Chinese version of the Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire: psychometric properties and clinical applications.

Background: The alexithymia trait is of high clinical interest. The Perth Alexithymia Questionnaire (PAQ) was recently developed to enable detailed facet-level and valence-specific assessments of alexithymia. Aims: In this paper, we introduce the first Chinese version of the PAQ and examine its psychometric properties and clinical applications. Methods: In Study 1, the PAQ was administered to 990 Chinese participants. We examined its factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, as well as convergent, concurrent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, four groups, including a major depressive disorder (MDD) group (n=50), a matched healthy control group for MDD (n=50), a subclinical depression group (n=50) and a matched healthy control group for subclinical depression (n=50), were recruited. Group comparisons were conducted to assess the clinical relevance of the PAQ. Results: In Study 1, the intended five-factor structure of the PAQ was found to fit the data well. The PAQ showed good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as good convergent, concurrent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, the PAQ was able to successfully distinguish the MDD group and the subclinical depression group from their matched healthy controls. Conclusions: The Chinese version of the PAQ is a valid and reliable instrument for comprehensively assessing alexithymia in the general population and adults with clinical/subclinical depression.

Cross-cultural adaptation and clinical application of the Perth Empathy Scale.

OBJECTIVE: Alterations of empathy have been observed in patients with various mental disorders. The Perth Empathy Scale (PES) was recently developed to measure a multidimensional construct of empathy across positive and negative emotions. However, its psychometric properties and clinical applications have not been examined in the Chinese context. METHODS: The Chinese version of the PES was developed and administered to a large Chinese sample (n = 1090). Factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent, discriminant, as well as concurrent validity were examined. Moreover, 50 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 50 healthy controls were recruited to explore the clinical utility of the PES. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analyses supported a theoretically congruent three-factor structure of empathy, namely Cognitive Empathy, Negative Affective Empathy and Positive Affective Empathy. The PES showed good to excellent internal consistency reliability, good convergent and discriminant validity, acceptable concurrent validity, and moderate to high test-retest reliability. Patients with MDD had significantly lower PES scores compared to healthy controls. Linear discriminant function comprised of the three factors correctly differentiated 71% of participants, which further verified the clinical utility of the PES. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicated that the Chinese version of the PES is a reliable and valid instrument to measure cognitive and affective empathy across negative and positive emotions, and could therefore be used in both research and clinical practice.

Magnetic field modulation effect of photoelectric properties in dye-sensitized solar cells with La0.67(Ca,Ba)0.33MnO3 as counter electrodes.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, many semiconductor materials with unique band structures have been used as Pt counter electrode (CE) substitutes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), which makes the photoelectric properties of DSSCs possible to be modulated by electric field, magnetic field, and light field. In this work, La0.67(Ca Ba)0.33MnO3 (LCBMO) thin film is employed to act as CE in DSSCs. METHOD: The experimental results indicate that short-circuit current density and photoelectric conversion efficiency present better stability when applying an external magnetic field to the DSSCs. Furthermore, both the exchange current density (J0) and limit diffusion current density (Jlim) are largely enhanced by an external magnetic field. J0 increases from -0.51 mA•cm-2 to -0.65 mA•cm-2, and Jlim increases from 0.2 mA•cm-2 to 0.3 mA•cm-2 when applying a magnetic field of 0.25 T. RESULT: The fitting results of the impedance test verify that the magnetic field reduces the value of Rct. CONCLUSION: Both magnetic-field enhancing catalytic activity and CMR effect jointly promote the increase of photocurrent and finally improve the photovoltaic effect in DSSCs.

Novel Synthesis of Slightly Fluorinated Graphene Quantum Dots with Luminescent and Paramagnetic Properties through Thermal Cutting of Fluorinated Graphene.

A novel approach has been developed to synthesize slightly fluorinated graphene quantum dots (GQDs-F) through thermal cutting of highly fluorinated graphene. The fluorinated graphene with substantial structure defects is fragile and is readily attacked. The direct evaporation of abundant CFn (n = 2, 3) groups near structure defects lead to the loss of adjacent skelton C atoms, and the fluorinated graphene can be thermally cut into GQDs-F with a relatively uniform nanosize in pyrolysis at 810 K. The GQDs-F with a low F/C atomic ratio of ca. 0.03 exhibit excitation wavelength-dependent properties with multicolor photoluminescence (PL) from blue to green. At the same time, F adatoms that are most likely located at the edges of GQDs-F have a high efficiency of introducing paramagnetic centres, and GQDs-F show a strong paramagnetism because of sp³-type defects and magnetic zigzag edges. The graphene quantum dots with such multimodal capabilities should have great applied value in material science.

Study of magnetic dynamic properties for magnetic cluster and quantum dots with hexagonal array.

Based on the Monte-Carlo simulation, magnetic dynamic properties of magnetic clusters and quasi two-dimensional quantum dots with hexagonal lattice arrays have been calculated. It has been found that the saturation fields for the cluster and quantum dot increase with increasing dipolar interaction. However, hysteresis loops of the quantum dots are different from those in clusters. Hysteresis behavior of quantum dot array is associated closely with the radius of quantum dot and the distance between quantum dots. The calculated results are consistent with experimental results. Finally, the step effect of hysteresis loops has been explained by the competition roles among the configurational anisotropy energy, Zeeman energy and thermal energy.