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Intertemporal decision-making is important for both economy and physical health. Nevertheless, in daily life, individuals tend to prefer immediate and smaller rewards to delayed and larger rewards, which is known as delay discounting (DD). Episodic future thinking (EFT) has been proven to influence DD. However, there is still no inconsistent conclusion on the effect of negative EFT on DD. Considering the perceived controllability of negative EFT may address the issue (Controllability refers to the extent to which progress and result of an event could be controlled by ourselves). In the current study, we manipulated EFT conditions (baseline, neutral EFT, negative-controllable EFT and negative-uncontrollable EFT), delayed time (i.e. 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and 3 years) and reward magnitude (small, large). We mainly found that when experiencing negative-uncontrollable EFT compared to negative-controllable EFT in the delayed time of 6 months with large rewards, individuals chose more delayed rewards, suggesting that negative-uncontrollable EFT effectively reduced DD under conditions of both large-magnitude reward and longer delayed time. The current study provides new insight for healthy groups on optimising EFT. In that case, individuals are able to gain long-term benefits in financial management and healthcare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alopecia areata (AA) is a non-scarring hair loss mediated by T lymphocytes. Recently, a growing number of studies have shown that Janus kinase inhibitors are effective in the treatment of AA in children. A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed according to the PRISMA guidelines. Good response was defined as more than 50% decrease in Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) score or complete regrowth or more than 50% regrowth. Partial response was defined as 5–50% decrease in SALT score. Any response to treatment was defined as more than 5% in SALT score decrease. There were 81.9% responders, 68.5% good responders, and 7.7% partial responders among the 10 included studies. The treatment duration was longer in good responders than in partial responders (p =.009). Oral route was linked to a better response to topical medication, with an odds ratio of 7.8 (95%CI 1.655–36.76). In terms of toxicity, reported adverse events included only mild symptoms. Liver transaminase elevation, upper respiratory tract infection, and eosinophilia were the most common adverse events. Janus kinase inhibitors demonstrated promise in the treatment of AA in children, with the most common side effects being minor and reversible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the ability of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum SCS3 (L. plantarum SCS3) to alleviate oxidative stress in diabetic mice. Diabetic mouse model was established by administering 50 mg/kg (bodyweight) of streptozocin for 5 days. We then applied 0.5 mL of 1.0 × 1010 CFU/mL L. plantarum SCS3 cell suspension (TGa group), its intracellular contents (TGb group), or boiled intracellular contents (TGc group) to mice for ten weeks. Compared with the model group (MG), weight loss and hyperglycemia were most effectively ameliorated in the TGc group compared to the other treatment groups; based on the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, levels of insulin and glycosylated hemoglobin were improved; the reactive oxygen species level decreased, while superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione levels in the TGc mice increased significantly (P <.05). In conclusion, the boiled intracellular contents of L. plantarum SCS3 regulated oxidative stress and improved diabetes-related indicators in diabetic mice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a comprehensive model for studying supply chain versus supply chain competition with resource limitation and demand disruption. We assume that there are supply chains with heterogeneous supply network structures that compete at multiple demand markets. Each supply chain is comprised of internal and external firms. The internal firms are coordinated in production and distribution and share some common but limited resources within the supply chain, whereas the external firms are independent and do not share the internal resources. The supply chain managers strive to develop optimal strategies in terms of production level and resource allocation in maximising their profit while facing competition at the end market. The Cournot–Nash equilibrium of this inter-supply chain competition is formulated as a variational inequality problem. We further study the case when there is demand disruption in the plan-execution phase. In such a case, the managers need to revise their planned strategy in order to maximise their profit with the new demand under disruption and minimise the cost of change. We present a bi-criteria decision-making model for supply chain managers and develop the optimal conditions in equilibrium, which again can be formulated by another variational inequality problem. Numerical examples are presented for illustrative purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]