336 research outputs found

    A Study of Syntactic Complexity in Language Production by Chinese-Speaking Older Adults

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    The syntactic complexity of language production changes as a result of ageing. In this study, we made a comparison between Chinese-speaking older and younger adults in terms of the syntactic complexity in spoken language production. To assess the level of syntactic complexity of language production, we applied the traditional measures of syntactic complexity such as sentence length, verbal fluency and the distribution of subordinate clauses. Results indicated that older adults showed a decline in the mean number of clauses, the proportion of right-branching clauses and verbal fluency. These findings indicate that there was a decline in syntactic complexity in spoken language production among Chinese-speaking older adults

    Age differences in the effect of animacy on Mandarin sentence processing

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    Animate nouns are preferred for grammatical subjects, whereas inanimate nouns are preferred for grammatical objects. Animacy provides important semantic cues for sentence comprehension. However, how individuals’ ability to use this animacy cue changes with advancing age is still not clear. The current study investigated whether older adults and younger adults were differentially sensitive to this semantic constraint in processing Mandarin relative clauses, using a self-paced reading paradigm. The sentences used in the study contained subject relative clauses or object relative clauses and had animate or inanimate subjects. The results indicate that the animacy manipulation affected the younger adults more than the older adults in online processing. Younger adults had longer reading times for all segments in subject relative clauses than in object relative clauses when the subjects were inanimate, whereas there was no significant difference in reading times between subject and object relative clauses when the subjects were animate. In the older group, animacy was not found to influence the processing difficulty of subject relative clauses and object relative clauses. Compared with younger adults, older adults were less sensitive to animacy constraints in relative clause processing. The findings indicate that the use of animacy cues became less efficient in the ageing population. The results can be explained by the capacity constrained comprehension theory, according to which older adults have greater difficulty in integrating semantic information with syntactic processing due to the lack of sufficient cognitive resources

    A non-invasive measurement of tongue surface temperature

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    Oral temperature, tongue specifically, is a key factor affecting oral sensation and perception of food flavour and texture. It is therefore very important to know how the tongue temperature is affected by food consumption. Unfortunately, traditional methods such as clinical thermometers and thermocouples for oral temperature measurement are not most applicable during food oral consumption due to its invasive nature and interference with food. In this study, infrared thermal (IRT) imager was investigated for its feasibility for the measurement of tongue surface temperature. The IRT technique was firstly calibrated using a digital thermometer (DT). The technique was then used to measure tongue surface temperature after tongue was stimulated by (1) water rinsing at different temperatures (0-45℃); and (2) treated with capsaicin solutions (5, 10, and 20 ppm). For both cases, tongue surface temperature showed significant changes as a result of the physical and chemical stimulation. Results confirm that IRT is feasible for tongue temperature measurement and could be a useful supporting tool in future for the study of food oral processing and sensory perception

    Optimal type and dose of hypoxic training for improving maximal aerobic capacity in athletes: a systematic review and Bayesian model-based network meta-analysis

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    Objective: This study aimed to compare and rank the effect of hypoxic practices on maximum oxygen consumption (VO2max) in athletes and determine the hypoxic dose-response correlation using network meta-analysis.Methods: The Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, and EBSCO databases were systematically search for randomized controlled trials on the effect of hypoxc interventions on the VO2max of athletes published from inception until 21 February 2023. Studies that used live-high train-high (LHTH), live-high train-low (LHTL), live-high, train-high/low (HHL), intermittent hypoxic training (IHT), and intermittent hypoxic exposure (IHE) interventions were primarily included. LHTL was further defined according to the type of hypoxic environment (natural and simulated) and the altitude of the training site (low altitude and sea level). A meta-analysis was conducted to determine the standardized mean difference between the effects of various hypoxic interventions on VO2max and dose-response correlation. Furthermore, the hypoxic dosage of the different interventions were coordinated using the “kilometer hour” model.Results: From 2,072 originally identified titles, 59 studies were finally included in this study. After data pooling, LHTL, LHTH, and IHT outperformed normoxic training in improving the VO2max of athletes. According to the P-scores, LHTL combined with low altitude training was the most effective intervention for improving VO2max (natural: 0.92 and simulated: 0.86) and was better than LHTL combined with sea level training (0.56). A reasonable hypoxic dose range for LHTH (470–1,130 kmh) and HL (500–1,415 kmh) was reported with an inverted U-shaped curve relationship.Conclusion: Different types of hypoxic training compared with normoxic training serve as significant approaches for improving aerobic capacity in athletes. Regardless of the type of hypoxic training and the residential condition, LHTL with low altitude training was the most effective intervention. The characteristics of the dose-effect correlation of LHTH and LHTL may be associated with the negative effects of chronic hypoxia

    Language-Specific Representation of Emotion-Concept Knowledge Causally Supports Emotion Inference

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    Understanding how language supports emotion inference remains a topic of debate in emotion science. The present study investigated whether language-derived emotion-concept knowledge would causally support emotion inference by manipulating the language-specific knowledge representations in large language models. Using the prompt technique, 14 attributes of emotion concepts were found to be represented by distinct artificial neuron populations. By manipulating these attribute-related neurons, the majority of the emotion inference tasks showed performance deterioration compared to random manipulations. The attribute-specific performance deterioration was related to the importance of different attributes in human mental space. Our findings provide causal evidence in support of a language-based mechanism for emotion inference and highlight the contributions of emotion-concept knowledge.Comment: 39 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, fix formatting error

    Context-aware Horror Video Scene Recognition via Cost-sensitive Sparse Coding

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    Abstract Along with the ever-growing Web, horror video sharin

    Commodity market stability and sustainable development: The effect of public health policies

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    This study explores the influence of public health policies on commodity market volatility during public health emergencies, such as pandemics, using data from China and the US. We investigate how stringent public health measures can mitigate the effects of pandemics on the stability of commodity markets by stabilizing domestic demand and supply of natural resources. Our findings highlight the interconnectedness between commodity market stability and oil production, showing that firms increase their oil inventories in response to oil market volatility as a precautionary measure. This action, in turn, affects the amount of oil available for production, impacting oil consumption and extraction rates. We demonstrate that stability in the oil market significantly influences not only oil consumption but also has broader implications for sustainable development, green asset markets, and carbon emissions

    Effect of tongue temperature on oral tactile sensitivity and viscosity discrimination

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    © 2019 Elsevier Ltd An Individual's oral capability in perceiving food texture influences greatly food appreciation and preference. While there is no doubt that one's ability of texture discrimination depends on various oral physiological characteristics of the individual, it is not yet clear how tongue surface temperature affects the sensitivity of texture discrimination. This study was designed to test the effects of tongue surface temperature on oral tactile sensitivity and viscosity discrimination. A total of twenty healthy subjects (ten females and ten males; mean age: 25 ± 1 yrs, mean body mass index: 20.5 ± 2.9 kg/m2) participated in this study. Water at different temperatures (0, 20, 37, and 45 °C) and capsaicin solutions (5,10, and 20 ppm) were used as physical and chemical stimulations to alter tongue temperature, respectively. Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments, Bio-Thesiometer, and Touch-TestÂźTwo-point discriminator were respectively applied to assess the tongue's sensitivity of light touch, vibratory perception and two-point discrimination before and after treatment with both physical and chemical stimuli. Maltodextrin solutions were used for oral viscosity discrimination. Tongue's vibratory perception thresholds varied significantly (P < 0.01), indicating an increase of 0.6 × 10−6cm in vibratory perception threshold when tongue surface temperature decreased from 33 °C to 20 °C, while light touch and two-point discrimination thresholds remained unchanged. The application of capsaicin (5, 10, and 20 ppm) produced an increase in tongue surface temperature but did not affect oral tactile sensitivity. Viscosity discrimination increased both after rinsing the mouth with warm water and capsaicin application (20 ppm). Capsaicin (20 ppm) increased tongue temperature by 1.3 °C and lead to a decrease in viscosity discrimination threshold from 34.7% to 20.2%. After stimulation with water at 37 °C and 45 °C, the tongue temperature increased by 3 °C (from 34.2 °C to 37.2 °C), while threshold of viscosity discrimination decreased from 28.1% to 23.1%. When water was used to change tongue surface temperature, a positive correlation was found between vibratory perception sensitivity and viscosity discrimination ability, suggesting the capacity of discriminating viscosity might depend on vibratory perception sensitivity

    Simultaneous suppression of PKM2 and PHGDH elicits synergistic anti-cancer effect in NSCLC

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    Metabolic reprogramming is a hallmark of human cancer. Cancer cells exhibit enhanced glycolysis, which allows glycolytic intermediates to be diverted into several other biosynthetic pathways, such as serine synthesis. Here, we explored the anti-cancer effects of the pyruvate kinase (PK) M2 inhibitor PKM2-IN-1 alone or in combination with the phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase (PHGDH) inhibitor NCT-503 in human NSCLC A549 cells in vitro and in vivo. PKM2-IN-1 inhibited proliferation and induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, with increased glycolytic intermediate 3-phosphoglycerate (3-PG) level and PHGDH expression. The combination of PKM2-IN-1 and NCT-503 further suppressed cancer cell proliferation and induced G2/M phase arrest, accompanied by the reduction of ATP, activation of AMPK and inhibition of its downstream mTOR and p70S6K, upregulation of p53 and p21, as well as downregulation of cyclin B1 and cdc2. In addition, combined treatment triggered ROS-dependent apoptosis by affecting the intrinsic Bcl-2/caspase-3/PARP pathway. Moreover, the combination suppressed glucose transporter type 1 (GLUT1) expression. In vivo, co-administration of PKM2-IN-1 and NCT-503 significantly inhibited A549 tumor growth. Taken together, PKM2-IN-1 in combination with NCT-503 exhibited remarkable anti-cancer effects through induction of G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, in which the metabolic stress induced ATP reduction and ROS augmented DNA damage might be involved. These results suggest that the combination of PKM2-IN-1 and NCT-503 might be a potential strategy for the therapy of lung cancer

    Challenges of EGFR-TKIs in NSCLC and the potential role of herbs and active compounds: From mechanism to clinical practice

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    Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations are the most common oncogenic driver in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are widely used in the treatment of lung cancer, especially in the first-line treatment of advanced NSCLC, and EGFR-TKIs monotherapy has achieved better efficacy and tolerability compared with standard chemotherapy. However, acquired resistance to EGFR-TKIs and associated adverse events pose a significant obstacle to targeted lung cancer therapy. Therefore, there is an urgent need to seek effective interventions to overcome these limitations. Natural medicines have shown potential therapeutic advantages in reversing acquired resistance to EGFR-TKIs and reducing adverse events, bringing new options and directions for EGFR-TKIs combination therapy. In this paper, we systematically demonstrated the resistance mechanism of EGFR-TKIs, the clinical strategy of each generation of EGFR-TKIs in the synergistic treatment of NSCLC, the treatment-related adverse events of EGFR-TKIs, and the potential role of traditional Chinese medicine in overcoming the resistance and adverse reactions of EGFR-TKIs. Herbs and active compounds have the potential to act synergistically through multiple pathways and multiple mechanisms of overall regulation, combined with targeted therapy, and are expected to be an innovative model for NSCLC treatment
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