Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction and Microvascular Angina

Many patients present with myocardial ischemic symptoms, but fail to be diagnosed of obstructed coronary artery disease, since the normal coronary arteries or no any atherosclerosis stenosis ≥ 50% at coronary angiography. Myocardial ischemia can be caused by either abnormalities of epicardial coronary arteries or coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD). Patient with microvascular angina in the absence of coronary artery disease and myocardial diseases, CMD is suggested to be the unique cause of symptoms. The previous clinical and pathogenetic classification of CMD is based on presence or absence of coronary artery disease, myocardial diseases, or other traditional risk factors, which would obscure the importance of the disease primarily provoked by CMD. The role of atherosclerotic plaque rupture in epicardial coronary arteries and the abnormality of hemorheology (especially in perimenopausal women) should be more stressed in the pathogenetic mechanism of CMD. The pathogenetic mechanism of CMD will be classified according to microvascular structure (embolization and stenosis), microvascular function and blood risk factors in this paper. The CMD related diseases including cardiac X syndrome and coronary slow flow would be better uniformly named as microvascular angina. While little data supported therapies for CMD related diseases so far, the blood healthy therapy as a novel method is recommended to treat microvascular angina, especially in the patients with high hematocrit, increased blood viscosity and coronary slow flow

Feature extraction of the weak periodic signal of rolling element bearing’ early fault based on shift invariant sparse coding

When fault such as pit failure arises in the rolling element bearing the vibration signal of which will take on periodic characteristics, and the abrupt failure of rotating machinery can be avoided effectively if the weak periodic characteristics of the early fault stage is extracted timely. However, the periodic characteristics of bearing’ early weak fault is hard to be extracted usually and the reasons can be boiled to as following: Firstly, the weak periodic signal of rolling element bearing’ early fault stage is buried by the strong background noise. Secondly, the weak fault cannot show the complete shock attenuation impulsive characteristic due to its weak energy, so the traditional wavelet transform would not work effectively if a proper wavelet basis function fitting for analyzing the impulsive characteristics is not selected. To solve the above two problems, a feature extraction method of the weak periodic signal of rolling element bearing’ early fault based on Shift Invariant Sparse Coding (SISC) originating from sparse representation is proposed in the paper. To capture the underlying structure of machinery fault signal, SICS provides an effective basis functions learning scheme by solving the flowing two convex optimization problems iteratively: 1) L1-regularized least squares problem. 2) L2-constrained least squares problem. The fault feature can be probably contained and extracted if optimal latent component is filtered among these basis functions. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified through the corresponding simulation and experiment

Source Scaling, Subevent Distributions, and Ground-Motion Simulation in the Composite Source Model

Predicting strong ground motion from a large earthquake depends to a large extent on the development of a realistic source model. Strong ground motion was simulated using the composite source model. F0or comparison purposes, two different approaches were implemented in the source procedure simulation. For the first approach, the source was taken as a superposition of circular subevents with a constant stress drop. The number of subevents and their radii followed fractal law distribution, specified as a spatial random field, and subevents were allowed to overlap. This resulted in the total area of the subevents being much greater than the area of the main event, in order to catch the total seismic moment conservation. For the second approach, the number of subevents and their characteristic dimensions still obeyed fractal law, but subevents were distributed randomly over the main fault and did not overlap. The total area of subevents equaled the area of the main fault. In the second approach, the subevent stress drop was left as a free parameter to be adjusted, so that the sum of the subevents’ seismic moment equalled the seismic moment of the main event. Using these two approaches, broadband ground motion was predicted from scenario earthquakes. The numerical simulations from these two approaches gave us similar results in waveform, peak ground motions, and frequency contents. The major purpose of these simulations was to address some recent criticism of the overlapping procedure (e.g., numerical implementation) used in the previous composite source model. The generally good agreement between simulated and observed ground motions from the Mw4.6 June 18, 2002, Darmstadt, Ind., earthquake and the Mw4.0 June 6, 2003, Bardwell, Ky., earthquake shown in this study indicates that the numerical techniques of the composite source model are capable of reproducing the main characteristics of ground motion, both in the near field and the far field, in the central United States

Damage and Control of Soybean Aphid

The soybean aphid, Aphis glycines, is one of the major insect pests of seedling soybean. This aphid has become a serious problem in soybean production due to heavy infestation in recent years and lack of favorable varieties resistant to soybean aphids. To understand the damage by soybean aphids and evaluation of control effect, in 1989-1990, we investigated the population dynamics of soybean aphid in the fields and its effect on soybean growth, development and yield.Originating text in Chinese.Citation: Wang, Suyun, Sun, Yajie, Chen, Ruilu, Zhai, Baoping, Bao, Xiangzhi. (1994). Damage and Control of Soybean Aphid. Technology and Promotion of Plant Protection, 2, 5-6

Effects of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines on Soybean Growth and Yield

Population dynamics of the soybean aphid, Aphis glycines and its effects on soybean growth and yield were surveyed in 1989-1990. Experiments were conducted in the naturally infested plots and in the treated plots using 10% enhanced Dimethoate. In 1989, soybean aphids in the untreated plots developed earlier and increased rapidly. Aphid density per 100 plants on June 15th was over 10,000, and the rapid development period was over 40 d. But aphids in 1990 developed slightly later with a shorter development period. Soybeans in the untreated plots significantly displayed the symptoms of distorted leaves, shorter stems and stunted plants. Plants in the treated plots were higher (20.2 cm in 1989) than those in the untreated plots. Soybean aphids significantly affected soybean yields. Yields in the untreated plots reduced 27.8% compared to that in the treated plots in 1989.Originating text in Chinese.Citation: Wang, Suyun, Bao, Xiangzhi, Sun, Yajie, Chen, Ruilu, Zhai, Baoping, Bao, Xiangzhi. (1996). Effects of Soybean Aphid, Aphis glycines on Soybean Growth and Yield. Soybean Science, 15(3), 243-247

Diatom and silicoflagellate assemblages in modern surface sediments associated with human activity: A case study in Sishili Bay, China

The spatial distribution of diatom and silicoflagellate fossils deposited in modern surface sediments was studied in inshore and offshore zones of Sishili Bay, China, to explore the impact of human activity on the coastal ecosystem. The sediments from 28 sites representing a gradient in intensity of human activity from inshore to offshore were sampled. Although the nutrient parameters inshore showed far higher concentrations than the offshore area, due to sewage discharge and waste dumping in the bay, the average fossil abundance did not differ significantly between the two areas. The diatom fossil Paralia sulcata, supposed to be a eutrophic indicator dominated most sediment samples and displayed a significant and positive correlation with dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in the upper water column, but did not show a significant difference in abundance between inshore area and offshore area. Factors such as sediment disturbance (e.g., shipping), grazing pressure (e.g., shellfish aquaculture farm) and sediment characteristics (e.g., grain size) can affect the preservation of fossil debris in the sediment and lower the precision with which human activities can be associated with the fossil abundance.The spatial distribution of diatom and silicoflagellate fossils deposited in modern surface sediments was studied in inshore and offshore zones of Sishili Bay, China, to explore the impact of human activity on the coastal ecosystem. The sediments from 28 sites representing a gradient in intensity of human activity from inshore to offshore were sampled. Although the nutrient parameters inshore showed far higher concentrations than the offshore area, due to sewage discharge and waste dumping in the bay, the average fossil abundance did not differ significantly between the two areas. The diatom fossil Paralia sulcata, supposed to be a eutrophic indicator dominated most sediment samples and displayed a significant and positive correlation with dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in the upper water column, but did not show a significant difference in abundance between inshore area and offshore area. Factors such as sediment disturbance (e.g., shipping), grazing pressure (e.g., shellfish aquaculture farm) and sediment characteristics (e.g., grain size) can affect the preservation of fossil debris in the sediment and lower the precision with which human activities can be associated with the fossil abundance. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Comparative effectiveness and safety of xiyanping with ribavirin for rotavirus enteritis therapy in childhood: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Purpose: To employ meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness and adverse events of Xiyanping and ribavirin in children with rotavirus enteritis.Methods: Searches included PubMed, Embase, Medline, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China Biology Medicine Database (CBM), China Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP database), and Wanfang database from inception to March 2017. Clinical indicators, with respect to the total effectiveness rate, fever time, duration of diarrhea, creatinine kinase MB isoenzyme (CK-MB), rotavirus (RV) negative conversion rate, and adverse reaction, were compared between Xiyanping and ribavirin groups.Results: Five-hundred and twenty-six records were obtained after searching the databases, and 18 studies (3557 participants) that met the inclusion criteria were included. All of them assessed total effectiveness rate, and two records evaluated RV negative conversion rate. There were significantly higher rates in the Xiyanping group than in the ribavirin group {OR = 3.76, 95 %CI (3.03 - 4.66), p < 0.00001; OR = 2.68, 95 %CI (1.56 - 4.60), p = 0.0004}. Compared with ribavirin group, fever time, duration of diarrhea, and creatine kinase isoenzyme MB (CK-MB) were significantly lower in xiyanping group [MD = -1.23, 95 %CI (-1.64 to -0.81), p < 0.00001; MD= -2.15, 95 %CI (-2.68 to -1.62), p < 0.00001; MD = -16.90, 95 %CI (-17.23 to -16.57), p < 0.00001}. Six studies reported adverse reactions, but there was no significant difference between xiyanping and ribavirin groups {OR = 1.44, 95 %CI (0.40 - 5.17), p = 0.58}.Conclusion: This review suggests that xiyanping is more effective than ribavirin in children suffering from rotavirus enteritis.Keywords: Ribavirin, Rotavirus enteritis, Systematic review, Virazole®, Xiyanpin