Background/Objectives
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) global outbreak allowed a natural experiment to observe how older adults changed social patterns and how it affected their emotional ...well‐being. We studied the frequency and modes of social contact and their effects on older adults' mood before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Design
Phone‐based surveys were administered weekly before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Setting
Participants were recruited from Portland, Oregon, and Detroit, Michigan.
Participants
Older adults ≥75 years old (n = 155, age = 81.0 ± 4.5, 72.3% women) were included in a randomized controlled trial, the Internet‐Based Conversational Engagement Clinical Trial (I‐CONECT).
Measurements
Low mood was self‐reported as feeling downhearted or blue for three or more days in the past week. Social contact was self‐reported by the amount of time spent in interactions, with whom (family, friends, others), and via which modes (in‐person, phone/video call, text/email/letter).
Results
A total of 5525 weeks of data were derived from 155 participants. Before the COVID‐19 pandemic, average social interaction time spent in‐person, on phone/video call, and via text/email/letter was 406, 141, and 68 min/week, respectively. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, time spent in‐person was reduced by 135 min/week, while time spent via phone/video call and writing increased by 33 and 26 mins/week, respectively. In‐person family contact was associated with less low mood regardless of the pandemic (odds ratio = 0.92, p < 0.05). There was a COVID‐19 × text/email/letter with friends interaction (odds ratio = 0.77, p = 0.03), suggesting that during the COVID‐19 pandemic, an increase of 1 h of writing with friends per week was associated with a 23% decrease in the likelihood of experiencing low mood.
Conclusion
The lost in‐person time relating to COVID‐19 restrictions tended to be partially compensated for with increased calls and writing time, although overall social interaction time decreased. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, at least two types of social interactions (writing to friends and in‐person family time) showed promise for mitigating low mood for older adults with limited social resources.
Dietary antinutritional factors have been reported to adversely affect the digestibility of protein, bioavailability of amino acids and protein quality of foods. Published data on these negative ...effects of major dietary antinutritional factors are summarized in this manuscript. Digestibility and the quality of mixed diets in developing countries are considerably lower than of those in developed regions. For example, the digestibility of protein in traditional diets from developing countries such as India, Guatemala and Brazil is considerably lower compared to that of protein in typical North American diets (54-78 versus 88-94 %). Poor digestibility of protein in the diets of developing countries, which are based on less refined cereals and grain legumes as major sources of protein, is due to the presence of less digestible protein fractions, high levels of insoluble fibre, and/or high concentrations of antinutritional factors present endogenously or formed during processing. Examples of naturally occurring antinutritional factors include glucosinolates in mustard and canola protein products, trypsin inhibitors and haemagglutinins in legumes, tannins in legumes and cereals, gossypol in cottonseed protein products, and uricogenic nucleobases in yeast protein products. Heat/alkaline treatments of protein products may yield Maillard reaction compounds, oxidized forms of sulphur amino acids, D-amino acids and lysinoalanine (LAL, an unnatural nephrotoxic amino acid derivative). Among common food and feed protein products, soyabeans are the most concentrated source of trypsin inhibitors. The presence of high levels of dietary trypsin inhibitors from soyabeans, kidney beans or other grain legumes have been reported to cause substantial reductions in protein and amino acid digestibility (up to 50 %) and protein quality (up to 100 %) in rats and/or pigs. Similarly, the presence of high levels of tannins in sorghum and other cereals, fababean and other grain legumes can cause significant reductions (up to 23 %) in protein and amino acid digestibility in rats, poultry, and pigs. Normally encountered levels of phytates in cereals and legumes can reduce protein and amino acid digestibility by up to 10 %. D-amino acids and LAL formed during alkaline/heat treatment of lactalbumin, casein, soya protein or wheat protein are poorly digestible (less than 40 %), and their presence can reduce protein digestibility by up to 28 % in rats and pigs, and can cause a drastic reduction (100 %) in protein quality, as measured by rat growth methods. The adverse effects of antinutritional factors on protein digestibility and protein quality have been reported to be more pronounced in elderly rats (20-months old) compared to young (5-weeks old) rats, suggesting the use of old rats as a model for assessing the protein digestibility of products intended for the elderly.
Summary
Fruit ripening is a critical phase in the production and marketing of fruits. Previous studies have indicated that fruit ripening is a highly coordinated process, mainly regulated at the ...transcriptional level, in which transcription factors play essential roles. Thus, identifying key transcription factors regulating fruit ripening as well as their associated regulatory networks promises to contribute to a better understanding of fruit ripening. In this study, temporal gene expression analyses were performed to investigate banana fruit ripening with the aim to discern the global architecture of gene regulatory networks underlying fruit ripening. Eight time points were profiled covering dynamic changes of phenotypes, the associated physiology and levels of known ripening marker genes. Combining results from a weighted gene co‐expression network analysis (WGCNA) as well as cis‐motif analysis and supported by EMSA, Y1H, tobacco‐, banana‐transactivation experimental results, the regulatory network of banana fruit ripening was constructed, from which 25 transcription factors were identified as prime candidates to regulate the ripening process by modulating different ripening‐related pathways. Our study presents the first global view of the gene regulatory network involved in banana fruit ripening, which may provide the basis for a targeted manipulation of fruit ripening to attain higher banana and loss‐reduced banana commercialization.
Sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) have attracted increasing attention in the past decades, because of high overall abundance of precursors, their even geographical distribution, and low cost. Apart from ...inherent thermodynamic disadvantages, SIBs have to overcome multiple kinetic problems, such as fast capacity decay, low rate capacities and low Coulombic efficiencies. A special case is sodium super ion conductor (NASICON)‐based electrode materials as they exhibit – besides pronounced structural stability – exceptionally high ion conductivity, rendering them most promising for sodium storage. Owing to the limiting, comparatively low electronic conductivity, nano‐structuring is a prerequisite for achieving satisfactory rate‐capability. In this review, we analyze advantages and disadvantages of NASICON‐type electrode materials and highlight electrode structure design principles for obtaining the desired electrochemical performance. Moreover, we give an overview of recent approaches to enhance electrical conductivity and structural stability of cathode and anode materials based on NASICON structure. We believe that this review provides a pertinent insight into relevant design principles and inspires further research in this respect.
Sodium super ion conductor (NASICON)‐based electrode materials, exhibiting pronounced structural stability and exceptionally high ion conductivity are promising materials for sodium storage. Challenges and perspectives of NASICON‐type electrode materials are discussed, and electrode structure design principles for obtaining the desired electrochemical performance are highlighted. Recent progress in enhancing electrical conductivity and structural stability of NASICON materials is summarized.
Mirogabalin (MGB, Tarlige®), an inhibitor of the α2δ-1 subunit of voltage-gated Ca2+ (CaV) channels, is used as a way to alleviate peripheral neuropathic pain and diabetic neuropathy. However, to ...what extent MGB modifies the magnitude, gating, and/or hysteresis of various types of plasmalemmal ionic currents remains largely unexplored. In pituitary tumor (GH3) cells, we found that MGB was effective at suppressing the peak (transient, INa(T)) and sustained (late, INa(L)) components of the voltage-gated Na+ current (INa) in a concentration-dependent manner, with an effective IC50 of 19.5 and 7.3 μM, respectively, while the KD value calculated on the basis of minimum reaction scheme was 8.2 μM. The recovery of INa(T) inactivation slowed in the presence of MGB, although the overall current–voltage relation of INa(T) was unaltered; however, there was a leftward shift in the inactivation curve of the current. The magnitude of the window (INa(W)) or resurgent INa (INa(R)) evoked by the respective ascending or descending ramp pulse (Vramp) was reduced during cell exposure to MGB. MGB-induced attenuation in INa(W) or INa(R) was reversed by the further addition of tefluthrin, a pyrethroid insecticide known to stimulate INa. MGB also effectively lessened the strength of voltage-dependent hysteresis of persistent INa in response to the isosceles triangular Vramp. The cumulative inhibition of INa(T), evoked by pulse train stimulation, was enhanced in its presence. Taken together, in addition to the inhibition of CaV channels, the NaV channel attenuation produced by MGB might have an impact in its analgesic effects occurring in vivo.
Stock index forecasting is a hot issue in the financial arena. As the movements of stock indices are non-linear and subject to many internal and external factors, they pose a great challenge to ...researchers who try to predict them. In this paper, we select a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) to train data and forecast the stock indices of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. We introduce the artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA) to optimize RBF. To increase forecasting efficiency, a
K-means clustering algorithm is optimized by AFSA in the learning process of RBF. To verify the usefulness of our algorithm, we compared the forecasting results of RBF optimized by AFSA, genetic algorithms (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO), as well as forecasting results of ARIMA, BP and support vector machine (SVM). Our experiment indicates that RBF optimized by AFSA is an easy-to-use algorithm with considerable accuracy. Of all the combinations we tried in this paper, BIAS6
+
MA5
+
ASY4 was the optimum group with the least errors.
Abstract
Porphyry systems, the most important reserves of Cu and Mo with significant Au, are genetically linked to the emplacement of hydrous and oxidized intermediate to acidic magmas, in response ...to temporal and geochemical evolution of crust in orogenic terranes. In this study, comprehensive whole-rock and zircon geochemical and isotopic datasets of intermediate to acid igneous rocks were integrated to characterize the crustal evolution and metallogeny of porphyry deposits in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB).
The ore-forming porphyries of Cu ± Au ± Mo and Mo deposits have higher but largely overlapped ΔFMQ (the proxy for oxygen fugacity) with those of the barren igneous rocks. However, the ore-forming porphyries of Cu ± Au ± Mo deposits are characterized by distinctly higher whole-rock V/Sc and zircon Eu/Eu* (both are proxies for water content) than barren rocks. Furthermore, the V/Sc ratios positively correlate with the Cu tonnages of calc-alkali porphyry Cu deposits, suggesting that magmatic water contents may yield the first-order control on metal endowment. The general decrease of V/Sc from the Paleozoic to Mesozoic, combined with the negative correlation of V/Sc with K2O and SiO2, also indicates the gradual evolution of crust in CAOB clearly controls the end members of porphyry-type systems (i.e., Cu‒Au and Mo deposits). The crustal residence age (TRes, the time difference between Nd depleted-mantle model age and the crystallization age) of c. 500 Ma from the Nd isotopes is proposed as the threshold distinguishing porphyry Cu ± Au ± Mo (TRes < 500 Ma) and Mo deposits (TRes > 500 Ma) in the CAOB.
The coupled zircon Hf isotopes and crustal thickness reveal that the fundamental crustal architecture in the eastern and western CAOB had been built by the Late Permian and Late Carboniferous, respectively, highlighted by the converging trends of εHf(t) commencing at c.250 Ma in the eastern segment and c.300 Ma in the western segment of CAOB, indicating reworking and homogenizing of juvenile crust after collision. In the eastern CAOB, porphyry Cu ± Au ± Mo deposits were formed by juvenile materials in thin island arcs, while porphyry Mo deposits were formed by reworked materials in the thickened orogenic crust after c.250 Ma. In the western CAOB, porphyry Cu deposits in the Balkhash region during the Late Carboniferous were formed in thickened continental crust (generally > 40 km), genetically linked to the culmination of world-wide magmatic addition rates (MARs) triggered by accelerated production of the juvenile crust, in contrast to the porphyry Cu ± Au ± Mo deposits formed in thin island arc (generally < 40 km) during the Early Paleozoic.
This study tests the zircon ΔFMQ as proxy for fO2, and zircon Eu/Eu* and whole-rock V/Sc ratios as proxy for water content. It highlights that whole-rock V/Sc ratio is a favorable index for the Cu tonnages of porphyry Cu ± Au ± Mo deposits, and that the distinct porphyry-type mineralization in the CAOB is controlled by the crustal evolution reflected by crustal composition and thickness.
Composite nanomaterials are particularly useful and offer many excellent opportunities for electrochemical sensing application. Depending on the high catalytic activity of bimetallic nanoparticles, ...the large specific surface area, abundant active edges and co-catalytic function of MoS2 nanosheets, we, for the first time, prepared a novel PtNi bimetallic nanoparticles loaded MoS2 nanosheets (PtNi@MoS2) hybrid material by a co-reduction method for the electrochemical sensing application. The nanocomposite is characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and then casted on a bare glassy carbon electrode (GCE) to fabricate an electrochemical sensor (PtNi@MoS2/GCE). The electrochemical investigation showed that the sensor performed good selectivity and wide linear ranges for the simultaneous detection of dopamine (0.5–150 μM) and uric acid (0.5–600 μM). And the detection limits were down to 0.1 μM (S/N = 3) for both analytes.
For the first time, a nanocomposite of PtNi bimetallic naoparticles loaded MoS2 nansheets was prepared by a co-reduction method and was used to establish an electrochemical sensor for the simultaneous detection of dopamine and uric acid. The sensor showed excellent performance and had been successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of the two analytes in human urine samples. Display omitted
•PtNi bimetallic naoparticles loaded MoS2 nansheets (PtNi@MoS2) was prepared by a co-reduction method for the first time.•The nanocomposite combines both superior properties of two materials, which is in favor of good electrochemical performance.•The fabricated sensor based on this composite material showed excellent performance for simultaneous detection of DA and UA.•This sensor was also successfully applied for the simultaneous determination of DA and UA in human urine samples.
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•We study coupon strategy in competition between brand name and generic products.•We find both horizontal and vertical differentiation affect coupon strategies.•With large HD, brand ...name products get a large manufacturer coupon.•With large VD, manufacturer coupon are high and retailer brand name coupons low.•Private label coupon is only impacted by difference in consumer willingness to pay.
This paper explores the couponing strategies when a national brand competes with a store brand by discussing three different kinds of coupons: manufacturers’ coupons, retailers’ national brand coupons, and retailers’ private label coupons. We show that the positioning of the private label product in terms of quality and feature differentiation from the national brand play an important role in determining the face value of the manufacturer's coupon and retailer's national brand coupon. In particular, a larger degree of feature differentiation drives the manufacturer to increase its coupon value, and the retailer responds by decreasing the value of its own coupon for the brand name product. In contrast, with an increase in private label quality, the couponing strategies taken by the manufacturer and the retailer depend on which segment of consumers is in the market for the private label product. Additionally, the retailer's private label coupon value is only impacted by the difference in consumers’ willingness to pay but not by private label positioning. Empirical results on the effect of feature differentiation on national brand and private label coupon values are consistent with our theoretical predictions.
The elongation of long-chain fatty acids family member 6 (Elovl6) is a key enzyme in lipogenesis that catalyzes the elongation of saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Insulin resistance ...involves upregulation of Elovl6, which has been linked to obesity-related malignancies, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the role of Elovl6 in cancer progression remains unknown. In this study, we analyzed the expression of Elovl6 in 61 clinical HCC specimens. Patients with Elovl6 high-expressing tumors were associated with shorter disease-free survival and overall survival compared to those with Elovl6 low-expressing tumors. Knockdown of Elovl6 in HCC cells reduced cell proliferation and Akt activation, as well as sensitivity to fatty acids. Inhibition of Elovl6 reduced tumor growth and prolonged survival in mice bearing tumors. Taken together, our results indicate that Elovl6 enhances oncogenic activity in liver cancer and is associated with poor prognosis in patients with HCC. Elovl6 may be a therapeutic target for HCC; thus, further studies to confirm this strategy are warranted.
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