Marriage and Fertility in China: A Lexis-Surface Analysis

Patterns of marriage and fertility in China have changed rapidly over the last three decades. Fertility has dramatically declined, especially before age 20 and after age 30. Marriage remains virtually' universal, but the age of first marriage, previously concentrated between ages 16 and 20, has shifted upward to between ages 20 and 25. These trends were sharply punctuated by marriage and fertility booms and slumps associated with the disturbances of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Thus, strong age, period, and cohort fluctuations, some transient and others persistent, interact to produce a complex mosaic of turbulent demographic change. Coale masterfully analyzed these patterns of change. Here we supplement Coale's analysis by presenting and discussing some shaded contour maps of various surfaces of Chinese marriage and fertility rates. As discussed in detail elsewhere, such maps permit visualization of population surfaces defined over age and time and offer a panoramic view of the interaction of age, period, and cohort variations. Because the use of shaded maps of population surfaces is implicit in one of Lexis' original diagrams, and because the term Lexis surface is increasing being used to refer to surfaces of demographic rates defined over age and time, the shaded contour maps presented here might be called Lexis maps. An early instance of the use of contour maps (without shading) may be found in Delaporte's pioneering comparison of trends in age-specific mortality rates in various European countries. The data used to construct the Lexis maps are from China's one-per-thousand fertility survey conducted in 1982; the total sample size was a bit more than one million. The principle information gathered in the survey, which covered all of China except Tibet, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, comprised detailed marriage and fertility histories of more than 300 thousand women aged 15 to 67, gathered through face-to-face interviews. This information was then used to reconstruct the pattern of age-specific fertility rates in China from 1940 through 1981 and the pattern of age-specific first-marriage rates from 1950 through 1981. For both fertility and first-marriage rates, an urban vs. rural breakdown was also published for 1950 through 1981. Coale and several other analysts have scrutinized the quality of the data and conclude that the data are reasonably reliable and give a generally accurate representation of the evolving age-specific patterns of Chinese marriage and fertility. Coale used the survey data to construct a set of estimates of age-specific proportions of women ever married. We use these estimates, but otherwise the maps we present are based directly on the original data...

Draft genome sequence of Lysinibacillus sp. strain A1, isolated from Malaysian tropical soil

YesIn this work, we describe the genome of Lysinibacillus sp. strain A1, which was isolated from tropical soil. Analysis of its genome sequence shows the presence of a gene encoding for a putative peptidase responsible for nitrogen compounds.UM High Impact Research Grants (UMMOHE HIR Grant UM C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/01, no. A000001- 50001; UM-MOHE HIR Grant UM C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/14/1, no. H-50001-A000027

Whole-genome analysis of quorum-sensing Burkholderia sp. strain A9

YesBurkholderia spp. rely on N-acyl homoserine lactone as quorum-sensing signal molecules which coordinate their phenotype at the population level. In this work, we present the whole genome of Burkholderia sp. strain A9, which enables the discovery of its N-acyl homoserine lactone synthase gene.UM High Impact Research Grants (UM-MOHE HIR grant UM C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/01, H-50001-A000001 and UMMOHE HIR Grant UM C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/14/1, H-50001- A000027

Bistable Organic Memory Device with Gold Nanoparticles Embedded in a Conducting Poly(N-vinylcarbazole) Colloids Hybrid

We report on the nonvolatile memory characteristics of a bistable organic memory (BOM) device with Au nanopartides (NPs) embedded in a conducting poly(N-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) colloids hybrid layer deposited on flexible poly(ethylenete-rephthalate) (PET) substrates. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images show the Au nanoparticles distributed isotropically around the surface of a PVK colloid. The average induced charge on Au nanoparticles, estimated using the C-V hysteresis curve, was large, as much as 5 holes/NP at a sweeping voltage of +/-3 V. The maximum ON/OFF ratio of the current bistability in the BOM devices was as large as 1 x 10(5). The cycling endurance tests of the ON/OFF switching exhibited a high endurance of above 1.5 x 10(5) cycles, and a high ON/OFF ratio of similar to 10(5) could be achieved consistently even after quite a long retention time of more than 1 x 10(6) s. To clarify the memory mechanism of the hole-mediated bistable organic memory device, the interactions between Au nanoparticles and poly(N-vinylcarbazole) colloids was studied by estimating the density of states and projected density of state calculations using density functional theory. Au atom interactions with a PVK unit decreased the band gap by 2.96 eV with the new induced gap states at 5.11 eV (HOMO, E(0)) and LUMO 4.30 eV and relaxed the HOMO level by 0.5 eV (E(1)). E(1) at similar to 6.2 eV is very close to the pristine HOMO, and thus the trapped hole in E(1) could move to the HOMO of pristine PVK From the experimental data and theoretical calculation, it was revealed that a low-conductivity state resulted from a hole trapping at E(o) and E(1) states and subsequent hole transportation through Fowler-Nordheim tunneling from E(1) state to Au NPs and/or interface trap states leads to a high conductivity state

Inferring Condition-Specific Targets of Human TF-TF Complexes Using ChIP-seq Data

Background: Transcription factors (TFs) often interact with one another to form TF complexes that bind DNA and regulate gene expression. Many databases are created to describe known TF complexes identified by either mammalian two-hybrid experiments or data mining. Lately, a wealth of ChIP-seq data on human TFs under different experiment conditions are available, making it possible to investigate condition-specific (cell type and/or physiologic state) TF complexes and their target genes. Results: Here, we developed a systematic pipeline to infer Condition-Specific Targets of human TF-TF complexes (called the CST pipeline) by integrating ChIP-seq data and TF motifs. In total, we predicted 2,392 TF complexes and 13,504 high-confidence or 127,994 low-confidence regulatory interactions amongst TF complexes and their target genes. We validated our predictions by (i) comparing predicted TF complexes to external TF complex databases, (ii) validating selected target genes of TF complexes using ChIP-qPCR and RT-PCR experiments, and (iii) analysing target genes of select TF complexes using gene ontology enrichment to demonstrate the accuracy of our work. Finally, the predicted results above were integrated and employed to construct a CST database. Conclusions: We built up a methodology to construct the CST database, which contributes to the analysis of transcriptional regulation and the identification of novel TF-TF complex formation in a certain condition. This database also allows users to visualize condition-specific TF regulatory networks through a user-friendly web interface

Entangled Husimi distribution and Complex Wavelet transformation

Based on the proceding Letter [Int. J. Theor. Phys. 48, 1539 (2009)], we expand the relation between wavelet transformation and Husimi distribution function to the entangled case. We find that the optical complex wavelet transformation can be used to study the entangled Husimi distribution function in phase space theory of quantum optics. We prove that the entangled Husimi distribution function of a two-mode quantum state |phi> is just the modulus square of the complex wavelet transform of exp{-(|eta|^2)/2} with phi(eta)being the mother wavelet up to a Gaussian function.Comment: 7 page

YREC: The Yale Rotating Stellar Evolution Code

The stellar evolution code YREC is outlined with emphasis on its applications to helio- and asteroseismology. The procedure for calculating calibrated solar and stellar models is described. Other features of the code such as a non-local treatment of convective core overshoot, and the implementation of a parametrized description of turbulence in stellar models, are considered in some detail. The code has been extensively used for other astrophysical applications, some of which are briefly mentioned at the end of the paper.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, ApSS accepte

Charmless Bs→PP,PV,VVB_s\to PP, PV, VV Decays Based on the six-quark Effective Hamiltonian with Strong Phase Effects II

We provide a systematic study of charmless $B_s \to PP, PV, VV$ decays ($P$ and $V$ denote pseudoscalar and vector mesons, respectively) based on an approximate six-quark operator effective Hamiltonian from QCD. The calculation of the relevant hard-scattering kernels is carried out, the resulting transition form factors are consistent with the results of QCD sum rule calculations. By taking into account important classes of power corrections involving "chirally-enhanced" terms and the vertex corrections as well as weak annihilation contributions with non-trivial strong phase, we present predictions for the branching ratios and CP asymmetries of $B_s$ decays into PP, PV and VV final states, and also for the corresponding polarization observables in VV final states. It is found that the weak annihilation contributions with non-trivial strong phase have remarkable effects on the observables in the color-suppressed and penguin-dominated decay modes. In addition, we discuss the SU(3) flavor symmetry and show that the symmetry relations are generally respected

Institutional pedagogical waypoints : reflections on doctoral journeys between Taiwan and Australia

Spatial, social and academic journeys undertaken between Taiwan and Australia for doctoral education are the focus of reflection here. The discussion centres on the authors’ experiences of, on the one hand, the development of a Faculty of Education’s doctoral pedagogies in the early 2000s to reflect its international PhD candidature profile – especially from Taiwan – and, on the other, of Taiwanese doctoral candidates’ journeys through their PhDs in the Faculty. The authors write from their particular perspectives: Evans as an Australian academic and a manager of doctoral studies, and Liou as a Taiwanese academic pursuing her doctorate in an Australian university. The article considers the Australian and Taiwanese doctoral contexts between which the students transited. The institutional pedagogical strategies, from pre-enrolment to completion, are examined as waypoints on the doctoral journey for both staff and candidates

High-p_T pion and kaon production in relativistic nuclear collisions

High-p_T pion and kaon production is studied in relativistic proton-proton, proton-nucleus, and nucleus-nucleus collisions in a wide energy range. Cross sections are calculated based on perturbative QCD, augmented by a phenomenological transverse momentum distribution of partons (``intrinsic k_T''). An energy dependent width of the transverse momentum distribution is extracted from pion and charged hadron production data in proton-proton/proton-antiproton collisions. Effects of multiscattering and shadowing in the strongly interacting medium are taken into account. Enhancement of the transverse momentum width is introduced and parameterized to explain the Cronin effect. In collisions between heavy nuclei, the model over-predicts central pion production cross sections (more significantly at higher energies), hinting at the presence of jet quenching. Predictions are made for proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC energies.Comment: 26 pages in Latex, 19 EPS figure