RESUMEN
In environments with similar physical parameters, thermal comfort and sensation feelings may differ indoors and outdoors. How indoor and outdoor thermal perception differ from each other remains unclear. This study compared and discussed 29,536 field survey data, including 19,191 sets of indoor data, and 10,345 sets of outdoor data, covering five Köppen climate zones during transitional seasons and summer. Indoor data points were collected from two databases: the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort II and the SCATs (Smart Controls and Thermal Comfort), while outdoor data points were collected from the RUROS database (Rediscovering the Urban Realm and Open Spaces) and five individual projects executed in Singapore, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Changsha, and Tianjin. The concepts of neutral rate (NR) and comfort rate (CR) were developed to help categorize "neutral" and "comfort" across different studies. The results of this study show that people are less sensitive to changes in thermal environment outdoors than indoors. Moreover, thermal comfort cannot be simply treated as thermal neutral, particularly for outdoor spaces. Compared with MM (mixed-mode) and NV (naturally ventilated) spaces, outdoor space does not have the highest NR, but its CR is much higher, with a wide range of SET* (Standard Effective Temperature) corresponding to CR over 80 %, from 15.5 °C to 23.4 °C. In the Cfa (humid subtropical) climate zone, significantly higher CR are recorded for outdoor spaces, although the NR are similar or even lower than those of indoors. Natural thermal resources in the outdoor thermal environment may hold the key to extending indoor comfort ranges.
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Clima , Sensación Térmica , Hong Kong , Humanos , Aprendizaje , Estaciones del AñoRESUMEN
Selenium (Se) is an essential mineral element for animals and humans. Cardamine hupingshanensis (Brassicaceae), found in the Wuling mountain area of China, has been identified as a novel Se hyperaccumulator plant. However, the mechanism for selenium tolerance in Cardamine plants remains unknown. In this study, two cDNA libraries were constructed from seedlings of C. hupingshanensis treated with selenite. Approximately 100 million clean sequencing reads were de novo assembled into 48,989 unigenes, of which 39,579 and 33,510 were expressed in the roots and leaves, respectively. Biological pathways and candidate genes involved in selenium tolerance mechanisms were identified. Differential expression analysis identified 25 genes located in four pathways that were significantly responsive to selenite in C. hupingshanensis seedlings. The results of RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) and quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) confirmed that storage function, oxidation, transamination and selenation play very important roles in the selenium tolerance in C. hupingshanensis. Furthermore, a different degradation pathway synthesizing malformed or deformed selenoproteins increased selenium tolerance at different selenite concentrations. This study provides novel insights into the mechanisms of selenium tolerance in a hyperaccumulator plant, and should serve as a rich gene resource for C. hupingshanensis.
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Cardamine/genética , Selenio/metabolismo , Cardamine/metabolismo , Perfilación de la Expresión Génica/métodos , Regulación de la Expresión Génica de las Plantas/genética , Genómica/métodos , Hojas de la Planta/metabolismo , Raíces de Plantas/metabolismo , Plantones/metabolismo , Semillas/metabolismo , Ácido Selenioso/metabolismo , Análisis de Secuencia de ARN , Transcriptoma/genéticaRESUMEN
Clinical studies show that dysfunction of the dopamine (DA) system could differently modulate N2 and P3 components in a Go/Nogo task, a classical inhibition task. However, results of previous clinical studies cannot be arbitrarily generalized to healthy adults. Thus, the present exploratory study aimed to investigate whether there are significant and variable relationships between individual differences of the DA system in normal healthy persons and N2- and P3-related sub-processes of inhibition in a Go/Nogo task. DA function was measured by spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR), which is an effective clinical and non-invasive measure and strongly related to the activity of the central dopaminergic system. A total of 28 young adults participated in this experiment. Results showed that Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 of all participants were larger than Go-N2 and Go-P3, while Nogo-N2 and Nogo-P3 were significantly related with Nogo-accuracy. Moreover, it was shown that higher EBRs were significantly correlated with larger and more negative N2 amplitudes under Go- and Nogo-conditions; however, there were no significant correlations between participants' EBRs and N2 latencies, and between EBRs and average amplitudes of P3 under the two conditions. Based on these results, we concluded that the central DA system was associated with the N2-related conflict monitoring rather than P3-related sub-process of inhibition.
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Parpadeo/fisiología , Dopamina/fisiología , Potenciales Evocados/fisiología , Inhibición Psicológica , Adolescente , Adulto , Electroencefalografía , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Adulto JovenRESUMEN
The central dopamine system (DA) has a significant role in the executive function (EF). The spontaneous eye blink rate (EBR) is an effective clinical and non-invasive measure, which is strongly related to the activity of the central dopaminergic system. Previous studies show significant relationships between the two main dimensions of EF (i.e., shifting and inhibition) and the central DA system as measured by EBR. However, most of these studies involve only one EF task for shifting or inhibition; whether or not these relationships are replicated by other EF tasks remains unclear. Besides, the relationship between EBR and another important EF dimension-updating-also remains unknown. The present study examined the correlation between EBR and several EF tasks that captured all the three EF dimensions: shifting, inhibition, and updating. A total of 61 healthy participants were subjected to EBR testing and EF tasks. Results showed that EBR had a different relationship with each of the three tested EF dimensions. An increase in EBR levels was related to an increase in accuracy in shifting and inhibition tasks, a decrease in shifting and inhibition cost, and a decrease in accuracy in updating tasks. These results imply that the role of the central DA system in shifting and inhibition differs from its role in updating.