A potential avenue of investigating the caregiver-infant relationship lies in caregiver-infant synchrony, which refers to the coordinated interplay of behavioural and physiological signals reflecting ...the bi-directional attunement of one individual to the other’s psychophysiological, cognitive, emotional and behavioural state. Here, we aim to study how early naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions give raise to caregiver-infant attachment, which influences physiological and psychological processes by modulating brain sensitivity. Furthermore, we aim to study how caregiver-infant bond shapes neural pathways involved in socio-emotional regulation in typical and atypical contexts. We present new evidence from fNIRS hyperscanning studies, where we measured simultaneous caregiver (mothers, N=30 and fathers N=38) and child brain activity (N=70). From the mother-child hyperscanning study (Azhari et al., 2019; 2020; 2021), we have found that higher levels of parenting stress are correlated to lower mother-child brain-to-brain synchrony, especially in the areas of the medial left prefrontal cortex. Additionally, maternal anxious attachment (Azhari et al., 2020a) also correlated in lower mother-child synchrony in the frontal and medial left prefrontal regions. These areas contain structures implicated in the inference of mental states and social cognition, highlighting the role of psychological factors such as parenting stress and attachment style in the influence of caregiver-infant bond formation during naturalistic interactions. From the combined mother- and father-child free play sessions (Azhari et al., 2020b), behavioural data revealed that parenting stress and caregivers’ recall of their past bonding experiences their own parents interact with each other to influence the eventual quality of dyadic interaction with their child.
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Biological remediation technologies are an environmentally friendly approach for the treatment of polluted soils. This study evaluated through a pot experiment four bioremediation strategies: a) ...natural attenuation, b) phytoremediation with alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), c) bioaugmentation with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and d) bioaugmentation-assisted phytoremediation, for the treatment of a co-contaminated soil presenting moderate levels of heavy metals (Cu, Pb and Zn at 87, 100 and 110mgkg−1 DW, respectively) and petroleum hydrocarbons (3800mgkg−1 DW). As demonstrated by plant biomass and selected physiological parameters alfalfa plants were able to tolerate and grow in the co-contaminated soil, especially when soil was inoculated with P. aeruginosa, which promoted plant growth (56% and 105% increase for shoots and roots, respectively) and appeared to alleviate plant stress. The content of heavy metals in alfalfa plants was limited and followed the order: Zn>Cu>Pb. Heavy metals were mainly concentrated in plant roots and were poorly translocated, favouring their stabilization in the root zone. Bioaugmentation of planted soil with P. aeruginosa generally led to a decrease of plant metal concentration and translocation. The highest degree of total petroleum hydrocarbon removal was obtained for bioaugmentation-assisted phytoremediation treatment (68%), followed by bioaugmentation (59%), phytoremediation (47%) and natural attenuation (37%). The results of this study demonstrated that the combined use of plant and bacteria was the most advantageous option for the treatment of the present co-contaminated soil, as compared to natural attenuation, bioaugmentation or phytoremediation applied alone.
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•Knowledge on biological remediation of co-contaminated soils is not sufficient.•Bioremediation strategies were compared through a pot experiment in growth-chamber.•Alfalfa was able to tolerate and grow in a moderately co-contaminated soil.•Pseudomonas aeruginosa promoted plant growth and alleviated plant stress.•Alfalfa-Pseudomonas aeruginosa association enhanced petroleum hydrocarbon removal.
This study proposes the supplementation of digestate, fresh organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and a nutrient solution during the anaerobic biostimulation of marine sediments ...contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The experimental activity was conducted with four PAHs (i.e. phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene and pyrene) under controlled mesophilic conditions (37 ± 1 °C) in 100 mL serum bottles maintained at 130 rpm. After 120 days of incubation, the highest total PAH degradation of 53 and 55% was observed in the experiments with digestate + nutrients and OFMSW + nutrients, respectively. Phenanthrene was the most degraded PAH and the highest removal of 69% was achieved with OFMSW + nutrients. The anaerobic PAH degradation proceeded through the accumulation of volatile fatty acids and the production of hydrogen and methane as biogas constituents. The highest cumulative biohydrogen production of 80 mL H2·g VS−1 was obtained when OFMSW was used as the sole amendment, whereas the highest biomethane yield of 140 mL CH4·g VS−1 was obtained with OFMSW + nutrients. The evolution of PAH removal during anaerobic digestion revealed a higher impact of the methanogenic phase rather than acidogenic phase on PAH degradation.
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•The anaerobic biostimulation of PAH-contaminated sediments was investigated.•The addition of digestate, fresh OFMSW and nutrients enhanced PAH degradation.•PAH removal was examined by comparing acidogenic and methanogenic conditions.•The highest PAH removal was achieved with OFMSW and nutrient supplementation.•CH4 and H2 were the main biogas constituents with digestate and OFMSW, respectively.
Abstract Genetic profile, inflammation, hormonal activity, menstrual cyclicity, organochlorine burden, prostaglandin metabolism and immunological factors have been suggested to play a role in the ...establishment and development of endometriosis. From the epidemiological perspective, several risk factors have been studied to suggest or support the different aetiological hypotheses. Social class and family history apart, the factors most consistently associated with endometriosis are early age at menarche, and long and heavy menstrual cycles. These menstrual characteristics (together with nulliparity) reflect increased exposure to menstruation. The other main risk factors are pigmentary traits and sun habits, alcohol intake, use of oral contraceptives, and environmental factors such as exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxin. All of these factors support a potential role of hormonal mileau and inflammation in the pathogenesis of endometriosis. There is a clear association between endometriosis and gastrointestinal and immunological diseases, ovarian cancer and other gynaecological cancers, and thyroid cancer.
Synchrony refers to the coordinated interplay of behavioural and physiological signals that reflect the bi-directional attunement of one partner to the other's psychophysiological, cognitive, ...emotional, and behavioral state. In mother-child relationships, a synchronous pattern of interaction indicates parental sensitivity. Parenting stress has been shown to undermine mother-child behavioural synchrony. However, it has yet to be discerned whether parenting stress affects brain-to-brain synchrony during everyday joint activities. Here, we show that greater parenting stress is associated with less brain-to-brain synchrony in the medial left cluster of the prefrontal cortex when mother and child engage in a typical dyadic task of watching animation videos together. This brain region overlaps with the inferior frontal gyrus, the frontal eye field, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which are implicated in inference of mental states and social cognition. Our result demonstrates the adverse effect of parenting stress on mother-child attunement that is evident at a brain-to-brain level. Mother-child brain-to-brain asynchrony may underlie the robust association between parenting stress and poor dyadic co-regulation. We anticipate our study to form the foundation for future investigations into mechanisms by which parenting stress impairs the mother-child relationship.
A Hamiltonian density bounded from below implies that the lowest-energy state is stable. We point out, contrary to common lore, that an unbounded Hamiltonian density does not necessarily imply an ...instability: Stability is indeed a coordinate-independent property, whereas the Hamiltonian density does depend on the choice of coordinates. We discuss in detail the relation between the two, starting from k-essence and extending our discussion to general field theories. We give the correct stability criterion, using the relative orientation of the causal cones for all propagating degrees of freedom. We then apply this criterion to an exact Schwarzschild-de Sitter solution of a beyond-Horndeski theory, while taking into account the recent experimental constraint regarding the speed of gravitational waves. We extract the spin-2 and spin-0 causal cones by analyzing respectively all the odd-parity and the ℓ=0 even-parity modes. Contrary to a claim in the literature, we prove that this solution does not exhibit any kinetic instability for a given range of parameters defining the theory.
The atmospheric concentrations of gaseous HNO3 , HCl and NH3 and their relative salts have been measured during two field campaigns in the winter and in the summer of 2007 at Beijing (China), as part ...of CAREBEIJING (Campaigns of Air Quality Research in Beijing and Surrounding Region). In this study, annular denuder technique used with integration times of 2 and 24h to collect inorganic and soluble PM2.5 without interferences from gas-particle and particle-particle interactions. The results were discussed from the standpoint of temporal and diurnal variations and meteorological effects. Fine particulate Cl- , NH4+ and SO42- exhibited distinct temporal variations, while fine particulate NO3- did not show much variation with respect to season. Daily mean concentrations of fine particulate NH4+ and SO42- were higher during summer (12.30 μg m-3 and 18.24 μg m-3 , respectively) than during winter (6.51 μg m-3 and 7.50 μg m-3 , respectively). Daily mean concentrations of fine particulate Cl- were higher during winter (2.94 μg m-3 ) than during summer (0.79 μg m-3 ), while fine particulate NO3- showed similar both in winter (8.38 μg m-3 ) and in summer (9.62 μg m-3 ) periods. The presence of large amounts of fine particulate NO3- even in summer are due to higher local and regional concentrations of NH3 in the atmosphere available to neutralize H2 SO4 and HNO3 , which is consistent with the observation that the measured particulate species were neutralized. The composition of fine particulate matter indicated the domination of (NH4 )2 SO4 during winter and summer periods. In addition, the high relative humidity conditions in summer period seemed to dissolve a significant fraction of HNO3 and NH3 enhancing fine particulate NO3- and NH4+ in the atmosphere. All measured particulate species showed diurnal similar patterns during the winter and summer periods with higher peaks in the early morning, especially in summer, when humid and stable atmospheric conditions occurred. These diurnal variations were affected by wind direction suggesting regional and local source influences. The fine particulate species were correlated with NOx and PM2.5 , supporting the hypothesis that traffic may be also an important source of secondary particles.
The demand of iron is increasingly rising nowadays due to the growth of human population. The iron ore reserves are diminishing and this encourages the scientific community to look into the use of ...secondary sources of iron. When iron occurs with nitrate, Fe(II)-mediated autotrophic denitrification is an alternative biotechnology to simultaneously remove nitrate and recover iron through the formation of Fe(III) precipitates. In the last 20 years, a large number of microbial species have been isolated and observed to be capable of coupling Fe(II) oxidation to denitrification under both mixotrophic and strictly lithotrophic conditions. Within mixotrophic metabolism, acetate is the most effective organic electron donor enhancing denitrification rates. The use of mixed cultures results in a more robust process, especially when other contaminants are present. Organic chelating agents allow a higher Fe(II) solubilization at neutral pH but often induce inhibition of microbial activity. The mechanisms that promote the formation of the specific biogenic Fe(III) (hydr)oxides have to be yet elucidated. Further research is crucial in this direction for both environmental and commercial reasons.
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•Fe biorecovery and nitrate removal from wastewaters can be simultaneously performed.•Fe(II)-oxidizing denitrifiers grow in both lithothophic and mixotrophic conditions.•Denitrification is generally enhanced in presence of simple organic electron donors.•The use of chelators for Fe at neutral pH can result in microbial inhibition.•Biogenic Fe(III) precipitates have a commercial and environmental relevance.
The endoscopic diagnosis of Helicobacter-pylori(H.pylori) infection and gastric precancerous lesions(GPL), namely atrophic-gastritis and intestinal-metaplasia, still remains challenging. Artificial ...intelligence(AI) may represent a powerful resource for the endoscopic recognition of these conditions.
To explore the diagnostic performance(DP) of AI in the diagnosis of GPL and H.pylori infection.
A systematic-review was performed by two independent authors up to September 2021. Inclusion criteria were studies focusing on the DP of AI-system in the diagnosis of GPL and H.pylori infection. The pooled accuracy of studies included was reported.
Overall, 128 studies were found (PubMed-Embase-Cochrane Library) and four and nine studies were finally included regarding GPL and H.pylori infection, respectively. The pooled-accuracy(random effects model) was 90.3%(95%CI 84.3–94.9) and 79.6%(95%CI 66.7–90.0) with a significant heterogeneityI2=90.4%(95%CI 78.5–95.7);I2=97.9%(97.2–98.6) for GPL and H.pylori infection, respectively. The Begg's-test showed a significant publication-bias(p = 0.0371) only among studies regarding H.pylori infection. The pooled-accuracy(random-effects-model) was similar considering only studies using CNN-model for the diagnosis of H.pylori infection: 74.1%(95%CI 51.6–91.3);I2=98.9%(95%CI 98.5–99.3), Begg's-test(p = 0.1416) did not show publication-bias.
AI-system seems to be a good resource for an easier diagnosis of GPL and H.pylori infection, showing a pooled-diagnostic-accuracy of 90% and 80%, respectively. However, considering the high heterogeneity, these promising data need an external validation by randomized control trials and prospective real-time studies.
The contamination of soils with inorganic and organic pollutants is a diffuse environmental issue of significant relevance. Phytoremediation has been proposed as an economically feasible and ...sustainable remediation technology even if low bioavailability of contaminants constitutes one of the main limitations restricting the success of phytotechnologies. To overcome this constraint the addition of biodegradable amendments has been recently proposed in alternative to synthetic ones. This article presents an overview of two types of biodegradable soil amendments: low molecular weight organic acids and surfactants, evaluating the feasibility of their application in the frame of soil remediation throughout enhanced phytoremediation.
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