Lead–lag relationship between household cultural expenditures and business cycles

This paper empirically examines how household cultural expenditures correspond to business cycles in Japan. Since income level is among the most important determinants of cultural demand, and income fluctuates with business cycles, examining the relationship between cultural expenditures and business cycles is useful, particularly in discussing income elasticity of cultural demand. The data used are monthly household expenditures for movies, live performances, and cultural establishments in the Family Income and Expenditure Survey. Turning points for cultural expenditures and related indicators are determined by estimating the regime-switching model. The lead–lag relationship between these series and the reference dates of Japanese business cycles are analyzed. The result indicates that cultural expenditures fluctuate cyclically with unstable leads and lags corresponding to business cycles. In addition, cultural expenditures adhere to smaller specific cycles within officially designated expansions, which imply that income elasticity has not been constant during past business cycles.     

Extended co-citation search: Graph-based document retrieval on a co-citation network containing citation context information

This study proposes a novel extended co-citation search technique, which is graph-based document retrieval on a co-citation network containing citation context information. The proposed search expands the scope of the target documents by repetitively spreading the relationship of co-citation in order to obtain relevant documents that are not identified by traditional co-citation searches. Specifically, this search technique is a combination of (a) applying a graph-based algorithm to compute the similarity score on a complicated network, and (b) incorporating co-citation contexts into the process of calculating similarity scores to reduce the negative effects of an increasing number of irrelevant documents. To evaluate the search performance of the proposed search, 10 proposed methods (five representative graph-based algorithms applied to co-citation networks weighted with/without contexts) are compared with two kinds of baselines (a traditional co-citation search with/without contexts) in information retrieval experiments based on two test collections (biomedicine and computer linguistic articles). The experiment results showed that the scores of the normalized discounted cumulative gain ([email protected]) of the proposed methods using co-citation contexts tended to be higher than those of the baselines. In addition, the combination of the random walk with restart (RWR) algorithm and the network weighted with contexts achieved the best search performance among the 10 proposed methods. Thus, it is clarified that the combination of graph-based algorithms and co-citation contexts are effective in improving the performance of co-citation search techniques, and that sole use of a graph-based algorithm is not enough to enhance search performances from the baselines.     

Effective Social Interaction Strategies for Inclusive Settings

Many strategies and interventions exist in the education of young children with disabilities. One area of intervention is that of social interaction, including social skills instruction, peer interaction strategies, and play skills. Interaction and social skill strategies for use with children with and without disabilities for the purpose of increasing social interactions between children with and without disabilities in educational settings is an area many educators of early childhood special education strive to find in an effective and easy to implement format. Several strategies from research are presented in this article. Only strategies that were demonstrated to be successful through reported research are discussed. Strategies are identified according to their ease of implementation and effectiveness.     

Tuning 2D magnetism in Fe3+XGeTe2 films by element dopingOA

Two-dimensional(2D) ferromagnetic materials have been discovered with tunable magnetism and orbital-driven nodal-line features. Controlling the 2D magnetism in exfoliated nanoflakes via electric/magnetic fields enables a boosted Curie temperature(T_C) or phase transitions. One of the challenges, however, is the realization of high T_C2D magnets that are tunable, robust and suitable for large scale fabrication. Here, we report molecular-beam epitaxy growth of wafer-scale Fe     

Effects of sleep deprivation on autonomic and endocrine functions throughout the day and on exercise tolerance in the evening

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on autonomic and endocrine functions during the day and on exercise tolerance in the evening. Ten healthy young males completed two, 2-day control and sleep deprivation trials. For the control trial, participants were allowed normal sleep from 23:00 to 07:00 h. For the sleep deprivation trial, participants did not sleep for 34 h. Autonomic activity was measured from 19:00 h on day 1 to 16:00 h on day 2 by frequency-domain measures of heart rate variability. Endocrine function was examined by measuring adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisol from venous blood samples collected on day 2 at 09:00, 13:00, and 17:00 h and immediately after an exercise tolerance testing. Autonomic regulation, particularly parasympathetic regulation estimated from the high-frequency component of heart rate variability analysis, was significantly higher in the sleep deprivation trial than in the control trial in the morning and afternoon of day 2. Plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone concentrations were significantly higher at 09:00 and 13:00 h of day 2 under sleep deprivation. Heart rate during exercise was significantly lower following sleep deprivation. Therefore, the effects of sleep deprivation on autonomic regulation depend on the time of the day.     

Effects of forced movements on learning: Findings from a choice reaction time task in rats

To investigate how motor sensation facilitates learning, we used a sensory–motor association task to determine whether the sensation induced by forced movements contributes to performance improvements in rats. The rats were trained to respond to a tactile stimulus (an air puff) by releasing a lever pressed by the stimulated (compatible condition) or nonstimulated (incompatible condition) forepaw. When error rates fell below 15%, the compatibility condition was changed (reversal learning). An error trial was followed by a lever activation trial in which a lever on the correct or the incorrect response side was automatically elevated at a preset time of 120, 220, 320, or 420 ms after tactile stimulation. This lever activation induced forepaw movement similar to that in a voluntary lever release response, and also induced body movement that occasionally caused elevation of the other forepaw. The effects of lever activation may have produced a sensation similar to that of voluntary lever release by the forepaw on the nonactivated lever. We found that the performance improvement rate was increased by the lever activation procedure on the incorrect response side (i.e., with the nonactivated lever on the correct response side). Furthermore, the performance improvement rate changed depending on the timing of lever activation: Facilitative effects were largest with lever activation on the incorrect response side at 320 ms after tactile stimulation, whereas hindering effects were largest for lever activation on the correct response side at 220 ms after tactile stimulation. These findings suggest that forced movements, which provide tactile and proprioceptive stimulation, affect sensory–motor associative learning in a time-dependent manner.     

Prediction equation for head volume of Japanese young adults

Accurate measurement of head volume is indispensable for precise assessments of body composition determined by hydrostatic weighing without head submersion. The purpose of this study was to establish a prediction equation for head volume measured by the immersion method from multiple regression analysis using head parameters (head circumference, head length, head breadth, neck girth and head thickness) as independent variables. The participants were 106 Japanese young adults (55 males and 51 females) aged 17?–?27 years. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) for each head parameter and head volume in males and females were very high (ICC = 0.993?–?0.999, 0.992?–?0.998). Head circumference was closely related to head volume measured by the immersion method (r = 0.719, 0.861, P <?0.05), and was the most important parameter for the prediction equation in both sexes. Head breadth was related poorly (r = 0.475, 0.500, P <?0.05) and showed a small individual difference. It was, therefore, excluded from the independent variables. The prediction equation for males was predicted head volume = 122.10X ₁ + 106.19X ₃ + 37.16X ₄ - 89.46X ₅ - 4754.93, R = 0.909, SEE = 121.75?ml, and that for females was predicted head volume = 213.83X ₁ + 45.24X ₃ + 36.85X ₄ - 74.34X ₅ - 8912.43, R = 0.913, SEE = 136.26?ml (where X ₁ = head circumference, X ₃ = head length, X ₄ = neck girth, X ₅ = head thickness, and SEE = standard error of the estimate). The limits of agreement for predicted and measured head volume were –?234.5 to 234.1?ml for males, and ??261.0 to 261.0?ml for females. In cross-validation groups of both sexes, there were no significant differences between measured head volume and predicted head volume. The correlation coefficients between measured head volume and predicted head volume in males and females were 0.894 and 0.908, respectively. The predicted head volume from prediction equations was considered to have high reliability and validity.