Precarious Moral Economy: Female Sex Workers in Post-Socialist China

This article examines what I describe as a “fleeting moral economy,” a system of culturally shared mores formed among migrant women who are engaging in illegal and stigmatized activities in urban areas. I suggest that the rationale or norm for the particular value of reciprocity varies not only by the complexity of a society or a culture, but also varies due to specific networks or communities depending on their particular circumstances, especially level of resource needs. This short communication is the product of my 27 months of ethnographic field work in post-reform southern China

Drug-Using Female Sex Workers and HIV Risk: A Systematic Review of the Global Literature

This review examines the global literature concerning HIV risk among drug-using female sex workers (DU-FSWs). In the context of HIV prevention, the possible synergetic effects of sexual risk and drug-related risk merit a systematic review to get a better understanding of such effects among this highly vulnerable population. In particular, we look at research on the association between drug use and HIV risk among female sex workers (FSWs) in terms of multiple indicators such as HIV infection, needle sharing, and unprotected sex. The current review, through synthesizing the findings from 41 studies conducted in multiple nations, reveals a complex picture of HIV risk for DU-FSWs across diverse societies. Research findings are mixed but tend to show that drug-related and sex-related risk behaviors accelerated the risk of HIV/STI among DU-FSWs, underscoring considerable vulnerabilities. However, findings about the level of the association and significance, as well as the mechanisms of HIV transmission, are inconsistent among various empirical studies. The variations in findings may be attributed to the specificities of diverse social contexts, various characteristics of the study samples, and different measurements in different studies. The mixed findings point to the need for more empirical studies targeting DU-FSWs to understand how drug use and sexual risk interactively affect this population differently in different social contexts. Future research should focus on multiple-level risk/preventive factors, assess the overlap between drug-using networks and sexual networks, and identify the synergetic dynamics between drug use and sex work. Development of conceptual frameworks and methodological innovations are also needed

Multiresolution Tensor Learning for Efficient and Interpretable Spatial Analysis

Efficient and interpretable spatial analysis is crucial in many fields such as geology, sports, and climate science. Large-scale spatial data often contains complex higher-order correlations across features and locations. While tensor latent factor models can describe higher-order correlations, they are inherently computationally expensive to train. Furthermore, for spatial analysis, these models should not only be predictive but also be spatially coherent. However, latent factor models are sensitive to initialization and can yield inexplicable results. We develop a novel Multi-resolution Tensor Learning (MRTL) algorithm for efficiently learning interpretable spatial patterns. MRTL initializes the latent factors from an approximate full-rank tensor model for improved interpretability and progressively learns from a coarse resolution to the fine resolution for an enormous computation speedup. We also prove the theoretical convergence and computational complexity of MRTL. When applied to two real-world datasets, MRTL demonstrates 4 ~ 5 times speedup compared to a fixed resolution while yielding accurate and interpretable models

Karyotype and nucleic acid content in Zantedeschia aethiopica Spr. and Zantedeschia elliottiana Engl.

Analysis of karyotype, nucleic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) content and sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) were performed in Zantedeschia aethiopica and Zantedeschia elliottiana. Mitotic metaphase in both species showed 2n=32. The chromosomes of both species were quite similar with medium length ranging from 1.55 ± 0.04 to 3.85 ± 0.12 μM in Z. aethiopica and 2.15 ± 0.04 to 3.90 ± 0.12 μM in Z. elliottiana. However, some differences were found in morphology and centromeric position among the chromosomes. Identification of individual chromosomes was carried out using chromosomes length, and centromeric positions. The karyotype of Z. aethiopica was determined to be 2n = 32 = 14 m + 18 sm and of Z. elliottiana to be 2n = 32 = 10 m + 22 sm. The 2C nuclear DNA content was found to be 3.72 ± 0.10 picograms (equivalent to 3638.16 mega base pairs) for Z. aethiopica and 1144.26 ± 0.05 picograms (equivalent to 1144.26 mega base pairs) for Z. elliottiana. Leaf protein analysis showed 11 and 9 bands for Z. aethiopica and Z. elliottiana, respectively, among which some were species specific. These results may provide useful information regarding Zantedeschia for the study of taxonomic relationships, genetics and breeding.Keywords: Zantedeschia, karyotype, mitotic metaphase, chromosomes, flow cytometr

Actin Cytoskeleton and Golgi Involvement in Barley stripe mosaic virus Movement and Cell Wall Localization of Triple Gene Block Proteins.

Barley stripe mosaic virus (BSMV) induces massive actin filament thickening at the infection front of infected Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. To determine the mechanisms leading to actin remodeling, fluorescent protein fusions of the BSMV triple gene block (TGB) proteins were coexpressed in cells with the actin marker DsRed: Talin. TGB ectopic expression experiments revealed that TGB3 is a major elicitor of filament thickening, that TGB2 resulted in formation of intermediate DsRed:Talin filaments, and that TGB1 alone had no obvious effects on actin filament structure. Latrunculin B (LatB) treatments retarded BSMV cell-to-cell movement, disrupted actin filament organization, and dramatically decreased the proportion of paired TGB3 foci appearing at the cell wall (CW). BSMV infection of transgenic plants tagged with GFP-KDEL exhibited membrane proliferation and vesicle formation that were especially evident around the nucleus. Similar membrane proliferation occurred in plants expressing TGB2 and/or TGB3, and DsRed: Talin fluorescence in these plants colocalized with the ER vesicles. TGB3 also associated with the Golgi apparatus and overlapped with cortical vesicles appearing at the cell periphery. Brefeldin A treatments disrupted Golgi and also altered vesicles at the CW, but failed to interfere with TGB CW localization. Our results indicate that actin cytoskeleton interactions are important in BSMV cell-to-cell movement and for CW localization of TGB3