岑參年譜

在唐代詩人中，岑參固然不是第一流作家，而我對于他──也許是偶然的──卻早已發生了不少的興趣。當我在初等小學讀書的時候，就熟讀了他的白雪歌，當然，還不會欣賞那＂忽如一夜春風來，千樹萬樹梨花開＂。更無論那＂山迴路轉不見君，雪上空留馬行處＂了。如今經過了十多年，而我卻不曾忘記。有時還讀他的作品。此篇大概是為着這個原故罷

Chronic and Cumulative Adverse Life Events in Women with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency:An Exploratory Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) has serious physical and psychological consequences due to estradiol deprivation, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. However, the causes of most POI cases remain unknown. Psychological stress, usually caused by stressful life events, is known to be negatively associated with ovarian function. It is important to explore high-frequency adverse life events among women with POI for future interventions. METHODS: Forty-three women (mean age=33·8 years) were recruited who were newly- diagnosed with idiopathic POI (FSH levels >40 IU/L) to participate in semi-structured interviews through convenience sampling. The main questions covered by the topic guide were designed to explore adverse life events prior to POI diagnosis. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analyzed thematically. Data were analyzed from June 2019 to August 2020. RESULTS: Among the women with POI, mean age at diagnosis of POI was 33·8 years (range from 19 to 39 years), and the average time between the onset of irregular menstruation and POI diagnosis was 2.3 years. These women with POI had a relatively normal menstrual cycle before the diagnosis. A number of stressful life events prior to POI diagnosis were discussed by them as important factors influencing their health. Four core themes emerged: 1) persistent exposure to workplace stress, 2) persistent exposure to family-related adverse life events, 3) sleep problem/disturbance existed in women with POI before diagnosis, and 4) participants’ general cognition and concerns about POI. CONCLUSIONS: Persistent exposures to adverse life events related to work stress, family stress and sleep problem existed in women with POI. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that adverse life events play a role in the development of POI. Future research should investigate how social environmental factors influence POI disease risks, and whether provision of tailored interventions (i.e. preventing or mitigating impact of adverse life events) aimed at high-risk populations may help prevent new POI cases and improve conditions of women with POI. We gained an in-depth understanding of the experiences of these women via 1:1 qualitative method, and find adverse life events are frequent in women with POI prior to the diagnosis

Genome Characteristics of a Novel Phage from Bacillus thuringiensis Showing High Similarity with Phage from Bacillus cereus

Bacillus thuringiensis is an important entomopathogenic bacterium belongs to the Bacillus cereus group, which also includes B. anthracis and B. cereus. Several genomes of phages originating from this group had been sequenced, but no genome of Siphoviridae phage from B. thuringiensis has been reported. We recently sequenced and analyzed the genome of a novel phage, BtCS33, from a B. thuringiensis strain, subsp. kurstaki CS33, and compared the gneome of this phage to other phages of the B. cereus group. BtCS33 was the first Siphoviridae phage among the sequenced B. thuringiensis phages. It produced small, turbid plaques on bacterial plates and had a narrow host range. BtCS33 possessed a linear, double-stranded DNA genome of 41,992 bp with 57 putative open reading frames (ORFs). It had a typical genome structure consisting of three modules: the “late” region, the “lysogeny-lysis” region and the “early” region. BtCS33 exhibited high similarity with several phages, B. cereus phage Wβ and some variants of Wβ, in genome organization and the amino acid sequences of structural proteins. There were two ORFs, ORF22 and ORF35, in the genome of BtCS33 that were also found in the genomes of B. cereus phage Wβ and may be involved in regulating sporulation of the host cell. Based on these observations and analysis of phylogenetic trees, we deduced that B. thuringiensis phage BtCS33 and B. cereus phage Wβ may have a common distant ancestor

Mixed Integer Linear Programming Based Speed Profile Optimization for Heavy-Haul Trains

Automatic heavy-haul train (HHT) operation technology has recently received considerable attention in the field of rail transportation. In this paper, a discrete-time-based mathematical formulation is proposed to address the speed profile optimization problem in order to ensure the safe, efficient, and economical operation of heavy-haul trains (HHTs). Due to the presence of long and steep downgrades (LSDs) on some heavy-haul lines, the brake forces of the HHT are typically jointly determined by air braking and electric braking. The time characteristics of the air braking, such as the command delay and the change process caused by the air pressure, are taken into account, and then formulas are presented to calculate the air brake force. In addition, the influence of the neutral section on the control of the electric braking is considered via space-based constraints. The resulting problem is a nonlinear optimal control problem. To achieve linearization, auxiliary 0-1 binary variables and the big-M approach are introduced to transform the nonlinear constraints regarding slope, curve, neutral section, air brake force, and air-filled time into linear constraints. Moreover, piecewise affine (PWA) functions are used to approximate the basic resistance of the HHT. Finally, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed, which can be solved by CPLEX. The experiments are carried out using data from a heavy-haul railway line in China, and the results show that the proposed approach is effective and flexible

Legit Or Not? : A communications campaign encouraging the adoption of anti-investment scam behaviour

Running from 13 December 2021 to 25 February 2022, Legit Or Not? is a communication campaign aimed at empowering young adults in Singapore aged 21 to 39 years old to tackle investment scams. Investment scams have become an increasingly severe issue in Singapore and other countries, with victims losing millions of dollars and cases rising significantly in recent years. The team tackled the pressing problem by reducing psychological biases and increasing due diligence using the Ask, Check, Confirm framework introduced by MoneySense, a national financial education programme, before young adults make any investment decisions. The digital campaign utilised a mix of expert advice to establish credibility, infographics and interactive applications of investment scam information across various online platforms to reach out to a wider pool of our target audience. Through the use of engaging activities, the campaign drew more than 250 participants which proves the efficacy of ground-up initiatives in drawing interest despite the highly cognitive topic. Through the various focused activities, we have significantly increased the target audience’s knowledge by 7.98%, decreased optimism bias by 6.25% and increased behaviour intention by 7.44%. The discussion and recommendations of Legit Or Not? shows how a comprehensive digital campaign can be effective in targeting young adults and has implications for future communication campaigns in Singapore and abroad.Bachelor of Communication Studie

Response of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum NMGL2 to Combinational Cold and Acid Stresses during Storage of Fermented Milk as Analyzed by Data-Independent Acquisition Proteomics

To understand the mechanism of tolerance of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) during cold storage of fermented milk, 31 LAB strains were isolated from traditional fermented products, and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum NMGL2 was identified with good tolerance to both cold and acid stresses. Data-independent acquisition proteomics method was employed to analyze the response of Lpb. plantarum NMGL2 to the combinational cold and acid stresses during storage of the fermented milk made with the strain at 4 °C for 21 days. Among the differentially expressed proteins identified, 20 low temperature-resistant proteins and 10 acid-resistant proteins were found. Protein interaction analysis showed that the low temperature-resistant proteins associated with acid-resistant proteins were Hsp1, Hsp2, Hsp3, CspC, MurA1, MurC, MurD, MurE1, and MurI, while the acid-resistant proteins associated with low temperature-resistant proteins were DnaA, DnaK, GrpE, GroEL, and RbfA. The overall metabolic pathways of Lpb. plantarum NMGL2 in response to the stresses were determined including increased cell wall component biosynthesis, extracellular production of abundant glycolipids and glycoproteins, increased expression of F1Fo-ATPase, activation of glutamate deacidification system, enhanced expression of proteins and chaperones associated with cell repairing caused by the acidic and cold environment into the correct proteins. The present study for the first time provides further understanding of the proteomic pattern and metabolic changes of Lpb. plantarum in response to combinational cold and acid stresses in fermented milk, which facilitates potential application of Lpb. plantarum in fermented foods with enhanced survivability

Comparison of the chloroplast genomes and phylogenomic analysis of Elaeocarpaceae

Background Elaeocarpaceae is a vital family in tropical and subtropical forests. Compared with the important position of Elaeocarpaceae species in forest ecosystem and the concern of medicinal value, the most research on Elaeocarpaceae are classification and taxonomy. Molecular systematics has corrected the morphological misjudgment, and it belongs to Oxalidales. Phylogenetic and divergence time estimates of Elaeocarpaceae is mostly constructed by using chloroplast gene fragments. At present, although there are reports on the chloroplast structure of Elaeocarpaceae, a comprehensive analysis of the chloroplast structure of Elaeocarpaceae is lacking. Methods To understand the variation in chloroplast sequence size and structure in Elaeocarpaceae, the chloroplast genomes of nine species were sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform and further assembled and annotated with Elaeocarpus japonicus and Sloanea sinensis (family Elaeocarpaceae) as references. A phylogenomic tree was constructed based on the complete chloroplast genomes of the 11 species representing five genera of Elaeocarpaceae. Chloroplast genome characteristics were examined by using Circoletto and IRscope software. Results The results revealed the following: (a) The 11 sequenced chloroplast genomes ranged in size from 157,546 to 159,400 bp. (b) The chloroplast genomes of Elaeocarpus, Sloanea, Crinodendron and Vallea lacked the rpl32 gene in the small single-copy (SSC) region. The large single-copy (LSC) region of the chloroplast genomes lacked the ndhK gene in Elaeocarpus, Vallea stipularis, and Aristotelia fruticosa. The LSC region of the chloroplast genomes lacked the infA gene in genus Elaeocarpus and Crinodendron patagua. (c) Through inverted repeat (IR) expansion and contraction analysis, a significant difference was found between the LSC/IRB and IRA/LSC boundaries among these species. Rps3 was detected in the neighboring regions of the LSC and IRb regions in Elaeocarpus. (d) Phylogenomic analysis revealed that the genus Elaeocarpus is closely related to Crinodendron patagua on an independent branch and Aristotelia fruticosa is closely related to Vallea stipularis, forming a clade with the genus Sloanea. Structural comparisons showed that Elaeocarpaceae diverged at 60 Mya, the genus Elaeocarpus diverged 53 Mya and that the genus Sloanea diverged 0.44 Mya. These results provide new insight into the evolution of the Elaeocarpaceae

New perspectives on segmented crystal calorimeters for future colliders

none7Crystal calorimeters have a long history of pushing the frontier on high-resolution electromagnetic (EM) calorimetry for photons and electrons. We explore in this paper major innovations in collider detector performance that can be achieved with crystal calorimetry when longitudinal segmentation and dual-readout capabilities are combined with a new high EM resolution approach to Particle Flow in multi-jet events, such as e+e+→ HZ events in all-hadronic final-states at Higgs factories. We demonstrate a new technique for pre-processing π0 momenta through combinatoric di-photon pairing in advance of applying jet algorithms. This procedure significantly reduces π0 photon splitting across jets in multi-jet events. The correct photon-to-jet assignment efficiency improves by a factor of about 3 when the EM resolution is improved from 15 to 3%/√E. In addition, the technique of bremsstrahlung photon recovery significantly improves electron momentum measurements. A high EM resolution calorimeter increases the Z boson recoil mass resolution in Higgstrahlung events for decays into electron pairs to 80% of that for muon pairs. We present the design and optimization of a highly segmented crystal detector concept that achieves the required energy resolution of 3%/√E, and a time resolution better than 30 ps providing exceptional particle identification capabilities. We demonstrate that, contrary to previous detector designs that suffered from large neutral hadron resolution degradation from one interaction length of crystals in front of a sampling hadron calorimeter, the implementation of dual-readout on crystals permits to achieve a resolution better than 30%/√E⊕ 2% for neutral hadrons. Our studies find that the integration of crystal calorimetry into future Higgs factory collider detectors can open new perspectives by yielding the highest level of combined EM and neutral hadron resolution in the PFA paradigm.noneLucchini, M.T.; Chung, W.; Eno, S.C.; Lai, Y.; Lucchini, L.; Nguyen, M.; Tully, C.G.Lucchini, M. T.; Chung, W.; Eno, S. C.; Lai, Y.; Lucchini, L.; Nguyen, M.; Tully, C. G