A family study of endophenotypes for psychosis within an early intervention programme in Hong Kong: Rationale and preliminary findings

The study of endophenotypes may be a viable strategy to tackle the genetic complexity and phenotypic heterogeneity of psychosis, but this research direction is relatively under-developed in China as compared to Western countries. We have recently initiated one of the first family studies of endophenotypes for psychosis in China. Patients entering an established early psychosis intervention service are recruited into this research project for phenotyping, endophenotyping and genotyping. At the endophenotypic level, four domains (neurological soft signs, neurocognition of prospective memory, social cognition of facial emotion recognition, and affective cognition of anticipatory and consummatory pleasure) are studied in the sample of patients with psychosis and their unaffected siblings. This article illustrates the benefit of a research-oriented clinical programme and its findings based on the data collected as of early 2011. © 2011 Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Fuel consumption and emissions performance under real driving: Comparison between hybrid and conventional vehicles

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are perceived to be more energy efficient and less polluting than conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. However, increasing evidence has shown that real-driving emissions (RDE) could be much higher than laboratory type approval limits and the advantages of HEVs over their conventional ICE counterparts under real-driving conditions have not been studied extensively. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the real-driving fuel consumption and pollutant emissions performance of HEVs against their conventional ICE counterparts. Two pairs of hybrid and conventional gasoline vehicles of the same model were tested simultaneously in a novel convoy mode using two portable emission measurement systems (PEMSs), thus eliminating the effect of vehicle configurations, driving behaviour, road conditions and ambient environment on the performance comparison. The results showed that although real-driving fuel consumption for both hybrid and conventional vehicles were 44%–100% and 30%–82% higher than their laboratory results respectively, HEVs saved 23%–49% fuel relative to their conventional ICE counterparts. Pollutant emissions of all the tested vehicles were lower than the regulation limits. However, HEVs showed no reduction in HC emissions and consistently higher CO emissions compared to the conventional ICE vehicles. This could be caused by the frequent stops and restarts of the HEV engines, as well as the lowered exhaust gas temperature and reduced effectiveness of the oxidation catalyst. The findings therefore show that while achieving the fuel reduction target, hybridisation did not bring the expected benefits to urban air quality

Characterisation of diesel vehicle emissions and determination of remote sensing cutpoints for diesel high-emitters

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Diesel vehicles are a major source of air pollutants in cities and have caused significant health risks to the public globally. This study used both on-road remote sensing and transient chassis dynamometer to characterise emissions of diesel light goods vehicles. A large sample size of 183 diesel vans were tested on a transient chassis dynamometer to evaluate the emission levels of in-service diesel vehicles and to determine a set of remote sensing cutpoints for diesel high-emitters. The results showed that 79% and 19% of the Euro 4 and Euro 5 diesel vehicles failed the transient cycle test, respectively. Most of the high-emitters failed the NO limits, while no vehicle failed the HC limits and only a few vehicles failed the CO limits. Vehicles that failed NO limits occurred in both old and new vehicles. NO/CO2 ratios of 57.30 and 22.85 ppm/% were chosen as the remote sensing cutpoints for Euro 4 and Euro 5 high-emitters, respectively. The cutpoints could capture a Euro 4 and Euro 5 high-emitter at a probability of 27% and 57% with one snapshot remote sensing measurement, while only producing 1% of false high-emitter detections. The probability of high-emitting events was generally evenly distributed over the test cycle, indicating that no particular driving condition produced a higher probability of high-emitting events. Analysis on the effect of cutpoints on real-driving diesel fleet was carried out using a three-year remote sensing program. Results showed that 36% of Euro 4 and 47% of Euro 5 remote sensing measurements would be detected as high-emitting using the proposed cutpoints. In-service diesel vehicles emit low CO and HC but high NO

Pathway of psychiatric care in Hong Kong

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Multivariate Neural Representations of Value during Reward Anticipation and Consummation in the Human Orbitofrontal Cortex

The role of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in value processing is a focus of research. Conventional imaging analysis, where smoothing and averaging are employed, may not be sufficiently sensitive in studying the OFC, which has heterogeneous anatomical structures and functions. In this study, we employed representational similarity analysis (RSA) to reveal the multi-voxel fMRI patterns in the OFC associated with value processing during the anticipatory and the consummatory phases. We found that multi-voxel activation patterns in the OFC encoded magnitude and partial valence information (win vs. loss) but not outcome (favourable vs. unfavourable) during reward consummation. Furthermore, the lateral OFC rather than the medial OFC encoded loss information. Also, we found that OFC encoded values in a similar way to the ventral striatum (VS) or the anterior insula (AI) during reward anticipation regardless of motivated response and to the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the VS in reward consummation. In contrast, univariate analysis did not show changes of activation in the OFC. These findings suggest an important role of the OFC in value processing during reward anticipation and consummation.This study was supported by grants from the National Science Fund China (81088001, 31500894 and 91132701), the Strategic Priority Research Programme (B) of the Chinese Academy of Science (XDB02030002), the Beijing Training Project for the Leading Talents in S & T (Z151100000315020), the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission Grant, and a grant from the initiation fund of the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Programme for Creative Research Team (Y2CX131003). LS is funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and Biomedical Research Unit in Dementia based at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge