Nomenclature for psychosis risk in Japan: Survey results from high-risk individuals, caregivers, and mental health professionals.

BACKGROUND: Labeling terms for high-risk state for psychosis, such as 'ultra-high risk' (UHR), 'attenuated psychosis syndrome' (APS), and 'at-risk mental state' (ARMS), have been criticized for their potential to lead to stigma. Hence, mental health service users in Melbourne recently proposed new terms illustrating the at-risk concept ['pre-diagnosis stage' (PDS), 'potential of developing a mental illness' (PDMI), and 'disposition for developing a mental illness' (DDMI)]. We aimed at testing the suitability of these existing and new terms in the clinical settings of early psychiatric intervention in Japan. METHODS: At two centers of early intervention (Toyama and Tokyo), a questionnaire on the understanding and opinion of high-risk terminology was administered to 62 high-risk patients, 44 caregivers, and 64 clinicians. The questionnaire contained the existing and new terms, where the term ARMS was translated into two different Japanese terms ARMS-psychosis and ARMS-kokoro. Participants' opinion on the disclosure of high-risk status was also obtained. RESULTS: ARMS-kokoro was most preferred, least stigmatizing, and best explaining the patients' difficulties for all groups, while UHR and other terms including the Japanese word 'psychosis' (i.e., APS and ARMS-psychosis) were not preferred. New labeling terms were generally not well received. All groups preferred full disclosure of high-risk terms by the psychiatrist with or without the presence of family members. CONCLUSION: The term ARMS-kokoro was commonly accepted as a favorable labeling term for the high-risk state for psychosis in Japan. However, another translation ARMS-psychosis was considered stigmatizing, demonstrating the importance of appropriate translation of high-risk terminology into local languages.

The evaluation study for social cognition measures in Japan: Psychometric properties, relationships with social function, and recommendations.

AIM: Patients with schizophrenia can have significant subjective difficulties in social cognition, but few undergo testing or treatment for social cognition. The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study recommends six social cognitive measures; however, the reliability and validity of these measures in different cultural and linguistic areas has not been adequately examined. We examined the psychometric properties of nine social cognitive measures and the relationship to social function, with the aim of determining the level of recommendation for social cognitive measures in clinical practice in Japan. METHODS: For our test battery, an expert panel previously selected nine measures: the Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT); Facial Emotion Selection Test (FEST); Hinting Task (Hinting); Metaphor and Sarcasm Scenario Test (MSST); Intentionality Bias Task (IBT); Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire (AIHQ); Social Attribution Task-Multiple Choice (SAT-MC); SAT-MCII; and Biological Motion (BM) task. In total, 121 outpatients with schizophrenia and 70 healthy controls were included in the analysis, and the results were provided to an expert panel to determine the recommendations for each measure. The quantitative psychological indices of each measure were evaluated for practicality, tolerability, test-retest reliability, correlation with social function, and the incremental validity of social function. RESULTS: Hinting and FEST received the highest recommendations for use in screening, severity assessment, and longitudinal assessment, followed by BLERT, MSST AIHQ, SAT-MC, and SAT-MCII, with IBT and BM receiving the lowest recommendations. CONCLUSION: This study provides a uniform assessment tool that can be used in future international clinical trials for social cognitive impairment.

Associations between Verbal Fluency and Asymmetry of White Matter Integrity in the Superior Longitudinal Fasciculus in At-Risk Mental States for Psychosis.

Verbal fluency is one of the most severely impaired components of cognitive function in schizophrenia and is also impaired in at-risk mental states (ARMSs) for psychosis. The aim of this study was to explore the markers of disease progression in subjects with ARMSs by comparing the association between the white matter integrity of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) and verbal fluency in subjects with ARMSs and healthy control (HC) subjects. The correlations of the fractional anisotropy (FA) values on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and the laterality index (LI) values of SLF branches I, II, and III with the verbal fluency performance were analyzed in right-handed subjects with ARMSs (ARMS group; n = 18) and HC subjects (HC group; n = 34) aged 18 to 40 years old. In the HC group compared with the ARMS group, the LI values suggested right lateralization of the SLF II and III. Letter fluency was significantly correlated with the LI of the SLF III in both the ARMS and HC groups. The regression coefficient (ß) of this correlation was calculated using the least squares method and yielded a positive number (73.857) in the ARMS group and a negative number (-125.304) in the HC group. The association of the rightward asymmetry of the SLF III with the verbal fluency performance observed in the HC group appeared to be lost in the ARMS group, and this could serve as one of the markers of the pathological progression to psychosis in patients with schizophrenia.

Lung cancer detection in perioperative patients' exhaled breath with nanomechanical sensor array.

INTRODUCTION: Breath analysis using a chemical sensor array combined with machine learning algorithms may be applicable for detecting and screening lung cancer. In this study, we examined whether perioperative breath analysis can predict the presence of lung cancer using a Membrane-type Surface stress Sensor (MSS) array and machine learning. METHODS: Patients who underwent lung cancer surgery at an academic medical center, Japan, between November 2018 and November 2019 were included. Exhaled breaths were collected just before surgery and about one month after surgery, and analyzed using an MSS array. The array had 12 channels with various receptor materials and provided 12 waveforms from a single exhaled breath sample. Boxplots of the perioperative changes in the expiratory waveforms of each channel were generated and Mann-Whitney U test were performed. An optimal lung cancer prediction model was created and validated using machine learning. RESULTS: Sixty-six patients were enrolled of whom 57 were included in the analysis. Through the comprehensive analysis of the entire dataset, a prototype model for predicting lung cancer was created from the combination of array five channels. The optimal accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 0.809, 0.830, 0.807, 0.806, and 0.812, respectively. CONCLUSION: Breath analysis with MSS and machine learning with careful control of both samples and measurement conditions provided a lung cancer prediction model, demonstrating its capacity for non-invasive screening of lung cancer.

Using brain structural neuroimaging measures to predict psychosis onset for individuals at clinical high-risk.

Machine learning approaches using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) can be informative for disease classification, although their ability to predict psychosis is largely unknown. We created a model with individuals at CHR who developed psychosis later (CHR-PS+) from healthy controls (HCs) that can differentiate each other. We also evaluated whether we could distinguish CHR-PS+ individuals from those who did not develop psychosis later (CHR-PS-) and those with uncertain follow-up status (CHR-UNK). T1-weighted structural brain MRI scans from 1165 individuals at CHR (CHR-PS+, n = 144; CHR-PS-, n = 793; and CHR-UNK, n = 228), and 1029 HCs, were obtained from 21 sites. We used ComBat to harmonize measures of subcortical volume, cortical thickness and surface area data and corrected for non-linear effects of age and sex using a general additive model. CHR-PS+ (n = 120) and HC (n = 799) data from 20 sites served as a training dataset, which we used to build a classifier. The remaining samples were used external validation datasets to evaluate classifier performance (test, independent confirmatory, and independent group [CHR-PS- and CHR-UNK] datasets). The accuracy of the classifier on the training and independent confirmatory datasets was 85% and 73% respectively. Regional cortical surface area measures-including those from the right superior frontal, right superior temporal, and bilateral insular cortices strongly contributed to classifying CHR-PS+ from HC. CHR-PS- and CHR-UNK individuals were more likely to be classified as HC compared to CHR-PS+ (classification rate to HC: CHR-PS+, 30%; CHR-PS-, 73%; CHR-UNK, 80%). We used multisite sMRI to train a classifier to predict psychosis onset in CHR individuals, and it showed promise predicting CHR-PS+ in an independent sample. The results suggest that when considering adolescent brain development, baseline MRI scans for CHR individuals may be helpful to identify their prognosis. Future prospective studies are required about whether the classifier could be actually helpful in the clinical settings.

Normative Modeling of Brain Morphometry in Clinical High Risk for Psychosis.

Importance: The lack of robust neuroanatomical markers of psychosis risk has been traditionally attributed to heterogeneity. A complementary hypothesis is that variation in neuroanatomical measures in individuals at psychosis risk may be nested within the range observed in healthy individuals. Objective: To quantify deviations from the normative range of neuroanatomical variation in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) and evaluate their overlap with healthy variation and their association with positive symptoms, cognition, and conversion to a psychotic disorder. Design, Setting, and Participants: This case-control study used clinical-, IQ-, and neuroimaging software (FreeSurfer)-derived regional measures of cortical thickness (CT), cortical surface area (SA), and subcortical volume (SV) from 1340 individuals with CHR-P and 1237 healthy individuals pooled from 29 international sites participating in the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics Through Meta-analysis (ENIGMA) Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Working Group. Healthy individuals and individuals with CHR-P were matched on age and sex within each recruitment site. Data were analyzed between September 1, 2021, and November 30, 2022. Main Outcomes and Measures: For each regional morphometric measure, deviation scores were computed as z scores indexing the degree of deviation from their normative means from a healthy reference population. Average deviation scores (ADS) were also calculated for regional CT, SA, and SV measures and globally across all measures. Regression analyses quantified the association of deviation scores with clinical severity and cognition, and 2-proportion z tests identified case-control differences in the proportion of individuals with infranormal (z < -1.96) or supranormal (z > 1.96) scores. Results: Among 1340 individuals with CHR-P, 709 (52.91%) were male, and the mean (SD) age was 20.75 (4.74) years. Among 1237 healthy individuals, 684 (55.30%) were male, and the mean (SD) age was 22.32 (4.95) years. Individuals with CHR-P and healthy individuals overlapped in the distributions of the observed values, regional z scores, and all ADS values. For any given region, the proportion of individuals with CHR-P who had infranormal or supranormal values was low (up to 153 individuals [<11.42%]) and similar to that of healthy individuals (<115 individuals [<9.30%]). Individuals with CHR-P who converted to a psychotic disorder had a higher percentage of infranormal values in temporal regions compared with those who did not convert (7.01% vs 1.38%) and healthy individuals (5.10% vs 0.89%). In the CHR-P group, only the ADS SA was associated with positive symptoms (ß = -0.08; 95% CI, -0.13 to -0.02; P = .02 for false discovery rate) and IQ (ß = 0.09; 95% CI, 0.02-0.15; P = .02 for false discovery rate). Conclusions and Relevance: In this case-control study, findings suggest that macroscale neuromorphometric measures may not provide an adequate explanation of psychosis risk.

Prevention of transgenerational transmission of disease susceptibility through perinatal intervention.

The observational findings of Barker's original epidemiological studies were generalized as the Barker hypothesis and extended as the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) theory. Barker et al. proposed that low birthweight (LBW) was associated with the occurrence of various noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) later in life. In other words, LBW itself is associated with the development of NCDs. This led to the DOHaD theory which proposed that an organism may have a specific period of developmental plasticity that is highly sensitive to the factors in its environment, and that combinations of acquired constitution and environmental factors may adversely affect health and risk the formation of NCDs. Due to undernutrition during the fetal period, the fetus acquires an energy-saving constitution called a thrifty phenotype due to adaptations of the metabolic and endocrine systems. It has been suggested that stimuli experienced early in development can persist throughout life and induce permanent physiological changes that predispose to NCDs. It has since become clear that the adverse environmental effects during the prenatal period are also intergenerationally and transgenerationally inherited, affecting the next generation. It has been shown that nutritional interventions such as methyl-donner and epigenome editing can restore some of the impaired functions and reduce the risk of developing some diseases in the next generation. This review thus outlines the mechanisms underlying various disease risk formations and their genetic programs for the next generation, which are being elucidated through studies based on our fetal undernutrition rat models.

ACIDES: on-line monitoring of forward genetic screens for protein engineering.

Forward genetic screens of mutated variants are a versatile strategy for protein engineering and investigation, which has been successfully applied to various studies like directed evolution (DE) and deep mutational scanning (DMS). While next-generation sequencing can track millions of variants during the screening rounds, the vast and noisy nature of the sequencing data impedes the estimation of the performance of individual variants. Here, we propose ACIDES that combines statistical inference and in-silico simulations to improve performance estimation in the library selection process by attributing accurate statistical scores to individual variants. We tested ACIDES first on a random-peptide-insertion experiment and then on multiple public datasets from DE and DMS studies. ACIDES allows experimentalists to reliably estimate variant performance on the fly and can aid protein engineering and research pipelines in a range of applications, including gene therapy.

Stress response abnormalities transgenerationally inherited via miR-23 downregulation are restored by a methyl modulator during the lactation period.

Low birthweight rats due to fetal undernutrition sustain higher corticosterone levels when exposed to stress. This is due to the upregulated expression of the pituitary-specific Gas5, a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) that acts as a glucocorticoid receptor decoy and then competitively inhibiting the binding of glucocorticoids to DNA. However, the mechanism of Gas5 lncRNA upregulation remains unclear. Therefore, using the fetal undernourished model, we identified the factors that regulated Gas5 lncRNA expression and examined their effect on subsequent generations. We found that the expression levels of miR-23 was significantly lower in low birth-weight rats compared with controls. The expression of miR-23 was significantly lower and the expression levels of Gas5 lncRNA were significantly higher in the pituitary gland of low birth-weight offspring of the F2 and F3 generations compared with controls. The methyl modulator intervention in lactating F0 maternal rats restored miR-23 and Gas5 lncRNA expressions not only in F1, F2 and F3 offspring. Moreover, the intervention reduced circulating corticosterone levels and gene expressions in the pituitary gland after restraint stress exposure. In conclusion, miR-23-mediated alterations of the stress response are inherited and restored by methyl modulator intervention during lactation.

Effects of fermentative quality of corn silage on lactation, blood metabolites, and rumen fermentation in dairy cows.

We investigated the effect of fermentation quality of corn silage on dry matter intake (DMI), milk yield, ruminal fermentation, methane (CH4 ) emissions, and plasma metabolites in lactating cows. Six lactating Holstein cows were used in a 2 × 2 crossover design with two dietary treatments containing high quality corn silage with lower pH (high group) or low quality corn silage with higher pH (low group). The cows were fed partial mixed ration (PMR containing 50%DM of each corn silage) ad libitum plus 0.7 kg/day of concentrates at milking. The DMI of cows in the low group (24.8 kg/day) tended to be lower (p < 0.10) than that in the high group (26.8 kg/day). The dietary treatment did not affect milk yield or milk fat, protein, or lactose concentrations. The ruminal acetic acid proportion of the low group was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than that of the high group. The CH4 emission per DMI of the low group tended to be higher (p < 0.10) than that of the high group. The plasma concentration of the total cholesterol (TCHO) and the activity of aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase of the low group were significantly higher than those of the high group.

Perceptions and attitudes of users and non-users of mental health services concerning mental illness and services in Japan.

Objectives: There is a global movement to develop and implement community-based integrated mental health systems. The present study attempted to clarify the perceptions and attitudes of users and non-users of mental health services concerning mental illness and services in Japan. Methods: A new questionnaire was developed for this internet survey. Data from 500 outpatients with depression and 500 healthy subjects were sampled according to the demographics of the Japanese population. Results: Over 90% of healthy subjects and over 70% of patients were unaware of the common age of onset or lifetime prevalence of mental illness. Over 90% of the healthy subjects and about 70% of the patients could not describe any services where they would feel comfortable discussing mental health problems. In both groups, "adolescents and young adults" were ranked first as a target population for mental health and illness policies. The top requirement for the integrated care systems was the promotion and awareness of correct knowledge of mental illness in both the healthy subjects and patients. Conclusion: Societal requirements could include disseminating correct knowledge, awareness-raising actions for society, and implementing services where people, especially young people, can easily consult and receive support in the community.

Cognitive Impairments and Rehabilitation in Individuals with at-Risk Mental State for Psychosis.

In recent years, importance has been attached to early intervention in the field of healthcare, in general [...].

[Pregnancy and Childbirth in Women With Epilepsy].

Women with epilepsy (WWE) need effective and safe treatment during the childbearing age. Administration of antiseizure medications to WWE during pregnancy may be associated with risks to the fetus, including major congenital malformations and negative developmental outcomes. Therefore, preconception care is essential for WWE. Multidisciplinary approaches with interprofessional collaboration are important to support WWE during pregnancy and childbirth; however, such collaboration may be complicated and difficult. Moreover, the prevalence of perinatal depression among WWE is higher than that in the general population. Health care professionals should determine factors associated with perinatal mental health concerns among WWE. Previous meta-analysis have reported that perinatal mental health disorders were associated with a three-fold higher risk of child maltreatment. Therefore, perinatal mental health care is important for WWE.

Mediation Effects of Social Cognition on the Relationship between Neurocognition and Social Functioning in Major Depressive Disorder and Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.

BACKGROUND: In schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD), social cognition mediates the relationship between neurocognition and social functioning. Although people with major depressive disorder (MDD) also exhibit cognitive impairments, which are often prolonged, little is known about the role of social cognition in MDD. METHODS: Using data obtained through an internet survey, 210 patients with SSD or MDD were selected using propensity score matching based on their demographics and illness duration. Social cognition, neurocognition, and social functioning were evaluated using the Self-Assessment of Social Cognition Impairments, Perceived Deficits Questionnaire, and Social Functioning Scale, respectively. The mediation effects of social cognition on the relationship between neurocognition and social functioning were examined in each group. Invariances of the mediation model across the two groups were then analyzed. RESULTS: The SSD and MDD groups had mean ages of 44.49 and 45.35 years, contained 42.0% and 42.8% women, and had mean illness durations of 10.76 and 10.45 years, respectively. In both groups, social cognition had significant mediation effects. Configural, measurement, and structural invariances across the groups were established. CONCLUSION: The role of social cognition in patients with MDD was similar to that in SSD. Social cognition could be a common endophenotype for various psychiatric disorders.

Measurement of Volatile Fatty Acids in Silage through Odors with Nanomechanical Sensors.

The measurement of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) is of great importance in the fields of food and agriculture. There are various methods to measure VFAs, but most methods require specific equipment, making on-site measurements difficult. In this work, we demonstrate the measurements of VFAs in a model sample, silage, through its vapor using an array of nanomechanical sensors-Membrane-type Surface stress Sensors (MSS). Focusing on relatively slow desorption behaviors of VFAs predicted with the sorption kinetics of nanomechanical sensing and the dissociation nature of VFAs, the VFAs can be efficiently measured by using features extracted from the decay curves of the sensing response, resulting in sufficient discrimination of the silage samples. Since the present sensing system does not require expensive, bulky setup and pre-treatment of samples, it has a great potential for practical applications including on-site measurements.

Normative modeling of brain morphometry in Clinical High-Risk for Psychosis.

Importance: The lack of robust neuroanatomical markers of psychosis risk has been traditionally attributed to heterogeneity. A complementary hypothesis is that variation in neuroanatomical measures in the majority of individuals at psychosis risk may be nested within the range observed in healthy individuals. Objective: To quantify deviations from the normative range of neuroanatomical variation in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis (CHR-P) and evaluate their overlap with healthy variation and their association with positive symptoms, cognition, and conversion to a psychotic disorder. Design Setting and Participants: Clinical, IQ and FreeSurfer-derived regional measures of cortical thickness (CT), cortical surface area (SA), and subcortical volume (SV) from 1,340 CHR-P individuals [47.09% female; mean age: 20.75 (4.74) years] and 1,237 healthy individuals [44.70% female; mean age: 22.32 (4.95) years] from 29 international sites participating in the ENIGMA Clinical High Risk for Psychosis Working Group. Main Outcomes and Measures: For each regional morphometric measure, z-scores were computed that index the degree of deviation from the normative means of that measure in a healthy reference population (N=37,407). Average deviation scores (ADS) for CT, SA, SV, and globally across all measures (G) were generated by averaging the respective regional z-scores. Regression analyses were used to quantify the association of deviation scores with clinical severity and cognition and two-proportion z-tests to identify case-control differences in the proportion of individuals with infranormal (z<-1.96) or supranormal (z>1.96) scores. Results: CHR-P and healthy individuals overlapped in the distributions of the observed values, regional z-scores, and all ADS vales. The proportion of CHR-P individuals with infranormal or supranormal values in any metric was low (<12%) and similar to that of healthy individuals. CHR-P individuals who converted to psychosis compared to those who did not convert had a higher percentage of infranormal values in temporal regions (5-7% vs 0.9-1.4%). In the CHR-P group, only the ADSSA showed significant but weak associations (|ß|<0.09; PFDR<0.05) with positive symptoms and IQ. Conclusions and Relevance: The study findings challenge the usefulness of macroscale neuromorphometric measures as diagnostic biomarkers of psychosis risk and suggest that such measures do not provide an adequate explanation for psychosis risk.

The Mental Health of Young Return Migrants with Ancestral Roots in Their Destination Country: A Cross-Sectional Study Focusing on the Ethnic Identities of Japanese-Brazilian High School Students Living in Japan.

BACKGROUND: The number of young Japanese Brazilians, who are return migrants with Japanese ancestral roots, is increasing rapidly in Japan. However, the characteristics of their mental health and the relation between mental health and a complex ethnic identity remains unclear. METHODS: This cross-sectional study compared 25 Japanese-Brazilian high school students with 62 Japanese high school students living in the same area. Research using self-report questionnaires on mental health, help-seeking behavior tendencies, and ethnic identity was conducted. The Japanese-Brazilian group was also divided into high and low ethnic identity groups, and their mental health conditions were compared. RESULTS: The Japanese-Brazilian group had significantly poorer mental health conditions and lower ethnic identities than the Japanese group and were less likely to seek help from family members and close relatives. Among the Japanese Brazilians, those with low ethnic identity had significantly poorer mental health than those with high ethnic identity. CONCLUSIONS: Young Japanese Brazilians may face conflicts of ethnic identity that can disturb their mental health. To build an inclusive society, the establishment of community services to support mental health and to help return migrants develop their ethnic identity is essential.

Reconstructing long-term dengue virus immunity in French Polynesia.

BACKGROUND: Understanding the underlying risk of infection by dengue virus from surveillance systems is complicated due to the complex nature of the disease. In particular, the probability of becoming severely sick is driven by serotype-specific infection histories as well as age; however, this has rarely been quantified. Island communities that have periodic outbreaks dominated by single serotypes provide an opportunity to disentangle the competing role of serotype, age and changes in surveillance systems in characterising disease risk. METHODOLOGY: We develop mathematical models to analyse 35 years of dengue surveillance (1979-2014) and seroprevalence studies from French Polynesia. We estimate the annual force of infection, serotype-specific reporting probabilities and changes in surveillance capabilities using the annual age and serotype-specific distribution of dengue. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Eight dengue epidemics occurred between 1979 and 2014, with reporting probabilities for DENV-1 primary infections increasing from 3% to 5%. The reporting probability for DENV-1 secondary infections was 3.6 times that for primary infections. We also observed heterogeneity in reporting probabilities by serotype, with DENV-3 having the highest probability of being detected. Reporting probabilities declined with age after 14 y.o. Between 1979 and 2014, the proportion never infected declined from 70% to 23% while the proportion infected at least twice increased from 4.5% to 45%. By 2014, almost half of the population had acquired heterotypic immunity. The probability of an epidemic increased sharply with the estimated fraction of susceptibles among children. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: By analysing 35 years of dengue data in French Polynesia, we characterised key factors affecting the dissemination profile and reporting of dengue cases in an epidemiological context simplified by mono-serotypic circulation. Our analysis provides key estimates that can inform the study of dengue in more complex settings where the co-circulation of multiple serotypes can greatly complicate inference.

Anomalous fluctuations of renewal-reward processes with heavy-tailed distributions.

For renewal-reward processes with a power-law decaying waiting time distribution, anomalously large probabilities are assigned to atypical values of the asymptotic processes. Previous works have revealed that this anomalous scaling causes a singularity in the corresponding large deviation function. In order to further understand this problem, we study in this article the scaling of variance in several renewal-reward processes: counting processes with two different power-law decaying waiting time distributions and a Knudsen gas (a heat conduction model). Through analytical and numerical analyses of these models, we find that the variances show an anomalous scaling when the exponent of the power law is -3. For a counting process with the power-law exponent smaller than -3, this anomalous scaling does not take place: this indicates that if we only consider the standard deviation from the expectation, any anomalous behavior will not be detected. In this case, we argue that anomalous scaling appears in higher order cumulants. Finally, many-body particles interacting through soft-core interactions with the boundary conditions employed in the Knudsen gas are studied using numerical simulations. We observe that the variance scaling becomes normal even though the power-law exponent in the boundary conditions is -3.

Relationship between Antenatal Mental Health and Facial Emotion Recognition Bias for Children's Faces among Pregnant Women.

The importance of identification of facial emotion recognition (FER) bias for a child's face has been reinforced from the perspective of risk screening for future peripartum mental health problems. We attempted to clarify the relationship of FER bias for children's faces with antenatal depression and bonding failure among pregnant women, taking into consideration their broad social cognitive abilities and experience in child raising. This study had a cross-sectional design, and participants were women in their second trimester of pregnancy. Seventy-two participants were assessed by the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Mother-to-Infant Bonding Questionnaire (MIBQ), and a series of social cognitive tests. FER bias for a child's face was assessed by Baby Cue Cards (BCC), and a larger number of disengagement responses suggest greater sensitivity to a child's disengagement facial expressions. In a regression analysis conducted using EPDS as the dependent variable, a larger number of disengagement responses to the BCC (ß = 0.365, p = 0.001) and the primipara status (ß = -0.263, p = 0.016) were found to significantly contribute to antenatal depressive symptoms. Also, more disengagement responses to the BCC also significantly contributed to bonding failure as measured by the MIBQ (ß = 0.234, p = 0.048). Maternal sensitivity to the child's disengagement cues was associated with antenatal depressive symptoms and bonding failure more than the other social cognitive variables. The effects of FER bias on postpartum mental health and abusive behavior needs to be clarified by further longitudinal studies.