All\u27s right with the world = 歌舞昇平

Film Director: Cheung King Wai (張經緯) Film Release Year: 2007https://commons.ln.edu.hk/ccs_worksheet/1002/thumbnail.jp

Integrin α2 and Akt in early hematopoiesis

Hematopoiesis is a tightly regulated process in which hematopoietic stem cells reside at the apex of the hierarchy, and produce all kinds of mature blood cells by differentiation to replenish the cell loss in homeostasis and acute injury. In past few decades, much effort has been made to purify hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) and lineagecommitted progenitor cells both in mouse and human, enabling further characterization of these cell populations not only in normal hematopoiesis, but also in various hematological malignancies. However, while the isolation of different cell populations in mouse hematopoietic system is achieved with a very high purity, purification of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells still far lags behind. Integrins are heterodimeric transmembrane protein receptors regulating many important cellular processes including homing of HSCs by binding to neighboring cells or extracellular matrix proteins. First, we showed that integrin α2 is a novel marker improving the prospective isolation of human cord blood HSCs. We found integrin α2 receptor was preferentially expressed in cord blood-derived CD34+CD38-CD90+ in vivo long-term repopulating cells, demonstrated by 24-week limiting-dilution xenotransplantations using immunodeficient mice. Second, we revealed that integrin α2, which is a marker for megakaryoctyes and platelets, was not expressed in the immature CD34+CD38-CD45RA- bipotential megakaryocyte-erythrocyte progenitors in human bone marrow, providing a means for enriching this novel bipotent progenitor population for further studies on early megakaryocytic and erythroid lineage fate decisions. In addition, we demonstrated that hyperactivation of Akt, which is a key intrinsic factor regulating the homeostasis of HSCs, was incompatible with the survival and growth promoting ability of FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD) signaling in murine stem and progenitor cells. Prospective isolation of more homogenous stem and progenitor cell populations in human and understanding the instrinsic regulation of HSC homeostasis will give important insights into the HSC maintenance and fate decisions in normal hematopoiesis, as well as the pathogenesis of various hematological disorders

Images of older persons in Hong Kong popular films

Film watching is a popular leisure activity in modern society. Films, as a medium, provide powerful tools to deliver social messages and to create images of particular social groups. The cinematic images portrayed by films toward a particular social group may consequently shape our social perceptions and expectations of that social group. The ways that cinematic images portray older persons are, therefore, a potentially major source for detecting social values and views about them. As some cinematic images tend to reflect social attitudes and behaviours, the present research aimed at investigating how popular films portray the images of older persons. Focus was on the examination of: 1) the representation of older persons in Hong Kong movies, 2) whether older persons are positively or negatively portrayed in movies, and 3) any changes in the cinematic images of older persons over the last two decades. The present research examined Hong Kong movies released between 1981 and 2001. The population of the present study is the most popular Hong Kong movies, based on the turnover of the Hong Kong ticket offices. The sampled films were derived from the three highest-turnover movies for each year from 1981 to 2001. Content analysis was employed in this study to determine the representation and images of older persons in the 63 sampled movies. Generally speaking, older persons were found to be under-represented in the sampled movies relative to their presence in the population. Older persons were portrayed as having white hair, wrinkle skin, and walk independently in terms of physical appearance. Older persons were also portrayed as having generally good health status. However, older persons were portrayed to have a decline in both family status and socio-economic status in the 1990s as compared to that of the 1980s. In terms of occupation, most older persons were portrayed as retired persons in the movies. Apart from these features, the present research also found that there was a gender differences in the portrayal of older persons. Many older persons were depicted in the movies in the home setting, perhaps reinforcing traditional Asian family values and stereotypes. However, this perhaps underplays older persons’ active roles and contributions in the light of such current concepts as productive and active aging. There is a temporal division in that older persons in many movies of the 1980s were portrayed as more home-based while, in the 1990s, they were becoming more actively involved in external activities

A Hierarchical Approach to exploiting Multiple Datasets from TalkBank

TalkBank is an online database that facilitates the sharing of linguistics research data. However, the existing TalkBank's API has limited data filtering and batch processing capabilities. To overcome these limitations, this paper introduces a pipeline framework that employs a hierarchical search approach, enabling efficient complex data selection. This approach involves a quick preliminary screening of relevant corpora that a researcher may need, and then perform an in-depth search for target data based on specific criteria. The identified files are then indexed, providing easier access for future analysis. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates how data from different studies curated with the framework can be integrated by standardizing and cleaning metadata, allowing researchers to extract insights from a large, integrated dataset. While being designed for TalkBank, the framework can also be adapted to process data from other open-science platforms

The influences of uptake technological innovation in Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF)

Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) is the oldest film festival in Hong Kong. At its inception, its program consisted of film screening only and then the festival opened a special section dedicated to Hong Kong movies in the second year. In 2009, the festival started to showcase restoration classics from America, Europe and China. Over the years, HKIFF was recognized as one of the important global film festivals, offering networking and investment opportunities for the global film industry. The festival produced a number of showcases on special film focus, retrospective on respectable filmmakers. Giving out a sense of the culture-making activity that happens in these spaces, HKIFF was instrumental in building a solid base of art film audience. Ever since the festival had gone independent from Urban Council, Leisure and Cultural Services Department (1977 to 2001) and Hong Kong Arts Development Council (2002 to 2004) in 2005, the festival provides nutrients to home grown film professionals such as film directors, film critics, historian and curators for several decades. Nowadays, HKIFF has developed a membership system. Except the International Film Festival held in March and April every year, it also organizes a number of events over the whole year. HKIFF not only attracts local audience, but also international filmmakers, producers and investors. HKIFF serves as a hub for the local film industry, so as to keep in touch with the worldwide film world. After Goddard declared the death of film in 2000, the movie industry and the world have taken up many technological innovations, including digital technology, the ubiquitous internet in 1990s, the arrival of 3D cinema in 2009, followed by the raise of video-on-demand and Youtube video, crowd funding and crowd authorship. This paper will look into how these innovations affect the practice and hence the operation, the curation and the marketing strategies of HKIFF. Furthermore, we will also discuss how these changes drive the film culture in HK.published_or_final_versionMedia, Culture and Creative CitiesMasterMaster of Social Sciences in Media, Culture and Creative Citie