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Cooperative and Competitive Functional Connectivity Based on Improved Ising Model
No full text ICASSP 2025 - 2025 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)As a highly interconnected complex network system, the brain exhibits changes in interactions due to common brain disorders. Studying changes in brain network interactions can help us quantitatively analyze functional network patterns and changes in these patterns that are linked to brain disorders. However, relationships between brain regions estimated by most current approaches use a single connectivity that does not fully reflect multiple interactions. Here, we propose a novel functional connectivity (FC) construction method, which can estimate both cooperative and competitive (C-C) relationships between the same regions of interest (ROIs) through improved Ising model. We redefine the Ising dynamic equation to represent pairwise interactions from single to C-C relationships. Results show that the estimated C-C connectivities are normally distributed, with intra-subjects’ (n=970) similarity being consistently and significantly higher than inter-subjects’ similarity across datasets. C-C FCs between occipital, parietal, temporal cortex and the limbic system of schizophrenia (SZ, n=178) are more competitive, while healthy control (HC, n=219) tends to be more cooperative. Group differences in C-C patterns between SZ and HC show significant differences in frontal, parietal and occipital regions. The proposed C-C approach provide new insights into the brain dysfunction in SZ, which can also be applied to investigate other brain disorders.This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (BK20220889), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62376124), the Key Research and Development Plan of Jiangsu Province, China (BE2023668), the National Institutes of Health (R01MH123610) and the National Science Foundation (2112455).https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10889211
Meeting report: Seventh summer school on innovative approaches for identification of antiviral agents (IAAASS)
No full textThe 7th Summer School on Innovative Approaches for the Identification of Antiviral Agents (IAAASS) was held at the Sardegna Ricerche Research Park in Santa Margherita di Pula, Sardinia, Italy from September 23–27, 2024, organized by the Co.S.Me.Se, the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences of the University of Cagliari and Sardegna Ricerche in the frame of Next Generation Virology initiative and the Antiviral DiscoVery Initiatives: Educating Next-Gen Scientists (ADVISE Project) 2024. The Summer School is proposed as an informal high-level event comprehensive of the different scientific souls involved in the design and development of new antiviral drug-candidates and their validation and progression up-to the clinic, and it offers, to a limited number of early career scientists, high-level lectures, networking and mentoring opportunities by internationally recognized scientists in a highly interactive environment. The meeting was a very successful event that convened 21 senior speakers with internationally recognized experience in the field of antiviral research and 60 Early Career Scientists (graduated master students, PhD students and early post doctoral researchers) from 13 different countries (Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, and the USA).The 7th IAAASS Organizing Committee included Professors Enzo Tramontano Angela Corona and Elias Maccioni from University of Cagliari Italy Prof Vinceno Summa from University of Naples Federico II Stuart F J Le Grice from the Center for Cancer Research del National Cancer Institute Frederick Professors Graciela Andrei and Johan Neyts form KU Leuven Prof Kathie SeleyRadtke from the University of Maryland Baltimore County Prof Ben Berkhout University of Amsterdam Prof Reuben Harris form HHMI and UT Health San Antonio and Dr Francesca Caboi from Biomedical Research Support Unit of Sardegna Ricerche The Summer School was organized with administrative support from Prof Francesca Esposito Prof Nicole Grandi Prof Antonio Lupia Prof Rita Meleddu Dr Carla Piras and Dr Matteo Mauri from University of Cagliari and from Co S Me Se a university consortium promoted by the Universities Magna Græcia of Catanzaro Cagliari and Amedeo Avogadro of Novara that has among it s aims the doctoral and postgraduate training through the activation of initiatives aimed at expanding the scientific knowledge of the young graduates in the Pharmacological field The 7th IAAASS had the patronage of the University of Cagliari the Societa Italiana di Microbiologia Generale e Biotecnologie Microbiche the Societ a Italiana di Virologia Italian society for Virology Financial support was from Sardegna Ricerche within the framework of Next Generation Virology initiative and the Antiviral DiscoVery Initiatives Educating NextGen Scientists ADVISE n PROT UR301 2023000076 and by Project ECS 0000024 Rome Technopole NRP Mission 4 Component 2 Investment 1 5 Funded by the European Union NextGenerationEU The Federation of European Microbiological Societies the International Antiviral Symposium Foundation and the Italian Society for Virology provided travel grants Appendix B and support for student accommodation We thank all the speakers presenters participants organizers and sponsors of the 7th IAAASS for their key contributions to the success of the meeting We also thank Joy Feng for all the wonderful photoshttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422500096
Analysis of the steady-state concentrations of reactive species and their role in contaminant degradation by the iron-biochar/persulfate advanced oxidation process: Comparison of probe compound and quenching agent methods
No full textReactive species, including hydroxyl radicals (OH), sulfate radicals (SO₄), singlet oxygen (¹O₂), superoxide radicals (O₂), and Fe(IV), are generated by the iron-biochar activated persulfate (Fe-BC/PS) process. These reactive species can be leveraged for treatment of micropollutants, such as the sulfamethoxazole antibiotic. In this study, the steady-state concentrations and contributions of OH, SO₄, ¹O₂, O₂, and Fe(IV) to sulfamethoxazole degradation were calculated for different operating conditions in the iron-biochar/persulfate (Fe-BC/PS advanced oxidation process. Electron paramagnetic resonance was employed to confirm the production of each reactive species. The nitrobenzene, benzoic acid, furfuryl alcohol, p-chlorobenzoic acid or p-benzoquinone, and phenyl methyl sulfoxide probe compounds were added to experimental solutions in isolation, as mixtures, and at different concentrations to calculate the steady-state concentrations of OH, SO₄, ¹O₂, O₂, and Fe(IV) and determine their contributions to sulfamethoxazole degradation at variable pH conditions. The results not only informed the primary mechanisms of sulfamethoxazole degradation by the Fe-BC/PS system, but also highlighted best practices for the use of probe compounds and quenching agents in persulfate-based advanced oxidation processes. In particular, the initial concentration of the probe compounds should be as low as possible to avoid impacts on target contaminant degradation and misinterpretation of the role of each reactive species. Furthermore, quenching-based approaches to determination of the key reactive species were less consistent than evaluation by probe compounds. The overall outcomes of this work inform sulfamethoxazole treatment by the Fe-BC/PS system and emphasize the need for internal validation of kinetics results using a multi-pronged approach.This work was supported by the Natural Scientific Fund of Chongqing (Grant No. CSTB2023NSCQ-MSX0205), the Graduate Education and Teaching Reform Research of Southwest University (Grant No. SWUYJS226106), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 8222046), the Excellent Youth Science Foundation of BAAFS (Grant No. YXQN202201), and the Yibin City Silkworm Industry Efficient Production Technology Innovation and Integration Demonstration (Grant No. XNDX2022020015).https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138358662402241
Race and Incident Dementia Among Older Black and Older White Men
No full textThe objective of this study was to determine if racial differences exist between older Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) and White (NHW) men in incident dementia over 11 years (2011–2022) in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS). The analytic sample included 2395 community-dwelling NHB and NHW men free of dementia at baseline who self-identified as Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) and White (NHW). Dementia was assessed at each visit using a validated algorithm developed by NHATS. After adjusting for demographics, place, and health-related characteristics in the Cox proportional hazard models, older NHB men had an increased risk of dementia (hazard ratio: 1.63, 95% confidence interval: [1.22–2.17]) compared to older NHW men. There may be unique factors such as stressors, patterns of genes, or perhaps nutrition that older NHB men possess and experience throughout their lives that contribute to the increased incident dementia.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the National Institute on Aging (R25AG076635, P30AG059298), National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (U54MD000214).https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08982643241310296?rfr_dat=cr_pub++0pubmed&url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.or
Substantial Diel Changes of Cloud Adjustments to Aerosols in Ship-tracks
No full textHuman induced changes in atmospheric aerosols have introduced a climate forcing by modifying cloud droplet number concentration, liquid water, and cloud fraction. This forcing is subject to large uncertainties as cloud adjustments have not only complex dependence on background conditions, but also temporal fluctuations, especially those driven by diel variations in solar heating. However, direct observations of such diel changes are still limited. Here, we present observational evidence of substantial diel changes in the cloud adjustments to aerosols within ship tracks, linear lines of polluted clouds captured in satellite images. We developed a novel method to automatically determine the age of each ship-track segment and analyze cloud adjustments to aerosols. We show that more aged polluted clouds with extended nighttime exposure exhibit higher increases in cloud fraction. By contrast, liquid water path adjustments follow a non-monotonic pattern: they generally decrease with time before reversing trend in clouds formed at nighttime. Most of these diel contrasts are statistically significant and likely stem from differences in solar heating and cloud precipitation. The increase in cloud fraction adjustment suggests a larger aerosol effective radiative forcing, -0.1 to -0.4 W per meter squared, than the estimate without considering temporal variations, while the temporal changes in liquid water path adjustments may partially offset it. These findings underscore the importance of diel variations in aerosol cloud interactions. Our approach demonstrates that ship tracks, despite appearing as instantaneous observations, yield valuable insights into the temporal evolution of cloud adjustments.We acknowledge funding support from the NASA MEaSUREs and TASNPP programs (grant numbers 80NSSC24K0458 and 80NSSC24M0045), the NOAA ERB program (grant NA23OAR4310299 ), and the DOE ASR program (grant DE-SC0024078).http://arxiv.org/abs/2504.0705
Climatology of aerosol pH and its controlling factors at the Melpitz continental background site in central Europe
No full textAerosol acidity has importance for the chemical and physical properties of atmospheric aerosol particles and for many processes that affect their transformations and fate. Here, we characterize trends in aerosol pH and its controlling factors over the period of 2010 – 2019 at the Melpitz research station in eastern Germany, a continental background site in central Europe. Aerosol liquid water content (ALWC) decreased by 50 % during the analyzed time period in response to decreasing sulfate and nitrate. Aerosol pH exhibited an increase of 0.06 units per year, a trend that was distinct from other regions. Seasonal analysis showed strong variability in factors controlling aerosol pH.C.H. and V.P. acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation through grants AGS-1719252 and AGS-2430366. The TROPOS co-authors acknowledge financial support for the deployment of the MARGA system by the German federal environment protection agency Umweltbundesamt (UBA) under 570 contract no. 52436 as well as from the European Regional Development fund by the European Union under contract no. 100188826. Further support by the European infrastructure projects ACTRIS (EU FP7; grant no. 262254) and ACTRIS-2 (grant no. 654109) and the RI-URBANS project (grant no. 101036245) are gratefully acknowledged.https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-457
Real-Time Pulse Processing on the Time-Division Multiplex Readout Electronics of the Transition Edge Sensor for the Line Emission Mapper (LEM)
No full textWe are developing a real-time X-ray pulse processor for the Line Emission Mapper (LEM) mission, a NASA X-ray probe concept for imaging and spectroscopy in the 0.2 to 2 keV range. The main detector is a hybrid Transition Edge Sensor (TES) array with a 33' outer array with ‘Hydra’ multiplexing and a 7' × 7' inner subarray. The ∼4,000 TES sensors are read out using time-division multiplexing (TDM) technology. We are developing room-temperature digital readout electronics based on laboratory TDM electronics, where all X-ray pulses are processed in real-time to reduce the size of the data transmission. The process includes pulse triggering, grading, extraction, and optimal filtering performed in the FPGA of the TDM column electronics. In this paper we describe the real-time pulse processing firmware for a LEM flight-like prototype electronics and demonstrate count rate capability. We also demonstrate that it provides identical performance compared to conventional offline pulse-processing.This work was supported by NASA under Award 80GSFC21M0002.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1085487
THE MOTHER-WHORE DICHOTOMY IN WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION
No full textThis portfolio examines the problematic presence and impact of the Mother–Whore dichotomy in the understanding and the representation of women across literature, philosophy, and visual art. It illustrates the persistent dissonance between the nurturing and passive roles that have been traditionally expected of women and the ways their bodies have been imagined and represented—often sexualized, objectified, and dehumanized. Through the flirtatious, ornamental depictions of women in Rococo art, the emotional and existential fragmentation of the self in Simone de Beauvoir’s "The Woman Destroyed," and a critical reflection on contemporary feminist perspectives of visual representations of the female body, this portfolio exemplifies the double-standards that society puts on women and their bodies—which ultimately undermines the complexity of their lived experience and strips them of their subjectivity
Enhanced Line Narrowing of Selectively Labeled [9-15N] Guanosine Enables Probing of Large RNAs
No full textRNA regulates various cellular processes using malleable 3D structures and characterizing their structural dynamics is critical to shedding light on their mechanism of action. To mitigate continuing limitations on studies of large RNA by solution NMR spectroscopy, we have extended a recently described 2H-enhanced, 1H-15N correlation approach by developing a chemoenzymatic labeling technology that grafts selectively labeled [9-15N]-Guanine on to any available labeled ribose to make [9-15N]-GTP. The low CSA of the N9 nucleus (~112 ppm) in combination with extensive ribose deuteration leads to long-lived NMR signals that enable chemical shift assignment, analyze the structure of three biologically relevant large RNA constructs pivotal to viral life cycles [human hepatitis B virus ? RNA (61nt), the HIV-1 primer binding site segment RNA (103 nt), and the HIV-1 Rev response element (232 nt)], observe N9-H8 and N9-H1? correlations, and measure longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates for RNAs as large as 78 kDa. We show CSA dominates both N7 (>99%) and N9 (>90%) relaxation and enables straightforward analysis of dynamics. Taken together, application of these selective labels in conjunction with optimized NMR pulse sequences could help us push the limits of size restrictions in RNA NMR structural biology beyond 100 nt.We acknowledge support from NIH (U54 AI17660-TKD, DAC, MFS, JM), (R01 AI150498 to MFS) and NSF (DBI1040158-TKD).https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/article-details/679d4adbfa469535b999f69