The Will Not in Bondage: An Interpretation of Free Will in Shakespeare’s Pure Tragedies

The tension between Christian Predestination and Free Will is the theme Shakespearean tragedy frequently deals with. As it is the tragedy that often masterly generalizes the playwright’s ultimate concerns, the paper, based on a re-examination of the fates of the heroes and themes revealed in Shakespeare’s pure tragedies from the perspectives of Free Will as the gift of grace and that in man’s exertion and judgments, suggests that Shakespeare, though living and writing under Anglican circumstances, shows in great measure an anti-Calvinistic view of Free Will, to be elaborated clearly, that man’s will can be reconciled with God’s will, that the path toward eternity and redemption is neither simple nor clear, and that man is not saved by good works, but by grace through faith that works well. However, his lack of strong confidence in the infinite has constantly aroused controversies on the adherence of his Christian faith

Parameter Dependence of Positive Solutions for Second-Order Singular Neumann Boundary Value Problems with Impulsive Effects

The author considers the Neumann boundary value problem -y′′t+Myt=λωtft,yt,  t∈J,    t≠tk,  -Δy′|t=tk = λIktk,ytk,   k=1,2,…,m,  y′(0)=y′(1)=0 and establishes the dependence results of the solution on the parameter λ, which cover equations without impulsive effects and are compared with some recent results by Nieto and O’Regan

Chemical and Non-Chemical Control of Potato Pink Rot

Pink rot of potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a widespread soilborne disease that causes significant losses in the field and storage. It is caused by Phytophthora erythroseptica (Pethybr.), an oomycete pathogen that produces sexual spores that can survive in soil for years. The management of pink rot mainly relies on chemical control. However, the most effective chemical in pink rot control, mefenoxam, is losing its efficacy owing to the development of mefenoxam resistance in P. erythroseptica. To evaluate alternative fungicides (including chemical and biological fungicides) to mefenoxam in pink rot control, two greenhouse experiments and three field trials were conducted. Crop rotation experiments were performed in the field to investigate the rotation effects of alfalfa, barley-ryegrass, canola, red clover, onion, pumpkin, sweet corn and oats on pink rot of potato. Thirty-four wild-type isolates of P. erythroseptica were collected for fungicide sensitivity assay and fungicide-resistant P. erythroseptica selection, to predict the resistance risk of fluopicolide, an alternative chemical to mefenoxam. Field trials showed that biologicals including Bacillus subtilis (Serenade Soil, Taegro), Bacillus amyloliquifaciens (Double Nickel, MBI-110), and extract of Reynoutria sachalinensis (Regalia) did not significantly reduce pink rot severity in the harvested potato tubers. The sole application of fluopicolide, some combinations of chemical fungicides (mefenoxam and oxathiapiprolin) and some combinations of chemical and biological fungicides (oxathiapiprolin/fluopicolide and Bacillus sp.) significantly reduced pink rot severity in the presence of mefenoxam-resistant P. erythroseptica population. In crop rotation trials, alfalfa, canola and pumpkin significantly increased potato tuber yield. However, the rotation crops had no significant effect on pink rot of potato. The results of the fungicide resistance study suggested a medium risk of P. erythroseptica developing intermediate resistance to fluopicolide, and that there was a trade-off between fluopicolide resistance and biological fitness in P. erythroseptica

Regression Analysis Research on the Impact of Urbanization on Farmers’ Consumption Structure

The status of research on the impact of urbanization on farmers’ consumption structure conducted by the domestic and international scholars is described in the paper; and the argument is supported by exploration and analysis that the urbanization has exerted an influence on farmers’ consumption structure. Furthermore, by concretely exploring the related data model constructed in the research, the following achievements are made: along with the advancement of urbanization, the proportion of three categories including food and clothing in farmers’ consumption structure turns on a downward trend, while the proportion of housing, transportation, and other five categories are in an upward trend; in the farmers’ consumption expenditure, the medical and health expenditure is significantly affected by urbanization, while urbanization only has a little influence on food expenditure. On the basis of the conclusion in this paper, suggestions are put forward which include promoting the urbanization rate, creating a better condition for the development of the rural residents, improving the basic social security system and perfecting a series of policies that stimulate rural consumption including the “home appliances going to the countryside”, “mobile phones going to the countryside”, and “cars going to the countryside” etc.

Digital Inequality in the Use of Mobile Business Supporting Features

Today, Internet has become an essential part of peoples’ daily lives. As the advancement of Internet technology, the phenomenon of digital inequality has received substantial attention. This study extended research on digital inequality to the field of mobile business. The paper aimed to investigate the impact of digital inequality in the use of mobile business supporting features in China. To address this, an empirical study with 258 subjects was carried out. The results indicated that perceived ease of use had a significant positive effect on the use of mobile business supporting features, while perceived risk had a significant negative effect on the use of mobile business supporting features. Furthermore, this study also revealed that socio-economically disadvantaged individuals were more likely to be influenced by perceived risks, while socio-economically advantaged individuals were more likely to be influenced by the utilitarian motivations

Characterization of a glucose-tolerant β-1,4-glucosidase BglC from Cytophaga hutchinsonii

rapidly and sufficiently through a unique mechanism without cellulosome and free cellulases. It was speculated to degrade cellulose with cell-bound cellulases. In this study, a putative GH3 β-glucosidase, BglC, was functionally expressed in Escherichia coli JM109, and the recombinant protein was purified and characterized. BglC was identified as a β-glucosidase with wide substrate specificity. It could not only degrade cellobiose and p-nitrophenyl β-D-glucopyranoside (pNPG) but also degrade cellodextrins such as cellotriose, cellotetrase and cellopentose. BglC had similar specific activity with both cellobiose and pNPG as the substrates. When cellobiose was used as the substrate, certain amount of cellotriose, cellotetrase and cellopentose could be produced besides glucose showing that BglC also had transglycosylation activity. Glucose could inhibite its transglycosylation activity rather than increase it. Study on the biochemical properties of BglC showed that its optimum reaction temperature was 420C and its optimum pH was pH6.5. Mg2 +, Co 2+, Mn2 +, Fe3 + could increase BglC’s activity, while Ni + and Cu2 + decreased its activity. Moreover, BglA was also found to be highly tolerant to glucose as it retained 60 % activity when the concentration of glucose was 100 times higher than that of the substrate (Fig. 1), showing potential application in the bioenergy industry. Point mutations including D303A, E513A, W443A, I336M, D122A, M268A, E188A/R, K224A, R185A/V and S271A led to disappearance of BglC activity indicating these residues were essential for the hydrolytic activity of the enzyme. Point mutations in S82A and I83A increased the hydrolysis activity of BglC by 20% and 30%, repectively. Mutations in I83A, I336S and I336L led to reduce of tolerance to glucose obviously indicating residues I83 and I336 were important not only for the hydrolytic activity of the enzyme but also for its tolerance to glucose. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract