Response Behaviors in Conversational Speech among Japanese- and English-Speaking Parents and Their Toddlers

The present study aimed at exploring the responses of listeners in conversational speech between parents and toddlers. Children’s responses toward parents and parents’ responses toward children were the focus of this study. Participants included five dyads each of typically developing two‐year‐old toddlers and their parents from Japanese‐ and English‐speaking families. Responses of a mother/father toward a child or a child toward a mother/father were classified into three categories: non‐lexical backchannels (e.g., hoo, nn, hai), phrasal backchannels (e.g., hontoo “really,” soo desu ka “is that right?”), and repetition. The results showed that the average ratio of overall backchannels and repetitions produced by parents was quite similar in both languages and was much greater than that produced by children in both languages. Among Japanese‐speaking parents, non‐lexical backchannels and repetitions were preferred to phrasal backchannels, while among English‐speaking parents non‐lexical backchannels were most frequently used. With Japanese‐speaking parents, almost half of the repetitions were exact repetitions. They frequently repeated what a child had said and added the sentence‐final particle “ne” or content words. These findings are expected to be useful in understanding response behaviors in spoken communication between parents and their children

Relieving Depression Through Emotional Contagion

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon by which an individual’s emotions directly trigger similar emotions in others. We explored the possibility that perceiving others’ emotional facial expressions affect mood in people with subthreshold depression (sD). Around 49 participants were divided into the following four groups: participants with no depression (ND) presented with happy faces; ND participants presented with sad faces; sD participants presented with happy faces; and sD participants presented with sad faces. Participants were asked to answer an inventory about their emotional states before and after viewing the emotional faces to investigate the influence of emotional contagion on their mood. Regardless of depressive tendency, the groups presented with happy faces exhibited a slight increase in the happy mood score and a decrease in the sad mood score. The groups presented with sad faces exhibited an increased sad mood score and a decreased happy mood score. These results demonstrate that emotional contagion affects the mood in people with sD, as well as in individuals with ND. These results indicate that emotional contagion could relieve depressive moods in people with sD. It demonstrates the importance of the emotional facial expressions of those around people with sD such as family and friends from the viewpoint of emotional contagion

Metrics-Driven Climate and Metrics-Based Activities as an Organizational Processes to Complement MPM system in the Firm

We have learned that the marketing performance measurement (hereinafter MPM) does matter from the growing accumulation of the recent research. Marketing needs an appropriate set of metrics to plan, check and correct their marketing actions. How can then the use of MPM can be radicated in the organization? Although marketing research stream have developed marketing metrics and linked metric use to firm performance, there is little understanding of what promotes the use of marketing metrics in an organization. We observe many cases where the metrics cannot be well rooted in the organization because of the cultural resistance, irrelevance to the actual marketing activities, and the departmental conflict. We search into the organizational factors which help the use of MPM to be rooted in the firm. Our research investigates the factors that promote the use of marketing metrics in an organization. As antecedents of marketing metrics use, we consider two aspects of organization, objective aspect and subjective aspect. As objective organization aspect, comprehensiveness of marketing performance measurement system (hereinafter CMPMS) is thought to be a crucial antecedent of marketing metrics use. We also focus on employees’ subjective environment—the organizational climate, which is defined as employees’ shared perceptions. Our basic hypothesis are as follows: firstly, CMPMS has a positive influence on metrics-based marketing activities; second, a metrics-driven climate has a positive influence on metrics-based marketing activities; third, metrics-based marketing activities have a positive influence on marketing-mix activity performance. Our research used survey data collected from 824 managers with marketing-related responsibilities. The data was analyzed using structural equation modelling to test a conceptual model grounded in the marketing metrics and organizational climate literature. Through its examination of the model, this paper demonstrates that, in addition to the presence of comprehensive marketing performance measures, a metrics-driven organizational climate and metrics-based marketing activities are key mechanisms that accentuate the use of marketing metrics in an organization. Our results demonstrate that a marketing metrics-driven climate is significantly related to metrics-based marketing activities, and that metrics-based marketing activities have a significantly positive influence on marketing mix performance. In contrast, the comprehensiveness of marketing performance measurement exhibits a significantly negative influence on metrics-based marketing activities, but has a direct, positive effect on marketing mix activity performance

Dysfunction from Focusing on Overseas Business

For this study, a questionnaire survey was administered to 824 people who had been posted overseas for at least one year (657 of whom had been involved in a business for the overseas market) in order to explore the factors behind the success of an overseas business. The results made clear, on one hand, that if Japanese companies focus on an overseas business, by, for example, defining the objectives and roles of the business, investing in market research, and posting core personnel abroad, they reach desirable outcomes, but, on the other hand, those outcomes are adversely affected when companies define the objectives and roles prior to conducting market research. A focus on overseas business increases personnel’s organizational identification with his or her headquarters and with the overseas business unit. However, dysfunction occurs when personnel feel high organizational identification with the overseas business unit, and that they are not expected to show customer-oriented behavior. According to our additional analyses, this dysfunction of organizational identification emerges when one perceives a weak identity of one’s organization.

Melina II: a web tool for comparisons among several predictive algorithms to find potential motifs from promoter regions

We present the second version of Melina, a web-based tool for promoter analysis. Melina II shows potential DNA motifs in promoter regions with a combination of several available programs, Consensus, MEME, Gibbs sampler, MDscan and Weeder, as well as several parameter settings. It allows running a maximum of four programs simultaneously, and comparing their results with graphical representations. In addition, users can build a weight matrix from a predicted motif and apply it to upstream sequences of several typical genomes (human, mouse, S. cerevisiae, E. coli, B. subtilis or A. thaliana) or to public motif databases (JASPAR or DBTBS) in order to find similar motifs. Melina II is a client/server system developed by using Adobe (Macromedia) Flash and is accessible over the web at http://melina.hgc.jp

Differential scanning fluorimetric analysis of the amino-acid binding to taste receptor using a model receptor protein, the ligand-binding domain of fish T1r2a/T1r3

Taste receptor type 1 (T1r) is responsible for the perception of essential nutrients, such as sugars and amino acids, and evoking sweet and umami (savory) taste sensations. T1r receptors recognize many of the taste substances at their extracellular ligand-binding domains (LBDs). In order to detect a wide array of taste substances in the environment, T1r receptors often possess broad ligand specificities. However, the entire ranges of chemical spaces and their binding characteristics to any T1rLBDs have not been extensively analyzed. In this study, we exploited the differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) to medaka T1r2a/T1r3LBD, a current sole T1rLBD heterodimer amenable for recombinant preparation, and analyzed their thermal stabilization by adding various amino acids. The assay showed that the agonist amino acids induced thermal stabilization and shifted the melting temperatures (T-m) of the protein. An agreement between the DSF results and the previous biophysical assay was observed, suggesting that DSF can detect ligand binding at the orthostericbinding site in T1r2a/T1r3LBD. The assay further demonstrated that most of the tested Lamino acids, but no D-amino acid, induced T-m shifts of T1r2a/T1r3LBD, indicating the broad L-amino acid specificities of the proteins probably with several different manners of recognition. The T-m shifts by each amino acid also showed a fair correlation with the responses exhibited by the full-length receptor, verifying the broad amino-acid binding profiles at the orthosteric site in LBD observed by DSF

Assessment of inhibition with the Go/No-Go Task

Young, Sutherland, and McCoy indicated that a Go/No-Go Task (GNG) becomes more difficult as the inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) becomes shorter. However, is the number of commission errors under extremely short ISIs a useful metric for assessing response inhibition? This study challenges the assumption that a shorter ISI in the GNG enables better assessment of response inhibition. University students (N = 213) completed the GNG, the Conners Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition (CCPT), and the Modified Stroop Task. The GNG comprised four blocks of 400, 600, 800, and 1000 ms ISIs, whereas the stimulus presentation was fixed at 250 ms. Consistent with Young et al., shorter ISIs in the GNG resulted in more commission errors. In the block with the shortest ISI, participants also failed more frequently in responses in go trials than in the other blocks, which appears to increase in error variance of commission errors. Consistent with this interpretation, the association between the number of commission errors in the block with 400 ms ISI and CCPT performance was weaker than those between the number of commission errors in other blocks and CCPT performance. It is concluded that using the number of commission errors in the condition with extremely short ISIs in the GNG might be inappropriate for assessing response inhibition

Response inhibition deficits are positively associated with trait rumination, but attentional inhibition deficits are not : aggressive behaviors and interpersonal stressors as mediators

Previous findings on relationships between inhibition that is a core executive function, and trait rumination have been inconsistent. This inconsistency could be overcome by investigating the association between rumination and the two subcomponents of inhibition: response inhibition and attentional inhibition. This study examined whether and how response inhibition and attentional inhibition were related to rumination as well as worry. University students in Japan (N = 213) conducted the Go/No-Go Task and the Modified Stroop Task. They also completed self-report measures of depression, trait rumination, trait worry, stressors, and aggressive behaviors. Results indicated that response inhibition deficits were positively associated with trait rumination, and this association was mediated by increases in aggressive behaviors and interpersonal stressors. The associations between these variables remained significant even after controlling for depression level. There were no significant direct or indirect associations between attentional inhibition deficits and rumination. These results suggest that response inhibition deficits, among the subcomponents of inhibition, have an indirect positive association with rumination through interpersonal processes. Results also showed nonsignificant differences between rumination and worry in the magnitude of correlation coefficients with the two subcomponents of inhibition. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the positive association with response inhibition is unique to rumination

PI4P-signaling pathway for the synthesis of a nascent membrane structure in selective autophagy

Phosphoinositides regulate a wide range of cellular activities, including membrane trafficking and biogenesis, via interaction with various effector proteins that contain phosphoinositide binding motifs. We show that in the yeast Pichia pastoris, phosphatidylinositol 4′-monophosphate (PI4P) initiates de novo membrane synthesis that is required for peroxisome degradation by selective autophagy and that this PI4P signaling is modulated by an ergosterol-converting PpAtg26 (autophagy-related) protein harboring a novel PI4P binding GRAM (glucosyltransferase, Rab-like GTPase activators, and myotubularins) domain. A phosphatidylinositol-4-OH kinase, PpPik1, is the primary source of PI4P. PI4P concentrated in a protein–lipid nucleation complex recruits PpAtg26 through an interaction with the GRAM domain. Sterol conversion by PpAtg26 at the nucleation complex is necessary for elongation and maturation of the membrane structure. This study reveals the role of the PI4P-signaling pathway in selective autophagy, a process comprising multistep molecular events that lead to the de novo membrane formation

Knowledge, Behavior and Attitudes Concerning STI Prevention among Out-of-School Youth in the Philippines

The purpose of this study is to determine the current knowledge, behavior and attitude toward STI prevention among out-of-school youth in the Philippines. Anonymous self-administered questionnaires were distributed separately to 28 out-of-school youth (15 male, 12 female, one unspecified). The mean age of the subjects was 18.0 ± 3.0 years, with an overall age range of 15 to 24 years. The female respondents were younger than the male respondents on average. The out-of-school youth obtained information on STIs mainly from the media, and had fewer information sources than in-school students. Although the out-of-school youth had insufficient knowledge of STIs compared to the students, they were fairly knowledgeable about cervical cancer. They were also more sexually active than the students. The out-of-school youth consulted their parents on STI prevention, but received insufficient knowledge on STI prevention from just this source. It was concluded that out-of-school youth could constitute a high risk demographic for STIs, and health education may be essential to help them protect themselves from STIs