Childhood, children and family lives in China

In this chapter we bring into focus those aspects of family lives in China that are concerned with children’s family relationships, and the ways in which such issues are part and parcel of the broader institutionalisation of childhood. We draw on theoretical frameworks in the sociology of childhood and childhood studies (e.g., Prout, 2004; Qvortrup, 2000; Smith and Greene, 2014). Since these theoretical perspectives have developed predominantly in Anglophone literature, some researchers have considered their relevance to, and utility for, China and Chinese childhoods (Goh, 2011; Miao, 2013; Wang YY, 2011, 2014a, 2014b; Zheng, 2012a, 2012b; Ribbens McCarthy et al., 2017). In engaging with existing theories, and applying them to, Chinese children’s family lives, we seek to go beyond any tendency to just ‘add in the missing children’ to existing discussions (Kesby et al., 2006: 186), and give consideration to a variety of cultural and local contexts that characterise China and illuminate why it is necessary to decentre universalist thinking (Jullien, 2008/2014

Organizational Justice and Fairness in China: An Inductive Analysis of the Meaning and Dimensions

Taking an inductive approach, we examined the meaning and dimensionality of the organizational justice construct in the People\u27s Republic of China. By triangulating qualitative data from in-depth interviews and structured open-ended surveys, we found that organizational justice and organizational fairness were perceived as distinct constructs in a Chinese context

Semantically Enhanced Software Traceability Using Deep Learning Techniques

In most safety-critical domains the need for traceability is prescribed by certifying bodies. Trace links are generally created among requirements, design, source code, test cases and other artifacts, however, creating such links manually is time consuming and error prone. Automated solutions use information retrieval and machine learning techniques to generate trace links, however, current techniques fail to understand semantics of the software artifacts or to integrate domain knowledge into the tracing process and therefore tend to deliver imprecise and inaccurate results. In this paper, we present a solution that uses deep learning to incorporate requirements artifact semantics and domain knowledge into the tracing solution. We propose a tracing network architecture that utilizes Word Embedding and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) models to generate trace links. Word embedding learns word vectors that represent knowledge of the domain corpus and RNN uses these word vectors to learn the sentence semantics of requirements artifacts. We trained 360 different configurations of the tracing network using existing trace links in the Positive Train Control domain and identified the Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BI-GRU) as the best model for the tracing task. BI-GRU significantly out-performed state-of-the-art tracing methods including the Vector Space Model and Latent Semantic Indexing.Comment: 2017 IEEE/ACM 39th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE

Bacterial diversity in semen from stallions in three European countries evaluated by 16S sequencing

The microbiome plays a significant role in shaping the health and functioning of the systems it inhabits. The seminal microbiome of stallions has implications for the health of the reproductive tract, sperm quality during preservation and antibiotic use in semen extenders. Diverse bacteria are present on the external genital tract and a mix of commensal microorganisms populates various parts of the reproductive tract, influencing the seminal bacterial content. Other sources of bacteria include the environment, semen collection equipment, and personnel. The bacterial load can adversely affect sperm quality and fertility, particularly in artificial insemination, where semen is extended and stored before use. Antibiotics are frequently used to inhibit bacterial growth, but their effectiveness varies depending on the bacterial strains present. The aim of this study was to assess the bacterial diversity in semen from 37 healthy stallions across three European nations (Germany, Portugal, and Sweden) using 16S sequencing. Semen samples were collected from individual stallions at three AI centers; DNA extraction, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis were performed. Differences in bacterial diversity among the stallions were seen; although bacterial phyla were shared across the regions, differences were observed at the genus level. Climate, husbandry practices, and individual variability likely contribute to these differences. These findings underscore the importance of tailoring antibiotic strategies for semen preservation based on regional bacterial profiles. The study presents a comprehensive approach to understanding the intricacies of the stallion seminal microbiome and its potential implications for reproductive technologies and animal health

Significance and therapeutic implications of endothelial progenitorcells in angiogenic-mediated tumour metastasis

Cancer conveys profound social and economic consequences throughout the world. Metastasis is respon-sible for approximately 90% of cancer-associated mortality and, when it occurs, cancer becomes almostincurable. During metastatic dissemination, cancer cells pass through a series of complex steps includingthe establishment of tumour-associated angiogenesis. The human endothelial progenitor cells (hEPCs)are a cell population derived from the bone marrow which are required for endothelial tubulogenesisand neovascularization. They also express abundant inflammatory cytokines and paracrine angiogenicfactors. Clinically hEPCs are highly correlated with relapse, disease progression, metastasis and treatmentresponse in malignancies such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer and non-small-cell lung carcinoma. It hasbecome evident that the hEPCs are involved in the angiogenesis-required progression and metastasis oftumours. However, it is not clear in what way the signalling pathways, controlling the normal cellularfunction of human BM-derived EPCs, are hijacked by aggressive tumour cells to facilitate tumour metas-tasis. In addition, the actual roles of hEPCs in tumour angiogenesis-mediated metastasis are not wellcharacterised. In this paper we reviewed the clinical relevance of the hEPCs with cancer diagnosis, pro-gression and prognosis. We further summarised the effects of tumour microenvironment on the hEPCsand underlying mechanisms. We also hypothesized the roles of altered hEPCs in tumour angiogenesisand metastasis. We hope this review may enhance our understanding of the interaction between hEPCsand tumour cells thus aiding the development of cellular-targeted anti-tumour therapies