Objectives/Goals: Mathematical models of airborne virus transmission lack supporting field and clinical data such as viral aerosol emission rates and airborne infectious doses. Here, we aim to measure inhalation exposure to influenza aerosols in a room shared with persons with community-acquired influenza and estimate the infectious dose via inhalation. Methods/Study Population: We recruited healthy volunteer recipients and influenza donors with polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-confirmed community-acquired infection. On admission to a hotel quarantine, recipients provided sera to determine baseline immunity to influenza virus, and donor infections were confirmed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction. Donors and recipients were housed in separate rooms and interacted in an “event room” with controlled ventilation (0.2 – 0.5 air changes/hour) and relative humidity (20–40%). We collected ambient bioaerosol exposure samples using NIOSH BC-251 samplers. Donors provided exhaled breath samples collected by a Gesundheit-II (G-II). We analyzed aerosol samples using dPCR and fluorescent focus assays for influenza A and sera by hemagglutinin inhibition assay (HAI) against donor viruses and vaccine strains. Results/Anticipated Results: Among two cohorts (24b and 24c), we exposed 11 recipients (mean age: 36; 55% female) to 5 donors (mean age: 21; 80% female) infected with influenza A H1N1 or H3N2. Eight G-II and two NIOSH bioaerosol samples (1–4 µm and ≥4 µm) were PCR positive. We cultured virus from one G-II sample. Based on previous literature, we hypothesized that ~50% of immunologically naïve people (HAI Discussion/Significance of Impact: We demonstrated that it is feasible to recruit donors with community-acquired influenza and expose recipients to measurable virus quantities under controlled conditions. However, baseline immunity was high among volunteers. Our work sets the stage for designing studies with increased sample sizes comprising immunologically naïve volunteers.

Psychotic disorders are known to be associated with elevated dopamine synthesis; yet, nondopamine factors may underlie the manifestation of some psychotic symptoms that are nonresponsive to dopamine-blocking agents. One under-explored nondopamine mechanism is neuroplasticity. We propose an account of the course of psychotic symptoms based on the extensive evidence for dopamine facilitation of Hebbian synaptic plasticity in cortical and subcortical memory systems. The encoding of psychotic experiences in autobiographical memory (AM) is expected to be facilitated in the hyperdopaminergic state associated with acute psychosis. However, once such ‘spurious AM of psychosis’ (SAMP) is encoded, its persistence may become dependent more on synaptic factors than dopamine factors. Under this framework, the involuntary retrieval of residual SAMP is postulated to play a key role in mediating the reactivation of symptoms with similar contents, as often observed in patients during relapse. In contrast, with active new learning of normalizing experiences across diverse real-life contexts, supported by intact dopamine-mediated salience, well-integrated SAMP may undergo ‘extinction’, leading to remission. The key steps to the integration of SAMP across psychotic and nonpsychotic memories may correspond to one’s ‘recovery style’, involving processes similar to the formation of ‘non-believed memory’ in nonclinical populations. The oversuppression of dopamine can compromise such processes. We synthesize this line of evidence into an updated dopamine-gated memory framework where neuroplasticity processes offer a parsimonious account for the recurrence, persistence, and progression of psychotic symptoms. This framework generates testable hypotheses relevant to clinical interventions.

Recent experiments and simulations have sparked growing interest in the study of Rayleigh–Bénard convection in very slender cells. One pivotal inquiry arising from this interest is the elucidation of the flow structure within these very slender cells. Here we employ tomographic particle image velocimetry, for the first time, to capture experimentally the full-field three-dimensional and three-component velocity field in a very slender cylindrical cell with aspect ratio $\Gamma =1/10$. The experiments cover a Rayleigh number range $5.0 \times 10^8 \leqslant Ra \leqslant 5.0 \times 10^9$ and Prandtl number 5.7. Our experiments reveal that the flow structure in the $\Gamma =1/10$ cell is neither in the multiple-roll form nor in the simple helical form; instead, the ascending and descending flows can intersect and cross each other, resulting in the crossing events. These crossing events separate the flow into segments; within each segment, the ascending and descending flows ascend or descend side by side vertically or in the twisting manner, and the twisting is not unidirectional, while the segments near the boundary can also be in the form of a donut like structure. By applying the mode decomposition analyses to the measured three-dimensional velocity fields, we identified the crossing events as well as the twisting events for each instantaneous flow field. Statistical analysis of the modes reveals that as $Ra$ increases, the average length of the segments becomes smaller, and the average number of segments increases from 2.5 to 3.9 in the $Ra$ range of our experiments.

Although both butterflies and dragonflies are four-winged insects, their wing geometries and kinematics differ significantly. Butterflies have a much narrower gap between their forewing and hindwing than dragonflies. While previous research has extensively investigated the forewing–hindwing interactions in dragonfly flight, this work focuses on their interactions in butterfly flight. The interactions are studied based on numerical simulations of the Navier–Stokes equations around a butterfly-inspired flapping wing with an adjustable slot, representing the narrow gap between the forewing and hindwing. The slot is controlled by a dihedral angle between the forewing and hindwing. The lift coefficients of wings with different slot sizes and locations are investigated in detail. The results show that the forewing–hindwing interactions can significantly enhance the lift if the slot is properly configured. When the slot is configured by elevating the forewing at a 10-degree dihedral angle relative to the hindwing during flapping flight, the wing generates over 20 % more lift than the model without a slot. The streamwise ram effect and tip-vortex capture are shown to be responsible for the lift enhancement by using a lift decomposition formula. The streamwise ram effect reduces the streamwise velocity beneath the forewing, decreasing the negative vortex lift associated with spanwise vorticity. The tip-vortex capture enhances the positive vortex lift associated with streamwise vorticity when the hindwing captures the tip vortex shedding from the forewing.

An important question in literacy education is whether reading instruction should focus on whole words or subword constituents. We tested whether this question captures something general across writing systems by examining the functionalities of words and characters in learning Chinese. We introduce a character-word dual-focus instructional approach based on the Character-Word Dual Function model and test its predictions with American undergraduate students enrolled in a beginner-level Chinese course. One group learned new words through dual-focus instruction: characters for pronunciation and words for meaning. A second group followed typical word-focus instruction prevalent in classrooms, learning word-level pronunciation and meaning. Results indicated that while both approaches produced comparable levels of word pronunciation and meaning learning, the dual-focus instruction significantly enhanced character pronunciation and transfer to new word learning. The advantages of dual-focus instruction highlight the importance of learning the subword components through acquiring the systematic structure of the writing system in learning to read.

Summary: Melatonin serves as an endogenous synchronizer of biological rhythms. Age-related changes are evident with a significant reduction in melatonin observed in 24-hour secretion. Melatonin exerts a significant cytoprotective action by buffering free radicals and reversing inflammation. However, few studies have explored the association between physical activity and melatonin level. In this study, we compared melatonin level and actigraphy-derived sleep and activity indicators in older adults across two levels of exercise habit (sedentary-to- light exercise and moderate -to-vigorous exercise), as well as the association of these indicators with melatonin levels. We recruited 104 participants (aged 57– 84 years) who wore a wristwatch device to monitor their activity (MotionWatch 8; CamNtech, Cambridge, UK) for 14 days. Circadian rhythms were estimated using cosinor analysis, lag 1440 mins correlation coefficient, interdaily stability, and non-parametric analysis. Saliva samples were collected every 30 mins from 18:00 pm till one hour before usual bedtime, and maximum melatonin level during this period. A 5-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) was used to evaluate attention. Habits of physical activities were self-reported. Melatonin level was not significantly different between participants with sedentary- to-light and moderate-to-vigorous exercise habits. Analysis showed that participants who had moderate-vigorous exercise habit were older (p = 0.04), having longer sports time (p < 0.001) and WASO (p = 0.02), more occurrence of daytime naps (intradaily variability) (p = 0.05), more fragmentated 24-h sleep-wake cycle (interdaily stability, p = 0.01), and less regular 24h rhythm (lag 1140 mins correlation, p = 0.04). They also showed shorter response time (p = 0.05), and a smaller number of lapses (p = 0.04) in PVT. Regression analysis results showed that weekly exercise time is positively associated with melatonin level. Additionally, a later start hour of M10 is associated with 5.95 pg/ml increase in melatonin level. In consistent, exercise in older adults did not promote a robust sleep- wake cycle but is related to better cognitive function and higher melatonin levels.

Introduction: Late-life depression (LLD) is associated with cognitive deficit with risk of future dementia. By examining the entropy of the spontaneous brain activity, we aimed to understand the neural mechanism pertaining to cognitive decline in LLD.

Methods: We collected MRI scans in older adults with LLD (n = 32), mild cognitive impairment [MCI (n = 25)] and normal cognitive function [NC, (n = 47)]. Multiscale entropy analysis (MSE) was applied to resting-state fMRI data. Under the scale factor (tau) 1 and 2, reliable separation of fMRI data and noise was achieved. We calculated the brain entropy in 90 brain regions based on automated anatomical atlas (AAL). Due to exploratory nature of this study, we presented data of group-wise comparison in brain entropy between LLD vs. NC, MCI vs. NC, and LLD and MCD with a p-value below 0.001.

Results: The mean Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of LLD and MCI was 27.9 and 25.6. Under tau 2, we found higher brain entropy of LLD in left globus pallidus than MCI (p = 0.002) and NC (p = 0,009). Higher brain entropy of LLD than NC was also found in left frontal superior gyrus, left middle superior gyrus, left amygdala and left inferior parietal gyrus. The only brain region with higher brain entropy in MCI than control was left posterior cingulum (p-value = 0.015). Under tau 1, higher brain entropy was also found in LLD than in MCI in right orbital part of medial frontal gyrus and left globus pallidus (p-value = 0.007 and 0.005).

Conclusions: Our result is consistent with prior hypothesis where higher brain entropy was found during early aging process as compensation. We found such phenomenon particular in left globus pallidus in LLD, which could be served as a discriminative brain region. Being a key region in reward system, we hypothesis such region may be associated with apathy and with unique pathway of cognitive decline in LLD. We will undertake subsequent analysis longitudinally in this cohort

Key words: resting-state fMRI, Late-life depression, Brain entropy, globus pallidus, cognitive decline

Foodborne diseases are ongoing and significant public health concerns. This study analysed data obtained from the Foodborne Outbreaks Surveillance System of Wenzhou to comprehensively summarise the characteristics of foodborne outbreaks from 2012 to 2022. A total of 198 outbreaks were reported, resulting in 2,216 cases, 208 hospitalisations, and eight deaths over 11 years. The findings suggested that foodborne outbreaks were more prevalent in the third quarter, with most cases occurring in households (30.8%). Outbreaks were primarily associated with aquatic products (17.7%) as sources of contamination. The primary transmission pathways were accidental ingestion (20.2%) and multi-pathway transmission (12.1%). Microbiological aetiologies (46.0%), including Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Salmonella ssp., and Staphylococcus aureus, were identified as the main causes of foodborne outbreaks. Furthermore, mushroom toxins (75.0%), poisonous animals (12.5%), and poisonous plants (12.5%) were responsible for deaths from accidental ingestion. This study identified crucial settings and aetiologies that require the attention of both individuals and governments, thereby enabling the development of effective preventive measures to mitigate foodborne outbreaks, particularly in coastal cities.

The delay-shift of the pre-pulse may mislead the determination of its origination and cause problems for the temporal contrast improvement of high-peak-power lasers, especially when the corresponding post-pulse is beyond the time window of the measurement device. In this work, an empirical formula is proposed to predict the delay-shift of pre-pulses for the first time. The empirical formula shows that the delay-shift is proportional to the square of the post-pulse’s initial delay, and also the ratio of the third-order dispersion to the group delay dispersion’s square, which intuitively reveals the main cause for the delay-shift and may provide a convenient routing for identifying the real sources of pre-pulses in both chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) and optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems. The empirical formula agrees well with the experimental results both in the CPA and the OPCPA systems. Besides, a numerical simulation is also carried out to further verify the empirical formula.

Choline and betaine are important in the body, from cell membrane components to methyl donors. We aimed to investigate trends in dietary intake and food sources of total choline, individual choline forms and betaine in Chinese adults using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) 1991–2011, a prospective cohort with a multistage, random cluster design. Dietary intake was estimated using three consecutive 24-h dietary recalls in combination with a household food inventory. Linear mixed-effect models were constructed using R software. A total of 11 188 men and 12 279 women aged 18 years or older were included. Between 1991 and 2011, total choline intake increased from 219·3 (95 % CI 215·1, 223·4) mg/d to 269·0 (95 % CI 265·6, 272·5) mg/d in men and from 195·6 (95 % CI 191·8, 199·4) mg/d to 240·4 (95 % CI 237·4, 243·5) mg/d in women (both P-trends < 0·001). Phosphatidylcholine was the major form of dietary choline, and its contribution to total choline increased from 46·9 % in 1991 to 58·8 % in 2011. Cereals were the primary food source of total choline before 2000, while eggs had ranked at the top since 2004. Dietary betaine intake was relatively steady over time with a range of 134·0–151·5 mg/d in men (P-trend < 0·001) and 111·7–125·3 mg/d in women (P-trend > 0·05). Chinese adults experienced a significant increase in dietary intake of choline, particularly phosphatidylcholine during 1991–2011 and animal-derived foods have replaced plant-based foods as the main food sources of choline. Betaine intake remained relatively stable over time. Future efforts should address the health effects of these changes.

To investigate the associations between dietary patterns and biological ageing, identify the most recommended dietary pattern for ageing and explore the potential mediating role of gut microbiota in less-developed ethnic minority regions (LEMRs). This prospective cohort study included 8288 participants aged 30–79 years from the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort study. Anthropometric measurements and clinical biomarkers were utilised to construct biological age based on Klemera and Doubal’s method (KDM-BA) and KDM-BA acceleration (KDM-AA). Dietary information was obtained through the baseline FFQ. Six dietary patterns were constructed: plant-based diet index, healthful plant-based diet index, unhealthful plant-based diet index, healthy diet score, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and alternative Mediterranean diets. Follow-up adjusted for baseline analysis assessed the associations between dietary patterns and KDM-AA. Additionally, quantile G-computation identified significant beneficial and harmful food groups. In the subsample of 764 participants, we used causal mediation model to explore the mediating role of gut microbiota in these associations. The results showed that all dietary patterns were associated with KDM-AA, with DASH exhibiting the strongest negative association (β = −0·91, 95 % CI (–1·19, −0·63)). The component analyses revealed that beneficial food groups primarily included tea and soy products, whereas harmful groups mainly comprised salt and processed vegetables. In mediation analysis, the Synergistetes and Pyramidobacter possibly mediated the negative associations between plant-based diets and KDM-AA (5·61–9·19 %). Overall, healthy dietary patterns, especially DASH, are negatively associated with biological ageing in LEMRs, indicating that Synergistetes and Pyramidobacter may be potential mediators. Developing appropriate strategies may promote healthy ageing in LEMRs.

Purple nutsedge (Cyperus rotundus L.) is one of the world’s resilient upland weeds, primarily spreading through its tubers. Its emergence in rice (Oryza sativa L.) fields has been increasing, likely due to changing paddy-farming practices. This study aimed to investigate how C. rotundus, an upland weed, can withstand soil flooding and become a problematic weed in rice fields. The first comparative analysis focused on the survival and recovery characteristics of growing and mature tubers of C. rotundus exposed to soil-flooding conditions. Notably, mature tubers exhibited significant survival and recovery abilities in these environments. Based on this observation, further investigation was carried out to explore the morphological structure, nonstructural carbohydrates, and respiratory mechanisms of mature tubers in response to prolonged soil flooding. Over time, the mature tubers did not form aerenchyma but instead gradually accumulated lignified sclerenchymal fibers, with lignin content also increasing. After 90 d, the lignified sclerenchymal fibers and lignin contents were 4.0 and 1.1 times higher than those in the no soil-flooding treatment. Concurrently, soluble sugar content decreased while starch content increased, providing energy storage, and alcohol dehydrogenase activity rose to support anaerobic respiration via alcohol fermentation. These results indicated that mature tubers survived in soil-flooding conditions by adopting a low-oxygen quiescence strategy, which involves morphological adaptations through the development of lignified sclerenchymal fibers, increased starch reserves for energy storage, and enhanced anaerobic respiration. This mechanism likely underpins the flooding tolerance of mature C. rotundus tubers, allowing them to endure unfavorable conditions and subsequently germinate and grow once flooding subsides. This study provides a preliminary explanation of the mechanism by which mature tubers of C. rotundus from the upland areas confer flooding tolerance, shedding light on the reasons behind this weed’s increasing presence in rice fields.

This study aimed to understand the potassium voltage-gated channel KQT-like subfamily, member 1 gene polymorphism in a rural elderly population in a county in Guangxi and to explore the possible relationship between its gene polymorphism and blood sugar. The 6 SNP loci of blood DNA samples from 4355 individuals were typed using the imLDRTM Multiple SNP Typing Kit from Shanghai Tianhao Biotechnology Co. The data combining epidemiological information (baseline questionnaire and physical examination results) and genotyping results were statistically analyzed using GMDR0.9 software and SPSS22.0 software. A total of 4355 elderly people aged 60 years and above were surveyed in this survey, and the total abnormal rate of glucose metabolism was 16·11 % (699/4355). Among them, male:female ratio was 1:1·48; the age group of 60–69 years old accounted for the highest proportion, with 2337 people, accounting for 53·66 % (2337/4355). The results of multivariate analysis showed that usually not doing farm work (OR 1·26; 95 % CI 1·06, 1·50), TAG ≥ 1·70 mmol/l (OR 1·19; 95 % CI 1·11, 1·27), hyperuricaemia (OR 1·034; 95 % CI 1·01, 1·66) and BMI ≥ 24 kg/m2 (OR 1·06; 95 % CI 1·03, 1·09) may be risk factors for abnormal glucose metabolism. Among all participants, rs151290 locus AA genotype, A allele carriers (AA+AC) were 0.70 times more likely (0.54 to 0.91) and 0.82 times more likely (0.70 to 0.97) to develop abnormal glucose metabolism than CC genotype carriers, respectively. Carriers of the T allele at the rs2237892 locus (CT+TT) were 0.85 times more likely to have abnormal glucose metabolism than carriers of the CC genotype (0.72 to 0.99); rs2237897 locus CT gene. The possibility of abnormal glucose metabolism in the carriers of CC genotype, TT genotype and T allele (CT + TT) is 0·79 times (0·67–0·94), 0·74 times (0·55–0·99) and 0·78 times (0·66, 0·92). The results of multifactor dimensionality reduction showed that the optimal interaction model was a three-factor model consisting of farm work, TAG and rs2237897. The best model dendrogram found that the interaction between TAG and rs2237897 had the strongest effect on fasting blood glucose in the elderly in rural areas, and they were mutually antagonistic. Environment–gene interaction is an important factor affecting abnormal glucose metabolism in the elderly of a county in Hechi City, Guangxi.

To address the issues of low positioning accuracy and weak robustness of prior visual simultaneous localization and mapping (VSLAM) systems in dynamic environments, a semantic VSLAM (Sem-VSLAM) approach based on deep learning is proposed in this article. The proposed Sem-VSLAM algorithm adds semantic segmentation threads in parallel based on the open-source ORB-SLAM2’s visual odometry. First, while extracting the ORB features from an RGB-D image, the frame image is semantically segmented, and the segmented results are detected and repaired. Then, the feature points of dynamic objects are eliminated by using semantic information and motion consistency detection, and the poses are estimated by using the remaining feature points after the dynamic feature elimination. Finally, a 3D point cloud map is constructed by using tracking information and semantic information. The experiment uses Technical University of Munich public data to show the usefulness of the Sem-VSLAM algorithm. The experimental results show that the Sem-VSLAM algorithm can reduce the absolute trajectory error and relative attitude error of attitude estimation by about 95% compared to the ORB-SLAM2 algorithm and by about 14% compared to the VO-YOLOv5s in a highly dynamic environment and the average time consumption of tracking each frame image reaches 61 ms. It is verified that the Sem-VSLAM algorithm effectively improves the robustness and positioning accuracy in high dynamic environment and owning a satisfying real-time performance. Therefore, the Sem-VSLAM has a better mapping effect in a highly dynamic environment.