Reggio Emilia Inspiration for Early Education in China: The Case of Zhejiang Province

The progressive spirit of the Reggio Emilia experience belongs not to Italy alone, but to the whole world. In this paper we discuss how it is being received in the Zhejiang Province in China, as an example of its promise and potential to influence early childhood reform. In this way, we hope to contribute to international dialogue about Reggio-inspired education and to increase understanding about how its principles and practices are spreading to China, a vast and complex society with non-Western cultural-political traditions and institutions

Reggio Emilia Inspiration for Early Education in China: The Case of Zhejiang Province.

The progressive spirit of the Reggio Emilia experience belongs not to Italy alone, but to the whole world. In this paper we would like to discuss how it is being received in the Zhejiang Province in China, as an example of its promise and potential to influence early childhood reform. In this way, we hope to contribute to international dialogue about Reggio-inspired education and to increase understanding about how its principles and practices are spreading to China, a vast and complex society with non-Western cultural-political traditions and institutions

Reggio Emilia Inspiration for Early Education in China: The Case of Zhejiang Province

The progressive spirit of the Reggio Emilia experience belongs not to Italy alone, but to the whole world. In this paper we discuss how it is being received in the Zhejiang Province in China, as an example of its promise and potential to influence early childhood reform. In this way, we hope to contribute to international dialogue about Reggio-inspired education and to increase understanding about how its principles and practices are spreading to China, a vast and complex society with non-Western cultural-political traditions and institutions

Essays in Monetary Policy

This dissertation presents three chapters addressing issues pertaining to monetary policy, information, and central bank communication. The first chapter studies optimal monetary policy in an environment where policy actions provide a signal of economic fundamentals to imperfectly informed agents. I derive the optimal discretionary policy in closed form and show that, in contrast to the perfect information case, the signaling channel leads the policymaker to be tougher on inflation. The strength of the signaling effect of policy depends on relative uncertainty levels. As the signaling effect strengthens, the optimal policy under discretion approaches that under commitment to a forward-looking linear rule, thereby decreasing the stabilization bias. This contributes to the central bank finding it optimal to withhold its additional information from private agents. Under a general linear policy rule, inflation and output forecasts can respond positively to a positive interest rate surprise when the signaling channel is strong. This positive response is the opposite of what standard perfect information New Keynesian models predict and it matches empirical patterns found by previous studies. Chapter 2 provides new empirical evidence supporting the predictions of the model presented in Chapter 1. More specifically, I find that the responses of inflation forecasts to interest rate surprises is especially positive when there is greater uncertainty regarding the previous forecast. Finally, Chapter 3 examines whether communications by the Federal Open Market Committee might have the ability to influence financial market responses to macroeconomic news. In particular, I am able to relate labor-related word use in FOMC statements and meeting minutes to the amount by which interest rates' response to labor-related news exceeds their response to other news.Economic

Enhanced fed-batch production, partial purification, characterization of jenseniin P, and discovery of a new bacteriocin-like substance produced by Propionibacterium jensenii B1264

Propionibacterium jensenii B1264 was discovered to inhibit various Propionibacterium, Lactobacilli, and Lactococcus strains based on a deferred agar spot-on-lawn detection method in previous research, in which Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. lactis ATCC 4797 was the most susceptible one. The antimicrobial substance(s) was named jenseniin P and L. delbrueckii ssp. lactis ATCC 4797 was thereafter used as the indicator strain in subsequent research. In current study, production of jenseniin P was significantly enhanced via an improved fed-batch fermentation method and was partially purified using reverse phase silica gel (C18). This partially purified jenseniin P was inactivated by trypsin, pronase, and proteinase K. The molecular weight of jenseniin P was determined to be between 4.5 and 5kDa. Jenseniin P was characterized as being pH stable with partial inactivation at 100°C. Jenseniin P was determined to be bactericidal, causing 2.38 log reduction within 60min at room temperature. A new bacteriocin-like inhibitory substance (BLIS) produced by P. jensenii B1264 was discovered in this study. The new BLIS inhibited the growth of Propionibacterium acnes ATCC 6919 but not the previously used indicator strain L. lactis ATCC 4797. The new discovered BLIS was recovered from the 30% acetonitrile elution fraction of C18 resin silica column purification process. This new BLIS might present new potential application in the pharmaceutical industry for acne treatment

MIMO-DoAnet: Multi-channel Input and Multiple Outputs DoA Network with Unknown Number of Sound Sources

Recent neural network based Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation algorithms have performed well on unknown number of sound sources scenarios. These algorithms are usually achieved by mapping the multi-channel audio input to the single output (i.e. overall spatial pseudo-spectrum (SPS) of all sources), that is called MISO. However, such MISO algorithms strongly depend on empirical threshold setting and the angle assumption that the angles between the sound sources are greater than a fixed angle. To address these limitations, we propose a novel multi-channel input and multiple outputs DoA network called MIMO-DoAnet. Unlike the general MISO algorithms, MIMO-DoAnet predicts the SPS coding of each sound source with the help of the informative spatial covariance matrix. By doing so, the threshold task of detecting the number of sound sources becomes an easier task of detecting whether there is a sound source in each output, and the serious interaction between sound sources disappears during inference stage. Experimental results show that MIMO-DoAnet achieves relative 18.6% and absolute 13.3%, relative 34.4% and absolute 20.2% F1 score improvement compared with the MISO baseline system in 3, 4 sources scenes. The results also demonstrate MIMO-DoAnet alleviates the threshold setting problem and solves the angle assumption problem effectively.Comment: Accepted by Interspeech 202

Studies on the therapeutic effects of three TCM methods on steroid-induced osteonecrosis of femoral head

Purpose: To determine the therapeutic effects of kidney yang-tonifying, blood-activating and phlegmeliminating methods on steroid-induced osteonecrosis of femoral head (SONFH), and their mechanisms of action.Methods: A rabbit model of SONFH was established. Six rabbit groups were used: control, SONFH (given normal saline); tongluo shenggu group, kidney-tonifying group, blood-activating group, and phlegm--eliminating group, which received tongluo shenggu capsule (0.28 g/kg/day), yougui yin (YGY, 2.52 g/kg/day), taohong siwu decoction (TSD, 2.38 g/kg/day) and linggui zhugan decoction (LZD,1.54 g/kg/day), respectively, for 8 weeks. The following serum indices were assayed on the 2nd, 4th and 8th weeks: total cholesterol, triglycerides, thromboxane B2 (TXB2), 6-keto-PGF1α, osteoprotegerin (OPG), and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa-Β ligand (RANKL). At the end of the 8th week, mRNA levels of OPG, BMP-2 and VEGF were assayed using real-time fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RTF-qPCR).Results: Serum OPG in the kidney-tonifying group was increased, while its RANKL was decreased on the 2nd week, but these parameters, along with mRNA of OPG and BMP-2, reached normal levels at the 8th week (p <0.05). The TXB2 of blood-activating group was decreased, while its 6-keto-PGF1 level was increased at the 2nd week, but both of them attained normal levels at the 8th week, along with VEGF mRNA. Serum total cholesterol, triglycerides and TXB2 in the phlegm-eliminating group were decreased, while its 6-keto-PGF1α was increased at the 2nd week, but the levels of serum total cholesterol and triglycerides were normalized at the 8th week (p <0.05). Histological examination showed increases in bone trabeculae and bone marrow cells, while the proliferation of fat cells was decreased in kidney-tonifying, blood-activating and phlegm-eliminating groups.Conclusion: These findings suggest that the therapeutic effects of the three different TCM methods on SONFH involve different mechanisms. Keywords: Steroid-induced osteonecrosis, Femoral head, Yougui yin, Taohong siwu, Linggui zhugan decoction, Kidney-tonifying yang, Phleg