Search

Optimization problems widely exist in different real‐world applications. Ant lion optimizer (ALO) is an effective optimization algorithm that simulates the hunting behavior of antlions, but it will easily fall into local optima. To address this issue, this paper proposes a modified version of ALO called spatial ant lion optimizer (SALO). SALO makes full use of spatial informations of solutions to promote its searchability. It utilizes a distance‐based indicator instead of objective fitness to choose ant lions for updating solutions. Besides, it maintains a candidate enhanced archive by a distance‐based updating approach and implements a hybrid‐enhanced strategy in the archive to search for better solutions. Exhaust experiments are carried out through six classic benchmark functions and seven state‐of‐the‐art compared algorithms, and the results validate the superior performance of SALO. © 2024 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and Wiley Periodicals LLC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies investigating the use of mobile technologies when other options are available are still relatively rare in the literature, with the majority of studies requiring that learners use a particular technology, either using their own devices or devices provided by the institution. One exception to this was a study by Stockwell (2010) that examined how learners in Japan perceived the use of mobile phones for language learning and how willing they were to engage in the activities. This study, however, was conducted prior to the spread of smart phones and it focused exclusively on learners in Japan. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to replicate this study, but differed in two ways. First, although it was run in essentially the same environment as the original study, in the current study the majority of learners owned smart phones. Second, the same system was used not only in Japan but also with learners studying at a university in Taiwan. Data were collected through server logs, post-treatment surveys and semi-structured interviews. The results are discussed in terms of the ways in which learners engaged in the activities on their mobile phones, and the effect of the mobile platform on the time taken to complete the activities over the course of the semester. These results were correlated with those from the original 2010 study to identify the potential effect of the smart phone.

Some global error bounds with undetermined parameters, which are not always valid, for the extended vertical linear complementarity problems (LCP) of CKV-type matrices and CKV-type B -matrices, are presented by Yan and Wang (Jpn. J. Ind. Appl. Math. 41:129–150, 2024). In this paper, new global error bounds for the extended vertical LCP of CKV-type matrices and CKV-type B -matrices are given, which depend only on the entries of the involved matrices. Numerical examples show that the new bounds are better than those provided in Zhang et al. (Comput. Optim. Appl. 42(3):335–352, 2009) and Wang et al. (Comput. Appl. Math. 40:148, 2021) in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a replacement for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) have been widely used and detected in different indoor environments all over the world. This paper comprehensively describes the concentration levels and distribution information of 11 kinds of OPFRs from 33 indoor dust and 10 air environments, from which TBOEP, TCIPP, and TDCIPP were observed to have higher concentrations in indoor environments. The ΣOPFRs displayed higher concentrations in indoor dust than in indoor air due to the higher molecular weight and vapor pressure of ΣOPFRs in building decoration materials, specifically for TCIPP and TDCIPP compounds. Considering that it is inevitable that people will be exposed to these chemicals in the indoor environments in which they work and live, we estimated their potential health risks through three human exposure pathways and found that the ingestion exposure to TBOEP for toddlers in Japan may reach up to 1270.80 ng/kg/day, which comprises a significant pathway compared to dermal contact and indoor air inhalation. Specifically, the combined total exposure to OPFRs by air inhalation, dust ingestion, and dermal contact was generally below the RfD values for both adults and toddlers, with a few notable higher exposures of some typical OPFRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The maritime route connecting the Chinese continent and the Japanese archipelago facilitated a significant exchange of commercial goods and sociocultural knowledge throughout the Southern Song dynasty. Within this context, Japanese pilgrim monks traveling along this route acted as key conduits for the transmission of Buddhist teachings. Their journeys profoundly influenced the establishment and development of new Buddhist monasteries in Japan. Focusing on biographical accounts that portray the experiences of these pilgrim monks during their twelfth- and thirteenth-century sea voyages, this paper aims to explore how these accounts drew on intertextual links with existing Buddhist records to fulfill the compilers' intentions. Specifically, this paper examines the structure and sources of biographical accounts detailing miraculous encounters between pilgrim monks and Buddhist deities during perilous situations at sea. By interpreting the role of these deities in the corpus of Buddhist literature and within Japanese Buddhist monasteries founded by pilgrim monks, this paper argues that the increasing emphasis on pilgrim monks' attainment of divine protection in their biographical records suggests a growing concern for reinforcing the authority of their dharma lineages. Moreover, the composition and reception of these miraculous accounts reflected the changing religious needs and reshaped strategies for promoting specific Buddhist sects in subsequent periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-resolution, summit-to-sea unstructured-grid model was used to simulate two compound flooding events in different geomorphic settings in Japan: the July 2012 flood in Kumamoto city and July 2018 flood in Okayama City, both caused by a torrential rainfall during seasonal Meiyu front but otherwise exhibiting quite different compound flood characteristics. The model shows good performance in simulating flooding extent; e.g., the Hit Rate for the inundation event in 2018 exceeds 0.9. Sensitivity tests were conducted to determine the roles/significance of levee structures along major rivers in coastal regions. Our results indicate that riverine and oceanic factors as well as levees significantly contribute to the observed flooding extents, and we are able to quantify the contributions from each factor at different locations. The model has been implemented operationally as the first nationwide 3-day compound flooding forecast system for Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the implementation of a learner identification system developed to facilitate real-time interaction in an international distance course. To increase the teacher immediacy and social presence, it proposes an integrative system for incorporating technology to improve the learning involvement, teaching effectiveness, and quality of interaction in the context of distance education. After the system was implemented in a formal international distance course involving universities in Japan and Taiwan for a semester, the results of the formative evaluation suggested that a perceived integrative classroom environment was achieved. The instructors and learners agreed that the system effectively and seamlessly integrated synchronous and asynchronous learning through the computing components of face and speech recognition. It was also found that the improved interaction led to a better sense of learning community and improved performance. This study concludes that the system could be useful in improving interactions and reducing students' feelings of isolation in distance courses by increasing their social presence. Suggestions for future studies and system development are also provided.

Shikoku island, southwestern Japan lies in the western Nankai Trough and showcases along-strike segmentation of slow earthquake behavior. Whether the spatial variation of tremor behavior reflects the regional differences in structure/source properties and how much such differences can be recognized by the seismic signals themselves are two questions addressed in this paper. Taking advantage of advanced methods in recognizing and classifying signals using machine learning approaches, we attempt to answer them by conducting signal classification experiments in Shikoku. Based on the tremor catalog from 1 June 2014 to 31 March 2015, the tremors recorded in four different areas were treated as different classes and segmented into 60-s-long signals. The number of tremors in four different areas (A to D, from west to east) reached 15,000, 31,000, 10,000, and 16,000, respectively. To efficiently distinguish between tremors from different areas, we applied a k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) classifier with Fisher's class separability criteria to select the optimal feature subset. The resulting classification performance reached more than 90% at all 12 stations. We further designed a triangle test to select the features that can better represent the differences in source properties between areas. We found that the most efficient features were associated with (1) the number of peaks in the temporal evolution of discrete Fourier transforms and (2) the energy distribution in the autocorrelation function (ACF). To match the difference in behavior revealed by the ACF, the size of the tremor zone, which mainly controls how long the seismic energy lasts in a tremor episode, was determined to be largest in Area B and smallest in Area C. The heterogeneity of the asperities in a tremor zone, which may control how spiky the tremor signals developed over time, was determined to be strong in Areas B and C. Together with previously documented variations in slow earthquake behavior in the same area, we finally propose a conceptual model that provides a better understanding of the regional differences in the tremor source properties in Shikoku, Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The association between work-family conflict and insomnia has not been thoroughly studied. Therefore, we sought to examine the relationship between work-family conflict and insomnia symptoms among Japanese working women.Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 608 women aged 18-60 years old who worked in aged care services between 2015 and 2016 were selected, and 445 of these women were ultimately included. Insomnia symptoms were measured using the Athens Insomnia Scale. Work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) were assessed through a self-administered questionnaire and were divided into four categories: low work-family conflict (low WFC and FWC), high FWC, high WFC, and high work-family conflict (high WFC and FWC). The prevalence ratio (PR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of insomnia symptoms were calculated using a Poisson regression model after multivariable adjustment.Results: The multivariable-adjusted PR (95% CI) of insomnia symptoms was 1.99 (1.34-2.93) in the high work-family conflict group compared to the low work-family conflict group.Conclusions: The results from the present study suggest that insomnia symptoms are highly prevalent among working women in aged care services with high work-family conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a meta-analysis of three GWAS for susceptibility to Kawasaki disease (KD) conducted in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and follow-up studies with a total of 11,265 subjects (3428 cases and 7837 controls), a significantly associated SNV in the immunoglobulin heavy variable gene (IGHV) cluster in 14q33.32 was identified (rs4774175; OR = 1.20, P = 6.0 × 10 -9 ). Investigation of nonsynonymous SNVs of the IGHV cluster in 9335 Japanese subjects identified the C allele of rs6423677, located in IGHV3-66, as the most significant reproducible association (OR = 1.25, P = 6.8 × 10 -10 in 3603 cases and 5731 controls). We observed highly skewed allelic usage of IGHV3-66, wherein the rs6423677 A allele was nearly abolished in the transcripts in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of both KD patients and healthy adults. Association of the high-expression allele with KD strongly indicates some active roles of B-cells or endogenous immunoglobulins in the disease pathogenesis. Considering that significant association of SNVs in the IGHV region with disease susceptibility was previously known only for rheumatic heart disease (RHD), a complication of acute rheumatic fever (ARF), these observations suggest that common B-cell related mechanisms may mediate the symptomology of KD and ARF as well as RHD.

The deep population history of East Asia remains poorly understood owing to a lack of ancient DNA data and sparse sampling of present-day people 1,2 . Here we report genome-wide data from 166 East Asian individuals dating to between 6000 BC and AD 1000 and 46 present-day groups. Hunter-gatherers from Japan, the Amur River Basin, and people of Neolithic and Iron Age Taiwan and the Tibetan Plateau are linked by a deeply splitting lineage that probably reflects a coastal migration during the Late Pleistocene epoch. We also follow expansions during the subsequent Holocene epoch from four regions. First, hunter-gatherers from Mongolia and the Amur River Basin have ancestry shared by individuals who speak Mongolic and Tungusic languages, but do not carry ancestry characteristic of farmers from the West Liao River region (around 3000 BC), which contradicts theories that the expansion of these farmers spread the Mongolic and Tungusic proto-languages. Second, farmers from the Yellow River Basin (around 3000 BC) probably spread Sino-Tibetan languages, as their ancestry dispersed both to Tibet-where it forms approximately 84% of the gene pool in some groups-and to the Central Plain, where it has contributed around 59-84% to modern Han Chinese groups. Third, people from Taiwan from around 1300 BC to AD 800 derived approximately 75% of their ancestry from a lineage that is widespread in modern individuals who speak Austronesian, Tai-Kadai and Austroasiatic languages, and that we hypothesize derives from farmers of the Yangtze River Valley. Ancient people from Taiwan also derived about 25% of their ancestry from a northern lineage that is related to, but different from, farmers of the Yellow River Basin, which suggests an additional north-to-south expansion. Fourth, ancestry from Yamnaya Steppe pastoralists arrived in western Mongolia after around 3000 BC but was displaced by previously established lineages even while it persisted in western China, as would be expected if this ancestry was associated with the spread of proto-Tocharian Indo-European languages. Two later gene flows affected western Mongolia: migrants after around 2000 BC with Yamnaya and European farmer ancestry, and episodic influences of later groups with ancestry from Turan.

Cockfighting has a very long history dating back to as early as 2500 years ago in China. Cockfighting was intertwined with human cultural traditions, helped disperse chickens across the world, and influenced the subsequent breed selection. Therefore, tracing the origin of gamecocks could mirror the distribution of the cockfighting culture. In this study, we compared the available mtDNA control region sequences in Chinese and Japanese gamecocks to test the recently proposed hypothesis behind the dual origin of the Japanese cockfighting culture (from China and Southeast Asia independently). We assigned gamecock mtDNAs to different matrilineal components (or phylogenetic clades) that emerged from the phylogenetic tree and network profile, and compared the frequency differences between Chinese and Japanese gamecocks. Among the six clades (A-F) identified, Japanese gamecocks were most frequently found in clades C and D (74%, 32/43), whereas more than half of the Chinese gamecock samples (69%, 35/51) were grouped in clades A and B. Haplotypes in Japanese gamecocks assigned to clades A, B, and E were either shared with those of the Chinese samples or differed from the close Chinese types by no more than a three-mutation distance. This genetic pattern is in accordance with the proposed dual origin of Japanese gamecocks but has left room for single origin of Japanese gamecocks from China. The genetic structure of gamecocks in China and Japan might also be influenced by subsequent breed selection and conservation after the initial gamecock introduction.