Displays of Status and Expressiveness in Professional Profile Pictures on LinkedIn and Corporate Websites: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of China and the United States

This research compares how Chinese and American professionals visually self-present with professional profile pictures. Three studies were conducted. In Study 1, we surveyed 310 professionals in China and 215 professionals in the United States about preferred profile picture backgrounds for professional sites, such as LinkedIn and corporate webpages. Generally, Americans opted first for grey backgrounds more so than Chinese, and Chinese opted for blue and white backgrounds more so than Americans. Chinese and Americans both preferred office pictures over outdoor settings, although Chinese were more likely to choose office settings without views. In Study 2, we evaluated CEO profile pictures on corporate webpages of 100 Chinese CEOs and 100 American CEOs. Generally, Chinese CEOs project more formal, status-driven signals whereas American CEOs are more likely to display expressiveness. In Study 3, we evaluated the LinkedIn profile pictures and banners of 900 early-career finance professionals, including 300 American finance professionals, 300 Chinese finance profiles with English-language LinkedIn profiles (also referred to as cosmopolitan Chinese professionals), and 300 Chinese finance profiles with Chinese-language LinkedIn profiles (also referred to as domestic Chinese professionals). American women and cosmopolitan Chinese women are significantly more expressiveness than nearly all other groups, closely followed by Chinese domestic women and American men. Cosmopolitan Chinese men and domestic Chinese men are the least expressive. As far as professional profile pictures, we found that Chinese and American professionals tend to cluster into the following types: friendly professionals, corporate leaders, expressive leaders, casual professionals, and independents. These typologies involve various combinations of expressiveness and status displays. Each of these typologies effectively serves as a visual rhetoric of professional identity

Image Description using Radial Associated Laguerre Moments

This study proposes a new set of moment functions for describing gray-level and color images based on the associated Laguerre polynomials, which are orthogonal over the whole right-half plane. Moreover, the mathematical frameworks of radial associated Laguerre moments (RALMs) and associated rotation invariants are introduced. The proposed radial Laguerre invariants retain the basic form of disc-based moments, such as Zernike moments (ZMs), pseudo-Zernike moments (PZMs), Fourier-Mellin moments (OFMMs), and so on. Therefore, the rotation invariants of RALMs can be easily obtained. In addition, the study extends the proposed moments and invariants defined in a gray-level image to a color image using the algebra of quaternion to avoid losing some significant color information. Finally, the paper verifies the feature description capacities of the proposed moment function in terms of image reconstruction and invariant pattern recognition accuracy. Experimental results confirmed that the associated Laguerre moments (ALMs) perform better than orthogonal OFMMs in both noise-free and noisy conditions

Removal of manganese(II) from acid mine wastewater:a review of challenges and opportunities with special emphasis on Mn-oxidizing bacteria and microalgae

Many global mining activities release large amounts of acidic mine drainage with high levels of manganese (Mn) having potentially detrimental effects on the environment. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of the main implications and challenges of Mn(II) removal from mine drainage. We first present the sources of contamination from mineral processing, as well as the adverse effects of Mn on mining ecosystems. Then the comparison of several techniques to remove Mn(II) from wastewater, as well as an assessment of the challenges associated with precipitation, adsorption, and oxidation/filtration are provided. We also critically analyze remediation options with special emphasis on Mn-oxidizing bacteria (MnOB) and microalgae. Recent literature demonstrates that MnOB can efficiently oxidize dissolved Mn(II) to Mn(III, IV) through enzymatic catalysis. Microalgae can also accelerate Mn(II) oxidation through indirect oxidation by increasing solution pH and dissolved oxygen production during its growth. Microbial oxidation and the removal of Mn(II) have been effective in treating artificial wastewater and groundwater under neutral conditions with adequate oxygen. Compared to physicochemical techniques, the bioremediation of manganese mine drainage without the addition of chemical reagents is relatively inexpensive. However, wastewater from manganese mines is acidic and has low-levels of dissolved oxygen, which inhibit the oxidizing ability of MnOB. We propose an alternative treatment for manganese mine drainage that focuses on the synergistic interactions of Mn in wastewater with co-immobilized MnOB/microalgae

Optical polarization rogue waves from supercontinuum generation in zero dispersion fiber pumped by dissipative soliton

Optical rogue waves emerge in nonlinear optical systems with extremely large amplitudes, and leave without a trace. In this work, we reveal the emergence of optical polarization rogue waves in supercontinuum generation from a zero-dispersion fiber, pumped by a dissipative soliton laser. Flat spectral broadening is achieved by modulation instability, followed by cascaded four-wave-mixing. In this process, we identify the emergence of optical polarization rogue waves, based on the probability density function of the relative distance among polarization states. Experimental results show that optical polarization rogue waves originate from vector multi-wave-mixing. Besides, we observe double peaks, and even triple peaks in the histogram of the state of polarization. This is a new and intriguing property, never observed so far in optical rogue waves, for example those emerging in the statistics of pulse intensities. Our polarization domain statistical analysis provides a new insight into the still debated topic of the mechanism for rogue wave generation in optical supercontinuum

Genetic analysis of phytoene synthase 1 (Psy1) gene function and regulation in common wheat

Transcriptome details for three transgenic lines with the most significantly reduced YPC and non-transformed controls. (DOCX 18 kb

PSAT1 prompted cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis in multiple myeloma through regulating PI3K/AKT pathway

Purpose: To identify the biological function of phosphoserine aminotransferase 1 (PSAT1) in regulating cell proliferation and apoptosis in multiple myeloma (MM).Methods: The mRNA and protein levels of PSAT1 were determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and western blotting, respectively. Cell proliferation was measured using CCK-8 assay.Results: PSAT1 mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly increased in MM cell lines when compared to control cells. Moreover,  downregulation of PSAT1 inhibited MM cell proliferation and induced cell apoptosis, whereas overexpression of PSAT1 promoted MM cell  proliferation and suppressed cell apoptosis. Further analysis demonstrated that the underlying mechanism was via regulation of PI3K/AKT pathway.Conclusion: The results identified a novel role for PSAT1 in the progression of MM, which may provide a therapeutic and a new anticancer target for the therapy of MM. Keywords: Multiple myeloma, PSAT1, Cell proliferation, PI3K/AKT pathwa