Constrained structure of ancient Chinese poetry facilitates speech content grouping

Ancient Chinese poetry is constituted by structured language that deviates from ordinary language usage [1, 2]; its poetic genres impose unique combinatory constraints on linguistic elements [3]. How does the constrained poetic structure facilitate speech segmentation when common linguistic [4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and statistical cues [5, 9] are unreliable to listeners in poems? We generated artificial Jueju, which arguably has the most constrained structure in ancient Chinese poetry, and presented each poem twice as an isochronous sequence of syllables to native Mandarin speakers while conducting magnetoencephalography (MEG) recording. We found that listeners deployed their prior knowledge of Jueju to build the line structure and to establish the conceptual flow of Jueju. Unprecedentedly, we found a phase precession phenomenon indicating predictive processes of speech segmentation—the neural phase advanced faster after listeners acquired knowledge of incoming speech. The statistical co-occurrence of monosyllabic words in Jueju negatively correlated with speech segmentation, which provides an alternative perspective on how statistical cues facilitate speech segmentation. Our findings suggest that constrained poetic structures serve as a temporal map for listeners to group speech contents and to predict incoming speech signals. Listeners can parse speech streams by using not only grammatical and statistical cues but also their prior knowledge of the form of language

Ethical innovation through Confucian teaching

This research explores innovation from an ethical perspective. With increasing number of Chinese business applying Confucius teaching into business management and employee training, this research explores the influence of Confucius values of harmony, familial collectivism and reciprocity. It aims to evaluate the teach ing of these key Confucius ethical values to staff in a private owned Chinese organisation, and its impact on business movement. Taking a case-study approach, this research is conducted in Good-ark, a private-owned semi-conductor manufacturing company in Suzhou, China. Data has been collected from semi-structured interviews and company's annual reports and training records. The results demonstrate that Confuci anism teaching enhances both employees' and managers' commitment towards the organisation. Through such ethical innovation, it reduces the organisation's employee turnover and forms a strong cohesion within the organisation, and improves individuals and organisational performance. Furthermore, Confucius teaching helps extend people's understanding of Confucius ethical values, which are further applied into a wider social context. The practical implication and limitations of the current research are also discussed

Efficient Signal Inclusion With Genomic Applications

This paper addresses the challenge of efficiently capturing a high proportion of true signals for subsequent data analyses when sample sizes are relatively limited with respect to data dimension. We propose the signal missing rate as a new measure for false negative control to account for the variability of false negative proportion. Novel data-adaptive procedures are developed to control signal missing rate without incurring many unnecessary false positives under dependence. We justify the efficiency and adaptivity of the proposed methods via theory and simulation. The proposed methods are applied to GWAS on human height to effectively remove irrelevant SNPs while retaining a high proportion of relevant SNPs for subsequent polygenic analysis

First-principles study on the effective masses of zinc-blend-derived Cu_2Zn-IV-VI_4 (IV = Sn, Ge, Si and VI = S, Se)

The electron and hole effective masses of kesterite (KS) and stannite (ST) structured Cu_2Zn-IV-VI_4 (IV = Sn, Ge, Si and VI = S, Se) semiconductors are systematically studied using first-principles calculations. We find that the electron effective masses are almost isotropic, while strong anisotropy is observed for the hole effective mass. The electron effective masses are typically much smaller than the hole effective masses for all studied compounds. The ordering of the topmost three valence bands and the corresponding hole effective masses of the KS and ST structures are different due to the different sign of the crystal-field splitting. The electron and hole effective masses of Se-based compounds are significantly smaller compared to the corresponding S-based compounds. They also decrease as the atomic number of the group IV elements (Si, Ge, Sn) increases, but the decrease is less notable than that caused by the substitution of S by Se.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

A systematic approach identifies FOXA1 as a key factor in the loss of epithelial traits during the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in lung cancer

Background: The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition is an important mechanism in cancer metastasis. Although transcription factors including SNAIL, SLUG, and TWIST1 regulate the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, other unknown transcription factors could also be involved. Identification of the full complement of transcription factors is essential for a more complete understanding of gene regulation in this process. Chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-Seq) technologies have been used to detect genome-wide binding of transcription factors; here, we developed a systematic approach to integrate existing ChIP-Seq and transcriptome data. We scanned multiple transcription factors to investigate their functional impact on the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in the human A549 lung adenocarcinoma cell line. Results: Among the transcription factors tested, impact scores identified the forkhead box protein A1 (FOXA1) as the most significant transcription factor in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. FOXA1 physically associates with the promoters of its predicted target genes. Several critical epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition effectors involved in cellular adhesion and cellular communication were identified in the regulatory network of FOXA1, including FOXA2, FGA, FGB, FGG, and FGL1. The implication of FOXA1 in the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition via its regulatory network indicates that FOXA1 may play an important role in the initiation of lung cancer metastasis. Conclusions: We identified FOXA1 as a potentially important transcription factor and negative regulator in the initial stages of lung cancer metastasis. FOXA1 may modulate the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition via its transcriptional regulatory network. Further, this study demonstrates how ChIP-Seq and expression data could be integrated to delineate the impact of transcription factors on a specific biological process

Local infiltration analgesia versus femoral nerve block in total knee arthroplasty: A meta-analysis

AbstractIntroductionLocal infiltration analgesia (LIA) and femoral nerve block (FNB) are both used for the pain management after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Controversy still remains regarding the optimal technique for pain relief in patients undergoing TKA. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to compare the analgesia achieved with LIA and the one from FNB following TKA.HypothesisLIA achieves better pain control than FNB in patients with TKA.MethodsDatabases, including Pubmed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science were comprehensively searched to identify studies comparing LIA with FNB for patients with TKA. Two reviewers independently selected trials, extracted data, and assessed the methodological qualities of included studies. Data were analyzed by RevMan 5.2.ResultsNine RCTs involving 782 patients were included. LIA achieved more rapid pain relief (VAS) at 6h postoperatively [SMD6h=−0.92, 95% CI (−1.38, −0.47)] than FNB. There were no significant differences at 24h and 48h [SMD24h=−0.03, 95% CI (−0.46, 0.40); SMD48h=0.28, 95% CI (−0.35, 0.91)], VAS with activity at 24h and 48h [SMD6h=−0.54, 95% CI (−1.62, 0.54); SMD24h=−0.22, 95% CI (−1.41, 0.96); SMD48h=−0.08, 95% CI (−0.52, 0.69)], opioid consumption at 24h and 48h [SMD24h=−0.24, 95% CI (−0.82, 0.34); SMD48h=0.15, 95% CI (0.25, 0.54)] and length of hospital stay [MD=−0.52, 95% CI (−1.13, 0.09)].DiscussionLIA may be the better choice in the pain management of TKA for it could achieve fast pain relief and is easier to perform than FNB for patients with TKA.Level of evidenceLevel II, meta-analysis and systematic review