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Previous studies have found that the own-race faces are better recognized than faces of the other-race, which is the so-called other-race effect (ORE). However, race is not the only crucial factor that influences face recognition, recent empirical evidence highlights the facilitating effect of facial attractiveness in face recognition, thus suggesting that facial attractiveness may modulate ORE. To verify this, the current study selected the Chinese and Caucasian faces with different levels of facial attractiveness (i.e., attractive, medium, unattractive) as material, recruited Chinese (Experiment 1) and Caucasian (Experiment 2) participants, and adopted an old/new recognition task to test recognition performance via signal detection theory. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 convergently highlighted the interaction between facial attractiveness and race. Specifically, both Chinese and Caucasian participants systematically performed worse recognition for other-race faces, but this worse recognition performance was saliently attenuated in the attractive condition. These results suggested that the ORE could be attenuated by attractive faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate the genetic causes of polyspermy and total fertilization failure (TFF) in two independent male patients suffering from male infertility. Methods: Immunofluorescence (IF) staining was used to detect the localization of the PLCζ protein in sperm and the maternal pronucleus in the zygote. Genomic DNA samples were extracted from the peripheral blood of patients and their families. The ExAC database was used to identify the frequency of corresponding mutations. The PLCZ1 mutations were validated by Sanger sequencing. The pathogenicity of the identified mutations and their possible effects on the protein were assessed using in silico tools and molecular modeling. Results: We identified a reported homozygous mutation c.588C > A (p.Cys196Ter) and a compound heterozygous mutation c.2 T > C(p.Met1Thr)/c.590G > A (p.Arg197His) with one novel mutation in PLCZ1. The IF results showed that these multipronuclear zygotes formed as a result of polyspermy. In silico analysis predicted that the mutations result in disease-causing proteins. IF staining revealed that PLCζ is abnormally localized in the sperm samples from the two affected patients. Assisted oocyte activation (AOA) successfully rescued polyspermy and TFF and achieved pregnancy in two patients with the PLCZ1 mutation. Conclusion: We identified a homozygous mutation in PLCZ1 (c.588C > A [p.Cys196Ter]) in a male patient with polyspermy after in vitro fertilization (IVF) as well as a compound heterozygous mutation c.2 T > C(p.Met1Thr)/c.590G > A (p.Arg197His) with one novel mutation in a male patient with fertilization failure after intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and we provide evidence that the homozygous mutation can cause polyspermy and the compound heterozygous mutation can cause fertilization failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal and gas outburst is a dynamic phenomenon in underground mining engineering that is often accompanied by the throwing and breakage of large amounts of coal. To study the crushing effect and its evolution during outbursts, coal samples with different initial particle sizes were evaluated using a coal and gas outburst testing device. Three basic particle sizes, 5–10 mesh, 10–40 mesh, and 40–80 mesh, as well as some mixed particle size coal samples were used in tests. The coal particles were pre-compacted at a pressure of 4 MPa before the tests. The vertical ground stress (4 MPa) and the horizontal ground stress (2.4 MPa) were initially simulated by the hydraulic system and maintained throughout. During the tests, the samples were first placed in a vacuum for 3 h, and the coal was filled with gas (CH4) for an adsorption time of approximately 5 h. Finally, the gas valve was shut off and the coal and gas outburst was induced by quickly opening the outburst hole. The coal particles that were thrown out by the outburst test device were collected and screened based on the particle size. The results show the following. (1) Smaller particle sizes have a worse crushing effect than larger sizes. Furthermore, the well-graded coal particles are weakly broken during the outburst process. (2) As the number of repeated tests increases, the relative breakage index grows; however, the increment of growth decreases after each test, showing that further fragmentation becomes increasingly difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CX3CL1 (fractalkine), the sole member of chemokine CX3C family, is implicated in inflammatory and neuropathic pain via activating its receptor CX3CR1 on neural cells in spinal cord. However, it has not been fully elucidated whether CX3CL1 or CX3CR1 contributes to the development of morphine tolerance. In this study, we found that chronic morphine exposure did not alter the expressions of CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 in spinal cord. And neither exogenous CX3CL1 nor CX3CR1 inhibitor could affect the development of morphine tolerance. The cellular localizations of spinal CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 changed from neuron and microglia, respectively, to all the neural cells during the development of morphine tolerance. A microarray profiling revealed that 15 members of chemokine family excluding CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 were up-regulated in morphine-treated rats. Our study provides evidence that spinal CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 may not be involved in the development of morphine tolerance directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]