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Birth order is a crucial environmental factor for child development. For example, later-born children are relatively unlikely to feel secure due to sibling competition or diluted parental resources. The positive effect of being earlier-born on cognitive intelligence is well-established. However, whether birth order is linked to social behavior remains controversial, and the neural correlates of birth order effects in adolescence when social cognition develops remain unknown. Here, we explored the birth order effect on prosociality using a large-scale population-based adolescent cohort. Next, since the amygdala is a key region for sociality and environmental stress, we examined amygdala substrates of the association between birth order and prosociality using a subset neuroimaging cohort. We found enhanced prosociality in later-born adolescents (N = 3160), and observed the mediating role of larger amygdala volume (N = 208) and amygdala-prefrontal functional connectivity with sex-selective effects (N = 183). We found that birth order, a non-genetic environmental factor, affects adolescent social development via different neural substrates. Our findings may indicate the later-born people’s adaptive survival strategy in stressful environments.

Objective Desire for slimness (DS) is a well-established risk factor for eating disorders among adolescents, particularly girls. It is known that exposure to traditional media such as television can increase DS. However, the association between DS and the use of new media, such as social networking sites (SNS), adjusting for relevant potential confounders, has not been examined to-date. In this study, we assessed the relationship between DS and SNS use among early adolescent girls and boys, adjusting for body mass index (BMI), time spent watching television, and Internet use. Method DS, SNS use, and confounding variables were assessed using self-report questionnaires and face-to-face interviews from a cross-sectional population-based survey of 4,478 10-year-old Japanese adolescents (2,100 girls and 2,378 boys). Results After adjusting for confounding variables, SNS use was associated with increased risk of DS among girls (odds ratio [OR] = 1.93; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.17-3.18, p = .010), but not among boys (OR = 1.07; 95% CI, 0.64-1.80, p = .786). Discussion Exposure to SNS was associated with an increased risk of DS among early adolescents, especially girls. Targeting SNS use in early adolescence seems a promising approach to prevention of DS and subsequent eating problems, particularly among girls.

Human prosocial behavior (PB) emerges in childhood and matures during adolescence. Previous task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have reported involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in social cognition in adolescence. However, neurometabolic and functional connectivity (FC) basis of PB in early adolescence remains unclear. Here, we measured GABA levels in the ACC and FC in a subsample (aged 10.5–13.4 years) of a large-scale population-based cohort with MR spectroscopy (MEGA-PRESS) and resting-state fMRI. PB was negatively correlated with GABA levels in the ACC (N = 221), and positively correlated with right ACC-seeded FC with the right precentral gyrus and the bilateral middle and posterior cingulate gyrus (N = 187). Furthermore, GABA concentrations and this FC were negatively correlated, and the FC mediated the association between GABA levels and PB (N = 171). Our results from a minimally biased, large-scale sample provide new insights into the neurometabolic and neurofunctional correlates of prosocial development during early adolescence.

Introduction Bullying among adolescents can cause depression and suicidality. Identifying the risk factors for bullying in early adolescence, when its prevalence tends to increase, would assist in its prevention. Although certain parenting styles are known to be associated with bullying, the association of slapping as a parental disciplinary practice with early adolescent bullying is not sufficiently understood. Furthermore, little is known about how warm parenting modifies this association although slapping and warm parenting are not mutually exclusive. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of slapping with the experience of early adolescent bullying––categorized in terms of victims, bullies, and bully-victims––while considering how warm parenting modifies this association. Methods This study used data from the Tokyo Early Adolescence Survey, a cross-sectional survey of 4478 children aged 10 from the general population. Data were collected from both children and their primary parent using self-administered questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. Responses from 4326 participants with no missing data were usable for the current analysis (mean age, 10.2 ± 0.3 years; 53 % boys). Results Frequent and occasional slapping was associated with increased odds of youth being identified as bullies or bully-victims, even after adjusting for warm parenting. The likelihood of being victims, bullies or bully-victims increased as the frequency of slapping increased. Conclusion Disciplinary slapping was associated with increased odds of bullying in early adolescence, regardless of whether warm parenting was present or not.

Maternal breastfeeding has an impact on motor and emotional development in children of the next generation. Elucidating how breastfeeding during infancy affects brain regional structural development in early adolescence will be helpful for promoting healthy development. However, previous studies that have shown relationships between breastfeeding during infancy and cortical brain regions in adolescence are usually based on maternal retrospective recall of breastfeeding, and the accuracy of the data is unclear. In this study, we investigated the association between breastfeeding duration and brain regional volume in a population-neuroimaging study of early adolescents in Japan (N ​= ​207; 10.5–13.4 years) using voxel-based morphometry, which enabled us to analyze the whole brain. We evaluated breastfeeding duration as indexed by maternal and child health handbook records during infancy. The results showed a significant positive correlation between the duration of breastfeeding and gray matter volume in the dorsal and ventral striatum and the medial orbital gyrus. Post hoc exploratory analyses revealed that the duration of breastfeeding was significantly correlated with emotional behavior. Additionally, the volume in the medial orbital gyrus mediated an association between breastfeeding duration and emotional behavior. This is the first study to evaluate the effect of breastfeeding during infancy on regional brain volumes in early adolescence based on maternal and child health handbook records. Our findings shed light upon the importance of maternal breastfeeding for brain development related to emotional and motivational processing in early adolescence.

Parent-child personality transmission can occur via biological gene-driven processes as well as through environmental factors such as shared environment and parenting style. We recently revealed a negative association between prosociality, a highly valued personality attribute in human society, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in children at the age of 10 years. We thus hypothesized that prosociality would be intergenerationally transmitted, and that transmission would be underwritten by neurometabolic heritability. Here, we collected prosociality data from children aged 10 years and their parents in a large-scale population-based birth cohort study. We also measured ACC GABA+ and glutamate plus glutamine (Glx) levels in a follow-up assessment with a subsample of the participants (aged 11 years) using magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We analyzed the associations among children’s and parents’ prosociality and GABA+/Glx ratios. We also examined the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) and verbalized parental affection (VPA) on these associations. We found a significant positive parent-child association for prosociality (N ​= ​3026; children’s mean age 10.2 years) and GABA+/Glx ratio (N ​= ​99; children’s mean age 11.4 years). There was a significant negative association between GABA+/Glx ratio and prosociality in both children (N ​= ​208) and parents (N ​= ​128). Our model accounting for the effects of neurometabolic heritability on prosociality transmission fitted well. Moreover, in this model, a significant positive effect of VPA but not SES on children’s prosociality was observed independently of the effect of neurometabolic transmission, while SES but not VPA was significantly associated with parental prosociality. Our results provide novel insights into the neurometabolic substrates of parent-child transmission of social behavior.

Early-maturing girls are relatively likely to experience compromised psychobehavioral outcomes. Some studies have explored the association between puberty and brain morphology in adolescents, while the results were non-specific for females or the method was a region-of-interest analysis. To our knowledge, no large-scale study has comprehensively explored the effects of pubertal timing on whole-brain volumetric development or the neuroanatomical substrates of the association in girls between pubertal timing and psychobehavioral outcomes. We collected structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of a subsample (N ​= ​203, mean age 11.6 years) from a large-scale population-based birth cohort. Tanner stage, a scale of physical maturation in adolescents, was rated almost simultaneously with MRI scan. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire total difficulties (SDQ-TD) scores were rated by primary parents some duration after MRI scan (mean age 12.1 years). In each sex group, we examined brain regions associated with Tanner stage using whole-brain analysis controlling for chronological age, followed by an exploration of brain regions also associated with the SDQ-TD scores. We also performed mediation analyses. In girls, Tanner stage was significantly negatively correlated with gray matter volumes (GMVs) in the anterior/middle cingulate cortex (ACC/MCC), of which the subgenual ACC (sgACC) showed a negative correlation between GMVs and SDQ-TD scores. Smaller GMVs in the sgACC mediated the association between higher Tanner stages and higher SDQ-TD scores. We found no significant results in boys. Our results from a minimally biased, large-scale sample provide new insights into neuroanatomical correlates of the effect of pubertal timing on developmental psychological difficulties emerging in adolescence.

Subcortical structures may have an important role in the pathophysiology of psychosis. Our recent mega-analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data has reported subcortical volumetric and lateralization alterations in chronic schizophrenia, including leftward asymmetric increases in pallidal volume. The question remains, however, whether these characteristics may represent vulnerability to the development of psychosis or whether they are epiphenomena caused by exposure to medication or illness chronicity. Subclinical psychotic experiences (SPEs) occur in some adolescents in the general population and increase the odds of developing psychosis in young adulthood. Investigations into the association between SPEs and MRI-measured volumes of subcortical structures in the general adolescent population would clarify the issue. Here, we collected structural MRI data in a subsample (10.5–13.3 years old) of a large-scale population-based cohort and explored subcortical volume and lateralization alterations related to SPEs (N = 203). Adolescents with SPEs demonstrated significant volumetric increases in the left hippocampus, right caudate, and right lateral ventricle, as well as a marginally significant increase in the left pallidum. Furthermore, adolescents with SPEs showed significantly more leftward laterality of pallidal volume than individuals without SPEs, which replicates our mega-analysis findings in chronic schizophrenia. We suggest that leftward asymmetries in pallidal volume already present in early adolescence may underlie the premorbid predisposition for developing psychosis in later life.

Aim Adolescence is a crucial stage of psychological development and is critically vulnerable to the onset of psychopathology. Our understanding of how the maturation of endocrine, epigenetics, and brain circuit may underlie psychological development in adolescence, however, has not been integrated. Here, we introduce our research project, the population-neuroscience study of the Tokyo TEEN Cohort (pn-TTC), a longitudinal study to explore the neurobiological substrates of development during adolescence. Methods Participants in the first wave of the pn-TTC (pn-TTC-1) study were recruited from those of the TTC study, a large-scale epidemiological survey in which 3171 parent-adolescent pairs were recruited from the general population. Participants underwent psychological, cognitive, sociological, and physical assessment. Moreover, adolescents and their parents underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI; structural MRI, resting-state functional MRI, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy), and adolescents provided saliva samples for hormone analysis and for DNA analysis including epigenetics. Furthermore, the second wave (pn-TTC-2) followed similar methods as in the first wave. Results A total of 301 parent-adolescent pairs participated in the pn-TTC-1 study. Moreover, 281 adolescents participated in the pn-TTC-2 study, 238 of whom were recruited from the pn-TTC-1 sample. The instruction for data request is available at: http://value.umin.jp/data-resource.html. Conclusion The pn-TTC project is a large-scale and population-neuroscience-based survey with a plan of longitudinal biennial follow up. Through this approach we seek to elucidate adolescent developmental mechanisms according to biopsychosocial models. This current biomarker research project, using minimally biased samples recruited from the general population, has the potential to expand the new research field of population neuroscience.

Group care and home-like care are two typical perspectives to discuss about the children's education at children's home. We had a survey on the understanding of the caring environment of the staff working at children's home, mainly using photoes to communicate with the surveyed staff the key concepts such as “home-like”, “ordinary” life “individuality” and “laxuary”. We found, due to the pedagogical style employed by different children's homes, following differences among the staff's understandings:1) the staff at Taisha-style children's home pointed out the existence of a serious gap between the current environment and “home-like” and “ordinary” living environment, and they wished for a more “home-like” environment;2) the staff at Shousha-style children's home evaluated highly of Shousha-style care from their observation on the way children acted but wished for even a smaller environment for better results; 3) the staff at GH concluded that it has been offering effective education resulted from the smallness of its environment.

An 8-year-old female Persian cat was brought in for evaluation of chronic vomiting. The presence of opaque enteric foreign bodies and intestinal obstruction along with azotaemia, hyperphosphataemia, moderate anaemia and peritoneal fluid were revealed following appropriate diagnostic work-up. Exploratory laparotomy confirmed jejunoileal dilation, ileocaecal stenosis, and numerous foreign objects in the jejunoileum. These foreign objects and ileocaecal stenosis were surgically removed, and intestinal resection and anastomosis was performed. The patient recovered favourably. Analysis revealed that the foreign objects were composed of calcium phosphate and calcium carbonate. Intestinal inflammation and stenosis secondary to enterolithiasis may have developed following ingestion of cat litter or a previous unrelated surgical intervention. We were unable to delineate the inciting pathogenesis in this particular case.

本稿では、二歳児クラスのごっこ的「追いかけ遊び」の発生過程における保育者の介入について、魅力的な遊びパターンの創出と伝染という視点から分析した。ごっこ的「追いかけ遊び」の基本パターンは、「怖いものの名前を呼んで想像世界を立ち上げる」「追いかける-逃げる」であった。保育者はこの基本パターンを創出し、子どもたちはこれで繰り返し遊び、自分のものにし、新しいパターンに作りなおしていった。この過程で子どもたちは遊びをリードし、他児の行動をルールにもとづいて調整し始めた。, In this article, the generation processes of group play "Pretending to Chase" in the Two-year-olds Class and the intervention provided by the caregiver in these processes were explored from the point of generation and contagion of interesting play patterns. The basic pattern of "Pretending to Chase" was structured with "calling the names of scary things: the creation of an imaginary world" and pretending to "run after-run away." At first, the caregiver generated a fantasy play pattern. Next, the children played repeatedly with this pattern, and appropriated and recreated it. In these processes, the children began to lead the play and to regulate others' behaviors following the rule.

Active shielding effect was examined in a negative feedback circuit system consisting of a magneto-impedance effective sensor, an amplifier and a canceling coil to compensate external magnetic field noise. The frequency dependent active shielding effectiveness depends on the phase difference between the input and output sensor signals in a loop, whch were less than 90 degree up to 20,000 Hz. An excellent characteristic of active shielding effectiveness of 48 dB was obtained for the external magnetic field noise from dc field to the frequency of 2,000 Hz.

We describe a simple linear algorithm for motion and structure from three weak perspective projections using Euler angles. We first determine the epipolar equation between each pair of images, which determines the first and third Euler angles for the rotation between that pair of images, leaving only the second Euler angle undetermined. In the next step, combining the three rotations results in a very simple linear algorithm to determine the second Euler angles, up to a Necker reversal. Experimental results on synthetic and real images are presented. The degenerate cases are discussed.

In this research, a user need's investigation system is developed based on the technology of automatic translation on XML documents. The aim of our research is to realize the flexibility function to quickly revise data schema of various questionnaires for user need's investigation on Web site. We implement the system by using "XDES", which is a heterogeneous extensible data entry system for XML documents. We apply the XDES to construct some useful function as a part of user need's investigation system on Web site. The main idea of our research is to construct the function of time series version management of the answers for questionnaires by the function of version management of XML documents on XDES. This research is applied to unify the information about the need's of farmers, restaurant managers, and general consumers for the purpose of efficient circulation of agricultural products.

In this research, we construct a data sharing system for agriculture technology. The purpose of our research is to establish the methodology in order to share and inherit knowledge about agriculture. Our system collects data by two methods. One is automatic acquisition of the environment information by a sensor, and another is record of the work information by a farmer. In this paper, a skillful farmer's knowledge is modeled as XML data. According to the data schema designed on the data model, the knowledge sharing system is implemented. This paper gives the outline of the structure of the system, and reported the result of the experience for collecting and accumulating and the design of a data sharing system are performed.

While a Dyck-typed regular translation elementary formal system (a Dyck-typed RTEFS, for short) can formulate the translations between XML documents, it cannot be learnable from positive examples if the number of clauses is unbounded and one of the operations as tag-renaming, tag-deleting and tag-adding, which we call tag-operating Dyck-typed RTEFSs, is allowed. In this paper, first we formulate the derivation procedure for Dyck-typed RTEFSs and provide the condition that it is complete. Next, we introduce simple tag-operating Dyck-typed RTEFSs and show that they are learnable from positive examples even if the number of clauses is unbounded. Furthermore, we introduce the $k$-compositions of simple tag-operating Dyck-typed RTEFSs and show that they are also learnable from positive examples.

An EFS is a kind of logic programs expressing various formal languages. We propose an efficient derivation for EFS's called an S-derivation, where every possible unifiers are evaluated at one step of the derivation. In the S-derivation, each unifier is partially applied to each goal clause by assigning variables whose values are uniquely determined from the set of all possible unifiers. This contributes to reduce the number of backtracking, and thus the S-derivation works efficiently. In this paper, the S-derivation is shown to be complete for the class of regular EFS's.We implement an EFS interpreter based on the S-derivation in Prolog programming language, and compare the parsing time with that of DCG provided by the Prolog interpreter. As the results of experiments, we verify the efficiency of the S-derivation for accepting context-free languages.

A subpansive tree is a rooted tree that gives a partial order of nonterminal symbols of a context-free grammar. We formalize subpansive trees as background knowledge of CFGs, and investigate query learning of CFGs with the help of subpansive trees. We show a restricted class of CFGs, which we call hierarchical CFGs, is efficiently learnable, while it is unlikely to be polynomial-time predictable.