The Experience of Female Chinese Students from the University of Nottingham whilst doing Part-Time Jobs

This dissertation addresses the benefits and issues of part-time work experienced by female Chinese students at the University of Nottingham. Chinese students are by far the largest group of student migrants in the UK, with a remarkable increase of approximately 60 percent since 2009 (Cassidy, 2015). Part-time work is a big aspect of student life for many reasons. Obvious reasons include financial independence, social networking and gaining work experience for future careers. Through fourteen face-to-face interviews, this research examines motivation, working conditions and positive or negative impacts on the students. A very specific issue that is discussed in detail covers two different cases of harassment at work and the cultural differences and legal awareness that play a key role. Recommendations for appropriate reactions based on the research are made. The dissertation also argues that the motivation of the students to take on part-time jobs is in correlation with the quality of the experiences that were made by these students. Keywords: female Chinese students, part-time jobs, University of Nottingham, academic performance, social network, harassment, cultural difference

Effect of Yushen zhuyun decoction on rats with diminished ovarian reserve induced by tripterygium glycosides

Purpose: To investigate the effect of Yushen zhuyun decoction (YSZYF) on rats with diminished ovarian reserve (DOR).Methods: High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was used to determine the major phytochemical constituents of YSZYF. Rats with DOR (DOR rats) were prepared by administration of tripterygium glycosides (TWP) orally (50 mg/kg) for 15 days. Thereafter, DOR rats were treated orally with YSZYF (300, 600 and 900 mg/kg). After 15 days’ treatment, ovary index was calculated and blood was obtained to determine serum levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), estradiol (E2), progesterone (P), testosterone (T), inhibin (INH) and anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) by radioimmunoassay and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). In addition, the ovary was subjected to histopathological examinations.Results: Phytochemical investigation indicated that the major constituents of YSZYF are acteoside, loganin, lcariin and echinacoside. Compared to the control rats, YSZYF treatment enhanced the ovary index of DOR rat (p < 0.05); furthermore, YSZYF treatment also enhanced the number of follicles and corpus luteum, as well as alleviated inflammatory reaction in ovary tissues. Additionally, the serum levels of FSH and T were elevated by treatment of YSZYF (p < 0.01), whereas E2, INHB and AMH concentrations decreased (p < 0.01), compared to control rats.Conclusion: The findings indicate that YSZYF improves ovarian reserve of DOR rats, and thus has a potential for treating infertility.Keywords: Yushen zhuyun decoction, Diminished ovarian reserve, Infertility, Acteoside, Loganin, Lcariin, Echinacosid

Yeast increases glycolytic flux to support higher growth rates accompanied by decreased metabolite regulation and lower protein phosphorylation

Supply of Gibbs free energy and precursors are vital for cellular function and cell metabolism have evolved to be tightly regulated to balance their supply and consumption. Precursors and Gibbs free energy are generated in the central carbon metabolism (CCM), and fluxes through these pathways are precisely regulated. However, how fluxes through CCM pathways are affected by posttranslational modification and allosteric regulation remains poorly understood. Here, we integrated multi-omics data collected under nine different chemostat conditions to explore how fluxes in the CCM are regulated in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. We deduced a pathway- and metabolism-specific CCM flux regulation mechanism using hierarchical analysis combined with mathematical modeling. We found that increased glycolytic flux associated with an increased specific growth rate was accompanied by a decrease in flux regulation by metabolite concentrations, including the concentration of allosteric effectors, and a decrease in the phosphorylation level of glycolytic enzymes

Paragraph-to-Image Generation with Information-Enriched Diffusion Model

Text-to-image (T2I) models have recently experienced rapid development, achieving astonishing performance in terms of fidelity and textual alignment capabilities. However, given a long paragraph (up to 512 words), these generation models still struggle to achieve strong alignment and are unable to generate images depicting complex scenes. In this paper, we introduce an information-enriched diffusion model for paragraph-to-image generation task, termed ParaDiffusion, which delves into the transference of the extensive semantic comprehension capabilities of large language models to the task of image generation. At its core is using a large language model (e.g., Llama V2) to encode long-form text, followed by fine-tuning with LORA to alignthe text-image feature spaces in the generation task. To facilitate the training of long-text semantic alignment, we also curated a high-quality paragraph-image pair dataset, namely ParaImage. This dataset contains a small amount of high-quality, meticulously annotated data, and a large-scale synthetic dataset with long text descriptions being generated using a vision-language model. Experiments demonstrate that ParaDiffusion outperforms state-of-the-art models (SD XL, DeepFloyd IF) on ViLG-300 and ParaPrompts, achieving up to 15% and 45% human voting rate improvements for visual appeal and text faithfulness, respectively. The code and dataset will be released to foster community research on long-text alignment.Comment: The project website is at: https://weijiawu.github.io/ParaDiffusionPage/. Code: https://github.com/weijiawu/ParaDiffusio

Performance Analysis of Directional Modulation With Finite-Quantized RF Phase Shifters in Analog Beamforming Structure

The radio frequency (RF) phase shifter with finite quantization bits in analog beamforming (AB) structure forms quantization error (QE) and causes a performance loss of received signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) at the receiver (called Bob). By using the law of large numbers in probability theory, the closed-form expression of the SINR performance loss is derived to be inversely proportional to the square of Sinc (or sin(x)/x) function. Here, a phase alignment method is applied in the directional modulation transmitter with the AB structure. Also, the secrecy rate (SR) expression is derived with the QE. From the numerical simulation results, we find that the SINR performance loss gradually decreases as the number L of quantization bits increases. This loss is less than 0.3 dB when L is larger than or equal to three. As L exceeds five, the SINR performance loss at Bob can be approximately trivial. Similarly, the SR performance loss gradually reduces as L increases. In particular, the SR performance loss is about 0.1 bits/s/Hz for L = 3 at signal-to-noise ratio of 15 dB

A Prospective Randomized Study of the Radiotherapy Volume for Limited-stage Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Preliminary Report

Background and objective Controversies exists with regard to target volumes as far as thoracic radiotherapy (TRT) is concerned in the multimodality treatment for limited-stage small cell lung cancer (LSCLC). The aim of this study is to prospectively compare the local control rate, toxicity profiles, and overall survival (OS) between patients received different target volumes irradiation after induction chemotherapy. Methods LSCLC patients received 2 cycles of etoposide and cisplatin (EP) induction chemotherapy and were randomly assigned to receive TRT to either the post- or pre-chemotherapy tumor extent (GTV-T) as study arm and control arm, CTV-N included the positive nodal drainage area for both arms. One to 2 weeks after induction chemotherapy, 45 Gy/30 Fx/19 d TRT was administered concurrently with the third cycle of EP regimen. After that, additional 3 cycles of EP consolidation were administered. Prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) was administered to patients with a complete response. Results Thirty-seven and 40 patients were randomly assigned to study arm and control arm. The local recurrence rates were 32.4% and 28.2% respectively (P=0.80); the isolated nodal failure (INF) rate were 3.0% and 2.6% respectively (P=0.91); all INF sites were in the ipsilateral supraclavicular fossa. Medastinal N3 disease was the risk factor for INF (P=0.02, OR=14.13, 95%CI: 1.47-136.13). During radiotherapy, grade I, II weight loss was observed in 29.4%, 5.9% and 56.4%, 7.7% patients respectively (P=0.04). Grade 0-I and II-III late pulmonary injury was developed in 97.1%, 2.9% and 86.4%, 15.4% patients respectively (P=0.07). Median survival time was 22.1 months and 26.9 months respectively. The 1 to 3-year OS were 77.9%, 44.4%, 37.3% and 75.8%, 56.3%, 41.7% respectively (P=0.79). Conclusion The preliminary results of this study indicate that irradiant the post-chemotherapy tumor extent (GTV-T) and positive nodal drainage area did not decrease local control and overall survival while radiation toxicity was reduced. But the current sample size has not met designed requirements, and further investigation is warranted before final conclusions could be drawn

Bazhu Decoction, a Traditional Chinese Medical Formula, Ameliorates Cognitive Deficits in the 5xFAD Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder associated with aging. There are currently no effective treatments for AD. Bazhu decoction (BZD), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, has been employed clinically to alleviate AD. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are still unclear. Here we found that middle- and high-doses of BZD ameliorated the behavioral aspects of 5xFAD transgenic mice in elevated plus maze, Y maze and Morris water maze tests. Moreover, BZD reduced the protein levels of BACE1 and PS1, resulting in a reduction of Aβ plaques. We also identified a beneficial effect of BZD on oxidative stress by attenuating MDA levels and SOD activity in the brains of 5xFAD mice. Together, these results indicate that BZD produces a dose-dependent positive effect on 5xFAD transgenic mouse model by decreasing APP processing and Aβ plaques, and by ameliorating oxidative damage. BZD may play a protective role in the cognitive and anxiety impairments and may be a complementary therapeutic option for AD

Production, characterization, and epitope mapping of a monoclonal antibody against genotype VII Newcastle disease virus V protein

Newcastle disease virus (NDV) V protein is crucial for viral interferon (IFN) antagonism and virulence, determining its host range restriction. However, little information is available on the B cell epitopes of V protein and the subcellular movement of V protein in the process of NDV infection. In this study, the monoclonal antibody (mAb) clone 3D7 against genotype VII NDV V protein was generated by immunizing mice with a purified recombinant His-tagged carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) region of V protein. Fine epitope mapping analysis and B-cell epitope prediction indicated that mAb 3D7 recognized a linear epitope 152RGPAELWK159, which is located in the V protein CTD region. Sequence alignment showed that the mAb clone 3D7-recognized epitope is highly conserved among Class II genotype VII NDV strains, but not among other genotypes, suggesting it could serve as a genetic marker to differentiate NDV genotypes. Furthermore, the movement of V protein during NDV replication in infected cells were determined by using this mAb. It was found that V protein localized around the nucleus during virus replication. The establishment of V protein-specific mAb and identification of its epitope extend our understanding of the antigenic characteristics of V protein and provide a basis for the development of epitope-based diagnostic assays