Infringement and innovation: A critical analysis on participatory culture from the perspective of microeconomics

This paper pays attention to the symbiotic nature of "infringement" and "innovation" emerged in the process of participatory cultural production. From a micro-economic perspective, we conducted a concrete analysis of the economic value contained in the participatory culture and explore how will it impact on the rights holders under different levels of copyright protection. The result shows that there is a state of interest intersection between participatory cultural producers and the right holders, and holding a "tolerance and acceptance " attitude towards participatory cultural production will help the right holders to improve the level of cultural works innovation and thus obtain greater economic benefits from the existing market. On this basis, rational choices which aim to attract such creative groups to become the creative sources of cultural product production and the booster of market expansion should be made by the right holders

Genomic survey, expression profile and co-expression network analysis of OsWD40 family in rice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>WD40 proteins represent a large family in eukaryotes, which have been involved in a broad spectrum of crucial functions. Systematic characterization and co-expression analysis of <it>OsWD40 </it>genes enable us to understand the networks of the WD40 proteins and their biological processes and gene functions in rice.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, we identify and analyze 200 potential <it>OsWD40 </it>genes in rice, describing their gene structures, genome localizations, and evolutionary relationship of each member. Expression profiles covering the whole life cycle in rice has revealed that transcripts of <it>OsWD40 </it>were accumulated differentially during vegetative and reproductive development and preferentially up or down-regulated in different tissues. Under phytohormone treatments, 25 <it>OsWD40 </it>genes were differentially expressed with treatments of one or more of the phytohormone NAA, KT, or GA3 in rice seedlings. We also used a combined analysis of expression correlation and Gene Ontology annotation to infer the biological role of the <it>OsWD40 </it>genes in rice. The results suggested that <it>OsWD40 </it>genes may perform their diverse functions by complex network, thus were predictive for understanding their biological pathways. The analysis also revealed that <it>OsWD40 </it>genes might interact with each other to take part in metabolic pathways, suggesting a more complex feedback network.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>All of these analyses suggest that the functions of <it>OsWD40 </it>genes are diversified, which provide useful references for selecting candidate genes for further functional studies.</p

Maternal-Infant Correlation of Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Carriage: A Prospective Cohort Study

Objectives: We aim to assess the correlation of multidrug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MDR S. aureus) carriage between mothers and their newborn infants.Materials and Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of mothers and their newborn infants in two hospitals in Shenzhen, China, from August to November 2015. We collected demographic and clinical information from mothers and newborn infants by face-to-face questionnaires and medical datasets. Serial swabs were collected from mothers and their newborn infants for further experiments. Maternal-infant correlation was assessed using the Poisson regression model.Results: The prevalence of MDR S. aureus vaginal carriage in mothers was 4.7% (86/1834). The incidence of MDR S. aureus carriage in newborn infants was 1.3% (23/1834). The adjusted relative risk and 95% confidence interval of maternal-infant MDR S. aureus carriage was 7.63 (2.99–19.49). Six MDR S. aureus maternal-infant pairs were concordant. The phenotypic and molecular characteristics of MDR S. aureus isolates were similar between mothers and their newborn infants.Conclusion: MDR S. aureus vaginal carriage in mothers was associated with an increased risk for MDR S. aureus carriage in their newborn infants

A novel semi-active suspension design based on decoupling skyhook control

A semi-active suspension design based on the traditional method of skyhook control is not capable of effectively controlling the attitude of the vehicle. However, an innovative approach called decoupling skyhook control allows the attitude of the vehicle body and its vibration characteristics to be effectively controlled. In this paper, a new decoupling skyhook controller for semi-active suspension is presented. Vehicle body motions in the three directions of vertical, pitch, and roll have been adopted to develop three skyhook controllers and directly control the vehicle body attitude. Furthermore, three orientation skyhook control forces are converted into actual damping forces of four adjustable dampers through the input decoupling transformation. The simulation results show that the developed controller is more effective than the traditional skyhook control in improving ride comfort

A novel semi-active suspension design based on decoupling skyhook control

A semi-active suspension design based on the traditional method of skyhook control is not capable of effectively controlling the attitude of the vehicle. However, an innovative approach called decoupling skyhook control allows the attitude of the vehicle body and its vibration characteristics to be effectively controlled. In this paper, a new decoupling skyhook controller for semi-active suspension is presented. Vehicle body motions in the three directions of vertical, pitch, and roll have been adopted to develop three skyhook controllers and directly control the vehicle body attitude. Furthermore, three orientation skyhook control forces are converted into actual damping forces of four adjustable dampers through the input decoupling transformation. The simulation results show that the developed controller is more effective than the traditional skyhook control in improving ride comfort

A novel semi-active suspension design based on decoupling skyhook control

A semi-active suspension design based on the traditional method of skyhook control is not capable of effectively controlling the attitude of the vehicle. However, an innovative approach called decoupling skyhook control allows the attitude of the vehicle body and its vibration characteristics to be effectively controlled. In this paper, a new decoupling skyhook controller for semi-active suspension is presented. Vehicle body motions in the three directions of vertical, pitch, and roll have been adopted to develop three skyhook controllers and directly control the vehicle body attitude. Furthermore, three orientation skyhook control forces are converted into actual damping forces of four adjustable dampers through the input decoupling transformation. The simulation results show that the developed controller is more effective than the traditional skyhook control in improving ride comfort

Association between CORIN promoter methylation and stroke: Results from two independent samples of Chinese adults

ObjectiveAs the physical activator of natriuretic peptides, corin has been associated with stroke, but the underlying mechanism is not very clear. Here, we examined whether the CORIN promoter’s methylation, an epigenetic DNA modification, was associated with the risk of stroke in two independent samples.MethodsA total of 1771 participants including 853 stroke cases and 918 healthy controls were included as a discovery sample and 2,498 community members with 10 years of follow-up were included as a replication sample. DNA methylation of the CORIN promoter was quantified by target bisulfite sequencing in both samples. We first examined the single CpG association, followed by a gene-based analysis of the joint association between multiple CpG methylation and stroke, adjusting for conventional risk factors.ResultsThe single CpG association analysis found that hypermethylation at all of the 9 CpG sites assayed was significantly associated with lower odds of prevalent stroke in the discovery sample (all p &lt; 0.05), and three of them located at Chr4:47840038 (HR = 0.74, p = 0.015), Chr4:47839941 (HR = 0.80, p = 0.047), and Chr4:47839933 (HR = 0.82, p = 0.050) were also significantly associated with incident stroke in the replication sample. The gene-based association analysis found that DNA methylation of the 9 CpG sites at the CORIN promoter was jointly associated with stroke in both samples (all p &lt; 0.05).ConclusionDNA methylation levels of the CORIN gene promoter were lower in stroke patients and predicted a higher risk of incident stroke in Chinese adults. The underlying causality warranted further investigation