Functional Connectivity Within the Executive Control Network Mediates the Effects of Long-Term Tai Chi Exercise on Elders’ Emotion Regulation

Previous research has identified the effects of tai chi exercise on elders’ executive control or on their emotion regulation. However, few works have attempted to reveal the relationships between tai chi, executive control, and emotion regulation in the same study. The current resting-state study investigated whether the impact of tai chi on elders’ emotion regulation was mediated by the resting-state functional connectivity within the executive control network. A total of 26 elders with long-term tai chi experience and 26 demographically matched healthy elders were recruited. After the resting-state scan, both groups were required to complete a series of questionnaires, including the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), and a sequential decision task, which offered an index of the subjects’ emotion-regulation ability by calculating how their emotional response could be affected by the objective outcomes of their decisions. Compared to the control group, the tai chi group showed higher levels of non-judgment of inner experiences (a component of the FFMQ), stronger emotion-regulation ability, and a weaker resting-state functional connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the middle frontal gyrus (MFG). Moreover, the functional connectivity between the DLPFC and the MFG in the tai chi group fully mediated the impact of non-judgment of inner experience on their emotion-regulation ability. These findings highlighted that the modulation of non-judgment of inner experience on long-term tai chi practitioners’ emotion regulation was achieved through decreased functional connectivity within the executive control network

Long-Term Tai Chi Experience Promotes Emotional Stability and Slows Gray Matter Atrophy for Elders

Brain adverse structural changes, especially the atrophy of gray matter, are inevitable in aging. Fortunately, the human brain is plastic throughout its entire life. The current cross-section study aimed to investigate whether long-term Tai Chi exercise could slow gray matter atrophy and explore the possible links among gray matter volume (GMV), long-term Tai Chi experience and emotional stability in a sequential risk-taking task by using voxel-based morphometry. Elders with long-term Tai Chi experience and controls, who were matched to Tai Chi group in age, gender, physical activity level, participated in the study. A T1-weighted multiplanar reconstruction sequence was acquired for each participant. Behaviorally, the Tai Chi group showed higher meditation level, stronger emotional stability and less risk-taking tendency in the sequential risk-taking compared to the control group. Moreover, the results revealed that the GMV of the thalamus and hippocampus were larger in the Tai Chi group compared with the control group. Notably, the GMV of the thalamus was positively correlated with both meditation level and emotional stability. The current study suggested the protective role of long-term Tai Chi exercise at slowing gray matter atrophy, improving the emotional stability and achieving successful aging for elders

Leveraging Faculty Reflective Practice to Understand Active Learning Spaces: Flashbacks and Re-Captures

Although learning spaces research is not new, research approaches that target the specific teaching and learning experiences of faculty and students who occupy active learning classrooms (ALCs) is nascent. We report on two novels data collection approaches: Flashbacks and Re-captures. Both leverage faculty reflective practice and provide windows into the rich and varied teaching and learning activities that active learning spaces afford. Findings suggest that in ALCs, faculty are easily able to design “activity strings,” multiple active learning activities knitted together within the same instructional period. Further, over time, activity strings become regular occurrences, manifesting as “instructional routines.

Proposers’ Economic Status Affects Behavioral and Neural Responses to Unfairness

Economic status played an important role in the modulation of economic decision making. The present fMRI study aimed at investigating how economic status modulated behavioral and neural responses to unfairness in a modified Ultimatum Game (UG). During scanning, participants played as responders in the UG, and they were informed of the economic status of proposers before receiving offers. At the behavioral level, higher rejection rates and lower fairness ratings were revealed when proposers were in high economic status than in low economic status. Besides, the most time-consuming decisions tended to occur at lower unfairness level when the proposers were in high (relative to low) economic status. At the neural level, stronger activation of left thalamus was revealed when fair offers were proposed by proposers in high rather than in low economic status. Greater activation of right medial prefrontal cortex was revealed during acceptance to unfair offers in high economic status condition rather than in low economic status condition. Taken together, these findings shed light on the significance of proposers’ economic status in responders’ social decision making in UG

Tonal symmetry induces fluency and sense of well-formedness

Fluency influences grammaticality judgments of visually presented strings in artificial grammar learning (AGL). Of many potential sources that engender fluency, symmetry is considered to be an important factor. However, symmetry may function differently for visual and auditory stimuli, which present computationally different problems. Thus, the current study aimed to examine whether objectively manipulating fluency by speeding up perception (i.e. manipulating the inter-stimulus interval, ISI, between each syllable of a string) influenced judgments of tonal strings; and thus how symmetry-based fluency might influence judgments. In experiment 1, with only a test phase, participants were required to give their preference ratings of tonal strings as a measurement of fluency. In experiment 2, participants were instructed to make grammaticality judgments after being incidentally trained on tonal symmetry. Results of experiment 1 showed that tonal strings with shorter ISI were liked more than those with longer ISI while such difference was not found between symmetric and asymmetric strings without training. Additionally, experiment 2 found both main effects of symmetry and ISI as well as an interaction. In particular, only asymmetric strings were more likely to be judged as grammatical when they were presented at a shorter ISI. Taken together, participants were sensitive to the fluency induced by the manipulation of ISI and sensitive to symmetry only after training. In sum, we conclude that objective speed influenced grammaticality judgments, implicit learning of tonal symmetry resulted in enhanced fluency, and that fluency may serve as a basis for grammaticality judgments

Smart Rock Technology for Real-Time Monitoring of Bridge Scour and Riprap Effectiveness -- Design Guidelines and Visualization Tools

This study aims to further develop and demonstrate the recently-proposed smart rock technology for scour depth and protection effectiveness monitoring. A smart rock is one or two stacked magnets encased in a concrete sphere with a specially-designed rotational mechanism. Design guidelines, rotational mechanisms, remote measurement tools and localization algorithms of smart rocks were developed and validated at three bridge sites. The effect of steel reinforcement in bridge piers/deck on the orientation of gravity-controlled magnets was negligible. The localization accuracy with a single smart rock met a general requirement of less than 0.5 m in engineering applications. The spherical smart rock placed directly on the riverbed of the Roubidoux Creek successfully demonstrated its movement to the bottom of scour hole during the December 27, 2015, flood. Those deployed in the Waddell Creek and the Gasconade River were washed away and thus replaced with smart rocks embedded in deposits such that their top is in flush with the riverbed for improved stability under water current. For rip-rap effectiveness monitoring, polyhedral smart rocks are recommended to increase their interlock with other natural rocks

Unconscious structural knowledge of tonal symmetry: Tang poetry redefines limits of implicit learning

a b s t r a c t The study aims to help characterize the sort of structures about which people can acquire unconscious knowledge. It is already well established that people can implicitly learn n-grams (chunks) and also repetition patterns. We explore the acquisition of unconscious structural knowledge of symmetry. Chinese Tang poetry uses a specific sort of mirror symmetry, an inversion rule with respect to the tones of characters in successive lines of verse. We show, using artificial poetry to control both n-gram structure and repetition patterns, that people can implicitly learn to discriminate inversions from non-inversions, presenting a challenge to existing models of implicit learning

A gate-programmable van der Waals metal-ferroelectric-semiconductor memory

Ferroelecticity, one of the keys to realize nonvolatile memories owing to the remanent electric polarization, has been an emerging phenomenon in the two-dimensional (2D) limit. Yet the demonstrations of van der Waals (vdW) memories using 2D ferroelectric materials as an ingredient are very limited. Especially, gate-tunable ferroelectric vdW memristive device, which holds promises in future neuromorphic applications, remains challenging. Here, we show a prototype gate-programmable memory by vertically assembling graphite, CuInP2S6, and MoS2 layers into a metal-ferroelectric-semiconductor architecture. The resulted devices exhibit two-terminal switchable electro-resistance with on-off ratios exceeding 105 and long-term retention, akin to a conventional memristor but strongly coupled to the ferroelectric characteristics of the CuInP2S6 layer. By controlling the top gate, Fermi level of MoS2 can be set inside (outside) of its band gap to quench (enable) the memristive behaviour, yielding a three-terminal gate programmable nonvolatile vdW memory. Our findings pave the way for the engineering of ferroelectric-mediated memories in future implementations of nanoelectronics

Analysis of Circulating Tumor Cells in Ovarian Cancer and Their Clinical Value as a Biomarker

Background/Aims: Monitoring the appearance and progression of tumors are important for improving the survival rate of patients with ovarian cancer. This study aims to examine circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients to evaluate their clinical significance in comparison to the existing biomarker CA125. Methods: Immuomagnetic bead screening, targeting epithelial antigens on ovarian cancer cells, combined with multiplex reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (Multiplex RT-PCR) was used to detect CTCs in 211 samples of peripheral blood (5 ml) from 109 EOC patients. CTCs and CA125 were measured in serial from 153 blood and 153 serum samples from 51 patients and correlations with treatment were analyzed. Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of tumor-associated proteins in tumor tissues and compared with gene expression in CTCs from patients. Results: CTCs were detected in 90% (98/109) of newly diagnosed patients. In newly diagnosed patients, the number of CTCs was correlated with stage (p=0.034). Patients with stage IA-IB disease had a CTC positive rate of 93% (13/14), much higher than the CA125 positive rate of only 64% (9/14) for the same patients. The numbers of CTCs changed with treatment, and the expression of EpCAM (p=0.003) and HER2 (p=0.035) in CTCs was correlated with resistance to chemotherapy. Expression of EpCAM in CTCs before treatment was also correlated with overall survival (OS) (p=0.041). Conclusion: Detection of CTCs allows early diagnose and expression of EpCAM in CTC positive patients predicts prognosis and should be helpful for monitoring treatment