Gender Difference of Unconscious Attentional Bias in High Trait Anxiety Individuals

By combining binocular suppression technique and a probe detection paradigm, we investigated attentional bias to invisible stimuli and its gender difference in both high trait anxiety (HTA) and low trait anxiety (LTA) individuals. As an attentional cue, happy or fearful face pictures were presented to HTAs and LTAs for 800 ms either consciously or unconsciously (through binocular suppression). Participants were asked to judge the orientation of a gabor patch following the face pictures. Their performance was used to measure attentional effect induced by the cue. We found gender differences of attentional effect only in the unconscious condition with HTAs. Female HTAs exhibited difficulty in disengaging attention from the location where fearful faces were presented, while male HTAs showed attentional avoidance of it. Our results suggested that the failure to find attentional avoidance of threatening stimuli in many previous studies might be attributed to consciously presented stimuli and data analysis regardless of participants' gender. These findings also contributed to our understanding of gender difference in anxiety disorder

Innovation of a Regulatory Mechanism Modulating Semi-determinate Stem Growth through Artificial Selection in Soybean

It has been demonstrated that Terminal Flowering 1 (TFL1) in Arabidopsis and its functional orthologs in other plants specify indeterminate stem growth through their specific expression that represses floral identity genes in shoot apical meristems (SAMs), and that the loss-of-function mutations at these functional counterparts result in the transition of SAMs from the vegetative to reproductive state that is essential for initiation of terminal flowering and thus formation of determinate stems. However, little is known regarding how semi-determinate stems, which produce terminal racemes similar to those observed in determinate plants, are specified in any flowering plants. Here we show that semi-determinacy in soybean is modulated by transcriptional repression of Dt1, the functional ortholog of TFL1, in SAMs. Such repression is fulfilled by recently enabled spatiotemporal expression of Dt2, an ancestral form of the APETALA1/FRUITFULL orthologs, which encodes a MADS-box factor directly binding to the regulatory sequence of Dt1. In addition, Dt2 triggers co-expression of the putative SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS 1 (GmSOC1) in SAMs, where GmSOC1 interacts with Dt2, and also directly binds to the Dt1 regulatory sequence. Heterologous expression of Dt2 and Dt1 in determinate (tfl1) Arabidopsis mutants enables creation of semi-determinacy, but the same forms of the two genes in the tfl1 and soc1 background produce indeterminate stems, suggesting that Dt2 and SOC1 both are essential for transcriptional repression of Dt1. Nevertheless, the expression of Dt2 is unable to repress TFL1 in Arabidopsis, further demonstrating the evolutionary novelty of the regulatory mechanism underlying stem growth in soybean

The roles of sirtuins in ferroptosis

Ferroptosis represents a novel non-apoptotic form of regulated cell death that is driven by iron-dependent lipid peroxidation and plays vital roles in various diseases including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders and cancers. Plenty of iron metabolism-related proteins, regulators of lipid peroxidation, and oxidative stress-related molecules are engaged in ferroptosis and can regulate this complex biological process. Sirtuins have broad functional significance and are targets of many drugs in the clinic. Recently, a growing number of studies have revealed that sirtuins can participate in the occurrence of ferroptosis by affecting many aspects such as redox balance, iron metabolism, and lipid metabolism. This article reviewed the studies on the roles of sirtuins in ferroptosis and the related molecular mechanisms, highlighting valuable targets for the prevention and treatment of ferroptosis-associated diseases

CRIM1 Complexes with ß-catenin and Cadherins, Stabilizes Cell-Cell Junctions and Is Critical for Neural Morphogenesis

In multicellular organisms, morphogenesis is a highly coordinated process that requires dynamically regulated adhesion between cells. An excellent example of cellular morphogenesis is the formation of the neural tube from the flattened epithelium of the neural plate. Cysteine-rich motor neuron protein 1 (CRIM1) is a single-pass (type 1) transmembrane protein that is expressed in neural structures beginning at the neural plate stage. In the frog Xenopus laevis, loss of function studies using CRIM1 antisense morpholino oligonucleotides resulted in a failure of neural development. The CRIM1 knockdown phenotype was, in some cases, mild and resulted in perturbed neural fold morphogenesis. In severely affected embryos there was a dramatic failure of cell adhesion in the neural plate and complete absence of neural structures subsequently. Investigation of the mechanism of CRIM1 function revealed that it can form complexes with ß-catenin and cadherins, albeit indirectly, via the cytosolic domain. Consistent with this, CRIM1 knockdown resulted in diminished levels of cadherins and ß-catenin in junctional complexes in the neural plate. We conclude that CRIM1 is critical for cell-cell adhesion during neural development because it is required for the function of cadherin-dependent junctions

A new free-form deformation through the control of parametric surfaces

A new free-form deformation method is presented in this paper. The deformation of an object is Á achieved by attaching it to two parametric surfaces, namely the shape surface Suv ( , ) and the height Á surface Huv ( ,). A control point or vertex of object is projected onto the shape surface along its normal and a correspondence between the point and its projection on the shape surface is established. The point is then embedded into the parametric space defined by the shape surface. By regarding the height surface as a displacement function, the directed distance from the sample point to its projection on the shape surface can be further adjusted. The proposed method is independent of the representation of underlying object. Experimental results show that the method is intuitive, easy to control and run fast. Keyword: free-form deformation, shape surface, height surface, B-spline surface 1

Optimization on condition of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) nanoliposomes by response surface methodology and cellular uptake studies in Caco-2 cells

The major component in green tea polyphenols, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), has been demonstrated to prevent carcinogenesis. To improve the effectiveness of EGCG, liposomes were used as a carrier in this study. Reverse-phase evaporation method besides response surface methodology is a simple, rapid, and beneficial approach for liposome preparation and optimization. The optimal preparation conditions were as follows: phosphatidylcholine-to-cholesterol ratio of 4.00, EGCG concentration of 4.88 mg/mL, Tween 80 concentration of 1.08 mg/mL, and rotary evaporation temperature of 34.51°C. Under these conditions, the experimental encapsulation efficiency and size of EGCG nanoliposomes were 85.79% ± 1.65% and 180 nm ± 4 nm, which were close with the predicted value. The malondialdehyde value and the release test in vitro indicated that the prepared EGCG nanoliposomes were stable and suitable for more widespread application. Furthermore, compared with free EGCG, encapsulation of EGCG enhanced its inhibitory effect on tumor cell viability at higher concentrations

Surface Deformation Using the Sensor Glove

Intuitive 3D surface control and deformation are crucial to CAD/CAM. To do this in a virtual environment, however, the technique must be very efficient. A common method for shape deformation is the free-form deformation (FFD) method, in which the complete object is deformed by deforming a 3D grid of the object. In this paper, we propose an intuitive method for surface deformation based on deforming a hand surface, which is basically a bicubic B-spline surface interpolating or approximating key data points of a sensor glove (i.e. finger joints and palm center of the user's hand). By setting up a corresponding mapping between the virtual object being deformed and the hand surface, the object can be deformed with the control of the sensor glove. As the user flexes his/her fingers, the object changes its shape accordingly. Such control can be local or global. For local deformation, we introduce a region filter function which imposes locality on the mapping/deformation. The new algorithm is..

Surface Deformation Using the Sensor Glove

Intuitive 3D surface control and deformation are crucial to CAD/CAM. To do this in a virtual environment, however, the technique must be very efficient. A common method for shape deformation is the free-form deformation (FFD) method, in which the complete object is deformed by deforming a 3D grid of the object. In this paper, we propose an intuitive method for surface deformation based on deforming a hand surface, which is basically a bicubic B-spline surface interpolating or approximating key data points of a sensor glove (i.e. finger joints and palm center of the user’s hand). By setting up a corresponding mapping between the virtual object being deformed and the hand surface, the object can be deformed with the control of the sensor glove. As the user flexes his/her fingers, the object changes its shape accordingly. Such control can be local or global. For local deformation, we introduce a region filter function which imposes locality on the mapping/deformation. The new algorithm is made very efficient through incremental update. It is also intuitive as if the user were using his hand to deform the object directly. Experimental results show the potential of the new method. 1