Hydraulic economy and logographic writing in ancient China: factor of topography

Chinese civilisation is characterised by two distinctive features – a strong centralised administration and the system of logographic writing. This paper investigates nature’s powerful impacts on human development, in terms of organisation and communication in ancient China. It argues that ancient China’s topography played a crucial role in the formation of ancient Chinese civilisation and its hydraulic economy pushed the state stronger than society, hence a strong centralised government emerged

Parent, child and state in Chinese children’s books

The representation of the relationship between parent and child, the moral cornerstone of Chinese society, is uniquely influential in Chinese children’s literature. After an extended period of almost two thousand years during which depictions of this relationship were static and unchanging, the beginning of the twentieth century ushered in a dynamic series of changes which responded to political needs. In this study we focus on these changes, examining four distinctive periods: the pre-modern dynastic period until 1911; the Republican and Nationalist phase from 1911 to 1949; the phase of Mao’s socialism from 1949 to 1976; and the post-Mao phase from 1976 to 2000

Structural Properties of Invariant Dual Subspaces of Boolean Networks

In this paper, we obtain the following results on dual subspaces of Boolean networks (BNs). For a BN, there is a one-to-one correspondence between partitions of its state-transition graph (STG) and its dual subspaces (i.e., the subspaces generated by a number of Boolean functions of the BN's variables). Moreover, a dual subspace is invariant if and only if the corresponding partition is equitable, i.e., for every two (not necessarily different) cells of the partition, every two states in the former have equally many out-neighbors in the latter. With the help of equitable partitions of an STG, we study the structural properties of the smallest invariant dual subspaces containing a number of Boolean functions. And then, we give algorithms for computing the equitable partition corresponding to the smallest invariant dual subspace containing a given dual subspace. Moreover, we reveal that the unobservable subspace of a BN is the smallest invariant dual subspace containing the output function. We analyze properties of the unobservable subspace by using the obtained structural properties. The graphical representation provides an easier and more intuitive way to characterizing the (smallest) invariant dual subspaces of a BN

Type IIs restriction based combinatory modulation technique for metabolic pathway optimization

Additional file 1: Table S1. Oligonucleotides used in this study

Combinatory optimization of chromosomal integrated mevalonate pathway for β-carotene production in Escherichia coli

Additional file 1: Table S1. Primers used in this work. Table S2. Modulating genes of mvaS-mvaA-mavD1 operon for improving β-carotene production. Table S3. Modulating genes of Hmg1-erg12 operon for improving β-carotene production. Table S4. Sequences of representative artificial regulatory parts. Table S5. Plasmids used in this work. Table S6. Escherichia coli strains used in this work. Table S7. Calculated strength of mvaS and Hmg1 RBS, RBS sequence and relative β-carotene yield of strains from Re-modulation libraries. Figure S1. Two-step recombination method for inserting Hmg1-erg12 operon in E. coli chromosome. Figure S2. Two-step recombination method for modulating gene expression in E. coli chromosome by different artificial regulatory parts

Metoda raspodijeljenog zajedničkog prostornog uzorka za klasifikaciju EEG signala sučelja mozak-računalo u jednoj procjeni

Common spatial pattern (CSP) method is highly successful in calculating spatial filters for motor imagery-based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). However, conventional CSP algorithm is based on a single wide frequency band with a poor frequency selectivity which will lead to poor recognition accuracy. To solve this problem, a novel Partitioned CSP (PCSP) algorithm is proposed to find the most relevant spatial frequency distribution with motor imaginary, so that the algorithm has flexible frequency selectivity. Firstly, we partition the dataset into frequency components using a constant-bandwidth filters bank. Then, a features selection method based on the Bhattacharyya distance is adopted for PCSP features ranking, selection and evaluation. Subsequently, the PCSP features are used to obtain scores which reflect the classification capability and being used for EEG signal classification. The experimental results on 4 subjects showed that the PCSP method significantly outperforms the other two existing approaches based on conventional CSP and Common Spatio-Spectral Pattern (CSSP).Metoda zajedničkog prostornog uzorka (eng. common spatial pattern, CSP) je vrlo uspješna u izračunu prostornih filtara za sučelja mozak-računalo zasnovana na motoričkoj predodžbi (eng. brain-computer interface, BCI). Međutim, konvencionalni CSP algoritam je zasnovan na jednom širokom pojasu frekvencija s lošom selektivnosti frekvencija što rezultira manjom točnošću prepoznavanja. Za rješavanje navedenog problema u ovom radu je predložen novi raspodijeljeni CSP algoritam za pronalaženje najznačajnije prostorno frekvencijske distribucije s motoričkom predodžbom, sa svojstvima fleksibilne selektivnosti frekvencije. Početna faza metode je podjela podataka na frekvencijske komponente korištenjem filtarskog sloga s konstantnom širinom pojasa. Potom, prilagođena je metoda odabira svojstava zasnovana na Bhattacharyya udaljenosti za rangiranje, odabir i evaluaciju PCSP svojstava. Zatim, PCSP svojstva se koriste za dobivanje ocjena koje reflektiraju mogućnosti klasifikacije te za klasifikaciju EEG signala. Eksperimentalni rezultati na 4 ispitanika pokazali su da PCSP metoda po performansama značajno nadmašuje druga dva postojeća pristupa zasnovana na konvencionalnom CSP-u i zajedničkom prostor-spektralnom uzorku (eng. common spatio-spectral pattern, CSSP)

Palmitoylation of the β4-Subunit Regulates Surface Expression of Large Conductance Calcium-activated Potassium Channel Splice Variants

Regulatory β-subunits of large conductance calcium- and voltage-activated potassium (BK) channels play an important role in generating functional diversity and control of cell surface expression of the pore forming α-subunits. However, in contrast to α-subunits, the role of reversible post-translational modification of intracellular residues on β-subunit function is largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the human β4-subunit is S-acylated (palmitoylated) on a juxtamembrane cysteine residue (Cys-193) in the intracellular C terminus of the regulatory β-subunit. β4-Subunit palmitoylation is important for cell surface expression and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) exit of the β4-subunit alone. Importantly, palmitoylated β4-subunits promote the ER exit and surface expression of the pore-forming α-subunit, whereas β4-subunits that cannot be palmitoylated do not increase ER exit or surface expression of α-subunits. Strikingly, however, this palmitoylation- and β4-dependent enhancement of α-subunit surface expression was only observed in α-subunits that contain a putative trafficking motif (… REVEDEC) at the very C terminus of the α-subunit. Engineering this trafficking motif to other C-terminal α-subunit splice variants results in α-subunits with reduced surface expression that can be rescued by palmitoylated, but not depalmitoylated, β4-subunits. Our data reveal a novel mechanism by which palmitoylated β4-subunit controls surface expression of BK channels through masking of a trafficking motif in the C terminus of the α-subunit. As palmitoylation is dynamic, this mechanism would allow precise control of specific splice variants to the cell surface. Our data provide new insights into how complex interplay between the repertoire of post-transcriptional and post-translational mechanisms controls cell surface expression of BK channels

Structural and Functional Characterization of the FadR Regulatory Protein from Vibrio alginolyticus

The structure of Vibrio cholerae FadR (VcFadR) complexed with the ligand oleoyl-CoA suggests an additional ligand-binding site. However, the fatty acid metabolism and its regulation is poorly addressed in Vibrio alginolyticus, a species closely-related to V. cholerae. Here, we show crystal structures of V. alginolyticus FadR (ValFadR) alone and its complex with the palmitoyl-CoA, a long-chain fatty acyl ligand different from the oleoyl-CoA occupied by VcFadR. Structural comparison indicates that both VcFadR and ValFadR consistently have an additional ligand-binding site (called site 2), which leads to more dramatic conformational-change of DNA-binding domain than that of the E. coli FadR (EcFadR). Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) analyses defines that the ligand-binding pattern of ValFadR (2:1) is distinct from that of EcFadR (1:1). Together with surface plasmon resonance (SPR), electrophoresis mobility shift assay (EMSA) demonstrates that ValFadR binds fabA, an important gene of unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) synthesis. The removal of fadR from V. cholerae attenuates fabA transcription and results in the unbalance of UFA/SFA incorporated into membrane phospholipids. Genetic complementation of the mutant version of fadR (Δ42, 136-177) lacking site 2 cannot restore the defective phenotypes of ΔfadR while the wild-type fadR gene and addition of exogenous oleate can restore them. Mice experiments reveals that VcFadR and its site 2 have roles in bacterial colonizing. Together, the results might represent an additional example that illustrates the Vibrio FadR-mediated lipid regulation and its role in pathogenesis