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Home-rearing environment (HRE) at an early age has a longitudinal effect on the development of children's self-control. Some evidence has articulated this relationship; however, few studies have addressed heterogeneous patterns in self-control. This study aimed to identify a typology of self-control among preschoolers and examine its relationship with HRE. A total of 430 children from the Child Care Cohort study in Japan were included to assess their HRE and self-control over 2 years. Latent class analysis was carried out to identify self-control patterns, and the relationship between HRE and different classes was explored using multinomial regression analyses. Three latent classes were found, characterized as high, moderate, and low levels. In addition, two HRE items were associated with preschoolers' self-control over 2 years. Children who often met peers of a similar age and whose parents often received others' help to care for them were more likely to have a higher level of self-control. This study indicated different patterns of self-control among preschoolers and highlighted the significance of HRE, particularly in peer involvement and co-parenting, in helping children develop high self-control.

The diversity of child social skills development is not well detected among Asian countries. Culturally validated assessments are needed for practitioners to evaluate child social skills. This study tested the measurement invariance of the Social Skill Scale (SSS) across Japanese and Chinese samples and explored country differences in child social skills development. The SSS utilizes a widely used factor structure (assertion, self-control, and cooperation subdomains) and has established Japanese and Chinese versions. We conducted investigations with an identical process and materials with different language versions, collecting data from 931 Japanese kindergarten children (M.sub.age = 4.35, SD.sub.age = 1.07; 53.6% boys) and from 1130 Chinese kindergarten children (M.sub.age = 4.47, SD.sub.age = 1.00; 52.3% boys). We used multiple confirmatory factor analysis to test measurement invariance of the SSS and established the validity, reliability, and scalar measurement invariance for the first-order factor structure of the SSS across the two country samples. We also examined country differences on the associations between demographics, parenting practice, and child social skills development. We found that, compared to the Chinese sample, cooperation skills significantly increased more with age among the Japanese sample. However, spanking was negatively related to self-control skills development in both countries. Our findings contribute to the demonstration of the diversity of child social skills development and have important implications for assessing and developing child social skills using culture-specific strategies., Author(s): Zhu Zhu [sup.1] [sup.2] , Dandan Jiao [sup.1] , Xiang Li [sup.1] , Yantong Zhu [sup.1] , Cunyoen Kim [sup.3] , Ammara Ajmal [sup.4] , Munenori Matsumoto [sup.1] , [...]

Self-care ability and social skills are potential areas of difficulty for preschool children. However, values about young children's self-care ability are different worldwide. This longitudinal study examined the influence of early self-care ability on social skills at the end of the preschool years. Participants were 509 children recruited from kindergartens and child care centers across Japan, whose self-care ability and social skills were assessed at baseline year and three years later (Age of children in 2015 at baseline: M = 35 months, SD = 6.1 months). The study found that gender was significantly associated with social skills, while preschool facility entrance age was only associated with assertion skills. After controlling gender and entrance age, early self-care ability was still positively related to later assertion and cooperation (Assertion: OR = 2.55, 95% CI = 1.00-6.51; Cooperation: OR = 3.15, 95% CI = 1.23-8.07). Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of cultural diversity, highlighting the importance of cultivating children's age-appropriate self-care ability based on daily observations and evaluations.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the daily life and social relationships of pre-school children globally. While many studies have examined the impact of the pandemic on children, few have compared the home environment and children's social skills before and after the pandemic. To address this research gap, we used data from the Japan Child Care Cohort study, which included questions on home environment answered by parents (1748 in 2019 and 1349 in 2020) of children aged 0-6 years using self-reported questionnaires and data on the social skills of children aged 1-6 years (1917 in 2019 and 1989 in 2020) that were evaluated by childcare professionals in childcare centres. Using the Chi-square test, home environments and social skills were compared. We found that frequencies of family meals, no punishment, and a positive attitude toward children's mistakes were higher in 2020. In contrast, frequencies of shopping together, visiting children's friends and relatives, and having social support from others were lower in 2020. Additionally, children's social skills in 2019 were better than in 2020. Childcare institutions can consider these differences and create a support plan to ensure quality child-rearing practices and healthy child development.

With the development of Internet of Things and fuzzy control theory, there are new opportunities for the conservation and utilization of museum artifacts. The traditional way of heritage restoration lacks the overall harmony of heritage restoration, which leads to the stagnation of heritage restoration level. At the same time, traditional heritage conservation is also limited to manual management, which seriously hinders the development of the overall level of museums. Artifacts are of great commemorative and research value and are objects that have been handed down to mankind for thousands of years and have been subjected to the natural environment for a long time before being excavated. Heritage conservation requires not only restoring artifacts to the greatest extent possible, but also securing the environment in which they are displayed and stored to ensure that they can be preserved for as long as possible. But the following problems exist in the conservation of cultural relics (1) the lack of strict standards for the environment in which cultural relics are stored. (2) the professional competence of the staff is not strong. (3) The lack of a strict management system (4) heritage conservation technology is backward. To solve these problems our team constructed a fuzzy control method based on fuzzy control theory to assist in the restoration of cultural relics. The model constructed by fuzzy control theory solves this problem. The fuzzy control theory constructs a model for restoration of cultural relics, taking into account the overall harmony of the relics and the accuracy of the points, which is of great significance for the restoration of museum relics. At the same time through the Internet of Things technology to build a library heritage protection system, the main content of the system is (1) the use of Internet of Things technology to build a security protection system for cultural relics (2) the use of Internet of Things technology to detect the storage environment of cultural relics (3) the use of Internet of Things technology to optimize the management process of cultural relics (4) the use of Internet of Things technology to achieve real-time monitoring of the flow of information on cultural relics. And based on this, suggestions are made to (1) improve the museum heritage protection and utilization system (2) improve the infrastructure of museum heritage protection and build a good environment for heritage storage (3) improve the quality of heritage managers. The model constructed in the article has been tested in practice and is feasible, with certain practical and theoretical values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a flexible high-speed dynamic sealing device,the finger seal has a good application prospect in high-speed sealing parts of aircraft engines and gas turbines. However,Under high-speed and high temperature conditions, friction heat and ambient temperature have a significant impact on contact strength and sealing performance of the finger seal. So exploring its influence mechanism becomes the key problem of finger seal design. Therefore,based on the actual working conditions,converting the friction heat to the heat flux density boundary condition,considering working temperature,a coupled thermal structural analysis model of the finger seal system is built,and the influence of thermal effect on the contact strength of the finger seal/rotor pair is studied,then it verified by tests. The results show that friction heat has an important influence on the contact strength of the sealing pair at high speed. Under normal temperature conditions,the local temperature of the finger seal rises above 370℃ because of friction effect,and the contact pressure at finger foot/rotor friction pair increases by nearly 10%. Under high temperature conditions,when the thermal effects are considered,local contact pressure is reduced by 90%. The performance test results show that,the maximum error between theoretical and test result is only 16.5% under pressure of 0.4 MPa,while the maximum error reaches 72.8% when thermal effect is not considered,which verified the necessity of thermal effect and the rationality of thermal analysis method. So the study provides an important reference for the design of finger seal under high temperature and high speed conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the daily life and social relationships of pre-school children globally. While many studies have examined the impact of the pandemic on children, few have compared the home environment and children's social skills before and after the pandemic. To address this research gap, we used data from the Japan Child Care Cohort study, which included questions on home environment answered by parents (1748 in 2019 and 1349 in 2020) of children aged 0–6 years using self-reported questionnaires and data on the social skills of children aged 1–6 years (1917 in 2019 and 1989 in 2020) that were evaluated by childcare professionals in childcare centres. Using the Chi-square test, home environments and social skills were compared. We found that frequencies of family meals, no punishment, and a positive attitude toward children's mistakes were higher in 2020. In contrast, frequencies of shopping together, visiting children's friends and relatives, and having social support from others were lower in 2020. Additionally, children's social skills in 2019 were better than in 2020. Childcare institutions can consider these differences and create a support plan to ensure quality child-rearing practices and healthy child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-care ability and social skills are potential areas of difficulty for preschool children. However, values about young children's self-care ability are different worldwide. This longitudinal study examined the influence of early self-care ability on social skills at the end of the preschool years. Participants were 509 children recruited from kindergartens and child care centers across Japan, whose self-care ability and social skills were assessed at baseline year and three years later (Age of children in 2015 at baseline: M = 35 months, SD = 6.1 months). The study found that gender was significantly associated with social skills, while preschool facility entrance age was only associated with assertion skills. After controlling gender and entrance age, early self-care ability was still positively related to later assertion and cooperation (Assertion: OR = 2.55, 95% CI = 1.00–6.51; Cooperation: OR = 3.15, 95% CI = 1.23–8.07). Implications of the findings are discussed in the context of cultural diversity, highlighting the importance of cultivating children's age-appropriate self-care ability based on daily observations and evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a critical technique to raise coding efficiency in H.265/HEVC (H.265/High Efficiency Video Coding), the number of prediction modes for intra coding is much larger than that in H.264/AVC. However, the large number of prediction modes also leads to high complexity. In this paper, an AR (Auto Regression) based fast mode decision method for H.265/HEVC intra coding is proposed, including an AR based fast mode selection and an MPM (Most Probable Mode) joint fast mode selection method. Considering the correlation between SATD (Sum of Absolute Transformed Differences) cost and RD (Rate-Distortion) cost, we establish a selective function controlled by an adaptive parameter which is acquired by an AR model. According to the distribution of the SATD cost, the selective function can decide which modes can be discarded and which modes can be used for the FMD (Fine Mode Decision). In addition, in order to further reduce the number of candidate modes for FMD, an MPM joint fast mode selection method is presented based on the relationship between MPMs and candidate modes. Experimental results show that just in PU layer, the proposed AR based fast intra mode decision method can save encoding time by 32 % with negligible coding loss in all-intra main configuration compared to the intra mode decision of HM13.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spite of high decorrelation performance, the large block size of transform coding in High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) brings about undesirable complexity in hardware design. The heaviest burden in HEVC transform implementation is the large quantity of multiplications. In this paper, we propose a novel hierarchical multiplier-free architecture for HEVC transform, which can achieve a multiplier-free partial butterfly combined with matrix multiplications (PBMM) architecture based on vector decomposition (VD-PBMM). In the proposed architecture, the complicate matrix multiplication in PBMM is achieved by several simple stages to simplify its VLSI realization. Each stage only involves additions and multiplications with power of two which can be achieved by shifters and adders. In addition, the new architecture can balance the distribution of adders to improve the system frequency. The proposed architecture has been evaluated with TSMC 0.13um CMOS technology. The relative system can run at 400 MHz with 92 K logic gates, which is about half of the PBMM method when the latency is 8. The proposed architecture can achieve the transform without any performance loss compared with the standard, and it is suitable for the hardware implementation in VLSI design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the long-term effects of parenting practice during preschool years on children's movement performance in primary school., Methods: This three-year longitudinal study included 225 children aged 3-6-years-old. Parents reported baseline parenting practice and evaluated children's movement performance three years later. Latent class analysis was used to explore latent classes of movement performance. A post hoc test was used to identify the characteristics of different patterns. Finally, adjusted multinomial logistic regression models were used to test the influence of parenting practice on identified patterns of movement performance., Results: Children in this study were grouped into three movement performance patterns, labelled as 'least difficulties' (n = 131, 58.2%), 'low back pain' (n = 68, 30.2%) and 'most difficulties' (n = 26, 11.6%). After controlling for age, gender, having siblings or not, family structure, standardised body mass index, sleep condition and dietary habits, the researchers found that if parents played games with children frequently, the children would have a 0.287 times lower probability of being in the 'low back pain' class (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.105-0.783). In addition, if parents take children to meet peers of a similar age frequently, children would have a 0.339 times lower probability of being in 'most difficulties' class (95% CI: 0.139-0.825)., Conclusion: Primary healthcare providers should pay careful attention to children with movement difficulties. The study provides longitudinal evidence to support the applicability of positive parenting practice in early childhood to prevent children's movement difficulties., Competing Interests: CONFLICT OF INTEREST The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (© Copyright 2023, Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, All Rights Reserved.)

Objective: To observe the psychological experience of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during hospitalization., Methods: From November 2012 to February 2013, semi-structured interviews were conducted in 10 patients with AMI in the Cardiovascular Department of First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University of Science and Technology. Grounded theory approach was performed to analyze the collected data., Results: The 6 themes and 3 secondary themes during their hospitalization were: helplessness and dependence when AMI was diagnosed fear of immediate death induced by AMI, confusion on various problems such as operation time, excretory after PCI and limited knowledge details, the feel of safety after PCI, the fear of AMI, and the worry about overtreatment., Conclusions: Hospitalized AMI patients have complicated psychological responses. Medical staff should provide targeted strategies and timely communication with AMI patients to reduce their psychological burden.