HOST RESTRICTION FACTORS IN THE REPLICATION OF TOMBUSVIRUSES: FROM RNA HELICASES TO NUCLEOCYTOPLASMIC SHUTTLING

Positive-stranded (+)RNA viruses replicate inside cells and depend on many cellular factors to complete their infection cycle. In the meanwhile, (+)RNA viruses face the host innate immunity, such as cell-intrinsic restriction factors that could block virus replication. Firstly, I have established that the plant DDX17-like RH30 DEAD-box helicase conducts strong inhibitory function on tombusvirus replication when expressed in plants and yeast surrogate host. This study demonstrates that RH30 blocks the assembly of viral replicase complex, the activation of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase function of p92pol and viral RNA template recruitment. In addition, the features rendering the abundant plant DEAD-box helicases either antiviral or pro-viral functions in tombusvirus replication are intriguing. I found the reversion of the antiviral function of DDX17-like RH30 DEAD-box helicase and the coopted pro-viral DDX3-like RH20 helicase due to deletion of unique N-terminal domains. The discovery of the sequence plasticity of DEAD-box helicases that can alter recognition of different cis-acting elements in the viral genome illustrates the evolutionary potential of RNA helicases in the arms race between viruses and their hosts. Moreover, I discovered that Xpo1 possesses an anti-viral function and exports previously characterized cell-intrinsic restriction factors (CIRFs) from the nucleus to the replication compartment of tombusviruses. Altogether, in my PhD studies, I found plant RH30 DEAD-box helicase is a potent host restriction factor inhibiting multiple steps of the tombusvirus replication. In addition, I provided the evidence supporting that the Nterminal domain determines the functions of antiviral DDX17-like RH30 DEAD-box helicase and pro-viral DDX3-like RH20 DEAD-box helicase in tombusvirus replication. Moreover, I discovered the emerging significance of the Xpo1-dependent nuclear export pathway in tombusvirus replication

Cultural renaissance and cultrual tourism in the City of Tainan

Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and inherits rich historic assets including national level landmark buildings, important historic fabric and local traditions. The city has lost her political and economic importance since mid nineteenth century. Around the turn of the millennium Tainan started to gain more political and economic importance after the change of central government policy to counterbalance long term uneven development focusing on the north. Claiming to be Taiwan’s cultural capital, the city tried to developed an identity emphasising her past over the past decade. Cultural tourism has been promoted alongside the city’s overall improvement of the public realm to boost local economy. Nine cultural districts/parks were identified followed with environment enhancement projects and cultural programmes; six festivals were newly formed seeing various kinds of art and cultural programmes taking place on heritage sites and their vicinities. New national museums and parks were developed elevating the city’s political and cultural status. Cultural renaissance was acclaimed by both the government and some cultural elites though with different conceptions and probably aims. A new genre of quality housing design, successful community development and a trend of innovative reuse design evolved, forming a new dimension of the city’s culture, and attracted media attention and tourists over this period. After a brief review of Tainan’s urban development against Taiwan’s history, this paper explores Tainan’s cultural tourism over the past decade alongside the process of her successful environment reform and against the background of political changes. Relationship between cultural policy and environment ones are studied and debates on environment and cultural impacts of such an approach are the key concern. The study base mainly on literature, including theory of urban design, studies of cultural tourism, government reports and plans, official statistics, and journal papers. Though the improvement of some districts won national or international design prizes and now heritage sites and major streets of cultural districts attract quite some visitors, infrastructural problems and the breach of informal sectors on the public realm remain unresolved. Also the stereotyped cultural festivals across the city over the year draw criticism as consumption against historic stage. The way that the city’s public realm is used and managed, the way that the city treats planning and design, and the urge for cultural content/meaning and depth are discussed against general studies of cultural tourism and fundamental theories of urban design- responsiveness and a sense of place.Peer Reviewe

Phenotype-based and Self-learning Inter-individual Sleep Apnea Screening with a Level IV Monitoring System

Purpose: We propose a phenotype-based artificial intelligence system that can self-learn and is accurate for screening purposes, and test it on a Level IV monitoring system. Methods: Based on the physiological knowledge, we hypothesize that the phenotype information will allow us to find subjects from a well-annotated database that share similar sleep apnea patterns. Therefore, for a new-arriving subject, we can establish a prediction model from the existing database that is adaptive to the subject. We test the proposed algorithm on a database consisting of 62 subjects with the signals recorded from a Level IV wearable device measuring the thoracic and abdominal movements and the SpO2. Results: With the leave-one cross validation, the accuracy of the proposed algorithm to screen subjects with an apnea-hypopnea index greater or equal to 15 is 93.6%, the positive likelihood ratio is 6.8, and the negative likelihood ratio is 0.03. Conclusion: The results confirm the hypothesis and show that the proposed algorithm has great potential to screen patients with SAS