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Study region: New South Wales, southeast Australia Study focus: Estimating potential evapotranspiration (ETp) rates, detecting its temporal trends and analysing its interannual oscillation are critical for long-term assessment of water availability and regional drought. This study aimed to evaluate the comprehensive performance of 12 simplified models in characterising ETp against the benchmark Penman model across different climate sites in southeast Australia. This study used Taylor skill score (S), normalised root mean square error (nRMSE) and relative mean bias error (rMBE) to estimate models’ capability in estimating ETp rates. Then, this study adopted Mann-Kendall test and continuous wavelet transform (CWT) to test temporal trends and periodicity of ETp estimated by all models. New hydrology insights for the region: Jensen-Haise model was capable to produce fair (nRMSE ≤ 30%) estimates of daily ETp across all stations. Models except Mak1 were generally able to produce reasonable estimates of ETp at larger time scale. In addition, we found that the 12 alternative ETp models generally agreed with the Penman model on the primary (9.6–12.4-year) and quasi (2.6–3.9-year) periods of ETp, but they did not show matchable ability in detecting ETp temporal trends. The comprehensive investigation on models’ performance will shed light on models’ selection in estimation of drought and hydrological cycle.

Preliminary studies have confirmed that ambient air pollutant concentrations are significantly influenced by the COVID-19 lockdown measures, but little attention focus on the long term impacts of human countermeasures in cities all over the world during the period. Still, fewer have addressed their other essential properties, especially the cyclical response to concentration reduction. This paper aims to fill the gaps with combined methods of abrupt change test and wavelet analysis, research areas were made of five cities, Wuhan, Changchun, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu, in China. Abrupt changes in contaminant concentrations commonly occurred in the year prior to the outbreak. The lockdown has almost no effect on the short cycle below 30 d (days) for both pollutants, and a negligible impact on the cycle above 30 d. PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) has a stable short-cycle nature, which is greatly influenced by anthropogenic emissions. The analysis revealed that the sensitivity of PM2.5 to climate is increased along with the concentrations of PM2.5 were decreasing by the times when above the threshold (30–50 μg m−3), and which could lead to PM2.5 advancement relative to the ozone phase over a period of 60 d after the epidemic. These results suggest that the epidemic may have had an impact earlier than when it was known. And significant reductions in anthropogenic emissions have little impact on the cyclic nature of pollutants, but may alter the inter-pollutant phase differences during the study period.

Rhythmic movement is the fundamental motion dynamics characterized by repetitive patterns. Precisely defining onsets in rhythmic movement is essential for a comprehensive analysis of motor functions. Our study introduces an automated method for detecting rat's forelimb foot-strike onsets using deep learning tools. This method demonstrates high accuracy of onset detection by combining two techniques using joint coordinates and behavioral confidence scale. The analysis extends to neural oscillatory responses in the rat's somatosensory cortex, validating the effectiveness of our combined approach. Our technique streamlines experimentation, demanding only a camera and GPU-accelerated computer. This approach is applicable across various contexts and promotes our understanding of brain functions during rhythmic movements., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Study region: The Yarlung Zangbo River basin (YZB) in the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Study focus: Hydro-climatic processes in the TP are greatly sensitive to global climate change, but are not well understood nowadays due to the lack of hydro-climatic observations. In this study, runoff variation and response to precipitation on multi-spatial and temporal scales were identified and quantified by using a comprehensive approach, based on time series of monthly runoff and precipitation during 1961–2015. New hydrological insights for the region: Annual runoff and flood season runoff mainly showed a downward trend from 1961 to 2015 in the upper-middle reaches of the YZB. Spatially similar non-monotonous changes were also detected with a turning point around 2000, which was greatly affected by precipitation. Periodic changes of annual and flood season runoff were significant on an approximate 3-year, which was well correlated with precipitation and obviously different from dry season runoff. The long-range trend of runoff in 1961–2015 may be related to scaling behaviors in the midstream where about 10.7–14.9% of the trend of runoff were explained by precipitation in flood seasons. Precipitation changes contributed to above 50% of the runoff tendency and thus can be considered as the major driving factor of runoff changes in the upper stream and NY sub-basin. The study provides a new understanding of runoff-precipitation variation through a comprehensive and quantitative analysis.

Periodic travelling waves (PTW) are a common solution type of partial differential equations. Such models exhibit multistability of PTWs, typically visualised through the Busse balloon, and parameter changes typically lead to a cascade of wavelength changes through the Busse balloon. In the past, the stability boundaries of the Busse balloon have been used to predict such wavelength changes. Here, motivated by anecdotal evidence from previous work, we provide compelling evidence that the Busse balloon provides insufficient information to predict wavelength changes due to a delayed loss of stability phenomenon. Using two different reaction-advection-diffusion systems, we relate the delay that occurs between the crossing of a stability boundary in the Busse balloon and the occurrence of a wavelength change to features of the essential spectrum of the destabilised PTW. This leads to a predictive framework that can estimate the order of magnitude of such a time delay, which provides a novel "early warning sign" for pattern destabilisation. We illustrate the implementation of the predictive framework to predict under what conditions a wavelength change of a PTW occurs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

In this paper, we classify periodic characters of the positive solutions of the difference system (1) xn+1=αe−(yn+xn−1)β+yn+xn−1,yn+1=γe−(xn+yn−1)δ+xn+yn−1as rectangular p-periodic and pq-periodic solutions, where the constants α,β,γ,δ,x−1,x0,y−1,y0>0. Moreover, we do bifurcation analysis and observe various forms of periodic characters of solutions of (1). Also an open problem regarding the newly classified periodic character is proposed.

The transport of microplastics (MPs) is susceptible to being influenced by catchment hydrology; however, there is a notable lack of research on their retention and responses to flood events in estuarine sedimentary records. Herein, we collected two cores in the Yangtze Estuary to explore their microplastic pollution, influencing factors and linkage to flood events. MP abundance exhibited a decreasing trend from the top to the bottom in both cores. Both plastic production and sediment mean grain size showed a significant positive correlation with MP abundance. The sedimentary record displayed a marked surge in MP abundance during the extreme flood period, suggesting a direct influence of flooding on MP deposition. The resuspension of upstream MPs and erosion of land-based MPs by heavy rain might be responsible for this increase. Furthermore, our study identified significant periodicities in MP abundance, closely aligned with the hydrological patterns of the Yangtze River. This study highlights the role of floods in fluvial MP distribution and proposes MPs as a proxy of extreme floods from the 20th century in estuarine environments., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Newborn infants have been shown to extract temporal regularities from sound sequences, both in the form of learning regular sequential properties, and extracting periodicity in the input, commonly referred to as a regular pulse or the 'beat'. However, these two types of regularities are often indistinguishable in isochronous sequences, as both statistical learning and beat perception can be elicited by the regular alternation of accented and unaccented sounds. Here, we manipulated the isochrony of sound sequences in order to disentangle statistical learning from beat perception in sleeping newborn infants in an EEG experiment, as previously done in adults and macaque monkeys. We used a binary accented sequence that induces a beat when presented with isochronous timing, but not when presented with randomly jittered timing. We compared mismatch responses to infrequent deviants falling on either accented or unaccented (i.e., odd and even) positions. Results showed a clear difference between metrical positions in the isochronous sequence, but not in the equivalent jittered sequence. This suggests that beat processing is present in newborns. Despite previous evidence for statistical learning in newborns the effects of this ability were not detected in the jittered condition. These results show that statistical learning by itself does not fully explain beat processing in newborn infants., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Human energy expenditure and substrate oxidation are under circadian control and food intake is a time cue for the human biological clock, leading to 24h feeding-fasting cycles in energy and substrate metabolism. In recent years, (intermittent) fasting protocols have also become popular to improve metabolic health. Here, we aimed to investigate the impact of food intake on the 24h patterns of energy metabolism as well as to provide data on the timeline of changes in energy metabolism that occur upon an extended period of fasting., Research Design and Methods: In a randomized, cross-over design, twelve healthy males underwent a 60h fast which was compared to a 60h fed condition. In the fed condition meals were provided at energy balance throughout the study. Conditions were separated by a two week period of habitual diet. Volunteers resided in a respiration chamber for the entire 60h to measure energy expenditure and substrate oxidation hour by hour. Volunteers performed a standardized activity protocol while in the chamber. Blood samples were drawn after 12, 36 and 60h., Results: Immediately following the breakfast meal (in the fed condition), fat oxidation became higher in the fasted condition compared to the fed condition and remained elevated throughout the study period. The initial rapid increase in fat oxidation corresponded with a decline in the hepatokine activin A (r = -0.86, p = 0.001). The contribution of fat oxidation to total energy expenditure gradually increased with extended abstinence from food, peaking after 51h of fasting at 160 mg/min. Carbohydrate oxidation stabilized at a low level during the second day of fasting and averaged around 60 mg/min with only modest elevations in response to physical activity. Although 24h energy expenditure was significantly lower with prolonged fasting (11.0 ± 0.4 vs 9.8 ± 0.2 and 10.9 ± 0.3 vs 10.3 ± 0.3 MJ in fed vs fasting, day 2 and 3 respectively, p < 0.01), the 24h fluctuations in energy expenditure were comparable between the fasted and fed condition. The fluctuations in substrate oxidation were, however, significantly (p < 0.001 for both carbohydrate and fat oxidation) altered in the fasted state, favouring fat oxidation., Conclusions: Energy expenditure displays a day-night rhythm, which is independent of food intake. In contrast, the day-night rhythm of both carbohydrate and fat oxidation is mainly driven by food intake. Upon extended fasting, the absolute rate of fat oxidation rapidly increases and keeps increasing during a 60h fast, whereas carbohydrate oxidation becomes progressively diminished., Trial Registration: www.trialregister.nl NTR 2042., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest This clinical trial was granted by Top Institute Food and Nutrition. The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pollen information is indispensable for allergic individuals and clinicians. This study aimed to develop forecasting models for the total annual count of airborne pollen grains based on data monitored over the last 20 years at the Mie Chuo Medical Center, Tsu, Mie, Japan. Methods: Airborne pollen grains were collected using a Durham sampler. Total annual pollen count and pollen count from October to December (OD pollen count) of the previous year were transformed to logarithms. Regression analysis of the total pollen count was performed using variables such as the OD pollen count and the maximum temperature for mid-July of the previous year. Results: Time series analysis revealed an alternate rhythm of the series of total pollen count. The alternate rhythm consisted of a cyclic alternation of an “on” year (high pollen count) and an “off” year (low pollen count). This rhythm was used as a dummy variable in regression equations. Of the three models involving the OD pollen count, a multiple regression equation that included the alternate rhythm variable and the interaction of this rhythm with OD pollen count showed a high coefficient of determination (0.844). Of the three models involving the maximum temperature for mid-July, those including the alternate rhythm variable and the interaction of this rhythm with maximum temperature had the highest coefficient of determination (0.925). Conclusions: An alternate pollen dispersal rhythm represented by a dummy variable in the multiple regression analysis plays a key role in improving forecasting models for the total annual sugi pollen count.

Purpose: Contemporary mental health models simultaneously consider psychological distress and wellness. Researchers have proposed that adhering to the 24-hour movement guidelines (24-HMG) contributes to mental health. 24-HMG integrates recommendations of time distribution among sleep, screen use, and moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Yet, there are few studies on the relationship between meeting 24-HMG and mental health, especially mental wellbeing. This study aimed to examine the associations between adherence to 24-HMG with mental wellbeing and mental illness among Chinese adolescents., Methods: Cross-sectional data of 67,281 Chinese adolescents aged 10-17 years (mean age = 13.0 years, 51.9% males) were collected by sending online questionnaires to local primary and middle schools in Shenzhen in 2021. We used multilevel generalized linear models to analyze associations between meeting 24-HMG with mental wellbeing (subjective wellbeing, resilience, and positive youth development) and mental illness (depression and anxiety)., Results: Only 1.7% of participants met recommendations for all three behaviors (sleep, screen use, and MVPA). Compared with meeting none of the recommendations, participants who met one or more recommendations reported significantly better performance in mental wellbeing (all p < .001); on the contrary, meeting one or more recommendations (except for only meeting the MVPA recommendation) were significantly related to lower severity of mental illness (all p < .001). The relationship between the number of recommendations met with mental well-being and mental illness indicators presented a dose-response pattern (all p < .001)., Discussion: Meeting 24-HMG was associated with superior mental health, including a higher propensity for mental wellbeing and a lower risk of mental illness. The importance of limiting screen time and getting enough sleep should be highlighted in promoting mental health in adolescents., (Copyright © 2022 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The total number of new attendant patients diagnosed as having atopic dermatitis at our dermatology outpatient clinic during the 7 year period from 1989 to 1995 was 10 156. Patients from each year during this period were divided into eight age groups. The birth month and the month of first visit for each age group was obtained in average of 7 years. Only for subjects aged

Objective: To investigate whether epileptiform discharge burden can identify those at risk for delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI) after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)., Methods: Retrospective analysis of 113 moderate to severe grade SAH patients who had continuous EEG (cEEG) recordings during their hospitalization. We calculated the burden of epileptiform discharges (ED), measured as number of ED per hour., Results: We find that many SAH patients have an increase in ED burden during the first 3-10 days following rupture, the major risk period for DCI. However, those who develop DCI have a significantly higher hourly burden from days 3.5-6 after SAH vs. those who do not. ED burden is higher in DCI patients when assessed in relation to the onset of DCI (area under the receiver operator curve 0.72). Finally, specific trends of ED burden over time, assessed by group-based trajectory analysis, also help stratify DCI risk., Conclusions: These results suggest that ED burden is a useful parameter for identifying those at higher risk of developing DCI after SAH. The higher burden rate associated with DCI supports the theory of metabolic supply-demand mismatch which contributes to this complication., Significance: ED burden is a novel biomarker for predicting those at high risk of DCI., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

An individual's early interactions with their environment are thought to be largely passive; through the early years, the capacity for volitional control develops. Here, we consider: how is the emergence of volitional control characterised by changes in the entrainment observed between internal activity (behaviour, physiology and brain activity) and the sights and sounds in our everyday environment (physical and social)? We differentiate between contingent responsiveness (entrainment driven by evoked responses to external events) and oscillatory entrainment (driven by internal oscillators becoming temporally aligned with external oscillators). We conclude that ample evidence suggests that children show behavioural, physiological and neural entrainment to their physical and social environment, irrespective of volitional attention control; however, evidence for oscillatory entrainment beyond contingent responsiveness is currently lacking. Evidence for how oscillatory entrainment changes over developmental time is also lacking. Finally, we suggest a mechanism through which periodic environmental rhythms might facilitate both sensory processing and the development of volitional control even in the absence of oscillatory entrainment., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

This paper tackles the global polynomial periodicity (GPP) and global polynomial stability (GPS) for proportional delay Cohen-Grossberg neural networks (PDCGNNs). By adopting two transformations, designing opportune Lyapunov functionals (LFs) with tunable parameters and taking inequality skills, several delay-dependent criteria of GPP and GPS are acquired for the PDCGNNs. Here the GPP is also a kind of global asymptotic periodicity (GAP), but it has obvious convergence rate and convergence order, and its convergence rate is slower than that of global exponential periodicity (GEP). This is of great significance to the detailed division of periodicity in theory. These acquired criteria are confirmed by a numerical example with four cases. Simultaneously, through the numerical example, the acquired criteria also fully demonstrate their superiority in comparison with existing results. And, in another example, a GPS criterion is used to solve a quadratic programming problem (QPP) to reflect one of the practical applications of the PDCGNNs., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Since the term Stimulus-Induced Rhythmic, Periodic, or Ictal Discharges (SIRPIDs) was introduced into the vocabulary of electrophysiologists/neurologists, there has been an ongoing debate about its significance, as well as its correlation with outcomes. SIRPIDs are frequently seen in patients who are critically ill from various causes. The literature reflects the findings of triphasic morphology, with the generalized periodic discharge (GPD) classification in many patients with SIRPIDs: toxic/metabolic encephalopathies, septic, and hypoxemic/hypercapnic encephalopathies, but also sharp periodic complexes in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and advanced Alzheimer's disease. In these settings, GPDs disappear when patients fall asleep and reappear when patients spontaneously wake up, or are awoken by an external stimulus, or sometimes because of a respiratory event, with the possibility of the appearance of GPDs with a cyclic alternating pattern. SIRPIDs may be seen as a transitional pattern between sleep and waking states, corresponding to a postarousal/awakening phenomenon. As SIRPIDs are a transient phenomenon and can usually be recorded repeatedly with each stimulation, the word "Ictal" could be replaced by "Intermittent": Stimulus-Induced Rhythmic or Periodic Intermittent Discharges. However, considering that SIRPIDs may be "potentially ictal" or on an "ictal-interictal continuum" in some situations, the "plus" modifier may be added: SIRPIDs-plus., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Clock genes express circadian rhythms in most organs. These rhythms are organized throughout the whole body, regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the brain. Disturbance of these clock gene expression rhythms is a risk factor for diseases such as obesity. In the present study, to explore the role of clock genes in developing diabetes, we examined the effect of streptozotocin (STZ)-induced high glucose on Period1 (Per1) gene expression rhythm in the liver and the olfactory bub (OB) in the brain. We found a drastic increase of Per1 expression in both tissues after STZ injection while blood glucose content was low. After a rapid expression peak, Per1 expression showed no rhythm. Associated with an increase of glucose content, behavior became arrhythmic. Finally, we succeeded in detecting an increase of Per1 expression in mice hair follicles on day 1 after STZ administration, before the onset of symptoms. These results show that elevated Per1 expression by STZ plays an important role in the aggravation of diabetes., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The growth of detrimental biofilms on metal surfaces affects their structural performance and lifespan. Microtopographic texturization has emerged as an approach to suppress biofilm growth by preventing the initial stages of bacterial adhesion. This work studies the effects of linear pattern copper texturization on the initial adhesion steps of the biofilm-forming and copper-resistant bacterium Variovorax sp. Linear patterns with 4.7, 6.8, 14, and 18 μm periodicity were produced by direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) on copper coupons. Surface features were characterized by microscopic and spectroscopic techniques, and bacterial adhesion behavior was characterized by epifluorescence microscopy and functionalization of atomic force microscopy tips. We found a periodicity of 4.7 μm as the most efficient pattern to suppress Variovorax sp. initial adhesion by 31.1 % with respect to the nontextured surface. Preferential settlement in hummocks over hollows was observed for patterns with 14 and 18 μm periodicity, with adhesion events showing higher frequency in these topographies than patterns with periodicities of 4.7 and 6.8 μm. Our results highlight an understanding of the initial bacteria-copper adhesion and settlement behavior, thus contributing to the potential development of innocuous strategies for controlling biofilm growth on copper-based materials., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The ongoing global pandemic of infection disease COVID-19 caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-COV-2, formerly 2019-nCoV) presents critical threats to public health and the economy. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 had been sequenced and structurally annotated, yet little is known of the intrinsic organization and evolution of the genome. To this end, we present a mathematical method for the genomic spectrum, a kind of barcode, of SARS-CoV-2 and common human coronaviruses. The genomic spectrum is constructed according to the periodic distributions of nucleotides and therefore reflects the unique characteristics of the genome. The results demonstrate that coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 exhibits predominant latent periodicity-2 regions of non-structural proteins 3, 4, 5, and 6. Further analysis of the latent periodicity-2 regions suggests that the dinucleotide imbalances are increased during evolution and may confer the evolutionary fitness of the virus. Especially, SARS-CoV-2 isolates have increased latent periodicity-2 and periodicity-3 during COVID-19 pandemic. The special strong periodicity-2 regions and the intensity of periodicity-2 in the SARS-CoV-2 whole genome may become diagnostic and pharmaceutical targets in monitoring and curing the COVID-19 disease., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The concentrations of progesterone (P4) and a metabolite of PGF2α (PGFM) in mares were compared between the interovulatory interval (IOI; n = 8) and the corresponding days of pregnancy (n = 9). In daily blood samples, P4 increased between the day of ovulation (Day 0) and ∼Day 6 and then gradually decreased until the beginning of luteolysis in the IOI group. Before the beginning of luteolysis, there were no significant differences in P4 concentrations between the IOI and early pregnancy. In the IOI, PGFM concentration on the day before the beginning of luteolysis began to increase (P < 0.04) and reached a maximum mean (42.9 ± 11.6 pg/mL) on Day 14. In pregnancy, a novel increase in PGFM occurred from Day 12 to a maximum mean on Day 15 (16.7 ± 3.1 pg/mL). Daily PGFM concentrations were not different between the two groups until the increase just before luteolysis in the IOI. During 8-h sessions of hourly blood sampling, the mean and maximum PGFM concentrations were significantly greater in IOI than in pregnancy for each 8-h session on Days 13, 14, and 15. The minimum was not different between groups on any day. Pulses of PGFM were identified by coefficient of variation during the hourly 8-h sessions on day-sets of Days 4-7, 9-11, and 13-16. Despite the PGFM increase in daily samples between Days 12 and 15 of pregnancy, the amplitude and peaks of CV-identified pulses did not differ in the pregnant mares among the three day-sets. The pulses were similarly small for day-sets 4-7 and 9-11 in the IOI and for all day-sets in pregnancy (eg, amplitude on Days 13-16: 43.4 ± 15.6 pg/mL vs 5.4 ± 1.1 pg/mL for IOI vs pregnancy). Hypothesis 1 was not supported that daily PGFM concentrations in an IOI increase at the intersection between the end of the rapid P4 increase and the gradual P4 decrease. Hypothesis 2 was supported that pregnant mares have low amplitude PGFM pulses during the days of the high amplitude pulses at luteolysis in the IOI., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Amino acid availability is a regulatory factor of protein anabolism and is partly dependent on enteral amino acid uptake. During continuous enteral feeding, enteral amino acid uptake may vary considerably, but this has not been documented systematically., Methods: In this pragmatic study, we investigated patients in the intensive care unit (n = 10) and healthy adults (n = 10). The time course of essential amino acid concentrations in arterial plasma and the uptake of dietary phenylalanine were recorded during 12 hours of continuous enteral feeding, using a 13 C-labeled phenylalanine tracer., Results: Plasma essential amino acid concentrations and 13 C-phenylalanine enrichment reached a tentative steady state after no more than 4.5 h from start of tracer infusion. There was a large intra- and inter-individual variability in both cohorts. No periodicity could be detected in the temporal variation., Conclusion: During continuous enteral feeding, uptake of amino acids shows large intra- and inter-individual variation. A tentative steady state of 13 C-phenylalanine uptake is eventually reached., Trial Registration: Registered at Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, trial ID ACTRN12616000593437., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest Felix Liebau received a speaker honorarium from Baxter. Olav Rooyackers is a consultant for Fresenius-Kabi and is occasionally paid for lectures by Fresenius-Kabi, Nestle, Nutricia and Baxter. Jan Wernerman has been paid for lectures and advisory boards by Nestle, GE Health Care, Nutricia, Baxter and Fresenius. Emilie Király and Daniel Olsson declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To investigate the influence of external factors such as lunar and meteorological effects on the frequency of birth deliveries. It includes the lunar gravitational force using the scarcely investigated lunar apogee and perigee (furthest and closest distance to earth, respectively)., Material and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the medical records of all spontaneous single deliveries during a 4 year period (2015-2018). A statistical analysis was performed on the relationship of the deliveries using birth rates with qualitative lunar variables (four classic phases, lunar apogee- perigee, and super moons) and quantitative atmospheric variables (mean atmospheric pressures, mean temperature, and mean wind velocity)., Results: No relationship was found between the variables studied and the birth rate. There were periods with more births in the months of May and June., Conclusion: Despite the myth on the meteorological, and in particular, the lunar influence on birth deliveries, no statistical association was found to support this. Furthermore, the classic moon phases and the lunar gravitational force do not seem to trigger birth delivery either., (Copyright © 2020 Asociación Española de Pediatría. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)

Introducing males to seasonally anestrous females has been shown to increase LH concentrations and hasten the first ovulation in ewes and goat does. Investigation of this sociosexual phenomenon in mares has not been well studied. The objective of this study was to determine if direct or indirect exposure of anestrous mares to a stallion would result in a similar increase in LH and hasten the first ovulation. In late February, mares were stratified by parity and age and assigned randomly to three treatments (n = 7/treatment): (1) DXP (direct exposure; mares housed adjacent to stallion and allowed direct contact for 2 h for 3 d/wk by placing the stallion into a cage in the center of a tease pen); (2) IXP (indirect exposure; mares housed in an adjacent pen to the stallion but not allowed direct contact); and (3) CON (control; mares housed away from stallion and not allowed direct or indirect exposure). During the first, third, and fifth treatment days, blood was collected hourly for 8 h beginning just before treatment initiation for measurement of LH and prolactin (PRL) concentrations. Hormone concentrations were analyzed as repeated measures and time from the first day of treatment to ovulation was analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Interval from treatment initiation to first ovulation did not differ (P > 0.05) among treatments: 36.3 ± 6.7, 42.8 ± 4.2, and 48.3 ± 4.2 d for DXP, IXP, and CON, respectively. When comparing the mares based on social status within treatment and level of direct interaction with the stallion, socially dominant DXP mares ovulated sooner (P < 0.05) than socially subordinate DXP mares (23.8 ± 3.2 and 53.0 ± 6.8 d, respectively). Although LH concentrations did not differ (P > 0.05) among treatments, a significant (P < 0.05) day effect was detected with concentrations being greater on the fifth treatment day compared with the first and third days. Concentrations of PRL were greater (P < 0.05) in IXP compared with DXP and CON, regardless of treatment day. Regardless of treatment, PRL concentrations were greater (P < 0.05) on the third treatment day, compared with the first and fifth days. We conclude that exposure of anestrous mares to a stallion, whether direct or indirect, to anestrous mares failed to elicit the same effects that have been observed in short-day breeders. The effect of stallion exposure on the onset of cyclicity in anestrous mares may be dependent on the duration of direct contact., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

We studied the dynamics of dengue disease in two epidemic regions in Sri Lanka, the densely populated Colombo district representing the wet zone and the relatively less populated Batticaloa district representing the dry zone. Regional differences in disease dynamics were analysed against regional weather factors. Wavelets, Granger causality and regression methods were used. The difference between the dynamical features of these two regions may be explained by the differences in the climatic characteristics of the two regions. Wavelet analysis revealed that Colombo dengue incidence has 6 months periodicity while Batticaloa dengue incidence has 1 year periodicity. This is well explained by the dominant 6 months periodicity in Colombo rainfall and 1 year periodicity in Batticaloa rainfall. The association between dengue incidence and temperature was negative in dry Batticaloa and was insignificant in wet Colombo. Granger causality results indicated that rainfall, rainy days, relative humidity and wind speed can be used to predict Colombo dengue incidence while only rainfall and relative humidity were significant in Batticaloa. Negative binomial and linear regression models were used to identify the weather variables which best explain the variations in dengue incidence. Most recent available incidence data performed as best explanatory variables, outweighing the importance of past weather data. Therefore we recommend the health authorities to closely monitor the number of cases and to streamline recording procedures so that most recent data are available for early detection of epidemics. We also noted that epidemic responses to weather changes appear quickly in densely populated Colombo compared to less populated Batticaloa. The past dengue incidence and weather variables explain the dengue incidence better in Batticaloa than in Colombo and thus other exogenous factors such as population density and human mobility may be affecting Colombo dengue incidence., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

A single pulse of TMS or direct electric stimulation over M1 causes repetitive synchronized firing of corticospinal tract (CST) neurons. Two mechanisms for the repetitive firing have been proposed: a cascade of synaptic inputs to the pyramidal neurons and a single reverberating circuit of interneurons. Here, we propose another possibility in which bursting of CST neurons is produced by dendritic Ca 2+ -spikes. Backpropagation of the initial action potential (I1-wave) from the soma interacts with synaptic input in the dendrites to initiate a dendritic calcium spike. These Ca 2+ -spikes produce a burst of somatic action potentials that starts about 1.5 ms after the initial discharge of the neuron, which may produce the later I-waves., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Eugenol modulates neuronal activity through actions on voltage-gated ionic channels and/or transient receptor potential channels. We previously suggested that eugenol inhibited cellular (and/or network) mechanisms essential for the maintenance of the respiratory burst activity in a brainstem-spinal cord preparation from newborn rat (postnatal day 0-3). Study of the distinct effects of eugenol in neonatal and later developmental stage rats may offer new information about postnatal developmental changes of respiratory neuron networks. In the present study, therefore, we compared effects of eugenol in an in vitro newborn rat preparation with those in an arterially perfused in situ preparation from juvenile rat (postnatal day 12-15). In the former preparation, application of 1 mM eugenol decreased respiratory rate and inspiratory burst duration. In contrast, in the latter preparation, 1 mM eugenol induced a gradual decrease in the amplitude of integrated phrenic nerve activity. Phrenic nerve activity gradually recovered at 25-30 min after washout with a burst duration similar to control values. We hypothesized that the depressant effects of eugenol were caused by inhibition of cell excitability in the neonatal rat in vitro preparation but by a reduction of synaptic interactions in the juvenile rat in situ preparation., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. and Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.)

Neural oscillations synchronize with the periodicity of external stimuli such as the rhythm of the speech amplitude envelope. This synchronization induces a speech-specific, replicable neural phase pattern across trials and enables perceived speech to be classified. In this study, we hypothesized that neural oscillations during articulatory imagination of speech could also synchronize with the rhythm of speech imagery. To validate the hypothesis, after replacing the imagined speech with overt speech due to the physically unobservable nature of imagined speech, we investigated (1) whether the EEG-based regressed speech envelopes correlate with the overt speech envelope and (2) whether EEG during the imagined speech can classify speech stimuli with different envelopes. The variability of the duration of the imagined speech across trials was corrected using dynamic time warping. The classification was based on the distance between a test data and a template waveform of each class. Results showed a significant correlation between the EEG-based regressed envelope and the overt speech envelope. The average classification accuracy was 38.5%, which is significantly above the rate of chance (33.3%). These results demonstrate the synchronization between EEG during the imagined speech and the envelope of the overt counterpart., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. and Japan Neuroscience Society. All rights reserved.)

Repeated outbreaks of Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) infections have been observed in recent decades and dominated by various enteroviral serotypes. In particular, enterovirus 71 (EV-A71), coxsackievirus A16 (CV-A16) and coxsackievirus A6 (CV-A6) dominated the prevalence of HFMD infections alternatively in recent years with various outbreak sizes in Baoji, a city of Shaanxi Province in Northwest China. Estimating the reproduction number for various enteroviruses serotypes in northwest China (north temperate zone) and identification of cyclicity of HFMD infections are therefore an issue of great importance for future epidemics prediction and control. The basic/effective reproduction numbers for EV-A71, CV-A16 and CV-A6 were estimated based on daily new cases in 2010, 2011 and 2018, respectively, in which the corresponding pathogen dominated the epidemic. Two different methods based on serial interval were adopted and the basic reproduction number were estimated to be in the range of (1.33, 1.46) for CV-A16, (1.20, 1.29) for EV-A71, and (1.38, 1.59) for CV-A6, respectively. The estimated daily effective reproduction numbers significantly fluctuated before June or after July but varied mildly in (0.5,2) in around June to July for three serotypes. The weekly effective reproduction number for HFMD was estimated based on weekly new cases from year 2010 to 2018, and in most years it peaked in the range of (1.6,2.0) in February to March as well as in the range of (1.0,1.2) in September to October. The wavelet analysis based on the time series of HFMD cases from 2008 to 2018 showed obvious annual and semi-annual cyclicity, while the inter-annual cycles are infeasible. In this study we found that CV-A6 shows the greatest transmission ability among these three pathogens while EV-A71 exhibits the weakest ability of transmission, and moreover, the estimated values of basic reproduction number in northwest China are lower than those in Singapore, Hongkong and Guangdong, which may be due to different climatic circumstances., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)