Imaging and Imagining Taiwan: Identity representation and cultural politics

Since the 1990s the issue of identity has been one of the most prominent and hotly-debated topics in Taiwan Studies. A rich corpus of literature has been produced in various fields in the attempt to address this problematic issue, examining questions of Taiwanese identity from political, social and cultural perspectives. Imaging and Imagining Taiwan takes a fresh approach to this important topic, examining Taiwanese identity from a visual perspective and exploring the ways in which the island is presented and imagined. In contrast to those studies that seek to address the issue of identity from an essentialist position, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan offers a new contextualization of identity, investigating the ways in which Taiwan has been represented in films, fine art, advertising, sport, and social spaces at different periods in history. Covering a diverse range of topics, the book aims to capture the fluidity, changeability, fragmentation and dynamism of Taiwanese identity as an imaginary and encompassing whole. Through seven case studies the book focuses on the ways in which Taiwan is represented, how this relates to identity politics, and how the island is imaged and imagined visually, socially, and symbolically. The essays comprising this collection are grouped into three sections, each of which focuses on a particular approach to the topic of Taiwanese identity. The first of these —Colonial Representation —deals with colonial subjectivity and traumatic experience. The second, entitled Imaging Difference, examines cultural practices in film, TV advertisements and fine art, and explores the boundaries between the inside and the outside, the difference marked by the process of othering, and the anxiety and alienation of the excluded. The third section—Identity and Place—focuses on the relationship between identity and the social construction of place, and examines the role of place-making in the new Taiwanese nation-building process. Interrogating the complex issue of Taiwanese identity from various standpoints, the seven contributors write from a range of disciplinary backgrounds (Literature, History, Film Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology and Cultural Studies) and geographical contexts (Taiwan, Europe and America). This combination of fresh perspectives and a range of disciplinary approaches offers a set of diverse yet complementary insights into how Taiwan has been envisioned and imagined, and how the Taiwanese have positioned and identified themselves at different times. By combining different themes and disciplinary approaches together in one publication, Imaging and Imagining Taiwan brings both nuance and depth to the discussion of the representation of Taiwanese identity. The book articulates and examines the complexity of identity, avoiding essentialist approaches to the topic, instead illustrating identity's multi-faceted nature and dynamic messiness. Thus, the book argues, the politics of identity is not only a politics of representation, but also a politics of positioning, whereby identity is formulated both by the construction of sameness and the inscription of difference. The interdisciplinary approach adopted by this book makes the discussion of Taiwanese identity of interest to those both studying and working in a range of subject disciplines, not limited to Taiwan Studies, but also in History, Film, Linguistics, Literary Studies, Nationalism Studies, and Urban Studies

Gut microbiota dysbiosis: The potential mechanisms by which alcohol disrupts gut and brain functions

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a high-risk psychiatric disorder and a key cause of death and disability in individuals. In the development of AUD, there is a connection known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis, where alcohol use disrupts the gut barrier, resulting in changes in intestinal permeability as well as the gut microbiota composition, which in turn impairs brain function and worsens the patient’s mental status and gut activity. Potential mechanisms are explored by which alcohol alters gut and brain function through the effects of the gut microbiota and their metabolites on immune and inflammatory pathways. Alcohol and microbiota dysregulation regulating neurotransmitter release, including DA, 5-HT, and GABA, are also discussed. Thus, based on the above discussion, it is possible to speculate on the gut microbiota as an underlying target for the treatment of diseases associated with alcohol addiction. This review will focus more on how alcohol and gut microbiota affect the structure and function of the gut and brain, specific changes in the composition of the gut microbiota, and some measures to mitigate the changes caused by alcohol exposure. This leads to a potential intervention for alcohol addiction through fecal microbiota transplantation, which could normalize the disruption of gut microbiota after AUD

ICTD: A semi-supervised cell type identification and deconvolution method for multi-omics data

We developed a novel deconvolution method, namely Inference of Cell Types and Deconvolution (ICTD) that addresses the fundamental issue of identifiability and robustness in current tissue data deconvolution problem. ICTD provides substantially new capabilities for omics data based characterization of a tissue microenvironment, including (1) maximizing the resolution in identifying resident cell and sub types that truly exists in a tissue, (2) identifying the most reliable marker genes for each cell type, which are tissue and data set specific, (3) handling the stability problem with co-linear cell types, (4) co-deconvoluting with available matched multi-omics data, and (5) inferring functional variations specific to one or several cell types. ICTD is empowered by (i) rigorously derived mathematical conditions of identifiable cell type and cell type specific functions in tissue transcriptomics data and (ii) a semi supervised approach to maximize the knowledge transfer of cell type and functional marker genes identified in single cell or bulk cell data in the analysis of tissue data, and (iii) a novel unsupervised approach to minimize the bias brought by training data. Application of ICTD on real and single cell simulated tissue data validated that the method has consistently good performance for tissue data coming from different species, tissue microenvironments, and experimental platforms. Other than the new capabilities, ICTD outperformed other state-of-the-art devolution methods on prediction accuracy, the resolution of identifiable cell, detection of unknown sub cell types, and assessment of cell type specific functions. The premise of ICTD also lies in characterizing cell-cell interactions and discovering cell types and prognostic markers that are predictive of clinical outcomes

Water-Soluble Conductive Composite Binder for High-Performance Silicon Anode in Lithium-Ion Batteries

The design of novel and high-performance binder systems is an efficient strategy to resolve the issues caused by huge volume changes of high-capacity anodes. Herein, we develop a novel water-soluble bifunctional binder composed of a conductive polythiophene polymer (PED) and high-adhesive polyacrylic acid (PAA) with abundant polar groups. Compared with conventional conductive additives, the flexible conductive polymer can solve the insufficient electrical contact between active materials and the conductive agent, thus providing the integral conductive network, which is extremely important for stable electrochemical performance. Additionally, the polar groups of this composite binder can form double H-bond interactions with the hydroxyl groups of SiO2 layers onto the silicon surface, keeping an integral electrode structure, which can decrease the continuous formation of SEI films during the repeated cycles. Benefiting from these bifunctional advantages, the Si electrodes with the composite binder delivered a high reversible capacity of 2341 mAh g−1 at 1260 mA g−1, good cycle stability with 88.8% retention of the initial reversible capacity over 100 cycles, and high-rate capacity (1150 mAh g−1 at 4200 mA g−1). This work opens up a new venture to develop multifunctional binders to enable the stable operation of high-capacity anodes for high-energy batteries

Design and Analysis of Microchannels for Heat Dissipation of High-Energy VCSELs Based on Laser 3D Printing

For the problem of high waste heat in the active area of high-power VCSEL arrays and the difficulty of heat dissipation, we took advantage of laser 3D printing technology and combined it with the relevant principles of fluid-structure coupling, three kinds of microchannel heat sink with different structures of pin-fin, honeycomb, and double-layer reflow were designed. The heat dissipation capacity of three kinds of heat sinks to the heat flux density 200 W/cm2 VCSEL array and the influence of the key characteristics of the microchannel on the heat dissipation capacity was studied. The results show that the double-layer reflow microchannel heat sink has the strongest heat dissipation capability, with the minimum thermal resistance value of 0.258 °C/W when the microchannel diameter and the cooling mass flow rate were 0.5 mm and 24 L/h, respectively. The inner wall roughness of the pure copper microchannel prepared by 3D printing technology was 7.08 μm, and the heat sink thermal resistance was reduced by 0.7% compared with the smooth channel wall. The deviation of the microchannel diameter from the design size (500 μm) was −10 μm, and the heat sink thermal resistance was reduced by 0.8% compared to the theoretical value, which shows that the surface roughness and size deviation of the 3D printed microchannel had beneficial effect on enhancing heat dissipation. The actual thermal conductivity of the 3D printed pure copper after heat treatment was 310.4 W/m-K, at which point the thermal resistance was 0.306 °C/W, and the maximum temperature was 35.3 °C, which satisfied the operating temperature range of the chip. This study provides a theoretical basis and implementation method for the fabrication of heat sinks for high-energy VCSEL arrays using laser 3D printing technology

Gut microbiota dysbiosis: the potential mechanisms by which alcohol disrupts gut and brain functions.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a high-risk psychiatric disorder and a key cause of death and disability in individuals. In the development of AUD, there is a connection known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis, where alcohol use disrupts the gut barrier, resulting in changes in intestinal permeability as well as the gut microbiota composition, which in turn impairs brain function and worsens the patient's mental status and gut activity. Potential mechanisms are explored by which alcohol alters gut and brain function through the effects of the gut microbiota and their metabolites on immune and inflammatory pathways. Alcohol and microbiota dysregulation regulating neurotransmitter release, including DA, 5-HT, and GABA, are also discussed. Thus, based on the above discussion, it is possible to speculate on the gut microbiota as an underlying target for the treatment of diseases associated with alcohol addiction. This review will focus more on how alcohol and gut microbiota affect the structure and function of the gut and brain, specific changes in the composition of the gut microbiota, and some measures to mitigate the changes caused by alcohol exposure. This leads to a potential intervention for alcohol addiction through fecal microbiota transplantation, which could normalize the disruption of gut microbiota after AUD

Elevated-temperature tensile deformation and fracture behavior of particle-reinforced PM 8009Al matrix composite

Tensile tests of 8009Al alloy reinforced with SiC and Al₂O₃ particles fabricated by powder metallurgy (PM) were conducted at temperatures of 250–350°C and strain rates of 0.001–0.1 s⁻¹. The ultimate tensile strength and yield strength of the samples decreased while the temperature and strain rate increased. The elongation slightly decreased at first and then increased with growing temperature because of the medium-temperature brittleness of the alloy matrix. When the strain rate was 0.1 s⁻¹, the elongation of the 8009Al/Al₂O₃ composites always decreased with an increase in temperature because of the poorly coordinated deformation and weak bonding between the matrix and Al₂O₃ particles at such a high strain rate. The work-hardening rates of the composites sharply increased to maxima and then decreased rapidly as the strain increased. Meanwhile, the 8009Al/SiCₚ composites displayed superior UTS, YS, elongation, and work-hardening rates than those of the 8009Al/Al₂O₃ composites under the same conditions. Compared to 8009Al alloys reinforced with spherical Al₂O₃ particle, 8009Al alloys reinforced with irregular SiC particles exhibited a better strengthening effect. The fracture mechanism of the 8009Al/SiCₚ composites was mainly ductile, while that of the 8009Al/Al₂O₃ composites was primarily debonding at the matrix–particle interfaces in a brittle mode