Effects of antipsychotics on bone mineral density and prolactin levels in patients with schizophrenia: a 12-month prospective study

Objective: Effects of conventional and atypical antipsychotics on bone mineral density (BMD) and serum prolactin levels (PRL) were examined in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: One hundred and sixty-three first-episode inpatients with schizophrenia were recruited, to whom one of three conventional antipsychotics (perphenazine, sulpiride, and chlorpromazine) or one of three atypical antipsychotics (clozapine, quetiapine, and aripiprazole)was prescribed for 12 months as appropriate. BMD and PRL were tested before and after treatment. Same measures were conducted in 90 matched healthy controls.Results Baseline BMD of postero-anterior L1–L4 range from 1.04 ± 0.17 to 1.42 ± 1.23, and there was no significant difference between the patients group and healthy control group. However, post-treatment BMD values in patients (ranging from 1.02 ± 0.15 to 1.23 ± 0.10) were significantly lower than that in healthy controls (ranging from 1.15 ± 0.12 to 1.42 ± 1.36). The BMD values after conventional antipsychotics were significantly lower than that after atypical antipsychotics. The PRL level after conventional antipsychotics (53.05 ± 30.25 ng/ml) was significantly higher than that after atypical antipsychotics (32.81 ± 17.42 ng/ml). Conditioned relevance analysis revealed significant negative correlations between the PRL level and the BMD values after conventional antipsychotics.Conclusion The increase of PRL might be an important risk factor leading to a high prevalence of osteoporosis in patients with schizophrenia on long-term conventional antipsychotic medication.<br/

From Auditable Quantum Authentication to Best-of-Both-Worlds Multiparty Quantum Computation with Public Verifiable Identifiable Abort

We construct the first secure multiparty quantum computation with public verifiable identifiable abort (MPQC-PVIA) protocol, where PVIA security enables outside observers with only classical computational power to agree on the identity of a malicious party in case of an abort. Moreover, our MPQC is the first quantum setting to provide Best-of-Both-Worlds (BoBW) security, which attains full security with an honest majority and is secure with abort if the majority is dishonest. At the heart of our construction is a generic transformation called Auditable Quantum Authentication (AQA) that publicly identifies the malicious sender with overwhelming probability. Our approach comes with several advantages over the traditional way of building MPQC protocols. First, instead of following the Clifford code paradigm, our protocol can be based on a variety of authentication codes. Second, the online phase of our MPQC requires only classical communications. Third, our construction can achieve distributed computation via a carefully crafted protocol design, which can be adjusted to an MPQC that conditionally guarantees output delivery

Adaptation in face animacy perception:An event-related potential study

A real face differs from an artificial face mainly in the animacy. Nowadays, the perception boundaries between the real and artificial faces are becoming blurred in our life with the ubiquitous use of AI. Therefore, the perception of animacy causes increasing interests. Here, we used an adaptation paradigm to investigate the animacy perception in faces. We morphed a real and an artificial face to generate a continuum of face images, and asked participants to judge the animacy of those face images after they were exposed to a real face or an artificial face. We found that after adaptation to a real face, the subjects were apt to identify a subsequently ambiguous face to be inanimate, whereas after adaptation to an artificial face, the subjects were apt to identify a subsequently ambiguous face to be animate, i.e., the face animacy aftereffect (FAAE). We simultaneously recorded EEG during the task and analyzed the event-related potentials in response to the test faces, and found that adaptation to a face animacy suppressed the amplitude of LPP (late positive potential) and prolonged the latencies of N250r and LPP, in response to subsequent animacy-congruent faces. However, for subsequent animacy-incongruent faces, the amplitude was enhanced in LPP and the latencies were shortened in N250r and LPP. Those modulations of N250r and LPP activity act as a neural correlate of face animacy adaptation

The design of a position-based repetitive control for speed ripple reduction in PMLSMs

Periodic speed errors can occur in permanent magnet linear synchronous machines for two reasons: 1) a periodic reference signal; 2) cogging force and friction. For reducing such periodic errors, iterative learning control or repetitive control approaches, used in conjunction with more common control actions, can be strongly effective. However, the design of the stability filter, robustness filter and other parameters for a traditional repetitive controller can be a complex task and may need to be adjusted when the frequency of such periodic error varies. Existing solutions tend to develop more adaptive tuning methods for repetitive controller to enhance the whole control system. This paper shows that the performance of a traditional speed loop can be enhanced with a repetitive controller without complicating the tuning of the repetitive controller. Consequently, a position-based repetitive control combined with deadbeat current control method is proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed method is effective for reducing speed ripple at difference frequencies without necessarily adjusting its parameters

A fractional delay variable frequency repetitive control for torque ripple reduction in PMSMs

Based on the internal model principle, repetitive controller (RC) is capable to reduce periodic torque ripple by generating a compensating action that consequently need to be synchronized with the original ripple. However, the synchronization is difficult to achieve using the conventional RC when the sampling frequency is not integer multiple of the speed (known as fractional delay issue), or when the speed varies widely. To solve this problem, this paper presents a fractional delay variable frequency torque ripple reduction method for PMSM drives using the combination of angle-based RC and deadbeat current control (DBCC). Four aspects of innovations are included in the proposed control to improve the synchronization. The experimental results show that the proposed control can effectively reduce torque ripple even during speed and load transient

A variable frequency angle-based repetitive control for torque ripple reduction in PMSMs

This paper presents a novel method for torque ripple reduction in PMSM drives at variable speed, using a combination of angle-based repetitive control and deadbeat current control. Based on the internal model principle, repetitive control is capable to reduce periodic torque ripple by generating a compensating action that consequently need to be synchronized with the original ripple. The time to angle, angle to time conversions for repetitive control, which improve both the stability and the performance when the sampling frequency is not integer multiple of the speed, are presented. A transient detection strategy is also developed to allow a stable torque ripple reduction even during speed and load changes

Design of a repetitive controller as a feed-forward disturbance observer

From the structure point of view, a repetitive controller (RC) is considerably similar to a disturbance observer. By adding a correction term to the traditional RC and considering the disturbances as states, the repetitive controller can be designed in the same way as a disturbance observer. This paper presents therefore a new simple way of tuning a repetitive controller. Simulations show that, when compared with the traditional RC, the proposed RC configuration can achieve greater stability margin. As opposed to the traditional plug-in RC, the new RC structure studied in this paper is also shown to be robust against variations in the inner loop delays if it is used in a cascaded configuration. The immunity to plant parameter variations is another added benefit of the proposed controller