Neural Basis of Working Memory Enhancement after Acute Aerobic Exercise: fMRI Study of Preadolescent Children

Working memory lies at the core of cognitive function and plays a crucial role in children’s learning, reasoning, problem solving, and intellectual activity. Behavioral findings have suggested that acute aerobic exercise improves children’s working memory; however, there is still very little knowledge about whether a single session of aerobic exercise can alter working memory’s brain activation patterns, as assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Therefore, we investigated the effect of acute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise on working memory and its brain activation patterns in preadolescent children, and further explored the neural basis of acute aerobic exercise on working memory in these children. We used a within-subjects design with a counterbalanced order. Nine healthy, right-handed children were scanned with a Siemens MAGNETOM Trio 3.0 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scanner while they performed a working memory task (N-back task), following a baseline session and a 30-min, moderate-intensity exercise session. Compared with the baseline session, acute moderate-intensity aerobic exercise benefitted performance in the N-back task, increasing brain activities of bilateral parietal cortices, left hippocampus, and the bilateral cerebellum. These data extend the current knowledge by indicating that acute aerobic exercise enhances children’s working memory, and the neural basis may be related to changes in the working memory’s brain activation patterns elicited by acute aerobic exercise

Obciążenie chorobami układu sercowo-naczyniowego u osób hospitalizowanych w szpitalu w Guangzhou w Chinach, w latach 2006–2015

Introduction. To explore the epidemiological characters of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients and to give a certain clues for disease prevention and clinical treatment. Material and methods. We carried out an investigation using retrospective study method by the medical records retrieval system, and extracted the data of inpatients suffered from CVD in a hospital in Guangzhou from 2006 to 2015, including age, gender, disease onset time, clinical diagnosis, hospitalization days, cost and so on. Results. The average admissions per 5 years kept increasing in the study period. Most inpatients suffered from the CVD in December (n = 9288, 9.10%), while least in February (n = 7309, 7.16%). Most of the inpatients were 66–75-years- -old (n = 24,891, 24.37%). Gender ratio (male vs. female) of CVD inpatients showed a downward trend came with age. The gender ratio was 1.9 and 0.99 among inpatients below 26-years-old and above 85-years-old, respectively. Most common CVD were ischemic heart diseases (29.46%), cerebrovascular diseases (21.59%) and hypertensive diseases (15.18%). The adjusted hospitalization cost was 4600.30 USD in 2006 and 5473.66 USD in 2006, while the average hospitalization days were 15.63 in 2006 and 9.98 in 2015. Conclusions. More attention should be paid to the middle and elderly people with CVD risk factors, especially the senile women, to reduce the disease burden. The change of gender ratio suggested there may be other significant causes leading to the gender differences besides estrogen.Wstęp. Badanie przeprowadzono w celu oceny cech epidemiologicznych chorych hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego i sformułowanie wskazówek dotyczących zapobiegania tym chorobom oraz ich leczenia. Materiał i metody. Badanie przeprowadzono w sposób retrospektywny na podstawie analizy danych medycznych, korzystając z dokumentacji pacjentów hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego w szpitalu w Guangzhou w latach 2006–2015. Dane włączone do analizy obejmowały między innymi wiek, płeć, czas rozpoczęcia choroby, rozpoznanie kliniczne, okres hospitalizacji (dni), koszty związane z hospitalizacją. Wyniki. Średnia liczba hospitalizacji na 5 lat zwiększała się stale w badanym okresie. Najwięcej chorych zgłaszało się do szpitala z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego w grudniu (n = 9288; 9,10%), natomiast najmniej w lutym (n = 7309; 7,16%). Największą grupę hospitalizowanych stanowiły osoby w wieku 66–75 lat (n = 24 891; 24,37%). Wartość współczynnika płci chorych (stosunek liczby mężczyzn do liczby kobiet) wśród osób hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego zmniejszała się z wiekiem. Współczynnik ten wynosił 1,9 i 0,99, odpowiednio, w grupach chorych w wieku poniżej 26 lat oraz powyżej 85 lat. Do najczęstszych CVD należały choroba niedokrwienna serca (29,46%), choroba naczyniowa mózgu (21,59%) i nadciśnienie tętnicze (15,18%). Skorygowane koszty hospitalizacji wynosiły 4600,30 USD w 2006 roku i 5473,66 USD w 2015 roku, natomiast średni czas hospitalizacji wynosił odpowiednio 15,63 i 9,98 dnia. Wnioski. Aby zmniejszyć obciążenie chorobami sercowo-naczyniowymi należy zwrócić większa uwagę na osoby w średnim i podeszłym wieku, u których występują czynniki ryzyka sercowo-naczyniowego; dotyczy to zwłaszcza starszych kobiet. Zmiana proporcji płci chorych sugeruje, że oprócz estrogenu mogą istnieć inne przyczyny powodujące różnicę w liczbie zachorowań na choroby sercowo-naczyniowe

Quantum correlations in spin models

Bell nonlocality, entanglement and nonclassical correlations are different aspects of quantum correlations for a given state. There are many methods to measure nonclassical correlations. In this paper, nonclassical correlations in two-qubit spin models are measured by use of measurement-induced disturbance (MID) [Phys. Rev. A, 77, 022301 (2008)] and geometric measure of quantum discord (GQD) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 190502 (2010)]. Their dependencies on external magnetic field, spin-spin coupling, and Dzyaloshinski-Moriya (DM) interaction are presented in detail. We also compare Bell nonlocality, entanglement measured by concurrence, MID and GQD and illustrate their different characteristics.Comment: 1 text and 5 eps figures, accepted by Annals of Physic

3-Benzyl-6-butyl-5-propyl-3H-1,2,3-triazolo[4,5-d]pyrimidin-7(6H)-one

In the title compound, C18H23N5O2, the triazolopyrimidine ring system is essentially planar, with a maximum displacement of 0.032 (2) Å, and forms a dihedral angle of 87.59 (15)° with the phenyl ring. In the crystal, mol­ecules are linked by inter­molecular C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds and C—H⋯π inter­actions into chains parallel to the c axis

The LAMOST Survey of Background Quasars in the Vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum Galaxies -- II. Results from the Commissioning Observations and the Pilot Surveys

We present new quasars discovered in the vicinity of the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies with the LAMOST during the 2010 and 2011 observational seasons. Quasar candidates are selected based on the available SDSS, KPNO 4 m telescope, XSTPS optical, and WISE near infrared photometric data. We present 509 new quasars discovered in a stripe of ~135 sq. deg from M31 to M33 along the Giant Stellar Stream in the 2011 pilot survey datasets, and also 17 new quasars discovered in an area of ~100 sq. deg that covers the central region and the southeastern halo of M31 in the 2010 commissioning datasets. These 526 new quasars have i magnitudes ranging from 15.5 to 20.0, redshifts from 0.1 to 3.2. They represent a significant increase of the number of identified quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33. There are now 26, 62 and 139 known quasars in this region of the sky with i magnitudes brighter than 17.0, 17.5 and 18.0 respectively, of which 5, 20 and 75 are newly-discovered. These bright quasars provide an invaluable collection with which to probe the kinematics and chemistry of the ISM/IGM in the Local Group of galaxies. A total of 93 quasars are now known with locations within 2.5 deg of M31, of which 73 are newly discovered. Tens of quasars are now known to be located behind the Giant Stellar Stream, and hundreds behind the extended halo and its associated substructures of M31. The much enlarged sample of known quasars in the vicinity of M31 and M33 can potentially be utilized to construct a perfect astrometric reference frame to measure the minute PMs of M31 and M33, along with the PMs of substructures associated with the Local Group of galaxies. Those PMs are some of the most fundamental properties of the Local Group.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures, AJ accepte

Self-testing of a single quantum system from theory to experiment

Self-testing allows one to characterise quantum systems under minimal assumptions. However, existing schemes rely on quantum nonlocality and cannot be applied to systems that are not entangled. Here, we introduce a robust method that achieves self-testing of individual systems by taking advantage of contextuality. The scheme is based on the simplest contextuality witness for the simplest contextual quantum system—the Klyachko-Can-Binicioğlu-Shumovsky inequality for the qutrit. We establish a lower bound on the fidelity of the state and the measurements as a function of the value of the witness under a pragmatic assumption on the measurements. We apply the method in an experiment on a single trapped 40Ca+ using randomly chosen measurements and perfect detection efficiency. Using the observed statistics, we obtain an experimental demonstration of self-testing of a single quantum system

An Updated Search of Steady TeV γ−\gamma-Ray Point Sources in Northern Hemisphere Using the Tibet Air Shower Array

Using the data taken from Tibet II High Density (HD) Array (1997 February-1999 September) and Tibet-III array (1999 November-2005 November), our previous northern sky survey for TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources has now been updated by a factor of 2.8 improved statistics. From $0.0^{\circ}$ to $60.0^{\circ}$ in declination (Dec) range, no new TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources with sufficiently high significance were identified while the well-known Crab Nebula and Mrk421 remain to be the brightest TeV $\gamma-$ray sources within the field of view of the Tibet air shower array. Based on the currently available data and at the 90% confidence level (C.L.), the flux upper limits for different power law index assumption are re-derived, which are approximately improved by 1.7 times as compared with our previous reported limits.Comment: This paper has been accepted by hepn

Serological Thymidine Kinase 1 is a Biomarker for Early Detection of Tumours—A Health Screening Study on 35,365 People, Using a Sensitive Chemiluminescent Dot Blot Assay

Serological thymidine kinase 1 (STK1) is a reliable proliferation marker for prognosis, monitoring tumour therapy, and relapse. Here we investigated the use of STK1 in health screening for early detection of pre-malignant and malignant diseases. The investigation was based on 35,365 participants in four independent health screening studies in China between 2005–2011. All participants were clinically examined. The concentration of STK1 was determined by a sensitive chemiluminescent dot blot ECL assay. The ROCvalue of the STK1 assay was 0.96. At a cut-off STK1 value of 2.0 pM, the likelihood (+) value was 236.5, and the sensitivity and the specificity were 0.78 and 0.99, respectively. The relative number of city-dwelling people with elevated STK1 values (≥2.0 pM) was 0.8% (198/26,484), while the corresponding value for the group of oil-field workers was 5.8% (514/8,355). The latter group expressed significantly higher frequency of refractory anaemia, fatty liver, and obesity, compared to the city dwellers, but no cases of breast hyperplasia or prostate hyperplasia. Furthermore, people working in oil drilling/oil transportation showed higher STK1 values and higher frequency of pre-malignancies and benign diseases than people working in the oil-field administration. In the STK1 elevated group of the city-dwelling people, a statistically significantly higher number of people were found to have malignancies, pre-malignancies of all types, moderate/severe type of hyperplasia of breast or prostate, or refractory anaemia, or to be at high risk for hepatitis B, compared to people with normal STK1 values (<2.0 pM). No malignancies were found in the normal STK1 group. In the elevated STK1 group 85.4% showed diseases linked to a higher risk for pre-/early cancerous progression, compared to 52.4% of those with normal STK1 values. Among participants with elevated STK1 values, 8.8% developed new malignancies or progress in their pre-malignancies within 5 to 72 months, compared to 0.2% among people with normal STK1 values. People who showed elevated STK1 values were at about three to five times higher risk to develop malignancies compared to a calculated risk based on a cancer incidence rate of 0.2–0.3%. We conclude that serological TK1 protein concentration is a reliable marker for risk assessment of pre/early cancerous progression