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Objectives. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between perfectionism and pain in patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMDs). Methods. A total of 345 TMD patients were included. A questionnaire consisting of questions of demographic information, the 15-item short form of the Hewitt and Flett Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (PHQ-4) was distributed. According to the diagnostic criteria for TMDs, patients were categorized as pain-related (PT) and non-pain-related (NPT) groups, whereas PT patients were further divided into patients with pain-related TMDs only (OPT) and patients with combined pain-related and intra-articular TMDs (CPT). Data were analyzed using the chi-square test, Spearman’s correlation, and logistic regression analysis with the significance level set at p < 0.05 . Results. There were 68 patients in the NPT group, 80 in the OPT group, and 197 in the CPT group. PT patients had significantly higher perfectionism scores (63.58 ± 13.63) than NPT patients (56.32 ± 12.95, p < 0.001 ). The PHQ-4 score in the PT group was also higher. After adjusting the PHQ-4 scores, perfectionism scores of the PT group were 6.11 points higher than those in the NPT group ( p < 0.001 ). There were no statistical differences in all parameters of OPT and CPT groups ( p > 0.05 ). Perfectionism in total, other-oriented perfectionism (OOP), and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) showed significant but weak correlations with PHQ-4 scores ( p < 0.001 ), while self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) was also significantly but very weakly correlated with PHQ-4 scores ( p < 0.05 ). Conclusions. Pain-related TMD patients exhibited higher perfectionism scores than NPT patients, and neither their perfectionism nor pain scores were correlated with intra-articular diseases of TMJ. OOP and SOP presented weak correlations with psychological distress in TMD patients. It is suggested that pain-related TMD patients could be screened for perfectionism and perfectionism could be considered when proposing psychological treatment strategies to PT patients.

Several epidemiological studies have investigated the association between sugar intake, the levels of systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and the risk of hypertension, but findings have been inconsistent. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies to examine the associations between sugar intake, hypertension risk, and BP levels. Articles published up to February 2, 2021 were sourced through PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science. Pooled relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using a fixed- or random-effects model. Restricted cubic splines were used to evaluate dose-response associations. Overall, 35 studies were included in the present meta-analysis (23 for hypertension and 12 for BP). Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) were positively associated with hypertension risk: 1.26 (95% CI, 1.15–1.37) and 1.10 (1.07–1.13) per 250-g/day increment, respectively. For SBP, only SSBs were significant with a pooled β value of 0.24 mmHg (95% CI, 0.12–0.36) per 250 g increase. Fructose, sucrose, and added sugar, however, were shown to be associated with elevated DBP with 0.83 mmHg (0.07–1.59), 1.10 mmHg (0.12–2.08), and 5.15 mmHg (0.09–10.21), respectively. Current evidence supports the harmful effects of sugar intake for hypertension and BP level, especially SSBs, ASBs, and total sugar intake.

Background: Olfactory identification dysfunction (OID) might be an early sign of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). However, odor hedonics, the ability to perceive odor pleasantness, is neglected. Also, the neural substrate of OID remains unclear. Objective: To explore the characteristics of odor identification and hedonics in aMCI and examine the potential neural correlates of OID by analyzing olfactory functional connectivity (FC) patterns in MCI. Methods: Forty-five controls and 83 aMCI patients were examined. The Chinese smell identification test was used to assess olfaction. Global cognition, memory, and social cognition were assessed. Resting-state functional networks associated with olfactory cortex seeds were compared between the cognitively normal (CN) and aMCI groups, as well as between aMCI subgroups by the degree of OID. Results: Compared to controls, aMCI patients had a significant deficit in olfactory identification, mainly reflected in the identification of pleasant and neutral odors. aMCI patients also rated pleasant and neutral odors much lower than controls. A positive correlation between olfaction and social cognition was found in aMCI. The seed-based FC analysis found that aMCI patients had higher FC between the right orbitofrontal cortex and right frontal lobe/middle frontal gyrus than controls. Subgroup analysis showed that, compared to aMCI without OID, aMCI with severe OID had abnormal FC in the bilateral piriform region. Conclusion: Our results suggest that OID in aMCI primarily refers to the identification of pleasant and neutral odors. The FC alterations in bilateral orbitofrontal cortex and piriform cortices might contribute to the impairment in odor identification.

Previous studies have shown that rewards weaken visual inhibition of return (IOR). However, the specific mechanisms underlying the influence of rewards on cross-modal IOR remain unclear. Based on the Posner exogenous cue-target paradigm, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of rewards on exogenous spatial cross-modal IOR in both visual cue with auditory target (VA) and auditory cue with visual target (AV) conditions. The results showed the following: in the AV condition, the IOR effect size in the high-reward condition was significantly lower than that in the low-reward condition. However, in the VA condition, there was no significant IOR in either the high- or low-reward condition and there was no significant difference between the two conditions. In other words, the use of rewards modulated exogenous spatial cross-modal IOR with visual targets; specifically, high rewards may have weakened IOR in the AV condition. Taken together, our study extended the effect of rewards on IOR to cross-modal attention conditions and demonstrated for the first time that higher motivation among individuals under high-reward conditions weakened the cross-modal IOR with visual targets. Moreover, the present study provided evidence for future research on the relationship between reward and attention.

Pore structure, especially pore shape and size, is a key factor affecting reservoir permeability. There is a poor correlation between permeability and porosity when the pore structure is complex, which leads to the low accuracy of permeability prediction by using porosity. In view of the preceding problems, six factors related to pore structure are summarized from rock physical models and entitled seismic pore structure factors (SPSFs), and the sensitivity of SPSF to permeability is analyzed with the data of two groups of clastic rock cores. The results find that the shear Lee factor is most sensitive to permeability, followed by the shear flexibility factor. In addition, there are good linear correlations between the shear Lee factor and pore size and between the shear flexibility factor and pore aspect ratio. Therefore, the combination of the shear Lee factor and pore aspect ratio can better characterize pore structure, and thus reservoir permeability. A seismic permeability prediction method based on pore aspect ratio, the shear Lee factor, and lithofacies is developed and applied to the Jurassic tight sandstone reservoirs of the Sichuan Basin. The results find that the permeability prediction accuracy is within half an order of magnitude, which is five times higher than the single-factor method of the shear flexibility factor. Compared with porosity, permeability distribution is more consistent with the measured productivity, which confirms the effectiveness of the method. It also provides a new way to predict the spatial distribution of reservoir permeability.

The wastewater discharge from the process of chrome plating, which contains 6:2 chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonate (F-53B) and chromium (Cr), may be toxic to biofilm. In this study we found that the biofilm formed by Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 was inhibited by exposure to a combination of F-53B and Cr(VI). The combined pollution damaged the cell membranes and the structure of the biofilm, and inhibited the production of the Pseudomonas quinolone-based signal, which affected biofilm formation. Moreover, the secretion of extracellular polymeric substances decreased as a result of this combined exposure. Exposure to F-53B and Cr(VI) individually or in combination could induce the excessive accumulation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the ROS positive rate of the bacteria increased under the treatment with 0.2 mmol/L of Cr(VI) and 250 nmol/L of F-53B, respectively. In addition, the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were enhanced for scavenging ROS in the bacteria that were exposed to Cr(VI) and F-53B. As an antioxidant, rutin was used to repair the toxicity of Cr(VI) and F-53B towards the biofilm formed by the bacteria. When rutin was added to the bacteria medium, with either Cr(VI) or F-53B as pollutant, or with the combined pollutants, the extracellular protein content of the bacteria recovered to 0.84, 0.94, and 0.85 times that of the control, respectively. Meanwhile, the accumulation of ROS and the activities of SOD and CAT decreased, which indicated that the addition of rutin can alleviate the oxidative stress and promote the antioxidant stress system.

The objective of ecological restoration and rehabilitation of grasslands is to recreate the original appearance of damaged or degraded vegetation. From previous research, the pneumatic spraying technology is now more commonly used in the world for vegetation restoration. Pneumatic spraying is relatively inexpensive and causes little damage to the original vegetation, making it one of the most effective techniques for restoring natural grassland vegetation under natural climatic conditions. In this paper, the effect of the spraying machine pipe working airflow on the quality of spraying was studied through simulation analysis and experimental tests. The seeding area of the spraying machine corresponding to different values of the pipe inlet airflow speed was determined. The conclusions show that: 1) the spray pipe inlet airflow velocity has a great influence on the uniformity of spraying. When the airflow velocity is higher than 55 m/s, the spraying is not uniform, while the airflow velocity is lower than 45 m/s, the spraying amplitude is smaller, the operational efficiency is low, which is not conducive to the restoration of degraded grasslands; 2) considering the uniformity of spraying and operational efficiency, the airflow velocity at the inlet of the spray pipe should be between 45 and 55 m/s when the spraying machine is in operation. The seed drop area is changed, by adjusting the airflow velocity of the spray pipe inlet, and the reseeding and leakage area of the seed drop area is reduced, so that the spraying performance of the spraying machine is optimized.

Background: The relationship between cataracts and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been reported in recent observational studies. However, it is still unclear whether a causal effect of cataracts on AD or reverse causation exists. Objective: To explore the association between cataracts and AD genetically, we performed a bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization study. Methods: We obtained genetic instrumental variables related to cataracts and AD from recently published genome-wide association studies (GWASs). SNP-outcome associations for AD were obtained from a GWAS with 111,326 cases and 677,663 controls. SNP-outcome associations for cataracts were drawn from two sources: a GWAS with 67,844 cases and 517,399 controls and the FinnGen consortium (42,843 cases and 262,698 controls). Inverse variance weighted (IVW) was used as the primary method for Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses. Results: No genetic evidence suggested that cataracts were associated with the risk of AD (IVW odds ratio =1.04, 95% confidence interval: 0.98-1.10, p=0.199). In contrast, an effect of genetically determined AD on a decreased risk of cataract was observed with suggestive evidence (IVW odds ratio =0.96, 95% confidence interval: 0.93-0.99, p=0.004). However, this result might be distorted by survival bias. Conclusion: Genetically determined cataracts were not related to AD, as demonstrated by our study. In contrast, there was suggestive evidence that AD might prevent cataract development, but there might be potential survival bias. To define the exact association between the two diseases, more prospective research and studies on the pathogenesis are needed.

Objective To evaluate the efficacy of Tuina (Chinese therapeutic massage) at points on abdomen and back meridians in the treatment of infantile colic. Methods A total of 120 infants with intestinal colic were randomly divided into a control group and an observation group, with 60 cases in each group. In the control group, the parents of the infants were given soothing and health education. In addition to the intervention used in the control group, the observation group was treated with Tuina at points on abdomen and back meridians once a day for 5 consecutive days as a course of treatment. The pain scale score and clinical symptoms of the two groups were recorded before and after treatment. Results After treatment, the total effective rate of the observation group was higher than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (PPP Conclusion Tuina at points on abdomen and back meridians is effective and safe in the treatment of infantile colic.

Strategic management scholars have shown increasing interest in explaining strategic change from the perspective of cognitive bias. However, most studies focus on individual cognitive bias but pay little attention to group cognitive bias. This study introduces a typical group cognitive bias (group polarization) to explain strategic change decisions made by the board of directors. Following the theory of group polarization, we argue that, when the average prior strategic change experienced in performance decline by board directors is relatively high (or low), the focal strategic change in performance decline will become even higher (or lower). We further contend that the proportion of female directors and board versus CEO power as the contingencies can mitigate this group polarization effect. Our hypotheses were strongly supported by a longitudinal sample of Chinese publicly listed companies during 2008–2018. The study's framework and findings contribute to the contextualization of social psychology research on group polarization in the study of board's strategic decision-making.