Occurrence and Control of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura

The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura, is one of the most important pests of soybean. The A. glycines outbreak in 1998 followed another aphid outbreak after 1989, which caused enormous economic losses. The aphid infested areas exceeded 200 thousand mu, and the soybean yields decreased by 20%. Among aphid infested areas, 78 thousand mu were severely infested with a yield loss of 46%. More than 3,000 mu had no yield at all.Originating text in Chinese.Citation: Wu, Xiaobing, Ni, Wenjun, Liu, Peijing. (1999). Occurrence and Control of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines Matsumura. How Peasants Can Increase Wealth, 6, 20

Applications of SAR Interferometry in Earth and Environmental Science Research

This paper provides a review of the progress in regard to the InSAR remote sensing technique and its applications in earth and environmental sciences, especially in the past decade. Basic principles, factors, limits, InSAR sensors, available software packages for the generation of InSAR interferograms were summarized to support future applications. Emphasis was placed on the applications of InSAR in seismology, volcanology, land subsidence/uplift, landslide, glaciology, hydrology, and forestry sciences. It ends with a discussion of future research directions

BandMap: Application Mapping with Bandwidth Allocation forCoarse-Grained Reconfigurable Array

This paper proposes an application mapping algorithm, BandMap, for coarse-grained reconfigurable array (CGRA), which allocates the bandwidth in PE array according to the transferring demands of data, especially the data with high spatial reuse, to reduce the routing PEs. To cover bandwidth allocation, BandMap maps the data flow graphs (DFGs), abstracted from applications, by solving the maximum independent set (MIS) on a mixture of tuple and quadruple resource occupation conflict graph. Compared to a state-of-art BusMap work, Bandmap can achieve reduced routing PEs with the same or even smaller initiation interval (II)

Nanofibrous Spongy Microspheres for the Delivery of Hypoxia-primed Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells to Regenerate Vascularized Dental Pulp

Dental pulp infection and necrosis are widespread diseases. Conventional endodontic treatments result in a devitalized and weakened tooth. In this work, we synthesized novel star-shaped polymer to self-assemble into unique nanofibrous spongy microspheres (NF-SMS), which were used to carry human dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) into the pulp cavity to regenerate living dental pulp tissues. It was found that NF-SMS significantly enhanced hDPSCs attachment, proliferation, odontogenic differentiation and angiogenesis, as compared to control cell carriers. Additionally, NF-SMS promoted vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression of hDPSCs in a 3D hypoxic culture. Hypoxia-primed hDPSCs/NF-SMS complexes were injected into the cleaned pulp cavities of rabbit molars for subcutaneous implantation in mice. After 4 weeks, the hypoxia group significantly enhanced angiogenesis inside the pulp chamber and promoted the formation of ondontoblast-like cells lining along the dentin-pulp interface, as compared to the control groups (hDPSCs alone group, NF-SMS alone group, and hDPSCs/NF-SMS group pre-cultured under normoxic conditions). Furthermore, in an in situ dental pulp repair model in rats, hypoxia-primed hDPSCs/NF-SMS were injected to fully fill the pulp cavity and regenerate pulp-like tissues with a rich vasculature and a histological structure similar to the native pulp

Semantic representation for visual reasoning

In the field of visual reasoning, image features are widely used as the input of neural networks to get answers. However, image features are too redundant to learn accurate characterizations for regular networks. While in human reasoning, abstract description is usually constructed to avoid irrelevant details. Inspired by this, a higher-level representation named semantic representation is introduced in this paper to make visual reasoning more efficient. The idea of the Gram matrix used in the neural style transfer research is transferred here to build a relation matrix which enables the related information between objects to be better represented. The model using semantic representation as input outperforms the same model using image features as input which verifies that more accurate results can be obtained through the introduction of high-level semantic representation in the field of visual reasoning

Serum albumin and albuminuria predict the progression of chronic kidney disease in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes: a retrospective study

Background Diabetes-related kidney disease is associated with end-stage renal disease and a high mortality rate. However, data on risk factors associated with kidney disease in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) remains insufficient. The aim of the present study was to identify the risk factors significantly associated with chronic kidney disease progression in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 DM. Methods We reviewed a total of 254 consecutive patients who were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at Nanjing First Hospital from January to December 2014. They were observed for two years, and baseline and biochemical variables were used to identify significant predictors of kidney failure progression. Kidney failure progression was defined as a ≥ 30% increase in serum creatine level. Results The mean age of patients was 58.96 years, 37.4% were women, and 57.1% had hypertension. Kidney function progressed in 40 patients (15.75%). Multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that serum albumin (p = 0.015) and microalbuminuria (p < 0.001) were associated with kidney failure progression in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 DM. Those with lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR; 30–60 ml/min/1.73 m2) at baseline had lower serum albumin levels compared to those of patients with higher eGFR. The albuminuria levels were higher in patients with lower eGFR than in those with eGFR ≥ 90 ml/min/1.73 m2. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that the area under the curve was 0.754 (95% CI [0.670–0. 0.837]). Conclusions The overall rate of chronic kidney disease progression is relatively high, and low serum albumin and high albuminuria levels are associated with kidney failure progression in newly diagnosed diabetic patients

BGI-RIS: An integrated information resource and comparative analysis workbench for rice genomics

Rice is a major food staple for the world&apos;s population and serves as a model species in cereal genome research. The Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) has long been devoting itself to sequencing, information analysis and biological research of the rice and other crop genomes. In order to facilitate the application of the rice genomic information and to provide a foundation for functional and evolutionary studies of other important cereal crops, we implemented our Rice Information System (BGI-RIS), the most up-to-date integrated information resource as well as a workbench for comparative genomic analysis. In addition to comprehensive data from Oryza sativa L. ssp. indica sequenced by BGI, BGI-RIS also hosts carefully curated genome information from Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica and EST sequences available from other cereal crops. In this resource, sequence contigs of indica (93-11) have been further assembled into Mbp-sized scaffolds and anchored onto the rice chromosomes referenced to physical/genetic markers, cDNAs and BAC-end sequences. We have annotated the rice genomes for gene content, repetitive elements, gene duplications (tandem and segmental) and single nucleotide polymorphisms between rice subspecies. Designed as a basic platform, BGI-RIS presents the sequenced genomes and related information in systematic and graphical ways for the convenience of in-depth comparative studie

Applications Of Sar Interferometry In Earth And Environmental Science Research

This paper provides a review of the progress in regard to the InSAR remote sensing technique and its applications in earth and environmental sciences, especially in the past decade. Basic principles, factors, limits, InSAR sensors, available software packages for the generation of InSAR interferograms were summarized to support future applications. Emphasis was placed on the applications of InSAR in seismology, volcanology, land subsidence/uplift, landslide, glaciology, hydrology, and forestry sciences. It ends with a discussion of future research directions.© 2009 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland

Nanofibrous Spongy Microspheres Enhance Odontogenic Differentiation of Human Dental Pulp Stem Cells

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113700/1/adhm201500308.pd

Laboratory Model Tests of Leachate Drawdown Using Vertical Drainage Wells with Vacuum Pumping in Municipal Solid Waste Landfills with High Leachate Levels

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills in China generally have high leachate mounds, which potentially induce severe geotechnical and environmental issues. In this study, laboratory model tests were carried out to preliminarily investigate the performance of vertical drainage wells accompanied with vacuum pumping (VDW-VP) on leachate drawdown in MSW landfills with high leachate levels. Leachate drawdown tests through VDW-VP under conditions with and without gas injection were performed. Different vacuum pressures (0~−9.5 kPa) were imposed during the tests. Results indicated that the leachate pumping processes for both the two conditions were characterized by a stage of continuous effluent followed by a stage of discontinuous effluent, corresponding to the periods before and after the leachate level in the vertical well dropped to the bottom, respectively. During the stage of continuous effluent, as the vacuum pressure increased, the effluent rate decreased and the leachate level in the vertical well needed a longer time to reach the bottom. During the stage of discontinuous effluent, the leachate level in the MSW gradually approached that in the vertical well. A higher vacuum pressure rendered a larger cumulative leachate pumping volume for the condition with a gas injection, but this was not the case for the condition without a gas injection. In addition, some local pore water pressures were observed to suddenly increase and drop under the condition with the gas injection, attributed to the migration of entrapped gas zones. The increase in vacuum pressure might promote the migration of entrapped gas zones and hence increase the cumulative leachate pumping volume