The Reception of German Expressionist Drama in China

Expressionist Drama has been an important phenomenon of Modernist Theatre. In China, however, not enough attention has been paid to it in the academic field. In the present article different trends in the reception of German expressionist drama in China from the Chinese May Fourth period to the 1940s will be discussed. Broadly, there have been two basic tendencies in the reception of German expressionist drama in Chinese drama. A part of Chinese authors mainly focused on the class struggle for political and revolutionary purposes, but did not absorb deeper features of the genre. Other Chinese playwrights interested in (German) Expressionist Drama discussed in their work problems of social reality touching on spiritual aspects of people’s individual lives. At the same time the Chinese reception of expressionist drama can also serve as an introduction to Chinese contemporary drama as a whole

Contemporary Drama and Theatre in Estonia. Conversing with Drama Directors Lembit Peterson, Tiit Palu and Ivar Põllu

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Investigations on Performance of an Auto-Cascade Absorption Refrigeration System Operating with Mixed Refrigerants

Waste heat can be well utilized in absorption refrigeration systems. The auto-cascade absorption refrigeration system couldreach a lower temperature than traditional one because the non-azeotropic mixed refrigerants were used. In this paper, performances of an auto-cascade absorption refrigeration with R23/R134a/DMF (Dimethylformamide) as the working substance was analysed. Theoretical analysing results showed that, to some extent, the COP couldbe increased when the low pressure of the system decreased or the high pressure increased. The reasonable high pressure was the high turning point pressure, and reasonable low pressure was the low turning point pressure. The COP of the system monotonously increased with the increase of the mole fraction of R23. The lowest R23 mole fraction one should be the most promising

Colo-SCRL: Self-Supervised Contrastive Representation Learning for Colonoscopic Video Retrieval

Colonoscopic video retrieval, which is a critical part of polyp treatment, has great clinical significance for the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer. However, retrieval models trained on action recognition datasets usually produce unsatisfactory retrieval results on colonoscopic datasets due to the large domain gap between them. To seek a solution to this problem, we construct a large-scale colonoscopic dataset named Colo-Pair for medical practice. Based on this dataset, a simple yet effective training method called Colo-SCRL is proposed for more robust representation learning. It aims to refine general knowledge from colonoscopies through masked autoencoder-based reconstruction and momentum contrast to improve retrieval performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to employ the contrastive learning paradigm for medical video retrieval. Empirical results show that our method significantly outperforms current state-of-the-art methods in the colonoscopic video retrieval task.Comment: Accepted by ICME 202

Towards Discriminative Representation with Meta-learning for Colonoscopic Polyp Re-Identification

Colonoscopic Polyp Re-Identification aims to match the same polyp from a large gallery with images from different views taken using different cameras and plays an important role in the prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer in computer-aided diagnosis. However, traditional methods for object ReID directly adopting CNN models trained on the ImageNet dataset usually produce unsatisfactory retrieval performance on colonoscopic datasets due to the large domain gap. Additionally, these methods neglect to explore the potential of self-discrepancy among intra-class relations in the colonoscopic polyp dataset, which remains an open research problem in the medical community. To solve this dilemma, we propose a simple but effective training method named Colo-ReID, which can help our model to learn more general and discriminative knowledge based on the meta-learning strategy in scenarios with fewer samples. Based on this, a dynamic Meta-Learning Regulation mechanism called MLR is introduced to further boost the performance of polyp re-identification. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to leverage the meta-learning paradigm instead of traditional machine learning to effectively train deep models in the task of colonoscopic polyp re-identification. Empirical results show that our method significantly outperforms current state-of-the-art methods by a clear margin.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2307.1062

Deep Multimodal Fusion for Generalizable Person Re-identification

Person re-identification plays a significant role in realistic scenarios due to its various applications in public security and video surveillance. Recently, leveraging the supervised or semi-unsupervised learning paradigms, which benefits from the large-scale datasets and strong computing performance, has achieved a competitive performance on a specific target domain. However, when Re-ID models are directly deployed in a new domain without target samples, they always suffer from considerable performance degradation and poor domain generalization. To address this challenge, in this paper, we propose DMF, a Deep Multimodal Fusion network for the general scenarios on person re-identification task, where rich semantic knowledge is introduced to assist in feature representation learning during the pre-training stage. On top of it, a multimodal fusion strategy is introduced to translate the data of different modalities into the same feature space, which can significantly boost generalization capability of Re-ID model. In the fine-tuning stage, a realistic dataset is adopted to fine-tine the pre-trained model for distribution alignment with real-world. Comprehensive experiments on benchmarks demonstrate that our proposed method can significantly outperform previous domain generalization or meta-learning methods. Our source code will also be publicly available at https://github.com/JeremyXSC/DMF

Novel Graphene Biosensor Based on the Functionalization of Multifunctional Nano-BSA for the Highly Sensitive Detection of Cancer Biomarker

Abstract A simple, convenient, and highly sensitive bio-interface for graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs) based on multifunctional nano-denatured bovine serum albumin (nano-dBSA) functionalization was developed to target cancer biomarkers. The novel graphene–protein bioelectronic interface was constructed by heating to denature native BSA on the graphene substrate surface. The formed nano-dBSA film served as the cross-linker to immobilize monoclonal antibody against carcinoembryonic antigen (anti-CEA mAb) on the graphene channel activated by EDC and Sulfo-NHS. The nano-dBSA film worked as a self-protecting layer of graphene to prevent surface contamination by lithographic processing. The improved GFET biosensor exhibited good specificity and high sensitivity toward the target at an ultralow concentration of 337.58 fg mL−1. The electrical detection of the binding of CEA followed the Hill model for ligand–receptor interaction, indicating the negative binding cooperativity between CEA and anti-CEA mAb with a dissociation constant of 6.82 × 10−10 M. The multifunctional nano-dBSA functionalization can confer a new function to graphene-like 2D nanomaterials and provide a promising bio-functionalization method for clinical application in biosensing, nanomedicine, and drug delivery

6,7-seco-ent-kauranoids derived from oridonin as potential anticancer agents

Structurally unique 6,7-seco-ent-kaurenes, which are widely distributed in the genus Isodon, have attracted considerable attention because of their antitumor activities. Previously, a convenient conversion of commercially available oridonin (1) to 6,7-seco-ent-kaurenes was developed. Herein, several novel spiro-lactone-type ent-kaurene derivatives bearing various substituents at the C-1 and C-14 positions were further designed and synthesized from the natural product oridonin. Moreover, a number of seven-membered C-ring-expanded 6,7-seco-ent-kaurenes were also identified for the first time. It was observed that most of the spiro-lactone-type ent-kaurenes tested markedly inhibited the proliferation of cancer cells, with an IC50 value as low as 0.55 μM. An investigation on its mechanism of action showed that the representative compound 7b affected the cell cycle and induced apoptosis at a low micromolar level in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. Furthermore, compound 7b inhibited liver tumor growth in an in vivo mouse model and exhibited no observable toxic effects. Collectively, the results warrant further preclinical investigations of these spiro-lactone-type ent-kaurenes as potential novel anticancer agents

Circulating Mucosal-Associated Invariant T Cells in a Large Cohort of Healthy Chinese Individuals From Newborn to Elderly

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, which are enriched in human blood and express a semi-invariant TCR chain, play important roles in conditions such as infectious diseases and cancer. The influence of age on levels and functional characteristics of circulating MAIT cells have not been fully addressed. Here we have collected blood samples from a large cohort of healthy Chinese individuals from newborn (cord blood) to the elderly and assessed the levels of circulating MAIT cells as well as their phenotype, activation and apoptosis status, and cytokine expression profiles after in vitro stimulation. We found that the frequencies of circulating MAIT cells gradually increased in blood from newborns as they progressed into adulthood (20–40 years old) but then decreased during further progression toward old age (>60 years old). The lowered numbers of circulating MAIT cells in the elderly was correlated with a gradual increase of apoptosis. A majority of circulating MAIT cells expressed the chemokine receptors CCR5 and CCR6, and most also expressed CD8 and CD45RO. Few expressed CD69 in cord blood, but the frequency increased with age. Upon in vitro activation with PMA plus ionomycin or IL12 plus IL18, fewer MAIT cells isolated from the young adult group expressed IFN-γ, IL17A and Granzyme B then cells from other age groups while the proportion of cells that expressed TNF-α was similar. Taken together, our data provide information for guiding the assessment of normal levels and phenotypes of MAIT cells at different ages in healthy individuals and patients

Redundant Mechanisms Recruit Actin into the Contractile Ring in Silkworm Spermatocytes

Cytokinesis is powered by the contraction of actomyosin filaments within the newly assembled contractile ring. Microtubules are a spindle component that is essential for the induction of cytokinesis. This induction could use central spindle and/or astral microtubules to stimulate cortical contraction around the spindle equator (equatorial stimulation). Alternatively, or in addition, induction could rely on astral microtubules to relax the polar cortex (polar relaxation). To investigate the relationship between microtubules, cortical stiffness, and contractile ring assembly, we used different configurations of microtubules to manipulate the distribution of actin in living silkworm spermatocytes. Mechanically repositioned, noninterdigitating microtubules can induce redistribution of actin at any region of the cortex by locally excluding cortical actin filaments. This cortical flow of actin promotes regional relaxation while increasing tension elsewhere (normally at the equatorial cortex). In contrast, repositioned interdigitating microtubule bundles use a novel mechanism to induce local stimulation of contractility anywhere within the cortex; at the antiparallel plus ends of central spindle microtubules, actin aggregates are rapidly assembled de novo and transported laterally to the equatorial cortex. Relaxation depends on microtubule dynamics but not on RhoA activity, whereas stimulation depends on RhoA activity but is largely independent of microtubule dynamics. We conclude that polar relaxation and equatorial stimulation mechanisms redundantly supply actin for contractile ring assembly, thus increasing the fidelity of cleavage