Mutual Evaluation of Lessons by Japanese and Chinese Elementary School Teachers: Based on the “Sewing on a Button” class

Teachers at Dacheng Elementary School, one of the advanced elementary schools for home economics education in China, are hoping for more effective class improvement along with the acquisition of subject theory and expertise. However, no lesson study has been conducted that compares the contents of home economics classes internationally or captures the details of the lesson reviews of the teachers in order to improve the lesson. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the characteristics of teaching in Japan and China through the analysis of teachers’ self-evaluation and mutual evaluation of the “sewing on a button” classes conducted in elementary schools in the two countries. We also invite suggestions on lesson studies in Chinese home economics education and how to discuss lessons in Japanese lesson studies. As a result, teachers from both countries showed various support/empathy points and differences in their reviews. In addition, from the sympathetic description of teaching techniques, teaching plans, and how to ask and instruct, it can be inferred that teachers of both countries recognized each other’s teaching ability regardless of there expertise in home economics. On the other hand, differences were observed in their methods of teaching a class, intention to use and selection of teaching materials, and methods of learning evaluation

The Expression of microRNA and microRNA Clusters in the Aging Heart

Background: The microRNAs have been implicated in the process of cardiac development, cardiac hypertrophy, and heart failure. However, the impact of adult aging on cardiac expression of miRNA clusters, as well as both miRNA guide (miR) and passenger (miR*) strands has not been well established. Methods/Results: We explored the expression profile of both miR and miR * in the hearts of young adult versus old mice. We found that 65 miRNAs were differentially expressed in the old versus young adult hearts; approximately half of them were clustered miRNAs that were distributed in 11 miRNA clusters. Each miRNA cluster contained from 2 to as many as 71 miRNA genes. The majority of the clusters displayed similar expression, with most cluster members within a cluster being either increased or decreased together, suggesting that most clusters are likely to be regulated by a common signaling mechanism and that the combined expression of multiple miRNA genes in a cluster could pose an impact on a broad range of targets during aging. We also found age-related changes in the expression of miR*s. The expression of both miR and miR* correlated with that of pri-miRNA transcript over the time course from development and maturation through adult aging. Age-related changes in the expression of Ago1 and Ago2 proteins in the heart were also observed. Transfection assay revealed that both Ago1 and Ago2 synergistically induced miR-21 and miR-21 * when the mir-21 plasmid was co-transfected with either

A Cross-Cultural Perspective on the Preference for Potential Effect: An Individual Participant Data (IPD) Meta-Analysis Approach

A recent paper [Tormala ZL, Jia JS, Norton MI (2012). The preference for potential. Journal of personality and social psychology, 103:567-583] demonstrated that persons often prefer potential rather than achievement when evaluating others, because information regarding potential evokes greater interest and processing, resulting in more favorable evaluations. This research aimed to expand on this finding by asking two questions: (a) Is the preference for potential effect replicable in other cultures? (b) Is there any other mechanism that accounts for this preference for potential? To answer these two questions, we replicated Tormala et al.'s study in multiple cities (17 studies with 1,128 participants) in China using an individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis approach to test our hypothesis. Our results showed that the preference for potential effect found in the US is also robust in China. Moreover, we also found a pro-youth bias behind the preference for potential effect. To be specific, persons prefer a potential-oriented applicant rather than an achievement-oriented applicant, partially because they believe that the former is younger than the latter

Research methods on the role of financial inclusion, energy efficiency and energy R&D: Evidence from G7 economies

Countries around the globe are rapidly targeting energy efficiency goal achievement due to the unproductive and inefficient use of traditional energy sources. Several factors are discovered that are critical for energy efficiency in the region. Still, there are many economic, financial, energy, and research and development factors that could influence energy efficiency and remained ignored in the scholarly research, which is important from economic growth as well as environmental sustainability perspective. This research contributes to the existing literature by providing novel factors affecting energy efficiency in the developed nations. Specifically, the current study investigates the influence of financial inclusion, energy R&D, political- economic-financial risk index, and the energy-related inflation on the energy efficiency of G7 economies covering the period from 2004 to 2020. This study employed the slope heterogeneity and cross-section dependence test, which led to using the second-generation unit root test. For empirical estimations, the current study utilizes the panel Quantile regression, and the outcomes reveal that all the considered variables positively influence the energy efficiency in the region. However, the influence of these variables increases except for the energy-related inflation when moving from lower quantile Q0.25 to medium Q0.50 to higher quantile Q0.75, respectively. The estimated results are found robust, confirmed by the FMOLS estimator. Based on the empirical findings, it is recommended that financial inclusion and energy-related research and development be enhanced to achieve the region’s energy efficiency

Regulation of cardiac microRNAs by serum response factor

Serum response factor (SRF) regulates certain microRNAs that play a role in cardiac and skeletal muscle development. However, the role of SRF in the regulation of microRNA expression and microRNA biogenesis in cardiac hypertrophy has not been well established. In this report, we employed two distinct transgenic mouse models to study the impact of SRF on cardiac microRNA expression and microRNA biogenesis. Cardiac-specific overexpression of SRF (SRF-Tg) led to altered expression of a number of microRNAs. Interestingly, downregulation of miR-1, miR-133a and upregulation of miR-21 occurred by 7 days of age in these mice, long before the onset of cardiac hypertrophy, suggesting that SRF overexpression impacted the expression of microRNAs which contribute to cardiac hypertrophy. Reducing cardiac SRF level using the antisense-SRF transgenic approach (Anti-SRF-Tg) resulted in the expression of miR-1, miR-133a and miR-21 in the opposite direction. Furthermore, we observed that SRF regulates microRNA biogenesis, specifically the transcription of pri-microRNA, thereby affecting the mature microRNA level. The mir-21 promoter sequence is conserved among mouse, rat and human; one SRF binding site was found to be in the mir-21 proximal promoter region of all three species. The mir-21 gene is regulated by SRF and its cofactors, including myocardin and p49/Strap. Our study demonstrates that the downregulation of miR-1, miR-133a, and upregulation of miR-21 can be reversed by one single upstream regulator, SRF. These results may help to develop novel therapeutic interventions targeting microRNA biogenesis

Numerical and Experimental Studies of a Two-Stage Pulse Tube Cryocooler Working Around 20K

The absence of cold moving parts in pulse tube cryocoolers has allowed it to has advantages of low vibration, high reliability, and low cost, which can meet requirements of many high-temperature superconducting applications. However, Stirling type pulse tube cryocoolers working around 20 K are still not commerally aviable due to low efficiency and low power density. With Comprehensive consideration of higher specific power of whole system and performance in relative lower working temperature of 20K, this paper proposes a thermally coupled two stage co-axial pulse tube cryocooler to pursue several watts cooling power around 20K.At the first stage, an ultrahigh frequency operation of 100 Hz is utilized to precoo the second stage for seeking a higher power density. At the second stage, a relative lower frequency of around 30Hz is used for improving system efficiency. Firstly, a quasi-one-dimensional numeric model based on the thermoacoustic theory is used to optimize the operating and structure parameters and some simulation results are briefly introduced. The influences of different phase shifters such as doule-inlet and room temperature displacers are also also investigated numerically. Then, in the experiments, typically a lowest no-load temperature of 13 K has been obtained and the cooling power at 20K was 2 W with an input electric power of 500 W, which mean an efficiency of 5.6% of Carnot. The influences of different operating and structure parameters such as frequency, mean pressure and precooling temperature were also investigated numerically and experimentally