The gleam-glum effect is a novel sound symbolic finding that words with the /i:/-phoneme (like gleam) are perceived more positive emotionally than matched words with the /Λ/-phoneme (like glum). We ...provide data that not only confirm the effect but also are consistent with an explanation that /i:/ and /Λ/ articulation tend to co-occur with activation of positive versus negative emotional facial musculature respectively. Three studies eliminate selection bias by including all applicable English words from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007) and the Warriner et al. (2013) database and every possible Mandarin Pinyin combination that differ only in the middle phoneme (/i:/ vs /Λ/). In Study 1, 61 U.S. undergraduates rated monosyllabic English /i:/ words as robustly more positive than matched /Λ/ words. Study 2 analyzed the Warriner et al. (2013) valence ratings, extending the gleam-glum effect to all applicable words in the database. In Study 3, 38 U.S. participants (using English) and 37 participants in China (using Mandarin Pinyin) rated word pairs under three conditions that moderate musculature activity: Read aloud (Enhance), read silently (Control), and read silently while chewing gum (Interfere). Indeed, the effect was both replicated and was significantly larger when facial musculature was enhanced than when interfered with, and the two language populations did not significantly differ. These findings confirm a robust gleam-glum effect, despite semantic noise, in English and Mandarin Pinyin. Furthermore, these data are consistent with the hypothesis that this type of sound symbolism arises from the overlap in muscles used both in articulation and emotion expression.
This paper proposes a method to directly compute controller parameter values in a synchronverter augmented with a so-called damping correction loop, and in so doing, achieve desired transient and ...steady-state response. The proposed approach is grounded in a reduced third-order system model that captures pertinent dynamic characteristics of the synchronverter active-power loop (APL), particularly those of the dominant mode. This reduced-order model helps to identify and explain a shortcoming in a previous parameter tuning method. Central to the proposed parameter computation method is to express APL parameters of the original system as closed-form functions of the poles of the reduced-order system. Since the reduced-order model retains dominant-mode dynamic behaviors of the original system, APL parameters can be directly computed according to specified APL dominant mode. Time-domain simulations are provided to validate the accuracy of the reduced-order model and the proposed direct-computation parameter tuning method.
Endomembrane proteins (EMPs), belonging to the evolutionarily conserved transmembrane nine superfamily in yeast and mammalian cells, are characterized by the presence of a large lumenal N terminus, ...nine transmembrane domains, and a short cytoplasmic tail. The Arabidopsis thaliana genome contains 12 EMP members EMP1 to EMP12), but little is known about their protein subcellular localization and function. Here, we studied the subcellular localization and targeting mechanism of EMP12 in Arabidopsis and demonstrated that (1) both endogenous EMP12 (detected by EMP12 antibodies) and green fluorescent protein (GFP)-EMPI 2 fusion localized to the Golgi apparatus in transgenic Arabidopsis plants; (2) GFP fusion at the terminus of EMP12 caused mislocalization of EMP12-GFP to reach post-Golgi compartments and vacuoles for degradation in Arabidopsis cells; (3) the EMP12 cytoplasmic tail contained dual sorting signals (i. e., an endoplasmic reticulum export motif and a Golgi retention signal that interacted with COPII and COPI subunits, respectively); and (4) the Golgi retention motif of EMP12 retained several post-Golgi membrane proteins within the Golgi apparatus in gain-of-function analysis. These sorting signals are highly conserved in all plant EMP isoforms and, thus, likely represent a general mechanism for EMP targeting in plant cells.
Knowledge sharing and team culture have been found to have an important influence on service innovation performance. However, there has been relatively little substantive research focusing on these ...issues. This study's results support team culture's role in maintaining and moderating the relationship between knowledge sharing and service innovation performance. The research framework developed in this study was tested by 621 employees of international tourist hotels. The survey responses indicated that the relationships between and among knowledge sharing, team culture and service innovation performance are significant and strong. The main overall practical implication that can be drawn from these findings is that to achieve high service innovation performance, organizations first need to develop knowledge sharing behaviors plus a better team culture.
Recent studies on the use of Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA) for second language (L2) learnring have found that IPAs such as Amazon's Alexa is useful and motivating for L2 learners and that ...learners' language proficiency might influence their perceptions toward IPAs. However, most existing studies focused on the potentials of Alexa and paid little attention to Google Assistant (GA). This study was thus conducted to investigate how L2 learners at different proficiency levels perceive the potentials of GA. Twenty-nine EFL college students were recruited to try various voice commands for an hour in order to investigate learners' perceptions toward the potentials of GA for language learning. Results of the survey and interview show that these learners enjoyed interacting with GA and considered GA an inspiring tool to learn English. They also found that GA can be useful in improving their speaking and listening skills. They perceived GA's pronunciation to be quite natural and its utterances to be easily comprehensible. Results also reveal that higher level learners achieved better mutual comprehensibility with GA, whereas lower level learners encountered more challenges due to their mispronunciations. Based on these findings, future research directions and pedagogical suggestions on IPA-assisted L2 learning are provided.
Load aggregators can use demand response programs to motivate residential users toward reducing electricity demand during peak time periods. This article proposes a demand response algorithm for ...residential users, while accounting for uncertainties in the load demand and electricity price, users' privacy concerns, and power flow constraints imposed by the distribution network. To address the uncertainty issues, we develop a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm using an actor-critic method. We apply federated learning to enable users to determine the neural network parameters in a decentralized fashion without sharing private information (e.g., load demand, users' potential discomfort due to load scheduling). To tackle the nonconvex power flow constraints, we apply convex relaxation and transform the problem of updating the neural network parameters into a sequence of semidefinite programs (SDPs). Simulations on an IEEE 33-bus test feeder with 32 households show that the proposed demand response algorithm can reduce the peak load by 33% and the expected cost of each user by 13%. Also, we demonstrate the scalability of the proposed algorithm in 330-bus and 1650-bus feeders with real-time pricing scheme.
Platelet α-granules constitute the major rapidly releasable reservoir of thrombospondin-1 in higher animals. Although some fragments and peptides derived from thrombospondin-1 stimulate or inhibit ...platelet aggregation, its physiologic function in platelets has remained elusive. We now show that endogenous thrombospondin-1 is necessary for platelet aggregation in vitro in the presence of physiologic levels of nitric oxide (NO). Exogenous NO or elevation of cGMP delays thrombin-induced platelet aggregation under high shear and static conditions, and exogenous thrombospondin-1 reverses this delay. Thrombospondin-1–null murine platelets fail to aggregate in response to thrombin in the presence of exogenous NO or 8Br-cGMP. At physiologic concentrations of the NO synthase substrate arginine, thrombospondin-1–null platelets have elevated basal cGMP. Ligation of CD36 or CD47 is sufficient to block NO-induced cGMP accumulation and mimic the effect of thrombospondin-1 on aggregation. Exogenous thrombospondin-1 also reverses the suppression by NO of αIIb/β3 integrin–mediated platelet adhesion on immobilized fibrinogen, mediated in part by increased GTP loading of Rap1. Thrombospondin-1 also inhibits cGMP-mediated activation of cGMP-dependent protein kinase and thereby prevents phosphorylation of VASP. Thus, release of thrombospondin-1 from α-granules during activation provides positive feedback to promote efficient platelet aggregation and adhesion by overcoming the antithrombotic activity of physiologic NO.
Multiple lines of evidence indicate that mitochondrial dysfunction is central to Parkinson's disease. Here we investigate the mechanism by which parkin, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, and USP30, a ...mitochondrion-localized deubiquitylase, regulate mitophagy. We find that mitochondrial damage stimulates parkin to assemble Lys 6, Lys 11 and Lys 63 chains on mitochondria, and that USP30 is a ubiquitin-specific deubiquitylase with a strong preference for cleaving Lys 6- and Lys 11-linked multimers. Using mass spectrometry, we show that recombinant USP30 preferentially removes these linkage types from intact ubiquitylated mitochondria and counteracts parkin-mediated ubiquitin chain formation in cells. These results, combined with a series of chimaera and localization studies, afford insights into the mechanism by which a balance of ubiquitylation and deubiquitylation regulates mitochondrial homeostasis, and suggest a general mechanism for organelle autophagy.
This study addresses how various health concerns might influence not only consumers’ food choice motives but also consumers’ subsequent attitudes toward healthy eating. This study expects that those ...consumers with greater health concerns would have different food choice motives and better attitudes toward healthy eating. A self-completion questionnaire was used to gather information. Participants, a random sample of 500 undergraduate students from a national university in Taipei, Taiwan, provided a total of 456 usable questionnaires, representing a valid response rate of 91%. The average age of the respondents at the time of the survey was 21 years and 63% of respondents were females. The relationship between health concern and healthy eating attitudes was confirmed. The relationship between health concern of developing diseases and attitudes toward healthy eating was fully mediated by food choice motives. However, the relationship between calorie consumption health concern and healthy eating attitudes was only partially mediated by food choice motives. Implications of these findings are discussed.
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