Categorization of Chinese Character Radicals and Instruction of Chinese Character for Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language

汉字历来是对外汉语教学的难点，尤其对 非汉字文化圈的汉语习得者来说更是如此。文 章针对汉字教学的难点，根据汉字的特点，基 于认知语言学“概念”和“范畴化”的认知规 律，从汉字的表义部首出发，旨在设计一套以 表义部首作为“典型属性”，以部首所从属汉 字作为“原型”、“典型成员”和“非典型成 员”的层级系统，为汉字学习者更系统、更有 理据地掌握汉字提供一种教学模式，并为以后 网络化汉字教学提供一定的借鉴。 Chinese characters have always been the difficulty of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, especially for Chinese learners of non-Chinese cultural circles. Based on the characteristics of Chinese characters and the cognitive law of "linguistic concept" and "categorization" of Chinese characters, the article aims to design a set of radicals "Typical attribute", with the radicals as the "prototype", "typical members" and "atypical members" of the hierarchical system for Chinese learners more systematic and more reasonable to master the Chinese characters to provide a teaching model, and After the teaching of Chinese characters to provide some reference

Privacy-Preserving Computation over Genetic Data: HLA Matching and so on

Genetic data is an indispensable part of big data, promoting the advancement of life science and biomedicine. Yet, highly private genetic data also brings concerns about privacy risks in data shar- ing. In our work, we adopt the cryptographic prim- itive Secure Function Evaluation (SFE) to address this problem. A secure SFE scheme allows insti- tutions and hospitals to compute a function while preserving the privacy of their input data, and each participant knows nothing but their own input and the final result. In our work, we present privacy-preserving solutions for Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) matching and two popular biostatistics tests: Chi-squared test and odds ratio test. We also show that our protocols are compatible with multiple databases simultaneously and could feasibly han- dle larger-scale data up to genome-wide level. This approach may serve as a new way to jointly analyze distributed and restricted genetic data among insti- tutions and hospitals. Meanwhile, it can potentially be extended to other genetic analysis algorithms, allowing individuals to analyze their own genomes without endangering data privacy

Metagenomic Insights Into a Cellulose-Rich Niche Reveal Microbial Cooperation in Cellulose Degradation

BackgroundCellulose is the most abundant organic polymer mainly produced by plants in nature. It is insoluble and highly resistant to enzymatic hydrolysis. Cellulolytic microorganisms that are capable of producing a battery of related enzymes play an important role in recycling cellulose-rich plant biomass. Effective cellulose degradation by multiple synergic microorganisms has been observed within a defined microbial consortium in the lab culture. Metagenomic analysis may enable us to understand how microbes cooperate in cellulose degradation in a more complex microbial free-living ecosystem in nature.ResultsHere we investigated a typical cellulose-rich and alkaline niche where constituent microbes survive through inter-genera cooperation in cellulose utilization. The niche has been generated in an ancient paper-making plant, which has served as an isolated habitat for over 7 centuries. Combined amplicon-based sequencing of 16S rRNA genes and metagenomic sequencing, our analyses showed a microbial composition with 6 dominant genera including Cloacibacterium, Paludibacter, Exiguobacterium, Acetivibrio, Tolumonas, and Clostridium in this cellulose-rich niche; the composition is distinct from other cellulose-rich niches including a modern paper mill, bamboo soil, wild giant panda guts, and termite hindguts. In total, 11,676 genes of 96 glucoside hydrolase (GH) families, as well as 1,744 genes of carbohydrate transporters were identified, and modeling analysis of two representative genes suggested that these glucoside hydrolases likely evolved to adapt to alkaline environments. Further reconstruction of the microbial draft genomes by binning the assembled contigs predicted a mutualistic interaction between the dominant microbes regarding the cellulolytic process in the niche, with Paludibacter and Clostridium acting as helpers that produce endoglucanases, and Cloacibacterium, Exiguobacterium, Acetivibrio, and Tolumonas being beneficiaries that cross-feed on the cellodextrins by oligosaccharide uptake.ConclusionThe analysis of the key genes involved in cellulose degradation and reconstruction of the microbial draft genomes by binning the assembled contigs predicted a mutualistic interaction based on public goods regarding the cellulolytic process in the niche, suggesting that in the studied microbial consortium, free-living bacteria likely survive on each other by acquisition and exchange of metabolites. Knowledge gained from this study will facilitate the design of complex microbial communities with a better performance in industrial bioprocesses

Towards Semantic e-Science for Traditional Chinese Medicine

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent advances in Web and information technologies with the increasing decentralization of organizational structures have resulted in massive amounts of information resources and domain-specific services in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The massive volume and diversity of information and services available have made it difficult to achieve seamless and interoperable e-Science for knowledge-intensive disciplines like TCM. Therefore, information integration and service coordination are two major challenges in e-Science for TCM. We still lack sophisticated approaches to integrate scientific data and services for TCM e-Science.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present a comprehensive approach to build dynamic and extendable e-Science applications for knowledge-intensive disciplines like TCM based on semantic and knowledge-based techniques. The semantic e-Science infrastructure for TCM supports large-scale database integration and service coordination in a virtual organization. We use domain ontologies to integrate TCM database resources and services in a semantic cyberspace and deliver a semantically superior experience including browsing, searching, querying and knowledge discovering to users. We have developed a collection of semantic-based toolkits to facilitate TCM scientists and researchers in information sharing and collaborative research.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Semantic and knowledge-based techniques are suitable to knowledge-intensive disciplines like TCM. It's possible to build on-demand e-Science system for TCM based on existing semantic and knowledge-based techniques. The presented approach in the paper integrates heterogeneous distributed TCM databases and services, and provides scientists with semantically superior experience to support collaborative research in TCM discipline.</p

Structural Based Screening of Antiandrogen Targeting Activation Function-2 Binding Site

Androgen receptor (AR) plays a critical role in the development and progression of prostate cancer (PCa). Current antiandrogen therapies induce resistant mutations at the hormone binding pocket (HBP) that convert the activity of these agents from antagonist to agonist. Thus, there is a high unmet medical need for the development of novel antiandrogens which circumvent mutation-based resistance. Herein, through the analysis of AR structures with ligands binding to the activation function-2 (AF2) site, we built a combined pharmacophore model. In silico screening and the subsequent biological evaluation lead to the discovery of the novel lead compound IMB-A6 that binds to the AF2 site, which inhibits the activity of either wild-type (WT) or resistance mutated ARs. Our work demonstrates structure-based drug design is an efficient strategy to discover new antiandrogens, and provides a new class of small molecular antiandrogens for the development of novel treatment agents against PCa

Buchnera breaks the specialization of the cotton-specialized aphid (Aphis gossypii) by providing nutrition through zucchini

The cotton aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover, is a species of polyphagous aphid with many biotypes, and its host transfer has always been the focus of research on the control of cotton aphid. An important factor affecting aphid specialization is the nutritional association with microbial symbionts that provide the host with nutrients lacking in the diet. We analyzed the microbial composition and biodiversity of reared on zucchini for 10 generations (T1–T10) and cotton as a control (CK), by high-throughput Illumina sequencing of 16S ribosomal RNA genes. The findings showed that the change in plant hosts decreased the richness and variety of microbial species. Regardless of whether the plant host is altered or not, Proteobacteria and Firmicutes are the predominate phyla in cotton-specialized aphid. Additionally, cotton-specialized aphids that live in zucchini had considerably lower relative abundances of non-dominant phyla (Bacteroidetes) than cotton hosts. At the genus level the dominant communities were Buchnera, Acinetobacter, and Arsenophonus. The relative abundance of Buchnera was significantly higher in aphids reared on zucchini than those on cotton, whereas the opposite was observed for Acinetobacter, as well as for some non-dominant communities (Stenotrophomonas, Pseudomons, Flavobacterium, Novosphingobium). Collectively, this study clarifies the dynamic changes of symbiotic bacteria in cotton-specialized aphids reared on zucchini for multiple generations. Among them, Buchnera is crucial for the cotton-specialized aphid to get nutrients during the transfer of the host and has a favorable impact on the colonization of cotton-specialized aphid populations on zucchini hosts. It not only enriches our understanding of the relationship between the bacterial microbiota of aphids and their adaptability to new hosts, zucchini, but also expands the current body of research on the mechanisms underlying the host shifting ability of cotton-specialized aphids

Soil diazotrophic abundance, diversity, and community assembly mechanisms significantly differ between glacier riparian wetlands and their adjacent alpine meadows

Global warming can trigger dramatic glacier area shrinkage and change the flux of glacial runoff, leading to the expansion and subsequent retreat of riparian wetlands. This elicits the interconversion of riparian wetlands and their adjacent ecosystems (e.g., alpine meadows), probably significantly impacting ecosystem nitrogen input by changing soil diazotrophic communities. However, the soil diazotrophic community differences between glacial riparian wetlands and their adjacent ecosystems remain largely unexplored. Here, soils were collected from riparian wetlands and their adjacent alpine meadows at six locations from glacier foreland to lake mouth along a typical Tibetan glacial river in the Namtso watershed. The abundance and diversity of soil diazotrophs were determined by real-time PCR and amplicon sequencing based on nifH gene. The soil diazotrophic community assembly mechanisms were analyzed via iCAMP, a recently developed null model-based method. The results showed that compared with the riparian wetlands, the abundance and diversity of the diazotrophs in the alpine meadow soils significantly decreased. The soil diazotrophic community profiles also significantly differed between the riparian wetlands and alpine meadows. For example, compared with the alpine meadows, the relative abundance of chemoheterotrophic and sulfate-respiration diazotrophs was significantly higher in the riparian wetland soils. In contrast, the diazotrophs related to ureolysis, photoautotrophy, and denitrification were significantly enriched in the alpine meadow soils. The iCAMP analysis showed that the assembly of soil diazotrophic community was mainly controlled by drift and dispersal limitation. Compared with the riparian wetlands, the assembly of the alpine meadow soil diazotrophic community was more affected by dispersal limitation and homogeneous selection. These findings suggest that the conversion of riparian wetlands and alpine meadows can significantly alter soil diazotrophic community and probably the ecosystem nitrogen input mechanisms, highlighting the enormous effects of climate change on alpine ecosystems