Structural family factors and bullying at school: a large scale investigation based on a Chinese adolescent sample.

BACKGROUNDS: Various family factors have been identified in association with school bullying and the involvement of children and adolescents in bullying behaviors. METHODS: A total of 11,919 participants (female = 6671, mean age = 15) from 22 middle schools in Suzhou City, China completed the questionnaire. The associations between structural family factors (family socio-economic status, living arrangement, number of siblings, whether they were local residents/migrants, had an urban/rural hukou [a household registration system in China], parental and maternal education levels, and other various bullying-related constructs (i.e. bullying witnessing, bullying involvement, bystander intervention, and fear of being bullied) were all examined. Odds ratios (ORs) adjusted for covariates were calculated for the four bullying-related constructs (bullying witness, bullying involvement, bystander intervention, and reactions to being bullied) using structural family factors. RESULTS: The result showed that all demographic household characteristics were associated with bullying at school except for being from a single-child family. Adolescents from rural families witnessed more bullying incidents than those from local families (OR = 1.35, 95% CI: [1.09, 1.68]). Adolescents who come from migrant families (OR = 1.12, 95% CI: [1.07, 1.43]) with a rural hukou (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: [1.00, 1.74]) and low parental education levels (OR = 1.42, 95% CI: [1.01, 2.57]) were more likely to be bullies. Adolescents who came from migrant families (OR = 1.37, 95% CI: [1.03, 1.82]), with low maternal education levels (OR = 1.42, 95% CI: [1.06, 1.91]) engaged in more negative bystander intervention behaviors. Furthermore, adolescents with less educated mothers experienced a higher fear of being bullied (never versus sometimes: OR = 1.33, 95% CI: [1.00, 1.85]; never versus usually OR = 1.39, 95% CI: [1.01, 1.20]). CONCLUSIONS: A systematic examination of the relationship between school bullying and demographic household characteristics may be used to inform school policies on bullying, such as training management on the importance of paying attention to adolescents from disadvantage household backgrounds. Identifying demographic factors that may predict bullying can also be used to prevent individuals from becoming involved in bullying and reduce the related negative consequences from being bullied.

Self-Paced Dynamic Infinite Mixture Model for Fatigue Evaluation of Pilots' Brains.

Current brain cognitive models are insufficient in handling outliers and dynamics of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. This article presents a novel self-paced dynamic infinite mixture model to infer the dynamics of EEG fatigue signals. The instantaneous spectrum features provided by ensemble wavelet transform and Hilbert transform are extracted to form four fatigue indicators. The covariance of log likelihood of the complete data is proposed to accurately identify similar components and dynamics of the developed mixture model. Compared with its seven peers, the proposed model shows better performance in automatically identifying a pilot's brain workload.

Mental health outcomes among Chinese prenatal and postpartum women after the implementation of universal two-child policy.

BACKGROUND: Poor mental health status among both pregnant and postpartum women is commonly reported worldwide. The associations between mental health outcomes and giving birth to the second child since the implementation of China's universal two-child policy have not been identified. METHODS: A large-scale based mental health survey was conducted between March 2017 and December 2018 in Suzhou, China. The survey evaluated the symptoms of anxiety, hypomania, depression and poor sleep quality among both pregnant and postpartum women. RESULTS: A total of 3113 questionnaires were collected, the prevalence of anxiety, hypomanic and depressive symptoms and poor sleep quality in our sample were 3.2% (95%CI: 2.6%-3.9%), 51.7% (95%CI: 49.9%-53.4%), 12.4% (95%CI: 11.3%-13.6%) and 37.8% (95%CI: 36.0%-39.5%), respectively. Logistic regression showed that giving birth to the second child was positively associated with women's age, and was negatively correlated with higher educational level and living in rented housing. Women with the second pregnancy or child were positively associated with anxiety symptoms in the whole sample (OR = 1.75, 95%CI: 1.11-2.75) and among prenatal women (OR = 2.11, 95%CI: 1.16-3.83), while it was inversely correlated with depressive symptoms among postpartum women (OR = 0.63, 95%CI: 0.41-0.99). CONCLUSIONS: Women giving birth a second time were more prone to have anxiety symptoms among the prenatal women and the whole sample, and less likely to have depressive symptoms among the postpartum women. Efficacious measures and interventions are essential to improve maternal mental health.

Protective Effect of Edaravone in Primary Cerebellar Granule Neurons against Iodoacetic Acid-Induced Cell Injury.

Edaravone (EDA) is clinically used for treatment of acute ischemic stroke in Japan and China due to its potent free radical-scavenging effect. However, it has yet to be determined whether EDA can attenuate iodoacetic acid- (IAA-) induced neuronal death in vitro. In the present study, we investigated the effect of EDA on damage of IAA-induced primary cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) and its possible underlying mechanisms. We found that EDA attenuated IAA-induced cell injury in CGNs. Moreover, EDA significantly reduced intracellular reactive oxidative stress production, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, and caspase 3 activity induced by IAA. Taken together, EDA protected CGNs against IAA-induced neuronal damage, which may be attributed to its antiapoptotic and antioxidative activities.

Neuroprotective effects of the andrographolide analogue AL-1 in the MPP⁺/MPTP-induced Parkinson's disease model in vitro and in mice.

The andrographolide-lipoic acid conjugate AL-1 is a newly synthesized molecule by covalently linking andrographolide (Andro) with α-lipoic acid (LA). In the present work, the neuroprotective effect of AL-1 was investigated in vitro and in a mouse model of the Parkinson's disease (PD). We found that AL-1 significantly prevented 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP(+))-induced neurotoxicity in SH-SY5Y cells and primary cerebellar granule neurons. In a mouse model of Parkinson's disease, AL-1 rescued 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1, 2, 3, 6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP)-induced loss of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive neurons, improved the behavioral impairment, and elevated the striatal levels of dopamine and its metabolites 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid. Furthermore, AL-1 remarkably lowered the nitric oxide and malondialdehyde levels while increased the superoxide dismutase level in the substantial nigra of MPTP-treated mice. The immunoblotting data showed that AL-1 significantly ameliorated the decreased expression of TH protein in the substantial nigra and inhibited the up-regulation of phosphorylated NF-κB p65 in vitro and in vivo. Taken together, AL-1 exerted neuroprotective effect in vitro and in animal model of PD through anti-oxidation and inhibition of NF-κB activation.