Shaping Taiwan's History through Non-human Agents: Wu Ming-yi and His Postcolonial Ecological Writings

In the field of postcolonial Taiwanese literature, a literary tradition that an author follows often consists in contextualising issues of political identity, historical representation or social struggle via the narrative account of a human protagonist. This paper examines Wu Ming-yi’s postcolonial ecological novels, Shuimian de hangxian 睡眠的航線 [Routes in a Dream] (2007) and Danche shiqieji 單車失竊記 [The Stolen Bicycle] (2015), which not only break with this literary norm, but further invite readers to pay attention to the involvement of non-human agents in Taiwan’s colonial history. With an ecocritical reading of Wu’s works, the paper investigates the siginificant role of these non-human agents—including butterflies, elephants, a bird, man-fish and a bamboo forest—and further demonstrates that a non-anthropocentric narrative offered by these non-humans are also powerful in the shaping of historical representations and political identities of Taiwan

Effects of Homogenization and Ultra-high Temperature Processing on the Properties of Whole Milk Concentrated by a Multiple-Membrane Separation System

Three different concentrated whole milks (2.5x, 2.75x, and 3.0x) were produced by mixing equal parts of ultrafiltration retentate of whole milk and reverse osmosis retentate of the UF milk permeate. The concentrated whole milks were ultra-high temperature processed by direct steam injection (140.6°C) followed by flash cooling and two-stage homogenization pressures (2500/500 psi, 3500/700 psi, or 4500/900 psi). The milk concentrates were packaged aseptically and stored at room temperature. On the other hand, the milk concentrates produced by the RO single membrane system with the same concentration levels served as the control. Physicochemical properties of the milks were surveyed every 2 weeks during a 6-month storage period. The milk concentrates combined from the blending of multiple-membrane retentates showed the expeected concentrations of all major nutrients except nonprotein nitrogen. A 20% to 32% shortage of nonprotein nitrogen permeated through the RO membrane during the production of the concentrated whole milks. Over the 6 months\u27 storage, nonprotein nitrogen content did not significantly change in the 2.5x, 2.75x, and 3.0x concentrated whole milks. No microbial growth or enzyme activity was measured or observed in the samples collected. Milk concentrated 2.5x with 4500/900psi homogenization pressure did not show cream plug formation during the first 5 months of storage. Milk concentrated 2.75x with 4500/900 psi homogenization pressure had the approximate cream plug level of the 2.5x concentrated milk at 4 months of storage. Milk concentrated 3.0x with 4500/900 psi homegenization pressure showed cream plugging at 2.5 months. As higher homogenization pressure was applied to the milk concentrates, less creaming occurred at all milk concentration levels. Homogenization at all pressures did not reduce or eliminate sedimentation during storage. The milk concentrates from the control RO membrane processing showed less sedimentation than did the concentrates from the multiple membrane system at the same homogenization pressure (2500/500 psi). the higher the concentration of total milk solids, the more sedimentation occurred. Viscosity was not affected by homogenization pressure in any of the concentrated whole milks

The molecular evolution of PL10 homologs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>PL10 </it>homologs exist in a wide range of eukaryotes from yeast, plants to animals. They share a DEAD motif and belong to the DEAD-box polypeptide 3 (<it>DDX3</it>) subfamily with a major role in RNA metabolism. The lineage-specific expression patterns and various genomic structures and locations of <it>PL10 </it>homologs indicate these homologs have an interesting evolutionary history.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Phylogenetic analyses revealed that, in addition to the sex chromosome-linked <it>PL10 </it>homologs, <it>DDX3X </it>and <it>DDX3Y</it>, a single autosomal <it>PL10 </it>putative homologous sequence is present in each genome of the studied non-rodent eutheria. These autosomal homologous sequences originated from the retroposition of <it>DDX3X </it>but were pseudogenized during the evolution. In rodents, besides <it>Ddx3x </it>and <it>Ddx3y</it>, we found not only <it>Pl10 </it>but another autosomal homologous region, both of which also originated from the <it>Ddx3x </it>retroposition. These retropositions occurred after the divergence of eutheria and opossum. In contrast, an additional X putative homologous sequence was detected in primates and originated from the transposition of <it>DDX3Y</it>. The evolution of <it>PL10 </it>homologs was under positive selection and the elevated Ka/Ks ratios were observed in the eutherian lineages for <it>DDX3Y </it>but not <it>PL10 </it>and <it>DDX3X</it>, suggesting relaxed selective constraints on <it>DDX3Y</it>. Contrary to the highly conserved domains, several sites with relaxed selective constraints flanking the domains in the mammalian <it>PL10 </it>homologs may play roles in enhancing the gene function in a lineage-specific manner.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The eutherian <it>DDX3X/DDX3Y </it>in the X/Y-added region originated from the translocation of the ancient <it>PL10 </it>ortholog on the ancestral autosome, whereas the eutherian <it>PL10 </it>was retroposed from <it>DDX3X</it>. In addition to the functional <it>PL10</it>/<it>DDX3X</it>/<it>DDX3Y</it>, conserved homologous regions on the autosomes and X chromosome are present. The autosomal homologs were also derived from <it>DDX3X</it>, whereas the additional X-homologs were derived from <it>DDX3Y</it>. These homologs were apparently pseudogenized but may still be active transcriptionally. The evolution of <it>PL10 </it>homologs was positively selected.</p

Investigating the Mechanism by which Bcl-xL Regulates Ceramide Channels

Digitalitzat per Artypla

Effects of natto extract on endothelial injury in a rat model

Vascular endothelial damage has been found to be associated with thrombus formation, which is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A diet of natto leads to a low prevalence of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of natto extract on vascular endothelia damage with exposure to laser irradiation. Endothelial damage both in vitro and in vivo was induced by irradiation of rose bengal using a DPSS green laser. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay, and the intimal thickening was verified by a histological approach. The antioxidant content of natto extract was determined for the free radical scavenging activity. Endothelial cells were injured in the presence of rose bengal irradiated in a dose-dependent manner. Natto extract exhibits high levels of antioxidant activity compared with purified natto kinase. Apoptosis of laser-injured endothelial cells was significantly reduced in the presence of natto extract. Both the natto extract and natto kinase suppressed intimal thickening in rats with endothelial injury. The present findings suggest that natto extract suppresses vessel thickening as a synergic effect attributed to its antioxidant and anti-apoptosis properties

When Classical Chinese Meets Machine Learning: Explaining the Relative Performances of Word and Sentence Segmentation Tasks

We consider three major text sources about the Tang Dynasty of China in our experiments that aim to segment text written in classical Chinese. These corpora include a collection of Tang Tomb Biographies, the New Tang Book, and the Old Tang Book. We show that it is possible to achieve satisfactory segmentation results with the deep learning approach. More interestingly, we found that some of the relative superiority that we observed among different designs of experiments may be explainable. The relative relevance among the training corpora provides hints/explanation for the observed differences in segmentation results that were achieved when we employed different combinations of corpora to train the classifiers.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, 2020 International Conference on Digital Humanities (Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, ADHO