Feel Safe to Take More Risks? Insecure Attachment Increases Consumer Risk-Taking Behavior

open access articl

Advances in pathogenesis and treatment of ocular involvement in Behcet’s disease

Behcet’s disease (BD) is a chronic multi-systemic disease characterized by relapsing-remitting oral ulcers, genital ulcers, ocular inflammatory involvements, and numerous other systemic features. Ocular involvements are quite common in BD and may cause severe tissue damage and potentially blindness. Even though the pathogenesis of BD remains ambiguous, growing evidences have shown that genetic factors, environmental triggers and immunological abnormalities play significant roles in its development and progression. Novel biotherapies targeting IFN-γ, TNF-α and interleukins have been used in recent years. In this review, we mainly pay attention to the ocular involvement of BD, and discuss the current understanding of mechanisms and advances in therapeutic approaches, especially novel biologics. Finally, we discuss the management in patients with pregnancy

Detection-driven exposure-correction network for nighttime drone-view object detection.

Drone-view object detection (DroneDet) models typically suffer a significant performance drop when applied to nighttime scenes. Existing solutions attempt to employ an exposure-adjustment module to reveal objects hidden in dark regions before detection. However, most exposure-adjustment models are only optimized for human perception, where the exposure-adjusted images may not necessarily enhance recognition. To tackle this issue, we propose a novel Detection-driven Exposure-Correction network for nighttime DroneDet, called DEDet. The DEDet conducts adaptive, non-linear adjustment of pixel values in a spatially fine-grained manner to generate DroneDet-friendly images. Specifically, we develop a Fine-grained Parameter Predictor (FPP) to estimate pixel-wise parameter maps of the image filters. These filters, along with the estimated parameters, are used to adjust pixel values of the low-light image based on non-uniform illuminations in drone-captured images. In order to learn the non-linear transformation from the original nighttime images to their DroneDet-friendly counterparts, we propose a Progressive Filtering module that applies recursive filters to iteratively refine the exposed image. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of the proposed DEDet, we have built a dataset NightDrone to address the scarcity of the datasets specifically tailored for this purpose. Extensive experiments conducted on four nighttime datasets show that DEDet achieves a superior accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, ablation studies and visualizations demonstrate the validity and interpretability of our approach. Our NightDrone dataset can be downloaded from https://github.com/yuexiemail/NightDrone-Dataset

The funnier, the happier? The interplay between interpersonal humor styles on mental health via gratitude

According to Martin’s taxonomy (2003), affiliative and aggressive humor are the two humor styles with an interpersonal focus. Many studies have demonstrated the mental health benefits of affiliative humor, whereas less consensus has been reached on aggressive humor. Focusing on the question “when and why aggressive humor would be related to mental health”, the current study proposed that the association of aggressive humor and mental health could be mediated by gratitude and moderated by affiliative humor. The proposals were tested in a large multi-university student sample (N=4775, Mage = 20.37) in China, showing that trait gratitude mediated the negative relationship between aggressive humor and subjective happiness and the positive relationship between aggressive humor and depression. More importantly, this effect was less substantial for those who endorse a greater (vs. lesser) affiliative humor style. Implications of gratitude as a potential mechanism in explaining the mental health correlates of aggressive humor and the interplay of interpersonal humor styles are discussed

PPAR- γ

Sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction remains one of the major causes of death in intensive care units. Overwhelmed inflammatory response and unrestrained cell death play critical roles in sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor- (PPAR-) γ has been proven to be cardioprotective in sepsis. However, the mechanism of PPAR-γ-mediated cardioprotection and its relationship with inflammation and cell death are unclear. We hypothesized that activation of PPAR-γ by reducing cardiac inflammation, myocardial apoptosis, and necroptosis may prevent myocardial dysfunction in sepsis. Rats were subjected to cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) with or without PPAR-γ agonist (rosiglitazone) or antagonist T0070907 (T007). After CLP, cardiac function was significantly depressed, which was associated with the destructed myocardium, upregulated proinflammatory cytokines, and increased apoptosis, necrosis, and necroptosis. This process is corresponded with decreased inhibitor κB (IκBα) and increased NF-κB, receptor-interacting protein kinase-1 (RIP1), RIP3, and mixed lineage kinase-like (MLKL) protein. Activation of PPAR-γ by rosiglitazone pretreatment enhanced PPAR-γ activity and prevented these changes, thereby improving the survival of septic rats. In contrast, inhibition of PPAR-γ by T007 further exacerbated the condition, dropping the survival rate to nearly 0%. In conclusion, PPAR-γ activation by reducing proinflammatory cytokines, apoptosis, and necroptosis in the myocardium prevents septic myocardial dysfunction

Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor Attenuates Septic Myocardial Dysfunction via eNOS/NO Pathway in Rats

Sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction increases mortality in sepsis, yet the underlying mechanism is unclear. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been found to enhance cardiomyocyte function, but whether BDNF has a beneficial effect against septic myocardial dysfunction is unknown. Septic shock was induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP). BDNF was expressed in primary cardiomyocytes, and its expression was significantly reduced after sepsis. In rats with sepsis, a sharp decline in survival was observed after CLP, with significantly reduced cardiac BDNF expression, enhanced myocardial fibrosis, elevated oxidative stress, increased myocardial apoptosis, and decreased endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase (eNOS) and NO. Supplementation with recombined BDNF protein (rhBDNF) enhanced myocardial BDNF and increased survival rate with improved cardiac function, reduced oxidative stress, and myocardial apoptosis, which were associated with increased eNOS expression, NO production, and Trk-B, a BDNF receptor. Pretreatment with NOS inhibitor, N (omega)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester, abolished the abovementioned BDNF cardioprotective effects without affecting BDNF and Trk-B. It is concluded that BDNF protects the heart against septic cardiac dysfunction by reducing oxidative stress and apoptosis via Trk-B, and it does so through activation of eNOS/NO pathway. These findings provide a new treatment strategy for sepsis-induced myocardial dysfunction

2D MXene Ti3C2Tx nanosheets in the development of a mechanically enhanced and efficient antibacterial dental resin composite

The bacterial accumulation at the margins of dental resin composites is a main cause of secondary caries, which may further lead to prosthodontic failure. In this regard, this study for the first time incorporated 2D MXene Ti3C2Tx nanosheets (NSs) into epoxy resin at different mass ratios (0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 wt%) by solution blending and direct curing for dental applications. Compared to the pure resin, the as-fabricated MXene/resin composite not only exhibited improved mechanical and abrasive results but also displayed gradually improved antibacterial activity with MXene loading which was further enhanced by illumination in natural light due to the high photothermal efficiency of MXene. In addition, the cytotoxicity result demonstrated that the MXene-modified resin did not cause severe damage to normal cells. This novel MXene/resin nanocomposite could pave the way for new designs for high-performance, multifunctional nanocomposites to effectively protect dental health in daily life

Biological control of Fusarium crown rot of wheat with Chaetomium globosum 12XP1-2-3 and its effects on rhizosphere microorganisms

Chaetomium globosum is a common plant endophytic fungi that exhibits great biocontrol potential in plant disease. Fusarium crown rot (FCR) is an important disease in wheat that seriously threatens wheat production worldwide. The control effect of C. globosum against wheat FCR remains unclear. In this study, we introduced an identified C. globosum 12XP1-2-3 and tested its biological control potential against wheat FCR. The hypha and fermentation broth exhibited an antagonistic effect against Fusarium pseudograminearum. Results from indoor experiments showed that C. globosum 12XP1-2-3 might delay the onset of symptoms of brown stem base and significantly reduced the disease index (37.3%). Field trials showed that wheat seeds coated with a spore suspension of 12XP1-2-3 grew better than the control seeds, had control effects of 25.9–73.1% on FCR disease, and increased wheat yield by 3.2–11.9%. Analysis of rhizosphere microorganisms revealed that seeds coated with C. globosum (‘Cg’ treatment) had a greater effect on fungal rather than on bacterial alpha diversity and may improve the health state of rhizosphere microorganisms, as reflected by the significantly increased fungal Shannon index at Feekes 11 and the increased complexity of the bacterial co-occurrence network but decreased complexity of the fungal network. Moreover, the accumulation of beneficial bacteria such as Bacillus and Rhizobium at Feekes 3, and Sphingomonas at Feekes 7 in the ‘Cg’ treatment may be the important contributions to healthier wheat growth state, significantly reduced relative abundance of Fusarium at Feekes 11, and reduced occurrence of FCR disease. These results provide a basis for further research on the mechanism of action of C. globosum and its application in the biological control of FCR in the field

Global, regional, and national burden of colorectal cancer and its risk factors, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Funding: F Carvalho and E Fernandes acknowledge support from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT), in the scope of the project UIDP/04378/2020 and UIDB/04378/2020 of the Research Unit on Applied Molecular Biosciences UCIBIO and the project LA/P/0140/2020 of the Associate Laboratory Institute for Health and Bioeconomy i4HB; FCT/MCTES through the project UIDB/50006/2020. J Conde acknowledges the European Research Council Starting Grant (ERC-StG-2019-848325). V M Costa acknowledges the grant SFRH/BHD/110001/2015, received by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), IP, under the Norma Transitória DL57/2016/CP1334/CT0006.proofepub_ahead_of_prin