Personal or Interpersonal Construal of Happiness: A Cultural Psychological Perspective

Cultural psychological research reveals considerable variation in how people construe happiness and experience subjective wellbeing. This paper identified substantial cultural differences in (1) meanings of happiness, (2) predictors of happiness, and (3) how social changes such as globalization are related to happiness. In European-American cultural contexts, happiness is construed as including experience of a highly desirable and positive emotional state defined in terms of a high arousal state such as excitement and a sense of personal achievement. Moreover, individual happiness is best predicted by personal goal attainment and high self-esteem or self-efficacy. In contrast, in East Asian cultural contexts (i.e., those found in Japan), happiness is construed as including experience of both positive and negative emotional state. Happiness is defined in terms of experiencing a low arousal state such as calmness and interpersonal connectedness and harmony. Furthermore, individual happiness is best predicted by relationship harmony and emotional support from others. While people maintain traditional cultural norms, some societies and organizations are under pressure from globalization and this might affect happiness. We examined how cultural change affects wellbeing, especially focusing on current Japanese contexts where individuals have experienced an increasing shift toward individualism and have experienced a large national disaster. Cultural psychological perspectives regarding happiness provide important contributions to psychological science and society at large

HOW DO JAPANESE PERCEIVE INDIVIDUALISM? EXAMINATION OF THE MEANING OF INDIVIDUALISM IN JAPAN

It has been suggested that individualistic systems have been recently employed in Japan, and Japanese people have become more individualistic. However, previous research suggested that such cultural changes have negative associations with interpersonal relationships and happiness for Japanese (Ogihara & Uchida, 2014). In the present research, to demonstrate a negative aspect of individualism in Japan, we examined the meaning of individualism which Japanese people hold. Japanese participants aged 16 to 69 reported their evaluation to the word "individualism" and their perception of an "individualistic person." We found that individualism was regarded as being neutral and ambivalent, including both the positive aspect of being "with independence and freedom" and the negative aspect of being "without positive interpersonal relationships." In contrast, participants predicted others' evaluation of individualism to be more negative than their own evaluation, since they presumed that others would not consider the positive aspect of independence and freedom

Effect of Anisotropy on Drained and Undrained Shear Behavior of IN-SITU Sandy Soils

Two different types of undisturbed cylindrical specimen (V-specimen: the axis is parallel to the direction of sedimentation, and H-specimen: the axis is perpendicular to the direction of sedimentation), were prepared from high quality undisturbed sand column obtained by in-situ freezing technique. A series of drained compression and extension tests (CD, test, CD, test) and cyclic undrained triaxial tests (liquefaction test) on these samples were performed in order to investigate the effect of the anisotropy on the drained and undrained shear behavior. Following were concluded. 1) The effect of anisotropy on both internal friction angle and liquefaction strength is negligible. 2) The difference in deformation characteristics between V and H-specimens for Holocene soil layer appeared in both CD and liquefaction tests implies that in-situ soil is easier to compress in horizontal direction than in vertical direction. 3) The effect of anisotropy on deformation characteristic of Pleistocene sand samples is not so remarkable as that of Holocene sand

Structural characterization of a binuclear center of a Cu-containing NO reductase homologue from Roseobacter denitrificans: EPR and resonance Raman studies

AbstractAerobic phototrophic bacterium Roseobacter denitrificans has a nitric oxide reductase (NOR) homologue with cytochrome c oxidase (CcO) activity. It is composed of two subunits that are homologous with NorC and NorB, and contains heme c, heme b, and copper in a 1:2:1 stoichiometry. This enzyme has virtually no NOR activity. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra of the air-oxidized enzyme showed signals of two low-spin hemes at 15 K. The high-spin heme species having relatively low signal intensity indicated that major part of heme b3 is EPR-silent due to an antiferromagnetic coupling to an adjacent CuB forming a Fe–Cu binuclear center. Resonance Raman (RR) spectrum of the oxidized enzyme suggested that heme b3 is six-coordinate high-spin species and the other hemes are six-coordinate low-spin species. The RR spectrum of the reduced enzyme showed that all the ferrous hemes are six-coordinate low-spin species. ν(Fe–CO) and ν(C–O) stretching modes were observed at 523 and 1969 cm−1, respectively, for CO-bound enzyme. In spite of the similarity to NOR in the primary structure, the frequency of ν(Fe–CO) mode is close to those of aa3- and bo3-type oxidases rather than that of NOR

New Evaluation Technique for WTG Design Wind Speed Using a CFD-Model-Based Unsteady Flow Simulation with Wind Direction Changes

Because a significant portion of the topography in Japan is characterized by steep, complex terrain, which results in a complex spatial distribution of wind speed, great care is necessary for selecting a site for the construction of wind turbine generators (WTG). We have developed a CFD model for unsteady flow called RIAM-COMPACT (Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, computational prediction of airflow over complex terrain). The RIAM-COMPACT CFD model is based on large eddy simulation (LES). The computational domain of RIAM-COMPACT can extend from several meters to several kilometers, and RIAM-COMPACT can predict airflow and gas diffusion over complex terrain with high accuracy. The present paper proposes a technique for evaluating the deployment location of a WTG. The proposed technique employs the RIAM-COMPACT CFD model and simulates a continuous wind direction change over 360 degrees

TCP Flow Level Performance Evaluation on Error Rate Aware Scheduling Algorithms in Evolved UTRA and UTRAN Networks

We present a TCP flow level performance evaluation on error rate aware scheduling algorithms in Evolved UTRA and UTRAN networks. With the introduction of the error rate, which is the probability of transmission failure under a given wireless condition and the instantaneous transmission rate, the transmission efficiency can be improved without sacrificing the balance between system performance and user fairness. The performance comparison with and without error rate awareness is carried out dependant on various TCP traffic models, user channel conditions, schedulers with different fairness constraints, and automatic repeat request (ARQ) types. The results indicate that error rate awareness can make the resource allocation more reasonable and effectively improve the system and individual performance, especially for poor channel condition users

Age-dependent motor dysfunction due to neuron-specific disruption of stress-activated protein kinase MKK7.

c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) is a member of the mitogen-activated protein kinase family and controls various physiological processes including apoptosis. A specific upstream activator of JNKs is the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 7 (MKK7). It has been reported that MKK7-JNK signaling plays an important regulatory role in neural development, however, post-developmental functions in the nervous system have not been elucidated. In this study, we generated neuron-specific Mkk7 knockout mice (MKK7 cKO), which impaired constitutive activation of JNK in the nervous system. MKK7 cKO mice displayed impaired circadian behavioral rhythms and decreased locomotor activity. MKK7 cKO mice at 8 months showed motor dysfunctions such as weakness of hind-limb and gait abnormality in an age-dependent manner. Axonal degeneration in the spinal cord and muscle atrophy were also observed, along with accumulation of the axonal transport proteins JNK-interacting protein 1 and amyloid beta precursor protein in the brains and spinal cords of MKK7 cKO mice. Thus, the MKK7-JNK signaling pathway plays important roles in regulating circadian rhythms and neuronal maintenance in the adult nervous system