Quantitative assessment of the scale conversion from instantaneous to daily GPP under various sky conditions based on MODIS local overpassing time

With the increasing frequency of extreme events, daily gross primary productivity (GPP) is necessary to be accurately assessed to determine when and how much it is affected. Fluctuating environmental conditions contribute to diverse diurnal photosynthetic patterns influenced by changing atmospheric factors, including solar radiation, CO2 concentrations, and leaf temperature. This complexity underscores the challenge of accurately estimating daily GPP. We quantitatively assessed three temporal upscaling approaches – cosine of the solar zenith angle, extraterrestrial solar irradiance, and photosynthetic active radiation(PAR) – under varying sky conditions. Additionally, we introduced a novel correction method for universal temporal upscaling ratios. Instantaneous GPP values from the FLUXNET2015 dataset, acquired around the MODIS overpassing time, were utilized. The upscaled daily GPP exhibited minimal deviation from the half-hourly GPPs collected between 11 am and 1 pm, with increased discrepancies for GPPs later in the afternoon. The PAR-based approach demonstrated superior accuracy in the afternoon, effectively capturing incoming radiation changes due to clouds. Instant environmental variables-GPP relationships were weak under clear skies but exhibited moderate-to-high positive correlations under cloudy conditions. Analyzing the impact of the diffuse ratio of incoming photosynthetic active radiation on instantaneous GPP revealed limited enhancement at short time scales. On a daily scale, all three temporal upscaling approaches, under different ranges of clearness index, consistently underestimated daily GPP. We proposed a novel correction method, normalizing the difference between maximum and minimum air temperature in a day, notably reduced errors by approximately 10.69 and 21.07 gC m−2 d−1 for cosine of the solar zenith angle and extraterrestrial solar irradiance-based temporal upscaling approaches. We recommend adopting the corrected temporal upscaling factor globally due to its simplicity and improved accuracy.</p

NIRS data comparing maintenance-related NIRS measurements between the control (CO) and schizophrenic (SZ) groups during the spatial WM task.

<p>(A) Deoxy-Hb data: schizophrenic patients showed greater activity in the left frontal cortex (see the left panel) and the healthy control subjects showed greater activation in the right frontal cortex (see the right panel) on correct trials. (B) Oxy-Hb data: schizophrenic patients showed greater activation in the bilateral frontal cortex on correct trials. (C) Total-Hb data: schizophrenic patients showed greater activation in the bilateral frontal cortex compared with the control subjects on correct trials.</p

A schematic diagram of the spatial working memory (WM) task.

<p>After the presentation of a fixation point (1000 ms), three targets appeared one after the other for 750 ms each with an interstimulus interval of 250 ms. A delay period of 12 s followed. Then a probe was presented. Participants were asked to decide whether the probe was located in one of the target locations or not. After they made a response, they were asked to rate their confidence level for the response that they had just made.</p

Activation maps of the delay-related BOLD data in the frontal cortex during the spatial WM task.

<p>(A) For correct trials, schizophrenic patients (SZ) showed increased activation in the middle frontal gyrus (white arrow) and the superior frontal gyrus (yellow arrow) in the left hemisphere whereas the control group (CO) showed increased activation in the middle frontal gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus in the right hemisphere. (B) This figure shows the % signal change during the spatial WM task in the right MFG and the left MFG for correct trials. In the left MFG, schizophrenic patients showed increased activation during maintenance. (C) Schizophrenic patients showed increased activation in the middle frontal gyrus and the superior frontal gyrus during “false memory” trials.</p

Beta values of the mPFC (A), precuneus (B), left TPJ (C) and right TPJ (D) during the Belief Attribution Task and Emotion Attribution Task.

<p>Values are given as mean (standard error).</p

Neural Correlates of Belief and Emotion Attribution in Schizophrenia

<div><p>Impaired mental state attribution is a core social cognitive deficit in schizophrenia. With functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study examined the extent to which the core neural system of mental state attribution is involved in mental state attribution, focusing on belief attribution and emotion attribution. Fifteen schizophrenia outpatients and 14 healthy controls performed two mental state attribution tasks in the scanner. In a Belief Attribution Task, after reading a short vignette, participants were asked infer either the belief of a character (a false belief condition) or a physical state of an affair (a false photograph condition). In an Emotion Attribution Task, participants were asked either to judge whether character(s) in pictures felt unpleasant, pleasant, or neutral emotion (other condition) or to look at pictures that did not have any human characters (view condition). fMRI data were analyzing focusing on a priori regions of interest (ROIs) of the core neural systems of mental state attribution: the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), temporoparietal junction (TPJ) and precuneus. An exploratory whole brain analysis was also performed. Both patients and controls showed greater activation in all four ROIs during the Belief Attribution Task than the Emotion Attribution Task. Patients also showed less activation in the precuneus and left TPJ compared to controls during the Belief Attribution Task. No significant group difference was found during the Emotion Attribution Task in any of ROIs. An exploratory whole brain analysis showed a similar pattern of neural activations. These findings suggest that while schizophrenia patients rely on the same neural network as controls do when attributing beliefs of others, patients did not show reduced activation in the key regions such as the TPJ. Further, this study did not find evidence for aberrant neural activation during emotion attribution or recruitment of compensatory brain regions in schizophrenia.</p></div

Brain activation patterns of the whole brain analysis.

<p>3A shows neural activation patterns for the contrast of false belief > false photograph condition of the Belief Attribution Task in controls, patients and controls > patients. There was no area in which patients showed significantly greater activation than controls. 3B shows neural activation patterns for the contrast of other attribution > viewing condition in controls and patients. Direct group comparison did not show any brain regions with significantly different activation between groups. All statistical images were thresholded using a z value > 2.3 with a corrected cluster probability of p = 0.05 to control for multiple comparisons using Gaussian random field theory.</p

Demographic information and behavioral performance of schizophrenia patients and controls ^†.

<p>Demographic information and behavioral performance of schizophrenia patients and controls ^{<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0165546#t001fn001" target="_blank">†</a>}.</p

A priori regions of interests (ROIs).

<p>The bilateral TPJ is depicted in green (left TPJ, X = -52, Y = -56, Z = 24; right TPJ, X = 56, Y = -54, Z = 24). The mPFC is depicted in red (X = -4, Y = 56, Z = 8). The precuneus is depicted in blue (X = -2, Y = -56, Z = 36). Coordinates are given in Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) space.</p

Controlled Charge Trapping and Retention in Large-Area Monodisperse Protein Metal-Nanoparticle Conjugates

Here, we report on charge-retention transistors based on novel protein-mediated Au nanoparticle (NP) arrays, with precise control over dimension and distribution. Individual NPs are coated with alpha-synuclein, an amyloidogenic protein responsible for Lewy body formation in Parkinson’s disease. Subsequently, a monolayer of protein-NP conjugates is successfully created via a simple and scalable solution deposition to function as distributed nanoscale capacitors. Controllability over the film structure translates into the tunability of the electrical performance; pentacene-based organic transistors feature widely varying programmability and relaxation dynamics, providing versatility for various unconventional memory applications