The Cultural Representation of Chinese Speaking Others in Localized CFL/CSL Textbooks

A growing body of localized Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) textbooks are produced in various worldwide regions. Local education policies, influenced by a trend towards multicultural education, have shaped Chinese cultural representation in these textbooks to discursively include groups of overseas Chinese and Chinese ethnic minorities. However, a scarcity of studies have critically investigated the cultural representation of diverse Chinese-speaking groups in CFL textbooks. This paper critically examined the cultural representation of Chinese-speaking groups in CFL textbooks produced in regions including the United States, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, and Italy. Analysis and discussions are offered with respect to three interconnecting cultural themes, i.e. character setting; context of conversations; selection of cultural products. Our findings have demonstrated ample examples of strategical representation of Chinese-speaking Others. We also provided realistic suggestions that will contribute to future design of CFL textbooks in collaboration with diverse Chinese-speaking groups around the world for a more diverse portrayal of the Chinese linguistic and cultural communities

Catalogue of topological electrons and phonons in all allotropes of carbon

Carbon, as one of the most common element in the earth, constructs hundreds of allotropic phases to present rich physical nature. In this work, by combining the ab inito calculations and symmetry analyses method, we systematically study a large number of allotropes of carbon (703), and discovered 315 ideal topological phononic materials and 32 topological electronic materials. The ideal topological phononic nature includes single, charge-two, three, four Weyl honons, the Dirac or Weyl nodal lines phonons, and nodal surfaces phonons. And the topological electron nature ncludes topological insulator, (Type-II) Dirac points, triple nodal points, the Dirac (Weyl) nodal lines, quadratic nodal lines and so on. For convenience, we take the uni in SG 178 and pbg in SG 230 as the examples to describe the topological features in the main. We find that it is the coexistence of single pair Weyl phonons and one-nodal surfaces phonons in the uni in SG 178, which can form the single surface arc in the (100) surface BZ and isolated double-helix surface states (IDHSSs)in the (110) surface BZ. In topological semimetal pbg in SG 230, we find that the perfect triple degenerate nodal point can be found in the near Fermi level, and it can form the clear surface states in the (001) and (110) surface BZ. Our work not only greatly expands the topological features in all allotropes of carbon, but also provide many ideal platforms to study the topological electrons and phonons

An Overview of Deep-Learning-Based Audio-Visual Speech Enhancement and Separation

Speech enhancement and speech separation are two related tasks, whose purpose is to extract either one or more target speech signals, respectively, from a mixture of sounds generated by several sources. Traditionally, these tasks have been tackled using signal processing and machine learning techniques applied to the available acoustic signals. Since the visual aspect of speech is essentially unaffected by the acoustic environment, visual information from the target speakers, such as lip movements and facial expressions, has also been used for speech enhancement and speech separation systems. In order to efficiently fuse acoustic and visual information, researchers have exploited the flexibility of data-driven approaches, specifically deep learning, achieving strong performance. The ceaseless proposal of a large number of techniques to extract features and fuse multimodal information has highlighted the need for an overview that comprehensively describes and discusses audio-visual speech enhancement and separation based on deep learning. In this paper, we provide a systematic survey of this research topic, focusing on the main elements that characterise the systems in the literature: acoustic features; visual features; deep learning methods; fusion techniques; training targets and objective functions. In addition, we review deep-learning-based methods for speech reconstruction from silent videos and audio-visual sound source separation for non-speech signals, since these methods can be more or less directly applied to audio-visual speech enhancement and separation. Finally, we survey commonly employed audio-visual speech datasets, given their central role in the development of data-driven approaches, and evaluation methods, because they are generally used to compare different systems and determine their performance

Spindle oscillations are generated in the dorsal thalamus and modulated by the thalamic reticular nucleus

Spindle waves occur during the early stage of slow wave sleep and are thought to arise in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), causing inhibitory postsynaptic potential spindle-like oscillations in the dorsal thalamus that are propagated to the cortex. We have found that thalamocortical neurons exhibit membrane oscillations that have spindle frequencies, consist of excitatory postsynaptic potentials, and co-occur with electroencephalographic spindles. TRN lesioning prolonged oscillations in the medial geniculate body (MGB) and auditory cortex (AC). Injection of GABA~A~ antagonist into the MGB decreased oscillation frequency, while injection of GABA~B~ antagonist increased spindle oscillations in the MGB and cortex. Thus, spindles originate in the dorsal thalamus and TRN inhibitory inputs modulate this process, with fast inhibition facilitating the internal frequency and slow inhibition limiting spindle occurrence

Enhancing the quantum entanglement and EPR steering of a coupled optomechanical system with a squeezed vacuum field

Quantum entanglement and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering are valuable resources in quantum information processing. How to enhance the quantum entanglement and EPR steering of coupled optomechanical systems with a weak squeezed vacuum field are studied when the displacement of detuning induced by the mechanical mode is considered. Compared with the condition that the system interacts with a vacuum environment, the quantum entanglement and EPR steering are stronger when the squeezed vacuum field is applied. A squeezed vacuum field with a large degree is not beneficial to enhance the quantum entanglement and EPR steering. Rather than the squeezing parameter of the squeezed vacuum field, the reference phase plays a vital role in this model

Diagnosis and microecological characteristics of aerobic vaginitis in outpatients based on preformed enzymes

AbstractObjectiveAerobic vaginitis (AV) is a recently proposed term for genital tract infection in women. The diagnosis of AV is mainly based on descriptive diagnostic criteria proposed by Donders and co-workers. The objective of this study is to report AV prevalence in southwest China using an objective assay kit based on preformed enzymes and also to determine its characteristics.Materials and methodsA total of 1948 outpatients were enrolled and tested by a commercial diagnostic kit to investigate the AV prevalence and characteristics in southwestern China. The study mainly examined the vaginal ecosystem, age distribution, Lactobacillus amount, and changes in pH. Differences within groups were analyzed by Wilcoxon two-sample test.ResultsThe AV detection rate is 15.40%. The AV patients were usually seen in the sexually active age group of 20–30 years, followed by those in the age group of 30–40 years. The vaginal ecosystems of all the patients studied were absolutely abnormal, and diagnosed to have a combined infection [aerobic vaginitis (AV) + bacterial vaginitis (BV) 61.33%; 184/300]. Aerobic bacteria, especially Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli, were predominantly found in the vaginal samples of these women.ConclusionAV is a common type of genital infection in southwestern China and is characterized by sexually active age and combined infection predominated by the AV and BV type

A Robust Gene Expression Prognostic Signature for Overall Survival in High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer.

The objective of this research was to develop a robust gene expression-based prognostic signature and scoring system for predicting overall survival (OS) of patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC). Transcriptomic data of HGSOC patients were obtained from six independent studies in the NCBI GEO database. Genes significantly deregulated and associated with OS in HGSOCs were selected using GEO2R and Kaplan-Meier analysis with log-rank testing, respectively. Enrichment analysis for biological processes and pathways was performed using Gene Ontology analysis. A resampling/cross-validation method with Cox regression analysis was used to identify a novel gene expression-based signature associated with OS, and a prognostic scoring system was developed and further validated in nine independent HGSOC datasets. We first identified 488 significantly deregulated genes in HGSOC patients, of which 232 were found to be significantly associated with their OS. These genes were significantly enriched for cell cycle division, epithelial cell differentiation, p53 signaling pathway, vasculature development, and other processes. A novel 11-gene prognostic signature was identified and a prognostic scoring system was developed, which robustly predicted OS in HGSOC patients in 100 sampling test sets. The scoring system was further validated successfully in nine additional HGSOC public datasets. In conclusion, our integrative bioinformatics study combining transcriptomic and clinical data established an 11-gene prognostic signature for robust and reproducible prediction of OS in HGSOC patients. This signature could be of clinical value for guiding therapeutic selection and individualized treatment

Independent modulation of individual genomic component transcription and a cis-acting element related to high transcriptional activity in a multipartite DNA virus

Background: The genome of Banana bunchy top virus (BBTV) consists of at least six circular, single-stranded DNA components of 1kb in length. Some BBTV isolates may also carry satellite DNA molecules that are not essential for BBTV infection. The relation between multipartite DNA virus replication and their transcriptional levels and the underlying mechanism remain unclear. Results: To understand the coordinated replication and transcription of the multiple genomic components, the absolute amounts of each BBTV DNA component were measured by real-time PCR (qPCR), and their transcriptional levels were determined by RNAseq and reverse transcription-qPCR (qRT-PCR). Significant differences were found in the absolute amounts of individual BBTV genomic components. Transcriptional levels of each BBTV genomic component obtained from the RNAseq data matched closely to those obtained from qRT-PCR, but did not correspond to the absolute amount of each DNA component. The ratio of transcript over DNA copies ranged from 46.21 to 1059.44%, which was possibly regulated by the promoter region in the intergenic region of each component. To further determine this speculation, the promoter region of the DNA-S, -M or -N was constructed to the upstream of green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene for transient expression by agrobacterium-mediated transformation method. The qRT-PCR showed the highest transcriptional activity was promoted by DNA-N promoter, about 386.58% activity comparing with CaMV 35S promoter. Confocal microscopy observation showed that the intensity of green fluorescence was corresponding to that of qRT-PCR. Conclusions: Our data clearly showed that BBTV was able to control the transcriptional level of each DNA component independently by through the promoter sequences in the intergenic region. Moreover, a cis-acting element from DNA-N component had a high transcriptional activity.National Natural Science Foundation of China [31401709]; Hainan Provincial Natural Science Foundation [20153130]; Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund for Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences [19CXTD-33]; Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program, CSTC [CSTC-QN201704]Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]