Relationship among Self-appraisals, Others’ Actual Appraisals, and Reflected Appraisals on Primary School Teachers Teaching Ability

Convenient sampling and questionnaire survey was used to investigate the relationship among self-appraisals, others’ actual appraisals, and reflected appraisals on the teaching ability of 40 primary school teachers. The results of the study indicated that primary school teachers’ selfappraisals on teaching ability was obviously below others’ actual appraisals; generalized others had more influence on the self-appraisals of primary school teachers than specific others; primary school teachers’ reflected appraisals could influence their self-appraisals; and others’ actual appraisals could not directly influence self-appraisals. Consequently, we should pay more attention in developing the primary school teachers’ reflective ability, change the current way of teaching reflection, improve the influence of others’ actual appraisals on self-appraisals, and enhance the validity of teaching reflection

(E)-N′-(Furan-2-ylmethyl­ene)-4-(quinolin-8-yl­oxy)butanohydrazide

In the title mol­ecule, C18H17N3O3, the dihedral angle between the mean planes of the furan ring and the quinoline group is 77.4 (2)°. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules into centrosymmetric dimers

3,3′-Dibromo-5,5′-bis­[(S)-l-menth­yloxy]-4,4′-(hexane-1,6-diyldiimino)difuran-2(5H)-one

The title compound, C34H54Br2N2O6, was obtained by the Michael addition–elimination reaction of (5S)-5-(l-menthyl­oxy)-3,4-dibromo­furan-2(5H)-one with 1,6-hexa­nediamine in the presence of triethyl­amine. The crystal structure contains two chiral five-membered furan­one rings, in twist and envelope conformations, and two six-membered cyclo­hexane rings in chair conformations

Transcriptome profiling reveals the crucial biological pathways involved in cold response in Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis).

Most bamboo species including Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) are tropical or subtropical plants that greatly contribute to human well-being. Low temperature is one of the main environmental factors restricting bamboo growth and geographic distribution. Our knowledge of the molecular changes during bamboo adaption to cold stress remains limited. Here, we provided a general overview of the cold-responsive transcriptional profiles in Moso bamboo by systematically analyzing its transcriptomic response under cold stress. Our results showed that low temperature induced strong morphological and biochemical alternations in Moso bamboo. To examine the global gene expression changes in response to cold, 12 libraries (non-treated, cold-treated 0.5, 1 and 24 h at -2 °C) were sequenced using an Illumina sequencing platform. Only a few differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified at early stage, while a large number of DEGs were identified at late stage in this study, suggesting that the majority of cold response genes in bamboo are late-responsive genes. A total of 222 transcription factors from 24 different families were differentially expressed during 24-h cold treatment, and the expressions of several well-known C-repeat/dehydration responsive element-binding factor negative regulators were significantly upregulated in response to cold, indicating the existence of special cold response networks. Our data also revealed that the expression of genes related to cell wall and the biosynthesis of fatty acids were altered in response to cold stress, indicating their potential roles in the acquisition of bamboo cold tolerance. In summary, our studies showed that both plant kingdom-conserved and species-specific cold response pathways exist in Moso bamboo, which lays the foundation for studying the regulatory mechanisms underlying bamboo cold stress response and provides useful gene resources for the construction of cold-tolerant bamboo through genetic engineering in the future

Preparation of Tradescantia pallida-mediated zinc oxide nanoparticles and their activity against cervical cancer cell lines

Purpose: To synthesize zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) using Tradescantia pallida. (Commelinaceae) and determine their fluorescent and cytotoxic properties.Methods: ZnO NPs were synthesized according to a simple protocol using T. pallida aqueous leaf extract (TPALE). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and  transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to analyze the morphology of the ZnO NPs. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transforminfrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements were performed to determine their crystalline nature and functional groups, respectively. Fluorescence spectroscopy was used to assess the  photoluminescence properties of ZnO NPs. Upon confirmation of ZnO NP synthesis, cytotoxicity tests were carried out against HeLa cell line by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay.Results: The agglomerated ZnO NPs were rod-shaped and had a mean particle size of 25 ± 2 nm. Further, they exhibited good photoluminescence with correlation to ZnO crystals. MTT assay results indicated significant cytotoxicity against HeLa cervical cancer cell line.Conclusion: A simple approach for ZnO NP synthesis based on TPALE has been developed successfully. The synthesized ZnO NPs demonstrate good luminescence properties and cytotoxicity against cervical cancer line.Keywords: Commelinaceae, Cytotoxicity, Photoluminescence, Setcreasea pallida, Setcreasea purpurea, Tradescantia pallida, ZnO nanoparticle

Processing Efficiency, Simulation and Enzyme Activities Analysis of an Air-Lift Multilevel Circulation Membrane Bioreactor (AMCMBR) on Marine Domestic Sewage Treatment

The implementation of latest International Maritime Organization emission standard raised stringent requirements for marine domestic sewage discharge. In this study, an air-lift multilevel circulation membrane reactor (AMCMBR) was operated to analyze effects of various ecological factors on effluent of marine domestic sewage. Back-propagation (BP)-Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used to simulate effect of each ecological factor on reactor performance. The activities of four enzymes were investigated to reveal microbial activities in reactor. Experimental results indicates that the Hydraulic Retention Time (HRT), Mixed Liquid Suspended Solids (MLSS) and pH value cannot be less than 4 h, 3000 mg/L and 6, respectively to meet the IMO emission standard for effluent COD. A small value of mean square error (0.00147) indicated that BP-ANN can well describe the relationship between operation parameters (influent COD, HRT, MLSS, and pH) and effluent COD. The order of relative importance was pH ≈ MLSS > HRT > influent COD. Polyphenol oxidase and urease can serve as indicating factors for reactor performance, whereas dehydrogenase and nitrate reductase showed less susceptible towards varied influent COD and MLSS

Gesture Decoding Using ECoG Signals from Human Sensorimotor Cortex: A Pilot Study

Electrocorticography (ECoG) has been demonstrated as a promising neural signal source for developing brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). However, many concerns about the disadvantages brought by large craniotomy for implanting the ECoG grid limit the clinical translation of ECoG-based BMIs. In this study, we collected clinical ECoG signals from the sensorimotor cortex of three epileptic participants when they performed hand gestures. The ECoG power spectrum in hybrid frequency bands was extracted to build a synchronous real-time BMI system. High decoding accuracy of the three gestures was achieved in both offline analysis (85.7%, 84.5%, and 69.7%) and online tests (80% and 82%, tested on two participants only). We found that the decoding performance was maintained even with a subset of channels selected by a greedy algorithm. More importantly, these selected channels were mostly distributed along the central sulcus and clustered in the area of 3 interelectrode squares. Our findings of the reduced and clustered distribution of ECoG channels further supported the feasibility of clinically implementing the ECoG-based BMI system for the control of hand gestures

Automation-aided high-throughput technologies for synthetic biology

Synthetic biology is a research discipline which harnesses technological progress in de novo DNA synthesis as well as combining expertise of biological sciences and engineering research fields to facilitate construction of novel artificial biological systems. Since the past two decades, application of its methodologies has led to significant advances in metabolic engineering, providing alternative biochemical routes for the production of therapeutic products, cosmetics and biofuels. However, several challenges remain to be addressed to support development of synthetic biology applications, notably the demand for faster, cheaper and more reliable DNA manufacturing as well as efficient methods for genome-scale engineering of living organisms. This doctoral thesis proposes new interdisciplinary approaches to these problems, taking advantage of the latest laboratory automation technologies to improve efficiency of modern DNA assembly and genome editing methods. The first results chapter proposes application of a robotic platform for an acoustic liquid transfer for miniaturisation of DNA fabrication. This research, published in 2016, demonstrates the possibility to cost-efficiently assemble DNA in sub-microlitre assembly reactions. The second results chapter presents efforts to develop a method for genome-scale engineering of a model eukaryote, the budding yeast. This work capitalises on the recent progress in on-chip DNA synthesis and the next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology. Finally, the last results chapter demonstrates computational studies to predict and accelerate turnaround times of a commercial DNA supply chain using probabilistic simulations. The developed software is used to estimate sequence-specific DNA manufacturing turnaround times in order to help plan DNA manufacturing and guide decisions regarding further automation of different experimental procedures