Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire: a comparison of young and older adults.

The Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ; Troyer & Rich, [2002]. Psychometric properties of a new metamemory questionnaire for older adults. , (1), P19-P27) is a widely used measure of subjective memory consisting of three scales: Satisfaction, Ability, and Strategies.

Polymerisation of twist-bend nematic textures for electro-optical applications.

Polymer-stabilised liquid crystals (PSLCs) have recently been used to maintain the focal conic domains (FCDs) typical of the smectic A phase in the nematic phase for smart window applications. The newly discovered twist-bend nematic phase of bent-shaped dimers also exhibits FCDs due to its pseudo-layered structure. The variety of topological defects in the N phase is arguably even greater than in the smectic A phase, but the N phase is often metastable and usually crystallises at room temperature, which hinders its use in electro-optical applications.

The Interplay of Spacer Chirality and Parity in Mesogenic Dimers.

Introducing chirality into soft materials, including liquid crystals (LCs), profoundly impacts their self-organization and physical properties. In this study, we synthesized a novel series of LC dimers with a chiral center as part of their flexible spacer. The dimers were prepared in racemic and enantiomerically pure forms.

The shared and unique neural correlates of personal semantic, general semantic, and episodic memory.

One of the most common distinctions in long-term memory is that between semantic (i.e., general world knowledge) and episodic (i.

Crystalline restacking of 2D-materials from their nanosheets suspensions.

We report here the highly ordered restacking of the layered phosphatoantimonic dielectric materials HMSbPO, (where M = Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs and 0 ≤ ≤ 1), from their nanosheets dispersed in colloidal suspension, induced by a simple pH change using alkaline bases. HSbPO aqueous suspensions are some of the rare examples of colloidal suspensions based on 2D materials exhibiting a lamellar liquid crystalline phase. Because the lamellar period can reach several hundred nanometers, the suspensions show vivid structural colors and because these colors are sensitive to various chemicals, the suspensions can be used as sensors.

Charge-driven liquid-crystalline behavior of ligand-functionalized nanorods in apolar solvent.

Concentrated colloidal suspensions of nanorods often exhibit liquid-crystalline (LC) behavior. The transition to a nematic LC phase, with long-range orientational order of the particles, is usually well-captured by Onsager's theory for hard rods, at least qualitatively. The theory shows how the volume fraction at the transition decreases with increasing aspect ratio of the rods.

Executive function and episodic memory composite scores in older adults: relations with sex, mood, and subjective sleep quality.

Executive function and episodic memory processes are particularly vulnerable to aging. We sought to learn the degree to which sex, mood, and subjective sleep quality might be related to executive function and episodic memory composite scores in community-dwelling older adults. We replicated Glisky and colleagues' two-factor (i.

Executive Function Predicts Older Adults' Lure Discrimination Difficulties on the Mnemonic Similarity Task.

Objectives: Older adults often have difficulty remembering the details of recently encountered objects. We previously found this with the Mnemonic Similarity Task (MST). Surprisingly, the older adults' MST Lure Discrimination Index (LDI) was significantly correlated with visual acuity but not with memory or executive function.

A view of the pan-genome of domesticated Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata [L.] Walp.).

Cowpea, Vigna unguiculata L. Walp., is a diploid warm-season legume of critical importance as both food and fodder in sub-Saharan Africa.

Mental rotation, episodic memory, and executive control: Possible effects of biological sex and oral contraceptive use.

Oral contraceptives (OCs) are one of the most common forms of hormonal birth control. A small literature suggests that OC use may affect visuospatial ability, episodic memory, and executive control. However, previous studies have been criticized for small sample sizes and the use of different, single cognitive tests.

Do Aqueous Suspensions of Smectite Clays Form a Smectic Liquid-Crystalline Phase?

Bottom-up strategies for the production of well-defined nanostructures often rely on the self-assembly of anisotropic colloidal particles (nanowires and nanosheets). These building blocks can be obtained by delamination in a solvent of low-dimensionality crystallites. To optimize particle availability, determination of the delamination mechanism and the different organization stages of anisotropic particles in dispersion is essential.

Disentangling Aging and Mood Effects on Emotional Memory.

Older adults tend to be in a more positive mood than young adults, and tend to remember positive information more often than negative information, yet the link between their positive mood and their positive memory bias has not often been explored. In this study, we manipulated young and older adults' moods prior to their completing an emotional memory task. For mood manipulation, young ( = 147) and older ( = 111) adults viewed a positive, negative, or neutral video lasting 3 min.

Older adults' episodic memory is related to a neurophysiological marker of brain cholinergic activity.

Episodic memory is vulnerable to aging and may be influenced by age-related decline in the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. We probed this relation using a novel, minimally invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation marker of brain acetylcholine: short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI). We used neuropsychological testing to construct a composite score of episodic memory in N = 19 community-dwelling older adults, and stratified older adults into Higher- (N = 9) versus Lower-memory (N = 10) groups before SAI.

Amygdala but not hippocampal damage associated with smaller social network size.

Social network size has been associated with complex socio-cognitive processes (e.g., memory, perspective taking).

Lyotropic Liquid-Crystalline Phases of Sophorolipid Biosurfactants.

Biological amphiphiles derived from natural resources are presently being investigated in the hope that they will someday replace current synthetic surfactants, which are known pollutants of soils and water resources. Sophorolipids constitute one of the main classes of glycosylated biosurfactants that have attracted interest because they are synthesized by non-pathogenic yeasts from glucose and vegetable oils at high titers. In this work, the self-assembly properties of several sophorolipids in water at high concentrations (20-80 wt %), a range so far mostly uncharted, have been investigated by polarized-light microscopy and X-ray scattering.

Fine tuning the structural colours of photonic nanosheet suspensions by polymer doping.

Aqueous suspensions of nanosheets are readily obtained by exfoliating low-dimensional mineral compounds like HSbPO. The nanosheets self-organize, at low concentration, into a periodic stack of membranes, a lamellar liquid-crystalline phase. Due to the dilution, this stack has a large period of a few hundred nanometres, it behaves as a 1-dimensional photonic material and displays structural colours.

Gold-clay nanocomposite colloids with liquid-crystalline and plasmonic properties.

Imparting liquid-crystal (LC) materials with the plasmonic properties of metal nanoparticles is actively pursued for applications. We achieved this goal by synthetizing gold nanoparticles onto clay nanosheets, leading to nematic nanocomposite suspensions. Optical observations and structural analysis show the growth of the gold nanoparticles without altering the LC properties of the nanosheets.

The ERP correlates of self-knowledge in ageing.

Self-knowledge is a type of personal semantic knowledge that concerns one's self-image and personal identity. It has most often been operationalized as the summary of one's personality traits ("I am a stubborn person"). Interestingly, recent studies have revealed that the neural correlates of self-knowledge can be dissociated from those of general semantic and episodic memory in young adults.

Correction: Solution self-assembly of plasmonic Janus nanoparticles.

Correction for 'Solution self-assembly of plasmonic Janus nanoparticles' by Nicolò Castro et al., Soft Matter, 2016, 12, 9666-9673, DOI: .

Destabilization of the Nematic Phase of Clay Nanosheet Suspensions by Polymer Adsorption.

Complex aqueous mixtures comprised of swelling clays and hydrosoluble polymers naturally occur in soils and play a major role in pedogenesis. They are also very often used for formulating oil-well drilling fluids, paints, and personal-care products. The suspensions of some natural clays, thanks to their large nanoparticle aspect ratio, spontaneously form nematic liquid-crystalline phases where the particles align parallel to each other, which affects their flow properties.

Identification of residues important for M. tuberculosis MmpL11 function reveals that function is modulated by phosphorylation in the C-terminal domain.

The Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell envelope is a critical interface between the host and pathogen and provides a protective barrier against the immune response and antibiotics. Cell envelope lipids are also mycobacterial virulence factors that influence the host immune response. The mycobacterial membrane protein large (MmpL) proteins transport cell envelope lipids and siderophores that are important for the basic physiology and pathogenesis of M.

A discourse-theoretic approach to story recall in aging and mild cognitive impairment.

Recall of story materials is a primary way to assess episodic memory. However, the standard scoring method may not be maximally sensitive to cognitive decline. We developed a set of 24 stories, and younger and older adults heard these stories and recalled them immediately and after a delay (Study 1).

Biaxiality-driven twist-bend to splay-bend nematic phase transition induced by an electric field.

Although the existence of the twist-bend (N) and splay-bend (N) nematic phases was predicted long ago, only the former has as yet been observed experimentally, whereas the latter remains elusive. This is especially disappointing because the N nematic is promising for applications in electro-optic devices. By applying an electric field to a planar cell filled with the compound CB7CB, we have found an N-N phase transition using birefringence measurements.

Probing permanent dipoles in CdSe nanoplatelets with transient electric birefringence.

Zinc-blende CdSe semiconducting nanoplatelets (NPL) show outstanding quantum confinement properties thanks to their small, atomically-controlled, thickness. For example, they display extremely sharp absorption peaks and ultra-fast recombination rates that make them very interesting objects for optoelectronic applications. However, the presence of a ground-state electric dipole for these nanoparticles has not yet been investigated.

Scrutinizing the grey areas of declarative memory: Do the self-reference and temporal orientation of a trait knowledge task modulate the Late Positive Component (LPC)?

Knowledge about the future self may engage cognitive processes typically ascribed to episodic memory, such as awareness of the future self as an extension of the current self (i.e., autonoetic awareness) and the construction of future events.