Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions:
This study investigated whether the studying abroad bilingual experience among unevenly balanced Chinese–English bilinguals exerted influence on ...cognitive control.
Design/methodology/approach:
We compared cognitive control differences between a group of Chinese–English bilinguals (n = 30) studying abroad in the USA and a control bilingual group (n = 30) studying at home in mainland China by administering the Flanker task and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The two groups were matched on demographic variables including age, socioeconomic status (SES), intelligence, etc.
Data and analysis:
A mixed ANOVA was applied to the Flanker task data, with the task condition as the within-subject variable and the participant group as the between-subject variable. Independent t-test analyses were used to compare performance differences between groups on the WCST.
Findings/conclusions:
The two groups performed similarly on the Flanker task, whereas the group studying abroad fared better on the WCST, indicating better mental set shifting.
Originality:
This is the first study to show that the experience of studying abroad brings about cognitive control advantage in mental set shifting.
Significance/implications:
The current research provides the first evidence that the experience of studying abroad is related to the enhancement of cognitive control, which has implications for both cognitive development and international education.
The Flanker and Number Stroop tasks, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were adopted to examine how bilingualism and public speaking training would contribute to cognitive control differences ...among young adults. Four groups of participants (of similar cultural and language backgrounds) were tested: monolinguals, general bilinguals, L1 public speaking bilinguals, and L2 public speaking bilinguals. Both ANOVA and multiple regression analyses showed that public speaking experience (esp. in L2) significantly contributed to conflict monitoring as tested in the global reaction times in the Flanker and Number Stroop tasks, whereas bilingualism (L2 verbal fluency, to be more specific) significantly contributed to mental set shifting as tested in the WCST. These results suggest that specific aspects of language experience, either in L1 or in L2, may incur enhancement in specific aspects of cognitive control, which has implications for bilingual advantage research.
•The reclamation of retired EV batteries in hybrid energy systems.•Set up of a retired EV battery model considering capacity fade.•Design of a power management strategy for protecting system ...components.•Set up of a multi-objective optimization model considering energy waste.•Comparison of performance of NSGA-Ⅱ and MOEA/D.
Reusing retired electric vehicle batteries (REVBs) in renewable energy systems is a relatively new concept, and the presented PV-hydrogen-REVB hybrid energy system is a promising way to exploit REVBs’ residual capacities. This paper focuses on the design and sizing optimization of the entire system and delivers three main contributions. First, this paper proposes a REVB model based on the model of capacity fading of lithium battery cells, which could allow a more realistic result for the design. Second, a power management strategy is presented to regulate the energy flow, for protecting the REVB and other system components. Third, multiple objectives are considered in the optimization model, including minimizing loss of power supply, system cost, and a new indicator, namely, potential energy waste. Then, using the simulation results of a five-year working period to calculate the objective functions, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm NSGA-II is applied to generate the Pareto set of a case for residential usage. In further discussions, the influences of ignoring REVB’s capacity fading and removing the objective of potential energy waste possibility are presented, as well as the comparison of performances between NSGA-II and MOEA/D. The results reveal that the reliability of the system is impaired if ignoring the REVB’s capacity loss, and the proposed indicator is crucial for the design. NSGA-II has a better performance regarding the distribution of solutions and gives better results in this study.
Display omitted
•Fe3O4@CS nanocomposite was prepared by anionic cross-linking method.•Fe3O4@CS was modified by dextrin to specifically separate MBP-tagged fusion proteins from E. coli ...lysate.•Fe3O4@CS/PAA was biofunctionalized by antibodies to establish nano-purification platform for separating and purifying various tags proteins.•The synthesized nano-purifying agents could fastly, efficiently and specifically separate target proteins.
Chitosan (CS) was deposited onto the surface of Fe3O4 nanoparticles by anionic cross-linking to obtain Fe3O4@CS nanocomposite with improved biocompatibility ascribed to CS. The optimized reaction condition for preparing Fe3O4@CS was established. Furthermore, polyacrylic acid (PAA) was grafted onto the surface of Fe3O4@CS to obtain magnetically responsive Fe3O4@CS/PAA nanocomposite; and dextrin was grafted onto the surface of Fe3O4@CS/PAA by hydrogen bonding to obtain Fe3O4@CS/dextrin nanoadsorbent with desired magnetic response for the rapid purification of the maltose binding protein-tagged (MBP-tagged) fusion proteins from Escherichia coli lysate. The as-obtained Fe3O4@CS/PAA nanocomposite was loaded with relevant antibodies to construct the platform for the purification of MBP-tagged, glutathione S-transferase-tagged, and histidine-tagged fusion proteins. Findings demonstrate that multi-tagged proteins platform exhibits rapid recognition and high binding abilities as well as desired specification, universality, and recycling ability to the tested tagged fusion proteins, because they can strongly load different protein ligands.
The functions of sucrose transporters (SUTs) differ among family members. The physiological function of SUT1 has been studied intensively, while that of SUT4 in various plant species including tomato ...(Solanum lycopersicum) is less well-understood. In this study, we characterized the function of tomato SlSUT4 in the regulation of flowering using a combination of molecular and physiological analyses. SlSUT4 displayed transport activity for sucrose when expressed in yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), and it localized at both the plasma membrane and tonoplast. SlSUT4 interacted with SlSUT1, causing partial internalization of the latter, the main phloem loader of sucrose in tomato. Silencing of SlSUT4 promoted SlSUT1 localization to the plasma membrane, contributing to increased sucrose export and thus increased sucrose level in the shoot apex, which promoted flowering. Both silencing of SlSUT4 and spraying with sucrose suppressed gibberellin biosynthesis through repression of ent-kaurene oxidase and gibberellin 20-oxidase-1 (2 genes encoding key enzymes in gibberellin biosynthesis) expression by SlMYB76, which directly bound to their promoters. Silencing of SlMYB76 promoted gibberellin biosynthesis. Our results suggest that SlSUT4 is a functional SUT in tomato; downregulation of SlSUT4 expression enhances sucrose transport to the shoot apex, which promotes flowering by inhibiting gibberellin biosynthesis.
Although the biological properties of astaxanthin (Axn) and β-carotene (β-car) on aquatic animals have been widely investigated, such properties are still typically studied by incorporating different ...levels of a single carotenoid, or in combination using a traditional factorial design. In the present research, nutritional geometry was applied to more efficiently and powerfully investigate the interactive effects of Axn:β-car ratios and total carotenoid level on the growth, antioxidant status, colour parameters, and carotenoid composition of juvenile Eriocheir sinensis. Experimental diets were formulated to contain four levels of total carotenoid content (25, 50, 75 and 100 mg/kg) and at each level there were three different Axn:β-car ratios (4:1, 1:1 and 1:4). The results showed that: (1) Hepatosomatic index (HSI) significantly increased with Axn supplementation, and the highest value was observed in 80 mg/kg Axn treatment. (2) Indicators of antioxidant capacity (T-AOC, MDA) significantly improved in the hepatopancreas and hemolymph with the increase of total carotenoid supplementation. (3) Other indicators of immunity (AKP, ACP) and physiological status (GPT, GOT) were optimal between 50 and 75 mg/kg carotenoid inclusion and at a 1:1 of Axn: β-car ratio in either or both tissues. (4) For colour enhancement, the redness of carapace and hepatopancreas increased significantly with the increase of both Axn:β-car ratio and total carotenoid level. Combined, the diets comprising 1:1 ratio of Axn:β-car and 75 mg/kg of total carotenoid level could be the optimal and most cost-effective alternative to diets containing Axn alone, to maximize the quality and resilience of juvenile E. sinensis in culture.
•Axn is better utilized by juvenile E. sinensis, but similar response could be achieved by replacing half Axn with β-car.•The saturation of carotenoid deposition in E. sinensis were achieved at 75 mg/kg of total carotenoid supplementation.•The 1:1 ratio of Axn:β-car and 75 mg/kg of total carotenoid could be optimal and cost-effective for juvenile E. sinensis.
•The N absorption and utilization of grafted cucumber seedlings were determined.•rootstock-grafted cucumber seedlings have largest root systems for N absorption.•rootstock-grafted cucumber seedlings ...have strongest potential for N metabolism.•Grafting with N-efficient rootstock can reduce the amount of nitrogen application.
Excessive application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer can inhibit plant growth, reduce the N-use efficiency (NUE), increase fertilizer waste, and leads to secondary salinization. Grafting provides a feasible method for improving N uptake and utilization of plants under abiotic stress, but the mechanism by which grafting regulates N uptake, assimilation, and metabolism under low-nitrate conditions is poorly known. To explore the mechanism of rootstock grafting promoting plant growth and N absorption and utilization, in this study, a commercial cucumber cultivar (‘Jinchun No. 4’, a relatively N-inefficient cultivar) was self-grafted and grafted onto two pumpkin rootstocks (‘Figleaf Gourd’, a relatively N-medium efficiency pumpkin cultivar, and ‘Ribenjingtiantaimu’, a relatively N-efficient pumpkin cultivar, respectively). The grafted plants were exposed to two levels of NO3−-N (7 and 4 mM) under substrate culture conditions. Root morphological traits; NH4+, NO3−, and total N contents; N-based enzymatic activities; and N metabolite contents of self-grafted plants (J/J) were all markedly inhibited by low-nitrate treatment, leading to lower N accumulation (NA), N-uptake efficiency (NUpE), N-utilizition efficiency (NUtE) and NUE than rootstock-grafted plants (J/F and J/R). In contrast, the inhibition caused by the low-nitrate treatment was effectively alleviated in J/R-grafted plants, as J/R-grafted plants had the largest root systems and the strongest potential for N absorption and metabolism. Variation in these parameters was determined by the rootstock genotype and contributed greatly to improvements in NUpE, NUtE and NUE. Overall, our findings demonstrate that grafting with N-efficient rootstock can permit plants to make better use of their roots and enhance N absorption and N metabolism potential, thereby promoting the growth and NUE of cucumber seedlings. Furthermore, our findings infer that grafting with N-efficient rootstock may permit high levels of productivity to be maintained under low N supplies during cucumber production.
More and more people in this world today are speaking two (or more) languages. Speaking two languages makes language processing very complicated. Moreover, managing two languages places huge demands ...on the cognitive system and therefore may affect many aspects of cognitive development. Accumulating evidence has shown that bilingual experience has a systematic and significant impact on cognitive control. What remains unresolved is how a specific bilingual experience contributes to changes of cognitive control. The current research intends to shed light on this issue.
Natural language understanding (NLU) has two core tasks: intent classification and slot filling. The success of pre-training language models resulted in a significant breakthrough in the two tasks. ...The architecture based on autoencoding (BERT-based model) can optimize the two tasks jointly. However, we note that BERT-based models convert each complex token into multiple sub-tokens by the Wordpiece algorithm, which generates an out-of-alignment between the length of the tokens and the labels. This leads to BERT-based models not performing well in label prediction, limiting model performance improvement. Many existing models can address this issue, but some hidden semantic information is discarded during fine-tuning. We addressed the problem by introducing a novel joint method on top of BERT. This method explicitly models multiple sub-token features after the Wordpiece tokenization, contributing to both tasks. Our proposed method effectively extracts contextual features from complex tokens using the Sub-words Attention Adapter (SAA), preserving overall utterance information. Additionally, we propose an Intent Attention Adapter (IAA) to acquire comprehensive sentence features, assisting users in predicting intent. Experimental results confirm that our proposed model exhibits significant improvements on two public benchmark datasets. Specifically, the slot-filling F1 score improves from 96.5 to 98.2 (an absolute increase of 1.7%) on the Airline Travel Information Systems (ATIS) dataset.
PDF
