The effect of shade trees on the air and surface-soil temperature reduction under the canopy was studied in a park in subtropical Taipei City, Taiwan. Ten species of trees and two species of bamboo, which had tightly clustered tall stems and spreading branches resembling trees in shape, were chosen for the study. In the summer of 2007, we measured leaf and canopy characteristics of each species. The microclimate conditions under the tree canopies and an unshaded open space were measured repeatedly at middays without precipitation. In comparison with the nearby unshaded open space, air temperatures under the canopies were 0.64 to 2.52 8C lower, whereas the surface-soil temperatures were 3.28 to 8.07 8C lower. Regression analysis revealed the relative contributions to air cooling effect by the plant's leaf color lightness, foliage density, leaf thickness, and leaf texture (surface roughness) in decreasing order. Foliage density had the greatest contribution to surface-soil cooling followed by leaf thickness, leaf texture, and leaf color lightness in that order. Regression analysis also revealed that solar radiation, wind velocity, and vapor pressure at the site had significant effects on temperature reduction attributable to shade trees or bamboo.

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Expectations substantially influence pain perception, but the relationship between positive and negative expectations remains unclear. Recent evidence indicates that the integration between pain-related expectations and prediction errors is crucial for pain perception, which suggests that aversive prediction error-associated regions, such as the anterior insular cortex (aIC) and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), may play a pivotal role in expectation-induced pain modulation and help to delineate the relationship between positive and negative expectations. In a stimulus expectancy paradigm combining fMRI in healthy volunteers of both sexes, we found that, although positive and negative expectations respectively engaged the right aIC and right rACC to modulate pain, their associated activations and pain rating changes were significantly correlated. When positive and negative expectations modulated pain, the right aIC and rACC exhibited opposite coupling with periaqueductal gray (PAG) and the mismatch between actual and expected pain respectively modulated their coupling with PAG and thalamus across individuals. Participants' certainty about expectations predicted the extent of pain modulation, with positive expectations involving connectivity between aIC and hippocampus, a region regulating anxiety, and negative expectations engaging connectivity between rACC and lateral orbitofrontal cortex, a region reflecting outcome value and certainty. Interestingly, the strength of these certainty-related connectivities was also significantly associated between positive and negative expectations. These findings suggest that aversive prediction-error-related regions interact with pain-processing circuits to underlie stimulus expectancy effects on pain, with positive and negative expectations engaging dissociable but interrelated neural responses that are dependently regulated by individual certainty about expectations.

A novel beta-glucosidase was isolated from soybean okara in this study. Along with the beta-glucosidase, a considerable basic 7S globulin of soybean was obtained in the initial extraction products. The protein samples pretreated with 130 mM dithiothreitol before the step of CM-Sepharose chromatography could greatly enhance the separation of the targeted beta-glucosidase from the impurities. The purified beta-glucosidase was found to be a monomer estimated to be 75 kDa by SDS-PAGE. The optimal temperature and pH for this beta-glucosidase were 45 degrees C and 4.5, respectively. The activity of this purified beta-glucosidase was completely inhibited by 1 mM Hg(2+) or 10 mM Al(3+) ion, and glucose and mannose also affected the activity. This beta-glucosidase possessed strict specificity toward glucosyl isoflavones but not malonylglucosidic conjugates of isoflavones of soybean. The N-terminal amino acid sequence of the beta-glucosidase was EYLKYKDPKA-, which highly matched that of glycosidases in maize (Zea mays) and wheat (Triticum asetivum).