An investigation into early childhood art education in two Shanghai kindergartens

Historically, art practice in Chinese preschools was dominated by giving children a skill-based sense of achievement which was roundly criticized by Western art educators for stifling children`s personal expression and creativity. Chinese policy makers promoted a renewed early childhood art curriculum which draws heavily on conceptual and practical model of art education from abroad while still valuing aspects of past traditions. The objectives outlined in the revised early childhood art curriculum speak not only to an older Chinese emphasis on children`s early acquisition of art skills and the quality of work of art, but also to an overriding new emphasis on creative self-expression, co-constructing art learning, and art appreciation. Changes in the principles of early childhood art education have taken place since 2001, so what has changed in implementation? Using a qualitative, case study methodology, this study set out to address the following research questions: What are common rituals of practice that are typical of art education praxis in two contemporary Shanghai kindergartens? What do teachers reveal as their rationale for their approach to teaching art? How do children`s actions, artworks and speech represent their art learning? In what ways do teachers and children`s responses reflect the way that art education has been represented in current kindergarten policy guidelines and historical reforms? Examining what teacher and children did and said about art revealed commonly shared experiences. It appeared that a predetermined, teacher-directed style of teaching still dominated many preschool art sessions. Influenced by cultural factors, there was a widely shared commitment to the significance of teacher authority in ‘regulating’ children`s art experience, and the idea of skill progression drives the emergence of creative expression. The teaching of practical skills via modeling dominated even though policy shifts indicated to the value of emotional enjoyment. Teachers tried to adjust their tight control over children`s art-making, as evident in their endeavor to develop alternative rituals of practice to enhance children`s engagement with work of art. Nevertheless, changes in ideas, particularly the corresponding practice presented a challenge to teachers who had never seen these multiple perspectives demonstrated in a pragmatic manner. Teachers perhaps were not equipped with sufficient knowledge to effectively combine these opposing messages into effective practice. Constraints such as tight schedules, large class sizes, parents` expectations for observable outcomes of children`s learning, and more importantly, the lack of effective professional development further contributed to the perpetuation of a teacher-directed art practice. Indicated by this study, there were themes warranting further investigation: the tension between Chinese tradition and contrasting Western views of creativity and expressiveness; the constraints in practice that reinforce teacher-directed pedagogy; and effective interventions that support teachers to make significant changes in their own art pedagogical practice in kindergarten art

How can the enforcement of the Basel Convention be improved? : a case study of China and the UK and the role of networks

The rise of globalization and urbanization has led to increased production and emission of hazardous wastes. Developed countries often mitigate their disposal costs by exporting large quantities of these wastes to developing countries, causing significant environmental pollution. International organisations like the United Nations Environment Program and various countries have recognized this issue and have developed environmental laws to combat it. Despite these efforts, enforcement remains weak against the growing threat of pollution. This thesis investigates how to improve the enforcement of laws governing the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes, particularly focusing on the Basel Convention. It examines the role of inter-governmental and inter-institutional networks in achieving effective enforcement. By comparing national legislation and enforcement mechanisms in the UK and China, the study highlights significant differences in how these countries handle environmental law enforcement. The UK, typically a waste-exporting nation, and China, a waste-importing nation, exhibit contrasting enforcement capabilities. China's environmental law enforcement has evolved, yet it still lags behind the UK's more robust systems. The thesis underscores that networks - facilitating the exchange of expertise and resources—are essential in strengthening national and institutional capacities for enforcing laws on hazardous waste movement. Overall, the study concludes that enhancing cooperation through networks can significantly improve the enforcement of environmental laws, reducing the detrimental impact of hazardous waste transboundary movement.The rise of globalization and urbanization has led to increased production and emission of hazardous wastes. Developed countries often mitigate their disposal costs by exporting large quantities of these wastes to developing countries, causing significant environmental pollution. International organisations like the United Nations Environment Program and various countries have recognized this issue and have developed environmental laws to combat it. Despite these efforts, enforcement remains weak against the growing threat of pollution. This thesis investigates how to improve the enforcement of laws governing the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes, particularly focusing on the Basel Convention. It examines the role of inter-governmental and inter-institutional networks in achieving effective enforcement. By comparing national legislation and enforcement mechanisms in the UK and China, the study highlights significant differences in how these countries handle environmental law enforcement. The UK, typically a waste-exporting nation, and China, a waste-importing nation, exhibit contrasting enforcement capabilities. China's environmental law enforcement has evolved, yet it still lags behind the UK's more robust systems. The thesis underscores that networks - facilitating the exchange of expertise and resources—are essential in strengthening national and institutional capacities for enforcing laws on hazardous waste movement. Overall, the study concludes that enhancing cooperation through networks can significantly improve the enforcement of environmental laws, reducing the detrimental impact of hazardous waste transboundary movement

Robust Kernel-Based Tracking with Multiple Subtemplates in Vision Guidance System

The mean shift algorithm has achieved considerable success in target tracking due to its simplicity and robustness. However, the lack of spatial information may result in its failure to get high tracking precision. This might be even worse when the target is scale variant and the sequences are gray-levels. This paper presents a novel multiple subtemplates based tracking algorithm for the terminal guidance application. By applying a separate tracker to each subtemplate, it can handle more complicated situations such as rotation, scaling, and partial coverage of the target. The innovations include: (1) an optimal subtemplates selection algorithm is designed, which ensures that the selected subtemplates maximally represent the information of the entire template while having the least mutual redundancy; (2) based on the serial tracking results and the spatial constraint prior to those subtemplates, a Gaussian weighted voting method is proposed to locate the target center; (3) the optimal scale factor is determined by maximizing the voting results among the scale searching layers, which avoids the complicated threshold setting problem. Experiments on some videos with static scenes show that the proposed method greatly improves the tracking accuracy compared to the original mean shift algorithm

An Efficient Approach to Solve the Large-Scale Semidefinite Programming Problems

Solving the large-scale problems with semidefinite programming (SDP) constraints is of great importance in modeling and model reduction of complex system, dynamical system, optimal control, computer vision, and machine learning. However, existing SDP solvers are of large complexities and thus unavailable to deal with large-scale problems. In this paper, we solve SDP using matrix generation, which is an extension of the classical column generation. The exponentiated gradient algorithm is also used to solve the special structure subproblem of matrix generation. The numerical experiments show that our approach is efficient and scales very well with the problem dimension. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm is applied for a clustering problem. The experimental results on real datasets imply that the proposed approach outperforms the traditional interior-point SDP solvers in terms of efficiency and scalability

A Dynamic Simulation of Annular Multiphase Flow during Deep-water Horizontal Well Drilling and the Analysis of Influential Factors

A gas kick simulation model for deep-water horizontal well with diesel-based drilling fluid is presented in this paper. This model is mainly based on the mass, momentum, and energy conservation equations. The unique aspect of this model is the fluid-gas coupling and the change of mud properties after the gas influx from the formation. The simulation results show that the gas in an annulus dissolves first and it then escapes from the drilling fluid due to the gas solution in diesel. Therefore, it is possible to avoid existing gas hydrate by using oil-based drilling fluids. When gas kick occurred, it will be more dangerous, if the well has a longer horizontal section, a greater gas influx from the formation, and smaller displacement. The occurrence and development of overflow will be very quick in the condition of pumping; it will also be more dangerous, when diesel-based drilling fluid is used in the deep-water horizontal wells

The risk of long-term cardiometabolic disease in women with premature or early menopause: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundTransition into menopause is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, it is unclear whether the association exists between premature menopause (defined as age at menopause 40 years) or early menopause (defined as age at menopause 40–45 years) and CVD or cardiovascular risk factors. The aim of this review was to comprehensively evaluate and meta-analyze the most reliable evidence about the relationship between menopausal age and the risk of long-term cardiometabolic disease.MethodsA comprehensive literature search of the PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase databases from inception to October 1, 2022, for titles and abstracts with a restriction to English language papers led to the discovery of the studies. Data are expressed as the Hazard Ratio (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The degree of heterogeneity was measured using the I-square (I2) index.Results921,517 participants from 20 cohort studies published between 1998 and 2022 were considered. Compared to women with menopause at age >45 years, women with premature menopause (PM) or early menopause (EM) had a higher risks of type 2 diabetes (RR: 1.32, 95% CI: 1.08–1.62; RR: 1.11, 95% CI: 0.91–1.36, respectively), hyperlipidemia (RR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.05–1.39; RR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.02–1.33, respectively), coronary heart disease (RR: 1.52, 95% CI: 1.22–1.91; RR: 1.19, 95% CI: 1.07–1.32, respectively), stroke (RR: 1.27, 95% CI: 1.02–1.58; RR: 1.13, 95% CI: 0.97–1.32, respectively) and total cardiovascular event (RR: 1.36, 95% CI: 1.16–1.60; RR: 1.14, 95% CI: 0.97–1.35, respectively). No difference was found for hypertension in PM or EM women (RR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.89–1.07; RR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.91–1.04, respectively). Additionally, we also found that PM women, but not EM women, were linked with an increased risk of ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. However, this is not in line with the conclusion that both PM and EM had a higher risk of total stroke.ConclusionWomen with PM or EM have a higher risk of developing long-term CVD, compared to women with menopause at age >45 years. Therefore, we recommend early lifestyle interventions (e.g., maintaining a healthy lifestyle) and medical treatments (e.g., timely initiation of menopausal hormone therapy) to decrease the risk of cardiometabolic disease in early or premature menopausal women.Systematic Review RegistrationPROSPERO, identifier CRD4202237875

Circulating microbial content in myeloid malignancy patients is associated with disease subtypes and patient outcomes

Although recent work has described the microbiome in solid tumors, microbial content in hematological malignancies is not well-characterized. Here we analyze existing deep DNA sequence data from the blood and bone marrow of 1870 patients with myeloid malignancies, along with healthy controls, for bacterial, fungal, and viral content. After strict quality filtering, we find evidence for dysbiosis in disease cases, and distinct microbial signatures among disease subtypes. We also find that microbial content is associated with host gene mutations and with myeloblast cell percentages. In patients with low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome, we provide evidence that Epstein-Barr virus status refines risk stratification into more precise categories than the current standard. Motivated by these observations, we construct machine-learning classifiers that can discriminate among disease subtypes based solely on bacterial content. Our study highlights the association between the circulating microbiome and patient outcome, and its relationship with disease subtype

Approaching Disorder-Tolerant Semiconducting Polymers

Doping has been widely used to control the charge carrier concentration in organic semiconductors. However, in conjugated polymers, n-doping is often limited by the tradeoff between doping efficiency and charge carrier mobilities, since dopants often randomly distribute within polymers, leading to significant structural and energetic disorder. Here, we screen a large number of polymer building block combinations and explore the possibility of designing n-type conjugated polymers with good tolerance to dopant-induced disorder. We show that a carefully designed conjugated polymer with a single dominant planar backbone conformation, high torsional barrier at each dihedral angle, and zigzag backbone curvature is highly dopable and can tolerate dopant-induced disorder. With these features, the designed diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based polymer can be efficiently n-doped and exhibit high n-type electrical conductivities over 120 S cm−1, much higher than the reference polymers with similar chemical structures. This work provides a polymer design concept for highly dopable and highly conductive polymeric semiconductors