Cultivation of Core Competences of English Major Students under the Inter-discinplinary Guidance A Case Study of “The Survey of British and American Culture” Course

The newly issued National Standards by the Ministry of National Education for the Quality of Foreign Language and Literature Teaching (hereinafter referred to as the “National Standards”) clearly points out that the curriculum system of foreign language majors should emphasize the cultivation of competences and the construction of professional knowledge, especially the cultivation of cross-cultural, critical, and innovative abilities. Therefore, in order to enhance college students’ autonomous study ability and cross-cultural skills, this study, based on the concepts of content and language integration, aims to explore the way to combine Willis’ outline of procedure for task-based learning with the five principles of intercultural teaching, and utilize task-based teaching method, and rely on the course—“British and American Culture: A Course to Develop Critical Thinking from a cross-cultural perspective” to respectively consider the design of autonomous study worksheets for English majors before, during, and after class, so as to improve their autonomous learning ability, cultural critical thinking and intercultural communication skills. It will be helpful for the implementation of similar courses

Production and Characterization of Alkaline Protease from a High Yielding and Moderately Halophilic Strain of SD11 Marine Bacteria

A marine bacterium SD11, which was isolated from sea muds (Geziwo Qinhuangdao Sea area, China), was used to produce thermostable alkaline serine nonmetal protease in the skim milk agar plate medium with 10% NaCl. The optimal temperature about the manufacture of the extracellular protease was ∼60 ∘ C. The crude enzyme was stable at 20-50 ∘ C. The activity was retained to 60% and 45% after heating for 1 h at 60 and 70 ∘ C, respectively. The protease was highly active in a wide pH scope (8.0-10.0) and maximum protease activity exhibited at pH 10.0. The activity was restrained by phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF) but mildly increased (∼107%) in the presence of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), indicating that the production contains serine-protease(s) and nonmetal protease(s). Moreover, the crude alkaline protease was active with the 5 mM Ca 2+ , Mn 2+ , Zn 2+ , Cu 2+ , Na + , and K + that existed separately. In addition, the protease showed superduper stability when exposed to an anionic surfactant (5 mM SDS), an oxidizing agent (1% H 2 O 2 ), and several organic solvents (methanol, isopropanol, and acetone). These results suggest that the marine bacterium SD11 is significant in the industry from the prospects of its ability to produce thermally stable alkaline protease

Combined administration of Gegen Yinlian decoctio n and metformin ameliorates liver metabolic disorder in rats by regulating miR 195 5p/IRS1/PI3K/AKT axis

Purpose: To investigate the effect of Gegen Yinlian decoction (GYD), made from lobed kudzuvine root, baicalensis, huanglian and liquorice, and metformin on liver metabolism dysfunction in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rats. Methods: Wistar rats were treated with high-fat diet and a single intraperitoneal streptozotocin (STZ) injection to establish T2DM model. Thereafter, the T2DM-rats were treated with GYD and metformin (GYD/metformin). Serum triglyceride (TG), TC, LDL, and HDL levels, as well as glucose and insulin tolerance of the rats were evaluated. Furthermore, the effects of GYD/metformin treatment on the expressions of the related genes were determined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunoblot assay. Results: After GYD-metformin treatment, the metabolic indicators in T2DM rats significantly improved (p < 0.05). However, there was decrease in t liver miR-1955p expressions. Silencing miR-195-5p improved glucose consumption and triglyceride levels of palmitate (PA)-induced pathological state in ALM12 cells (p < 0.05). Furthermore, miR-195-5p targeted insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1). Suppression of IRS1 partly annulled the impact of miR-195-5p silencing on ALM12 cell model. Moreover, IRS1 downregulation significantly mitigated the impact of the silencing on PI3K/AKT pathway activity (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Combination of GYD with metformin ameliorated dysfunctional liver metabolism via control of miR-195-5p/IRS1/PI3K/AKT axis

Understanding the tribological impacts of alkali element on lubrication of binary borate melt

Melt lubricants have been regarded as an effective class to deliver lubrication on moving mechanical contacts at extreme temperatures. Among the elementary constituents, alkali elements play a critical role in governing the physical-chemical characteristics of the lubricant despite the obscurity regarding their intrinsic roles on the rubbing interfaces. The present study attempts to unfold the effects of sodium on the tribological responses of mating steel pair under borate melt lubrication. It has been found that the involvement of Na inspires a total reversal in lubricating potentials of the lone B2O3melt manifested by remarkable friction reduction, wear inhibition and prolonged load-bearing capacity. These exceptional performances are attributed to the accretion of nanothin Na layers on the contact interfaces. The interfacial occurrences are interpreted from a physico-chemistry perspective while the influences of surface microstructure are also discussed in detail. Multiple characterizations are employed to thoroughly examine the sliding interfaces in multi-dimensions including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). In addition, chemical fingerprints of relevant elements are determined by Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) and Electron Loss Energy Spectroscopy (EELS)

Feeding a low-protein maternal diet affects qinghai bamei piglet jejunal structure and microbial function response

This experiment investigated the impacts of feeding a maternal low-CP concentration diet having iso-essential amino acids on newborn suckling piglet"s intestinal microbial composition and function. Forty randomly selected purebred Bamei sows were divided into two groups and fed a low dietary CP (12%, LP) or a normal CP (14%, CON) diet, respectively, but formulated to contain similar (iso-) essential amino acid concentrations per current recommendations. At 21 days, 12 piglets were randomly selected from each treatment and euthanized with jejunum content samples collected. The 16S rRNA gene sequencing was combined as an integrated approach for evaluating the functional impact of maternal CP concentrations on piglet intestinal microbiome. Even though piglets demonstrated similar 0 to 21 d ADG among treatments, the jejunum relative weight, villus width, crypt depth and muscular thickness were increased (P<0.05), while villus height, and villus height/crypt depth were reduced (P<0.05) for the material LP compared to the maternal fed CON diet. Maternal CP concentrations can modify the intestinal microbial composition of Bamei suckling piglets. The relative abundances of the bacterial species Escherichia-Shigella, Actinobacillus, Clostridium_sensu_stricto_1, Veillonella, and Turicibacter were increased (P<0.05) in the maternal LP fed diet compared with the maternal fed CON diet microbiota metabolites. Overall, LP diet contributed to improve piglet intestinal histomorphology, microbial composition and function

Astragaloside IV enhances the sensitivity of breast cancer stem cells to paclitaxel by inhibiting stemness

Background: Chemotherapy is one of the common treatments for breast cancer. The induction of cancer stem cells (CSCs) is an important reason for chemotherapy failure and breast cancer recurrence. Astragaloside IV (ASIV) is one of the effective components of the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) Astragalus membranaceus, which can improve the sensitivity of various tumors to chemotherapy drugs. Here, we explored the sensitization effect of ASIV to chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (PTX) in breast cancer from the perspective of CSCs. Methods: The study included both in vitro and in vivo experiments. CSCs from the breast cancer cell line MCF7 with stem cell characteristics were successfully induced in vitro. Cell viability and proliferation were detected using the Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and colony formation assays, and flow cytometry and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) methods were performed to detect cell apoptosis. Stemness-related protein expression was determined by western blotting (WB) and immunohistochemistry (IHC). Body weight, histopathology, and visceral organ damage of mice were used to monitor drug toxicity. Results: The expression of stemness markers including Sox2, Nanog, and ALDHA1 was stronger in MCF7-CSCs than in MCF7. PTX treatment inhibited the proliferation of tumor cells by promoting cell apoptosis, whereas the stemness of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) resisted the effects of PTX. ASIV decreased the stemness of BCSCs, increased the sensitivity of BCSCs to PTX, and synergistically promoted PTX-induced apoptosis of breast cancer cells. Our results showed that the total cell apoptosis rate increased by about 25% after adding ASIV compared with BCSCs treated with PTX alone. The in vivo experiments demonstrated that ASIV enhanced the ability of PTX to inhibit the growth of breast cancer. WB and IHC showed that ASIV reduced the stemness of CSCs. Conclusions: In this study, the resistance of breast cancer to PTX was attributed to the existence of CSCs; ASIV weakened the resistance of MCF7-CSCs to PTX by significantly attenuating the hallmarks of breast cancer stemness and improved the efficacy of PTX. Keywords: Breast cancer; cancer stem cells (CSCs); astragaloside IV (ASIV); paclitaxel (PTX); chemotherap

The oncogenetic role of microRNA-31 as a potential biomarker in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma,”

A B S T R A C T miR-31 (microRNA-31) is frequently altered in numerous cancers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of miR-31 in ESCC (oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma). We measured miR-31 in 45 paired ESCC tissues and 523 serum samples using real-time RT (reverse transcription)-PCR. The serum samples were divided into a discovery group (120 ESCCs and 121 normal controls), a validation group (81 ESCCs and 81 controls), and a final group comprising six other common tumours (colorectal, liver, cervical, breast, gastric and lung cancers; total n = 120). A Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon matched-pairs test were used for the statistics. miR-31 was up-regulated in 77.8 % of the ESCC tissues. Serum miR-31 levels in ESCC patients were significantly higher than in normal controls (P &lt; 0.001). Patients with high-levels of serum miR-31 also had a poorer prognosis in relapse-free survival (P = 0.001) and tumour-specific survival (P = 0.005). In vitro studies showed that miR-31 promoted ESCC colony formation, migration and invasion. Luciferase reporter and Western blot assays confirmed that three tumour suppressor genes, namely EMP1 (epithelial membrane protein 1), KSR2 (kinase suppressor of ras 2) and RGS4 (regulator of G-protein signalling 4), were targeted by miR-31. We conclude that miR-31 plays oncogenetic functions and can serve as a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for ESCC