Visual perception can be modified by the surrounding context. Particularly, experimental observations have demonstrated that visual perception and primary visual cortical responses could be modified ...by properties of surrounding distractors. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. To simulate primary visual cortical activities in this paper, we design a k-winner-take-all (k-WTA) spiking network whose responses are generated through probabilistic inference. In simulations, images with the same target and various surrounding distractors perform as stimuli. Distractors are designed with multiple varying properties, including the luminance, the sizes and the distances to the target. Simulations for each varying property are performed with other properties fixed. Each property could modify second-layer neural responses and interactions in the network. To the same target in the designed images, the modified network responses could simulate distinguishing brightness perception consistent with experimental observations. Our model provides a possible explanation of how the surrounding distractors modify primary visual cortical responses to induce various brightness perception of the given target.
•Using public survey data, this study examines the key individual-level determinants of citizens’ environmental concern (EC).•Regression results show that liberals and citizens with higher New ...Ecological Paradigm values are more environmentally concerned.•Data analyses indicate that females and Non-Whites are more environmentally concerned than their counterparts.•There is a positive relationship between age and EC, and education level does not seem to affect citizens’ EC.•Key implications for environmental policymaking and future research are discussed in the conclusion.
Early research showed that citizens’ environmental concern in the United States was linked to three individual-level factors: socio-demographic variables, political orientations, and personal beliefs or worldviews about human-nature relations. Given many changes in the American society over the last several decades, one important, yet unanswered question is whether these factors still drive public environmental concern in the United States today, and if so, to what extent. This study, drawing from extant theoretical and empirical studies, aims to reinvestigate the determinants of citizens’ environmental concern by employing three national public surveys conducted in 2004, 2007, and 2013. Our data analyses confirm and expand the findings of previous research on the significance and importance of political ideology, fundamental beliefs about human-nature relations, and certain socioeconomic factors such as gender and race in explaining citizens’ environmental concern. More specifically, political liberals, people with higher New Ecological Paradigm values, females, and Non-Whites tend to be more concerned about environmental problems than their counterparts are. Our data analyses also reveal some interesting findings when compared to many previous studies: first, our data indicate a positive relationship between age and environmental concern, suggesting that older people in the United States are more concerned about the environment than younger adults; second, unlike most past research showing a positive Education-Environmental Concern relationship, our study suggests that education level seems to have little effect in explaining citizens’ environmental concern measured in this study. Key implications for environmental policymaking and recommendations for future research are discussed in the conclusion.
Flagellin as a vaccine adjuvant Cui, Baofeng; Liu, Xinsheng; Fang, Yuzhen ...
Expert review of vaccines,
04/2018, Volume:
17, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Bacterial flagellin, as a pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP), can activate both innate and adaptive immunity. Its unique structural characteristics endow an effective and flexible adjuvant ...activity, which allow the design of different types of vaccine strategies to prevent various diseases. This review will discuss recent progress in the mechanism of action of flagellin and its prospects for use as a vaccine adjuvant. Areas covered: Herein we summarize various types of information related to flagellin adjuvants from PubMed, including structures, signaling pathways, natural immunity, and extensive applications in vaccines, and it discusses the immunogenicity, safety, and efficacy of flagellin-adjuvanted vaccines in clinical trials. Expert commentary: It is widely accepted that as an adjuvant, flagellin can induce an enhanced antigen-specific immune response. Flagellin adjuvants will allow more effective flagellin-based vaccines to enter clinical trials. Furthermore, vaccine formulations containing PAMPs are crucial to exert the maximum potential of vaccine antigens. Therefore, combinations of flagellin-adjuvanted vaccines with other adjuvants that act in a synergistic manner, particularly TLR ligands, represent a promising method for tailoring targeted vaccines to meet specific requirements.
Sb2Se3 is a promising absorber material for photovoltaic cells because of its optimum band gap, strong optical absorption, simple phase and composition, and earth-abundant and nontoxic constituents. ...However, this material is rarely explored for photovoltaic application. Here we report Sb2Se3 solar cells fabricated from thermal evaporation. The rationale to choose thermal evaporation for Sb2Se3 film deposition was first discussed, followed by detailed characterization of Sb2Se3 film deposited onto FTO with different substrate temperatures. We then studied the optical absorption, photosensitivity, and band position of Sb2Se3 film, and finally a prototype photovoltaic device FTO/Sb2Se3/CdS/ZnO/ZnO:Al/Au was constructed, achieving an encouraging 2.1% solar conversion efficiency.
Stauntonia chinensis DC. belongs to subfamily Lardizabaloideae, which is widely grown throughout southern China. It has been used as a traditional herbal medicinal plant, which could synthesize a ...number of triterpenoid saponins with anticancer and anti-inflammatory activities. However, the wild resources of this species and its relatives were threatened by over-exploitation before the genetic diversity and evolutionary analysis were uncovered. Thus, the complete chloroplast genome sequences of Stauntonia chinensis and comparative analysis of chloroplast genomes of Lardizabaloideae species are necessary and crucial to understand the plastome evolution of this subfamily.
A series of analyses including genome structure, GC content, repeat structure, SSR component, nucleotide diversity and codon usage were performed by comparing chloroplast genomes of Stauntonia chinensis and its relatives. Although the chloroplast genomes of eight Lardizabaloideae plants were evolutionary conserved, the comparative analysis also showed several variation hotspots, which were considered as highly variable regions. Additionally, pairwise Ka/Ks analysis showed that most of the chloroplast genes of Lardizabaloideae species underwent purifying selection, whereas 25 chloroplast protein coding genes were identified with positive selection in this subfamily species by using branch-site model. Bayesian and ML phylogeny on CCG (complete chloroplast genome) and CDs (coding DNA sequences) produced a well-resolved phylogeny of Lardizabaloideae plastid lineages.
This study enhanced the understanding of the evolution of Lardizabaloideae and its relatives. All the obtained genetic resources will facilitate future studies in DNA barcode, species discrimination, the intraspecific and interspecific variability and the phylogenetic relationships of subfamily Lardizabaloideae.
Sb2Se3 is introduced as the absorber layer for thin film photovoltaics because of its very attractive material, optical, and electrical properties. High quality Sb2Se3 films are produced using a ...hydrazine solution process, and a heterojunction TiO2/Sb2Se3 solar cell achieving 2.26% efficiency with an impressive high open circuit voltage of 0.52 V is reported.
The existing literature lacks a study on age-dependent population equations based on subadditive measures. In this paper, we propose a hybrid age-dependent population dynamic system (referred to as ...APDS) that incorporates uncertain random perturbations driven by both the well-known Wiener process and the Liu process associated with belief degree, which have similar symmetry in terms of form. Firstly, we redefine the Liu integral in a mean square sense and then extend Liu’s lemma and the Itô-Liu formula. We then utilize the extensions of the Itô-Liu formula, Barkholder-Davis-Gundy (BDG) inequality, the Liu’s lemma, the Gronwall’s lemma and the symmetric nature of calculus itself to establish the uniqueness of a strong solution for the hybrid APDS. Additionally, we prove the existence of the hybrid APDS by combining the proof of uniqueness with some important lemmas. Finally, under appropriate assumptions, we demonstrate the exponential stability of the hybrid system.
Agenda theories suggest that problem indicator, focusing event, and information feedback enhance issue attention. However, few studies have systematically tested this. This study, using time series ...data and vector autoregression (VAR), examines how climate problem indicator, high-profile international event, and climate science feedback influence media and congressional attention to global warming and climate change. The findings confirm that these attention-grabbing factors indeed generally promote issue salience, but these factors may work differently across agenda venues. Attention inertia, interagenda interaction, and partisan advantage on agenda setting are also included and analyzed in the VAR modeling. Implications of the study and recommendations for future research are discussed in conclusion.
Visual depth perception is the basic function of the visual nervous system. To a stimulus in the stereo space, the visual nervous system could generate a perception about depth of its position. ...Experimental observations have demonstrated that interocular blur differences could lead to illusory perceptions about depths of moving stimuli. However, to stimuli with interocular blur differences, influences of different factors on illusory depth perceptions are still unclear. To explore these influences, this paper constructs a plastic two-layer k-winner-take-all (k-WTA) spiking network, simulating primary visual cortical responses. With incompatible stimuli presented into two eyes in experiments, binocular rivalry could occur in the primary visual cortex and interact with depth perception. To simulate binocular rivalry, the network consists of two parallel visual channels driven by left-eye and right-eye stimuli and competing with each other through mutual inhibition. In simulations, the horizontally moving stimulus is filtered with different Gaussian filters to generate paired monocular stimuli with interocular blur differences. The blurry strength, the moving direction and the moving speed perform as varying factors of moving stimuli. The network updates its dynamics through probabilistic inference, reflecting impacts of each factor on both neural responses and binocular rivalry. The modified responses could simulate illusory depth perceptions of stimuli as observed in experiments. To stimuli with interocular blur differences, varying factors could modify binocular rivalry in the network, inducing distinguishing illusory depth perceptions. Based on probabilistic inference, our model could provide possible explanations to illusory depth perceptions with interocular blur differences.
Water-use efficiency (WUE), weighing the balance between plant transpiration and growth, is a key characteristic of ecosystem functioning and a component of tree drought resistance. Seasonal dynamics ...of tree-level WUE and its connections with drought variability have not been previously explored in sky-island montane forests. We investigated whole-tree transpiration and stem growth of bristlecone (
) and limber pine (
) within a high-elevation stand in central-eastern Nevada, United States, using sub-hourly measurements over 5 years (2013-2017). A moderate drought was generally observed early in the growing season, whereas interannual variability of summer rains determined drought levels between years, i.e., reducing drought stress in 2013-2014 while enhancing it in 2015-2017. Transpiration and basal area increment (BAI) of both pines were coupled throughout June-July, resulting in a high but relatively constant early season WUE. In contrast, both pines showed high interannual plasticity in late-season WUE, with a predominant role of stem growth in driving WUE. Overall, bristlecone pine was characterized by a lower WUE compared to limber pine. Dry or wet episodes in the late growing season overrode species differences. Our results suggested thresholds of vapor pressure deficit and soil moisture that would lead to opposite responses of WUE to late-season dry or wet conditions. These findings provide novel insights and clarify potential mechanisms modulating tree-level WUE in sky-island ecosystems of semi-arid regions, thereby helping land managers to design appropriate science-based strategies and reduce uncertainties associated with the impact of future climatic changes.
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