Love Matters: The Effect of Mating Motive on Female Food Choice.

The prevalence of obesity has been increasing globally in recent decades. Behind the phenomenon, high-fat food consumption has been conceived as an important driver. In the current study, we explored whether mating motive caused an effect on female food choice as well as the psychological mechanism underlying it. In Study 1, we recruited 64 participants from a university and asked them to complete a mating prime, after which they would finish a food choice task in which food with different flavors were shown. In Study 2, we replicated Study 1 with a different mating priming method and examined the mediating role of body shaping desire on the relation between mating motive and female food choice. Results showed that: (1) The salience of mating motive decreased female's high-fat food choice but increased male's high-fat food choice; (2) the effect of mating motive in females was robust and more salient for sweet food rather than salty food; and (3) the body shaping desire partially mediated the effect of mating motive on female food choice.

Detection for ship by dual-polarization imaging radiometer.

Passive millimeter wave (PMMW) imagers are increasingly becoming practical sensor candidates for target detection tasks. This paper is devoted to the ship detection by land-based W band passive polarized imager. The radiation characteristics of sky, sea surface and the atmospheric absorption characteristics of sea area near Qingdao are calculated based on sounding data. And the W band radiation characteristic of painted metal is measured. Then, the experiments of detection for sea surface ship are carried out in different ranges including 2,5, and 15 kilometers. The results show that land-based PMMW imager can detect and locate ship target from sea surface more than tens of kilometers away in thick fog, and polarization selection has influence on detection performance.

The preparation of optically active epineoclausenamide and enantiomeric separation of its racemate.

We synthesized the optically active epineoclausenamide by utilizing chiral reagents, such as R-α-methylbenzylamine and S-α-methylbenzylamine, for the resolution of the intermediate (trans-3-phenyl-oxiranecarboxylic acid 12), followed by amide exchange, cyclization, and reduction, unlike previously reported methods. The Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley reduction was used to asymmetrically reduce neoclausenamidone. A plausible reduction mechanism of this method was elucidated. Thereafter, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was investigated for the resolution of the epineoclausenamide enantiomers. HPLC was also used to determine the optical purity of these isomers. Two chiral stationary phases (CSPs) for separating the enantiomers were compared. Different mobile phase compositions were tested at 298.15 K. The results showed that the best separation was obtained when the mobile phase was composed of n-hexane and isopropanol (IPA) (75/25, v/v), the racemate was separated on a Chiralcel OJ-H column, and the flow rate was 1.0 mL/min at a wavelength of 210 nm and a temperature of 25°C. The enantiomeric ratio (e.r.) values of both the synthetic (-)-epineoclausenamide and (+)-epineoclausenamide were 1.3(+):98.7(-) and 99.3(+):0.7(-), respectively. In this study, a new synthetic route was designed with a yield of 12.3-14.1%, and a quick (8 min) effective separation method was obtained. This provides basis for pharmacological research and quality control of clausenamide analogues.

Reporting Characteristics and Quality of Systematic Reviews of Acupuncture Analgesia.

BACKGROUND: Evaluating the clinical efficacy of acupuncture analgesia with systematic reviews (SRs) has attracted wide interest. OBJECTIVE: To collect a sample of published SRs on acupuncture analgesia in PubMed and examine them in terms of reporting characteristics and quality. METHODS: A search in PubMed was performed in January 2016. All SRs on acupuncture analgesia were included. To assess the quality of the SRs, AMSTAR tool and PRISMA Statements were used. RESULTS: One hundred and nine SRs were included in our analysis, the yearly number of publications ranging from 1 in 1997 to 15 in 2015. Only 17% of these publications were Cochrane Systematic Reviews, and 94% were published in Science Citation Index journals. The United Kingdom was the country with the higher number of publications. Low back pain, headache, cancer pain, and labor pain were the most reported diseases or phenotypes. Nearly 73% of these SRs conducted a meta-analysis, 58% revealed positive results, 53% used RevMan software to analyze data, and 44% used the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool for quality assessment. Only a few SRs assessed the likelihood of publication bias, reported details about the protocol and the registration information, and performed additional analyses. CONCLUSIONS: The quantity and the quality of SRs regarding acupuncture analgesia have been promoted in recent years. More effort should be expended on the assessment of publication bias, the provision of detailed information about the protocol and the registration process, and the implementation of additional analyses to improve the validity of the SRs.

Polarization-based material classification technique using passive millimeter-wave polarimetric imagery.

The polarization properties of thermal millimeter-wave emission capture inherent information of objects, e.g., material composition, shape, and surface features. In this paper, a polarization-based material-classification technique using passive millimeter-wave polarimetric imagery is presented. Linear polarization ratio (LPR) is created to be a new feature discriminator that is sensitive to material type and to remove the reflected ambient radiation effect. The LPR characteristics of several common natural and artificial materials are investigated by theoretical and experimental analysis. Based on a priori information about LPR characteristics, the optimal range of incident angle and the classification criterion are discussed. Simulation and measurement results indicate that the presented classification technique is effective for distinguishing between metals and dielectrics. This technique suggests possible applications for outdoor metal target detection in open scenes.

Machine Learning Customized Novel Material for Energy-Efficient 4D Printing.

Existing commercial powders for laser additive manufacturing (LAM) are designed for traditional manufacturing methods requiring post heat treatments (PHT). LAM's unique cyclic thermal history induces intrinsic heat treatment (IHT) on materials during deposition, which offers an opportunity to develop LAM-customized new materials. This work customized a novel Fe-Ni-Ti-Al maraging steel assisted by machine learning to leverage the IHT effect for in situ forming massive precipitates during LAM without PHT. Fast precipitation kinetics in steel, tailored intermittent deposition strategy, and the IHT effect facilitate the in situ Ni3 Ti precipitation in the martensitic matrix via heterogeneous nucleation on high-density dislocations. The as-built steel achieves a tensile strength of 1538 MPa and a uniform elongation of 8.1%, which is superior to a wide range of as-LAM-processed high-strength steel. In the current mainstream ex situ 4D printing, the time-dependent evolutions (i.e., property or functionality changes) of a 3D printed structure occur after part formation. This work highlights in situ 4D printing via the synchronous integration of time-dependent precipitation hardening with 3D geometry shaping, which shows high energy efficiency and sustainability. The findings provide insight into developing LAM-customized materials by understanding and utilizing the IHT-materials interaction.

The dark side of empathy: Meta-analysis evidence of the relationship between empathy and depression.

Regardless of a large amount of literature, whether empathy closely relates to depression is far from conclusive. The present study collected previous evidence and performed a meta-analysis to investigate the correlation between empathy and depression. By searching databases, 21 studies and 48 effect sizes were collected. Results showed that empathy was not correlated to depression (r = .006, p = .87). However, subgroup analyses showed that while the relationship between affective empathy and depression was significantly positively correlated (r = .108, p < .01), cognitive empathy was not (r = -.03, p = .26). Additionally, the relationship between empathy and depression varied during development, with a positive correlation in adolescence (r = .084, p < .01) and negative correlation in older adults (r = -.191, p < .001). Results implied that affective empathy might be one of the risk factors for depression, and higher affective empathy might mean more vulnerability to depression. Further studies would help by examining when and how this relationship builds, as well as the contributing factors of its development.

Identification and quantitation of bioactive components from honeycomb (Nidus Vespae).

Honeycomb (Nidus Vespae) as an agri-food waste in bee product industry is in soaring demand for high-value utilization. This study is dedicated to investigate the physicochemical properties, chemical composition, and nutritional value of honeycomb by determination of physicochemical parameters, total phenolic and total flavonoid contents, antioxidant capacity in vitro, and bioactive components. By using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) method, a total of 76 bioactive components from hydro-ethanolic extracts of honeycomb (EHB) were tentatively identified, where the principal ones are polyphenols and fatty acids, which were further quantified by LC-MS and GC-MS, respectively. Moreover, antimicrobial activities test has been conducted, verifying that EHB can inhibit both Gram-negative (G-) bacteria and Gram-positive (G+) bacteria, which is beneficial for the high-value utilization of honeycomb.

A touch-scaffolded model of human prosociality.

For centuries, scholars have been puzzled by the distinct human prosociality. A variety of explanations have been proposed to unveil the mystery of it and nearly all these explanations have focused on the role of complex cognitive processes. In this paper, we propose a novel hypothesis that human prosociality is touch-scaffolded. We argue that early tactile stimulation such as maternal touch serves as the basic component that enables the emergence of nascent human prosociality. During this process, C-tactile afferents along with many neuropeptides, such as oxytocin and endogenous opioids, play pivotal roles in the touch - prosociality connection by facilitating the formation of an intimate caregiver-infant bond and the development of a positive social schema. Our model provides a different perspective on the development of human prosociality and builds a bridge between the human tactile system and high-level psychology - human prosociality.