Exploration and Research on the Construction of Environmental Design Discipline in the Context of Interdisciplinary Studies

In recent years, in order to thoroughly implement the “National Medium and Long-term Educational Reform and Development Plan,” the construction of art colleges has emphasized the characteristics of disciplines and industries. “Integration of Art and Technology” is not only a contemporary design principle but also the direction and essence of modern design talent cultivation. As the demand for talent in the country continues to rise, versatile talents are currently in short supply. This paper explores the research and practice of talent cultivation in the field of environmental design based on the characteristic of “integration of art and engineering,” using the environmental design major at Qingdao Yellow Sea College as an example. With the rapid development of society and continuous technological progress, the traditional single-discipline training model can no longer meet the complex and changing design requirements. Therefore, this study integrates the fields of art and engineering, constructing a new talent cultivation model aimed at nurturing individuals with both artistic creativity and engineering technical capabilities

How EFL teachers perceive and self-evaluate the knowledge components in forming Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)

Technology is widely involved across the learning environment including its integration into teaching English as a foreign language (EFL); however, few studies have explored EFL teachers’ perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). This study investigates how EFL teachers perceive and self-evaluate knowledge of content (CK), pedagogy (PK), and technology (TK), the interplay of these with each other (TPACK), and the underlying influential factors for TPACK construction. The data were gathered in China from an online survey (n = 64) comprising 35 items on the TPACK components, and self-evaluation by nine survey participants of their TPACK in follow-up interviews. WeChat, the most popular social media App in China, was utilised as the data collection tool. The survey reveals teachers’ strong beliefs in the value of PK, CK and PCK and their positive beliefs about technological applications in EFL instruction. Consistent with these results, interviewees’ self-evaluation of TPACK demonstrates that they felt a high level of confidence in CK, PK and PCK but relatively less confidence when technology was integrated despite commonly applying technology to instruction. Influential factors include: 1) contextual factors; 2) knowledge of students; 3) demographic background; and 4) availability of quality training. Decision-makers’ financial support and policy-making, technological training in the integration of CK and/or PK, and a collaborative learning strategy are recommended

Deconvolute individual genomes from metagenome sequences through short read clustering.

Metagenome assembly from short next-generation sequencing data is a challenging process due to its large scale and computational complexity. Clustering short reads by species before assembly offers a unique opportunity for parallel downstream assembly of genomes with individualized optimization. However, current read clustering methods suffer either false negative (under-clustering) or false positive (over-clustering) problems. Here we extended our previous read clustering software, SpaRC, by exploiting statistics derived from multiple samples in a dataset to reduce the under-clustering problem. Using synthetic and real-world datasets we demonstrated that this method has the potential to cluster almost all of the short reads from genomes with sufficient sequencing coverage. The improved read clustering in turn leads to improved downstream genome assembly quality

Enhanced collisionless laser absorption in strongly magnetized plasmas

Strongly magnetizing a plasma adds a range of waves that do not exist in unmagnetized plasmas and enlarges the laser-plasma interaction (LPI) landscape. In this paper, we use particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations to investigate strongly magnetized LPI in one dimension under conditions relevant for magneto-inertial fusion experiments, focusing on a regime where the electron-cyclotron frequency is greater than the plasma frequency and the magnetic field is at an oblique angle with respect to the wave vectors. We show that when electron-cyclotron-like hybrid wave frequency is about half the laser frequency, the laser light resonantly decays to magnetized plasma waves via primary and secondary instabilities with large growth rates. These distinct magnetic-field-controlled instabilities, which we collectively call two-magnon decays, are analogous to two-plasmon decays in unmagnetized plasmas. Since additional phase mixing mechanisms are introduced by the oblique magnetic field, collisionless damping of large-amplitude magnetized waves substantially broadens the electron distribution function, especially along the direction of the magnetic field. During this process, energy is transferred efficiently from the laser to plasma waves and then to electrons, leading to a large overall absorptivity when strong resonances are present. The enhanced laser energy absorption may explain hotter-than-expected temperatures observed in magnetized laser implosion experiments and may also be exploited to develop more efficient laser-driven x-ray sources.Comment: 10 figure

Application and Development of CRISPR/Cas9 Technology in Pig Research

Pigs provide valuable meat sources, disease models, and research materials for humans. However, traditional methods no longer meet the developing needs of pig production. More recently, advanced biotechnologies such as SCNT and genome editing are enabling researchers to manipulate genomic DNA molecules. Such methods have greatly promoted the advancement of pig research. Three gene editing platforms including ZFNs, TALENs, and CRISPR/Cas are becoming increasingly prevalent in life science research, with CRISPR/Cas9 now being the most widely used. CRISPR/Cas9, a part of the defense mechanism against viral infection, was discovered in prokaryotes and has now developed as a powerful and effective genome editing tool that can introduce and enhance modifications to the eukaryotic genomes in a range of animals including insects, amphibians, fish, and mammals in a predictable manner. Given its excellent characteristics that are superior to other tailored endonucleases systems, CRISPR/Cas9 is suitable for conducting pig-related studies. In this review, we briefly discuss the historical perspectives of CRISPR/Cas9 technology and highlight the applications and developments for using CRISPR/Cas9-based methods in pig research. We will also review the choices for delivering genome editing elements and the merits and drawbacks of utilizing the CRISPR/Cas9 technology for pig research, as well as the future prospects

Clustering Survival Outcomes using Dirichlet Process Mixture

Motivated by the national evaluation of mortality rates at kidney transplant centers in the United States, we sought to assess transplant center long- term survival outcomes by applying a methodology developed in Bayesian non-parametrics literature. We described a Dirichlet process model and a Dirichlet process mixture model with a Half-Cauchy for the estimation of the risk- adjusted effects of the transplant centers. To improve the model performance and interpretability, we centered the Dirichlet process. We also proposed strategies to increase model\u27s classification ability. Finally we derived statistical measures and created graphical tools to rate transplant centers and identify outlying centers with exceptionally good or poor performance. The proposed method was evaluated through simulation, and then applied to assess kidney transplant centers from a national organ failure registry