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The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is one of the greatest threats to soybean production, and both trend analysis and periodic analysis of its population dynamics are important for integrated pest management (IPM). Based on systematically investigating soybean aphid populations in the field from 2018 to 2020, this study adopted the inverse logistic model for the first time, and combined it with the classical logistic model to describe the changes in seasonal population abundance from colonization to extinction in the field. Then, the increasing and decreasing phases of the population fluctuation were divided by calculating the inflection points of the models, which exhibited distinct seasonal trends of the soybean aphid populations in each year. In addition, multifactor logistic models were then established for the first time, in which the abundance of soybean aphids in the field changed with time and relevant environmental conditions. This model enabled the prediction of instantaneous aphid abundance at a given time based on relevant meteorological data. Taken as a whole, the successful approaches implemented in this study could be used to build a theoretical framework for practical IPM strategies for controlling soybean aphids.

Abstract Background Panic disorder (PD) is thought to be related with deficits in emotion regulation, especially in cognitive reappraisal. According to the cognitive model, PD patients’ intrinsic and unconscious misappraisal strategies are the cause of panic attacks. However, no studies have yet been performed to explore the underlying neuromechanism of cognitive reappraisal that occur on an unconscious level in PD patients. Methods Twenty-six patients with PD and 25 healthy controls (HC) performed a fully-verified event-block design emotional regulation task aimed at investigating responses of implicit cognitive reappraisal during an fMRI scan. Participants passively viewed negatively valanced pictures that were beforehand neutrally, positively, or adversely portrayed in the task. Results Whole-brain analysis of fMRI data showed that PD patients exhibited less activation in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) compared to HC, but presented greater activation in parietal cortex when negative pictures were preceded by positive/neutral vs negative descriptions. Simultaneously, interactive effects of Group × Condition were observed in the right amygdala across both groups. Furthermore, activation in dlPFC and dmPFC was is negatively correlated to severity of anxiety and panic in PD when negative images were preceded by non-negative vs negative descriptions. Conclusions Emotional dysregulation in PD is likely the result of deficient activation in dlPFC and dmPFC during implicit cognitive reappraisal, in line with impaired automatic top-down regulation. Correlations between severity of anxiety and panic attack and activation of right dlPFC and dmPFC suggest that the failure to engage prefrontal region during implicit cognitive reappraisal might be associated wtih the severity of anxiety and panic; such functional patterns might be the target of possible treatments.

Background. Heart failure (HF) is the terminal stage of all cardiovascular events. Although implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapies have reduced mortality among the high-risk HF population, it is necessary to determine whether certain factors can predict mortality even after cardiac device implantation. Growth stimulation expressed gene 2 (ST2) is an emerging biomarker for HF patient stratification in different clinical settings. Aims. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between baseline soluble ST2 (sST2) levels in serum and the clinical outcomes of high-risk HF patients with device implantation. Methods. Between January 2017 and August 2018, we prospectively recruited consecutive patients implanted with an ICD for heart failure, with LVEF ≤35% as recommended, and analyzed the basic characteristics, baseline serum sST2, and NT-proBNP levels, with at least 1-year follow-up. All-cause mortality was the primary endpoint. Results. During a 643-day follow-up, all-cause mortality occurred in 16 of 150 patients (10.67%). Incidence of all-cause mortality increased significantly in patients with sST2 levels above 34.98846 ng/ml (16.00% vs. 5.33%, P=0.034). After adjusting the model (age, gender, device implantation, prevention of sudden death, LVEDD, LVEF, WBC and CLBBB, hsTNT, etiology, and eGFR) and the model combined with NT-proBNP, the risk of all-cause death was increased by 2.5% and 1.9%, respectively, per ng/ml of sST2. The best sST2 cutoff for predicting all-cause death was 43.42671 ng/ml (area under the curve: 0.72, sensitive: 0.69, and specificity: 0.69). Compared to patients with sST2 levels below 43.42671 ng/ml, the risk of all-cause mortality was higher in those with values above the threshold (5.1% vs. 21.2%, P=0.002). ST2 level ≥43.42671 ng/ml was an independent predictor of all-cause mortality (HR: 3.30 [95% CI 1.02–10.67]). Age (HR: 1.06 [95% CI: 1.01–1.12]) and increased NT-proBNP per 100 (HR: 1.02 [95% CI: 1.01–1.03]) were also associated with all-cause mortality in ICD patients. Conclusions. sST2 level was associated with risk of all-cause mortality, and a threshold of 43.43 ng/ml showed good distinguishing performance to predict all-cause mortality in patients with severe heart failure, recommended for ICD implantation. Patients with sST2 levels more than 43.42671 ng/ml even after ICD implantation should therefore be monitored carefully.

Primary blepharospasm (BPS) is a focal dystonia characterized by involuntary blinking and eyelid spasms. The pathophysiology of BPS remains unclear. Several neuroimaging studies have suggested dysfunction of sensory processing and sensorimotor integration, but the results have been inconsistent. This study aimed to determine whether patients with BPS exhibit altered functional brain connectivity and to explore possible correlations between these networks and clinical variables. Twenty-five patients with BPS and 25 healthy controls were enrolled. We found that the patient group exhibited decreased connectivity within the sensory-motor network (SMN), which involved regions of the bilateral primary sensorimotor cortex, supplementary motor area (SMA), right premotor cortex, bilateral precuneus and left superior parietal cortex. Within the right fronto-parietal network, decreased connections were observed in the middle frontal gyrus, dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus. Regarding the salience network (SN), increased connectivity was observed in the left superior frontal gyrus and middle frontal gyrus. These findings suggest the involvement of multiple neural networks in primary BPS.

Genes that are indispensable for survival are essential genes. Many features have been proposed for computational prediction of essential genes. In this paper, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method was used to screen key sequence-based features related to gene essentiality. To assess the effects, the selected features were used to predict the essential genes from 31 bacterial species based on a support vector machine classifier. For all 31 bacterial objects (21 Gram-negative objects and ten Gram-positive objects), the features in the three datasets were reduced from 57, 59, and 58, to 40, 37, and 38, respectively, without loss of prediction accuracy. Results showed that some features were redundant for gene essentiality, so could be eliminated from future analyses. The selected features contained more complex (or key) biological information for gene essentiality, and could be of use in related research projects, such as gene prediction, synthetic biology, and drug design.

The in situ mining technology is applied to the exploitation of medium- and low-maturity shale oil, which can use heaters to warm up the oil shale formations and pyrolyze the kerogen. Due to the low thermal conductivity of oil shale, electric heaters need extra equipment to improve heat transfer efficiency. In this study, a thermally conductive proppant is fabricated by coating epoxy-resin and graphite on ceramic proppants for the first time, which could support the fracturing crack and transfer heat. The thermal conduction property of epoxy-resin and graphite coated proppants (EGPs) is 245% higher than that of uncoated proppants, which can transfer more heat to the oil shale formation and accelerate the conversion of kerogen. The adhesive property of EGPs is improved by 47.9% under the load force of 1500 nN, which prolongs the time for the fracture to close. In summary, this novel proppant is expected to assist in-situ mining technology in the production of medium and low-maturity shale oil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A metamaterial sensor that can be applied to detect water content in emulsified oil is proposed, which is reusable in experiment and nondestructive to the sample. Electric field of the original absorber is researched to guide the design of microfluidics. Also, its equivalent circuit model is proposed to validate its ability as a sensor. The calculated sensitivity of the sensor is 339 MHz/ε'r in the range of 11.26 GHz to 10.044 GHz, indicating its potential for detecting the emulsified oil. The experimental results reveal the reliable process of detection and the linear relationship between frequency shift and water content. This work provides a fast and convenient solution to check the quality of lubricant oil to some extent, which is relatively valuable to modern machinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a sensor based on a meta-surface absorber loaded with microfluidics is proposed for identification of edible oil species and provides a non-destructive, rapid, and convenient technology for the measured samples. First, a narrow-band absorber with absorption frequency of 9.887 GHz and Q value of 147, which is implemented with four W-shaped meander line resonators, is designed by Finite Element Method. Its corresponding electromagnetic resonance mechanism is explored to reveal absorption characteristics, build its corresponding equivalent circuit model, and guide the design of the palindromic microfluidic channel. The sensor shows a high sensitivity of 500MHz/ε'r, and the corresponding sensing performance is experimentally validated by the fact that the distinguishable resonance absorption frequency shift is 461 MHz, 458 MHz, 449 MHz, 444 MHz, and 436 MHz when rapeseed oil, corn oil, peanut oil, sesame oil, and olive oil are loaded into the microfluidic channel, respectively. The identification is successfully achieved according to the resonance absorption frequency shift. Moreover, a good agreement between the simulated and measured results demonstrates that the proposed meta-surface-inspired sensor is a promising candidate to monitor and determine the quality of edible oil to some extent, and is relatively valuable to the modern agriculture and food industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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A novel six-band metamaterial absorber based on four multiple-mode Ω-shaped resonators (MMORs) is presented, analyzed and measured in this paper. The discrete absorption responses, determined by horizontal-oriented and vertical-oriented MMORs, can be combined to add the total number of absorption peaks. Among the six absorption peaks, four absorption peaks are excited by horizontal-oriented MMOR, and the other two are excited by vertical-oriented MMOR. The absorber, composed of a simple resonators-dielectric-sheet sandwich structure, has six distinct near-perfect absorption peaks with the polarization-insensitive characteristic in the frequency range from 2 to 17 GHz. To reveal the physical mechanism of the absorber, the distributions of the surface current and power loss density, and the equivalent circuit model are also investigated at the six absorption peaks. Moreover, the measured results are in good agreement with the simulated ones and show that the average absorption rate of the proposed absorber is over 97.21%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Suxiao Jiuxin Pill is composed of Ligusticum wallichii, Borneolum Syntheticum and other drugs; it has qi promoting and blood circulation activating, meridian dredging and pain relieving efficacies. The objective of this paper is to study the effect of Suxiao Jiuxin Pill (quick-acting heart reliever), in atherosclerosis (AS) rat model and explore the mechanism for its prevention and treatment of AS., Materials and Methods: AS rat model was established by high cholesterol diet and single intra-peritoneal injection of increased dose of vitamin D3., Results: Compared with the model group, Suxiao Jiuxin Pill medium-and high-dose groups and atorvastatin group can effectively regulate lipid metabolism., Conclusion: We conclude that Suxiao Jiuxin Pill has a good hypo-lipidemic effect, and can inhibit the occurrence and development of AS.