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There is substantial evidence to indicate that negative emotion can modulate cognitive control processing. However, only a few studies have investigated this effect with positive emotion. Therefore, the present study explored the electrophysiological correlates of the impact of positive emotional stimuli on cognitive control, using event-related potentials ( ERPs). Sixteen healthy young adults completed a modified Simon task (Simon, 1969). Behavioral data indicated that reaction times were faster for positive emotional stimuli than for neutral emotional stimuli in the incongruent condition, but not in the congruent condition, which suggested that positive emotion expedited conflict resolution. The ERP data showed that two negative ERP components (N300-400 and N450-550) were associated with the positive emotional stimuli in the incongruent minus congruent condition. It is suggested that these components may respectively be related to the conflict monitoring (N300-400) and response selection (N450-550) stages of cognitive control processing. Overall, our results indicated that positive emotion could facilitate cognitive control processing. These results are in line with the neuropsychological theory, according to which, positive emotion could modulate cognitive control mediated by increased dopamine levels in frontal brain areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a study which explores the similarities and differences between marine and the continental shale gas found in China. It provides information about brittle mineral content as well as the organic matter in marine shale based on sapropelic and the strength of tectonic activity. The adsorption capacity of the shale gas is mentioned.

Objectives To analyse the predictive factors for worse pathological outcome (muscle invasive pT2+, non-organ-confined pT3+ or N+ and histological Grade 3) of upper tract urothelial carcinoma ( UTUC) in a Chinese population from a nationwide high-volume centre in China., Patients and Methods Predictors were studied by retrospectively reviewing the clinicopathological data of 729 consecutive patients with UTUC treated in our centre from January 2002 to December 2010., Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used., Results There were more female patients (56.4%) than males and more tumours were located in the ureter (52.7%) than in the pelvis., In multivariate analysis, male gender (hazard ratio [ HR] 1.898, P = 0.001), sessile architecture ( HR 3.249, P < 0.001), high grade ( HR 5.007, P < 0.001), ipsilateral hydronephrosis ( HR 4.768, P < 0.001), renal pelvis location ( HR 2.620, P < 0.001) and tumour without multifocality ( HR 1.639, P = 0.028) were predictive factors for muscle-invasive UTUC., Male gender ( HR 2.132, P < 0.001), renal pelvis location ( HR 3.466, P < 0.001), tumour without multifocality ( HR 2.532, P = 0.001), sessile tumour architecture ( HR 3.274, P < 0.001), and high grade ( HR 3.019, P < 0.001) were predictive factors for non-organ-confined disease., Chronological old age ( HR 1.047, P < 0.001), sessile tumour architecture ( HR 25.192, P < 0.001), ipsilateral hydronephrosis ( HR 1.689, P = 0.024), and positive urinary cytology ( HR 1.997, P = 0.006) were predictive factors for histological Grade 3 UTUC., Conclusions There was a predominance of female patients and ureteric tumours in UTUCs of this Chinese population., Male gender, sessile architecture, tumour location, tumour without multifocality, high histological grade and preoperative ipsilateral hydronephrosis were independent predictive factors for worse pathological outcome of UTUCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency of periods of extreme weather events, including heat waves that are harmful to arthropod natural enemies. We studied the thermotolerance of the ladybeetle Serangium japonicum Chapin (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), an important native predator of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) in China. Serangium japonicum eggs, first‐ and fourth‐instar larvae, pupae, and adults were subjected to a range of high temperatures (36, 39, 42, 43.5, and 45 °C) at intervals between 15 and 720 min. Survival was compromised and declined sharply for all life stages at temperatures of 42 °C and higher. First instars were the least heat tolerant, and eggs were typically the most resistant. Egg predation by S. japonicum did not differ whether the adult beetles were subjected to either heat shock or starvation first. Heat shock treatments at 36 °C did not impede adult egg consumption, treatments at 39 °C crippled ladybeetle's egg consumption for 8 h following treatment but recovered predatory capacity within 24 h after treatment. However, treatments at 42 °C greatly impaired ladybeetle's predatory capacity. After experiencing heat shock at 39 and 42 °C, adults significantly increased the amount of time they spent resting, which is the probable cause of predation decline after heat exposure. These results demonstrate that short periods of extreme heat exposures have a detrimental impact on S. japonicum survival and predation, but the effect was dependent on duration and life stage. Overall, these findings can help predict population dynamics and success of biological control of whitefly by S. japonicum in a warming world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for more detailed spatial information on soil organic carbon (SOC) for the accurate estimation of SOC stock and earth system models. As it is effective to use environmental factors as auxiliary variables to improve the prediction accuracy of spatially distributed modeling, a combined method (HASM_EF) was developed to predict the spatial pattern of SOC across China using high accuracy surface modeling (HASM), artificial neural network (ANN), and principal component analysis (PCA) to introduce land uses, soil types, climatic factors, topographic attributes, and vegetation cover as predictors. The performance of HASM_EF was compared with ordinary kriging (OK), OK, and HASM combined, respectively, with land uses and soil types (OK_LS and HASM_LS), and regression kriging combined with land uses and soil types (RK_LS). Results showed that HASM_EF obtained the lowest prediction errors and the ratio of performance to deviation (RPD) presented the relative improvements of 89.91%, 63.77%, 55.86%, and 42.14%, respectively, compared to the other four methods. Furthermore, HASM_EF generated more details and more realistic spatial information on SOC. The improved performance of HASM_EF can be attributed to the introduction of more environmental factors, to explicit consideration of the multicollinearity of selected factors and the spatial nonstationarity and nonlinearity of relationships between SOC and selected factors, and to the performance of HASM and ANN. This method may play a useful tool in providing more precise spatial information on soil parameters for global modeling across large areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In China, there are over 170 million people suffering from mental illness. However, there is a lack of a critical review of the policies governing the provision of mental health services. Drawing on the framework of mental health policy developed by the WHO, this article critically examines mental health policies regarding legislation, financing, model of care and delivery, as well as manpower and the training of mental health professionals in China. This analysis raises a number of policy-related questions concerning the lack of community-based psychiatric services, inadequate coverage of mental health services in the rural areas, poor standard of education and an insufficient number of trained mental health professionals, and insufficient protection of the human rights of people with mental illness. The article ends by urging the various levels of governments to make a firm commitment to improve mental health care for people with mental illness in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]