Chinese Women’s Family Status: Analysis of Chinese Decennial Surveys, 1990-2010

The experiences and status of Chinese women have significantly changed over the last two to three decades, along with China’s modernization. In this article we investigate the domestic division of labor between the two sexes at the present-day in the context of gender equality. Based on data from three Surveys on Chinese Women’s Social Status taken in 1990, 2000 and 2010, the article focuses on important dimensions of women’s family status, such as general changes in domestic decision-making and the time women spend in domestic labor, including rural-urban differences. The article points to “equal rights for both husband and wife” (Fu Qi Ping Quan, 夫妻平权) as being the major pattern in domestic decision-making, yet men have still more rights than women. Also, women are still the main force in domestic labor, although the difference between the times spent in domestic labor by women and men respectively has gradually narrowed. There also seems to be a greater correlation between education and women’s status in rural areas than in urban areas

Associations of chronic conditions, APOE4 allele, stress factors, and health behaviors with self-rated health

BackgroundSelf-rated health (SRH) has been widely used to measure the overall health status of older adults. Research has shown that SRH is determined by a large array of factors, such as chronic disease conditions, genetic markers (e.g., Apolipoprotein E, APOE, NM_000041), stress factors, and health behaviors. However, few studies have incorporated these factors simultaneously in the analytic framework of SRH. The aim of this study is to examine the associations of these four sets of factors with SRH.MethodsUsing a dataset from a population-based, random-cluster survey of 1,005 elderly respondents aged 54–91 conducted in Taiwan in 2000, we use logistic regressions to examine associations of chronic health conditions, the APOE4 allele stress factors, and health behaviors with SRH. The four disease conditions include diabetes, heart diseases, gastric ulcers, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Stress factors are measured by traumatic events (having an earthquake-damaged house) and chronic life stress (financial difficulty). Health behaviors include smoking, drinking alcohol, vegetable and fruit intake, daily milk intake, and physical exercise.ResultsDiabetes, heart diseases, gastric ulcers, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are found to be associated with 2.63 (95 % CI: 1.75–3.95), 1.72 (95 % CI: 1.15–2.58), 1.94 (95 % CI: 1.35–2.80), and 2.54 (95 % CI: 1.66–3.92) odds ratios of poor SRH. The APOE4 allele is found to be significantly associated with poor SRH with odd ratio of 1.58 (95% CI: 1.02–2.41). Financial difficulty is associated with increased likelihood of poor SRH, with odds ratios of 1.76 (95 % CI: 1.22–2.54) Doing exercise more than 5 times per week are associated with reduced likelihood of poor SRH by 44% (odds ratio is 0.56, 95% CI: 0.39–1.82). The interaction term between gender and gastric ulcer showed that the impact of gastric ulcer on SRH is more pronounced in women than in men, with an odds ratio of 2.63 (95 % CI: 1.24–5.58).ConclusionsChronic conditions and the APOE4 allele are significantly associated with increased likelihood of reporting poor health, and the associations appear differently among women and men. To better understand the mechanism of how people self-assess their overall health, chronic conditions and genetic components should be considered together with conventional factors such as life stress and health behaviors

Downregulation of TLX induces TET3 expression and inhibits glioblastoma stem cell self-renewal and tumorigenesis

International audienceGlioblastomas have been proposed to be maintained by highly tumorigenic glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) that are resistant to current therapy. Therefore, targeting GSCs is critical for developing effective therapies for glioblastoma. In this study, we identify the regulatory cascade of the nuclear receptor TLX and the DNA hydroxylase Ten eleven translocation 3 (TET3) as a target for human GSCs. We show that knockdown of TLX expression inhibits human GSC tumorigenicity in mice. Treatment of human GSC-grafted mice with viral vector-delivered TLX shRNA or nanovector-delivered TLX siRNA inhibits tumour development and prolongs survival. Moreover, we identify TET3 as a potent tumour suppressor downstream of TLX to regulate the growth and self-renewal in GSCs. This study identifies the TLX-TET3 axis as a potential therapeutic target for glioblastoma

Novel loci and pathways significantly associated with longevity

Only two genome-wide significant loci associated with longevity have been identified so far, probably because of insufficient sample sizes of centenarians, whose genomes may harbor genetic variants associated with health and longevity. Here we report a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of Han Chinese with a sample size 2.7 times the largest previously published GWAS on centenarians. We identified 11 independent loci associated with longevity replicated in Southern-Northern regions of China, including two novel loci (rs2069837-IL6; rs2440012-ANKRD20A9P) with genome-wide significance and the rest with suggestive significance (P < 3.65 × 10(−5)). Eight independent SNPs overlapped across Han Chinese, European and U.S. populations, and APOE and 5q33.3 were replicated as longevity loci. Integrated analysis indicates four pathways (starch, sucrose and xenobiotic metabolism; immune response and inflammation; MAPK; calcium signaling) highly associated with longevity (P ≤ 0.006) in Han Chinese. The association with longevity of three of these four pathways (MAPK; immunity; calcium signaling) is supported by findings in other human cohorts. Our novel finding on the association of starch, sucrose and xenobiotic metabolism pathway with longevity is consistent with the previous results from Drosophilia. This study suggests protective mechanisms including immunity and nutrient metabolism and their interactions with environmental stress play key roles in human longevity

Novel loci and pathways significantly associated with longevity

Only two genome-wide significant loci associated with longevity have been identified so far, probably because of insufficient sample sizes of centenarians, whose genomes may harbor genetic variants associated with health and longevity. Here we report a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of Han Chinese with a sample size 2.7 times the largest previously published GWAS on centenarians. We identified 11 independent loci associated with longevity replicated in Southern-Northern regions of China, including two novel loci (rs2069837-IL6; rs2440012-ANKRD20A9P) with genome-wide significance and the rest with suggestive significance (P < 3.65 × 10⁻⁵). Eight independent SNPs overlapped across Han Chinese, European and U.S. populations, and APOE and 5q33.3 were replicated as longevity loci. Integrated analysis indicates four pathways (starch, sucrose and xenobiotic metabolism; immune response and inflammation; MAPK; calcium signaling) highly associated with longevity (P ≤ 0.006) in Han Chinese. The association with longevity of three of these four pathways (MAPK; immunity; calcium signaling) is supported by findings in other human cohorts. Our novel finding on the association of starch, sucrose and xenobiotic metabolism pathway with longevity is consistent with the previous results from Drosophilia. This study suggests protective mechanisms including immunity and nutrient metabolism and their interactions with environmental stress play key roles in human longevity.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the author(s) and published by Nature Publishing Group. The published article can be found at: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep2124

Petrogenesis of the Ziyunshan pluton in central Hunan, South China: Constraints from zircon U-Pb dating, element geochemistry and Hf-O isotopes

The Ziyunshan pluton, located along the Xiangzhong basin in Hunan, consists mainly of porphyroid monzonitic granite and two-mica granite, the former is located in the surrounding of the pluton and constitutes its main intrusive granite, while the later occurs in its interior and belongs to late intrusive granite. The dark-colored mafic enclave with magmatic textures is usually observed in the intrusive bodies. The emplacement time of the Ziyunshan pluton is determined by high-precision SIMS zircon U-Pb dating. The main intrusive granite is dated at 225.2 +/- 1.7Ma and 225.6 +/- 1. 4Ma and the late intrusive granite is dated at 227.0 +/- 2. 2Ma, thus both granitic rocks were basically contemporary and emplaced during the Late Indosinian. Both two types of granite in this study are rich in SiO2(,) Na2O and K2O, and depleted in CaO, MgO and A(12)O(3), and its A/CNK index are 0. 85 similar to- 1. 05 with high consolidation index, 3. 61 similar to 5. 05 for the main intrusive ganite and 4. 13 similar to 14. 06 for the late intrusive granite. Both granitic rocks are characterized by Rb, U, La, Nd, Zr enrichment, and Ba, Nb, Ta, Sr, P, Ti depletion; the chondrite-normalized distribution pattern of REEs is characterized by "V"-shaped pattern, obvious LREE-enrichment ((La/Yb)(N) 7. 35 similar to 11.7) and negative Eu anomaly (delta Eu = 0. 32 similar to 0. 70). The zircon isotopes of both granites display similar signatures, the epsilon(Hf) (t) values of the Ziyunshan pluton display similar signatures-10.0 similar to-1. 6, and its delta(18) O values fall in the range of 7. 8 similar to 11. 4. The t(DM2) model ages are estimated at 1. 22 similar to 1. 79 Ga. The major oxides for all granite samples display good covariant relationships, and are obviously distributed along I-type granite evolution line, indicating threr are a intrinsic genetic relationship between the main intrusive granite and the late intrusive granite, both are of highly-differentiated I-type granite. All samples are distributed along the magmatic mxing trend line but away from the crystallization differentiation trend line, combined with the Hf-0 isotope resluts, it is shown that the Ziyunshan pluton was derived from the re-melting of Lower Proterozoic crustal meta-greywacke of Yangtze craton, and mixed with some mantle-sourced magma. The intrusive granite was formed under post-collision tectonic background, indicating South China block was subjected to the influences by both Pacific plate and Indosinian block under extension-thinning tectonic environment in the Late Indosinian. Compared with other Indosinian granites in South China block, it is considered that the suture region of Yangtze block and Cathaysia block lies along "Youxian-Shuangpai" region in Hunan

Dynamic binary neural network by learning channel-wise thresholds

Abstract Binary neural networks (BNNs) constrain weights and activations to +1 or -1 with limited storage and computational cost, which is hardware-friendly for portable devices. Recently, BNNs have achieved remarkable progress and been adopted into various fields. However, the performance of BNNs is sensitive to activation distribution. The existing BNNs utilized the Sign function with predefined or learned static thresholds to binarize activations. This process limits representation capacity of BNNs since different samples may adapt to unequal thresholds. To address this problem, we propose a dynamic BNN (DyBNN) incorporating dynamic learnable channel-wise thresholds of Sign function and shift parameters of PReLU. The method aggregates the global information into the hyper function and effectively increases the feature expression ability. The experimental results prove that our method is an effective and straightforward way to reduce information loss and enhance performance of BNNs. The DyBNN based on two backbones of ReActNet (MobileNetV1 and ResNet18) achieve 71.2% and 67.4% top1-accuracy on ImageNet dataset, outperforming baselines by a large margin (i.e., 1.8% and 1.5% respectively)