Word skipping in Chinese reading: The role of high-frequency preview and syntactic felicity

Two experiments are reported to investigate whether Chinese readers skip a high frequency preview word without taking the syntax of the sentence context into account. In Experiment 1, we manipulated target word syntactic category, frequency and preview using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). For high frequency verb targets, there were identity and pseudocharacter previews alongside a low frequency noun preview. For low frequency verb targets, there were identity and pseudocharacter previews alongside a high frequency noun preview. Results showed that for high frequency targets, skipping rates were higher for identical previews compared to the syntactically infelicitous alternative low frequency preview and pseudocharacter previews, however for low frequency targets, skipping rates were higher for high frequency previews (even when they were syntactically infelicitous) compared to the other two previews. Furthermore, readers were more likely to skip the target when they had a high frequency, syntactically felicitous preview compared to a high frequency, syntactically infelicitous preview. The pattern of felicity effects was statistically robust when readers launched saccades from near the target. In Experiment 2, we assessed whether display change awareness influenced the patterns of results in Experiment 1. Results showed that the overall patterns held in Experiment 2 regardless of some readers being more likely to be aware of the display change than others. These results suggest that decisions to skip a word in Chinese reading are primarily based on parafoveal word familiarity, though the syntactic felicity of a parafoveal word also exerts a robust influence for high frequency previews

Processing Multi-Constituent Units: Preview Effects During Reading of Chinese Words, Idioms and Phrases

Arguably, the most contentious debate in the field of eye movement control in reading has centred on whether words are lexically processed serially or in parallel during reading. Chinese is character-based and unspaced, meaning the issue of how lexical processing is operationalized across potentially ambiguous, multi-character strings is not straightforward. We investigated Chinese readers’ processing of frequently occurring Multi-Constituent Units (MCUs), that is, linguistic units comprised of more than a single word, that might be represented lexically as a single representation. In Experiment 1, we manipulated the linguistic category of a two-constituent Chinese string (word, MCU, or phrase), and the preview of its second constituent (identical or pseudocharacter) using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) with the boundary located before the two-constituent string. A robust preview effect was obtained when the second constituent alongside the first formed a word or MCU, but not a phrase, suggesting that frequently occurring MCUs are lexicalized and processed parafoveally as single units during reading. In Experiment 2, we further manipulated phrase type of a two-constituent but three-character Chinese string (idiom with a 1-character modifier and a 2-character noun, or matched phrase) and preview of the second constituent noun (identity or pseudocharacter). A greater preview effect was obtained for idioms than phrases indicating that idioms are processed to a greater extent in the parafovea than matched phrases. Together, the results of these two experiments suggest that lexical identification processes in Chinese can be operationalized over linguistic units that are larger than an individual word

Up-Regulation of Mitochondrial Activity and Acquirement of Brown Adipose Tissue-Like Property in the White Adipose Tissue of Fsp27 Deficient Mice

Fsp27, a member of the Cide family proteins, was shown to localize to lipid droplet and promote lipid storage in adipocytes. We aimed to understand the biological role of Fsp27 in regulating adipose tissue differentiation, insulin sensitivity and energy balance. Fsp27−/− mice and Fsp27/lep double deficient mice were generated and we examined the adiposity, whole body metabolism, BAT and WAT morphology, insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial activity, and gene expression changes in these mouse strains. Furthermore, we isolated mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) from wildtype and Fsp27−/− mice, followed by their differentiation into adipocytes in vitro. We found that Fsp27 is expressed in both brown adipose tissue (BAT) and white adipose tissue (WAT) and its levels were significantly elevated in the WAT and liver of leptin-deficient ob/ob mice. Fsp27−/− mice had increased energy expenditure, lower levels of plasma triglycerides and free fatty acids. Furthermore, Fsp27−/− and Fsp27/lep double-deficient mice are resistant to diet-induced obesity and display increased insulin sensitivity. Moreover, white adipocytes in Fsp27−/− mice have reduced triglycerides accumulation and smaller lipid droplets, while levels of mitochondrial proteins, mitochondrial size and activity are dramatically increased. We further demonstrated that BAT-specific genes and key metabolic controlling factors such as FoxC2, PPAR and PGC1α were all markedly upregulated. In contrast, factors inhibiting BAT differentiation such as Rb, p107 and RIP140 were down-regulated in the WAT of Fsp27−/− mice. Remarkably, Fsp27−/− MEFs differentiated in vitro show many brown adipocyte characteristics in the presence of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T3). Our data thus suggest that Fsp27 acts as a novel regulator in vivo to control WAT identity, mitochondrial activity and insulin sensitivity

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Association between serum osteocalcin and glucose/lipid metabolism in Chinese Han and Uygur populations with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Xinjiang: two cross-sectional studies

Abstract Background Recent studies have shown osteocalcin (OC) plays an important role in regulating glucose and lipid metabolism. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the association of OC with glucose and lipid metabolism in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in the Chinese Han and Uygur population. Methods A total of 1397 T2DM patients (705 Han and 692 Uygur T2DM patients) were enrolled in the present study. Lipid profile, glucose metabolic indices and total OC (TOC) were measured. Homeostasis model assessment of β-cells function (HOMA-β), insulin sensitivity (HOMA-IS) and insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were also calculated in all participants. Pearson/Spearman correlation analysis and multivariate stepwise regression analysis were adopted to test the relationships between OC and those parameters. Results Uygur T2DM patients had significantly higher body mass index (BMI), hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) and lower TOC compared with their Han counterparts (all P  0.05). Conclusion There were differences in the associations between TOC and glucose metabolism in Han and Uygur T2DM patients, indicating genetic factors may play a role in modulating OC and glucose metabolism in different ethnic population

Facile synthesis of magnetically retrievable Fe3O4/BiVO4/CdS heterojunction composite for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline under visible light

Nowadays, designing photocatalysts with high activity and recyclability for the degradation of pollutants is still a challenging problem. In this paper, a novel Fe3O4/BiVO4/CdS (FBC) heterojunction photocatalyst was firstly fabricated by simultaneously decorating CdS on the surface of pristine Fe3O4 and BiVO4 in a low-temperature water bath system. The FBC photocatalyst can enhance the absorption range of visible light and facilitate the separation and transfer of charges. Simultaneously, it can also provide large specific surface area and excellent magnetic response. FBC-3 displayed the highest degradation rate of tetracycline (87.37%) under visible light irradiation. Moreover, the important parameters affecting the photocatalytic activity were investigated to simulate the degradation of TC in real aqueous system. More importantly, the synthesized magnetic photocatalyst exhibited good universal applicability, stability and reusability. The Z-scheme transfer pathway for improving photocatalytic performance was also proposed based on the results of radical trapping experiments, electron spin resonance (ESR) measurement, optical and photoelectrochemical analysis