Search

The variation in improvement among individuals with addiction after abstinence is a critical issue. Here, we aimed to identify robust multimodal markers associated with high response to 8-month abstinence in the individuals with heroin use disorder (HUD) and explore whether the identified markers could be generalized to the individuals with methamphetamine use disorder (MUD). According to the median of craving changes, 53 individuals with HUD with 8-month abstinence were divided into two groups: higher craving reduction and lower craving reduction. At baseline, clinical variables, cortical thickness and subcortical volume, fractional anisotropy (FA) of fibers and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) were extracted. Different strategies (single metric, multimodal neuroimaging fusion and multimodal neuroimaging-clinical data fusion) were used to identify reliable features for discriminating the individuals with HUD with higher craving reduction from those with lower reduction. The generalization ability of the identified features was validated in the 21 individuals with MUD. Multimodal neuroimaging-clinical fusion features with best performance was achieved an 87.1 ± 3.89% average accuracy in individuals with HUD, with a moderate accuracy of 66.7% when generalizing to individuals with MUD. The multimodal neuroimaging features, primarily converging in frontal regions (e.g., the left superior frontal (LSF) thickness, FA of the LSF-occipital tract, and RSFC of left middle frontal-right superior temporal lobe), collectively contributed to prediction alongside dosage and attention impulsiveness. In this study, we identified the validated multimodal frontal neuroimaging markers associated with higher response to long-term abstinence and revealed insights for the neural mechanisms of addiction abstinence, contributing to clinical strategies and treatment for addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an experimental investigation was conducted to investigate the control effect of self-issuing jets — positioned on the lower inclined panels of a bridge deck — on suppression of vertical vortex-induced vibrations (VIVs). Two cases were considered, i.e., decks with and without auxiliary attachments (handrails and maintenance rails), corresponding to the serviceability and construction period, respectively. The vertical oscillating response, surface pressures, and aerodynamic forces are considered to reveal the control mechanism of self-issuing jets on the flow field around the section model. The results demonstrate that the self-issuing jet method effectively suppresses the VIV of the streamlined deck under an angle range of attack of -5 – 5° by reducing the fluctuating surface pressure and vortex-excited lift. For the bridge deck with attachments, no VIV is observed under the effect of self-issuing jets, indicating that this method can also fully suppress the VIV excited by the motion-induced vortex. • Passive jet method is proposed for optimizing aerodynamic performances and vortex-induced vibration of a bridge deck. • Jet control effect on aerodynamics of the deck during construction and service stage is analyzed. • Three-dimensional changes in local pressure distributions are focused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroscientists have devoted efforts to explore potential brain recovery after prolonged abstinence in heroin users (HU). However, not much is known about whether frontostriatal circuits can recover after prolonged abstinence in HU. An eight-month longitudinal study was carried out for HU. Two MRI scans were obtained at baseline (HU1) and 8-month follow-up (HU2). The functional and structural connectivities of dorsal and ventral frontostriatal pathways were measured by resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Correlation analyses were employed to reveal the associations between neuroimaging and behavioral changes. Results suggested that relative to healthy controls (HCs), HU1 showed lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-to-caudate tracts and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC)-to-nucleus accumbens (NAc) tracts as well as decreased RSFC in the left mOFC-NAc circuits. Longitudinal results revealed reduced craving and enhanced cognitive control in HU2 compared with HU1. After prolonged abstinence, HU2 showed increased FA values in the right DLPFC-caudate and mOFC-NAc tracts as well as increased RSFC strength in the bilateral mOFC-NAc circuits compared with HU1. In addition, changes in RSFC and FA values in the right mOFC-NAc circuit were negatively correlated with craving score changes. Similarly, negative correlations were also found between changes of RSFC in the bilateral DLPFC-caudate circuits and TMT-A scores. We provided scientific evidence for brain recovery of the dorsal and ventral frontostriatal circuits in HU after prolonged abstinence, and these circuits may be potential neuroimaging biomarkers for cognition and craving changes. • Reduced craving and improved cognition were observed in heroin users (HU) after 8-month of abstinence. • Increased RSFC and FA values of frontostriatal were demonstrated in HU after 8 months of abstinence. • ΔRSFC and ΔFA values in the dorsal and ventral circuit were associated with improved cognition and decreased craving. • Time line (baseline and eight-month follow-up) produced a significant main effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition metals as activators of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) are effective catalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants. The construction of multiple active sites is the key for enhanced PMS activation. Herein, we prepared ZIF-8 derived Fe- Ni nitrogen-carbon with highly dispersed bimetallic active sites, achieving a small amount of highly efficient catalytic performance for tetracycline (TC) degradation. The Fe and Ni elements in the catalyst were uniformly dispersed, resulting in a high specific surface area of 367 m2/g. Even at low metal concentrations (Fe=0.83%, Ni=0.33%), Fe-Ni-N-C/PMS showed superior performance in degrading total carbon TC. Its reaction rate constant was 1.71 times higher than Fe-N-C/PMS and 2.13 times higher than Ni-N-C/PMS. This significant improvement was attributed to the synergistic effect of the bimetallic components and the highly dispersed active sites. The mechanism was proposed that Fe-Ni-N-C activates PMS to generate hydroxyl radicals ( • OH), sulfate radicals (SO 4 •− ), superoxide radicals (O 2 •−), and singlet oxygen (1O 2) to further degrade TC. Among them, 1O 2 and SO 4 •−were the main reactive oxygen species. This work has provided a new insight into the development of transition metals with multiple active sites for the degradation of organic pollutants. [Display omitted] • A highly dispersed MOF derivative Fe-Ni-N-C was prepared. • The Fe-Ni-N-C had a large number of exposed active sites. • The dispersed bimetallic active sites in Fe-Ni-N-C efficiently activated PMS. • Fe-Ni-N-C/PMS generated a large amount of free radicals, efficiently degrading TC pollution in water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel microencapsulation of Syringa essential oil (EO) was successfully prepared via the inclusion method, with encapsulation efficiency of 39.52% and loading capacity of 11.54%. Eugenol, caryophyllene and humulene were demonstrated to be the principal constituents in vitro released from Syringa EO microencapsulation (SEOM) independent of the environmental temperature. Furthermore, the potential delivery encapsulated by Syringa EO and 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) synergistically maintained quality attributes and storage behavior of postharvest Prunus persia fruit. The SEOM and/or 1-MCP treatments retained fruit firmness and acidity, as well as inhibited fruit decay and ethylene release. And SEOM promoted ester and terpenoid biosynthesis as well as inhibited aldehyde production in Prunus persia fruit during storage. Image 1 • Novel microencapsulation of Syringa essential oil was successfully prepared. • Eugenol, caryophyllene and humulene were the principal constituents released. • Antifungal activity and SEM images were characterized. • Syringa essential oil and 1-MCP synergistically maintained peach quality. • Syringa essential oil microencapsulation promoted ester and terpenoid biosynthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tyrosine decarboxylase (TYDC) can catalyze tyrosine into tyramine. Several studies demonstrated its roles in the acidity, salidroside and defense response. Here we found that TYDC from Viola  ×  wittrockiana Gam ( VwTYDC ) may contribute to the formation of cyaninc blotches in the petal. VwTYDC gene were cloned from Viola  ×  wittrockiana and the cDNA full-length sequences were 1634 bp encoding 494 amino acids. Gene expression of VwTYDC in different tissues and developmental stages showed that they were significantly higher expressed in flowers than stems, leaves and roots. In addition, VwTYDC expression were higher in cyanic blotches than those observed in acyanic blotches of petal. Metabolites analysis showed the contents of tyramine in cyanic blotches were also higher than that in acyanic areas. Furthermore, in vitro assay revealed the absorption peak of anthocyanins had a red shift and an increase when fed tyramine. We speculated that tyramine might contribute to flower color expression of pansy as co-pigment. Our study demonstrated for the first time that the contents of tyramine led to flower blotches formation in cyanic blotches of the petals in plant flowers, and this may due to the higher expression of VwTYDC gene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study employed the leading-edge suction flow control on a 1:2 rectangular cylinder to control its unsteady aerodynamics. To study the suppression on aerodynamic forces, the surface pressures were measured at the Reynolds number of 1.28 × 104. A dimensionless suction momentum coefficient (C μ) was defined to quantify the suction flow rate. The detailed flow visualization was conducted on the wake flows as well as the leading-edge separated flows to reveal the control mechanism. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis was conducted on the wake flows to study the modal transformations. Results show that the leading-edge suction flow control could significantly affect the flow separation-reattachment characteristics and the present control processing could be divided into five stages with increasing C μ. The lift fluctuation could reach a maximum reduction of 66.4%. Meanwhile, the flow separation at the leading edge was gradually suppressed and eliminated with increasing C μ. The wake flow was compressed in the transverse region and suppressed in the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) as well as the Reynolds shear stress (RSS), which should be responsible for the suppression on the lift fluctuation. • The experiment investigated the aerodynamics and flow patterns of a 1:2 rectangular cylinder based on the leading-edge suction. • The leading-edge suction flow control could significantly affect the flow separation-reattachment characteristics. • With C μ increasing, the flow separation at the leading edge was gradually suppressed, and the wake flow was compressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the associations of anemia with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and learning disability in US children.Study Design: We included children and adolescents aged 3-17 years from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), 1997-2018. Information about physician-diagnosed history of anemia, ASD, ADHD, and learning disability was reported by a parent or guardian. Multiple logistic regression with sample weights was used to estimate the ORs and 95% CIs of neurodevelopmental disorders according to the presence of anemia.Results: Of the total population of 213 893 children aged 3-17 years (mean age [SE], 10.01 [0.01] years), 2379 were reported to have a diagnosis of anemia, for a weighted prevalence of 1.06% (95% CI, 1.01-1.12). The prevalence of ASD was 1.94% (95% CI, 1.20-2.68) among children with anemia and 1.07% (95% CI, 1.01-1.14) among those without anemia. The corresponding prevalences were 12.24% (95% CI, 10.47-14.00) and 7.73% (95% CI, 7.58-7.88) for ADHD and 15.03% (95% CI, 13.08-16.99) and 7.75% (95% CI, 7.39-7.70) for learning disability, respectively. Compared with those without anemia, children with anemia were more likely to have neurodevelopmental disorders, with an aOR of 2.07 (95% CI, 1.39-3.08) for ASD, 1.84 (95% CI, 1.55-2.19) for ADHD, and 2.22 (95% CI, 1.90-2.60) for learning disability.Conclusions: In a nationally representative sample of US children, we found significant associations between anemia and neurodevelopmental disorders including ASD, ADHD, and learning disability. Further investigation is warranted to assess the causality and elucidate the underlying mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The experiment investigated the aerodynamics and flow patterns of a 5:1 rectangular cylinder with spoilers. The spoilers were designed with various widths and angles. • Spoilers with a relative angle of 247.5° significantly can reduce C L ′ by 75% and slightly suppress C D ¯ by 5%. • The spoiler with a certain angle can stabilize the dynamic wake and suppress its fluctuating components, and thus control the aerodynamic forces. The current study experimentally investigates a passive control method for the flow field by placing spoilers symmetrically on the leading edge of a 5:1 rectangular cylinder. The Reynolds number (Re) is based on the inflow velocity and the height of the model. The length of the spoiler is equal to the span length of the model, and the width and angle are defined as w and α. At Re = 1.07 2.50 × 10 4 , the surface pressure distribution of the model is obtained to initially investigate the effects of α and w on the aerodynamic characteristics. Based on the aerodynamic results, some cases are selected to reveal the control mechanism using the particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. The proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is adopted to analyze the POD modes and instantaneous flow. The results show that the spoiler with a certain α can suppress the aerodynamic forces of the model. Spoilers with a relative angle of 247.5° significantly reduce C L ′ by 75 % and slightly reduce C D ¯ by 5.5 %. Also, its TKE and RSS values are reduced by 56 % and 57 %, respectively. The PIV visualization shows that the spoiler affects the flow separation at the leading edge. Then, the rolling and interactions of shear layers are suppressed, making them tend to be parallel. Besides, spoilers with a relative angle of 67.5° almost eliminate the flow separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Chlorogenic acid showed a mixed-type inhibitory action on α-amylase. • Chlorogenic acid altered the secondary structure of α-amylase through hydrogen bonds. • Chlorogenic acid interacted with α-amylase active site or far from its catalytic site. • Chlorogenic acid is a potential inhibitor of α-amylase. The inhibitory mechanism of chlorogenic acid (CHA) against porcine pancreatic α-amylase (PPA) was examined by enzyme kinetic analysis, circular dichroism, fluorescence quenching and molecular docking. As a result, CHA showed a mixed-type inhibitory action on PPA, with the IC 50 value of 0.498 ± 0.013 mg/mL. Analysis of fluorescence and circular dichroism spectra confirmed that CHA altered the secondary structure of PPA, by interacting with the amino acid residues around or distant from the catalytic site of PPA, mainly through hydrogen bonds, and this interaction was closely associated with the enzyme's activity. Molecular docking indicated that the best pose between CHA and PPA was achieved with the binding energy of −7.8 and −7.2 kcal/mol at the active site and inactive site of PPA, respectively. The performed study reveals that CHA has the potential to inhibit the activity of α-amylase, thereby representing a novel idea to delay the digestion of starch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fine-grained recognition is one of the most difficult topics in visual recognition, which aims at distinguishing confusing categories such as bird species within a genus. The information of part and bounding boxes in fine-grained images is very important for improving the performance. However, in real applications, the part and/or bounding box annotations may not exist. This makes fine-grained recognition a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose a jointly trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture to solve the fine-grained recognition problem without using part and bounding box information. In this framework, we first detect part candidates by calculating the gradients of feature maps of a trained CNN model w.r.t. the input image and then filter out unnecessary ones by fusing two saliency detection methods. Meanwhile, two groups of global object locations are obtained based on the saliency detection methods and a segmentation method. With the filtered part candidates and approximate object locations as inputs, we construct the CNN architecture with local parts and global discrimination (LG-CNN) which consists of two CNN networks with shared weights. The upper stream of LG-CNN is focused on the part information of the input image, the bottom stream of LG-CNN is focused on the global input image. LG-CNN is jointly trained by two stream loss functions to guide the updating of the shared weights. Experiments on three popular fine-grained datasets well validate the effectiveness of our proposed LG-CNN architecture. Applying our LG-CNN architecture to generic object recognition datasets also yields superior performance over the directly fine-tuned CNN architecture with a large margin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a novel flow control scheme characterized by active suction through the structured porous surfaces on the side-walls of a square cylinder is introduced and experimentally investigated to control the shear-layer separation and dynamic wake flows. The Reynolds number (Re) is about 1.05 × 104, given the incoming flow speed and diameter of the square cylinder test model. 55 pores are regularly arranged on the top and bottom side-walls of the square cylinder to form communicating channels for the distributed suction flow. In the wind tunnel experiment, a high-speed particle image velocimetry (PIV) system is used to measure the flow field, and then a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method is adopted to obtain dynamic patterns of the wake flow. The experimental results demonstrated that the control effects are closely related with the dimensionless suction momentum coefficient C μ. As C μ increases to 0.0197 and 0.0338, the unsteady wake of the square cylinder is significantly attenuated and the process of flow separation is notably restrained. It is shown that distributed suction through side-walls effectively controls the unsteady shear-layer separation and wake flows of the square cylinder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dopaminergic pathways from the midbrain to striatum as well as cortex are involved in addiction. However, the alternations of these pathways and whether the recoveries of aberrant circuits would be detected after prolonged abstinence in heroin users are rarely known. The resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) patterns of midbrain (i.e., the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and substantia nigra (SN)) were compared between 40 abstinent heroin users with opioid use disorder (HUs) and 35 healthy controls (HCs). Then, we tested the functional recovery hypothesis by both cross-sectional and longitudinal design. For cross-sectional design, HUs were separated into short-term abstainers (STs) (3–15 days) and long-term abstainers (LTs) (>15 days). With regard to longitudinal design, 22 subjects among HUs were followed up for 10 months. A sandwich estimator method was used to analyze the differences between baseline HUs and follow-up HUs. HUs showed lower RSFC between midbrain and several cortical areas (medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and anterior cingulate cortex) compared with HCs. Besides, lower RSFC of VTA-right nucleus accumbens circuit as well as right SN- caudate circuit was also found in HUs. The enhanced RSFC value of VTA-left mOFC circuit was observed in LTs, compared with STs. Additionally, longitudinal design also revealed the increased RSFC values of the midbrain with frontal cortex after 10 months prolonged abstinence. We revealed abnormal functional organizations of midbrain-striato and midbrain-cortical circuits in HUs. More importantly, partially recovery of these dysfunctions can be found after long-term abstinence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ferulic acid inhibited α-amylase/α-glucosidase by mixed/non-competitive mechanisms. • Secondary structures of α-amylase/α-glucosidase were changed by binding ferulic acid. • Non-covalent bonding was the main force between ferulic acid and α-amylase/α-glucosidase. • Ferulic acid is a potential inhibitor of the activity of α-amylase/α-glucosidase. The inhibitory mechanisms of ferulic acid against α-amylase and α-glucosidase were investigated by enzyme kinetic analysis, circular dichroism (CD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, fluorescence quenching and molecular docking. Results indicated that ferulic acid strongly inhibited α-amylase (IC 50 : 0.622 mg ml−1) and α-glucosidase (IC 50 : 0.866 mg ml−1) by mixed and non-competitive mechanisms, respectively. CD spectra and fluorescence intensity measurements confirmed that the secondary structure of α-amylase and α-glucosidase were changed and the microenvironments of certain amino acid residues were modulated by the binding of ferulic acid. FT-IR spectra indicated that the interaction between ferulic acid and α-amylase/α-glucosidase mainly involved in non-covalent bonds. Molecular docking further demonstrated that the interaction forces between ferulic acid and α-amylase/α-glucosidase were hydrogen bonds, with the binding energy of −5.30 to −5.10 and −5.70 kcal mol−1, respectively. This study might provide a theoretical basis for the designing of novel functional foods with ferulic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• BDE-99 exposure at 0.05 or 0.5 μM impeded cerebrovascular growth in zebrafish larvae at 72 hpf. • BDE-99 exposure increased vascular leakage, and induced more pronounced vascular permeability in the head • BDE-99 exposure dramatically suppressed the mRNA expression of VEGF/VEGFR2 and tight junction molecules in the head. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are distributed throughout the environment. Despite a moratorium on their use, concentrations of PBDEs in the atmosphere and in residential environments remain high due to their persistence. The environmental health risks remain concerning and one of the major adverse effects is neurodevelopmental toxicity. However, the early response and effects of PBDEs exposure on the developing brain remain unknown. In the present study, we investigated the impacts of 2,2′,4,4′,5-pentabrominated diphenyl ether (BDE-99) on vascular growth and vascular barrier function with an emphasis on cerebral blood vessels, in the early life stages, using a zebrafish model. No general toxicity was observed in exposing zebrafish larvae to 0-0.5 μM BDE-99 at 72 hpf. BDE-99 exposure resulted in neither general toxicity nor pronounced developmental impairment in somatic blood vessels, including intersegmental vessels (ISV) and common cardinal veins (CCV). Meanwhile, both 0.05 μM and 0.5 μM of BDE-99 reduced cerebrovascular density as well as down-regulation of VEGFA and VEGFR2 in the head. In addition, BDE-99 exposure increased vascular leakage, both in cerebral and truncal vasculature at 72 hpf. The accentuated vascular permeability was observed in the head. The mRNA levels of genes encoding tight junction molecules decreased in the BDE-99-exposed larvae, and more robust reductions in Cldn5 , Zo1 and Jam were detected in the head than in the trunk. Moreover, proinflammatory factors including TNF-α, IL-1β and ICAM-1 were induced, and the expression of neurodevelopment-related genes was suppressed in the head following BDE-99 exposure. Taken together, these results reveal that developmental exposure to BDE-99 impedes cerebrovascular growth and disturbs vascular barrier formation. The cerebral vasculature in developing zebrafish, a more sensitive target for BDE-99, may be a promising tool for the assessment of the early neurodevelopmental effects due to PBDEs exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]