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In this study, a composite wall material was prepared by blending whey protein isolate-D-xylose mixture and their Maillard reaction product with sodium alginate, which were then used for encapsulating proanthocyanidin to fabricate proanthocyanidin microcapsules. By characterizing the morphology, investigating stability, and assessing the in vitro antioxidant activity of different proanthocyanidin microcapsules, the advantages of microencapsulation of proanthocyanidin and the superiority of using Maillard reaction product as a wall material were elucidated. The results indicated that the microcapsules formed using the Maillard reaction product achieved an encapsulation efficiency of 98.60%±0.09%, with a proanthocyanidin content of 49.97±0.87 mg/g and a particle size of 1219.61±388.24 μm, exhibiting good granular morphology. Compared to microcapsules without the Maillard reaction, those formed with it demonstrated enhanced stability under conditions of 90 ℃, pH≤4, pH=10, and in gastric digestion fluid. Furthermore, when the proanthocyanidin concentration reached 30 μg/mL, the microcapsules formed with the Maillard reaction product exhibited stronger in vitro antioxidant activity. This study lays the groundwork for further development and utilization of proanthocyanidin microcapsules, offering new insights into the development and advancement of proanthocyanidin microcapsule food products.

Abstract Background Frailty often requires intensive care, and the admission outcomes of frail patients are often poor. However, owing to the lack of reliable diagnostic indicators, quickly identifying frailty is challenging. The present study aimed to explore the associations of the platelet/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (PHR; a novel inflammatory indicator) with frailty and all-cause mortality. Methods The present study analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) from 2005 to 2018. Frailty was assessed on the basis of the 49-item Frailty Index. The associations of the PHR with frailty and long-term survival prognosis were explored through weighted logistic regression, weighted restricted cubic spline (RCS), and weighted Cox regression, with adjustments for demographic factors, lifestyle, blood lipids, medication history, and complications. In addition, subgroup and interaction analyses were conducted. Finally, several sensitivity analyses were performed. Results A total of 15,615 adult participants were included, with 7,928 women (53.63%) and an average age of 60.76 years. After fully adjusting for confounding variables, the prevalence of frailty in the highest PHR quartile group of was significantly greater than that in the lowest quartile group (OR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.04–1.47; P = 0.02). The RCS showed that the inflection point was 166.7. Before and after the inflection point, the PHR was negatively associated (OR: 0.88, 95% CI: 0.80–0.97, P = 0.01) and positively associated (OR: 1.10, 95% CI: 1.02–1.19, P = 0.01) with frailty, respectively. Subgroup analysis suggested that the association between PHR and frailty was stronger in women than in men. A total of 5,544 frail participants were included in the survival analysis. The RCS revealed that the PHR was associated with the all-cause mortality risk of frail participants in a U-shaped manner, with an inflection point of 240.4. Before and after the inflection point, the PHR decreased (HR: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.81–0.97, P = 0.01) and the all-cause mortality risk increased (HR: 1.08, 95% CI: 1.02–1.14, P = 0.01), respectively. Conclusion The present study suggests that there is a J-shaped association between PHR and frailty in the adult population of the United States and that the association between the PHR and frailty is stronger in women. In addition, the PHR has a U-shaped relationship with the all-cause mortality risk of frail patients.

Abstract Background and Objective Klotho is a protein that is closely related to human aging. Soluble Klotho (S-Klotho) is a circulating protein, and its level decreases in response to systemic inflammation. The relationship between the platelet/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (PHR), an emerging inflammatory index, and S-Klotho concentrations is still unclear. In addition, the mean platelet volume has been confirmed to have a significant negative association with S-Klotho concentrations, but the relationship between the platelet count (PC) and S-Klotho concentrations has not yet been reported. Methods Data from individuals who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) during the five cycles from 2007 to 2016 were retrieved for analysis. Linear regression, two-piecewise linear regression, and restricted cubic spline (RCS) methods were used to analyze the associations of the PHR index and its components with S-Klotho concentrations. In addition, subgroup analysis and effect modification tests were conducted. Results A total of 11,123 participants (5463 men (48.17%)), with an average age of 56.2 years, were included. After full adjustment, the S-Klotho levels of participants in the highest quartile group of PHR (β: -51.19, 95% CI: -75.41 to -26.97, P

HSP60 is implicated in many biological functions and plays a key role in maintaining oxidative stress and preserving mitochondrial integrity. Our previous study showed that HSP60 inhibits apoptosis. In this study, we further investigated the mechanism of apoptosis inhibition by HSP60. First, the CRISPR-Cas9 system was employed to establish the HSP60 knockout DF-1 cell line (DF-1-HSP60-KO), and the apoptosis level of DF-1-HSP60-KO cell line was assessed by flow cytometry and ELISA apoptosis kit. Then, the effect of knockdout of HSP60 on relevant apoptotic factors was assessed by Western blotting and RT-PCR analysis. The results showed that compared with the control DF-1 cells, HSP60 knockdout cells indicated significantly increased apoptosis rates, decreased Bax expression, and enhanced Caspase 3 expression. This suggests that the HSP60 knockout induces apoptosis by up-regulating Caspase 3 and down-regulating Bax expression. The structure of the HSP60 mitochondrial signal peptide (MIT) protein was predicted using Pymol software, which revealed that His amino acid at the 21st position affects its spatial structure. In addition, the transfection of HSP60 mutant protein (TB) into DF-1-HSP60-KO cells and induction with Bardoxolone MethyI significantly increased the apoptosis rates and reduced cell viability compared to the wild-type HSP60 group, inducing differential changes in genes such as Bax, Bak, and Bcl-2. Together, these findings suggest that the HSP60 MIT's His amino acid at site 21 modulates the levels of genes associated with the apoptosis signaling pathway, thereby inhibiting apoptosis. This study reveals the regulatory role of HSP60 in apoptosis through its mitochondrial signal peptide, which will have potential medical value.

Abstract Background noises are usually treated as redundant or even harmful to voice conversion. Therefore, when converting noisy speech, a pretrained module of speech separation is usually deployed to estimate clean speech prior to the conversion. However, this can lead to speech distortion due to the mismatch between the separation module and the conversion one. In this paper, a noise-robust voice conversion model is proposed, where a user can choose to retain or to remove the background sounds freely. Firstly, a speech separation module with a dual-decoder structure is proposed, where two decoders decode the denoised speech and the background sounds, respectively. A bridge module is used to capture the interactions between the denoised speech and the background sounds in parallel layers through information exchanging. Subsequently, a voice conversion module with multiple encoders to convert the estimated clean speech from the speech separation model. Finally, the speech separation and voice conversion module are jointly trained using a loss function combining cycle loss and mutual information loss, aiming to improve the decoupling efficacy among speech contents, pitch, and speaker identity. Experimental results show that the proposed model obtains significant improvements in both subjective and objective evaluation metrics compared with the existing baselines. The speech naturalness and speaker similarity of the converted speech are 3.47 and 3.43, respectively.

The experiment investigated the effects of sea-buckthorn flavonoids (SF) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-challenged broilers. A total of 288 one-day-old male broilers were randomly assigned to 4 groups, with 6 replicates of 12 broilers each. The experiment lasted for 20 days. The diet included two levels of SF (0 or 1000 mg/kg) and broilers intraperitoneally injected with 500 μg/kg LPS on 16, 18, and 20 days, or an equal amount of saline. LPS challenge decreased final body weight, average daily gain, and average daily feed intake, increased feed-to-gain ratio, and elevated serum IL-1β, IL-2, TNF-α, D-LA, and endotoxin levels. Moreover, it resulted in a reduction in the IL-10 level. LPS impaired the intestinal morphology of the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum, down-regulated the mRNA relative expression of Occludin, ZO-1, and MUC-2 in the jejunum mucosa, up-regulated the mRNA relative expression of TLR4, MyD88, NF-κB, and IL-1β, and increased the relative abundance of Erysipelatoclostridium in broilers (p < 0.05). However, SF supplementation mitigated the decrease in growth performance, reduced serum IL-1β, IL-2, and D-LA levels, increased IL-10 levels, alleviated intestinal morphological damage, up-regulated mRNA expression of Occludin and ZO-1, down-regulated the mRNA expression of TLR4, NF-κB, and IL-lβ in jejunum mucosal (p < 0.05), and SF supplementation presented a tendency to decrease the relative abundance of proteobacteria (0.05 < p < 0.1). Collectively, incorporating SF can enhance the growth performance, alleviate serum inflammation, and improve the intestinal health of broilers, effectively mitigating the damage triggered by LPS-challenges.

BackgroundExcessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) is a frequent nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD), which seriously affects the quality of life of PD patients and exacerbates other nonmotor symptoms. Previous studies have used static analyses of these resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data were measured under the assumption that the intrinsic fluctuations during MRI scans are stationary. However, dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) analysis captures time-varying connectivity over short time scales and may reveal complex functional tissues in the brain.PurposeTo identify dynamic functional connectivity characteristics in PD-EDS patients in order to explain the underlying neuropathological mechanisms.MethodsBased on rs-fMRI data from 16 PD patients with EDS and 41 PD patients without EDS, we applied the sliding window approach, k-means clustering and independent component analysis to estimate the inherent dynamic connectivity states associated with EDS in PD patients and investigated the differences between groups. Furthermore, to assess the correlations between the altered temporal properties and the Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) scores.ResultsWe found four distinct functional connectivity states in PD patients. The patients in the PD-EDS group showed increased fractional time and mean dwell time in state IV, which was characterized by strong connectivity in the sensorimotor (SMN) and visual (VIS) networks, and reduced fractional time in state I, which was characterized by strong positive connectivity intranetwork of the default mode network (DMN) and VIS, while negative connectivity internetwork between the DMN and VIS. Moreover, the ESS scores were positively correlated with fraction time in state IV.ConclusionOur results indicated that the strong connectivity within and between the SMN and VIS was characteristic of EDS in PD patients, which may be a potential marker of pathophysiological features related to EDS in PD patients.

Natto is rich in nutrients and has many beneficial effects on the human body, but it has a harsh ammonia taste that makes it difficult to be accepted by people. This study investigated the effects of soaking time, inoculum amount, fermentation time and fermentation temperature on high-protein natto using high-protein soybeans as raw material, and determined the best preparation process for high-protein natto, and then added super sweet corn to improve the flavour and acceptability of natto. The results showed that natto drawing effect was the best under the condition of 10 g of high-protein soybean, soaking time of 20 h, sterilization amount of 8%, fermentation time of 26 h, fermentation temperature of 36 ℃, the pungent odor was reduced, and the sensory score was up to 97.85 points, on the basis of this process, under the condition of a composite ratio of 8:2 of high-protein soybean and super sweet corn, the nattokinase enzyme activity of natto reached 1134.76 U/g, and the volatile salt-based nitrogen content was 32.87 mg/g. At the same time, the electronic nose and electronic tongue test could clearly distinguish natto with different raw material proportions, and natto had the best flavor and the best sensory quality.

Abstract Psoralea corylifolia L. (PCL), referred to as “Bu-gu-zhi” in Chinese, has great medicinal values since ancient times. PCL is the dried ripe fruit of Psoralea corylifolia L., which has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the treatment of kidney-yang deficiency, enuresis and urinary frequency, chills and pain of the waist and knees, dawn diarrhea and vitiligo. In this paper, a systematic of the botany, traditional uses, phytochemistry, pharmacology, toxicology, quality control and pharmacokinetics of PCL was presented, along with future research directions. According to the results, PCL contains approximately 163 chemical components, including coumarins, flavonoids, monoterpene phenols, benzofurans, glycosides, lipids, fatty acids, and volatile oils. PCL and its active ingredients have a variety of pharmacological activities, such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, antioxidant, antitumor, antiosteoporosis, cardioprotective, neuroprotective, and immunomodulatory. Further study of quality control standards and potential mechanisms of PCL is also needed. In addition, more toxicological studies will also contribute to the progress of clinical trials.

As a promising modality for cancer therapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT) still acquired limited success in clinical nowadays due to the extremely serious hypoxia and immunosuppression tumor microenvironment. To ameliorate such a situation, we rationally designed and prepared cascade two-stage re-oxygenation and immune re-sensitization BSA-MHI148@SRF nanoparticles via hydrophilic and hydrophobic self-assembly strategy by using near-infrared photodynamic dye MHI148 chemically modified bovine serum albumin (BSA-MHI148) and multi-kinase inhibitor Sorafenib (SRF) as a novel tumor oxygen and immune microenvironment regulation drug. Benefiting from the accumulation of SRF in tumors, BSA-MHI148@SRF nanoparticles dramatically enhanced the PDT efficacy by promoting cascade two-stage tumor re-oxygenation mechanisms: (i) SRF decreased tumor oxygen consumption via inhibiting mitochondria respiratory. (ii) SRF increased the oxygen supply via inducing tumor vessel normalization. Meanwhile, the immunosuppression micro-environment was also obviously reversed by two-stage immune re-sensitization as follows: (i) Enhanced immunogenic cell death (ICD) production amplified by BSA-MHI148@SRF induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation enhanced T cell infiltration and improve its tumor cell killing ability. (ii) BSA-MHI148@SRF amplified tumor vessel normalization by VEGF inhibition also obviously reversed the tumor immune-suppression microenvironment. Finally, the growth of solid tumors was significantly depressed by such well-designed BSA-MHI148@SRF nanoparticles, which could be potential for clinical cancer therapy.

Past studies have shown that spontaneous electroencephalography indicators—namely, the theta/beta power ratio and alpha oscillation—may measure individuals’ attentional control processes. However, there is lack of research distinguishing these differences. This study investigated whether the theta/beta power ratio and alpha oscillation were separately related to the objective and subjective criteria of attentional control in eyes-open and eyes-closed conditions. The results showed two main findings: (1) In the eyes-open condition, the theta/beta power ratio at the Fz and Pz electrode sites were significantly negatively correlated with the attentional control scale score; the alpha power at the Pz electrode site was significantly negatively correlated with flanker RT interference effect; (2) In the eyes-closed condition, the alpha power at the Cz and Pz electrode sites were significantly positively correlated with flanker P3d. In summary, this study showed that the eyes-open spontaneous theta/beta power ratio may reflect individuals’ beliefs in their attentional control ability, and the alpha oscillation may be related to individuals’ attentional control ability.

BackgroundCardiac arrhythmia is a common disease associated with high mortality and morbidity. Circulating leukocyte counts, which serve as a biomarker for assessing systemic immune status, have been linked to arrhythmias in observational studies. However, observational studies are plagued by confounding factors and reverse causality, whether alterations in circulating leukocyte components are causally associated with arrhythmias remains uncertain. The present study explored this question based on genetic evidence.Methods and findingsWe performed Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to evaluate whether alterations in leukocyte counts affect aggregated risk of all types of arrhythmia or risk of five specific types of arrhythmia. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms serving as proxies for leukocyte differential counts were retrieved from the Blood Cell Consortium, and statistical data on arrhythmias were obtained from the UK Biobank), FinnGenand a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for atrial fibrillation. We applied inverse variance-weighted method as the primary analysis, complemented by a series of sensitivity analyses. Bidirectional analyses were conducted to assess reverse causality. Finally, multivariable MR was performed to study the joint effects of multiple risk factors. We found that genetically predicted differential leukocyte counts were not significantly associated with aggregated occurrence of all types of arrhythmia. In contrast, each 1-standard deviation increase in lymphocyte count was associated with 46% higher risk of atrioventricular block (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.11–1.93, p=0.0065). A similar effect size was observed across all MR sensitivity analyses, with no evidence of horizontal pleiotropy. Reverse MR analysis suggested that atrioventricular block was unlikely to cause changes in lymphocyte count. Primary MR analysis based on the inverse-variance weighted method suggested that changes in neutrophil count alter risk of right bundle branch block, and changes in basophil count alter risk of atrial fibrillation. However, these causal relationships were not robust in sensitivity analyses. We found no compelling evidence that neutrophil or lymphocyte counts cause atrial fibrillation.ConclusionOur data support higher lymphocyte count as a causal risk factor for atrioventricular block. These results highlight the importance of immune cells in the pathogenesis of specific cardiac conduction disorders.

In this paper, the image sensor compensation frameworks are established based on the correlation of pixel response characteristics; The pixel response model is established, and a method to measure the crosstalk of adjacent pixels of color image sensor under flat field light is proposed; at the same time, an artificial neural network training set is constructed by using the measured values and theoretical values of pixel response generated by combined exposures; a compensation method of using neural network compensation framework to replace high-dimensional neural network to traverse the image is proposed, which reduces the scale and training complexity of neural network; Finally, the corresponding spatial arrangement data of pixels are transformed into the frequency domain through the Fourier expansion algorithm, and the compensation effect is evaluated according to the change of high-frequency components. According to the experimental results, this method can effectively suppress color aliasing and crosstalk noise of the color image sensor. This paper provides a new method to compensate color aliasing and crosstalk noise.

BackgroundPrevious studies have revealed a high comorbidity between premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and depression; however, whether PMS can longitudinally predict depression has not been examined in large sample studies.MethodsThis study surveyed 8,133 women from the 1973–78 cohort of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Participants completed seven repeated measurements at 3-year intervals starting in 2000 (aged 22–27 years). Binary logistic and multivariate ordered logistic regression models were used to examine the predictive role of self-reported frequency of PMS symptoms in 2000 on self-reported diagnosis of depression and frequency of depressive symptoms, respectively, for each follow-up survey.ResultsSelf-reported frequency of PMS symptoms in the year 2000 predicted self-reported diagnosis of depression in most follow-up surveys. Specifically, compared to women who reported “never” had PMS symptoms in 2000, those who reported “often” had them were more likely to report a diagnosis of depression in 2006 (OR = 1.72), 2012 (OR = 1.88), 2015 (OR = 1.49), and 2018 (OR = 1.90); and those who reported “sometimes” had PMS symptoms in 2000 were more likely to report a diagnosis of depression in 2012 (OR =1.37) and 2018 (OR = 1.59). Furthermore, self-reported frequency of PMS symptoms in 2000 predicted self-reported frequency of depressive symptoms in each follow-up survey. Compared to women who reported “never” had PMS symptoms in 2000, those who reported “sometimes”, or “often”, had PMS symptoms reported depressive symptoms more frequently.ConclusionSelf-reported frequency of PMS can predict the self-reported frequency of depressive symptoms and the subsequent diagnosis of depression.

Potentilla anserina L polysaccharide (PAP) possesses many bioactivities. In the present study, molecular weight, monosaccharide composition, FT-IR, molecular morphology of PAPs were characterized, the result showed that Mw of PAP-1, PAP-2, PAP-3, PAP-4, and PAP-5 were 4.480 × 105 Da , 1.284 × 105 Da, 8.377 × 104 Da, 3.639 × 104 Da, 2.412 × 104 Da; PAPs were composed of Rha, Man, Glc and Gal. And then, ROS, MDA, SOD, and GSH-Px were evaluated after radiation damage by γ-rays in RAW264.7 cells. The results demonstrated that PAPs reduce ROS and MDA content, increase the activity of SOD and GSH-Px. Especially, low-molecular weight, high Gal, and low Glu content PAP-4 possessed a better anti-radiation activity. This study provides a scientific basis for the further structure–activity relationship study of PAPs.

Abstract Background Existing research indicates that tea drinking may exert beneficiary effects on mental health. However, associations between different types of tea intake and mental health such as depression have not been fully examined. The purpose of this study was to examine the associations of green tea, fermented tea, and floral tea consumption with depressive symptoms. Methods We used data from the 2018 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, a nationwide survey on older adults in mainland China. A total of 13,115 participants (mean age 83.7 years, 54.2% were women) with valid responses were included in the analysis. The type (green, fermented [black, Oolong, white, yellow, dark, and compressed teas], and floral) and the frequency of tea consumption were recorded, and depressive symptoms were assessed using 10-item of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-10). We examined the associations between the type and the frequency of tea intake and depression, controlling for a set of demographic, socioeconomic, psychosocial, behavioral, and health-related variables. Results Overall, intakes of green tea, fermented tea, and floral tea were all significantly associated with lower prevalence of depressive symptoms, independent of other risk factors. Compared with the group of no tea intake, the adjusted ORs of depressive symptoms for daily green tea, fermented tea, and floral tea intake were 0.85 (95% CI: 0.76–0.95), 0.87 (95% CI: 0.76–0.99), and 0.70 (95% CI: 0.59–0.82), respectively. Linear associations were observed between the frequencies of all three types of tea intake and depressive symptoms (P

Understanding the accumulation characteristics of heavy metals in the growth process of American ginseng can provide theoretical support for its safe production. In this study, the content of Cu, Mn, As, Pb, Cd, Cr, and Ni in American ginseng (annual, biennial, and triennial) and planting soil were determined using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LCP-MS). In addition, the change in the content of these heavy metals in American ginseng was evaluated after soaking the plant for various time periods. The results indicated that the content of some heavy metals in American ginseng was correlated with soil heavy metal contents. For example, Ni, Cd, and Mn content in American ginseng was significantly negatively correlated with Ni content in soil. American ginseng exhibited distinct heavy metal accumulation characteristics in different parts at different growth stages. For example, in annual American ginseng, Mn and As are mainly enriched in lateral roots and taproots, while in biennial and triennial American ginseng, they are mainly enriched in reed heads. When American ginseng plant was soaked for various time intervals, its heavy metal content changed to varying degrees. In general, after soaking American ginseng for 30 min, the content of most heavy metals decreased.

With the continuous expansion of the UHV AC/DC interconnection scale, online, high-precision, and fast transient stability assessment (TSA) is very important for the safe operation of power grids. In this study, a transient stability assessment method based on the gating spatiotemporal graph neural network (GSTGNN) is proposed. A time-adaptive method is used to improve the accuracy and speed of transient stability assessment. First, in order to reduce the impact of dynamic topology on TSA after fault removal, GSTGNN is used to extract and fuse the key features of topology and attribute information of adjacent nodes to learn the spatial data correlation and improve the evaluation accuracy. Then, the extracted features are input into the gated recurrent unit (GRU) to learn the correlation of data at each time. Fast and accurate evaluation results are output from the stability threshold. At the same time, in order to avoid the influence of the quality of training samples, an improved weighted cross entropy loss function with the K-nearest neighbor (KNN) idea is used to deal with the unbalanced training samples. Through the analysis of an example, it is proved from the data visualization that the TSA method can effectively improve the assessment accuracy and shorten the assessment time.

Objectives: To examine the association between quarantine duration and psychological outcomes, social distancing, as well as vaccination intention during the second outbreak of COVID-19 in China.Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in January 2021. Participants were invited to complete the measurement of quarantine duration, social distancing, psychological distress, wellbeing (WHO-5), and vaccination intention. Multiple linear regression and logistic regression were performed to examine the relationship between quarantine duration and psychological distress, wellbeing, social distancing, and vaccination intention.Results: Of the 944 participants, 17.2% of the participants experienced quarantine. Quarantine for 1–7 days increased the social distancing (β = 2.61 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.90–3.33) and vaccination intention (OR = 2.16 95% CI 1.22–3.82). Quarantine for >7 days was associated with the increased social distancing (β = 3.00 95% CI 2.37–3.64) and psychological distress (β = 1.03 95% CI 0.22–1.86), and decreased wellbeing (β = 1.27 95% CI 0.29–2.26).Conclusion: Longer quarantine duration showed increased social distancing, increased psychological distress, and decreased wellbeing. Quarantine for 1–7 days was associated with increased vaccination intention.

Similar to traditional luxuries, affordable luxuries enjoy a high level of perceived product quality and perceived social status, but the effectiveness of price promotions of purchasing affordable luxury products is different from that of traditional luxuries. In order to further investigate the purchases of affordable luxuries, we used event-related potential (ERP) technology to reveal the formation of the purchase intention toward affordable luxuries at original prices (high or low) and current prices (discounted or non-discounted). Compared with the high-priced affordable luxury without a price promotion and the low-priced affordable luxury with a price promotion, consumers showed a stronger intention toward the high-priced affordable luxury with a price promotion, by weighing up three factors, perceived product quality, perceived social status, and perceived monetary saving at the behavioral level. A shorter reaction time emerged in the price promotion condition than in the absent price promotion condition when the original price was low. At the neural level, a decrease in N2 amplitude was found in the high original price and discounted current price condition than the high original price and non-discounted current price condition and the low original price and discounted current price condition, respectively, suggesting that the price information of the latter two conditions might not be the expectation information of subjects, and thus, the enhanced conflict is produced. The high-priced affordable luxury product without a price discount evoked a more positive LPP amplitude than the high-priced affordable luxury product with price promotions or than the low-priced affordable luxury item without price promotions, demonstrating that participants could regard the former as an evaluative inconsistent condition and the latter as evaluative consistent conditions. These results are helpful to better understand the effects of price promotions on purchasing affordable luxury products at different original prices.

Port-wine stains are congenital vascular malformations that affect the quality of life of children and their parents. This study used the Family Dermatology Life Quality Index and Children’s Dermatology Life Quality Index to examine the effects of port-wine stains on the quality of life of children and their parents, including an in-depth, systematic analysis of the moderating effects of the children’s sex and port-wine stain classification. The study included 43 children (25 girls and 18 boys) and their parents. The presence of a port-wine stain had a significantly greater impact on the quality of life of mothers than on that of fathers (p

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.

The solubilities; concentration of four boron species B(OH)3, B(OH)4−, B3O3(OH)4−, and B4O5(OH)42−; and H+ (OH–) in the system Na2O–B2O3–H2O were calculated with the Pitzer model. The boron species B5O6(OH)4− was not considered in the model calculation. The calculated solubility and pH data are in accordance with the experimental results. The Pitzer model can be used to describe the experimental values. The distributions of the four boron species in the solution were obtained. The mole fractions of the four boron species are mainly affected by the ratio of B2O3 and Na2O in the solution. The dominant boron species in the solution saturated with different salts vary greatly. The results can supply a theoretical reference for sodium borate separation from brine.