It has been a growing trend in Chinese universities to shift from English for general purposes (EGP) to English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching. Against this background, large groups of teachers ...previously engaged in teaching EGP have become or are becoming ESP teachers, which means a complex process of learning for subject-specific information, transforming teaching practices and constructing new identities. Despite this, very little has been written about the ESP teacher cognition (TC) of language teaching or the factors influencing this shift in teaching. This study involved English for Medical Purposes (EMP) teachers in Chinese universities as participants, and a scale of EMP TC with 31 items was developed on the basis of questionnaire results. Data from exploratory factor analysis revealed six dimensions of the scale, namely, teacher attitude, teacher belief, teacher learning, teacher support, role identification, and teacher practice—that combine to constitute and influence EMP TC. While the identity factor has attracted wide attention in ESP teacher research, other factors have largely been neglected. Thus, this research highlights the importance of more factors in shaping and changing the language teaching cognition of EMP or ESP teachers in large, especially the teacher belief factor. In addition, results of independent samples
t
-tests indicated significant difference in EMP teacher learning in terms of gender, differences in EMP teacher attitude and teacher support in terms of EMP teaching experience. Suggestions for enhancing EMP TC are offered on the basis of the conclusions of this research.
•Tissue-Resident Macrophages are long-lived and derived from embryonic progenitors.•The c-Myb-independent primitive program gives rise to YS Macrophages and Microglia.•The c-Myb-dependent EMPs ...program gives rise to Fetal Monocytes.•The HSCs-definitive program can also give rise to Fetal and Neonatal Monocytes.•Fetal and Neonatal Monocytes give rise to Tissue Macrophages except Microglia.•Adult Monocytes give rise to Tissue-Resident Macrophages under specific conditions.
Tissue-resident macrophages have pivotal functions for tissue defense and homeostasis. Two main discoveries have changed our current understanding of macrophage development: Their embryonic origin and their ability to self-renew throughout the lifespan. It is now well accepted that most tissue-resident macrophages are long-lived cells derived from a transient hematopoietic wave of erythro-myeloid progenitors (EMPs) emerging in the yolk sac. At least two distinct pathways derived from EMPs have been implicated in macrophage development. The first one, c-Myb-independent is giving rise to yolk sac macrophages also called primitive macrophages, and bypassing the classical monocytic intermediates. The second requires c-Myb expression and start once EMPs seed the fetal liver where they generate fetal monocytes. Sequentially, primitive macrophages seed every tissue and will ultimately give rise to microglia in the brain, rapidly isolated by the blood brain barrier, while EMP-derived fetal monocytes infiltrate every other tissues and gradually generate the major pool of adult tissue-resident macrophages by diluting the initial primitive macrophage contribution. A third wave of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC)-derived monocytes is also emerging from the fetal liver to contribute to the long-lived macrophage pool established at birth while the adult hematopoiesis is only starting in the bone marrow. We propose here to review recent insights about the different embryonic hematopoietic programs responsible for the generation of long-lived tissue-resident macrophages and their maintenance after birth.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Evidence of the diversity and multi-layered organization of the hematopoietic system is leading to new insights that may inform ex vivo production of blood cells. Interestingly, not all long-lived ...hematopoietic cells derive from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Here we review the current knowledge on HSC-dependent cell lineages and HSC-independent tissue-resident hematopoietic cells and how they arise during embryonic development. Classical embryological and genetic experiments, cell fate tracing data, single-cell imaging, and transcriptomics studies provide information on the molecular/cell trajectories that form the complete hematopoietic system. We also discuss the current developmentally informed efforts toward generating engraftable and multilineage blood cells.
Dzierzak and Bigas review the current knowledge on molecular/cell trajectories that generate the complete hematopoietic system, informed by classical embryological and genetic experiments, cell fate tracing data, single-cell imaging, and transcriptomics studies. The authors also discuss the current developmentally informed efforts toward generating engraftable and multilineage blood cells.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In this article, we investigate on the radiative field generated by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generator consisting of a biconical antenna and a cage antenna with a miniaturized peaking capacitor ...equipped inside one vertex of the biconical antenna, particularly on how the peaking capacitor affects the quality of the generated output axial electric field pulse. Formulations based on the propagator matrix theory give the fundamental theoretical basis, with the specifications of the peaking capacitor enumerable from preselected sets. In addition, simulative effort is made by using the finite difference time domain method. Because 1) the size of the peaking capacitor is usually 3 to 4 orders of magnitude smaller than that of the whole apparatus and 2) the rapid transient operating process of the output switch significantly makes the radiative procedure more complicated, the implementation of finite difference time domain (FDTD) needs much enhancement in our simulation. Specifically, the adaptive meshing technique and time synchronization technique are utilized. Finally, the consistency between the qualitatively analytical analysis, the experimental results, and the numerical results completes the validation stage.
Skin epidermis constitutes the outer permeability barrier that protects the body from dehydration, heat loss, and myriad external assaults. Mechanisms that maintain barrier integrity in constantly ...challenged adult skin and how epidermal dysregulation shapes the local immune microenvironment and whole‐body metabolism remain poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that inducible and simultaneous ablation of transcription factor‐encoding Ovol1 and Ovol2 in adult epidermis results in barrier dysregulation through impacting epithelial‐mesenchymal plasticity and inflammatory gene expression. We find that aberrant skin immune activation then ensues, featuring Langerhans cell mobilization and T cell responses, and leading to elevated levels of secreted inflammatory factors in circulation. Finally, we identify failure to gain body weight and accumulate body fat as long‐term consequences of epidermal‐specific Ovol1/2 loss and show that these global metabolic changes along with the skin barrier/immune defects are partially rescued by immunosuppressant dexamethasone. Collectively, our study reveals key regulators of adult barrier maintenance and suggests a causal connection between epidermal dysregulation and whole‐body metabolism that is in part mediated through aberrant immune activation.
Synopsis
Skin epidermal‐specific loss of Ovol1 and Ovol2 transcription factors also causes local immune activation and whole‐body metabolic changes. These defects are partially rescued by administration of the immunosuppressant dexamethasone.
EMT‐suppressing transcription factors Ovol1 and Ovol2 are required for epidermal barrier maintenance in adult skin.
Ovol1/2 loss‐induced epidermal dysregulation elicits aberrant immune activation and increased production of inflammatory factors.
Ovol1/2 perturbation in epidermis results in a failure to gain body weight and accumulate body fat.
Partial rescue by dexamethasone implicates connections among epidermal and immune homeostasis, and global metabolism.
Skin epidermal‐specific loss of Ovol1 and Ovol2 transcription factors also causes local immune activation and whole‐body metabolic changes. These defects are partially rescued by administration of the immunosuppressant dexamethasone.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
To combat the interference and damage caused by external EMP, TVS and PIN diodes, two common electromagnetic protection components, are frequently used together. However, in practical applications, ...it is found that the PIN diode in the combined protection circuit is turned on first and TVS does not play a role. This study examines this phenomenon using the TVS-TVS3V3L4U and PIN diode-SMP1320. The findings indicate that adding capacitance and resistance between the TVS and PIN diode can successfully solve the problem. The findings of this study have some reference value for powerful EMP protection.
In this paper, we propose a novel multiple kernel learning (MKL) framework to incorporate both spectral and spatial features for hyperspectral image classification, which is called ...multiple-structure-element nonlinear MKL (MultiSE-NMKL). In the proposed framework, multiple structure elements (MultiSEs) are employed to generate extended morphological profiles (EMPs) to present spatial-spectral information. In order to better mine interscale and interstructure similarity among EMPs, a nonlinear MKL (NMKL) is introduced to learn an optimal combined kernel from the predefined linear base kernels. We integrate this NMKL with support vector machines (SVMs) and reduce the min-max problem to a simple minimization problem. The optimal weight for each kernel matrix is then solved by a projection-based gradient descent algorithm. The advantages of using nonlinear combination of base kernels and multiSE-based EMP are that similarity information generated from the nonlinear interaction of different kernels is fully exploited, and the discriminability of the classes of interest is deeply enhanced. Experiments are conducted on three real hyperspectral data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves better performance for hyperspectral image classification, compared with several state-of-the-art algorithms. The MultiSE EMPs can provide much higher classification accuracy than using a single-SE EMP.
Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) comprise 10–15% of all breast cancers but with more resistance affinity against chemotherapeutics. Although doxorubicin (DOX) is the recommended first choice, ...it has observed cardiotoxicity together with apparent drug resistance. The anti-hyperglycemic drug, empagliflozin (EMP), was recently indicated to have in vitro anticancer potential together with its previously reported cardioprotective properties related to calmodulin inhibition. In this study, we carried out molecular docking studies which revealed the potential blocking of the calmodulin receptor by EMP through its binding with similar crucial amino acids compared to its cocrystallized inhibitor (AAA) as a proposed mechanism of action. Moreover, combination of DOX with EMP showed a slightly lower cytotoxic activity against the MDA-MB-231 cell line (IC50 = 1.700 ± 0.121) compared to DOX alone (IC50 = 1.230 ± 0.131), but it achieved a more characteristic arrest in the growth of cells by 4.67-fold more than DOX alone (with only 3.27-fold) in comparison to the control as determined by cell cycle analysis, and at the same time reached an increase in the total apoptosis percentage from 27.05- to 29.22-fold, compared to DOX alone as indicated by Annexin V-FITC apoptosis assay. Briefly, the aforementioned in vitro studies in addition to PCR of pro- and antiapoptotic genes (mTOR, p21, JNK, Bcl2, and MDR1) suggest the chemosensitization effect of EMP combination with DOX which can reduce the required therapeutic dose of DOX in TNBC and eventually will decrease its toxic side effects (especially cardiotoxicity), along with decreasing the chemoresistance of TNBC cells to DOX treatment.
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IJS, KILJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK