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It is not known whether patients with schizophrenia can improve their ability to learn new information through tests. We conducted two experiments—to explore the forward testing effects in schizophrenic patients in learning a new route—with 124 schizophrenic patients and a control group of 124 randomly selected healthy. All participants were tasked with learning a two-dimensional planar route map consisting of four lists (Experiment 1) and three-dimensional video spatial route information (Experiment 2). Results from Experiment 1 demonstrated that in a two-dimensional planar route map, both schizophrenic and healthy participants recalled the spatial route information under the test condition versus the repetitive learning condition. In Experiment 2, we used three-dimensional video spatial route information and obtained the same results found in Experiment 1. This study suggests that by using preposed tests, patients with schizophrenia could suppress proactive interference and gain general benefits, including forward-backward effects of retrieval practice. Therefore, tests may be a powerful tool for improving learning and memory in patients with schizophrenia.

Temperature affects the emission behavior of formaldehyde from coatings. Initial emittable concentration (C0), diffusion coefficient (Dm) and partition coefficient (K) are three key parameters for characterizing the formaldehyde emission from coatings. However, recent research concerning temperature effect on volatile organic compound (VOC) emission from coatings mainly focused on the influence on gas-phase concentration or emission rate, and few studies were conducted on the correlation between temperature and key emission factors (C0, Dm and K). In this work, formaldehyde emission from a solvent-based coating was measured at 10, 15, 20 and 25°C in a 30 L environmental chamber. From 10 to 25°C, C0 increased by 2.35-fold, and positive linear correlation was observed between ln(C0*T0.5) and 1/T. An empirical equation characterizing temperature effect on K was derived. Temperature effects on Dm were negligible. Through the obtained equations that can characterize the correlation between temperature and the key parameters, C0 and K at different temperatures from this work can be easily calculated. This study would be useful for predicting emission behavior of formaldehyde from solvent-based coatings and better understanding the influence of temperature.

The pyrolysis of furan was studied from 1100 to 1600 K in a flow reactor at low pressure (30 Torr). Synchrotron vacuum ultraviolet photoionization mass spectrometry (SVUV-PIMS) was used for isomeric identification and mole fraction measurements of the pyrolysis products, especially the free radicals. Specific products were observed and measured for the unimolecular decomposition reactions of furan, such as propyne + CO, acetylene + ketene and propargyl radical, etc. An updated combustion model of furan from Somers model was adopted to simulate the mole fraction profiles of the pyrolysis species measured in this work. Kinetic modeling analysis indicated that the decomposition of furan is mainly controlled by the unimolecular decomposition reactions under the investigated conditions. Based on the experimental results and theoretical simulations, propargyl radical is suggested to be mainly formed from the direct unimolecular decomposition of propyne instead of that of furan. In furan pyrolysis, propargyl and phenyl radicals are the most important precursors of large aromatic species.

This paper focuses on the event-triggered dissipative reduced-order filter design problem for continuous-time Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy systems. Firstly, the sufficient conditions are given to ensure the concerned filtering error system is asymptotic stability with (X, Y, Z)-θ-dissipative performance by utilizing the reciprocally convex approach and a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii function. Afterwards, the relevant solvable conditions of the fuzzy-rule-dependent reduced-order filter are established which transform the desired reduced-order filter design into a solvable convex optimization problem by the means of employing the convex linearization method. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the applicability and validity of the proposed dissipative-based reduced-order filter design technique.