Chinese Diaspora as People of Their Own Countries and Chinese Philosophy as World Philosophy

In this essay, we will follow Tang Junyi’s lead in exploring issues related to Chinese diaspora and Chinese philosophy. While we largely endorse Tang’s call for overseas Chinese to establish themselves in their adopted lands, we will argue for a more nuanced view on the identity of Chinese people outside China: they are not marginalized individuals scattered out of “homeland” China, rather they are people legitimately established in their own respective countries. In this connection, we will also advance a view of future Chinese philosophy as a world philosophy that takes roots in China as well as in the world at large. In our view, although Chinese immigrant thinkers in the past century have played a major role in promoting Chinese philosophy outside China, the importance of such a role is likely to decline along with the success of Chinese philosophy becoming a world philosophy

China’s Meritocratic Examinations and the Ideal of Virtuous Talents

Emphasis on both moral character and talent in selecting government officials has been an intrinsic part of China’s meritocratic tradition. From early on, mainstream Chinese political philosophy, particularly of the Confucian heritage, has promoted such an ideal. This quest, however, has also encountered perennial challenges in practice. In this chapter, we examine in historic context the ideal and the practice of integrating moral character with talent in selecting government officials. We will show that, despite difficulties, searching for virtuous talents in China today has evolved into the most comprehensive and most sophisticated form in history. The first section of this chapter retrieves the history of China’s civil examinations and its problems. The second section investigates recent evolutions of China’s public servant recruitment as a stepping stone into officialdom. The third section focuses on China’s recent reform on selecting government officials. Finally, we examine to what extent the reformed system causes corruption in China.Accepted versio

Coarse-Super-Resolution-Fine Network (CoSF-Net): A Unified End-to-End Neural Network for 4D-MRI with Simultaneous Motion Estimation and Super-Resolution

Four-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (4D-MRI) is an emerging technique for tumor motion management in image-guided radiation therapy (IGRT). However, current 4D-MRI suffers from low spatial resolution and strong motion artifacts owing to the long acquisition time and patients' respiratory variations; these limitations, if not managed properly, can adversely affect treatment planning and delivery in IGRT. Herein, we developed a novel deep learning framework called the coarse-super-resolution-fine network (CoSF-Net) to achieve simultaneous motion estimation and super-resolution in a unified model. We designed CoSF-Net by fully excavating the inherent properties of 4D-MRI, with consideration of limited and imperfectly matched training datasets. We conducted extensive experiments on multiple real patient datasets to verify the feasibility and robustness of the developed network. Compared with existing networks and three state-of-the-art conventional algorithms, CoSF-Net not only accurately estimated the deformable vector fields between the respiratory phases of 4D-MRI but also simultaneously improved the spatial resolution of 4D-MRI with enhanced anatomic features, yielding 4D-MR images with high spatiotemporal resolution

Nomogram for Predicting the Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Young Adults ≤45 Years of Age with Acute Coronary Syndrome

Background: A non-invasive predictive model has not been established to identify the severity of coronary lesions in young adults with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Methods: In this retrospective study, 1088 young adults (≤45 years of age) first diagnosed with ACS who underwent coronary angiography were enrolled and randomized 7:3 into training or testing datasets. To build the nomogram, we determined optimal predictors of coronary lesion severity with the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator and Random Forest algorithm. The predictive accuracy of the nomogram was assessed with calibration plots, and performance was assessed with the receiver operating characteristic curve, decision curve analysis and the clinical impact curve. Results: Seven predictors were identified and integrated into the nomogram: age, hypertension, diabetes, body mass index, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, mean platelet volume and C-reactive protein. Receiver operating characteristic analyses demonstrated the nomogram’s good discriminatory performance in predicting severe coronary artery disease in young patients with ACS in the training (area under the curve 0.683, 95% confidence interval [0.645–0.721]) and testing (area under the curve 0.670, 95% confidence interval [0.611–0.729]) datasets. The nomogram was also well-calibrated in both the training (P=0.961) and testing (P=0.302) datasets. Decision curve analysis and the clinical impact curve indicated the model’s good clinical utility. Conclusion: A simple and practical nomogram for predicting coronary artery disease severity in young adults≤45 years of age with ACS was established and validated

Gene Delivery to Nonhuman Primate Preimplantation Embryos Using Recombinant Adeno-Associated Virus

Delivery of genome editing tools to mammalian zygotes has revolutionized animal modeling. However, the mechanical delivery method to introduce genes and proteins to zygotes remains a challenge for some animal species that are important in biomedical research. Here, an approach to achieve gene delivery and genome editing in nonhuman primate embryos is presented by infecting zygotes with recombinant adeno-associated viruses (rAAVs). Together with previous reports from the authors of this paper and others, this approach is potentially applicable to a broad range of mammals. In addition to genome editing and animal modeling, this rAAV-based method can facilitate gene function studies in early-stage embryos

Metformin Treatment is Associated with Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes and Chronic Heart Failure in the Intensive Care Unit: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Objective: Patients receiving intensive care often have diabetes mellitus (DM) together with chronic heart failure (CHF). In these patients, the use of metformin in intensive care is controversial. This study was aimed at assessing the mortality rates of patients with DM and CHF treated with metformin. Methods: The Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care database was used to identify patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and CHF. A 90-day mortality comparison was conducted between patients who were and were not administered metformin. Propensity score matching analysis and multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression were used to ensure the robustness of our results. Results: A total of 2153 patients (180 receiving metformin and 1973 not receiving metformin) with T2DM and CHF were included in the study. The 90-day mortality rates were 30.5% (601/1971) and 5.5% (10/182) in the non-metformin and metformin groups, respectively. In the propensity score matching analyses, metformin use was associated with a 71% lower 90-day mortality (hazard ratio, 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.14–0.59; P < 0.001). The results were insensitive to change when sensitivity analyses were performed. Conclusion: Metformin treatment may decrease the mortality risk in critically ill patients with T2DM and CHF in the intensive care unit

Arsonium and phosphonium-functionalized gold nanoparticles for mitochondria targeted therapeutics

This thesis presents a body of original research describing the synthesis, characterisation and biological properties of novel arsonium- and phosphonium- alkylthiosulfate zwitterions and thioacetate salts and gold nanoparticles functionalized with triphenylarsoniumpropylthiolate ligands. Chapter 1 presents a systematic literature review of the preparation of functionalized gold nanoparticles, their biomedical properties, the biological applications of phosphonium and arsonium ions and phosphonium-functionalized nanomaterials. Details of the analytical methods employed to characterize all the compounds produced in this study are outlined in chapter 2. Chapter 3 reports the synthesis of the triphenylarsoniopropylthiosulfate zwitterion and ω- thioacetylpropyl(triphenyl)arsonium bromide salt. Both compounds have been characterized spectroscopically and by single crystal X-ray diffraction. The thiosulfate group of the triphenylarsoniopropylthiosulfate zwitterion and the thioacetate group of the ω- thioacetylpropyl(triphenyl)arsonium salt undergo reductive cleavage, forming the corresponding triphenylarsoniumpropylthiolate ions that attach to the surface of gold in a modification of the established Brust-Schiffrin method for preparing gold nanoparticles. TEM studies show the triphenylarsonium-functionalized gold nanoparticles to be spherical with diameters of c.a. 3nm. The presence of the triphenylarsonium groups has been confirmed by Raman and XPS spectroscopy and mass spectrometry. It also describes the synthesis, characterisation and biological properties of a family of phosphoniopropylthiosulfate zwitterions and ω-thioacetylpropyl(triaryl)phosphonium salts derived from tri(4-methoxyphenyl)phosphine, tri(2,6-dimethoxyphenyl)phosphine and tri(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphine. The IC50 values of the triphenylarsoniopropylthiosulfate zwitterion, ω-thioacetylpropyl- (triphenyl)arsonium bromide salt, triphenylarsonium-functionalized gold nanoparticles and family of phosphoniopropylthiosulfate zwitterions and ω- thioacetylpropyl(triaryl)phosphonium salts derived from tri(4-methoxyphenyl)phosphine, tri(2,6-dimethoxyphenyl)phosphine and tri(2,4,6-trimethoxyphenyl)phosphine have been determined against PC3 prostate cancer cells using MTT and CellTiter-Glo assays and are reported in Chapter 4. The uptake of the triphenylarsonium-functionalized gold nanoparticles by PC3 and Human Fibroblast cells has also been determined by ICP-OES spectroscopy

The ENCODE Imputation Challenge: a critical assessment of methods for cross-cell type imputation of epigenomic profiles

A promising alternative to comprehensively performing genomics experiments is to, instead, perform a subset of experiments and use computational methods to impute the remainder. However, identifying the best imputation methods and what measures meaningfully evaluate performance are open questions. We address these questions by comprehensively analyzing 23 methods from the ENCODE Imputation Challenge. We find that imputation evaluations are challenging and confounded by distributional shifts from differences in data collection and processing over time, the amount of available data, and redundancy among performance measures. Our analyses suggest simple steps for overcoming these issues and promising directions for more robust research

The ENCODE Imputation Challenge: a critical assessment of methods for cross-cell type imputation of epigenomic profiles

A promising alternative to comprehensively performing genomics experiments is to, instead, perform a subset of experiments and use computational methods to impute the remainder. However, identifying the best imputation methods and what measures meaningfully evaluate performance are open questions. We address these questions by comprehensively analyzing 23 methods from the ENCODE Imputation Challenge. We find that imputation evaluations are challenging and confounded by distributional shifts from differences in data collection and processing over time, the amount of available data, and redundancy among performance measures. Our analyses suggest simple steps for overcoming these issues and promising directions for more robust research