Inequity within Chinese Higher Education with the Focus on Henan Province

The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of students from China\u27s Henan province regarding inequities they experience in the Chinese higher education system based solely on their geography. Henan students are required to score higher than students from other provinces on the Chinese National College Entrance Examinations (NCEE) in order to apply for admission into Chinese top tier universities. Yet despite having higher scores than their peers from other provinces and meeting all admissions requirements, Henan students have little guarantee of admission. The study systematically reviews the history of the Chinese higher education system to contextualize the impact of current NCEE policies and procedures. The perceptions of six Henan students currently studying in the top tiered Chinese University were gathered using qualitative interviews and explored for commonalities and differences. The students\u27 responses reveal a range of feelings from anger to acceptance, and even gratitude for the ways the inequities impacted their lives. This work increases our understanding of the link between geography and access to Chinese top tiered university and the effects of that link on students from Henan province

Reprogramming of 3′ Untranslated Regions of mRNAs by Alternative Polyadenylation in Generation of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Different Cell Types

The 3' untranslated regions (3'UTRs) of mRNAs contain cis elements involved in post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression. Over half of all mammalian genes contain multiple polyadenylation sites that lead to different 3'UTRs for a gene. Studies have shown that the alternative polyadenylation (APA) pattern varies across tissues, and is dynamically regulated in proliferating or differentiating cells. Generation of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, in which differentiated cells are reprogrammed to an embryonic stem (ES) cell-like state, has been intensively studied in recent years. However, it is not known how 3'UTRs are regulated during cell reprogramming.Using a computational method that robustly examines APA across DNA microarray data sets, we analyzed 3'UTR dynamics in generation of iPS cells from different cell types. We found that 3'UTRs shorten during reprogramming of somatic cells, the extent of which depends on the type of source cell. By contrast, reprogramming of spermatogonial cells involves 3'UTR lengthening. The alternative polyadenylation sites that are highly responsive to change of cell state in generation of iPS cells are also highly regulated during embryonic development in opposite directions. Compared with other sites, they are more conserved, can lead to longer alternative 3'UTRs, and are associated with more cis elements for polyadenylation. Consistently, reprogramming of somatic cells and germ cells involves significant upregulation and downregulation, respectively, of mRNAs encoding polyadenylation factors, and RNA processing is one of the most significantly regulated biological processes during cell reprogramming. Furthermore, genes containing target sites of ES cell-specific microRNAs (miRNAs) in different portions of 3'UTR are distinctively regulated during cell reprogramming, suggesting impact of APA on miRNA targeting.Taken together, these findings indicate that reprogramming of 3'UTRs by APA, which result from regulation of both general polyadenylation activity and cell type-specific factors and can reset post-transcriptional gene regulatory programs in the cell, is an integral part of iPS cell generation, and the APA pattern can be a good biomarker for cell type and state, useful for sample classification. The results also suggest that perturbation of the mRNA polyadenylation machinery or RNA processing activity may facilitate generation of iPS cells

Stacking tunable interlayer magnetism in bilayer CrI3

Diverse interlayer tunability of physical properties of two-dimensional layers mostly lies in the covalent-like quasi-bonding that is significant in electronic structures but rather weak for energetics. Such characteristics result in various stacking orders that are energetically comparable but may significantly differ in terms of electronic structures, e.g. magnetism. Inspired by several recent experiments showing interlayer anti-ferromagnetically coupled CrI3 bilayers, we carried out first-principles calculations for CrI3 bilayers. We found that the anti-ferromagnetic coupling results from a new stacking order with the C2/m space group symmetry, rather than the graphene-like one with R3 as previously believed. Moreover, we demonstrated that the intra- and inter-layer couplings in CrI3 bilayer are governed by two different mechanisms, namely ferromagnetic super-exchange and direct-exchange interactions, which are largely decoupled because of their significant difference in strength at the strong- and weak-interaction limits. This allows the much weaker interlayer magnetic coupling to be more feasibly tuned by stacking orders solely. Given the fact that interlayer magnetic properties can be altered by changing crystal structure with different stacking orders, our work opens a new paradigm for tuning interlayer magnetic properties with the freedom of stacking order in two dimensional layered materials

La constitution d'un clergé laïc par la Société Chan Moderne

Créée en 1989 à Taiwan, la Société Chan Moderne est une communauté de bouddhistes laïcs qui remet en question les privilèges religieux des moines et soutient l’idée d’une égalité entre moines et croyants laïcs. Elle s’est donnée une autorité indépendante des monastères pour la gestion des biens de salut et a constitué ainsi son propre clergé. A travers l’histoire de la Société Chan Moderne, cet article analyse certaines logiques à l’œuvre dans le champ du bouddhisme chinois : le rôle du prophète dans le jeu du pouvoir symbolique, les conditions de l’émergence d’un prophète, la légitimation d’une réforme religieuse dans la modernité, et le paradoxe de l’institutionnalisation