Mindfulness Meditation — A New Preventive Intervention for ADHD

Medication and behavioral treatments have been used for ADHD treatments; however, both have limitations. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to improve attention and self-control, (or self-regulation), which could help the core ADHD symptoms of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. This chapter aims to review the latest literature on the effectiveness of mindfulness meditation on ADHD, to explore the brain mechanism underlying ADHD intervention, and to propose a mindfulness-based preventive intervention for ADHD symptoms and treatments

Is Attention Really Effort? Revisiting Daniel Kahneman’s Influential 1973 Book Attention and Effort

Daniel Kahneman was not the first to suggest that attention and effort are closely associated, but his 1973 book Attention and Effort, which claimed that attention can be identified with effort, cemented the association as a research paradigm in the cognitive sciences. Since then, the paradigm has rarely been questioned and appears to have set the research agenda so that it is self-reinforcing. In this article, we retrace Kahneman’s argument to understand its strengths and weaknesses. The central notion of effort is not clearly defined in the book, so we proceed by constructing the most secure inferences we can from Kahneman’s argument regarding effort: it is cognitive, objective, metabolic expenditure, and it is attention. Continuing, we find from Kahneman’s argument that effort-attention must be a special case of sympathetic dominance of the autonomic nervous system that is also an increase in metabolic activity in the brain that has crossed a threshold of magnitude. We then weigh this conception of effort against evidence in Kahneman’s book and against more recent evidence, finding that it does not warrant the conclusion that effort can be equated with attention. In support of an alternative perspective, we briefly review diverse studies of behavior, physiology, and neuroscience on attention and effort, including meditation and studies of the LC-NE system, where we find evidence for the following: (1) Attention seems to be associated not with the utilization of metabolic resources per se but with the readying of metabolic resources in the form of adaptive gain modulation. This occurs under sympathetic dominance and can be experienced as effortful. (2) Attention can also occur under parasympathetic dominance, in which case it is likely to be experienced as effortless

Performance Improvement of Wave‐Like PEMFC Stack with Compound Membrane Electrode Assembly

The novel architecture of wave‐like proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack developed in our previous work achieved peak volumetric power density and specific power of 2,715.9 W L –1 and 2,157.9 W kg –1 , respectively. However, there still existed perforated bipolar plates and the carbon fiber gas diffusion layer (GDL) was easy to cause damage during the fabrication process of undulate membrane electrode assembles (MEAs). In the present study, sintered stainless steel fiber felt (SSSFF) was employed to work as metallic GDL (MGDL) and bipolar plates simultaneously. Compound membrane electrode assembles (CMEAs) with serpentine and interdigitated flow channels were designed and fabricated using stamping process. A single cell with CMEA was assembled in house and the output performance was evaluated systemically. The results indicated that the peak volumetric power density and specific power of wave‐like PEMFC single with CMEA are 5,764.0 W L –1 and 4,693.5 W kg –1 respectively. This study achieved a significant performance improvement due to the concept of CMEA and may propose a possible means to meet the DOE's 2020 technical target that volumetric power density is 2,500 W L –1 and specific power is 2,000 W kg –1 for stack.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95122/1/1019_ftp.pd

Research on Recognition and Evaluation of Traffic Guide Sign

Traffic guide signs are effective only when they are clearly recognized by drivers. Three experiments were conducted in this study. In the first, the influence factors of guide sign recognition were studied. This study investigated 11 main factors with a convenience sample of drivers from Nanjing city in China. Weights of different influence factors were obtained through analytic hierarchy process (AHP). The results showed that the setting position, occlusion degree, and character size of guide sign had the most significant influence on the guide sign recognition, while other factors were less important. In the second stage, an evaluation model of guide sign recognition was developed based on weights of different factors. Four equations were presented to calculate the comprehensive score of guide sign, and the level of recognition was divided into five grades according to the comprehensive score. At last, a typical case in Nanjing was studied to verify the rationality and reliability of the evaluation model. Results from the real application indicate that the method had good applicability and can be used by traffic engineers

Skeletal muscles and gut microbiota-derived metabolites: novel modulators of adipocyte thermogenesis

Obesity occurs when overall energy intake surpasses energy expenditure. White adipose tissue is an energy storage site, whereas brown and beige adipose tissues catabolize stored energy to generate heat, which protects against obesity and obesity-associated metabolic disorders. Metabolites are substrates in metabolic reactions that act as signaling molecules, mediating communication between metabolic sites (i.e., adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, and gut microbiota). Although the effects of metabolites from peripheral organs on adipose tissue have been extensively studied, their role in regulating adipocyte thermogenesis requires further investigation. Skeletal muscles and intestinal microorganisms are important metabolic sites in the body, and their metabolites play an important role in obesity. In this review, we consolidated the latest research on skeletal muscles and gut microbiota-derived metabolites that potentially promote adipocyte thermogenesis. Skeletal muscles can release lactate, kynurenic acid, inosine, and β-aminoisobutyric acid, whereas the gut secretes bile acids, butyrate, succinate, cinnabarinic acid, urolithin A, and asparagine. These metabolites function as signaling molecules by interacting with membrane receptors or controlling intracellular enzyme activity. The mechanisms underlying the reciprocal exchange of metabolites between the adipose tissue and other metabolic organs will be a focal point in future studies on obesity. Furthermore, understanding how metabolites regulate adipocyte thermogenesis will provide a basis for establishing new therapeutic targets for obesity

Poly[[tetraaqua­bis(μ3-1H-benzimidazole-5,6-dicarboxyl­ato)dicobalt(II)] trihydrate]

The title complex, {[Co2(C9H4N2O4)2(H2O)4]·3H2O}n, was synthesized hydro­thermally. The unique CoII ion is coordin­ated in a distorted octa­hedral coordination environment by two water mol­ecules and three symmetry-related 1H-benzimid­azole-5,6-dicarboxyl­ate (Hbidc) ligands. The Hbidc ligands coordinate via a bis-chelating and mono-chelating carboxyl­ate group and by an imidazole group N atom, bridging the CoII ions and forming an extended two-dimensional structure in the ab plane. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds connect complex and solvent water mol­ecules, forming a three-dimensional supermolecular network. One of the solvent water mol­ecules lies on a twofold rotation axis

Melatonin enhances the anti-tumor effect of fisetin by inhibiting COX-2/iNOS and NF-κB/p300 signaling pathways.

Melatonin is a hormone identified in plants and pineal glands of mammals and possesses diverse physiological functions. Fisetin is a bio-flavonoid widely found in plants and exerts antitumor activity in several types of human cancers. However, the combinational effect of melatonin and fisetin on antitumor activity, especially in melanoma treatment, remains unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that melatonin could enhance the antitumor activity of fisetin in melanoma cells and identified the underlying molecular mechanisms. The combinational treatment of melanoma cells with fisetin and melatonin significantly enhanced the inhibitions of cell viability, cell migration and clone formation, and the induction of apoptosis when compared with the treatment of fisetin alone. Moreover, such enhancement of antitumor effect by melatonin was found to be mediated through the modulation of the multiply signaling pathways in melanoma cells. The combinational treatment of fisetin with melatonin increased the cleavage of PARP proteins, triggered more release of cytochrome-c from the mitochondrial inter-membrane, enhanced the inhibition of COX-2 and iNOS expression, repressed the nuclear localization of p300 and NF-κB proteins, and abrogated the binding of NF-κB on COX-2 promoter. Thus, these results demonstrated that melatonin potentiated the anti-tumor effect of fisetin in melanoma cells by activating cytochrome-c-dependent apoptotic pathway and inhibiting COX-2/iNOS and NF-κB/p300 signaling pathways, and our study suggests the potential of such a combinational treatment of natural products in melanoma therapy

Resistance-gene-directed discovery of a natural-product herbicide with a new mode of action.

Bioactive natural products have evolved to inhibit specific cellular targets and have served as lead molecules for health and agricultural applications for the past century1-3. The post-genomics era has brought a renaissance in the discovery of natural products using synthetic-biology tools4-6. However, compared to traditional bioactivity-guided approaches, genome mining of natural products with specific and potent biological activities remains challenging4. Here we present the discovery and validation of a potent herbicide that targets a critical metabolic enzyme that is required for plant survival. Our approach is based on the co-clustering of a self-resistance gene in the natural-product biosynthesis gene cluster7-9, which provides insight into the potential biological activity of the encoded compound. We targeted dihydroxy-acid dehydratase in the branched-chain amino acid biosynthetic pathway in plants; the last step in this pathway is often targeted for herbicide development10. We show that the fungal sesquiterpenoid aspterric acid, which was discovered using the method described above, is a sub-micromolar inhibitor of dihydroxy-acid dehydratase that is effective as a herbicide in spray applications. The self-resistance gene astD was validated to be insensitive to aspterric acid and was deployed as a transgene in the establishment of plants that are resistant to aspterric acid. This herbicide-resistance gene combination complements the urgent ongoing efforts to overcome weed resistance11. Our discovery demonstrates the potential of using a resistance-gene-directed approach in the discovery of bioactive natural products