Taking advantage of multiple new remote sensing data sources, especially from Chinese satellites, the CropWatch system has expanded the scope of its international analyses through the development of new indicators and an upgraded operational methodology. The approach adopts a hierarchical system covering four spatial levels of detail: global, regional, national (thirty-one key countries including China) and "sub-countries" (for the nine largest countries). The thirty-one countries encompass more that 80% of both production and exports of maize, rice, soybean and wheat. The methodology resorts to climatic and remote sensing indicators at different scales. The global patterns of crop environmental growing conditions are first analyzed with indicators for rainfall, temperature, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) as well as potential biomass. At the regional scale, the indicators pay more attention to crops and include Vegetation Health Index (VHI), Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), Cropped Arable Land Fraction (CALF) as well as Cropping Intensity (CI). Together, they characterize crop situation, farming intensity and stress. CropWatch carries out detailed crop condition analyses at the national scale with a comprehensive array of variables and indicators. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), cropped areas and crop conditions are integrated to derive food production estimates. For the nine OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 3908 largest countries, CropWatch zooms into the sub-national units to acquire detailed information on crop condition and production by including new indicators (e.g., Crop type proportion). Based on trend analysis, CropWatch also issues crop production supply outlooks, covering both long-term variations and short-term dynamic changes in key food exporters and importers. The hierarchical approach adopted by CropWatch is the basis of the analyses of climatic and crop conditions assessments published in the quarterly "CropWatch bulletin" which provides accurate and timely information essential to food producers, traders and consumers.

The excellent locomotion ability of geckos on various rough and/or inclined substrates has attracted scientists' attention for centuries. However, the moving ability of gecko-mimicking robots on various inclined surfaces still lags far behind that of geckos, mainly because our understanding of how geckos govern their locomotion is still very poor. To reveal the fundamental mechanism of gecko locomotion and also to facilitate the design of gecko-mimicking robots, we have measured the reaction forces (RFs) acting on each individual foot of moving geckos on inverted, vertical and horizontal substrates (i.e. ceiling, wall and floor), have associated the RFs with locomotion behaviors by using high-speed camera, and have presented the relationships of the force components with patterns of reaction forces (PRFs). Geckos generate different PRF on ceiling, wall and floor, that is, the PRF is determined by the angles between the direction of gravity and the substrate on which geckos move. On the ceiling, geckos produce reversed shear forces acting on the front and hind feet, which pull away from the body in both lateral and fore-aft directions. They use a very large supporting angle from 21° to 24° to reduce the forces acting on their legs and feet. On the floor, geckos lift their bodies using a supporting angle from 76° to 78°, which not only decreases the RFs but also improves their locomotion ability. On the wall, geckos generate a reliable self-locking attachment by using a supporting angle of 14.8°, which is only about half of the critical angle of detachment.

A wealth of studies have investigated how to overcome experience-based 23 constraints in creative problem solving. One such experience-based constraint is the 24 tendency for people to view tightly organized visual stimuli as single, unified percepts, 25 even when decomposition of those stimuli into component parts (termed chunk 26 decomposition) would facilitate problem solving. The current study investigates the 27 neural underpinnings of chunk decomposition in creative problem solving by 28 analyzing event-related potentials. In two experiments, participants decomposed 29 Chinese characters into the character's component elements and then used the base 30 elements to form a new valid character. The action could require decomposing a 31 "tight" chunk, meaning that the component elements intersected spatially, or a "loose" 32 chunk, in which the component elements did not overlap in space. Behaviorally, 33 individuals made more errors and responded slower to trials involving tight chunks 34 relative to loose-chunks. Analysis of the ERPs revealed that relative to loose chunks, 35 the electrophysiological response to tight chunks contained an increased N2, an 36 increased N400, and a decreased late positive complex. Taken together, these results 37 suggest that chunk tightness is a principle determinant of the difficulty of chunk 38 decomposition, and that chunk tightness provokes neural conflict and semantic 39 violations, factors known to influence the N2 and N400 ERP components.40

BackgroundBrachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), a direct measure of aortic stiffness, has increasingly become an important assessment for cardiovascular risk. The present study established the reference and normal values of baPWV in a Central Asia population in Xinjiang, China.MethodsWe recruited participants from a central Asia population in Xinjiang, China. We performed multiple regression analysis to investigate the determinants of baPWV. The median and 10th-90th percentiles were calculated to establish the reference and normal values based on these categories.ResultsIn total, 5,757 Han participants aged 15–88 years were included in the present study. Spearman correlation analysis showed that age (r = 0.587, p < 0.001) and mean blood pressure (MBP, r = 0.599, p <0.001) were the major factors influencing the values of baPWV in the reference population. Furthermore, in the multiple linear regression analysis, the standardized regression coefficients of age (0.445) and MBP (0.460) were much higher than those of body mass index, triglyceride, and glycemia (-0.054, 0.035, and 0.033, respectively). In the covariance analysis, after adjustment for age and MBP, only diabetes was the significant independent determinant of baPWV (p = 0.009). Thus, participants with diabetes were excluded from the reference value population. The reference values ranged from 14.3 to 25.2 m/s, and the normal values ranged from 13.9 to 21.2 m/s.ConclusionsThis is the first study that has established the reference and normal values for baPWV according to age and blood pressure in a Central Asia population.

microRNA 21 (miRNA‑21) promotes the development of cardiac fibrosis, hypertrophy and heart failure. However, whether it can be used as a biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of heart failure remains unclear. The current study assessed circulating miRNA‑21 as a viable indicator for diagnosis and prognosis of heart failure. The levels of miRNA‑21 and brain natriuretic peptide were measured in serum obtained from the peripheral vein (miRNA‑21‑PV) and coronary sinus (miRNA‑21‑CS) of 80 patients with heart failure and 40 control individuals via reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction and ELISA, respectively. The correlations between circulating miRNA‑21 and diagnosis, severity, prognosis and re‑hospitalization rate of heart failure were evaluated using statistical analysis. Serum miRNA‑21‑PV and miRNA‑21‑CS levels of patients with heart failure were significantly higher than that of control subjects, and were also correlated with ejection fraction and brain natriuretic peptide. Both were determined to have high levels of sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing heart failure. Follow‑up of the patients with heart failure indicated that miRNA‑21‑PV and miRNA‑21‑CS were correlated with prognosis, and miRNA‑21‑CS was efficient in predicting re‑hospitalization for heart failure. Circulating miRNA‑21 has potential to be a biomarker of heart failure.

Prior correlational research demonstrated that in a society with high income inequality, people are more likely to seek high status. The present study aimed to establish a causal relation between income inequality and status seeking by investigating the effects of perceived income inequality on the pursuit of positional goods. Moreover, we investigated whether the relation between perceived income inequality and the pursuit of positional goods is moderated by subjective social status. We manipulated high versus low income inequality and found that perceived income inequality increased the pursuit of positional goods among participants with low social status, but not among participants with high social status. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Net radiation plays an essential role in determining the thermal conditions of the Earth’s surface and is an important parameter for the study of land-surface processes and global climate change. In this paper, an improved satellite-based approach to estimate the daily net radiation is presented, in which sunshine duration were derived from the geostationary meteorological satellite (FY-2D) cloud classification product, the monthly empirical as and bs Angstrom coefficients for net shortwave radiation were calibrated by spatial fitting of the ground data from 1997 to 2006, and the daily net longwave radiation was calibrated with ground data from 2007 to 2010 over the Heihe River Basin in China. The estimated daily net radiation values were validated against ground data for 12 months in 2008 at four stations with different underlying surface types. The average coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.8489, and the averaged Nash-Sutcliffe equation (NSE) was 0.8356. The close agreement between the estimated daily net radiation and observations indicates that the proposed method is promising, especially given the comparison between the spatial distribution and the interpolation of sunshine duration. Potential applications include climate research, energy balance studies and the estimation of global evapotranspiration.

Background Ventricular arrhythmia after myocardial infarction is the most important risk factor for sudden cardiac death, which poses a serious threat to human health. As the correlation between autonomic nervous systemic dysfunction and heart rhythm abnormality has been gradually revealed, remedies targeting autonomic nervous system dysfunction, especially the sympathetic nerve, have emerged. Among them, renal denervation is noted for its powerful effect on the inhibition of sympathetic nerve activity. We aim to investigate whether renal denervation can reduce ventricular arrhythmia after myocardial infarction and thus decrease the risk of sudden cardiac death. In addition, we explore the potential mechanism with respect to nerve activity and remodeling. Methods and Results Twenty‐four beagles were randomized into the control (n=4), renal denervation (n=10), and sham (n=10) groups. Permanent left anterior descending artery ligation was performed to establish myocardial infarction in the latter 2 groups. Animals in the renal denervation group underwent both surgical and chemical renal denervation. Compared with dogs in the sham group, dogs in the renal denervation group demonstrated attenuated effective refractory period shortening and inhomogeneity, flattened restitution curve, increased ventricular threshold, and decreased ventricular arrhythmia. Heart rate variability assessment, catecholamine measurement, and nerve discharge recordings all indicated that renal denervation could reduce whole‐body and local tissue sympathetic tone. Tissue analysis revealed a significant decrease in neural remodeling in both the heart and stellate ganglion. Conclusions Surgical and chemical renal denervation decreased whole‐body and local tissue sympathetic activity and reversed neural remodeling in the heart and stellate ganglion. Consequently, renal denervation led to beneficial remodeling of the electrophysiological characteristics in the infarction border zone, translating to a decrease in ventricular arrhythmia after myocardial infarction.