Traditional Wooden Buildings in China

Chinese ancient architecture, with its long history, unique systematic features and wide-spread employment as well as its abundant heritages, is a valuable legacy of the whole world. Due to the particularity of the material and structure of Chinese ancient architecture, relatively research results are mostly published in Chinese, which limits international communication. On account of the studies carried out in Nanjing Forestry University and many other universities and teams, this chapter emphatically introduces the development, structural evolution and preservation of traditional Chinese wooden structure; research status focuses on material properties, decay pattern, anti-seismic performance and corresponding conservation and reinforcement technologies of the main load-bearing members in traditional Chinese wooden structure

Self-interest bias in the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-cultural comparison between the United States and China

In the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries attempt to enforce new social norms to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus. A key to the success of these measures is the individual adherence to norms that are collectively beneficial to contain the spread of the pandemic. However, individuals’ self-interest bias (i.e., the prevalent tendency to license own but not others’ self-serving acts or norm violations) can pose a challenge to the success of such measures. The current research examines COVID-19-related self-interest bias from a cross-cultural perspective. Two studies (N = 1,558) sampled from the United States and China consistently revealed that participants from the United States evaluated their own self-serving acts (exploiting test kits in Study 1; social gathering and sneezing without covering the mouth in public in Study 2) as more acceptable than identical deeds of others, while such self-interest bias did not emerge among Chinese participants. Cultural underpinnings of independent versus interdependent self-construal may influence the extent to which individuals apply self-interest bias to justifications of their own self-serving behaviors during the pandemic

Monolayer Excitonic Laser

Recently, two-dimensional (2D) materials have opened a new paradigm for fundamental physics explorations and device applications. Unlike gapless graphene, monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) has new optical functionalities for next generation ultra-compact electronic and opto-electronic devices. When TMDC crystals are thinned down to monolayers, they undergo an indirect to direct bandgap transition, making it an outstanding 2D semiconductor. Unique electron valley degree of freedom, strong light matter interactions and excitonic effects were observed. Enhancement of spontaneous emission has been reported on TMDC monolayers integrated with photonic crystal and distributed Bragg reflector microcavities. However, the coherent light emission from 2D monolayer TMDC has not been demonstrated, mainly due to that an atomic membrane has limited material gain volume and is lack of optical mode confinement. Here, we report the first realization of 2D excitonic laser by embedding monolayer tungsten disulfide (WS2) in a microdisk resonator. Using a whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonator with a high quality factor and optical confinement, we observed bright excitonic lasing in visible wavelength. The Si3N4/WS2/HSQ sandwich configuration provides a strong feedback and mode overlap with monolayer gain. This demonstration of 2D excitonic laser marks a major step towards 2D on-chip optoelectronics for high performance optical communication and computing applications.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Relativistic quantum scarring, spin-induced phase, and quantization in a symmetric Dirac billiard system

Acknowledgments The work at Lanzhou University was supported by NSFC under Grant Nos. 12175090, 11775101, and 12047501, and by the 111 Project under Grant No. B20063. The work at Arizona State University was supported by the Air Force of Scientific Research through Grant No. FA9550-21-1–0186.Peer reviewedPostprin

Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii infection in pet dogs in Lanzhou, Northwest China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In recent years, surveys of <it>Toxoplasma gondii </it>infection in dogs have been reported worldwide, including China. However, little is known about the prevalence of <it>T. gondii </it>in pet dogs in Northwest China. In the present study, the prevalence of <it>T. gondii </it>in pet dogs in Lanzhou, China was investigated using the modified agglutination test (MAT).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this survey, antibodies to <it>T. gondii </it>were found in 28 of 259 (10.81%) pet dogs, with MAT titers of 1:20 in 14 dogs, 1:40 in nine, 1:80 in four, and 1:160 or higher in one dog. The prevalence ranged from 6.67% to 16.67% among dogs of different ages, with low rates in young pet dogs, and high rates in older pet dogs. The seroprevalence in dogs >3 years old was higher than that in dogs ≤1 years old, but the difference was not statistically significant (<it>P ></it>0.05). The seroprevalence in male dogs was 12.50% (17 of 136), and in female dogs it was 8.94% (11 of 123), but the difference was not statistically significant (<it>P ></it>0.05).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A high prevalence of <it>T. gondii </it>infection was found in pet dogs in Lanzhou, Northwest China, which has implications for public health in this region. In order to reduce the risk of exposure to <it>T. gondii</it>, further measures and essential control strategies should be carried out rationally in this region.</p

Cuprous oxide nanoparticles selectively induce apoptosis of tumor cells

In the rapid development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, many researchers have discovered that metal oxide nanoparticles have very useful pharmacological effects. Cuprous oxide nanoparticles (CONPs) can selectively induce apoptosis and suppress the proliferation of tumor cells, showing great potential as a clinical cancer therapy. Treatment with CONPs caused a G1/G0 cell cycle arrest in tumor cells. Furthermore, CONPs enclosed in vesicles entered, or were taken up by mitochondria, which damaged their membranes, thereby inducing apoptosis. CONPs can also produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and initiate lipid peroxidation of the liposomal membrane, thereby regulating many signaling pathways and influencing the vital movements of cells. Our results demonstrate that CONPs have selective cytotoxicity towards tumor cells, and indicate that CONPs might be a potential nanomedicine for cancer therapy