As an important venue for continuously exporting talents to China society, universities shoulder the task of adapting to the strategic development needs of China and educating people. However, at ...this stage, with the acceleration of the popularization of tertiary education, the traditional instructional mode has been unable to meet the new requirements of personnel training. Teaching reform, as an important part of improving instructional level, has been paid more and more attention by universities. Universities are constantly improving themselves in teaching methods, curriculum, personnel training and goal setting, so as to promote the output of compound talents. OBE education concept emphasizes students’ learning achievements and belongs to a new educational concept. Once put forward, it has been highly valued and widely concerned by the education sector, which has guided the correct direction for the pursuit of excellent education in major universities at present. This article introduces the connotation and core elements of OBE education concept; This article analyzes the present situation and existing problems of educational management in universities. On this basis, based on the concept of OBE education, this article puts forward the corresponding strategies to improve the instructional mode in universities, so as to promote the sustainable reform of the courses of education majors in universities, and thus improve the quality of talent training in universities.
In EFL contexts like mainland China, many researchers made efforts to investigate the cultural content of Chinese government-authorized textbooks used in both public secondary schools and ...universities. However, few people pay attention to textbooks used in cram schools. This study aims to explore the cultural content in New Concept English (NCE), an extensively used textbook in Chinese cram schools for nearly 30 years. Meanwhile, it attempts to analyze its strengths and weaknesses of the cultural content from intercultural perspectives. Adopting content analysis under the guidance of two coding schemes, the results reveal that general culture (68%) has the largest percentage while source culture (2%) is significantly ignored in stark contrast to target culture (46%). Based on the findings, the prominent strength lies in the great deal of general culture (68%), which helps student understand culture from an etic view and makes them realize the cultural differences for cross-cultural comparison. The two weaknesses are the severely neglected source culture (2%) compared to target culture (46%) and the unbalanced distribution in international cultures. Findings of this study intend to raise teachers' awareness of the intercultural teaching and learning in cram schools.
Epidemiological evidence of the effect of high-level air pollution and its interaction with meteorological factors on the risk of acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD) ...is limited. Daily data on AECOPD cases, air pollutants and meteorological factors were collected from 2015 to 2018 in Shijiazhuang. A distributed lag non-linear model (DLNM) was used to explore the lag and cumulative effect of PM
on the risk of AECOPD. The effect of the interaction between PM
and meteorological factors on AECOPD was estimated by a generalized additive model (GAM) and a stratification model. A total of 4766 patients with AECOPD were enrolled. After controlling for confounders, each 10 μg/m
increase in PM
led to a 5.8% increase in the risk of AECOPD on day lag 0. The cumulative effect of PM
on AECOPD risk showed an increasing trend after 3 days. Similar results were observed in both smoking and non-smoking patients. There was an interaction between PM
and meteorological factors, and the risk of AECOPD was higher in cold and lower humidity conditions than in other conditions. High-level PM
exposure is positively associated with the risk of AECOPD onset, and the effect of PM
can be modified by the temperature and relative humidity. Public health guidelines should pay close attention to AECOPD risk under the condition of high-level PM
with low temperature or low humidity.
The prevalence of dual usage and the relatively low cessation rate among e-cigarette (EC) users suggest that ECs have not demonstrated significant effectiveness as a smoking cessation tool. ...Furthermore, there has been a substantial increase in the prevalence of EC usage in recent years. Therefore, the objective of this study is to investigate the association between EC use and the incidence of respiratory symptoms and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A total of 10,326 participants aged between 20 and 55 years, without any respiratory diseases or COPD, were recruited for the study. These individuals attended employee physical examinations conducted at 16 public hospitals in Hebei province, China from 2015 to 2020. Logistic regression models were utilized to assess the association between EC use and the risk of respiratory symptoms and COPD using risk ratios along with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Restricted cubic spline functions were employed to investigate the dose-response non-linear relationship. The robustness of the logistic regression models was evaluated through subgroup analyses, and sensitivity analyses. During the 5-year follow-up period, a total of 1071 incident cases of respiratory symptoms and 146 incident cases of COPD were identified in this cohort study. After adjusting for relevant confounding factors, EC users demonstrated a respective increase in the risk of reporting respiratory symptoms and COPD by 28% and 8%. Furthermore, dual users who used both ECs and combustible cigarettes exhibited an elevated risk of incident respiratory symptoms and COPD by 41% and 18%, respectively, compared to those who had never used non-users of any cigarette products. The association between daily EC consumption and the development of respiratory symptoms, as well as COPD, demonstrated a significant J-shaped pattern. The potential adverse association between the consumption of ECs, particularly when used in combination with combustible cigarettes, and the development of respiratory symptoms and COPD necessitates careful consideration. Policymakers should approach ECs cautiously as a prospective smoking cessation tool.
In Spring 2017, Abyss Creations, a 20-year old manufacturer of hyper-realistic sex dolls (trade-named “RealDoll”) with a loyal customer base, launched an artificial intelligence app (named “Harmony”) ...to augment the dolls’ already life-like bodies, giving them customizable personalities and allowing them to flirt and converse with their owners
An Improved Whale Optimization Algorithm (IWOA) is proposed to solve the problem of poor accuracy and stability in optimizing the locating and sizing of nonconvex and nonlinear electric vehicle (EV) ...charging stations (CSs). The variability index of convergence factor, the differential evolution operator, and the antibody affinity are introduced in the algorithm framework. Twelve classical test functions show that IWOA significantly improves the algorithm accuracy and convergence speed compared to WOA. Finally. The Voronoi diagram based on Floyd’s shortest path is adopted to decide the service area of charging stations. With the goal of delivering cost optimization, IWOA is applied to a 45-node transportation network for case study analysis, and the results show that both the proposed model and algorithm can be effectively applied to the locating and sizing and help reduce the cost for the whole society.
Artists are often seen as innovators and producers of creative and extraordinary new ideas. Additionally, experiencing art and artistic processes is an important opportunity for learning and ...exploration. Thus, corporations and scientific organizations have experimented with initiatives that generate artscience collaboration, such as fellowships, long-term collaborations with artists, and artist-in-residence programs. Looking at outcomes in the long-term, it is possible to identify important contributions to scientific, technological, and artistic fields that stem from artscience collaboration opportunities in organizations. On the other hand, it is often difficult to define immediate tangible outcomes of such processes as innovation as interdisciplinary interaction and learning processes are valuable experiences that do not always manifest directly in outcomes that can be measured. Drawing from cases of artscience programs and qualitative interviews with program managers, scientists, and artists, this article explores how artscience collaboration in an organization adds value and helps overcome organizational challenges regardless of such outcomes. By shifting the focus from the outcome to the process of artscience collaboration, it is possible to discover in more depth value-added contributions of artscience experiences on an individual level (e.g., new ways of knowing and thinking, understanding of materials and processes, and learning). Moreover, such contributions tell stories of connecting the process of artscience programs to the organizations' goals of developing a new generation of leaders and driving a more adaptive, innovative culture. These benefits of artscience opportunities need to be supported by managerial activities in the organization. Thus, it enables a more differentiated understanding of possible contributions of artscience collaboration to organizations and helps to define the best model to create such opportunities. The article also recommends future research directions to further advance artscience collaboaration, especially in light of pertinent movements such as STEAM and Open Innovation, and promising developments in related fields such as neuro-aesthetics.
Down syndrome (DS), or trisomy 21, is one of the critical risk factors for early-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), implicating key roles for chromosome 21-encoded genes in the pathogenesis of AD. We ...previously identified a role for the deubiquitinase USP25, encoded on chromosome 21, in regulating microglial homeostasis in the AD brain; however, whether USP25 affects amyloid pathology remains unknown. Here, by crossing 5×FAD AD and Dp16 DS mice, we observed that trisomy 21 exacerbated amyloid pathology in the 5×FAD brain. Moreover, bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) transgene-mediated USP25 overexpression increased amyloid deposition in the 5×FAD mouse brain, whereas genetic deletion of Usp25 reduced amyloid deposition. Furthermore, our results demonstrate that USP25 promoted β cleavage of APP and Aβ generation by reducing the ubiquitination and lysosomal degradation of both APP and BACE1. Importantly, pharmacological inhibition of USP25 ameliorated amyloid pathology in the 5×FAD mouse brain. In summary, we identified the DS-related gene USP25 as a critical regulator of AD pathology, and our data suggest that USP25 serves as a potential pharmacological target for AD drug development.
Currently, the preparation of novel efficient and recyclable photocatalysts for pollutant degradation in water has become a research hotpot. In this study, a TiO
2
-loaded non-woven ...polypropylene/bacterial cellulose (TiO
2
-loaded NPBC) composite film was prepared by a biological culturing method. The TiO
2
nanoparticles were spontaneously embedded into the prepared composite film. Then, the composite film was used to degrade methylene blue (MB) and its degradation effects were explored. The morphology of the composite film was investigated. It was clear that a large amount of TiO
2
nanoparticles were embedded into the composite membrane during the biological culturing method. The experimental results confirmed that the TiO
2
-loaded NPBC composite film had good degradation performance and reusability. When the reaction time was 120 min, the removal rate of MB by the film was 92.8 %. The removal rate remained above 85 % after 5 degradation cycles.
Traditional methods for detecting insect-borne bacterial pathogens are time-consuming and require specialized laboratory facilities, limiting their applicability in areas without access to such ...resources. Consequently, rapid and efficient detection methods for insect-borne bacterial diseases have become a pressing need in disease prevention and control.
We aligned the ribosomal 16S rRNA sequences of seven bacterial species (Staphylococcus aureus, Shigella flexneri, Aeromonas caviae, Vibrio vulnificus, Salmonella enterica, Proteus vulgaris, and Yersinia enterocolitica) by DNASTAR Lasergene software. Using DNASTAR Lasergene and Primer Premier software, we designed universal primers RLB-F and RLB-R, two species-specific probes for each pathogen, and a universal probe (catch-all). The PCR products of seven standard strains were hybridized with specific oligonucleotide probes fixed on the membrane for specific experimental procedures. To evaluate the sensitivity of PCR-RLB, genomic DNA was serially diluted from an initial copy number of 10
to 10
copies/μl in distilled water. These dilutions were utilized as templates for the PCR-RLB sensitivity analysis. Simultaneous detection of seven fly-borne bacterial pathogens from field samples by the established PCR-RLB method was conducted on a total of 1060 houseflies, collected from various environments in Lanzhou, China.
The established PCR-RLB assay is capable of detecting bacterial strains of about 10
copies/μl for S. aureus, 10
copies/μl for S. flexneri, 10
copies/μl for A. caviae, 10
copies/μl for V. vulnificus, 10
copies/μl for S. enterica, 10
copies/μl for P. vulgaris, and 10
copies/μl for Y. enterocolitica. The results demonstrate that the detection rate of the established PCR-RLB method is higher (approximately 100 times) compared to conventional PCR. This method was applied to assess the bacterial carrier status of flies in various environments in Lanzhou, China. Among the seven bacterial pathogens carried by flies, S. enterica (34.57%), S. flexneri (32.1%), and Y. enterocolitica (20.37%) were found to be the predominant species.
Overall, this research shows that the rapid and efficient PCR-RLB detection technology could be a useful for surveillance and therefore effective prevention and control the spread of insect-borne diseases. Meanwhile, the experimental results indicate that urban sanitation and vector transmission sources are important influencing factors for pathogen transmission.
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