Personality change is among criteria for the diagnosis of dementia. We examine first whether personality changes are related to severity of cognitive impairment in a linear or an inverted-U fashion in 1132 demented ol...Personality change is among criteria for the diagnosis of dementia. We examine first whether personality changes are related to severity of cognitive impairment in a linear or an inverted-U fashion in 1132 demented older people from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CSHA) and 921 unimpaired older people. The proportion with reported change was larger for all measures in the demented group than in the cognitively unimpaired group, and was more consistent with a linear increase in personality change with increasing cognitive impairment than with an inverted-U relationship, as seen in only one variable. In our second (longitudinal) study, we evaluate which aspects of personality change most in dementia;changes in mood and an exaggeration of existing traits were the variables most closely related to the development of dementia.展开更多
Introduction: With the arrival of the 21st century, drastic worldwide changes to natural, economic and social events have occurred. These include the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the global financial crisis. Furth...Introduction: With the arrival of the 21st century, drastic worldwide changes to natural, economic and social events have occurred. These include the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the global financial crisis. Furthermore, Japan experienced the introduction of a specific education system. In this study, we traced and compared the psychological characters of university freshmen for 16 years (years 2000-2016) using Big-Five personalities inventory (Japanese version). Methods: A total of 1189 physically and mentally healthy university freshmen participated in this study. They were divided into four groups according to the year they entered university. They completed a self-filled questionnaire, Big-Five personalities inventory, which consists of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness and Openness. Result and Discussion: Compared with the year 2008, Extraversion nominally increased in 2012, however, it statistically significantly decreased in 2016. Agreeableness notably decreased from 2000 to 2008, then showed an increase in 2012. Compared to 2000, Neuroticism was statistically significantly lower in 2008 and 2016. Such statistically significant differences were not observed in the other two personalities. The personalities of university freshmen have changed in the last 16 years, which may be been caused by drastic changes. However, further research (e.g., larger-scale studies or studies including other university students) is required to support the current findings.展开更多
Biochemical evidence on lens culture suggests that antioxidant nutrients can protect lens against peroxidation caused by radiation. A case-control study was carried out on 262 middle aged (45-54) and aged (55-64) subj...Biochemical evidence on lens culture suggests that antioxidant nutrients can protect lens against peroxidation caused by radiation. A case-control study was carried out on 262 middle aged (45-54) and aged (55-64) subjects. The relationship between biochemical markers of antioxidant status and senile lens changes (including cataract) was examined in 131 subjects with senile lens changes and 131 control subjects with clear lens. Antioxidant status was measured using plasma and erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase, erythrocyte superoxide dismutase and catalase activity and plasma levels of vitamine E and vitamin A. Subjects were grouped by age and sex. The results were as follows: (1) The subjects with lens changes tended to have lower plasma levels of vitamin E and vitamin A, lower activity of several antioxidant enzymes and higher level of MDA. (2) The subjects with senile lens changes had significantly lower erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase level.(3) In the middle-aged group, subjects with senile lens changes were observed to have lower erythrocyte and plasma glutathione peroxidase level than those without senile lens changes.The results suggest that appropriate amount of antoxidant nutrients might be expected to prevent or retard the process of lens changes展开更多
Environmental conditions change constantly either by anthropogenic perturbation or naturally across space and time.Often,a change in behavior is the frst response to changing conditions.Behavioral fexibility can poten...Environmental conditions change constantly either by anthropogenic perturbation or naturally across space and time.Often,a change in behavior is the frst response to changing conditions.Behavioral fexibility can potentially improve an organism’s chances to survive and reproduce.Currently,we lack an understanding on the time-scale such behavioral adjustments need,how they actually affect reproduction and survival and whether behavioral adjustments are suffcient in keeping up with changing conditions.We used house mice(Mus musculus)to test whether personality and life-history traits can adjust to an experimentally induced food-switch fexibly in adulthood or by intergenerational plasticity,that is,adjustments only becoming visible in the offspring generation.Mice lived in 6 experimental populations of semi-natural environments either on high or standard quality food for 4 generations.We showed previously that high-quality food induced better conditions and a less risk-prone personality.Here,we tested whether the speed and/or magnitude of adjustment shows condition-dependency and whether adjustments incur ftness effects.Life-history but not personality traits reacted fexibly to a food-switch,primarily by a direct reduction of reproduction and sloweddown growth.Offspring whose parents received a food-switch developed a more active stress-coping personality and gained weight at a slower rate compared with their respective controls.Furthermore,the modulation of most traits was condition-dependent,with animals previously fed with high-quality food showing stronger responses.Our study highlights that life-history and personality traits adjust at different speed toward environmental change,thus,highlighting the importance of the environment and the mode of response for evolutionary models.展开更多
The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of robust face recognition(FR) with single sample per person(SSPP). In the scenario of FR with SSPP, we present a novel model local robust sparse representation(LRSR) ...The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of robust face recognition(FR) with single sample per person(SSPP). In the scenario of FR with SSPP, we present a novel model local robust sparse representation(LRSR) to tackle the problem of query images with various intra-class variations,e.g., expressions, illuminations, and occlusion. FR with SSPP is a very difficult challenge due to lacking of information to predict the possible intra-class variation of the query images.The key idea of the proposed method is to combine a local sparse representation model and a patch-based generic variation dictionary learning model to predict the possible facial intraclass variation of the query images. The experimental results on the AR database, Extended Yale B database, CMU-PIE database and LFW database show that the proposed method is robust to intra-class variations in FR with SSPP, and outperforms the state-of-art approaches.展开更多
基金Seniors’ Independence Research Program, through Health Canada’s NHRDPMedical Research Council+4 种基金Pfizer Canada Inc. through the MRC/PMAC, NHRDPB.C. Health Research FoundationCIHRMerck-FrosstJansen-Ortho
文摘Personality change is among criteria for the diagnosis of dementia. We examine first whether personality changes are related to severity of cognitive impairment in a linear or an inverted-U fashion in 1132 demented older people from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (CSHA) and 921 unimpaired older people. The proportion with reported change was larger for all measures in the demented group than in the cognitively unimpaired group, and was more consistent with a linear increase in personality change with increasing cognitive impairment than with an inverted-U relationship, as seen in only one variable. In our second (longitudinal) study, we evaluate which aspects of personality change most in dementia;changes in mood and an exaggeration of existing traits were the variables most closely related to the development of dementia.
文摘Introduction: With the arrival of the 21st century, drastic worldwide changes to natural, economic and social events have occurred. These include the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the global financial crisis. Furthermore, Japan experienced the introduction of a specific education system. In this study, we traced and compared the psychological characters of university freshmen for 16 years (years 2000-2016) using Big-Five personalities inventory (Japanese version). Methods: A total of 1189 physically and mentally healthy university freshmen participated in this study. They were divided into four groups according to the year they entered university. They completed a self-filled questionnaire, Big-Five personalities inventory, which consists of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness and Openness. Result and Discussion: Compared with the year 2008, Extraversion nominally increased in 2012, however, it statistically significantly decreased in 2016. Agreeableness notably decreased from 2000 to 2008, then showed an increase in 2012. Compared to 2000, Neuroticism was statistically significantly lower in 2008 and 2016. Such statistically significant differences were not observed in the other two personalities. The personalities of university freshmen have changed in the last 16 years, which may be been caused by drastic changes. However, further research (e.g., larger-scale studies or studies including other university students) is required to support the current findings.
文摘Biochemical evidence on lens culture suggests that antioxidant nutrients can protect lens against peroxidation caused by radiation. A case-control study was carried out on 262 middle aged (45-54) and aged (55-64) subjects. The relationship between biochemical markers of antioxidant status and senile lens changes (including cataract) was examined in 131 subjects with senile lens changes and 131 control subjects with clear lens. Antioxidant status was measured using plasma and erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase, erythrocyte superoxide dismutase and catalase activity and plasma levels of vitamine E and vitamin A. Subjects were grouped by age and sex. The results were as follows: (1) The subjects with lens changes tended to have lower plasma levels of vitamin E and vitamin A, lower activity of several antioxidant enzymes and higher level of MDA. (2) The subjects with senile lens changes had significantly lower erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase level.(3) In the middle-aged group, subjects with senile lens changes were observed to have lower erythrocyte and plasma glutathione peroxidase level than those without senile lens changes.The results suggest that appropriate amount of antoxidant nutrients might be expected to prevent or retard the process of lens changes
文摘Environmental conditions change constantly either by anthropogenic perturbation or naturally across space and time.Often,a change in behavior is the frst response to changing conditions.Behavioral fexibility can potentially improve an organism’s chances to survive and reproduce.Currently,we lack an understanding on the time-scale such behavioral adjustments need,how they actually affect reproduction and survival and whether behavioral adjustments are suffcient in keeping up with changing conditions.We used house mice(Mus musculus)to test whether personality and life-history traits can adjust to an experimentally induced food-switch fexibly in adulthood or by intergenerational plasticity,that is,adjustments only becoming visible in the offspring generation.Mice lived in 6 experimental populations of semi-natural environments either on high or standard quality food for 4 generations.We showed previously that high-quality food induced better conditions and a less risk-prone personality.Here,we tested whether the speed and/or magnitude of adjustment shows condition-dependency and whether adjustments incur ftness effects.Life-history but not personality traits reacted fexibly to a food-switch,primarily by a direct reduction of reproduction and sloweddown growth.Offspring whose parents received a food-switch developed a more active stress-coping personality and gained weight at a slower rate compared with their respective controls.Furthermore,the modulation of most traits was condition-dependent,with animals previously fed with high-quality food showing stronger responses.Our study highlights that life-history and personality traits adjust at different speed toward environmental change,thus,highlighting the importance of the environment and the mode of response for evolutionary models.
基金supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(61673402,61273270,60802069)the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province(2017A030311029,2016B010109002,2015B090912001,2016B010123005,2017B090909005)+1 种基金the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou of China(201704020180,201604020024)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
文摘The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of robust face recognition(FR) with single sample per person(SSPP). In the scenario of FR with SSPP, we present a novel model local robust sparse representation(LRSR) to tackle the problem of query images with various intra-class variations,e.g., expressions, illuminations, and occlusion. FR with SSPP is a very difficult challenge due to lacking of information to predict the possible intra-class variation of the query images.The key idea of the proposed method is to combine a local sparse representation model and a patch-based generic variation dictionary learning model to predict the possible facial intraclass variation of the query images. The experimental results on the AR database, Extended Yale B database, CMU-PIE database and LFW database show that the proposed method is robust to intra-class variations in FR with SSPP, and outperforms the state-of-art approaches.