There's a time and a face: The time course of composite face processing.

Faces are considered a special class of holistically-processed object. The composite face task is a widely-used tool to infer holistic processing. In this task, recognition of 1 half of a composite face is shown to be hampered by interference from the other half of the face. Although this effect has been documented numerous times, when used in different paradigms, composite faces do not always exhibit effects consistent with holistic processing. The present study explored the cause of these discrepant findings by combining a composite face task with a signal-to-respond paradigm. The amount of time to make a face recognition decision was manipulated by introducing a response signal, and the resulting changes in accuracy were mapped over the time course of processing, which was then used to fit a speed-accuracy trade-off model. We found that holistic processing emerges late in the time course after approximately 400 ms processing time for easy-to-discriminate faces and after approximately 1000 ms for difficult-to-discriminate faces. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

AlCl3 exposure regulates neuronal development by modulating DNA modification.

BACKGROUND: As the third most abundant element, aluminum is widespread in the environment. Previous studies have shown that aluminum has a neurotoxic effect and its exposure can impair neuronal development and cognitive function. AIM: To study the effects of aluminum on epigenetic modification in neural stem cells and neurons. METHODS: Neural stem cells were isolated from the forebrain of adult mice. Neurons were isolated from the hippocampi tissues of embryonic day 16-18 mice. AlCl3 at 100 and 200 µmol/L was applied to stem cells and neurons. RESULTS: Aluminum altered the differentiation of adult neural stem cells and caused apoptosis of newborn neurons while having no significant effects on the proliferation of neural stem cells. Aluminum application also significantly inhibited the dendritic development of hippocampal neurons. Mechanistically, aluminum exposure significantly affected the levels of DNA 5-hydroxy-methylcytosine, 5-methylcytosine, and N6-methyladenine in stem cells and neurons. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that aluminum may regulate neuronal development by modulating DNA modifications.

[Removal of Lead Ions from Water by Struvite Natural Zeolite Composite].

A nitrogen and phosphorus recovery product (NZ-MAP) containing struvite was applied to remove heavy metal ions and lead from water. NZ-MAP was characterized using XRD, FTIR, and SEM/EDS. The effects of dosage, initial pH, and reaction time on the removal process were investigated. The results show that the main component of NZ-MAP is a natural zeolite loaded with struvite. When the dosage is 0.4 g·L-1, the maximum adsorption amount is 749.74 mg·g-1, and the adsorption of Pb2+ in the solution increases first and then tends to reach a balance with increase of the pH. Its removal mechanism is mainly Pb10 (PO4)6 (OH)2 precipitation, and the effect is best when pH is 5.0. The removal process of Pb2+ from water is more in line with the quasi-two stage kinetic model. In an investigation of the effect of coexisting heavy metal ions on the removal of lead ions in water by NZ-MAP, it was found that coexisting Ni2+ and Cu2+ have little effect on NZ-MAP adsorption on Pb2+. Coexisting Zn2+ and Al3+ obviously inhibit the adsorption of Pb2+ by NZ-MAP. The research shows that NZ-MAP material can remove lead ions from water efficiently, thus offering an effective method for doing this.

Composite faces are not (necessarily) processed coactively: A test using systems factorial technology and logical-rule models.

Upright faces are thought to be processed more holistically than inverted faces. In the widely used composite face paradigm, holistic processing is inferred from interference in recognition performance from a to-be-ignored face half for upright and aligned faces compared with inverted or misaligned faces. We sought to characterize the nature of holistic processing in composite faces in computational terms. We use logical-rule models (Fific, Little, & Nosofsky, 2010) and Systems Factorial Technology (Townsend & Nozawa, 1995) to examine whether composite faces are processed through pooling top and bottom face halves into a single processing channel-coactive processing-which is one common mechanistic definition of holistic processing. By specifically operationalizing holistic processing as the pooling of features into a single decision process in our task, we are able to distinguish it from other processing models that may underlie composite face processing. For instance, a failure of selective attention might result even when top and bottom components of composite faces are processed in serial or in parallel without processing the entire face coactively. Our results show that performance is best explained by a mixture of serial and parallel processing architectures across all 4 upright and inverted, aligned and misaligned face conditions. The results indicate multichannel, featural processing of composite faces in a manner inconsistent with the notion of coactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record

[Simultaneous Recovery of Nutrients from Wastewater by Mesoporous MgO-loaded Natural Zeolital].

Using MgO modified natural zeolite (NZ-MgO) as a settling agent, nutrients from synthetic contaminated waters were recovered as a struvite precipitate. Different reaction conditions, including reagent dosage, solution pH, contact time, and coexisting calcium ions, were investigated. In order to understand the recovery mechanism, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were utilized to analyze the chemical composition of recovered precipitates, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) and field-emission scanning electron microscopy(SEM) were used to detect the surface area and morphology. The results showed that NZ-MgO exhibited a strong removal capacity, with a maximum removal capacity of 119.2 mg·g-1 for phosphate and 48.5 mg·g-1 for ammonium nitrogen at a dosage of 0.4 g·L-1, initial pH of 7, and contact time of 2 h. The kinetics of both phosphate and ammonia nitrogen followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R2>0.99), which revealed that the chemical process occurred at the solid-liquid interface. The mechanisms for nutrient recovery by NZ-MgO were struvite crystallization, physical adsorption, ion exchange, and electrostatic attraction, with struvite crystallization being the main mechanism. Existing calcium ions would hinder the simultaneous recovery of nutrients from wastewater, resulting in a struvite decline and calcium phosphate increase.

Embryonic soluble human leukocyte antigen-G as a marker of embryo competency in assisted reproductive technology for Chinese women.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether embryonic soluble human leukocyte antigen-G (sHLA-G) could be a noninvasive marker for embryo competency in assisted reproductive technology (ART), which is still controversial due to the different detection assays used and the different culture conditions in laboratories. STUDY DESIGN: Based on the standardization of IVF procedures and the embryo culture condition, a total of 205 embryo culture supernatants (ESs) from 92 ART cycles were evaluated for sHLA-G contents by chemiluminescent ELISA assay. RESULTS: sHLA-G presence could be detected in 30.7% of the ESs tested. In the cycles where at least one of the embryos transferred was positive for sHLA-G, 51.9% of patients (27/52) achieved a clinical pregnancy. In cycles where none of the embryos transferred secreted detectable amounts of sHLA-G, the pregnancy rate was only 30.0% (12/40, p < 0.05). The implantation rate in sHLA-G-positive cycles was also significantly higher (31.5%) than that in sHLA-G-negative cycles (14.9%, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The results suggested sHLA-G in ESs as a potential marker of embryo competency in ART programs for the Chinese population.