Chinese Language Learning Opportunities Abroad and International Student Mobility to China

The number of overseas students in China has increased substantially over the last two decades, as has the number of Confucius Institutes (CIs) abroad. Using both official and self-compiled data on CIs abroad, and overseas students in China, by country of origin, we investigate empirically whether Chinese language learning opportunities abroad have exerted a positive effect on the number of students who move to China for study. Using panel data for 182 countries over the period 2002 to 2014, we find evidence in fixed-effects regressions for a sizeable positive effect of the number of CIs in a country on the number of overseas students from that country in China. We also find evidence for effect heterogeneity by countries’ geographic distance to China, the linguistic distance from their official language to Chinese, and their income levels

Organic Field-Effect Transistor: Device Physics, Materials, and Process

Organic field-effect transistors have received much attention in the area of low cost, large area, flexible, and printable electronic devices. Lots of efforts have been devoted to achieve comparable device performance with high charge carrier mobility and good air stability. Meanwhile, in order to reduce the fabrication costs, simple fabrication conditions such as the printing techniques have been frequently used. Apart from device optimization, developing novel organic semiconductor materials and using thin-film alignment techniques are other ways to achieve high-performance devices and functional device applications. It is expected that by combining proper organic semiconductor materials and appropriate fabrication techniques, high-performance devices for various applications could be obtained. In this chapter, the organic field-effect transistor in terms of device physics, organic materials, device process, and various thin-film alignment techniques will be discussed

Microstructure Engineering of Metal-Halide Perovskite Films for Efficient Solar Cells

Photovoltaic (PV) devices with metal-halide perovskite films, namely perovskite solar cells, have become a rapidly rising star due to low cost of raw materials, simple solution processability, and swiftly increased power conversion efficiency (PCE). The PCEs so far certified have gone beyond 22% for perovskite solar cells and 23.6% for tandem devices with single crystalline silicon solar cells, which offer a promising PV technology for practical applications. In principle, performance of perovskite solar cells are largely dominated by the optoelectronic properties and stability of metal-halide perovskite films, which are determined by the microstructure features of the films in turns. In this chapter, we will describe the recently developed strategies on microstructure engineering of metal-halide perovskite films for efficient perovskite solar cells

The Investigation on Rheology and Microstructure for Lithium Complex Grease

The rheological characteristic parameters of five lithium complex lubricating greases were determined. The comparison of rheological characteristic parameters and microstructure of the five greases was made. The results showed that the knowledge of the rheological properties of lubricating greases may contribute to reflect the change of the thickener structure. The flow transition index characterized the breaking behavior of inner structure of grease, the greater this index, the better that soap fiber structure of grease; The damping factor was shifted from a medium range towards a lower value which resulted in brittle character of sample. At a constant shear rate, the soap fiber structure of complex lithium grease is dense and uniform, apparent viscosity decline rate is small. In this sense, it is relevant to understand how the development of the soap fiber structures in the grease contributes to several functional and rheological properties of lubricating greases

Optical substrates for drug-metabolizing enzymes : Recent advances and future perspectives

Drug-metabolizing enzymes (DMEs), a diverse group of enzymes responsible for the metabolic elimination of drugs and other xenobiotics, have been recognized as the critical determinants to drug safety and efficacy. Deciphering and understanding the key roles of individual DMEs in drug metabolism and toxicity, as well as characterizing the interactions of central DMEs with xenobiotics require reliable, practical and highly specific tools for sensing the activities of these enzymes in biological systems. In the last few decades, the scientists have developed a variety of optical substrates for sensing human DMEs, parts of them have been successfully used for studying target enzyme(s) in tissue preparations and living systems. Herein, molecular design principals and recent advances in the development and applications of optical substrates for human DMEs have been reviewed systematically. Furthermore, the challenges and future perspectives in this field are also highlighted. The presented information offers a group of practical approaches and imaging tools for sensing DMEs activities in complex biological systems, which strongly facilitates high-throughput screening the modulators of target DMEs and studies on drug/herb-drug interactions, as well as promotes the fundamental researches for exploring the relevance of DMEs to human diseases and drug treatment outcomes. (C) 2022 Chinese Pharmaceutical Association and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.Peer reviewe

Electric-field-assisted facile synthesis of metal nanoparticles

Funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51203081), Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province (LY16E030005), Opening Foundation from Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Chemical Engineering Manufacture Technology (ACEMT-17-01), and K.C. Wong Magna Fund of Ningbo University is gratefully acknowledged. X.W. also acknowledges financial support from The Royal Society (RG150001 and IE150611).Peer reviewedPostprin

Longitudinal changes in prospective memory and their clinical correlates at 1-year follow-up in first-episode schizophrenia

This study aimed to investigate prospective memory (PM) and the association with clinical factors at 1-year follow-up in first-episode schizophrenia (FES). Thirty-two FES patients recruited from a university-affiliated psychiatric hospital in Beijing and 17 healthy community controls (HCs) were included. Time- and event-based PM (TBPM and EBPM) performances were measured with the Chinese version of the Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CCAMPROMPT) at baseline and at one-year follow-up. A number of other neurocognitive tests were also administered. Remission was determined at the endpoint according to the PANSS score _ 3 for selected items. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a significant interaction between time (baseline vs. endpoint) and group (FES vs. HCs) for EBPM (F(1, 44) = 8.8, p = 0.005) and for all neurocognitive components. Paired samples ttests showed significant improvement in EBPM in FES (13.1±3.7 vs. 10.3±4.8; t = 3.065, p = 0.004), compared to HCs (15.7±3.6 vs. 16.5±2.3; t = -1.248, p = 0.230). A remission rate of 59.4% was found in the FES group. Analysis of covariance revealed that remitters performed significantly better on EBPM (14.9±2.6 vs. 10.4±3.6; F(1, 25) = 12.2, p = 0.002) than non-remitters at study endpoint. The association between EBPM and 12-month clinical improvement in FES suggests that EBPM may be a potential neurocognitive marker for the effectiveness of standard pharmacotherapy. Furthermore, the findings also imply that PM may not be strictly a trait-related endophenotype as indicated in previous studies