The effect of transposed-character distance in Chinese reading.

Previous research in alphabetic languages has shown that both position (external, internal) and distance (adjacent, nonadjacent) modulate letter position encoding during reading. To examine the generality of this pattern for a comprehensive model of word recognition and reading, we examined these effects during Chinese reading (i.e., an unspaced logographic language). Participants in two experiments read intact sentences and sentences containing transposed-character nonwords while their eye movements were monitored. Experiment 1 manipulated the distance between the transposed characters (adjacent vs. nonadjacent) within three-character words. Reading times were longer when nonadjacent characters were transposed compared with adjacent characters. Also, for adjacent character transpositions, a word-beginning character transposition led to longer reading times than a word-ending character transposition. Experiment 2 manipulated orthogonally character transposition distance (adjacent vs. nonadjacent) and position within four-character words, including the beginning versus the last character. Reading times were longer when the transposition involves the first character than when involves the ending character. Fixation durations on the target regions in the nonadjacent character transposition condition were longer than those in the adjacent character transposition condition. Taken together, these results reveal robust effects of both the initial character position and transposed-character distance in Chinese reading. Thus, the privileged status of the initial character is intrinsically related to how we access lexical information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Ionic Liquid Directed Spinning of Cellulose Aerogel Fibers with Superb Toughness for Weaved Thermal Insulation and Transient Impact Protection.

Aerogel fibers, combining the nanoporous characteristics of aerogels with the slenderness of fibers, have emerged as a rising star in nanoscale materials science. However, endowing nanoporous aerogel fibers with good strength and high toughness remains elusive due to their high porosity and fragile mechanics. To address this challenge, this paper reports supertough aerogel fibers (SAFs) initially started from ionic-liquid-dissociated cellulose via wet-spinning and supercritical drying in sequence. The supertough nanoporous aerogel fibers assembled with cellulose nanofibers exhibit a high specific surface area (372 m2/g), good mechanical strength (30 MPa), and large elongation (107%). Benefiting from their high strength and elongation, the resultant cellulose nanoporous aerogel fibers show ultrahigh toughness up to 21.85 MJ/m3, much outperforming the known aerogel materials in the literature. Moreover, the toughness of this nanoporous aerogel fiber is 7.4 times higher than that of human knee ligaments, and its specific toughness is comparable to that of commonly used solid polyester fibers. In addition, we also verified the weavability, desirable thermal insulation performance, and supertoughness to resist the transient impact of SAFs. The long-sought strategy to simultaneously resolve the strength and toughness of nanoporous aerogel fibers, in combination with the biodegradable nature of the cellulose, provides multifaceted opportunities for broad potential applications, including lightweight wearable textiles and beyond.

Nanoscale Kevlar Liquid Crystal Aerogel Fibers.

Aerogel fibers, the simultaneous embodiment of aerogel porous network and fiber slender geometry, have shown critical advantages over natural and synthetic fibers in thermal insulation. However, how to control the building block orientation degree of the resulting aerogel fibers during the dynamic sol-gel transition process to expand their functions for emerging applications is a great challenge. Herein, nanoscale Kevlar liquid crystal (NKLC) aerogel fibers with different building block orientation degrees have been fabricated from Kevlar nanofibers via liquid crystal spinning, dynamic sol-gel transition, freeze-drying, and cold plasma hydrophobilization in sequence. The resulting NKLC aerogel fibers demonstrate extremely high mechanical strength (41.0 MPa), excellent thermal insulation (0.037 W·m-1·K-1), and self-cleaning performance (with a water contact angle of 154°). The superhydrophobic NKLC aerogel fibers can cyclically transform between aerogel and gel states, while gel fibers involving different building block orientation degrees display distinguishable brightness under polarized light. Based on these performances, digital textiles woven or embroidered with high- and low-orientated NKLC aerogel fibers enable up to 6.0 Gb information encryption in one square meter and on-demand decryption. Therefore, it can be envisioned that the tuning of the building blocks' orientation degree will be an appropriate strategy to endow performance to the liquid crystal aerogel fibers for potential applications beyond thermal insulation.

The database of eye-movement measures on words in Chinese reading.

Eye movements are one of the most fundamental behaviors during reading. A growing number of Chinese reading studies have used eye-tracking techniques in the last two decades. The accumulated data provide a rich resource that can reflect the complex cognitive mechanisms underlying Chinese reading. This article reports a database of eye-movement measures of words during Chinese sentence reading. The database contains nine eye-movement measures of 8,551 Chinese words obtained from 1,718 participants across 57 Chinese sentence reading experiments. All data were collected in the same experimental environment and from homogenous participants, using the same protocols and parameters. This database enables researchers to test their theoretical or computational hypotheses concerning Chinese reading efficiently using a large number of words. The database can also indicate the processing difficulty of Chinese words during text reading, thus providing a way to control or manipulate the difficulty level of Chinese texts.

Bending Stiffness-Directed Fabricating of Kevlar Aerogel-Confined Organic Phase-Change Fibers.

Smart and functional fibers have demonstrated great potentials in a wide range of applications including wearable devices and other high-tech fields, but design and fabrication of smart fibers with manageable structures as well as versatile functions are still a great challenge. Herein, an ingenious bending-stiffness-directed strategy is developed to fabricate smart phase-change fibers with different bending stiffnesses for diverse applications. Specifically, the hydrophobic Kevlar aerogel-confined paraffin wax fibers (PW@H-KAF) are fabricated by employing hydrophobic Kevlar aerogel fibers (H-KAFs) as the porous host and paraffin as the functional guest, where the H-KAF is obtained by applying a two-step process to functionalize Kevlar nanofibers (KNFs) with a special coagulation bath containing a mixture of ethanol and n-bromobutane. The prepared PW@H-KAFs exhibit high latent heat (135.1-172 J/g), outstanding thermal cyclic stability and satisfactory mechanical properties (30 MPa in tensile strength and 30% in tensile strain). In addition, the PW@H-KAFs with bending stiffness was lower than the critical one (1.22 × 10-9 N·m2) even in a solid state of paraffin wax exhibits high flexibility, washable performance, and high thermal management capability, showing great potential for smart temperature-regulating fabrics. PW@H-KAFs with a bending stiffness higher than the critical one at a solid state of paraffin wax can be utilized as shape memory materials, attributed to the transition between rigidity and flexibility caused by the phase transition. As a proof of concept, a dynamic gripper is designed based on the PW@H-KAF (400 µm in diameter) for transporting items by gripping in the rigid state and releasing in the flexible state. This work realizes versatile applications with the PW@H-KAFs through the bending stiffness-directed method, providing ideas for the application of phase-change composites.

Simulation and Prediction of Fungal Community Evolution Based on RBF Neural Network.

Simulation and prediction of the scale change of fungal community. First, using the experimental data of a variety of fungal decomposition activities, a mathematical model of the decomposition rate and the relationship between the bacterial species was established, thereby revealing the internal mechanism of fungal decomposition activity in a complex environment. Second, based on the linear regression method and the principle of biodiversity, a model of fungal decomposition rate was constructed, and it was concluded that the interaction between mycelial elongation and moisture resistance could increase the fungal decomposition rate. Third, the differential equations are used to quantify the competitive relationship between different bacterial species, divide the boundaries of superior and inferior species, and simulate the long-term and short-term evolution trends of the community under the same initial environment. And an empirical analysis is made by taking the sudden change of the atmosphere affecting the evolution of the colony as an example. Finally, starting from summer, combining soil temperature, humidity, and fungal species data in five different environments such as arid and semiarid, a three-dimensional model and RBF neural network are introduced to predict community evolution. The study concluded that under given conditions, different strains are in short-term competition, and in the long-term, mutually beneficial symbiosis. Biodiversity is important for the biological regulation of nature.

[Use of modification of diet in renal disease equation in estimating renal insufficiency in type 2 diabetes patients].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the significance of use of modification of diet in renal disease (MDRD) equation in calculating glomerular filtration rate (GFR) so as to estimate the prevalence of "renal insufficiency" in type 2 diabetes patients. METHODS: Serum creatinine (Scr) and 24h-urinary albumin excretion (24 h-UAE) were measured in 1576 hospitalized type 2 diabetes patients. MDRD equation was used to calculate the GFR (GFR(MDRD)). GFR(MDRD) < 60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 was defined as "renal insufficiency". RESULTS: (1) Of the 1576 subjects, 908 (57.6%), 503 (31.9%), and 165 (10.5%) had GFR(MDRD) > or =90, 90-60, and <60 ml/min per 1.73 m2 respectively. The prevalence of "renal insufficiency" was increased with aging (P < 0.01). (2) The prevalence rates of "renal insufficiency" of the normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuric groups were 4.8%, 14.4%, and 43.4% respectively, with significant differences among them (all P < 0.01). (3) Of the 165 subjects with "renal insufficiency", 21 (12.7%) had neither abnormal Scr nor abnormal albuminuria. CONCLUSION: Able to discover renal insufficiency early, MDRD equation has important clinical significance in evaluating the progression of renal dysfunction in type 2 diabetes patients.