changing attitude toward family members, respect for self-reliance, expression of apology, and expression of appreciation. These findings suggested that the OMQ-structured interview may prove useful for mothers to understand their children's psychological needs and may encourage positive interactions as a foundation for future recovery

Functional Effects of Endogenous Bradykinin in Congestive Heart Failure

AbstractObjectives. The purpose of this study was to determine the level and functional effects of endogenous bradykinin in congestive heart failure (CHF).Background. There is experimental evidence that bradykinin is increased in several cardiac disease states. However, it is unknown whether plasma levels of bradykinin are elevated in CHF. Further, the cardiac and vascular responses to bradykinin in CHF are unclear.Methods. The circulating levels of bradykinin and the effects of endogenous bradykinin were assessed in eight instrumented, conscious dogs both before and after pacing-induced CHF.Results. Before CHF, the plasma bradykinin level was 53.1 ± 12.4 pg/ml. Blocking endogenous bradykinin with HOE-140 (0.3 mg/kg), a specific bradykinin B2-receptor antagonist, produced no significant alterations in heart rate, left ventricular (LV) end-systolic pressure (Pes), total systemic resistance (TSR), the time constant of LV relaxation (tau) or the maximal rate of LV filling (dV/dtmax). However, coronary blood flow was significantly reduced (p < 0.05). LV contractile performance measured by the slopes of pressure–volume relations was unaffected. After induction of CHF, the plasma bradykinin level increased to 234.2 ± 19.4 pg/ml (p < 0.05). Blocking endogenous bradykinin with HOE-140 reduced coronary blood flow and produced significant increases in Pesand TSR, prolonged tau, decreased dV/dtmaxand elevated minimal LV pressure and mean left atrial pressure. Furthermore, the slopes of pressure–volume relations (p < 0.05) were decreased, indicating depressed contractility with HOE-140 after CHF.Conclusions. Before CHF, endogenous bradykinin results in coronary dilation but has no effect on systemic arterial vasodilation or cardiac performance. After CHF, endogenous bradykinin is significantly increased and, acting through B2-receptors, produces coronary and arterial vasodilation and improves LV relaxation and contractile performance. Thus, endogenous bradykinin may play an important role in preserving cardiovascular function in CHF

Local Environment of Strontium Cations Activating NaTaO3 Photocatalysts

Sodium tantalate, NaTaO3, is one of the best semiconductors for photocatalytic water splitting and CO2 reduction. Doping with metal cations is crucial to enhancing the quantum efficiency of the desired reaction. Nevertheless, details related to the doping of the host metal oxide and activation by guest metal cations are not sufficiently known. The most fundamental question is the increase in the quantum efficiency via doping with guest cations that are impurities in the host lattice. In this study, the local environment of Sr cations, which are the typically used guest cations in NaTaO3, was characterized by extended X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy. The results reveal the presence of two Sr–O shells in the Sr-doped NaTaO3 photocatalysts. The small shell with an unexpectedly short Sr–O bond length of 1.96 Å corresponded to SrO6 octahedra embedded in the corner-shared network of TaO6 octahedra. The other shell with a Sr–O bond length of 2.60 Å corresponded to SrO12 cuboctahedra with Sr cations at positions previously occupied by Na cations. Rietveld analysis of the X-ray diffraction data confirmed the formation of a NaTaO3–Sr(Sr1/3Ta2/3)O3 solid solution to accommodate the two Sr–O shells in NaTaO3 with no requirement for creating oxygen anion vacancies. Mechanisms of increasing the quantum efficiency via doping with Sr cations are discussed on the revealed environment

High Excitation Molecular Gas in the Galactic Center Loops; 12CO(J =2-1 and J =3-2) Observations

We have carried out 12CO(J =2-1) and 12CO(J =3-2) observations at spatial resolutions of 1.0-3.8 pc toward the entirety of loops 1 and 2 and part of loop 3 in the Galactic center with NANTEN2 and ASTE. These new results revealed detailed distributions of the molecular gas and the line intensity ratio of the two transitions, R3-2/2-1. In the three loops, R3-2/2-1 is in a range from 0.1 to 2.5 with a peak at ~ 0.7 while that in the disk molecular gas is in a range from 0.1 to 1.2 with a peak at 0.4. This supports that the loops are more highly excited than the disk molecular gas. An LVG analysis of three transitions, 12CO J =3-2 and 2-1 and 13CO J =2-1, toward six positions in loops 1 and 2 shows density and temperature are in a range 102.2 - 104.7 cm-3 and 15-100 K or higher, respectively. Three regions extended by 50-100 pc in the loops tend to have higher excitation conditions as characterized by R3-2/2-1 greater than 1.2. The highest ratio of 2.5 is found in the most developed foot points between loops 1 and 2. This is interpreted that the foot points indicate strongly shocked conditions as inferred from their large linewidths of 50-100 km s-1, confirming the suggestion by Torii et al. (2010b). The other two regions outside the foot points suggest that the molecular gas is heated up by some additional heating mechanisms possibly including magnetic reconnection. A detailed analysis of four foot points have shown a U shape, an L shape or a mirrored-L shape in the b-v distribution. It is shown that a simple kinematical model which incorporates global rotation and expansion of the loops is able to explain these characteristic shapes.Comment: 59 pages, accepted to PAS

CURRENT STATUS ON HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING FOR VEHICLE AERODYNAMICS USING LARGE EDDY SIMULATION

ABSTRACT The world&apos;s largest class unsteady turbulence simulations of flow around vehicles were conducted using Large Eddy Simulation (LES) on the Earth Simulator in Japan. The main objective of our study is to investigate the validity of LES, as an alternative to a conventional wind tunnel measurement or the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes method, for the assessment of vehicle £ Address all correspondence to this author

Temperature and Density in the Foot Points of the Molecular Loops in the Galactic Center; Analysis of Multi-J Transitions of 12CO(J=1-0, 3-2, 4-3, 7-6), 13CO(J=1-0) and C18O(J=1-0)

Fukui et al. (2006) discovered two molecular loops in the Galactic center and argued that the foot points of the molecular loops, two bright spots at both loops ends, represent the gas accumulated by the falling motion along the loops, subsequent to magnetic flotation by the Parker instability. We have carried out sensitive CO observations of the foot points toward l=356 deg at a few pc resolution in the six rotational transitions of CO; 12CO(J=1-0, 3-2, 4-3, 7-6), 13CO(J=1-0) and C18O(J=1-0). The high resolution image of 12CO (J=3-2) has revealed the detailed distribution of the high excitation gas including U shapes, the outer boundary of which shows sharp intensity jumps accompanying strong velocity gradients. An analysis of the multi-J CO transitions shows that the temperature is in a range from 30-100 K and density is around 10^3-10^4 cm^-3, confirming that the foot points have high temperature and density although there is no prominent radiative heating source such as high mass stars in or around the loops. We argue that the high temperature is likely due to the shock heating under C-shock condition caused by the magnetic flotation. We made a comparison of the gas distribution with theoretical numerical simulations and note that the U shape is consistent with numerical simulations. We also find that the region of highest temperature of ~100 K or higher inside the U shape corresponds to the spur having an upward flow, additionally heated up either by magnetic reconnection or bouncing in the interaction with the narrow neck at the bottom of the U shape. We note these new findings further reinforce the magnetic floatation interpretation.Comment: 40 pages, 23 figures, accepted by PASJ on Vol.62 No.

Warm and Dense Molecular Gas in the N159 Region: 12CO J=4-3 and 13CO J=3-2 Observations with NANTEN2 and ASTE

New 12CO J=4-3 and 13CO J=3-2 observations of the N159 region in the Large Magellanic Cloud have been made. The 12CO J=4-3 distribution is separated into three clumps. These new measurements toward the three clumps are used in coupled calculations of molecular rotational excitation and line radiation transfer, along with other transitions of the 12CO as well as the isotope transitions of 13CO. The temperatures and densities are determined to be ~70-80K and ~3x10^3 cm-3 in N159W and N159E and ~30K and ~1.6x10^3 cm-3 in N159S. These results are compared with the star formation activity. The N159E clump is associated with embedded cluster(s) as observed at 24 micron and the derived high temperature is explained as due to the heating by these sources. The N159E clump is likely responsible for a dark lane in a large HII region by the dust extinction. The N159W clump is associated with embedded clusters mainly toward the eastern edge of the clump only. These clusters show offsets of 20"-40" from the 12CO J=4-3 peak and are probably responsible for heating indicated by the derived high temperature. The N159W clump exhibits no sign of star formation toward the 12CO J=4-3 peak position and its western region. We suggest that the N159W peak represents a pre-star-cluster core of ~105M_sol which deserves further detailed studies. Note that recent star formation took place between N159W and N159E as indicated by several star clusters and HII regions, while the natal molecular gas toward the stars have already been dissipated by the ionization and stellar winds of the OB stars. The N159S clump shows little sign of star formation as is consistent with the lower temperature and somewhat lower density. The N159S clump is also a candidate for future star formation