On the relevance between fine structure and enhanced performance of skutterudite thermoelectric materials: X-ray spectroscopy studies

AbstractThe relevance between the fine structure and transport performance of thermoelectric materials can be revealed by X-ray spectroscopy including X-ray absorption and emission spectra as an effective tool. In this paper, the experimental spectra of extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES), and valence-band X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of Ba and In double-filled skutterudites (BaxInyCo4Sb12) were analyzed via the first-principles calculation and spectrum simulation. The atomic-scale fine structures indicate that the rectangle Sb4 rings become square when the total filing fraction of Ba and In increases. The transition of Sb4 rings leads to the band convergence and density of states (DOS) increase of the SbSb ppσ bonding and ppπ∗ antibonding states. The enhanced TE performance of BaxInyCo4Sb12 is essentially attributed to the band convergence, the increased DOS near the Fermi level, and the resonant phonon scattering of Ba and In fillers

Self-Reported Head Trauma Predicts Poor Dual Task Gait in Retired National Football League Players

Symptomatic head trauma associated with American-style football (ASF) has been linked to brain pathology, along with physical and mental distress in later life. However, the longer-term effects of such trauma on objective metrics of cognitive-motor function remain poorly understood. We hypothesized that ASF-related symptomatic head trauma would predict worse gait performance, particularly during dual task conditions (ie, walking while performing an additional cognitive task), in later life. Sixty-six retired professional ASF players aged 29 to 75 years completed a health and wellness questionnaire. They also completed a validated smartphone-based assessment in their own homes, during which gait was monitored while they walked normally and while they performed a verbalized serial-subtraction cognitive task. Participants who reported more symptomatic head trauma, defined as the total number of impacts to the head or neck followed by concussion-related symptoms, exhibited greater dual task cost (ie, percentage increase) to stride time variability (ie, the coefficient of variation of mean stride time). Those who reported ≥1 hit followed by loss of consciousness, compared to those who did not, also exhibited greater dual task costs to this metric. Relationships between reported trauma and dual task costs were independent of age, body mass index, National Football League career duration, and history of musculoskeletal surgery. Symptomatic head trauma was not correlated with average stride times in either walking condition. Remote, smartphone-based assessments of dual task walking may be utilized to capture meaningful data sensitive to the long-term impact of symptomatic head trauma in former professional ASF players and other contact sport athletes. ANN NEUROL 2020;87:75-8

Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Exhibit Deficits in Consummatory but Not Anticipatory Pleasure

Background: Reward dysfunctions have been reported in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which implicates a high possibility of anhedonia for this disease. However, several components of anhedonia, such as consummatory and anticipatory pleasure, has not been substantially studied in OCD patients.Methods: The Chinese version of the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (CV-TEPS) was used to evaluate both the consummatory and anticipatory pleasure in 130 OCD patients, 89 major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, and 95 healthy controls (HCs). The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were scored for assessing the severity of obsessive and compulsive symptoms and depressive symptoms, respectively. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were used to compare the differences of anhedonia among the three groups with the severity of depression controlled. Regression analyses were also used to analyze the relationship between consummatory and anticipatory pleasure and clinical variables in OCD patients.Results: After controlling for the effect of depression, there were significant differences in TEPS scores among the three groups (p < 0.05). Compared with HCs, OCD patients had lower scores on the consummatory subscale, but not the anticipatory subscale, of the TEPS. MDD patients had lower scores on both the consummatory and anticipatory subscales than HCs.Conclusion: OCD patients exhibit deficits in consummatory but not anticipatory pleasure, which is distinct from MDD patients

Resolving the genetic paradox of invasions: Preadapted genomes and postintroduction hybridization of bigheaded carps in the Mississippi River Basin

The genetic paradox of biological invasions is complex and multifaceted. In particular, the relative role of disparate propagule sources and genetic adaptation through postintroduction hybridization has remained largely unexplored. To add resolution to this paradox, we investigate the genetic architecture responsible for the invasion of two invasive Asian carp species, bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (H. molitrix) (bigheaded carps) that experience extensive hybridization in the Mississippi River Basin (MRB). We sequenced the genomes of bighead and silver carps (~1.08G bp and ~1.15G bp, respectively) and their hybrids collected from the MRB. We found moderate‐to‐high heterozygosity in bighead (0.0021) and silver (0.0036) carps, detected significantly higher dN/dS ratios of single‐copy orthologous genes in bigheaded carps versus 10 other species of fish, and identified genes in both species potentially associated with environmental adaptation and other invasion‐related traits. Additionally, we observed a high genomic similarity (96.3% in all syntenic blocks) between bighead and silver carps and over 90% embryonic viability in their experimentally induced hybrids. Our results suggest intrinsic genomic features of bigheaded carps, likely associated with life history traits that presumably evolved within their native ranges, might have facilitated their initial establishment of invasion, whereas ex-situ interspecific hybridization between the carps might have promoted their range expansion. This study reveals an alternative mechanism that could resolve one of the genetic paradoxes in biological invasions and provides invaluable genomic resources for applied research involving bigheaded carps

Resting-State Default Mode Network Related Functional Connectivity Is Associated With Sustained Attention Deficits in Schizophrenia and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background: Previous studies have indicated the resting-state default mode network (DMN) related connectivity serving as predictor of sustained attention performance in healthy people. Interestingly, sustained attention deficits as well as DMN-involved functional connectivity (FC) alterations are common in both patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Thus, the present study was designed to investigate whether the DMN related resting-state connectivity alterations in these two psychiatric disorders were neural correlates of their sustained attention impairments.Methods: The study included 17 SCZ patients, 35 OCD patients and 36 healthy controls (HCs). Sustained attention to response task was adopted to assess the sustained attention. Resting-state scan was administrated and seed-based whole-brain FC analyses were performed with seeds located in classical DMN regions including bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC).Results: Both SCZ and OCD patients had poorer sustained attention than HCs. Sustained attention deficits in OCD was negatively correlated with their impaired FC of right mPFC-left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) within DMN, and that in SCZ was significantly correlated with their altered FC of left mPFC-bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) which indicated interaction between DMN and salience network. In addition, the FC between left mPFC and right parietal lobe indicating the interaction between DMN and frontal-parietal network was correlated with sustained attention in both SCZ and OCD.Conclusion: These findings suggest the importance of DMN-involved connectivity, both within and between networks in underlying sustained attention deficits in OCD and SCZ. Results further support the potential of resting-state FC in complementing information for cognitive deficits in psychiatric disorders

Magnetoelectric interaction and transport behaviours in magnetic nanocomposite thermoelectric materials

How to suppress the performance deterioration of thermoelectric materials in the intrinsic excitation region remains a key challenge. The magnetic transition of permanent magnet nanoparticles from ferromagnetism to paramagnetism provides an effective approach to finding the solution to this challenge. Here, we have designed and prepared magnetic nanocomposite thermoelectric materials consisting of BaFe12O19 nanoparticles and Ba0.3In0.3Co4Sb12 matrix. It was found that the electrical transport behaviours of the nanocomposites are controlled by the magnetic transition of BaFe12O19 nanoparticles from ferromagnetism to paramagnetism. BaFe12O19 nanoparticles trap electrons below the Curie temperature (TC) and release the trapped electrons above the TC, playing an ‘electron repository’ role in maintaining high figure of merit ZT. BaFe12O19 nanoparticles produce two types of magnetoelectric effect—electron spiral motion and magnon-drag thermopower—as well as enhancing phonon scattering. Our work demonstrates that the performance deterioration of thermoelectric materials in the intrinsic excitation region can be suppressed through the magnetic transition of permanent magnet nanoparticles

Genomics of perivascular space burden unravels early mechanisms of cerebral small vessel disease

Perivascular space (PVS) burden is an emerging, poorly understood, magnetic resonance imaging marker of cerebral small vessel disease, a leading cause of stroke and dementia. Genome-wide association studies in up to 40,095 participants (18 population-based cohorts, 66.3 ± 8.6 yr, 96.9% European ancestry) revealed 24 genome-wide significant PVS risk loci, mainly in the white matter. These were associated with white matter PVS already in young adults (N = 1,748; 22.1 ± 2.3 yr) and were enriched in early-onset leukodystrophy genes and genes expressed in fetal brain endothelial cells, suggesting early-life mechanisms. In total, 53% of white matter PVS risk loci showed nominally significant associations (27% after multiple-testing correction) in a Japanese population-based cohort (N = 2,862; 68.3 ± 5.3 yr). Mendelian randomization supported causal associations of high blood pressure with basal ganglia and hippocampal PVS, and of basal ganglia PVS and hippocampal PVS with stroke, accounting for blood pressure. Our findings provide insight into the biology of PVS and cerebral small vessel disease, pointing to pathways involving extracellular matrix, membrane transport and developmental processes, and the potential for genetically informed prioritization of drug targets.Etude de cohorte sur la santé des étudiantsStopping cognitive decline and dementia by fighting covert cerebral small vessel diseaseStudy on Environmental and GenomeWide predictors of early structural brain Alterations in Young student

Audit of accredited programmes East of England region of the National Probation Service for England and Wales : report on: Norfolk Probation Area - Think First

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:m03/28225 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Priorities for health and safety in the slaughtering industry

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:4335.321745(14) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Dielectrophoresis-Based Method for Measuring the Multiangle Mechanical Properties of Biological Cells

The mechanical properties of cells are closely related to their physiological functions and states. Analyzing and measuring these properties are beneficial to understanding cell mechanisms. However, most measurement methods only involve the unidirectional analysis of cellular mechanical properties and thus result in the incomplete measurement of these properties. In this study, a microfluidic platform was established, and an innovative microfluidic chip was designed to measure the multiangle cellular mechanical properties by using dielectrophoresis (DEP) force. Three unsymmetrical indium tin oxide (ITO) microelectrodes were designed and combined with the microfluidic chip, which were utilized to generate DEP force and stretch cell from different angles. A series of experiments was performed to measure and analyze the multiangle mechanical properties of red blood cells of mice. This work provided a new tool for the comprehensive and accurate measurement of multiangle cellular mechanical properties. The results may contribute to the exploration of the internal physiological structures of cells and the building of accurate cell models