From Teachers’ Views to Explore the Implementation of Energy Education in Taiwan’s Elementary Schools

This study intended to explore the implementation of promoting “energy education” in Taiwan’s elementary schools. The research adopted a questionnaire (Likert five-point scale) from teachers’ view in three dimensions to construct examination. The 45 participants come from 10 different primary schools distributed across Taiwan, which participate in energy education program in the second period (2015-2017). The data was analyzed by ANOVA, mean and standard deviations of the viewpoints of the participants in the energy education learning achievement of the primary schools. The first findings in this research is, the program of energy education was most effective in “energy attitude” (M=4.282, SD=0.814), followed by “energy awareness” (M=4.049, SD=0.720) and “energy behavior” (M=3.983, SD=0.875). It shows that students have positive energy attitude, but they were relatively weak at energy saving behavior. Secondly, there is statistically significant difference in overall students learning performance with urban areas are higher than rural areas. Finally, it is suggested that in addition to strengthen energy attitudes and energy awareness, we should encourage students to take action in save energy in their daily life. Furthermore, we should invest more resources to rural areas to balance the students’ performances between urban and rural areas

When Classical Chinese Meets Machine Learning: Explaining the Relative Performances of Word and Sentence Segmentation Tasks

We consider three major text sources about the Tang Dynasty of China in our experiments that aim to segment text written in classical Chinese. These corpora include a collection of Tang Tomb Biographies, the New Tang Book, and the Old Tang Book. We show that it is possible to achieve satisfactory segmentation results with the deep learning approach. More interestingly, we found that some of the relative superiority that we observed among different designs of experiments may be explainable. The relative relevance among the training corpora provides hints/explanation for the observed differences in segmentation results that were achieved when we employed different combinations of corpora to train the classifiers.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, 2020 International Conference on Digital Humanities (Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations, ADHO

Revision of Polygonatum (Asparagaceae, Nolinoideae, Polygonateae) of Taiwan

Polygonatum is widely distributed in the northern hemisphere, especially in eastern Asia. There has been no comprehensive taxonomic study of Taiwanese taxa for some time, and researchers could not agree on a consistent treatment of the genus. Therefore, we revised the genus by literature review and type specimen examination along with comparison of morphology, karyotype and pollen characteristics. Only one species P. arisanense Hayata was recognized in this study. P. chingshuishanianum Ying and P. formosanum (Hayata) Masamune & Simada are regarded as varieties of P. arisanense and are here presented as two new combinations, P. arisanense var. chingshuishanianum and P. arisanense var. formosanum

Taxonomic revision of Disporum Salisb. (Colchicaceae, Uvularioideae) of Taiwan

A taxonomic revision of Disporum of Taiwan is presented with two species and one variety being recognised. The diagnostic characters of Disporum include the colour of tepals, stolon morphology, the trichomes of filaments and style and leaf morphology. These characters, along with karyotype and pollen morphology, are discussed and evaluated amongst different taxa. As a result, D. kawakamii and D. shimadae are treated as independent species, rather than varieties of D. cantoniense and D. sessile, respectively. Disporum nantouense is treated as a synonym of D. sessile var. intermedium stat. nov. Detailed descriptions, type information, diagnostic key, line drawings, photos and distribution maps are provided

Effects of natto extract on endothelial injury in a rat model

Vascular endothelial damage has been found to be associated with thrombus formation, which is considered to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. A diet of natto leads to a low prevalence of cardiovascular disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of natto extract on vascular endothelia damage with exposure to laser irradiation. Endothelial damage both in vitro and in vivo was induced by irradiation of rose bengal using a DPSS green laser. Cell viability was determined by MTS assay, and the intimal thickening was verified by a histological approach. The antioxidant content of natto extract was determined for the free radical scavenging activity. Endothelial cells were injured in the presence of rose bengal irradiated in a dose-dependent manner. Natto extract exhibits high levels of antioxidant activity compared with purified natto kinase. Apoptosis of laser-injured endothelial cells was significantly reduced in the presence of natto extract. Both the natto extract and natto kinase suppressed intimal thickening in rats with endothelial injury. The present findings suggest that natto extract suppresses vessel thickening as a synergic effect attributed to its antioxidant and anti-apoptosis properties

The Long Noncoding RNA HEAL Regulates HIV-1 Replication through Epigenetic Regulation of the HIV-1 Promoter.

A major challenge in finding a cure for HIV-1/AIDS is the difficulty in identifying and eradicating persistent reservoirs of replication-competent provirus. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs, >200 nucleotides) are increasingly recognized to play important roles in pathophysiology. Here, we report the first genome-wide expression analysis of lncRNAs in HIV-1-infected primary monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs). We identified an lncRNA, which we named HIV-1-enhanced lncRNA (HEAL), that is upregulated by HIV-1 infection of MDMs, microglia, and T lymphocytes. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells of HIV-1-infected individuals show elevated levels of HEAL Importantly, HEAL is a broad enhancer of multiple HIV-1 strains because depletion of HEAL inhibited X4, R5, and dual-tropic HIV replications and the inhibition was rescued by HEAL overexpression. HEAL forms a complex with the RNA-binding protein FUS, which facilitates HIV replication through at least two mechanisms: (i) HEAL-FUS complex binds the HIV promoter and enhances recruitment of the histone acetyltransferase p300, which positively regulates HIV transcription by increasing histone H3K27 acetylation and P-TEFb enrichment on the HIV promoter, and (ii) HEAL-FUS complex is enriched at the promoter of the cyclin-dependent kinase 2 gene, CDK2, to enhance CDK2 expression. Notably, HEAL knockdown and knockout mediated by RNA interference (RNAi) and CRISPR-Cas9, respectively, prevent HIV-1 recrudescence in T cells and microglia upon cessation of azidothymidine treatment in vitro Our results suggest that silencing of HEAL or perturbation of the HEAL-FUS ribonucleoprotein complex could provide a new epigenetic silencing strategy to eradicate viral reservoirs and effect a cure for HIV-1/AIDS.IMPORTANCE Despite our increased understanding of the functions of lncRNAs, their potential to develop HIV/AIDS cure strategies remains unexplored. A genome-wide analysis of lncRNAs in HIV-1-infected primary monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) was performed, and 1,145 differentially expressed lncRNAs were identified. An lncRNA named HIV-1-enhanced lncRNA (HEAL) is upregulated by HIV-1 infection and promotes HIV replication in T cells and macrophages. HEAL forms a complex with the RNA-binding protein FUS to enhance transcriptional coactivator p300 recruitment to the HIV promoter. Furthermore, HEAL knockdown and knockout prevent HIV-1 recrudescence in T cells and microglia upon cessation of azidothymidine treatment, suggesting HEAL as a potential therapeutic target to cure HIV-1/AIDS