Numerous studies have demonstrated the influence of musical expertise on spoken language processing; however, its effects on reading comprehension remain largely unexplored. This study aims to ...investigate the role of musical expertise in sentence comprehension, particularly concerning the processing of temporal order. Using two self-paced reading experiments, we examined individuals' responses to two-clause sentences connected by the temporal connectives “before” or “after”. “After” sentences consistently presented events in their actual order of temporal occurrence, while “before” sentences described events in reverse temporal order. In both experiments, our analyses of reading times consistently uncovered a significant temporal order effect, with words immediately following the temporal connectives being processed slower in “before” sentences compared to “after” sentences. This suggests the presence of immediate online processing costs associated with “before” sentences. Notably, these processing costs were found to be attenuated in individuals with musical expertise compared to those without. However, analyses of comprehension accuracy showed no advantage of musicians over non-musicians. Specifically, in Experiment 1, the two groups showed no difference in comprehension accuracy, while in Experiment 2, musicians exhibited lower accuracy rates compared to non-musicians in both “before” and “after” sentences. These results suggest that musical expertise may attenuate online processing costs associated with complex linguistic constructs, but could not promote reading accuracy. We concluded that music training is associated with a restricted effect on written sentence comprehension.
Parkinson's disease with cognitive impairment (PD-CI) results in several clinical outcomes for which specific treatment is lacking. Although the pathogenesis of PD-CI has not yet been fully ...elucidated, it is related to neuronal plasticity decline in the hippocampus region. The dopaminergic projections from the substantia nigra to the hippocampus are critical in regulating hippocampal plasticity. Recently, aerobic exercise has been recognized as an effective therapeutic strategy for enhancing plasticity through the secretion of various muscle factors. The exact role of FNDC5-an upregulated, newly identified myokine produced after exercise-in mediating hippocampal plasticity and regional dopaminergic projections in PD-CI remains unclear. In this study, the effect of treadmill exercise on hippocampal synaptic plasticity was evaluated in 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced chronic PD models. The results showed that treadmill exercise substantially alleviated the motor dysfunction, cognition disorder, and dopaminergic neuron degeneration induced by MPTP. Here, we discovered that the quadriceps, serum, and brain FNDC5 levels were lower in PD mice and that intervention with treadmill exercise restored FNDC5 levels. Moreover, treadmill exercise enhanced the synaptic plasticity of hippocampal pyramidal neurons via increased dopamine levels and BDNF in the PD mice. The direct protective effect of FNDC5 is achieved by promoting the secretion of BDNF in the hippocampal neurons via binding the integrin αVβ5 receptor, thereby improving synaptic plasticity. Regarding the indirect protection effect, FNDC5 promotes the dopaminergic connection from the substantia nigra to the hippocampus by mediating the interaction between the integrin αVβ5 of the hippocampal neurons and the CD90 molecules on the membrane of dopaminergic terminals. Our findings demonstrated that treadmill exercise could effectively alleviate cognitive disorders via the activation of the FNDC5-BDNF pathway and enhance the dopaminergic synaptic connection from SNpc to the hippocampus in the MPTP-induced chronic PD model.
The purpose of this paper is to develop an emission inventory of anthropogenic air pollutants and VOCs species in Sichuan Province. Based on the anthropogenic source activity data collected in ...different cities of Sichuan Province and the selected emission factors, the 1 km × 1 km gridded atmospheric air pollutant emission inventory of 2015 was developed in the “bottom-up” and “top-down” approaches with the GIS technology. The results showed that the emissions of SO
2
, NO
X
, CO, PM
10
, PM
2.5
, BC, OC, VOCs and NH
3
from anthropogenic sources in Sichuan Province were 444.9 kt, 820.0 kt, 3773.1 kt, 1371.6 kt, 537.5 kt, 28.7 kt, 53.1 kt, 923.6 kt and 988.0 kt, respectively. Power plants and other industrial combustion boilers contributed more than 95% of SO
2
emission. Transportation, fossil fuel burning and industrial process contributed 54%, 23% and 20% of NOx emission respectively. Industrial process dominated by steel production and building material manufacturing contributed 20% of PM
10
emission and 34% of PM
2.5
emission. Fugitive dust dominated by road fugitive dust contributed 60% of PM
10
emission and 35% of PM
2.5
emission respectively. Biomass burning contributed 33% of BC emission and 51% of OC emission respectively. Solvent use of mechanical processing, building decoration, electronic equipment manufacturing, printing and furniture industry contributed 46% of VOCs emission. NH
3
mainly came from the emission of agricultural sectors, such as livestock breeding and N-fertilizer application, which contributed 70% and 25% of NH
3
emission respectively. The percentage of alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, aromatics, OVOCs, halohydrocarbons and other VOCs in the total VOCs emission were 17%, 9%, 2%, 23%, 22%, 4% and 23%, respectively. Ethene, m-xylene, toluene, propene, formaldehyde, o-xylene, 1, 2, 4-trimethyl benzene, 1-butene, p-xylene and ethyl benzene were the most critical chemical species for the formation of ozone pollution in Sichuan Province contributing 50% of the total OFP. Various air pollutants and OFP were mainly distributed in places with the densest population and well-developed agriculture and industry in Sichuan Basin and some areas of Panzhihua. The Chengdu Plain urban agglomerations, represented by Chengdu, Deyang and Mianyang, were the main areas with concentrated pollutant emissions in Sichuan Basin.
Parkinson's disease can affect not only motor functions but also cognitive abilities, leading to cognitive impairment. One common issue in Parkinson's disease with cognitive dysfunction is the ...difficulty in executive functioning. Executive functions help us plan, organize, and control our actions based on our goals. The brain area responsible for executive functions is called the prefrontal cortex. It acts as the command center for the brain, especially when it comes to regulating executive functions. The role of the prefrontal cortex in cognitive processes is influenced by a chemical messenger called dopamine. However, little is known about how dopamine affects the cognitive functions of patients with Parkinson's disease. In this article, the authors review the latest research on this topic. They start by looking at how the dopaminergic system, is altered in Parkinson's disease with executive dysfunction. Then, they explore how these changes in dopamine impact the synaptic structure, electrical activity, and connection components of the prefrontal cortex. The authors also summarize the relationship between Parkinson's disease and dopamine-related cognitive issues. This information may offer valuable insights and directions for further research and improvement in the clinical treatment of cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease.
As most air quality monitoring sites are in urban areas worldwide, machine learning models may produce substantial estimation bias in rural areas when deriving spatiotemporal distributions of air ...pollutants. The bias stems from the issue of dataset shift, as the density distributions of predictor variables differ greatly between urban and rural areas. We propose a data-augmentation approach based on the multiple imputation by chained equations (MICE-DA) to remedy the dataset shift problem. Compared with the benchmark models, MICE-DA exhibits superior predictive performance in deriving the spatiotemporal distributions of hourly PM2.5 in the megacity (Chengdu) at the foot of the Tibetan Plateau, especially for correcting the estimation bias, with the mean bias decreasing from –3.4 µg/m3 to –1.6 µg/m3. As a complement to the holdout validation, the semi-variance results show that MICE-DA decently preserves the spatial autocorrelation pattern of PM2.5 over the study area. The essence of MICE-DA is strengthening the correlation between PM2.5 and aerosol optical depth (AOD) during the data augmentation. Consequently, the importance of AOD is largely enhanced for predicting PM2.5, and the summed relative importance value of the two satellite-retrieved AOD variables increases from 5.5% to 18.4%. This study resolved the puzzle that AOD exhibited relatively lower importance in local or regional studies. The results of this study can advance the utilization of satellite remote sensing in modeling air quality while drawing more attention to the common dataset shift problem in data-driven environmental research.
In this study, four kinds of graphite oxide (GO) with different oxidation degree have been prepared by a modified Hummers method, by changing the amount of oxidation agent KMnO4. To investigate the ...relationship between the oxidation degree of GO and the adsorption capacity for heavy metal irons, Pb2+ solution has been selected as a model waste water. The effects of initial Pb2+ concentration, solution pH and contact time on the adsorption capacity of series GO have been studied. It is found that the adsorption capacity does not always increase with the increasing of oxidation degree. The adsorption process of series GO for Pb2+ are well described by the Langmuir isotherm model, which reveales that the adsorption process is homogeneous monolayer coverage.
•Laminar burning velocities of H2/CO were measured using a combustion vessel.•Comparison of results from this research and published literature was done.•Flame cellular instabilities were analyzed ...combined with Schlieren photos.•Critical flame radius and critical Peclet number were studied.
Experiments were conducted in a constant-volume combustion chamber by using a Schlieren system to study the laminar burning velocities and intrinsic instabilities of lean and stoichiometric (equivalence ratio from 0.3 to 1.0) H2/CO/air premixed flames at various hydrogen fractions (30%, 50%, and 70%) at reduced, atmospheric, and elevated pressures (from 0.05MPa to 0.4MPa). The unstretched laminar burning velocities (Su0) and Lb are compared with data from previous literature. Results indicate that excellent agreements are obtained. The intrinsic instabilities of H2/CO/air flames were interpreted and evaluated in terms of hydrodynamic instability, diffusive-thermal instability, and body-force instability. Additionally, the critical flame radius and critical Peclet number were also measured. The results show that the cellular instabilities of H2/CO/air premixed flames are enhanced due to the weaker influence of curvature and the enhanced intensity of baroclinic torque on the flame with the increase in initial pressure. With the increase in equivalence ratio, the cellular instabilities are weakened with hydrogen fractions of 50% and 70%; however, the cellular instabilities are enhanced with a hydrogen fraction of 30% because of the influence of diffusive-thermal instability. An increase in hydrogen fraction causes an enhancement in cellular instabilities. Body-force instability is also observed at low equivalence ratios and has an inhibitory effect on the generation of irregular cracks on the flame surface.
As air quality has improved rapidly in recent years, the public has become more interested in whether a famous snow peak, Yaomei Feng on the Tibetan Plateau, can be seen from Chengdu, a megacity ...located on the western plain of the Sichuan Basin, east of the plateau. Therefore, a threshold-method-based forecasting system for snow peak sighting was developed in this study. Variables from numerical models, including cloud–water mixing ratio, cloud cover over snow peak, water mixing ratio, PM2.5 concentration, and ground solar radiation, were used in the snow peak sighting forecast system. Terrain occlusion rate of each model grid was calculated. Monte Carlo simulations were applied for threshold determination. A WRF-CMAQ hindcast was conducted for 2020, owing to insufficient observation data, hindcast results on the snow peak sighting were compared with posts collected from social media. Estimations showed that the snow peak sighting forecast system performed well in reflecting the monthly trend of snow peak sightings, and the hindcast results matched the daily observations, especially from May to August. Accuracy of the snow peak sighting forecast model was 78.9%, recall value was 57.1%, and precision was 24.4%.
China’s ecological compensation (EC) is based on the property rights structure of public ownership of natural resources, which should be based on the spatial planning, which is defined by local ...government as the boundary of property right management and the distribution of development power. This study combined spatial planning and ecosystem service value (ESV) accounting to design a decision-making framework of EC, which includes “Subject choice, Value accounting, Priority evaluation, Policy supply”. We selected 32 counties (districts) in the Yangtze River Delta region as the research object with the consideration of spatial planning and expert advice, and found that the implementation of EC slowed down the urbanization process and promoted the increase of ecological space. We conducted an accounting and sensitivity analysis on the spatial and temporal changes of ESV in the region from 2000 to 2019, and finally determined the amount and priority of accepting EC. The research results show that the ESV in the study area shows a general trend of increasing and then decreasing in time, and a spatial pattern of high in the south and low in the north and high in the east and low in the west. Forestland and water area are the main providers of ESV in the study area. The sensitivity coefficients of each type of ESV do not change much in each period, but the coefficients between the types have large differences. The total amount of EC in the Yangtze River Delta ecological barrier (YRDEB) is RMB 38,098.11 billion, and Shitai County is the area with the highest priority for compensation. We believe that this decision-making framework has the potential to be applied to the implementation of EC in other regions of China. At the same time, it can also be used to enrich the international views on EC research.
Strontium(Sr) doped hydroxyapatite(HA) has been widely used in diverse biological applications. In this work, hydrothermal synthesis method was used to prepare HA and Sr doped HA nanoparticles. A ...series of experimental methods and the simulation method based on density functional theory(DFT) were used to investigate the effect of Sr doping on chemical composition, crystallinity, lattice parameters, morphology, and formation energies of HA. The experimental results indicated that the lattice parameters and crystal size of Sr doped HA nanoparticles increased. The crystallinity of Sr doped HA nanoparticles did not change significantly with the increasing concentration of Sr ions. The lattice parameters obtained by the simulation method were in good agreement with the experimental results. The formation energies indicated that Sr ion doping endowed the structure more stable, which also illustrated that the Ca(1) site was the preferential site for Sr doping at 10 at% and mixed doping was a more preferred doping mode at 50 at%.
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