Neuroactive hormones and interpersonal trust: International evidence

Social attachment is vital for human health and welfare. Recent experimental evidence in humans has identified the role of neuroactive hormones, especially the peptide oxytocin, in mediating trusting behaviors. Herein, we test if the endocrinological basis for trust between humans scales up to the country level. Trust pervades nearly every aspect of our daily lives, yet survey data on trust show substantial variation across countries. Using 31 measures of biological, social, and environmental factors associated with hormone levels for a sample of 41 countries, we find that two classes of factors are related to trust: consumption of plant-based estrogens (phytoestrogens), and the presence of environmental conditions that include measures of estrogen-like molecules. Our findings provide preliminary evidence that interpersonal trust at the country level may be related to the intake of neuroactive hormones.     

Precise two-dimensional D-bar reconstructions of human chest and phantom tank via sinc-convolution algorithm

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is used as a fast clinical imaging technique formonitoring the health of the human organs such as lungs, heart, brain and breast. Eachpractical EIT reconstruction algorithm should be efficient enough in terms of convergencerate, and accuracy. The main objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of preciseempirical conductivity imaging using a sinc-convolution algorithm in D-bar framework. METHODS: At the first step, synthetic and experimental data were used to compute an intermediate objectnamed scattering transform. Next, this object was used in a 2-day integral equation whichwas precisely and rapidly solved via sinc-convolution algorithm to find the square root of theconductivity for each pixel of image. For the purpose of comparison, multigrid and NOSERalgorithms were implemented under a similar setting. Quality of reconstructions of syntheticmodels was tested against GREIT approved quality measures. To validate the simulationresults, reconstructions of a phantom chest and a human lung were used. RESULTS: Evaluation of synthetic reconstructions shows that the quality of sinc-convolutionreconstructions is considerably better than that of each of its competitors in terms ofamplitude response, position error, ringing, resolution and shape-deformation. In addition, theresults confirm near-exponential and linear convergence rates for sinc-convolution andmultigrid, respectively. Moreover, the least degree of relative errors and the most degree oftruth were found in sinc-convolution reconstructions from experimental phantom data.Reconstructions of clinical lung data show that the related physiological effect is wellrecovered by sinc-convolution algorithm. CONCLUSIONS: Parametric evaluation demonstrates the efficiency of sinc-convolution to reconstruct accurateconductivity images from experimental data. Excellent results in phantom and clinicalreconstructions using sinc-convolution support parametric assessment results and suggest thesinc-convolution to be used for precise clinical EIT applications.     

Tamoxifen Induces Apoptosis of Leishmania major Promastigotes in Vitro

Tamoxifen is an antagonist of the estrogen receptor and currently used for the treatment of breast cancer. The current treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis with pentavalent antimony compounds is not satisfactory. Therefore, in this study, due to its antileishmanial activity, effects of tamoxifen on the growth of promastigotes and amastigotes of Leishmania major Iranian strain were evaluated in vitro. Promastigotes and amastigotes were treated with different concentrations (1, 5, 10, 20, and 50 μg/ml) and time periods (24, 48, and 72 hr) of tamoxifen. After tamoxifen treatment, MTT assay (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5 biphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay) was used to determine the percentage of live parasites and Graph Pad Prism software to calculate IC₅₀. Flow cytometry was applied to investigate the induction of tamoxifen-induced apoptosis in promastigotes. The half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) of tamoxifen on promastigotes was 2.6 μg/ml after 24 hr treatment. Flow cytometry analysis showed that tamoxifen induced early and late apoptosis in Leishmania promastigotes. While after 48 hr in control group the apoptosis was 2.0%, the 50 µg/L concentration of tamoxifen increased it to 59.7%. Based on the in vitro antileishmanial effect, tamoxifen might be used for leishmaniasis treatment; however, further researches on in vivo effects of tamoxifen in animal models are needed.     

Highly Efficient Solar‐Driven Carbon Dioxide Reduction on Molybdenum Disulfide Catalyst Using Choline Chloride‐Based Electrolyte

Conversion of CO₂ to energy‐rich chemicals using renewable energy is of much interest to close the anthropogenic carbon cycle. However, the current photoelectrochemical systems are still far from being practically feasible. Here the successful demonstration of a continuous, energy efficient, and scalable solar‐driven CO₂ reduction process based on earth‐abundant molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) catalyst, which works in synergy with an inexpensive hybrid electrolyte of choline chloride (a common food additive for livestock) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) is reported. The CO₂ saturated hybrid electrolyte utilized in this study also acts as a buffer solution (pH ≈ 7.6) to adjust pH during the reactions. This study reveals that this system can efficiently convert CO₂ to CO with solar‐to‐fuel and catalytic conversion efficiencies of 23% and 83%, respectively. Using density functional theory calculations, a new reaction mechanism in which the water molecules near the MoS₂ cathode act as proton donors to facilitate the CO₂ reduction process by MoS₂ catalyst is proposed. This demonstration of a continuous, cost‐effective, and energy efficient solar driven CO₂ conversion process is a key step toward the industrialization of this technology.     

Effects of Silver Nanoparticles and Silver Nitrate on Antioxidant Responses in Echium amoenum

Russian Journal of Plant Physiology - Nanoparticles have entered agriculture and biology fields because of their special effects and unique features. One of the most important properties of silver...     

Invariant Domain Watermarking Using Heaviside Function of Order Alpha and Fractional Gaussian Field

Digital image watermarking is an important technique for the authentication of multimedia content and copyright protection. Conventional digital image watermarking techniques are often vulnerable to geometric distortions such as Rotation, Scaling, and Translation (RST). These distortions desynchronize the watermark information embedded in an image and thus disable watermark detection. To solve this problem, we propose an RST invariant domain watermarking technique based on fractional calculus. We have constructed a domain using Heaviside function of order alpha (HFOA). The HFOA models the signal as a polynomial for watermark embedding. The watermark is embedded in all the coefficients of the image. We have also constructed a fractional variance formula using fractional Gaussian field. A cross correlation method based on the fractional Gaussian field is used for watermark detection. Furthermore the proposed method enables blind watermark detection where the original image is not required during the watermark detection thereby making it more practical than non-blind watermarking techniques. Experimental results confirmed that the proposed technique has a high level of robustness.