Effects of Epistemological and Pedagogical Beliefs on the Instructional Practices of Teachers: A Chinese Perspective

This study examines how the beliefs of Chinese in-service teachers regarding knowledge and knowledge acquisition influence their instructional classroom practices in junior secondary schools directly or indirectly through their conceptions of teaching and learning. The results indicate that the factor of learning effort/process is highly valued by Chinese in-service teachers in their epistemological beliefs, and that the constructivist approach is the dominant conception on teaching and learning for junior secondary school teachers.. In addition, the constructivist conception of teaching and learning is found to be positively related to three types of classroom instructional practices, whereas the traditional conception about teaching and learning is found to be only significantly and negatively linked to standard contemporary practices

Induction of CCL8/MCP-2 by mycobacteria through the activation of TLR2/PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.

Pleural tuberculosis (TB), together with lymphatic TB, constitutes more than half of all extrapulmonary cases. Pleural effusions (PEs) in TB are representative of lymphocytic PEs which are dominated by T cells. However, the mechanism underlying T lymphocytes homing and accumulation in PEs is still incompletely understood. Here we performed a comparative analysis of cytokine abundance in PEs from TB patients and non-TB patients by protein array analysis and observed that MCP-2/CCL8 is highly expressed in the TB-PEs as compared to peripheral blood. Meanwhile, we observed that CCR5, the primary receptor used by MCP-2/CCL8, is mostly expressed on pleural CD4(+) T lymphocytes. Furthermore, we found that infection with either Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) or Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv induced production of MCP-2/CCL8 at both transcriptional and protein level in Raw264.7 and THP-1 macrophage cells, mouse peritoneal macrophages as well as human PBMC monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs). The induction of MCP-2/CCL8 by mycobacteria is dependent on the activation of TLR2/PI3K/Akt and p38 signaling pathway. We conclude that accumulation of MCP-2/CCL8 in TB-PEs may function as a biomarker for TB diagnosis

Design, Characterisation and Prospect of Piezoelectric Microfluidic Technology

Fluidic driving device plays an important role in the delivery and distribution of minute amount of the liquid in the micro-fluidic system. Due to the unique advantages of simple structure, short response time, and low power consumption, piezoelectric actuation was employed to implement the microfluidic transportation. A piezoelectrically driven microfluidic device, piezoelectric pump, was developed and widely applied in many fields in last three decades. As a kind of displacement pump, piezoelectric pumps is able to realize accurate transportation of the liquid because of per stroke of output fluid is equal to the volumetric change of pumping chamber. And the output flow rate and pressure is easily to be controlled through adjusting the driving voltage or frequency. In this chapter, the design, structure, working principle and the characterisation of piezoelectric pumps with single chamber and multiple chambers are introduced

Genetically determined blood pressure, antihypertensive drug classes, and frailty: A Mendelian randomization study

Observational studies have suggested that the use of antihypertensive drugs was associated with the risk of frailty; however, these findings may be biased by confounding and reverse causality. This study aimed to explore the effect of genetically predicted lifelong lowering blood pressure (BP) through different antihypertensive medications on frailty. One‐sample Mendelian randomization (MR) and summary data‐based MR (SMR) were applied. We utilized two kinds of genetic instruments to proxy the antihypertensive medications, including genetic variants within or nearby drugs target genes associated with systolic/diastolic BP, and expression level of the corresponding gene. Among 298,618 UK Biobank participants, one‐sample MR analysis observed that genetically proxied BB use (relative risk ratios, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.65–0.90; p = 0.001) and CCB use (0.83; 0.72–0.95; p = 0.007), equivalent to a 10‐mm Hg reduction in systolic BP, was significantly associated with lower risk of pre‐frailty. In addition, although not statistically significant, the effect directions of systolic BP through ACEi variants (0.72; 0.39–1.33; p = 0.296) or thiazides variants (0.74; 0.53–1.03; p = 0.072) on pre‐frailty were also protective. Similar results were obtained in analyses for diastolic BP. SMR of expression in artery showed that decreased expression level of KCNH2, a target gene of BBs, was associated with lower frailty index (beta −0.02, p = 2.87 × 10−4). This MR analysis found evidence that the use of BBs and CCBs was potentially associated with reduced frailty risk in the general population, and identified KCNH2 as a promising target for further clinical trials to prevent manifestations of frailty

CO{sub 2} Capture from Flue Gas Using Solid Molecular Basket Sorbents

The objective of this project is to develop a new generation of solid, regenerable polymeric molecular basket sorbent (MBS) for more cost-efficient capture and separation of CO{sub 2} from flue gas of coal-fired power plants. The primary goal is to develop a cost-effective MBS sorbent with better thermal stability. To improve the cost-effectiveness of MBS, we have explored commercially available and inexpensive support to replace the more expensive mesoporous molecular sieves like MCM-41 and SBA- 15. In addition, we have developed some advanced sorbent materials with 3D pore structure such as hexagonal mesoporous silica (HMS) to improve the CO{sub 2} working capacity of MBS, which can also reduce the cost for the whole CO{sub 2} capture process. During the project duration, the concern regarding the desorption rate of MBS sorbents has been raised, because lower desorption rate increases the desorption time for complete regeneration of the sorbent which in turn leads to a lower working capacity if the regeneration time is limited. Thus, the improvement in the thermal stability of MBS became a vital task for later part of this project. The improvement in the thermal stability was performed via increasing the polymer density either using higher molecular weight PEI or PEI cross-linking with an organic compound. Moreover, we have used the computational approach to estimate the interaction of CO{sub 2} with different MBSs for the fundamental understanding of CO{sub 2} sorption, which may benefit the development, design and modification of the sorbents and the process