Pion photoproduction on the nucleon

The $\gamma n \to \pi^- p$ and $\gamma p \to \pi^+ n$ reactions are essential probes of the transition from meson-nucleon degrees of freedom to quark-gluon degrees of freedom in exclusive processes. The cross sections of these processes are also advantageous, for the investigation of oscillatory behavior around the quark counting prediction, since they decrease relatively slower with energy compared with other photon-induced processes. In this talk, we discuss recent results on the $\gamma p \to \pi^+ n$ and $\gamma n \to \pi^{-}p$ processes from Jefferson Lab experiment E94-104. We also discuss a new experiment in which singles $\gamma p \to \pi^+ n$ measurement from hydrogen, and coincidence $\gamma n \to \pi^{-} p$ measurements at the quasifree kinematics from deuterium for center-of-mass energies between 2.3 GeV to 3.4 GeV in fine steps at a center-of-mass angle of $90^\circ$ are planned. The proposed measurement will allow a detailed investigation of the oscillatory scaling behavior in photopion production processes.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Plenary talk presented at the HiX2004 Workshop, July 26-28, Marseille, France. References adde

A Study of Translation Strategy of Folklore in Biancheng

The folklore, featuring its national temperament, specialization, localization, etc., is a vehicle carrying rich connotations of a national culture which does not exist in foreign cultures. The translation of folklore culture is apparently of great importance to the translation of lliterary works imbued with various folklore customs, because, in a certain degree, it determines whether a translated text could have a successful landing in the target culture. Two English versions of Biancheng, the masterpiece of a famous Chinese novelist Shen Congwen, are chosen to analyze the translation strategies used by their translators when they deal with the translation of folklore on material, on customs and on spoken language. In doing so, this paper intends to explore effective ways of translating folklore so as to facilitate future cross-cultural communication and shed light on the translation of Chinese local literature into the outside world

Norms and varieties of English and TESOL teacher agency

The growing recognition of the plurality of English underling the World Englishes (WE) paradigm has problematised the conventional second language acquisition (SLA) views of errors. If English use in emerging English-speaking contexts is to be judged by local norms, as argued by WE scholars, applying exocentric norms in these contexts can be inappropriate. On the other hand, despite the significant growth of WE, varieties of new Englishes have yet to develop widely acceptable endocentric norms. These developments have raised a critical question: How can TESOL teachers distinguish between errors in the SLA sense and varietal features in the WE sense? Framed around language management theory (LMT) and teacher agency, this paper investigates how a group of global TESOL practitioners in an Australian university evaluated usages of English as a second language, what criteria they used and what implications their judgments and decision-making processes have for TESOL pedagogy and WE research

Effects of different dietary energy and protein levels and sex on growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of F1 Angus × Chinese Xiangxi yellow cattle

BACKGROUND: The experiment evaluated the effect of nutrition levels and sex on the growth performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of F1 Angus × Chinese Xiangxi yellow cattle. METHODS: During the background period of 184 d,23 steers and 24 heifers were fed the same ration,then put into a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement under two levels of - dietary energy (TDN: 70/80% DM), protein (CP: 11.9/14.3% DM) and sex (S: male/female) during the finishing phase of 146 d. The treatments were - (1) high energy/low protein (HELP), (2) high energy/high protein (HEHP), (3) low energy/low protein (LELP) and (4) low energy/high protein (LEHP). Each treatment used 6 steers and 6 heifers, except for HELP- 5 steers and 6 heifers. RESULTS: Growth rate and final carcass weight were unaffected by dietary energy and protein levels or by sex. Compared with the LE diet group, the HE group had significantly lower dry matter intake (DMI, 6.76 vs. 7.48 kg DM/d), greater chest girth increments (46.1 vs. 36.8 cm), higher carcass fat (19.9 vs.16.3%) and intramuscular fat content (29.9 vs. 22.8% DM). The HE group also had improved yields of top and medium top grade commercial meat cuts (39.9 vs.36.5%). The dressing percentage was higher for the HP group than the LP group (53.4 vs. 54.9%). Steers had a greater length increment (9.0 vs. 8.3 cm), but lower carcass fat content (16.8 vs. 19.4%) than heifers. The meat quality traits (shear force value, drip loss, cooking loss and water holding capacity) were not affected by treatments or sex, averaging 3.14 kg, 2.5, 31.5 and 52.9%, respectively. The nutritive profiles (both fatty and amino acid composition) were not influenced by the energy or protein levels or by sex. CONCLUSIONS: The dietary energy and protein levels and sex significantly influenced the carcass characteristics and chemical composition of meat but not thegrowth performance, meat quality traits and nutritive profiles

Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance for the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) Among Women Newly Diagnosed With Breast Cancer

BackgroundGiven that emotion regulation counts for much in breast cancer, it is important to fully understand its construct. The cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (CERQ) is a widely applied instrument for measuring conscious cognitive coping strategies in both general and clinical samples; however, there are no data on its factor structure in women with breast cancer, not to mention evidence of measurement invariance (MI) across sociodemographic variables. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine the latent factor structure and MI between different sociodemographic groups for CERQ in specific patients.MethodsThe sample consisted of 1032 women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, with a mean age of 47.54 years (SD = 8.51). The latent factor structure for CERQ was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Further, MI various sociodemographic variables was evaluated by a series of multiple-group CFA process.ResultsThe nine-factor CFA model was an adequate fit for the data collected in women with breast cancer. Also, this nine-factor structure had strong factorial invariance across age, place of residence, educational levels, and employment status.ConclusionThis study firstly examined the latent factor structure for CERQ among Chinese women with malignancy and MI across various sociodemographic variables, which deepens the understanding of the construct for CERQ as a useful tool for assessing patients’ conscious cognitive component of emotion regulation based on self-report

Rho GTPase Signaling Activates Microtubule Severing to Promote Microtubule Ordering in Arabidopsis

SummaryBackgroundOrdered cortical microtubule (MT) arrays play a critical role in the spatial control of cell division and expansion and are essential for plant growth, morphogenesis, and development. Various developmental, hormonal, and mechanical signals and a large number of MT-associated proteins are known to impact cortical MT organization, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Our previous studies show that auxin signaling, which is mediated by the ROP6 Rho GTPase and its effector RIC1, promotes the ordering of cortical MTs in pavement cells, but it is unknown how RIC1 controls the organization of cortical MTs into well-ordered arrays.ResultsOur genetic screens identified the conserved MT-severing protein katanin (KTN1) as a downstream component of the ROP6-RIC1 signaling pathway leading to well-ordered arrangement of cortical MTs. KTN1 and RIC1 proteins displayed overlapping localization. In vivo and in vitro studies showed that RIC1 physically interacts with and promotes the MT-severing activity of KTN1. Live-cell imaging reveals a role for RIC1 in promoting detachment of branched MTs that is known to rely on KTN1.ConclusionWe have demonstrated that a Rho GTPase signaling pathway regulates katanin-mediated MT severing in plant cells and uncovered an explicit regulatory mechanism underpinning the alignment and ordering of cortical MTs in plants. Our findings provide new insights into regulatory mechanisms underlying growth stimuli such as auxin promote the organization of cortical MTs into parallel arrays in plants

Optical biopsy identification and grading of gliomas using label-free visible resonance Raman spectroscopy.

Glioma is one of the most refractory types of brain tumor. Accurate tumor boundary identification and complete resection of the tumor are essential for glioma removal during brain surgery. We present a method based on visible resonance Raman (VRR) spectroscopy to identify glioma margins and grades. A set of diagnostic spectral biomarkers features are presented based on tissue composition changes revealed by VRR. The Raman spectra include molecular vibrational fingerprints of carotenoids, tryptophan, amide I/II/III, proteins, and lipids. These basic in situ spectral biomarkers are used to identify the tissue from the interface between brain cancer and normal tissue and to evaluate glioma grades. The VRR spectra are also analyzed using principal component analysis for dimension reduction and feature detection and support vector machine for classification. The cross-validated sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy are found to be 100%, 96.3%, and 99.6% to distinguish glioma tissues from normal brain tissues, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the classification is about 1.0. The accuracies to distinguish normal, low grade (grades I and II), and high grade (grades III and IV) gliomas are found to be 96.3%, 53.7%, and 84.1% for the three groups, respectively, along with a total accuracy of 75.1%. A set of criteria for differentiating normal human brain tissues from normal control tissues is proposed and used to identify brain cancer margins, yielding a diagnostic sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 71%. Our study demonstrates the potential of VRR as a label-free optical molecular histopathology method used for in situ boundary line judgment for brain surgery in the margins

Nevirapine Plasma Concentrations Are Associated with Virologic Response and Hepatotoxicity in Chinese Patients with HIV Infection

BACKGROUND: Limited information is available on the relationship between nevirapine plasma concentrations and virologic response or liver toxicity in Chinese patients with HIV infection. The objective of this prospective study was to test this relationship and to determine the minimal therapeutic trough concentration of nevirapine for Chinese patients. METHODS: A total of 227 HIV-infected, treatment naïve patients were enrolled into this study. Blood samples were taken at C(trough) (12 hr postdose) and C(2) (2 hr postdose) for measurement of nevirapine concentrations 6 months after treatment initiation. Therapeutic outcomes, viral load and CD4 cell count, were assessed at 3 and 6 months after starting therapy, while the evaluation of hepatotoxicity was undertaken 12 months after nevirapine treatment. RESULTS: A significant correlation between nevirapine trough concentrations and viral load was noticed after 6 months of treatment, particularly in patients with partial response and viral failure (p<0.01). The therapeutic C(trough) of nevirapine for Chinese patients was determined to be 3.9 µg/ml using the receiver operating characteristic curve. Virologic failure was observed in 21% (6/29) of patients with low nevirapine concentrations (<3.9 µg/ml) versus 5% (4/87) in patients with concentrations higher than 3.9 µg/ml (p = 0.015). Hepatotoxicity was significantly associated with the median nevirapine trough concentrations among male patients (8.20 vs. 5.48 µg/ml, p = 0.015) and hepatitis C virus co-infection (p = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS: Among Chinese patients with HIV infection, the therapeutic C(trough) of nevirapine was 3.9 µg/ml, higher than the recommended 3.0 µg/ml. The correlation between nevirapine concentrations, efficacy and hepatotoxicity suggests the benefit of dosage adjustment based on therapeutic drug monitoring among Chinese HIV-infected patients to optimize nevirapine containing antiretroviral therapy

SMAD3 prevents binding of NKX2.1 and FOXA1 to the SpB promoter through its MH1 and MH2 domains

Mechanisms of gene repression by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) are not well understood. TGF-beta represses transcription of pulmonary surfactant protein-B gene in lung epithelial cells. Repression is mediated by SMAD3 through interactions with NKX2.1 and FOXA1, two key transcription factors that are positive regulators of SpB transcription. In this study, we found that SMAD3 interacts through its MAD domains, MH1 and MH2 with NKX2.1 and FOXA1 proteins. The sites of interaction on NKX2.1 are located within the NH2 and COOH domains, known to be involved in transactivation function. In comparison, weaker interaction of FOXA1 winged helix, and the NH2-terminal domains was documented with SMAD3. Both in vitro studies and in vivo ChIP assays show that interaction of SMAD3 MH1 and MH2 domains with NKX2.1 and FOXA1 results in reduced binding of NKX2.1 and FOXA1 to their cognate DNA-binding sites, and diminished promoter occupancy within the SpB promoter. Thus, these studies reveal for the first time a mechanism of TGF-beta-induced SpB gene repression that involves interactions between specific SMAD3 domains and the corresponding functional sites on NKX2.1 and FOXA1 transcription factors