Hypocognitive Mind: How Lacking Conceptual Knowledge Blinds Us to Everyday Objects and Social Privilege

This dissertation examines hypocognition, a phenomenon in which people lack cognitive or linguistic representations of concepts to describe ideas or interpret experiences. Chapter 1 presents a theoretical review of hypocognition and its implications for perception, affect, and behavior. Drawing from the cross-cultural and expertise literatures, I describe how hypocognition impoverishes one’s mental world, leaving cognitive deficits in recognition, explanation, and remembering while fueling cultural chauvinism and social conflict. Chapter 2 empirically demonstrates the cognitive consequences of hypocognition. In six studies, I show how hypocognition degrades identification, recognition, and memory of fundamental information in one’s living environment. Chapter 3 explores the social implications of hypocognition. Eight studies point to hypocognition as a cognitive blind spot underlying the invisibility of one’s social privilege and denial of discrimination. Chapter 4 discusses future directions and explores whether hypocognition can be motivated, where it originates, and its implications with regard to public health and sustainability. I end with a caution against going too far to reduce hypocognition and risking its opposite, hypercognition––overapplying a familiar concept to circumstances where it does not belong.PHDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162899/1/kaidiwu_1.pd

Zinc ferrite based gas sensors: A review

Flammable, explosive and toxic gases, such as hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide and volatile organic compounds vapor, are major threats to the ecological environment safety and human health. Among the available technologies, gas sensing is a vital component, and has been widely studied in literature for early detection and warning. As a metal oxide semiconductor, zinc ferrite (ZnFe2O4) represents a kind of promising gas sensing material with a spinel structure, which also shows a fine gas sensing performance to reducing gases. Due to its great potentials and widespread applications, this article is intended to provide a review on the latest development in zinc ferrite based gas sensors. We first discuss the general gas sensing mechanism of ZnFe2O4 sensor. This is followed by a review of the recent progress about zinc ferrite based gas sensors from several aspects: different micro-morphology, element doping and heterostructure materials. In the end, we propose that combining ZnFe2O4 which provides unique microstructure (such as the multi-layer porous shells hollow structure), with the semiconductors such as graphene, which provide excellent physical properties. It is expected that the mentioned composites contribute to improving selectivity, long-term stability, and other sensing performance of sensors at room or low temperature

Is personal growth initiative associated with later life satisfaction in Chinese college students? A 15‐week prospective analysis

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151959/1/ajsp12386.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151959/2/ajsp12386_am.pd

Association of vitamin D with HIV infected individuals, TB infected individuals, and HIV-TB co-infected individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundVitamin D deficiency (VDD) is a worldwide disease. VDD is also associated with an increased risk of HIV-related comorbidities and mortality, and patients have a tendency to develop active tuberculosis compared to those with latent tuberculosis infection. Vitamin D supplementation may modulate HIV replication, improve TB inflammation and reduce progression of HIV-TB co-infection.MethodsWe meta-analyzed individual participant data from cohort studies, cross-sectional study, and RCTs of vitamin D in HIV group, TB group, and HIV-TB group. The primary outcomes were differences in vitamin D level and VDD prevalence between three groups, the secondary outcomes were CD4 count, HIV viral load, time to sputum smear conversion, time to culture conversion, relapse, morality, and TB score.ResultsFor vitamin D levels, the overall mean difference (MD) between HIV group and TB group was −0.21 (95% CI, −20.80–20.38; p = 0.9, I2 = 84%), HIV group and HIV-TB group was 0.87 (95% CI, −11.45–13.20; p = 0.89, I2 = 87%), and TB group and HIV-TB group was 1.17 (95% CI, −5.21–7.55; p = 0.72, I2 = 85%). For vitamin D deficiency prevalence, the overall odds ratio (OR) for HIV group versus TB group was 1.23 (95% CI, 0.46–3.31; p = 0.68; I2 = 70%), HIV group versus HIV-TB group was 1.53 (95% CI, 1.03–2.29; p = 0.04; I2 = 0%), and TB group versus HIV-TB group was 0.85 (95% CI, 0.61–1.20; p = 0.36; I2 = 22%). In HIV-TB group, the overall OR for vitamin D group versus placebo group was 0.78 (95% CI, 0.34–1.67; p = 0.52; I2 = 60%).ConclusionOur findings indicated that there were no variations in vitamin D levels between three groups. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was higher in the HIV-TB group than in the HIV group. Additionally, the administration of vitamin D supplements did not have obvious impact on CD4 count and viral load. Likewise, vitamin D had no effect on time to sputum smear conversion, time to culture conversion, relapse, 12-month morality, and TB score

Comprehensive profiling of serotypes, antimicrobial resistance and virulence of Salmonella isolates from food animals in China, 2015–2021

IntroductionSalmonella is a ubiquitous foodborne pathogen and mainly transmitted to human farm-to-fork chain through contaminated foods of animal origin.MethodsIn this study, we investigated the serotypes, antimicrobial resistance and virulence of Salmonella from China.ResultsA total of 617 Salmonella isolates were collected from 4 major food animal species across 23 provi nces in China from 2015-2021. Highest Salmonella prevalence were observed in Guangdong (44.4%) and Sandong (23.7%). Chickens (43.0%) was shown to be the major source of Salmonella contamination, followed by pigs (34.5%) and ducks (18.5%). The number of Salmonella increased significantly from 5.51% to 27.23% during 2015–2020. S. Derby (17.3%), S. Enteritidis (13.1%) and S. Typhimurium (11.4%) were the most common serotypes among 41 serotypes identifiedin this study. Antibiotic susceptibility testing showing that the majority of the Salmonella isolates were resistant to neomycin (99.7%), tetracycline (98.1%), ampicillin (97.4%), sulfadiazine/trimethoprim (97.1%), nalidixic acid (89.1%), doxycycline (83.1%), ceftria xone (70.3%), spectinomycin (67.7%), florfenicol (60.0%), cefotaxime (52.0%) and lomefloxacin (59.8%). The rates of resistance to multiple antibiotics in S. Derby and S.Typhimurium were higher than that in S. Enteritidis. However, the rate of resistance to fosfomycin were observed from higher to lower by S. Derby, S. Enteritidis, and S. Typhimurium. Biofilm formation ability analysis found that 88.49%of the Salmonella were able to produce biofilms, of which 236 Salmonella isolates were strong biofilm producer. Among the 26 types of antibiotics resistance genes (ARGs) were identified in this study, 4 ARGs (tetB,sul2,aadA2, and aph(3’)-IIa) were highly prevalent. In addition, 5 β-lactam resistance genes (blaTEM, blaSHV, blaCMY-2, blaCTX-M, and blaOXA) and 7 quinolone resistance genes (oqxA, oqxB, qnrB, qnrC, qnrD, qnrS, and qeqA) were detected among these isolates. 12 out of 17 virulence genes selected in this study were commonly presented in the chromosomes of tested isolate, with a detection rate of over 80%, including misL, spiA, stn, pagC, iroN, fim, msgA, sopB, prgH, sitC, ttrC, spaN.DiscussionThis study provided a systematical updating on surveillance on prevalence of Salmonella from food animals in China, shedding the light on continued vigilance for Salmonella in food animals

Phenotypic plasticity and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in the behaviour and therapeutic response of oral squamous cell carcinoma

This work was supported by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), by BAOMS/Saving Faces – FSRF, and by The Barts and The London Charity

Selective cyclooxygenase-2 silencing mediated by engineered E. coli and RNA interference induces anti-tumour effects in human colon cancer cells

Colorectal cancer (CRC) has an elevated incidence worldwide and represents one of the most aggressive human tumours. Many experimental data provide the evidence of a strong association between cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) enzyme overexpression and colon tumorigenesis. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the chronic use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, a class of COX-2 inhibitors), partially protects patients from CRC development and progression. Unfortunately, NSAIDs have been shown to induce severe side effects in chronically treated patients and, therefore, new strategies for selective COX-2 blockade are needed. In this paper we present an innovative COX-2 silencing approach mediated by RNA Interference (RNAi) which is a mechanism we have already described as a powerful tool to knockdown COX-2 protein in CRC cells. In particular, we developed an improved method to gain a highly selective COX-2 silencing in CRC cells by a tumour-dependent expression of anti-COX-2 short hairpin RNA (shCOX-2). Moreover, we efficiently delivered shCOX-2 expressing vectors in CRC cells, in vitro and ex vivo, by using engineered Escherichia coli strains, capable of infecting and invading human tumour cells (InvColi). Combining the highly selective shCOX-2 expression and the delivery of COX-2 silencers mediated by InvColi strains, we obtained a strong reduction of both proliferative and invasive behaviour of tumour cells and we also confirmed the pivotal role of COX-2 overexpression for the survival of CRC cells. Finally, ex vivo data showed a global anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour effect elicited by COX-2 silencing