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This study aims to explore the relationship between locus of control, grit, self-esteem and mental health among college students. A questionnaire survey was used to conduct a study on the mental health of 923 E-learning college students from 10 universities in Guangxi, China. In this study, Pearson correlation analysis was used to test the correlation between the study variables, and Bootstrap was used to test the mediating effect and effect ratio of grit and self-esteem. The results show that, locus of control, grit, and self-esteem can predict the mental health of college students. Grit plays a mediating role between locus of control and mental health; self-esteem plays a mediating role between locus of control and mental health; grit and self-esteem have a chain mediating effect between locus of control and mental health. Specifically, internal locus of control can effectively prevent college students from mental health problems through the chain mediation effect of grit and self-esteem. Powerful others and opportunity as the external locus of control will not only reduce the grit and self-esteem of college students, but also lead to more psychological problems. These research results provide suggestions to the university management on how to manage the mental health of E-learning students, especially those with psychological problems.

This paper takes work-family conflict as the independent variable, work engagement as the dependent variable, and perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion as the mediating variables, and studies the influence of work-family conflict on work engagement and the mechanism of perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion of female university teachers in China, based on the job demand-resource model (JD-R). The results of the questionnaire survey of 518 female university teachers revealed a significant negative relationship between work-family conflict and work engagement, with a direct effect accounting for 31.88%. The indirect effect of work-family conflict on work engagement through perceived organizational support was significant, accounting for 63.19%, while the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion was not notable and the chain mediating influence of perceived organizational support and emotional exhaustion was not significant.

Work and family are two of the most important parts in one's life. Individuals cannot fulfill their work requirements and family responsibilities at the same time, so they are faced with the dilemma of timing and role conflict. Based on the conservation theory, this study explored the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction in 422 female university teachers in China, and proposed a moderating mediation model to examine the mediating role of job burnout and the moderating role of perceived organizational support. The results show that work-family conflict has a significant negative predictive effect on job satisfaction; job burnout fully mediates the relationship between work-family conflict and job satisfaction; perceived organizational support moderates the relationship between work-family conflict and job burnout, and the stronger the perceived organizational support, the weaker the negative predictive effect of work-family conflicts on job satisfaction.

The aim of this study was to investigate the competency of physical education teachers at the basic education level in China. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach, using purposive sampling to conduct in-depth interviews with 12 physical education teachers from schools at the basic education level in China using the behavioral event interview method and extracting themes using coding techniques with the thematic analysis method. The results of the study show that the competencies of physical education teachers at the basic education level in China include 6 themes: Competency characteristics, knowledge characteristics, teacher moral characteristics, motivation characteristics, values characteristics and personality characteristics.

Mental fatigue among drivers is a primary factor in many traffic accidents. Electroencephalography (EEG), which directly measures neurophysiological activities in the brain, is commonly used for fatigue recognition. However, cross-subject research in fatigue recognition using EEG faces challenges such as low spatial resolution and significant individual variability. Inspired by neuroscience, a dynamic graph convolution learning from functional neuroimaging (FNI-DGCNN) is proposed, making up for EEG's low spatial resolution. We first use a multi-scale spatiotemporal learning block to extract EEG features with attention allocation, then initialize the adjacency matrix based on prior knowledge about fatigue recognition mechanisms from functional neuroimaging, use the extracted features and the adjacency matrix to initialize the graph, and finally use dynamic graph convolution further to study the intrinsic functional connectivity of mental fatigue. The proposed method achieves an accuracy of 88.89% among 17 subjects, outperforming existing EEG models for cross-subject.

Objective To explore the correlation between functional connectivity (FC) in the brains of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with depression and the improvement rate of depression after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS). Methods This study included 38 PD patients (25 with depression and 13 without depression) who underwent STN -DBS at The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China from September 2019 to April 2020. All participants underwent resting-state fMRI. The severity of depression was assessed using Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17 Items (HAMD-17) before and 2 years after the surgery, and the improvement rate of depression was calculated. Spearman rank correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between FC and the improvement rate of depression in PD patients with depression. Results There were 34 different FC between PD patients with and without depression compared to control group (P = 0.000, for all). Among patients with PD, those with depression showed 4 distinct FC compared to those without depression, including left precuneus -right supplementary motor area (t = 6.028, P = 0.000), right insula -right lateral orbital gyrus (t = 5.525, P = 0.000), left paracentral lobule-left precuneus (t = 5.545, P = 0.000), and right paracentral lobule - left precuneus (t = 5.578, P = 0.000). Spearman rank correlation analysis revealed a negative correlation between the zFC values of right precuneus-right insula (rs = - 0.544, P = 0.009) and left temporal pole-left insula (rs = - 0.765, P = 0.010) and the improvement rate of depression in PD patients with depression. Conclusions The FC of right precuneus-right insula and left temporal pole-left insula in PD patients with depression is negatively associated with the improvement rate of depression.

While existing literature supports the use of smartphones to teach English vocabulary, limited studies have addressed how learned words can be transferred to college students' writing. This action research study designed pretest, treatment on mobile phones, posttest, and out-of-class pair-work, followed by a delayed posttest after three weeks to promote academic vocabulary use in writing. In the four-week treatment, academic words and collocations were designed using Quizlet units, combined with in-class writing practice. In the pair-work stage, the participants were allowed freedom to choose words they desired to learn and to exchange each other's word logs with recycling of taught vocabulary designed in the treatment. Assessment of the pretest, posttest, and the delayed posttest involved (a) a general academic vocabulary test (receptive knowledge), (b) a vocabulary test of target words (gap-filling), and (c) an in-class writing task. Results show that our mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) project helped participants remember more words after their MALL experiences and apply them in their writing; meanwhile, such improvement could be maintained. Pair work was more favored than individual work as the participants indicated a stronger preference and endorsed collaborative learning. We argue that mobile devices should be combined with new learning strategies for both in-class and out-of-class learning.

Neurexins are widely thought to promote synapse formation and to organize synapse properties. Here we found that in contrast to neurexin-1 and neurexin-3, neurexin-2 unexpectedly restricts synapse formation. In the hippocampus, constitutive or neuron-specific deletions of neurexin-2 nearly doubled the strength of excitatory CA3➔CA1 region synaptic connections and markedly increased their release probability. No effect on inhibitory synapses was detected. Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) superresolution microscopy revealed that the neuron-specific neurexin-2 deletion elevated the density of excitatory CA1 region synapses nearly twofold. Moreover, hippocampal neurexin-2 deletions also increased synaptic connectivity in the CA1 region when induced in mature mice and impaired the cognitive flexibility of spatial memory. Thus, neurexin-2 controls the dynamics of hippocampal synaptic circuits by repressing synapse assembly throughout life, a restrictive function that markedly differs from that of neurexin-1 and neurexin-3 and of other synaptic adhesion molecules, suggesting that neurexins evolutionarily diverged into opposing pro- and antisynaptogenic organizers.

Abstract Background Type 1 diabetes is believed to be an autoimmune condition, characterized by destruction of insulin-producing cells, due to the detrimental inflammation in pancreas. Growing evidences have indicated the important role of type I interferon in the development of type 1 diabetes. Methods Trex1-deficient rats were generated by using CRISPR-Cas9. The fasting blood glucose level of rat was measured by a Roche Accuchek blood glucose monitor. The levels of insulin, islet autoantibodies, and interferon-β were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The inflammatory genes were detected by quantitative PCR and RNA-seq. Hematein-eosin staining was used to detect the pathological changes in pancreas, eye and kidney. The pathological features of kidney were also detected by Masson trichrome and periodic acid-Schiff staining. The distribution of islet cells, immune cells or ssDNA in pancreas was analyzed by immunofluorescent staining. Results In this study, we established a Trex1-deletion Sprague Dawley rat model, and unexpectedly, we found that the Trex1 −/− rats spontaneously develop type 1 diabetes. Similar to human diabetes, the hyperglycemia in rats is accompanied by diabetic complications such as diabetic nephropathy and cataract. Mechanistical investigation revealed the accumulation of ssDNA and the excessive production of proinflammatory cytokines, including IFN-β, in Trex1 null pancreas. These are likely contributing to the inflammation in pancreas and eventually leading to the decline of pancreatic β cells. Conclusions Our study links the DNA-induced chronic inflammation to the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes, and also provides an animal model for type 1 diabetes studies.

BackgroundViral tracers are important tools for mapping brain connectomes. The feature of predominant anterograde transneuronal transmission offers herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) strain H129 (HSV1-H129) as a promising candidate to be developed as anterograde viral tracers. In our earlier studies, we developed H129-derived anterograde polysynaptic tracers and TK deficient (H129-dTK) monosynaptic tracers. However, their broad application is limited by some intrinsic drawbacks of the H129-dTK tracers, such as low labeling intensity due to TK deficiency and potential retrograde labeling caused by axon terminal invasion. The glycoprotein K (gK) of HSV-1 plays important roles in virus entry, egress, and virus-induced cell fusion. Its deficiency severely disables virus egress and spread, while only slightly limits viral genome replication and expression of viral proteins. Therefore, we created a novel H129-derived anterograde monosynaptic tracer (H129-dgK) by targeting gK, which overcomes the limitations of H129-dTK.MethodsUsing our established platform and pipeline for developing viral tracers, we generated a novel tracer by deleting the gK gene from the H129-G4. The gK-deleted virus (H129-dgK-G4) was reconstituted and propagated in the Vero cell expressing wildtype H129 gK (gKwt) or the mutant gK (gKmut, A40V, C82S, M223I, L224V, V309M), respectively. Then the obtained viral tracers of gKmut pseudotyped and gKwt coated H129-dgK-G4 were tested in vitro and in vivo to characterize their tracing properties.ResultsH129-dgK-G4 expresses high levels of fluorescent proteins, eliminating the requirement of immunostaining for imaging detection. Compared to the TK deficient monosynaptic tracer H129-dTK-G4, H129-dgK-G4 labeled neurons with 1.76-fold stronger fluorescence intensity, and visualized 2.00-fold more postsynaptic neurons in the downstream brain regions. gKmut pseudotyping leads to a 77% decrease in retrograde labeling by reducing axon terminal invasion, and thus dramatically improves the anterograde-specific tracing of H129-dgK-G4. In addition, assisted by the AAV helper trans-complementarily expressing gKwt, H129-dgK-G4 allows for mapping monosynaptic connections and quantifying the circuit connectivity difference in the Alzheimer's disease and control mouse brains.ConclusionsgKmut pseudotyped H129-dgK-G4, a novel anterograde monosynaptic tracer, overcomes the limitations of H129-dTK tracers, and demonstrates desirable features of strong labeling intensity, high tracing efficiency, and improved anterograde specificity.

Objective: To investigate the causal relationship between risk factors and spontaneous pneumothorax using Mendelian randomization. Methods: Risk factors for spontaneous pneumothorax were identified through searches of English and Chinese databases. Single nucleotide polymorphism information was extracted from the GWAS database, with risk factor as exposure and spontaneous pneumothorax as outcome, and five methods, namely, inverse variance weighting, MR-Egger, weighted median, simple model and weighted model, were used to evaluate the causality between risk factors and spontaneous pneumothorax. Heterogeneity and leave-one-out tests were used for sensitivity analysis to evaluate the robustness of the causal relationship. Results: The search yielded 117 risk factors, and 50 risk factors for which genetic data were available were included. Height, COVID, lymphocytes, standing tall, snoring, exertion lung volume, squamous lung cancer, first second expiratory volume with exertion, and asthma were positively associated with SP, and hip circumference and exertion lung volume were negatively associated with SP. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diaphragmatic hernia may be associated with SP. Conclusion: This study identified significant causal relationship between lymphocyte count, standing tall, asthma and spontaneous pneumothorax from genetic point of view, and provided basis for its prevention and treatment.

The European XFEL (EuXFEL) is a 3.4-km long X-ray source, which produces femtosecond, ultrabrilliant and spatially coherent X-ray pulses at megahertz (MHz) repetition rates. This X-ray source has been designed to enable the observation of ultrafast processes with near-atomic spatial resolution. Time-resolved crystallographic investigations on biological macromolecules belong to an important class of experiments that explore fundamental and functional structural displacements in these molecules. Due to the unusual MHz X-ray pulse structure at the EuXFEL, these experiments are challenging. Here, we demonstrate how a biological reaction can be followed on ultrafast timescales at the EuXFEL. We investigate the picosecond time range in the photocycle of photoactive yellow protein (PYP) with MHz X-ray pulse rates. We show that difference electron density maps of excellent quality can be obtained. The results connect the previously explored femtosecond PYP dynamics to timescales accessible at synchrotrons. This opens the door to a wide range of time-resolved studies at the EuXFEL.

We experimentally studied the transverse mode instability (TMI) threshold of a linearly polarized single-frequency fiber laser amplifier constructed with tapered ytterbium-doped fiber (TYDF) under different bending diameters. The TMI threshold increased from 333 W to 451 W by reducing the bending diameter from 16 cm to 12 cm, which was accompanied by the deterioration of the beam quality from 1.47 to 1.67. The anomalous characteristics between the TMI threshold, bending diameter, and beam quality are mainly attributed to the decreased bending loss of higher-order mode (HOM) content as a result of the increased system heat loads caused by a tight bending-induced loss of amplification efficiency. It is believed that the presented results will provide useful guidelines for the design of high-power single-frequency fiber amplifiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neurexins are recognized as key organizers of synapses that are essential for normal brain function. However, it is unclear whether neurexins are fundamental building blocks of all synapses with similar overall functions or context-dependent specifiers of synapse properties. To address this question, we produced triple cKO (conditional knockout) mice that allow ablating all neurexin expression in mice. Using neuron-specific manipulations combined with immunocytochemistry, paired recordings, and two-photon Ca2+ imaging, we analyzed excitatory synapses formed by climbing fibers on Purkinje cells in cerebellum and inhibitory synapses formed by parvalbumin- or somatostatin-positive interneurons on pyramidal layer 5 neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex. After pan-neurexin deletions, we observed in these synapses severe but dramatically different synaptic phenotypes that ranged from major impairments in their distribution and function (climbing-fiber synapses) to large decreases in synapse numbers (parvalbumin-positive synapses) and severe alterations in action potential-induced presynaptic Ca2+ transients (somatostatin-positive synapses). Thus, neurexins function primarily as context-dependent specifiers of synapses.

This study utilizes mechanical interlocking as a method to improve the adhesion between the 3D carbon felt foam (CFs) and the epoxy matrix (EP). Hydrothermally, Co3O4 nanoarrays in nanostrips, nanowires, nanoprisms, and nanostars were added to CFs surfaces. Pure 3D carbon fiber-epoxy composites had 62.7% higher storage modulus and 7.8% higher glass transition temperature than pure epoxy. The 3D carbon fiber/epoxy composite with Co3O4 nanowires has a storage modulus of 5297 MPa and a Tg of 148.4 °C, which is higher than that of pure 3D CFs and other nanocomposites. Compared to pure 3D CFs/ EP, Co3O4 nanowires boost flexural strength by 75.0%. Nano-strip, nano-prismatic, and nanostar composites improve 53.6%, 21.4%, and 11.43%, respectively. Pure 3D CFs boost epoxy matrix impact strength to 174.6%. The impact strength of the Co3O4 nano-wire@CFs/EP composite is 45.6% higher than that of the 3D CFs/EP composite. Nano-strip, nano-prismatic, and nano-star modifications are 31.2%, 19.5%, and 2.5%. 3D CFs/EP composites have a 69 MPa initial tensile strength. However, Co3O4 nano-wires increase tensile strength by 73% to 130 MPa. Nano-strip, nano-prismatic, and nanostar composites outperform 3D CFs/EP by 68%, 33%, and 7%, respectively. In 3D CFs/EP composites, Co3O4 nanowires reduce wear by 50.0% and friction by 27.9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]