Mapping Accessibility and Shortage of the Protestant Church in China: Applying Two Spatial Research Methods

The issues of church accessibility and church shortage are critical for understanding religious market and religious economy in China. Assisted by GIS, this article uses and compares two spatial research methods, the Two Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) and the Network Analysis Method (NAM), to examine the church accessibility and church shortage in the thirty-one provincial capital cities of China. Despite the two different methods, this article sets up a common criterion in determining the geographic area of church shortage, or rather determining the number of Protestants who cannot reach the nearest churches from their residential locations within 30 minutes through driving or public transportation. The research findings discovered by both methods have identified nine provincial capital cities in the three regions of China as the areas of church shortage and low church accessibility

Mapping Accessibility and Shortage of the Protestant Church in China: Applying Two Spatial Research Methods

The issues of church accessibility and church shortage are critical for understanding religious market and religious economy in China. Assisted by GIS, this article uses and compares two spatial research methods, the Two Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) and the Network Analysis Method (NAM), to examine the church accessibility and church shortage in the thirty-one provincial capital cities of China. Despite the two different methods, this article sets up a common criterion in determining the geographic area of church shortage, or rather determining the number of Protestants who cannot reach the nearest churches from their residential locations within 30 minutes through driving or public transportation. The research findings discovered by both methods have identified nine provincial capital cities in the three regions of China as the areas of church shortage and low church accessibility

ZigBee, de la théorie à la pratique : création d'un réseau ZigBee avec transmission de données

National audienceLes technologies de l'informatique sont de nos jours enfouies profondément dans le tissu de notre société à un point tel que nous ne pouvons éviter de passer chaque jour devant un très grand nombre de machines informatiques de toutes natures. Il ne faut pas penser simplement à l'outil informatique posé sur votre bureau, ou dans votre poche qui vous permet de téléphoner. Vous pourriez imaginer par exemple, sans vous projeter dans un film de science-fiction que ces machines informatiques vous ouvrent des portes, vous reconnaissent pour vous guider en toute sécurité vers votre destination, vous aident et vous surveillent si vous êtes à mobilité réduite et âgés, surveillent en continu une forêt pour prévenir rapidement d'un début d'incendie, etc. Pour de multiples raisons, ces machines sont très souvent amenées à collaborer. Pour cela, elles communiquent via des réseaux câblés ou sans- fil. La mise en oeuvre de tels réseaux peut être très compliquée, notamment parce qu'elle impose de connaître parfaitement la structure du réseau et les protocoles associés à la communication. Cet article vous présente une solution concrète de communication sans fil basée sur la technologie ZigBee, qui pour de multiples raisons s'adapte très bien au domaine de l'électronique embarquée, notamment par sa facilité de mise en oeuvre, son optimalité en termes de consommation et de coût. Autour d'un scénario simple de fonctionnement, nous illustrerons nos propos avec une présentation des outils matériels et logiciels permettant d'appréhender la mise en place du réseau de capteurs et la vérification de son fonctionnement

Comprehensive exosomal microRNA profile and construction of competing endogenous RNA network in autism spectrum disorder: A pilot study

Exosomes have been demonstrated to exert momentous roles in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, few studies have reported a correlation between exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) and ASD. To date, our understanding of crucial competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks in ASD remains limited. Herein, the exosomal miRNA profile in the peripheral blood of children with ASD and healthy controls was investigated and the level of immune cell infiltration in ASD was evaluated to determine the distribution of immune cell subtypes. Exosomes were isolated from the peripheral blood of ten children with ASD and ten healthy controls, and further identified using transmission electron microscopy and western blot analysis. RNA sequencing was conducted to investigate exosomal miRNA profiles in patients with ASD. The mRNA and circular RNA (circRNA) expression profiles were acquired from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Differentially expressed mRNAs (DEmRNAs), miRNAs (DEmiRNAs), and circRNAs (DEcircRNAs) were identified and ceRNA regulatory networks were constructed. Furthermore, the immune cell infiltration levels in patients with ASD were evaluated. Exosomes were spherical, approximately 100 nm in size, and were confirmed via western blot analysis using exosome-associated markers CD9, CD63, and CD81. Thirty-five DEmRNAs, 63 DEmiRNAs, and 494 DEcircRNAs were identified in patients with ASD. CeRNA regulatory networks, including 6 DEmRNAs, 14 DEmiRNAs, and 86 DEcircRNAs, were established. Correlation analysis indicated that leucine-rich glioma inactivated protein 1 (LGI1) expression was significantly positively correlated with the content of CD8+ T cells. Our findings may be conducive to offering novel insights into this disease and providing further evidence of transcriptomic abnormalities in ASD

Electro-optic response of polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystals

The dynamic response of a polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (BPLC) is comprised of two distinct processes: Kerr effect-induced local reorientation and electrostriction-induced lattice distortion. A double exponential rise/decay model is proposed to analyze the underlying physical mechanisms. If the electric field is below a critical field (E-c), Kerr effect dominates and the response time is fast. However, when E \u3e E-c electrostriction effect manifests, leading to an increased response time and a noticeable hysteresis. A higher polymer concentration helps suppress electrostriction, but the tradeoff is increased operation voltage. These results provide useful guidelines for future BPLC material and device optimizations

Energy constrains to increasing complexity in the biosphere

Thirty years ago, the systems ecologist Howard T. Odum introduced the concept of transformity, which is a thermodynamic measure of quality within the trial and error evolutionary dynamics of ecosystems, namely an indicator of rank in the hierarchical system structure of the biosphere. Based on a global database of individual processes and whole economies, this paper extends, refines, and updates Odum’s idea, demonstrating the strength of the postulated relation. In particular, an inverse linear logarithmic relationship is shown to hold between resource quantity (exergy) and quality (emergy), which is the result of an overall energetic efficiency characteristic of energy transformation processes of the biosphere. This relation extends from natural renewable energy sources to human information (including global internet data flows) and know-how embedded in national economies, thus identifying a consistent theory of hierarchical organization of the biosphere grounded in energetics and ultimately setting constraints to illusions of unlimited growth