Individual and Class Factors Influencing Students' Social and Emotional Skills

Social and emotional skills refer to a series of core competencies related to self-adaptation and social development such as emotional regulation, self-control, achievement motivation, and collaboration with others. Cultivation of students' social and emotional skills is critical to the transformation and upgrading of basic education in the new era. Published in Contemporary Education Sciences, the study uses data of 2,020 students from Beijing and Tianjin as an analysis sample to analyze the effects of individual and class factors on students' social and emotional skills by the two-level HLM, in response to the current public concerns with students' comprehensive education and social development

Overcoming the collective action problems facing Chinese workers: lessons from four protests against Walmart

In contrast to various structural accounts of collective inaction or short-lived contention of Chinese workers, the authors take an agency-centered approach to explain how the few sustained labor protests during closure bargaining develop against long odds. They suggest that workers’ capacity to resolve collective action problems is essential to understanding why a few contending workers are able to sustain protests whereas many others fail to do so. They argue that workplace representatives and external labor activists are crucial for helping Chinese workers resolve the collective action problems that prevent the formation of sustained labor protests. Their comparative analysis of four protests against Walmart store closures—including one unusually long, one relatively sustained, and two short-lived—shows how presence and strategic capacity of workplace representatives and external labor activists shape protest duration. The authors conclude by discussing lessons learned from these cases of closure bargaining for future development of labor contention in China

Compressive Sensing Based on HQS for Image reconstruction

This work solves the image distortion problem caused by the noise generated during the sampling and reconstruction process, a compressive sensing algorithm based on half quadratic splitting (CS-HQS) is proposed to reconstruct images in this paper. For the part dominated by error terms, the regularization term is introduced and the second-order momentum adaptive gradient descent method is used to get the auxiliary variables. For the part dominated by the sparse prior of compressive sensing, the Bayesian maximum posterior inference is used to get the sparse coeffi cient. The combination of the two methods not only avoids the generation of random noise, but also enhances the stability of the model. The experimental results demonstrate that the strong robustness of the proposed algorithm

Nanofibrillar cellulose as a potential reservoir for drug delivery and its application in transdermal drug delivery with the aid of iontophoresis

Nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC) can form hydrogels with high water content (> 98 %). It has been studied for drug release, and it has been used as a cell culture matrix, due to its similar structure to extracellular matrix (ECM). In addition it has been found that they has no cytotoxicity. Iontophoresis is the application of an electric current over a defined area for the purpose of enhancing permeation across a membrane for ionized drug species. The aim in the experimental work in this Master's thesis is twofold. First, to find out the suitable drug loading concentrations into NFC hydrogels, which can provide a good release profile, a release study with two model drugs, propranolol and ketoprofen, loaded into three types of NFC hydrogels at three different concentrations, was carried out for this purpose. Second, to see if NFC hydrogels are applicable as a drug reservoir in iontophoretic transdermal drug delivery applications, an iontophoresis study was carried out using porcine ear skin model in vitro for human skin with propranolol loaded into NFC hydrogel of type A. In addition, Stella models were used as an aid to find suitable ways to predict the release and permeation behaviour of models drugs in the abovementioned context. The UPLC results from the release study show for both model drugs, the wt. % released had linear correlation with squareroot of time. At 6 hours, more than 70 wt. % propranolol was released from hydrogel reservoir. For ketoprofen, the release varied between 30 - 87 wt. %, where higher initial loading concentrations produced a decrease in the wt. % released from hydrogel. The iontophoresis study did not show a significant difference between the tested current densities (0.50 mA/cm2; 0.25 mA/cm2) produced on the wt. % of drug released. Simulation models could be run with the mathematical equations for diffusion controlled drug release. In conclusion, the NFC hydrogels show potential as drug reservoir for drug release. Additional experimental data using other types of drug reservoirs should be obtained for a better understanding of the suitability of NFC hydrogels as a drug reservoir in iontophoretic transdermal drug delivery.Nanofibrillaarinen selluloosa (NFC) voi muodostaa hydrogeelejä, joissa on korkea vesipitoisuus (> 98 %). Sitä on tutkittu lääkeannostelussa, ja sitä on käytetty solukasvatusmatriisina, koska siinä on samankaltainen rakenne kuin soluväliaineessa. Tämän lisäksi on havaittu, ettei sillä ole sytotoksisuutta. Iontoforeesi on sähkövirran käyttö tietyllä pinta-alalla, minkä tarkoitus on lisätä ionisoituneen lääkeaineen permeaatiota kalvon läpi. Tämän Pro Gradu -tutkielman tavoite on kaksiosainen. Ensiksi, jotta löytyisi sopivat lääkelatauspitoisuudet NFC hydrogeeleihin, joilla saavutetaan hyvä vapautumisprofiili, tehtiin vapautumiskoe kahdella mallilääkeaineella, propranololilla ja ketoprofeenilla, jotka ladattiin NFC hydrogeeleihin kolmessa eri pitoisuudessa, tätä tarkoitusta varten. Toiseksi, jotta näkisi, ovatko NFC hydrogeelit sovellettavissa lääkevarastona iontoforeettisessa transdermaalisessa lääkeannostelusovelluksissa, toteutettiin iontoforeesikoe in vitro ihmisihoa edustavalla siankorvan ihomallilla, käyttäen propranololia ladattuna NFC hydrogeeli tyyppi A. Lisäksi, Stella-malleja käytettiin apuna yrityksessä löytää tapoja ennustaa mallilääkeaineiden vapautumis- ja permeaatiokäyttäytymistä yllämainitussa kontekstissa. Vapautumiskokeesta saatujen UPLC tulosten perusteella, vapautumisprosentilla (wt. %) on suora korrelaatio ajan neliöjuuren suhteen. 6 tunnin kohdalla, yli 70 wt. % propranololia oli vapautunut hydrogeelivarastosta. Ketoprofeenin vapautuminen vaihteli välillä 30 - 87 wt. %, ja korkeammat alkulatauspitoisuudet saivat aikaan hydrogeelistä vapautuneen osuuden (wt. %) pienentymään. Iontoforeesikokeessa ei käynyt ilmi, että kahden testatun virrantiheyden (0.50 mA/cm2; 0.25 mA/cm2) välillä olisi merkittävää eroa aiheutunut vapautuneeseen lääkeosuuteen wt. %). Oli mahdollista ajaa simulaatiomalleja diffuusiorajoitteista lääkevapautumista kuvaavien matemaattisten yhtälöiden avulla. Thteenvetona, NFC hydrogeeleillä on potentiaalia lääkevarastona lääkevapautumiselle. Lisää kokeellista dataa, joissa käytetään muuntyyppisiä lääkevarastoja tulisi saada, jotta olisi mahdollista ymmärtää paremmin NFC hydrogeelien soveltuvuutta lääkevarastona iontoforeettisessa transdermaalisessa lääkeannostelussa

Visualizing Evolving Trees

Evolving trees arise in many real-life scenarios from computer file systems and dynamic call graphs, to fake news propagation and disease spread. Most layout algorithms for static trees, however, do not work well in an evolving setting (e.g., they are not designed to be stable between time steps). Dynamic graph layout algorithms are better suited to this task, although they often introduce unnecessary edge crossings. With this in mind we propose two methods for visualizing evolving trees that guarantee no edge crossings, while optimizing (1) desired edge length realization, (2) layout compactness, and (3) stability. We evaluate the two new methods, along with four prior approaches (two static and two dynamic), on real-world datasets using quantitative metrics: stress, desired edge length realization, layout compactness, stability, and running time. The new methods are fully functional and available on github

A Study on the Right to Use Rural Homestead: Taking Changchun City and the Surrounding Area as the Example

Based on the analysis and comparison of the data collected from a field survey on the status quo of the right to use rural homestead in Changchun City and the surrounding area, this paper not only reflects on the history and theory of the right to use rural homestead in China, but also proposes solutions and suggestions in accordance with the reality towards the development of rural areas in China