Destiny or Decision: Revealing the Change of the Concept of Ming命 and Its Pedagogical Implications

In Chinese philosophy, scholars have been discussing a long-standing and unresolved matter (Fan, 2019; Lupke, 2005; Wu, 2009), namely Ming命. Ming, often translated as life, fate, or command, was initially understood as orders and arrangements from heaven (Fan, 2019). However, since the Kongzi (Confucius) period, the focus of Ming命 has shifted to people themselves and how they should live their lives. Furthermore, Ming命 has been recognized by people as human life as well as the survival of one’s life journey. In the contemporary age, the concept of Ming命 has shifted again. It ensures that people, instead of the predetermined power of nature and its kind, have most of the ability to decide how to live their lives. The study of Ming命 has thus become one of the essential philosophical fields for Chinese and international thinkers, and academic researchers, to explore the question of heaven and human existence. In this paper, the analysis of four texts throughout Chinese history will serve as a simple reflective example of the difficulties of interpretation, revealing the evolving meaning of the concept and its pedagogical implications

A case crossover study on the impact of heat waves on non-accidental deaths in Jinan, China

Background: Heat waves can not only cause direct death from heat stroke but also lead to excess deaths due to other illnesses. Identifying contributing factors of population vulnerability to heat waves is particularly crucial because heat waves will affect the most disadvantaged populations aggravating health disparities. There has been little evidence on the risk of deaths from heat waves and associated contributing factors to the population vulnerability in Jinan. Purpose: To assess the impact of heat waves on non-accidental deaths and identify individual vulnerability factors to heat wave-related deaths in Jinan, China

Destiny or decision : revealing the change of the concept of Ming命 and its pedagogical implications

In Chinese philosophy, scholars have been discussing a long-standing and unresolved matter, that is, Ming命. Ming, often translated as life, fate, or command, was initially understood as orders and arrangements from heaven. However, since Kongzi (Confucius) period, the focus of Ming命 has shifted to people themselves and how they should live their lives. Furthermore, Ming命 has been recognised by people as human life as well as survival on one's life journey. In the modern age, the concept of Ming命 has shifted again so that people, instead of the predetermined power of nature and its kind, have most of the ability to decide how to live their lives. The study of Ming命 has thus become one of the essential philosophical fields for Chinese and international thinkers and academic researchers to explore the question of heaven and human existence. In this paper, four texts throughout Chinese history are selected as examples to indicate the development of this concept's meaning in those texts and its pedagogical implications in motion

New Predictor and 2DOF Control Scheme for Industrial Processes with Long Time Delay

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permissíon from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertisíng or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.[EN] To address the difficulty of controlling industrial processes with long time delay, a novel design of dead-time compensator (DTC) is introduced, which can be used to predict the undelayed output response of any process (no matter stable or unstable) such that the control design may be focused on the delay-free part of the process for performance optimization. Based on the undelayed output estimation, a two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) control scheme is analytically developed for optimizing the set-point tracking and disturbance rejection, respectively. By proposing the desired transfer functions, the corresponding controllers are analytically derived based on commonly used low-order process models. A notable advantage is that there is a single adjustable parameter in the proposed DTC, as well as in each controller, which can be monotonically tuned to meet a good tradeoff between the prediction (or control) performance and its robustness. Illustrative examples from the literature and a practical application to a temperature control system of a jacketed reactor are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed predictor-based control scheme.This work was supported in part by the NSF China under Grant 61633006 and Grant 61473054; in part by the National Thousand Talents Program of China, the PROMETEOII/2013/004, Conselleria d'Educacio, Generalitat Valenciana, and TIN2014-56158-C4-4-P-AR; in part by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad; and in part by the FPI-UPV 2014 Grant Program from the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Valencia, SpainLiu, T.; García Gil, PJ.; Chen, Y.; Ren, X.; Albertos Pérez, P.; Sanz Diaz, R. (2018). New Predictor and 2DOF Control Scheme for Industrial Processes with Long Time Delay. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. 65(5):4247-4256. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIE.2017.2760839S4247425665

A CRISPR/Cas12a-assisted rapid detection platform by biosensing the apxIVA of Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae

Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae is an important respiratory pig pathogen that causes substantial losses in the worldwide swine industry. Chronic or subclinical infection with no apparent clinical symptoms poses a challenge for preventing transmission between herds. Rapid diagnostics is important for the control of epidemic diseases. In this study, we formulated an A. pleuropneumoniae species-specific apxIVA-based CRISPR/Cas12a-assisted rapid detection platform (Card) that combines recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) of target DNA and subsequent Cas12a ssDNase activation. Card has a detection limit of 10 CFUs of A. pleuropneumoniae, and there is no cross-reactivity with other common swine pathogens. The detection process can be completed in 1 h, and there was 100% agreement between the conventional apxIVA-based PCR and Card in detecting A. pleuropneumoniae in lung samples. Microplate fluorescence readout enables high-throughput use in diagnostic laboratories, and naked eye and lateral flow test readouts enable use at the point of care. We conclude that Card is a versatile, rapid, accurate molecular diagnostic platform suitable for use in both laboratory and low-resource settings

Formation of sclerotia in Sclerotinia ginseng and composition of the sclerotial exudate

Background Sclerotinia ginseng is a major devastating soil-borne pathogen of ginseng that can cause irreparable damage and large economic losses. This pathogen produces sclerotia, which are among the most persistent resting structures produced by filamentous fungi. The production of an exudate is a common feature of sclerotial development. Methods S. ginseng was cultured on 10 different media and the following parameters were measured: mycelial growth rate (mm/day), initial formation time of exudate droplets, total quantity of exudate, number of sclerotia per dish, and sclerotial fresh/dry weight. The composition of the sclerotial exudate was analyzed using four methods (high performance liquid chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, flame atomic absorption spectrometry, and Nessler’s reagent spectrophotometry). Results We found that PDA was the optimal medium for exudate production, while SDA medium resulted in the highest mycelial growth rate. The earliest emergence of exudate droplets from sclerotia was on OA-YE and V8 media. The largest amount of sclerotia and the smallest sclerotia were produced on V8 medium. The maximum and minimum dry/fresh weight were obtained on MEA medium and V8 medium, respectively. The exudate contained organic acids (oxalic acid, gallic acid, ferulic acid, vanillic acid, caffeic acid, and tannic acid), carbohydrates (inositol, glucose, and trehalose), various ions (potassium, sodium, and magnesium), and ammonia. Discussion The functions of the identified compounds are discussed within the context of pathogenicity, sclerotial development, and antimicrobial activity. Our findings provide information about the production of sclerotia and the composition of sclerotial exudate that may be useful to develop strategies to control this disease

Autocrine Epiregulin Activates EGFR Pathway for Lung Metastasis Via EMT in Salivary Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

Salivary adenoid cystic carcinoma (SACC) is characterized by invasive local growth and a high incidence of lung metastasis. Patients with lung metastasis have a poor prognosis. Treatment of metastatic SACC has been unsuccessful, largely due to a lack of specific targets for the metastatic cells. In this study, we showed that epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) were constitutively activated in metastatic lung subtypes of SACC cells, and that this activation was induced by autocrine expression of epiregulin (EREG), a ligand of EGFR. Autocrine EREG expression was increased in metastatic SACC-LM cells compared to that in non-metastatic parental SACC cells. Importantly, EREG-neutralizing antibody, but not normal IgG, blocked the autocrine EREG-induced EGFR phosphorylation and the migration of SACC cells, suggesting that EREG-induced EGFR activation is essential for induction of cell migration and invasion by SACC cells. Moreover, EREG-activated EGFR stabilized Snail and Slug, which promoted EMT and metastatic features in SACC cells. Of note, targeting EGFR with inhibitors significantly suppressed both the motility of SACC cells in vitro and lung metastasis in vivo. Finally, elevated EREG expression showed a strong correlation with poor prognosis in head and neck cancer. Thus, targeting the EREG-EGFR-Snail/Slug axis represents a novel strategy for the treatment of metastatic SACC even no genetic EGFR mutation

Analytical design of a generalised predictor-based control scheme for low-order integrating and unstable systems with long time delay

In this study, the problem of controlling integrating and unstable systems with long time delay is analysed in the discrete-time domain for digital implementation. Based on a generalised predictor-based control structure, where the plant time delay can be taken out of the control loop for the nominal plant, an analytical controller design is proposed in terms of the delay-free part of the nominal plant model. Correspondingly, further improved control performance is obtained compared with recently developed predictor-based control methods relying on numerical computation for controller parameterisation. The load disturbance rejection controller is derived by proposing the desired closed-loop transfer function, and another one for set-point tracking is designed in terms of the H-2 optimal control performance specification. Both controllers can be tuned relatively independently in a monotonic manner, with a single adjustable parameter in each controller. By establishing the sufficient and necessary condition for holding robust stability of the closed-loop control system, tuning constraints are derived together with numerical tuning guidelines for the disturbance rejection controller. Illustrative examples taken from the literature along with temperature control tests for a crystallisation reactor are used to demonstrate the effectiveness and merit of the proposed method.This work was supported in part by the National Thousand Talents Program of China, NSF China Grants 61473054, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China, and the Grants TIN2014-56158-C4-4-P and PROMETEOII/2013/004 from the Spanish and Valencian Governments.Chen, Y.; Liu, T.; García Gil, PJ.; Albertos Pérez, P. (2016). Analytical design of a generalised predictor-based control scheme for low-order integrating and unstable systems with long time delay. IET Control Theory and Applications. 10(8):884-893. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-cta.2015.0670S88489310

G9a Is Essential for EMT-Mediated Metastasis and Maintenance of Cancer Stem Cell-Like Characters in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a particularly aggressive cancer with poor prognosis, largely due to lymph node metastasis and local recurrence. Emerging evidence suggests that epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is important for cancer metastasis, and correlated with increased cancer stem cells (CSCs) characteristics. However, the mechanisms underlying metastasis to lymph nodes in HNSCC is poorly defined. In this study, we show that E-cadherin repression correlates with cancer metastasis and poor prognosis in HNSCC. We found that G9a, a histone methyltransferase, interacts with Snail and mediates Snail-induced transcriptional repression of E-cadherin and EMT, through methylation of histone H3 lysine-9 (H3K9). Moreover, G9a is required for both lymph node-related metastasis and TGF-β-induced EMT in HNSCC cells since knockdown of G9a reversed EMT, inhibited cell migration and tumorsphere formation, and suppressed the expression of CSC markers. Our study demonstrates that the G9a protein is essential for the induction of EMT and CSC-like properties in HNSCC. Thus, targeting the G9a-Snail axis may represent a novel strategy for treatment of metastatic HNSCC