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Recent studies revealed behaviorally defined sleep is conserved across broad species from insect to human. For evolutional analysis, it is critical to determine how homologous genes regulate the homologous function among species. Drosophila melanogaster shares numerous sleep related genes with mammals including Sik3, salt-inducible kinase 3, whose mutation caused long sleep both in mouse and fruit fly. The Drosophila rdgB (retinal degeneration B) encodes a membrane-associated phosphatidylinositol transfer protein and its mutation caused light-induced degeneration of photoreceptor cells. rdgB mutation also impaired phototransduction and olfactory behavior, indicating rdgB is involved in the normal neural transmission. Mammalian rdgB homologue, Pitpnm2 (phosphatidylinositol transfer protein membrane-associated 2) was discovered as one of SNIPPs (sleep-need index phosphoproteins), suggesting its role in sleep. Here, we show that rdgB is involved in sleep regulation in Drosophila. Pan-neuronal and mushroom body (MB) specific rdgB knockdown decreased nocturnal sleep. MB neurons play a dominant role, since the rescue of rdgB expression only in MB neurons in pan-neuronal knockdown reversed the sleep reducing effect of rdgB knockdown. These results revealed the sleep-related function of rdgB in Drosophila which may be conserved across species.

Virtual reality self-counseling (VR-SC) is considered effective in addressing mental health problems. Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of VR-SC using Sigmund Freud’s avatar. However, considering the characteristics of virtual reality (VR) of perspective-taking of another person, VR-SC with the avatar of a person who cares about us (intimate person) is considered effective because it is assumed that warm behavior toward ourselves is exhibited. In this study, 60 undergraduate and graduate students were classified into VR-SC with intimate persons, VR-SC with Freud, and control groups, and the intervention effects were compared. Results showed that VR-SC with an intimate person was most effective in improving anxiety symptoms. These results may be attributed to accepting and affirming oneself from the perspective of the intimate person’s avatar and counseling with oneself. Our study showed that the same VR-SC method could have different effects depending on the avatar of the counseling partner.

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.

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.

The liverwort Marchantia polymorpha possesses oil bodies in idioblastic oil body cells scattered in its thallus. Oil bodies are subcellular organelles in which specific sesquiterpenes and bisbibenzyls are accumulated. Therefore, a specialized system for the biosynthesis and accumulation of these defense compounds specifically in oil bodies has been implied. A recent study on M. polymorpha genome sequencing revealed 10 genes that shared high similarities with fungal-type terpene synthases (TPSs). Eight of these fungal-type TPS-like genes in M. polymorpha (MpFTPSL1-6, -9 and -10) are located within a 376-kb stretch on chromosome 6 and share similarities of over 94% at the nucleotide level. Therefore, these genes have likely originated from recent gene duplication events. The expression of a subset of MpFTPSLs was induced under non-axenic growth on vermiculite, which increased the amounts of sesquiterpenes and number of oil bodies. The tdTomato fluorescent protein-based in-fusion reporter assay with MpFTPSL2 promoter revealed fluorescent signals specifically in oil body cells of the thallus, indicating that MpFTPSL2 functions in oil body cells. Recombinant MpFTPSL2 expression in Escherichia coli led to sesquiterpene synthesis from farnesyl pyrophosphate. Moreover, suppression of a subset of MpFTPSLs through RNA interference reduced sesquiterpene accumulation in thalli grown on vermiculite. Taken together, these results suggest that at least a subset of MpFTPSLs is involved in sesquiterpene synthesis in oil body cells.

Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). Therefore, management of aGVHD is important for successful transplantation. Mucosal damage and alteration of the gut microbiota after allo-HSCT are key factors in the development of aGVHD. We conducted a prospective study to evaluate the ability of prebiotics, which can alleviate mucosal damage and manipulate the gut microbiota, to mitigate posttransplantation complications, including aGVHD. Resistant starch (RS) and a commercially available prebiotics mixture, GFO, were administered to allo-HSCT recipients from pretransplantation conditioning to day 28 after allo-HSCT. Prebiotic intake mitigated mucosal injury and reduced the incidence of all aGVHD grades combined and of aGVHD grades 2 to 4. The cumulative incidence of skin aGVHD was markedly decreased by prebiotics intake. Furthermore, the gut microbial diversity was well maintained and butyrate-producing bacterial population were preserved by prebiotics intake. In addition, the posttransplantation fecal butyrate concentration was maintained or increased more frequently in the prebiotics group. These observations indicate that prebiotic intake may be an effective strategy for preventing aGVHD in allo-HSCT, thereby improving treatment outcomes and the clinical utility of stem cell transplantation approaches. This study was registered on the University Hospital Medical Information Network (UMIN) clinical trials registry (https://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr/index.htm) as #UMIN000027563.

Public speaking is an essential skill in a large variety of professions and also in everyday life. However, it can be difficult to master. This paper focuses on the automatic assessment of nonverbal facial behavior during public speaking and proposes simple and efficient methods of head pose estimation and motion analysis. The authors collected nine and six speech videos from a recitation and oration contest, respectively, conducted at a Japanese high school and applied the proposed method to evaluate the contestants' performance. For the estimation of head pose from speech videos, their method produced results with an acceptable level of accuracy. The proposed motion analysis method can be used for calculating frequencies and moving ranges of head motion. The authors found that the proposed parameters and the eye-contact score are strongly correlated and that the proposed frequency and moving range parameters are suitable for evaluating public speaking. Thus, on the basis of these features, a teacher can provide accurate feedback to help a speaker improve.

This study examines connections between the semantic structure and speech units, and characteristics of facial movements in EFL learners’ public speech. The data were obtained from a multimodal corpus of English public speaking constructed from digital audio and video data of an official English speech contest held in a Japanese high school. Evaluation data of contest judges were also included. For the audio data, speech pauses were extracted with an acoustic analysis software, and the spoken content (text) of each speech unit embedded between two pauses was then annotated. The semantic structures of the speech units were analysed based on segmental chunks of clauses. Motion capturing was applied on video data; forty-two tracking points were set on each speaker's eyes, nose, mouths and face lines. The results indicated: (1) Speakers with higher evaluations showed a similar semantic structure pattern in their speech units. It was also confirmed as similar to that for NSE samples. (2) Horizontal facial movements and the angles of face rotations were extracted from motion capturing. The result is expected to be useful for defining a facial movement model that effectively describes good eye contacts in public speaking.

Objective We examined effective exercise adherence support methods for persons experienced in the Medical Fitness (MF) program to clarify the relation of personality traits with exercise adherence and the factors that improve exercise adherence.Methods Subjects were 283 adults who had registered as members in the MF program at an affiliate of Hospital A. We implemented an anonymous self-administered questionnaire by postal mail. Using the Japanese version of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (which contains 10 items that measure the Big Five personality traits), we evaluated the following characteristics: "Extraversion", "Agreeableness", "Conscientiousness", "Neuroticism", and "Openness". The subjects who reported exercising regularly at the time of survey were considered persons with subjective exercise adherence.Results In persons with subjective exercise adherence, "Conscientiousness" was significantly lower (P=0.003) among men and "Neuroticism" was significantly higher (P=0.018) among women when compared to persons with subjective exercise adherence. There was no correlation between the things that emphasize exercise adherence and "Conscientiousness" among men. There was a negative correlation between "can achieve goal" and "Neuroticism" among women.Conclusions It is essential to consider personality and gender differences when devising exercise adherence support measures for the MF program. Our results suggest that women with high neuroticism do not need "can achieve goal" to maintain their exercise habits; therefore, it is necessary to examine teaching methods that do not focus on only goal achievement as part of exercise adherence support for MF.

To elucidate the genetic population structure of two coastal weevils

In this paper, the author proposes a research viewpoint which comprehends the customer co–creation process as collective action, by examining the case of Elephant Design, the developer of the Design-to-Order (DTO) business model. DTO is unique in that co-creation includes not only the idea-generation process but also the process of commercialization. A far-reaching scale of customer involvement is required to meet the production quota. The author applies the concept of collective consumption to the co-creation theory in order to analyze the role of heterogeneous voting clusters. In keeping with this year’s conference theme, “The Customer is Not Always Right,” the paper focuses on marketing’s new role in bridging heterogeneous customer clusters, which otherwise remain disconnected.

To elucidate the genetic population structure of two coastal weevils, Scepticus griseus and S. tigrinus, we conducted molecular phylogenetic analyses of the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) region (1308 bp) and cytochrome c oxidase subunit II (COII) region (584 bp). A total of 650 individuals (S. griseus, 444 individuals; S. tigrinus, 206 individuals) were obtained from 64 sites. The haplotype networks of both species showed three major lineages with roughly regional distribution. However, the two species show quite different genetic structures; S. griseus has a complicated structure while that of S. tigrinus is simple. We hypothesize that the genetic structure of each of these two weevil species reflects climatic oscillations during the Pleistocene, and the differences in genetic structure between S. griseus and S. tigrinus may represent a unique evolutionary history scenario in each species.

This paper contributes to the literature on management of foreign subsidiaries and inter-organizational relationships. Especially, this paper focuses on the problem of managing foreign subsidiaries in multinational corporations (MNCs). With the recent development of emerging markets, the importance of managing foreign subsidiaries is increasing for many multinational corporations (MNCs). The characteristics of these markets differ significantly from those of developed countries such as North America and Europe.

This study empirically examines that marketing planning and sales autonomy both invigorate sales activities to achieve better business performance. Here an organization has effective remedies for the marketing myopathy that may afflict it when its salespeople cannot vigorously engage in on-the-spot activities. The study reveals a dilemma: sales autonomy encourages sales activities, but it also results in negative business performance. The authors examined the contribution of marketing planning in attaining better performance. Marketing planning guides salespeople in a right direction without inviting any negative aspects.

The objectives of this research are twofold. First, we intend to clarify how market orientation is affected by the credibility of marketing information. Second, we wish to reach a deeper understanding of the interplay between a marketing unit’s influence, credibility, and market orientation. We also examine the effects of those factors on firm performance. Toward these objectives, we engaged in empirical research on large-scale Japanese firms in various industries. Before conducting a questionnaire survey, we held in-depth interviews with top management, marketing managers, and marketing professionals to identify factors which hinder market orientation in the Japanese business environment. An extensive questionnaire survey of Japanese firms was then conducted, in which we collected data on market orientation, the credibility of marketing information, the influence of marketing units within a firm, and the firm’s performance.