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

Explaining the cosmic ray spectrum feature of Auger beyond the ankle with dip model plus the galactic propagation effect

The Auger Collaboration has recently published the energy spectrum of cosmic rays above 1 EeV, which exhibits interesting features. These spectrum features provide an opportunity to investigate the propagation of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). In this study, we have developed a model that incorporates the dip model for UHECRs in the extragalactic propagation, while accounting for the suppression due to diffusion and interactions within the galaxy. Our model demonstrates excellent agreement with the energy spectrum measured by Auger and supports a spectral index of 2 for the diffusion coefficient in the galaxy starting from $5\times10^{18}$eV.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

The swap operation in the two-qubit Heisenberg XXZ model-effects of anisotropy and magnetic field

In this paper we study the swap operation in a two-qubit anisotropic XXZ model in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field. We establish the range of anisotropic parameter within which the swap operation is feasible. The swap errors caused by the inhomogeneous field are evaluated

deepBase: a database for deeply annotating and mining deep sequencing data

Advances in high-throughput next-generation sequencing technology have reshaped the transcriptomic research landscape. However, exploration of these massive data remains a daunting challenge. In this study, we describe a novel database, deepBase, which we have developed to facilitate the comprehensive annotation and discovery of small RNAs from transcriptomic data. The current release of deepBase contains deep sequencing data from 185 small RNA libraries from diverse tissues and cell lines of seven organisms: human, mouse, chicken, Ciona intestinalis, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenhorhabditis elegans and Arabidopsis thaliana. By analyzing ∼14.6 million unique reads that perfectly mapped to more than 284 million genomic loci, we annotated and identified ∼380 000 unique ncRNA-associated small RNAs (nasRNAs), ∼1.5 million unique promoter-associated small RNAs (pasRNAs), ∼4.0 million unique exon-associated small RNAs (easRNAs) and ∼6 million unique repeat-associated small RNAs (rasRNAs). Furthermore, 2038 miRNA and 1889 snoRNA candidates were predicted by miRDeep and snoSeeker. All of the mapped reads can be grouped into about 1.2 million RNA clusters. For the purpose of comparative analysis, deepBase provides an integrative, interactive and versatile display. A convenient search option, related publications and other useful information are also provided for further investigation. deepBase is available at: http://deepbase.sysu.edu.cn/

The impact of grandparenting on mental health among rural middle-aged and older adults in China: exploring the role of children’s support

ObjectivesIn the rural regions of China, characterized by a pronounced aging demographic and limited resources, a substantial proportion of middle-aged and older adults engage in grandparenting roles. Yet, the literature lacks consistent evidence regarding the effects of grandparenting on the mental health of this cohort. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore the impact of grandparenting on the mental health of rural middle-aged and older adults, as well as the underlying mechanisms.MethodsThis analysis encompassed 10,881 middle-aged and older adults, utilizing data from the 2018 Harmonized China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The mental health of participants was assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression-10 (CESD-10) scale, while support from children was categorized into financial and emotional types. The study employed logistic and OLS regression models to identify the mediating role of child support and utilized the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method for decomposing this mediating effect.ResultsThe findings demonstrated that grandparenting had a significant negative impact on depression among rural middle-aged and older adults. Furthermore, children’s support played a vital role in mediating this relationship, accounting for approximately one-third of the overall influence. Moreover, the decomposition analysis revealed that both emotional and economic support from adult children equally contributed to the declination of depression among rural middle-aged and older adults.ConclusionGrandparenting significantly enhances mental well-being in rural middle-aged and older adults, with the support from adult children serving as a vital pathway for this positive impact. Both economic and emotional assistance from children hold equal importance in this dynamic. It underscores the necessity of fortifying the family support system to amplify the support provided by children, which in turn could significantly enhance the mental health of rural middle-aged and older adults

Animal personality can modulate sexual conflict over offspring provisioning

Sexual conflict over parental investment is widespread among species with biparental care. Studies have indicated that a high degree of behavioural similarity between the two parents can increase offspring survival; however, it remains unclear how sexual conflict over parental care is resolved. In this study, we examined whether similarity of personality traits between the two parents plays an important role in affecting the provisioning behaviour of each sex in a wild population of the chestnut thrush, Turdus rubrocanus. First, as expected, the mating pairs with more similar personality traits had higher provisioning rates than those pairs with dissimilar traits. Moreover, we found that the similarity of personality traits can modulate the sexual conflict over provisioning in this species, as both parents with more similar partners had relatively higher and less divergent provisioning rates. A partner removal experiment revealed how the sole female or male parent responded when the level of conflict over care increased (the removed partner does not provide any care). The majority of males always reduced their provisioning investment, while females’ decisions depended on the degree of similarity with their partners. Females compensated by provisioning more frequently in pairs of similar personality traits (i.e. accepting a high level of conflict), but reduced their provisioning investment in extremely dissimilar pairs. Our results promote a better understanding of the resolution of sexual conflict over provisioning and highlight the evolutionary significance of mating with similar partners based on certain personality traits