Daoism as the Philosophic Foundation of Chinese Economic Reform: a Conjecture

The reforms of Deng Xiaoping and the opening of China in the 1970s were predicated on something called “socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. Deng never explained its meaning in detail. This paper offers a conjecture suggesting that Daoism is the philosophical foundation of Chinese economic reform. Daoism is eminently Chinese and through the concepts of wu wei, yin/yang, qi and others from The Tao Te Ching, the Zhuangzi, and Pheasant Cap Master it offers the flexibility to organize markets within the Chinese context. The paper suggests how a Daoist philosophic foundation supports China’s rise both economically and politically. It concludes with the observation that China’s long term objective may be something like Zhuangzi’s and Pheasant Cap Master’s unity and that the West’s “end of history” may have past while the Chinese may have just begun. (B)y Marxism we mean Marxism that is integrated with Chinese conditions, and by socialism we mean a socialism that is tailored to Chinese conditions and has a specifically Chinese character….Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism (Deng Xiaoping, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics [1]). …China’s rise is not the rise of an ordinary state, but the rise of a country, sui generis, a civilizational state, a new model of development and a new political discourse which questions many of the Western assumptions about democracy, good governance and human rights, and all this may usher in a wave of change unprecedented in human history. Zhang Weiwei, The China Wave [2])

Controlling risks of P water pollution by sorption on soils, pyritic material, granitic material, and different by-products: effects of pH and incubation time

This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review and is subject to Springer Nature’s AM terms of use, but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-2267-9Batch experiments were used to test P sorbent potential of soil samples, pyritic and granitic materials, mussel shell, mussel shell ash, sawdust, and slate waste fines for different pH and incubation times. Maximum P sorption varied in a wide range of pH: < 4 for pyritic material, 4–6 for forest soil, > 5 for slate fines, > 6 for shell ash, and pH 6–8 for mussel shell. P sorption was rapid (< 24 h) for forest soil, shell ash, pyritic material, and fine shell. On the opposite side, it was clearly slower for vineyard soil, granitic material, slate fines, pine sawdust, and coarse shell, with increased P sorption even 1 month later. For any incubation time, P sorption was > 90% in shell ash, whereas forest soil, pyritic material, and fine shell showed sorption rates approaching 100% within 24 h of incubation. These results could be useful to manage and/or recycle the sorbents tested when focusing on P immobilization or removal, in circumstances where pH changes and where contact time may vary from hours to days, thus aiding to diminish P pollution and subsequent eutrophication risks, promoting conservation and sustainability.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Government of Spain) e European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (FEDERin Spain)S

Perception of stress by students who teach guided practices in Veterinary Physiology

Resúmenes IV Congreso VetDoc de Docencia Veterinaria, León 2017 (6-7 de Julio)[ES] Desde el curso 2010-11, empleamos en las asignaturas Fisiología Veterinaria I y II las prácticas guiadas o dirigidas como recurso docente. Esta actividad permite al estudiante profundizar en la comprensión de los conceptos de la asignatura de Fisiología y desarrollar otras competencias transversales como la expresión oral, la organización del tiempo, el trabajo en equipo, uso de recursos audiovisuales, etc. Sin embargo, el “estudiante-profesor” que imparte la práctica asume un rol en el que no tiene experiencia y el aumento en su nivel de ansiedad puede tener un impacto negativo en la realización de esta actividad

Correction to: DNA methylation changes during preimplantation development reveal interspecies differences and reprogramming events at imprinted genes

Correction to: Clin Epigenet 12, 64 (2020)///http://hdl.handle.net/10261/339960 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13148-020-00857-x After the publication of the original article an error was identified in the ‘Availability of data and materials’ section.1 Pág.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.Peer reviewe

Correction to: DNA methylation changes during preimplantation development reveal interspecies differences and reprogramming events at imprinted genes

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article

DNA methylation changes during preimplantation development reveal inter-species differences and reprogramming events at imprinted genes

Erratum: DNA methylation changes during preimplantation development reveal interspecies differences and reprogramming events at imprinted genes (Clin Epigenet (2020) 12 64 DOI: 10.1186/s13148-020-00857-x)//http://hdl.handle.net/10261/339964 Clinical Epigenetics, Volume 12, Issue 1, 29 June 2020, Article number 9618 Pág.Preimplantation embryos experience profound resetting of epigenetic information inherited from the gametes. Genome-wide analysis at single-base resolution has shown similarities but also species differences between human and mouse preimplantation embryos in DNA methylation patterns and reprogramming. Here, we have extended such analysis to two key livestock species, the pig and the cow. We generated genome-wide DNA methylation and whole-transcriptome datasets from gametes to blastocysts in both species. In oocytes from both species, a distinctive bimodal methylation landscape is present, with hypermethylated domains prevalent over hypomethylated domains, similar to human, while in the mouse the proportions are reversed.An oocyte-like pattern of methylation persists in the cleavage stages, albeit with some reduction in methylation level, persisting to blastocysts in cow, while pig blastocysts have a highly hypomethylated landscape. In the pig, there was evidence of transient de novo methylation at the 8-16 cell stages of domains unmethylated in oocytes, revealing a complex dynamic of methylation reprogramming. The methylation datasets were used to identify germline differentially methylated regions (gDMRs) of known imprinted genes and for the basis of detection of novel imprinted loci. Strikingly in the pig, we detected a consistent reduction in gDMR methylation at the 8-16 cell stages, followed by recovery to the blastocyst stage, suggesting an active period of imprint stabilization in preimplantation embryos. Transcriptome analysis revealed absence of expression in oocytes of both species of ZFP57, a key factor in the mouse for gDMR methylation maintenance, but presence of the alternative imprint regulator ZNF445. In conclusion, our study reveals species differences in DNA methylation reprogramming and suggests that porcine or bovine models may be closer to human in key aspects than in the mouse model.This work was funded by Fundación Seneca-Región de Murcia 20040/GERM/16, the European Union, Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action, REPBIOTECH 675526 and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBS/E/B/000C0423).Peer reviewe

The Inclusiveness and Emptiness of <i>Gong Qi</i>: A Non-Anglophone Perspective on Ethics from a Sino-Japanese Corporation

This article introduces a non-Anglophone concept of gong qi(communal vessel, 公器) as a metaphor for ‘corporation’. It contributes an endogenous perspective from a Sino-Japanese organizational context that enriches mainstream business ethics literature, otherwise heavily reliant on Western traditions. We translate the multi-layered meanings of gong qi based on analysis of its ideograms, its references into classical philosophies, and contemporary application in this Japanese multinational corporation in China. Gong qi contributes a perspective that sees a corporation as an inclusive and virtuous social entity, and also addresses the elusive, implicit, and forever evolving nature of organizational life that is rarely noticed. We propose gong qi can be applied in other organizations and wider cultural contexts to show a new way of seeing and understanding business ethics and organization. Rather than considering virtue as a list of definable individual qualities, we suggest that the metaphor of gong qi reveals how virtue can be experienced as indeterminate, yet immanently present, like the substance of emptiness. This, then allows us to see the virtue of immanence, the beauty of implicitness, and hence, the efficacy of gong qi