A New Historicist Interpretation of Beloved

According to New Historicism, there are plural histories instead of single History. For a long time, blacks’ miserable history was marginalized. This paper thinks, Morrison, in Beloved, presented their histories in the form of eye-catching stories. Such juxtaposition of literature and history rightly accords with the idea of New Historicism that literature and history have no clear border line. Thus, under the guidance of New Historicism, this paper intends to explore the hidden African Americans’ histories by analyzing Beloved so as to reconstruct the part of the blacks’ history under slavery.

Americans’ Eastward Journey - Intercultural Communication in The Portrait of a Lady

In the late 19th century, a heat of travel abroad especially to Europe arose among Americans. With The portrait of a Lady, noted for its international theme as the research subject, this paper intends to interpret some leading causes including context, prejudice and ethnocentrism resulting in cultural conflicts. Meanwhile, a closer observation will be given to the process and types of cultural adaptation, containing culture shock, assimilation and integration. This paper, lastly, expresses that a more smooth intercultural communication is urgently needed for an ideal culture integration

A Method for Retrieving Vertical Air Velocities in Convective Clouds over the Tibetan Plateau from TIPEX-III Cloud Radar Doppler Spectra

In the summertime, convective cells occur frequently over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) because of the large dynamic and thermal effects of the landmass. Measurements of vertical air velocity in convective cloud are useful for advancing our understanding of the dynamic and microphysical mechanisms of clouds and can be used to improve the parameterization of current numerical models. This paper presents a technique for retrieving high-resolution vertical air velocities in convective clouds over the TP through the use of Doppler spectra from vertically pointing Ka-band cloud radar. The method was based on the development of a “small-particle-traced” idea and its associated data processing, and it used three modes of radar. Spectral broadening corrections, uncertainty estimations, and results merging were used to ensure accurate results. Qualitative analysis of two typical convective cases showed that the retrievals were reliable and agreed with the expected results inferred from other radar measurements. A quantitative retrieval of vertical air motion from a ground-based optical disdrometer was used to compare with the radar-derived result. This comparison illustrated that, while the data trends from the two methods of retrieval were in agreement while identifying the updrafts and downdrafts, the cloud radar had a much higher resolution and was able to reveal the small-scale variations in vertical air motion

Prediction of Bucket Fill Factor of Loader Based on Three-Dimensional Information of Material Surface

The bucket fill factor is a core evaluation indicator for the optimization of the loader’s autonomous shoveling operation. Accurately predicting the bucket fill factor of the loader after different excavation trajectories is fundamental for optimizing the loader’s efficiency and energy cost. Therefore, this paper proposes a method for predicting the bucket fill factor of the loader based on the three-dimensional information of the material surface. Firstly, the co-simulation model of loader shoveling material is established based on the multi-body dynamics software RecurDyn and the discrete element method software (DEMS) EDEM, and the co-simulation is conducted under different excavation trajectories. Then, the three-dimensional material surface information before shovel excavation is obtained from DEMS, and the surface function of the material contour is fitted based on the corresponding shovel excavation trajectory information. Meanwhile, the volume of the material excavated by the loader is obtained by the numerical integration method, and it is divided by the rated bucket volume to obtain the estimated bucket fill factor. Finally, the actual volume of the material after the shovel excavation is divided by the rated bucket volume to obtain the accurate bucket fill factor. Based on this, the prediction model of the bucket fill factor is built. The experimental results show that the proposed method is feasible, with a maximum error of 4.3%, a root mean square error of 0.025 and an average absolute error of 0.021. The research work lays the foundation for predicting the bucket fill factor of construction machinery such as loaders and excavators under real working conditions, which is conducive to promoting the development of autonomous, unmanned, and intelligent construction machinery

Effects of Stachyose on Synbiotic Yogurt Obtained from Goat Milk with Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus casei

Development of synbiotic yogurt having multiple health benefits has become a new trend. The purpose of this study was to obtain the optimum stachyose concentration of the goat yogurt fermented by probiotics including Lactobacillus acidophilus (LA) or Lactobacillus casei (LC) besides Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus by measuring pH, acidity, viable counts and the change of stachyose content. The optimal stachyose concentration of goat LA-yogurt and goat LC-yogurt were 0.4% and 0.8%. Under the above concentrations, the total bacteria number and the viable counts of LA were 2.02×109cfu/mL, 3×107cfu/mL, respectively; the total bacteria number and the viable counts of LC were 2.55×109cfu/mL, 2.53×108cfu/mL, respectively. The results indicate that stachyose can effectively improve the vitality and the viable counts of strains in goat yogurt

LncRNA Neat1 targets NonO and miR-128-3p to promote antigen-specific Th17 cell responses and autoimmune inflammation

Abstract Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) interaction with RNA-Binding proteins (RBPs) plays an important role in immunological processes. The generation of antigen-specific Th17 cells is closely associated with autoimmune pathogenesis. However, the function of lncRNA-RBP interactions in the regulation of pathogenic Th17 cell responses during autoimmunity remains poorly understood. Here, we found that lncRNA Neat1, highly expressed in Th17 cells, promoted antigen-specific Th17 cell responses. Both global and CD4+ T cell-specific knockdown of Neat1 protected mice against the development of experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU). Mechanistically, Neat1 regulated RNA-Binding protein NonO, thus relieving IL-17 and IL-23R from NonO-mediated transcriptional repression and supporting antigen-specific Th17 cell responses. In addition, Neat1 also modulated miR-128-3p/NFAT5 axis to increase the expression of IL-17 and IL-23R, leading to augmented Th17 cell responses. Our findings elucidate a previously unrecognized mechanistic insight into the action of Neat1 in promoting antigen-specific Th17 responses and autoimmunity, and may facilitate the development of therapeutic targets for T cell-mediated autoimmune diseases

A preferable approach to clone hLIF cDNA from the genomic DNA

Complementary DNA (cDNA) is valuable for investigating protein structure and function in the research of life science, but it is difficult to obtain by traditional reverse transcription. In this study, we employed a novel strategy to clone the human leukemia inhibitory factor (hLIF) gene cDNA from genomic DNA directly isolated from the mucous membrane of mouth. The hLIF sequence can be acquired within a few hours by means of amplification of each exon and splicing using overlap-PCR. Thus, the new approach developed in this study is simple, time- and cost-effective, and it is not limited to particular gene expression levels of each tissue