Homeland, emotions, and identity: Constructing the place attachment of young overseas Chinese relatives in the returned Vietnam-Chinese community

Little attention has been paid to the place attachment and homeland construction for refugees and their descendants in China. This study investigates the process by which the place attachment of Young Overseas Chinese Relatives is shaped in the context of resettlement sites. This qualitative research employed ethnographic fieldwork, and the author collected local literature and materials from February to December 2019 through participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and questionnaires. It is believed that the construction of a new homeland in the community, the emotional experience of the Young in childhood, and the cultural logic of place attachment shape place attachment. The process by which place attachment is shaped is interwoven with homeland construction, which indicates that the living state and mentality of the Young are becoming increasingly stable. The Young developed different mentalities on the basis of traditional Confucian culture in responding to the socio-cultural environments

Distinct resting-state effective connectivity of large-scale networks in first-episode and recurrent major depression disorder: evidence from the REST-meta-MDD consortium

IntroductionPrevious studies have shown disrupted effective connectivity in the large-scale brain networks of individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear whether these changes differ between first-episode drug-naive MDD (FEDN-MDD) and recurrent MDD (R-MDD).MethodsThis study utilized resting-state fMRI data from 17 sites in the Chinese REST-meta-MDD project, consisting of 839 patients with MDD and 788 normal controls (NCs). All data was preprocessed using a standardized protocol. Then, we performed a granger causality analysis to calculate the effectivity connectivity (EC) within and between brain networks for each participant, and compared the differences between the groups.ResultsOur findings revealed that R-MDD exhibited increased EC in the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and decreased EC in the cerebellum network, while FEDN-MDD demonstrated increased EC from the sensorimotor network (SMN) to the FPN compared with the NCs. Importantly, the two MDD subgroups displayed significant differences in EC within the FPN and between the SMN and visual network. Moreover, the EC from the cingulo-opercular network to the SMN showed a significant negative correlation with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD) score in the FEDN-MDD group.ConclusionThese findings suggest that first-episode and recurrent MDD have distinct effects on the effective connectivity in large-scale brain networks, which could be potential neural mechanisms underlying their different clinical manifestations

Weldable and closed-loop recyclable monolithic dynamic covalent polymer aerogels

Owing to their low density, high porosity and unique micro-nanostructures, aerogels are attractive for application in various fields; however, they suffer from shrinkage and/or cracking during preparation, mechanical brittleness, low production efficiency and non-degradation. Herein, we introduce the concept of dynamic covalent polymer chemistry to produce a new class of aerogels&mdash;referred to as DCPAs. The resulting lightweight DCPAs have the potential to be prepared on a large scale and feature high porosity (90.7%&ndash;91.3%), large degrees of compression (80% strain) and bending (diametral deflection of 30 mm) without any cracks, as well as considerable tensile properties (an elongation with a break at 32.7%). In addition, the DCPAs showcase the emergent characteristics of weldability, repairability, degradability and closed-loop recyclability that are highly desirable for providing versatile material platforms, though hardly achieved by traditional aerogels. Taking advantage of their robust porous structures, we demonstrate the potential of DCPAs for applications in thermal insulation and emulsion separation. These findings reveal that the dynamic covalent bond strategy would be generalized for the production of a new generation of aerogels with customized features for functioning in the field of intelligent and sustainable materials. &nbsp;</p

The Overseeing Mother: Revisiting the Frontal-Pose Lady in the Wu Family Shrines in Second Century China

Located in present-day Jiaxiang in Shandong province, the Wu family shrines built during the second century in the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220) were among the best-known works in Chinese art history. Although for centuries scholars have exhaustively studied the pictorial programs, the frontal-pose female image situated on the second floor of the central pavilion carved at the rear wall of the shrines has remained a question. Beginning with the woman’s eyes, this article demonstrates that the image is more than a generic portrait (“hard motif ”), but rather represents “feminine overseeing from above” (“soft motif ”). This synthetic motif combines three different earlier motifs – the frontal-pose hostess enjoying entertainment, the elevated spectator, and the Queen Mother of the West. By creatively fusing the three motifs into one unity, the Jiaxiang artists lent to the frontal-pose lady a unique power: she not only dominated the center of the composition, but also, like a divine being, commanded a unified view of the surroundings on the lofty building, hence echoing the political reality of the empress mother’s “overseeing the court” in the second century during Eastern Han dynasty

The Applications of Microcavity Lasers in Multimodality Imaging

Multimodality imaging technologies have attracted wide attention in both biological researches and clinical practice. However, the low image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the limited capability to label multiple targets are the major challenges to use multimodality imaging in many in vivo biomedical applications. Due to the homogeneity of current optical imaging contrast agents (such as gold and polymer nanoparticles, and fluorophores), only the overall distribution of the targets can be observed. Precise tracking of the trajectory of each individual target is not possible. Microcavity lasers are emerging technologies that have broad applications in biomedical fields. Owing to the high emission intensity, rich spectral information, and narrow linewidth, microcavity lasers may provide a route to achieve deep tissue imaging with a high SNR and track implanted cells with unique identifiers. In this dissertation, I introduce the development of three applications of microcavity lasers in multimodality imaging: ultrasound modulated droplet lasers, in vivo single immune cell tracking, and longitudinal in vivo stem cell tracking for cell therapy. In contrast to fluorescence-based imaging and labeling, our microcavity laser emission-based technologies have demonstrated distinct advantages with significantly improved SNR, sensitivity, multimodality contrast, and unique spectral information for labeling different cells. For ultrasound modulated droplet lasers, this technology leverages both deep penetration depth and high resolution of ultrasound imaging, and the high SNR, imaging contrast and sensitivity of laser emission. I first demonstrated the ultrasound modulated microdroplet lasers in which the laser emission intensity from the whispering gallery mode (WGM) of a micro oil droplet laser can be enhanced up to 20-fold when the ultrasound pressure reaches a certain threshold. This enhancement in laser emission intensity is reversible when the ultrasound is turned off. Furthermore, the ultrasound modulation of the laser output in the frequency domain was achieved by controlling the ultrasound modulation frequency. Finally, I investigated a potential in vivo application of the ultrasound modulated droplet lasing using phantoms vessels containing human whole blood. For in vivo immune and stem cell tracking, I demonstrated a multimodality imaging technology combining optical coherence tomography (OCT), fluorescence microscopy (FM), and lasing emission labeling to longitudinally track the 3D migration trajectories of individual cells transplanted into the subretinal space in vivo. The CdS nanowire lasers, with the distinct lasing spectra generated from the subtle differences in the Fabry-Perot microcavity, were utilized as unique identifiers to label the cells. With strong optical scattering and fluorescence emission, CdS nanowires also served as OCT and FM contrast agents to indicate the spatial locations of the cells. FM could provide the overall 2D cell distribution pattern, whereas the nanowires internalized by cells provide unique lasing emission spectra for differentiating individual cells. Meanwhile, OCT imaging could provide both 3D retinal structure and spatial locations of the cells. By integrating the capabilities of FM, OCT, and lasing emission labeling, longitudinal 3D tracking of individual cells in the subretinal space in vivo was achieved. Our study opens a door to utilize microcavity lasers and multimodality imaging platforms to improve imaging quality and solve real-world clinical problems. In the future, our technologies can also be adopted to support both biological researches and clinical applications such as deep tissue cell tracking, and understanding of the pharmacodynamics (PD) and pharmacokinetics (PK) of cell-based therapies for a comprehensive evaluation of both safety and efficacy.PHDMechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/171414/1/xuzhou_1.pd

Research progress of antithrombotic drugs

Thrombosis is the main direct cause of acute manifestations of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (myocardial infarction, stroke). Globally, the incidence of thromboembolic diseases has increased in recent years, accompanied by an increase in patient mortality. Currently,several targeted drug delivery strategies have been developed for thromboembolic diseases, including antiplatelet drugs and anticoagulant drugs. With the development of antithrombotic drugs, the treatment of cardiovascular diseases caused by thrombus shows significant potential benefit for patients

Finger Vein Recognition based on Personalized Discriminative Bit Map

Finger vein recognition is a promising biometric recognition due to its some advantages. For a finger vein recognition system, feature extraction is a critical step for the final recognition. In our previous work, we proposed Personalized Best Bit Map(PBBM) which selected the stable bits from LBP. Although PBBM achieve a better performance, it still contains some useless bits for recognition. In this paper, we propose Personalized Discriminative Bit Map(PDBM) which select much more discriminative bits from PBBM. The bits of PDMB are more discriminative and more effective for the final recognition. In addition, compared with PBBM, the number of bits for matching is reduced, so PDBM can also reduce the computation complexity. Experimental results show that PDBM achieves not only better performance, but also consumes less time for matching

Latent topic multi-instance learning approach for automated ECG classification

Conference Name:2011 IEEE International Symposium on IT in Medicine and Education, ITME 2011. Conference Address: Guangzhou, China. Time:December 9, 2011 - December 11, 2011.IEEE Sapporo Section; Lanzhou University (LZU); Henan University of Technology (HAUT); Wuhan University of Technology (WHUT); East China Normal University (ECNU)This paper presents a new latent topic multiple instance learning (LTMIL) for automated ECG classification. Due to the characteristics of multiple beats constituting an ECG and the high cost of having all the beats manually labeled, supervised machine learning techniques have achieved limited success in ECG classification. In this paper, we first discuss the rational for applying multiple instance learning (MIL) to automated ECG classification and propose a new MIL strategy called LTMIL for it which integrates the intra and inter ECG difference. It is a three hierarchical model. Firstly, we cluster all unlabeled beats into k topics using variable weighting, by which beats are reshaped to be dense and separable. An ECG and its beats are then represented as mixtures over topics. Consequently, the intra and inter ECG difference can be fully embodied in the difference between mixtures over topics. Finally, any supervised learning techniques can be applied to classification of transformed ECGs. Our experimental results on real ECG datasets from the PTB diagnostic database demonstrate that compared with existing multiple instance learning and supervised machine learning algorithms, the proposed algorithm is able to automatically classify ECG without labeling beats and improves the classification quality in terms of sensitivity and specificity. ? 2011 IEEE

Adjustable supramolecular polymer microstructures fabricated by the breath figure method

National Natural Science Foundation of China [20834004, 91027006]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2010QNA3008]; Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China [R4100009]; National Basic Research Program [2009CB930104]; State Key Laboratory of Supramolecular Structure and MaterialsHighly ordered supramolecular polymer honeycomb-patterned films were fabricated successfully via the static breath figure method. The supramolecular polymer that was used to prepare these intriguing films was obtained from the self-organization of a heteroditopic monomer based on the benzo-21-crown-7/secondary ammonium salt recognition motif. The morphologies of these microstructures were observed by scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy and atomic force microscopy techniques. The monomer concentration plays an important role in the fabrication of these supramolecular polymer microstructures. The pore size of honeycomb-patterned films decreases with the increase of the monomer concentration from 4 wt% to 30 wt%. A microsphere (900 nm) pattern and a highly-ordered honeycomb-patterned film (2.0 mu m) were obtained via the static breath figure method using acetonitrile as the solvent at concentrations of 2 wt% and 30 wt%, respectively

Study of a Microfluidic Chip Integrating Single Cell Trap and 3D Stable Rotation Manipulation

Single cell manipulation technology has been widely applied in biological fields, such as cell injection/enucleation, cell physiological measurement, and cell imaging. Recently, a biochip platform with a novel configuration of electrodes for cell 3D rotation has been successfully developed by generating rotating electric fields. However, the rotation platform still has two major shortcomings that need to be improved. The primary problem is that there is no on-chip module to facilitate the placement of a single cell into the rotation chamber, which causes very low efficiency in experiment to manually pipette single 10-micron-scale cells into rotation position. Secondly, the cell in the chamber may suffer from unstable rotation, which includes gravity-induced sinking down to the chamber bottom or electric-force-induced on-plane movement. To solve the two problems, in this paper we propose a new microfluidic chip with manipulation capabilities of single cell trap and single cell 3D stable rotation, both on one chip. The new microfluidic chip consists of two parts. The top capture part is based on the least flow resistance principle and is used to capture a single cell and to transport it to the rotation chamber. The bottom rotation part is based on dielectrophoresis (DEP) and is used to 3D rotate the single cell in the rotation chamber with enhanced stability. The two parts are aligned and bonded together to form closed channels for microfluidic handling. Using COMSOL simulation and preliminary experiments, we have verified, in principle, the concept of on-chip single cell traps and 3D stable rotation, and identified key parameters for chip structures, microfluidic handling, and electrode configurations. The work has laid a solid foundation for on-going chip fabrication and experiment validation