Suchergebnisse

AbstractAfter World War II, the Middle East stage attracted Beijing's attention. While Israel and China proved at that time to be too diverse, through the 1950s China made inroads with Arab countries. Egypt became the first to recognize the P.R.C., which, however, suffered rebuffs as anti‐Communist forces generally prevailed in the Middle East. Beijing supported the people of Palestine. After the Soviet Union had become China's enemy, China tried to unite the Third World against the two superpowers.With Deng in 1978, China's Middle Eastern policy became more pragmatic, tilting toward the developed countries and economic cooperation rather than ideology (e.g., with Yemen). China enhanced relations with Gulf states; cooperated with the United States in supporting the Afghan mujahedin; and declared neutrality in the Iran‐Iraq War, although economic alliance with Iran grew.The Gulf War affected Beijing's attitudes toward weapons technology and toward the United Nations and China's role in it. Israel is currently viewed as a channel for possible influence with the West. Overall, China's basic policy now is to watch and wait.

Prior studies have shown that leaders' personality traits potentially have positive effects on employees' taking-charge behaviors; however, in this context, the negative influence of leaders' dark personality traits has largely been neglected in research. On the basis of affective events
theory, we proposed a moderated mediation model to explain the impact of leader narcissism on employees' taking-charge behavior Through a 3-stage leader–follower dyadic research design, we collected 195 responses to a survey. The results indicate that leader narcissism had a significant
negative effect on employees' taking-charge behavior via the mediator of employees' work engagement, and that leader narcissism decreased employees' work engagement when employees' self-reported proactive personality was low. In addition, the indirect effect of employee work engagement on
leader narcissism and taking charge was stronger when employees' self-reported proactive personality was low. Our results have implications for preventing the negative effects of narcissistic leadership and promoting employees' taking-charge behavior.

Abstract
Background
Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) represent a category of pervasive and enduring environmental pollutants that present a risk to human health. Although growing evidence suggests that probiotics can potentially alleviate the adverse effects of PFAS, large cross-sectional studies on the relationship between probiotic consumption and PFAS remain lacking.

Objective
The objective of this study is to assess the association between the exposure of probiotics and serum levels of PFAS.

Methods
This analysis included individuals aged 20 and above who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2003 and 2018. Probiotic consumption was considered when a participant reported consuming yogurt during the two 24-h dietary recall or using a probiotic supplement in dietary supplement questionnaires over the past 30 days.

Results
This study involved 9469 adults, out of which 1333 had been exposed to probiotics. We found negative associations between probiotic consumption and serum concentrations of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) (β: − 0.19, 95% CI − 0.35 to − 0.02; P = 0.027), and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) (β: − 0.1.27, 95% CI − 2.23 to − 0.32; P = 0.010). The consumption of probiotic supplements alone was associated with reduced perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) (β: − 0.19, 95% CI − 0.28 to − 0.10; P < 0.001). No statistically significant association was identified between probiotic consumption and perfluorohexane sulphonic acid (PFHxS).

Conclusion
In this cross-sectional, nationally representative study, probiotic ingestion was negatively associated with several serum PFAS compounds. These findings carry substantial implications for designing interventions that target the reduction of accumulated PFAS levels in the body and mitigating the resulting adverse health effects.

AbstractAs acute gastrointestinal (AGI) disease patients only sometimes seek medical care or submit stool samples for testing, and laboratories cannot detect or identify the pathogen, most cases of foodborne gastroenteritis still need to be identified through public health monitoring. We conducted a population survey and sentinel hospital surveillance to determine the burden of foodborne gastroenteritis caused by non‐typhoidal Salmonella enterica (NTS) and Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection, from July 2018 to June 2019 in Zhejiang province, China, and a model for calculating disease burden established. Using the burden of illness pyramid model, we estimated that there were 140.3 cases of NTS infection and 136.2 cases of V. parahaemolyticus infection. We estimated annual incidence per 100,000 population in Zhejiang province as 236 (95% confidence interval [CI] 208–267) and 206 (95% CI 155–232) cases for foodborne NTS and V. parahaemolyticus gastroenteritis, respectively. The results show that AGI caused by these two pathogens constitutes a substantial burden in the Zhejiang population. The health burden of AGI estimations caused by NTS and V. parahaemolyticus in this study can serve as a strategic framework to direct policy and intervention.

Detailed understanding of stellar physics is essential towards a robust determination of stellar properties (e.g. radius, mass, and age). Among the vital input physics used in the modelling of solar-type stars which remain poorly constrained, is the initial helium abundance. To this end, when constructing stellar model grids, the initial helium abundance is estimated either (i) by using the semi-empirical helium-to-heavy element enrichment ratio, (ΔY/ΔZ), anchored to the standard big bang nucleosynthesis value, or (ii) by setting the initial helium abundance as a free variable. Adopting 35 low-mass, solar-type stars with multiyear Kepler photometry from the asteroseismic 'LEGACY' sample, we explore the systematic uncertainties on the inferred stellar parameters (i.e. radius, mass, and age) arising from the treatment of the initial helium abundance in stellar model grids. The stellar masses and radii derived from grids with free initial helium abundance are lower compared to those from grids based on a fixed ΔY/ΔZ ratio. We find the systematic uncertainties on mean density, radius, mass, and age arising from grids which employ a fixed value of ΔY/ΔZ and those with free initial helium abundance to be ∼ 0.9 per cent, ∼ 2 per cent, ∼ 5 per cent, and ∼ 29 per cent, respectively. We report that the systematic uncertainties on the inferred masses and radii arising from the treatment of initial helium abundance in stellar grids lie within the expected accuracy limits of ESA's PLATO, although this is not the case for the age. © 2020 The Author(s). ; The authors acknowledge the dedicated team behind the NASA'S Kepler missions. BN thanks Verma Kuldeep, Achim Weiss, and the Stellar Evolution research group at Max-Planck-Institut fur Astrophysik (MPA) for the useful comments on this article. BN also acknowledges postdoctoral funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. AGH, JCS, and BN acknowledge funding support from Spanish public funds (including FEDER funds) for research under projects ESP2017-87676-C5-2-R and ESP2017-87676-C5-5-R. TLC acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 792848 (PULSATION). JF wishes to honor the memory of Johannes Andersen, recently passed way. JF acknowledges funding from POCH and Portuguese FCT grant SFRH/BSAB/143060/2018. CITEUC is funded by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology (projects UID-PB/00611/2020). MSC is supported by national funds through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) - in the form of a work contract and through the research grants UIDB/04434/2020, UIDP/04434/2020, and PTDC/FIS-AST/30389/2017, and by FEDER -Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through COMPETE2020 Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (grant: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030389). AGH also acknowledges support from 'FEDER/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Economia y Conocimiento' under project E-FQM-041-UGR18 by Universidad de Granada. JCS also acknowledges support from project RYC-2012-09913 under the 'Ramon y Cajal' program of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education. JC is funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant: 19lgpy278). BA acknowledges support from the FCT PhD programme PD/BD/135226/2017. We thank the reviewer for the constructive remarks.

Detailed understanding of stellar physics is essential towards a robust determination of stellar properties (e.g. radius, mass, and age). Among the vital input physics used in the modelling of solar-type stars which remain poorly constrained, is the initial helium abundance. To this end, when constructing stellar model grids, the initial helium abundance is estimated either (i) by using the semi-empirical helium-to-heavy element enrichment ratio, (ΔY/ΔZ), anchored to the standard big bang nucleosynthesis value, or (ii) by setting the initial helium abundance as a free variable. Adopting 35 low-mass, solar-type stars with multiyear Kepler photometry from the asteroseismic 'LEGACY' sample, we explore the systematic uncertainties on the inferred stellar parameters (i.e. radius, mass, and age) arising from the treatment of the initial helium abundance in stellar model grids. The stellar masses and radii derived from grids with free initial helium abundance are lower compared to those from grids based on a fixed ΔY/ΔZ ratio. We find the systematic uncertainties on mean density, radius, mass, and age arising from grids which employ a fixed value of ΔY/ΔZ and those with free initial helium abundance to be ∼ 0.9 per cent, ∼ 2 per cent, ∼ 5 per cent, and ∼ 29 per cent, respectively. We report that the systematic uncertainties on the inferred masses and radii arising from the treatment of initial helium abundance in stellar grids lie within the expected accuracy limits of ESA's PLATO, although this is not the case for the age. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society ; The authors acknowledge the dedicated team behind the NASA'S Kepler missions. BN thanks Verma Kuldeep, Achim Weiss, and the Stellar Evolution research group at Max-Planck-Institut fur Astrophysik (MPA) for the useful comments on this article. BN also acknowledges postdoctoral funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. AGH, JCS, and BN acknowledge funding support from Spanish public funds (including FEDER funds) for research under projects ESP2017-87676-C5-2-R and ESP2017-87676-C5-5-R. TLC acknowledges support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 792848 (PULSATION). JF wishes to honor the memory of Johannes Andersen, recently passed way. JF acknowledges funding from POCH and Portuguese FCT grant SFRH/BSAB/143060/2018. CITEUC is funded by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology (projects UID-PB/00611/2020). MSC is supported by national funds through Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal) - in the form of a work contract and through the research grants UIDB/04434/2020, UIDP/04434/2020, and PTDC/FIS-AST/30389/2017, and by FEDER -Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional through COMPETE2020 Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalizacao (grant: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-030389). AGH also acknowledges support from 'FEDER/Junta de Andalucia-Consejeria de Economia y Conocimiento' under project E-FQM-041-UGR18 by Universidad de Granada. JCS also acknowledges support from project RYC-2012-09913 under the 'Ramon y Cajal' program of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education. JC is funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant: 19lgpy278). BA acknowledges support from the FCT PhD programme PD/BD/135226/2017. We thank the reviewer for the constructive remarks. ; With funding from the Spanish government through the Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence accreditation SEV-2017-0709. ; Peer reviewed

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly explosive blast-induced TBI (bTBI), has become the most prevalent injury among military personnel. The disruption of cognitive function is one of the most serious consequences of bTBI because its long-lasting effects prevent survivors fulfilling their active duty and resuming normal civilian life. However, the mechanisms are poorly understood and there is no treatment available. This study investigated the effects of adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) on bTBI-induced cognitive deficit, and explored the underlying mechanisms. After being subjected to moderate whole-body blast injury, mice lacking the A2AR (A2AR knockout (KO)) showed less severity and shorter duration of impaired spatial reference memory and working memory than wild-type mice did. In addition, bTBI-induced cortical and hippocampal lesions, as well as proinflammatory cytokine expression, glutamate release, edema, cell loss, and gliosis in both early and prolonged phases of the injury, were significantly attenuated in A2AR KO mice. The results suggest that early injury and chronic neuropathological damages are important mechanisms of bTBI-induced cognitive impairment, and that the impairment can be attenuated by preventing A2AR activation. These findings suggest that A2AR antagonism is a potential therapeutic strategy for mild-to-moderate bTBI and consequent cognitive impairment.