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Although the popularity of Chopin and his music in East Asia is a well-known phenomenon, we know quite little about how exactly Asian people understand and listen to Chopin’s music. This article aims to show the general situation of the reception of Chopin and his music in Taiwan by examining three different aspects. Presented in the first part are the results of a questionnaire about Taiwanese choir singers’ impressions of Chopin and his music and their experience of listening to excerpts of four different compositions by the composer, while the second part deals with the cultural image of Chopin in Taiwanese books, textbooks and film. The results suggest that the designation ‘poet of the piano’ plays an integral role in Chopin reception in Taiwan. In order to understand how Taiwanese people’s understanding of beauty in poetry can affect their understanding of Chopin’s music, an aesthetic category called yijing, frequently used in literary and art criticism in Taiwan, is introduced in the last part of the article. It seems that the epithet ‘poet of the piano’ encourages Taiwanese people to understand Chopin’s works according to yijing (by seeing imaginary scenes and feeling the expression, they experience the deeper beauty and meaning of the music) and to associate them with poetry representative of that aesthetic category. Moreover, the Taiwanese tend to perceive Chopin’s music as lyrical and sentimental and to consider such qualities as characteristic of his oeuvre.

Efficient and adaptive computer vision systems have been proposed to make computer vision tasks, such as image classification and object detection, optimized for embedded or mobile devices. These solutions, quite recent in their origin, focus on optimizing the model (a deep neural network) or the system by designing an adaptive system with approximation knobs. Despite several recent efforts, we show that existing solutions suffer from two major drawbacks. First , while mobile devices or systems-on-chips usually come with limited resources including battery power, most systems do not consider the energy consumption of the models during inference. Second , they do not consider the interplay between the three metrics of interest in their configurations, namely, latency, accuracy, and energy. In this work, we propose an efficient and adaptive video object detection system— Virtuoso , which is jointly optimized for accuracy, energy efficiency, and latency. Underlying Virtuoso is a multi-branch execution kernel that is capable of running at different operating points in the accuracy-energy-latency axes, and a lightweight runtime scheduler to select the best fit execution branch to satisfy the user requirement. We position this work as a first step in understanding the suitability of various object detection kernels on embedded boards in the accuracy-latency-energy axes, opening the door for further development in solutions customized to embedded systems and for benchmarking such solutions. Virtuoso is able to achieve up to 286 FPS on the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier board, which is up to 45× faster than the baseline EfficientDet D3 and 15× faster than the baseline EfficientDet D0. In addition, we also observe up to 97.2% energy reduction using Virtuoso compared to the baseline YOLO (v3)—a widely used object detector designed for mobiles. To fairly compare with Virtuoso , we benchmark 15 state-of-the-art or widely used protocols, including Faster R-CNN (FRCNN) [NeurIPS’15], YOLO v3 [CVPR’16], SSD [ECCV’16], EfficientDet [CVPR’20], SELSA [ICCV’19], MEGA [CVPR’20], REPP [IROS’20], FastAdapt [EMDL’21], and our in-house adaptive variants of FRCNN+, YOLO+, SSD+, and EfficientDet+ (our variants have enhanced efficiency for mobiles). With this comprehensive benchmark, Virtuoso has shown superiority to all the above protocols, leading the accuracy frontier at every efficiency level on NVIDIA Jetson mobile GPUs. Specifically, Virtuoso has achieved an accuracy of 63.9%, which is more than 10% higher than some of the popular object detection models, FRCNN at 51.1% and YOLO at 49.5%.

Different types of stress produce different effects on social relationships between partners. Chronic social defeat has been found to alter the emotional and social behaviours, whether it affects partner preference remains unclear. Using monogamous mandarin voles (Microtus mandarinus), the present study found that 14 days of social defeat to male vole could increase social avoidance in sociality test, and reduced attacking, intimate, sniffing and exploratory behaviours, but increased avoidance defensive, immobile behaviours in social interaction test. In addition, this treatment significantly reduced side-by-side contact with partner throughout cohabitation period, and reduced the attacking behaviour to strangers after 11 days’ cohabitation. Furthermore, in mandarin vole with chronic social defeat, partner preference was abolished on 5 and 7 days’ cohabitation indicating that pair bonding stability was impaired by chronic social defeat. Moreover, although mandarin voles spent longer time rescuing partner than stranger in both groups, chronic social defeat did not affect rescuing significantly. Impairment of pair bonding may be due to abnormalities in social interaction induced by chronic social defeat. This finding provides some insights into mechanisms underlying effects of prolong social stress on social relationships between partners.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. However, mechanisms of its progression remained unclear and new treatments against this disease are rapidly emerging. As a novel preclinical model, patient-derived organoid (PDO) can also be established from the patient’s tumor tissue and cultured in the laboratory, which preserves the key biological characteristics of the original tumor. Compared to the patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model of lung cancer, the culture success rate is improved, and the time and cost of model establishment are largely reduced. PDO is also expected to provide a more individual model to predict the efficacy of anti-cancer treatment in vitro. This paper summarizes the current application of PDO in the translational research of lung cancer.

In order to explore the feasibility of using template/hydrothermal method to produce mesoporous biochars from real biomass directly for adsorptive removal of pharmaceuticals, six mesoporous biochar samples were produced from bamboo waste through this method and characterized, and their adsorption capabilities for berberine hydrochloride and matrine from water were evaluated. Characterization results confirmed the mesoporous structures of the biochar samples, and the biochars had BET surface areas in the range of 180 to 880 m2/g. Pore properties of the biochars mainly depended on the synthesis compositions and were related to their adsorption capabilities. The bamboo derived mesoporous biochars provided effective adsorption with the highest uptake amounts of 645 and 496 mg/g for berberine hydrochloride and matrine at 0.1 mg/mL and 298 K, respectively. The adsorption equilibrium could be reached in 90 min for berberine hydrochloride and 60 min for matrine on the selected mesoporous biochar. This study provides an effective strategy to produce biomass derived mesoporous biochars as efficient adsorbents in water treatment and pharmaceutical purification.

The concept of aggregate science was proposed to explain changes in materials performance that accompany the generation of aggregates, but aggregation-triggered multifunction improvements in a class of materials have rarely been reported. Herein, we present the first report of a new class of multifunctional aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens (AIEgens) based on 5,10-diarylphenazine (DPZ) derivates with full-wavelength emission. Intriguingly, multiple properties, such as fluorescence intensity and free radical and type I reactive oxygen species (ROS) efficiencies, could be simultaneously activated from the unimolecular level to the aggregate state. The mechanisms of this multiple performance improvement are discussed in detail based on sufficient performance characterization, and some of the newly prepared AIEgens exhibited toxicity to cancer cells during photodynamic therapy. This work systematically demonstrates the positive effect of aggregation on improving multiple functions of materials, which is expected to promote the development of aggregate science theory for the design of multifunctional materials.

Terahertz spectroscopic characterization and DFT calculations of vanillin cocrystals with nicotinamide and isonicotinamide.

The self-assembling nanotoxin T22-PE24 that specifically targets CXCR4 was designed to selectively deliver the cytotoxic toxin PE24 to treat CXCR4+ melanoma via activating caspase 3/GSDME pathways in which initially “cold” tumors will become “hot”.

Octameric Aep1 shows unique suitability for the gamma-cyclodextrin (γ-CD) adapter with 8 subunits, enabling the discrimination for β-nicotinamide mononucleotide.

Higher egg consumption is correlated with a higher polyp prevalence among the Chinese population, which was ascribed to the high dietary cholesterol in eggs.

Background: Despite abundant research on AIDS prevention and intervention, many residual factors influence the actual impact of the intervention at a population level. Misconceptions held by subjects lead to patterns of behavior, which do not reflect levels of cognition. Methods: Cognition and behavioral patterns relating to HIV were investigated without intervention in freshmen before and after a two-year study period. A total of 461 freshmen studying at the university in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, were enrolled in September 2019. Data management and analysis were performed by SPSS 25.0 software. Results: Throughout the two years’ study, no significant changes in the cognitive level regarding AIDS were found while the frequency of sexual behavior increased significantly. A trend of inconsistency between cognition and behavior was identified. Conclusions: During a two-year period without intervention, it was found that the sexual behavior of university students gradually increased, perceptions regarding AIDS-related subjects were incomplete and awareness of HIV infection risk was still weak. A phenomenon described as the separation of knowledge from behavior was detected. Misconceptions that influenced behavioral patterns were identified as critical factors. Therefore, we propose that cognitive behavioral therapy may change the actual impact of AIDS prevention interventions.

Goldfish (Carassius auratus) have long fascinated evolutionary biologists and geneticists because of their diverse morphological and color variations. Recent genome-wide association studies have provided a clue to uncover genomic basis underlying these phenotypic variations, but the causality between phenotypic and genotypic variations have not yet been confirmed. Here, we edited proposed candidate genes to recreate phenotypic traits and developed a rapid biotechnology approach which combines gene editing with high-efficiency breeding, artificial gynogenesis, and temperature-induced sex reversal to establish homozygous mutants within two generations (approximately eight months). We first verified that low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 2B (lrp2aB) is the causal gene for the dragon-eye variation and recreated the dragon-eye phenotype in side-view Pleated-skirt Lion-head goldfish. Subsequently, we demonstrated that the albino phenotype was determined by both homeologs of oculocutaneous albinism type II (oca2), which has subfunctionalized to differentially govern melanogenesis in the goldfish body surface and pupils. Overall, we determined two causal genes for dragon-eye and albino phenotypes, and created four stable homozygous strains and more appealing goldfish with desirable traits. The developed biotechnology approach facilitates precise genetic breeding, which will accelerate re-domestication and recreation of phenotypically desirable goldfish.

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (iCCA) is the second-most lethal primary liver cancer and its prognosis remains dismal. N-glycosylation, which is biosynthesized by a number of glycosyltransferases, plays an important role in a variety of biological processes and is associated with cancer development and progression.Based on our previous proteogenomic resources from an iCCA cohort of 262 patients, fucosyltransferases 8 (FUT8) showed significant prognosis relevance in iCCA. Tumor tissues from iCCA patients were used to evaluate the correlation between its expression and clinical information. Gain/loss-of-function experiments in iCCA cell lines were performed to elucidate the biological function of FUT8. In addition, its downstream pathways and post-transcriptional regulators were inferred and verified.Elevated FUT8 expression was clinically associated with worse overall survival in iCCA patients. Its overexpression promoted migration, invasion and proliferation ability of iCCA cells. In addition, miR-122-5p was found to act as a post-transcriptional regulator of FUT8 and proved to inhibit FUT8 expression and then suppress the proliferation and migration ability of iCCA cell lines. Furthermore, FUT8 was observed to promote iCCA development through PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.These findings demonstrated that FUT8, regulated by miR-122-5p, could be a tumor promoter of iCCA through PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.

Background: Human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) play an important role in regenerative medicine. Objective: Exploring the mechanism of Rg1 in the promotion of the proliferation and adipogenic differentiation of hASCs is important in regenerative medicine research. Methods: To observe ginsenoside Rg1 in promoting the proliferation and adipogenic differentiation of hASCs, Rg1 medium at different concentrations was established and tested using the cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay, oil red O staining, alizarin red, and alcian blue. Compared to the control, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened via DEG analysis, which was carried out in the Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses. To explore the relationship among mRNA, long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and microRNA (miRNA), we constructed a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network. Results: In this study, Rg1 was observed to promote the proliferation and adipogenic differentiation of hASCs. Additionally, enriched BPs and KEGG pathways may be involved in the promotion process, where FXR1 and Lnc-GAS5-AS1 were found to be regulatory factors. The regulatory network suggested that Rg1 could regulate the adipocytokine signaling pathway and IL−17 signaling pathway via FXR1 and Lnc-GAS5-AS1, which served as the mechanism encompassing the promotion of Rg1 on the proliferation and adipogenic differentiation of hASCs. Conclusion: A comprehensive transcriptional regulatory network related to the promotion ability of Rg1 was constructed, revealing mechanisms regarding Rg1’s promotion of the proliferation and adipogenic differentiation of hASCs. The present study provides a theoretical basis for optimizing the function of hASCs.

After casting Euler-α equations into vorticity-stream function formula, we obtain some very useful estimates from the properties of the vorticity formula in exterior domain. Basing on these estimates, one can have got the global existence and uniqueness of the solutions to Euler-α equations in 2D exterior domain provided that the initial data is regular enough.

Self-organizing neural organoids represent a promising in vitro platform with which to model human development and disease1–5. However, organoids lack the connectivity that exists in vivo, which limits maturation and makes integration with other circuits that control behaviour impossible. Here we show that human stem cell-derived cortical organoids transplanted into the somatosensory cortex of newborn athymic rats develop mature cell types that integrate into sensory and motivation-related circuits. MRI reveals post-transplantation organoid growth across multiple stem cell lines and animals, whereas single-nucleus profiling shows progression of corticogenesis and the emergence of activity-dependent transcriptional programs. Indeed, transplanted cortical neurons display more complex morphological, synaptic and intrinsic membrane properties than their in vitro counterparts, which enables the discovery of defects in neurons derived from individuals with Timothy syndrome. Anatomical and functional tracings show that transplanted organoids receive thalamocortical and corticocortical inputs, and in vivo recordings of neural activity demonstrate that these inputs can produce sensory responses in human cells. Finally, cortical organoids extend axons throughout the rat brain and their optogenetic activation can drive reward-seeking behaviour. Thus, transplanted human cortical neurons mature and engage host circuits that control behaviour. We anticipate that this approach will be useful for detecting circuit-level phenotypes in patient-derived cells that cannot otherwise be uncovered.

The specific objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) in the treatment of experimental periodontitis in Beagle dogs.The APP jet was diagnosed using optical emission spectroscopy and laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Six Beagles received stainless steel ligatures to establish experimental periodontitis model. The teeth in the control group were subjected to conventional root surface debridement (RSD) and chlorhexidine irrigation. The APP group also started with RSD and was then subjected to plasma irradiation. Clinical analyses including plaque index, modified sulcus bleeding index, pocket depth and attachment loss (AL), as well as cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) analysis, were performed at baseline, 4th week, 8th week and 12th week after treatment.The results showed that typical reactive oxygen and nitrogen species were found in the full spectrum and the gas temperature of APP was close to room temperature. The highest concentrations of hydroxide and oxygen were obtained at 5 mm away from the nozzle. In both groups, all values in clinical examinations were significantly lower (P0.05) at 12th week after treatment than those at baseline. At the 12th week, the AL in clinical examinations and the bone loss in CBCT images in the APP group were significantly lower than those in the control group (P0.05). The hematoxylin-eosin staining showed more renascent alveolar bone in the APP group than in the control group.These findings suggested that APP has profound potential for use as an adjunct approach for periodontitis treatment.

Wai Yin Li,1,* Cheuk Yan Lee,1,* Kwan Ming Lee,2 Ge Zhang,1,3 Aiping Lyu,1,3 Kevin Kin Man Yue1 1School of Chinese Medicine, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Biology, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China; 3Institute for Advancing Translational Medicine in Bone & Joint Diseases, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Kevin Kin Man Yue, 4/F, Jockey Club School of Chinese Medicine Building, 7 Baptist University Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Tel +852 3411 2468, Email kkmyue@hkbu.edu.hkIntroduction: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia and diabetic complications. Exacerbated cortical neuronal degeneration was observed in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients with DM. In fact, DM is now considered a risk factor of AD, as DM-induced activation of stress responses in the central nervous system (CNS) such as oxidative stress and neuroinflammation may lead to various neurodegenerative disorders. Methylglyoxal (MG) is one of the most reactive advanced glycation end-product (AGE) precursors. Abnormal accumulation of MG is observed in the serum of diabetic patients. As MG is reported to promote brain cells impairment in the CNS, and it is found that AGEs are abnormally increased in the brains of AD patients. Therefore, the effect of MG causing subsequent symptoms of AD was investigated.Methods: 5-week-old C57BL/6 mice were intraperitoneally injected with MG solution for 11 weeks. The Morris water maze (MWM) was used to examine the spatial learning ability and cognition of mice. After MG treatment, MTT assay, real-time PCR analyses, and Western blot were performed to assess the harvested astrocytes and hippocampi.Results: Significantly longer escape latency and reduced percentage time spent in the target quadrant were observed in the 9-week-MG-treated mice. We have found in both in vitro and in vivo models that MG induced astrogliosis, pro-inflammatory cytokines, AD-related markers, and ERK activation. Further, trend of normalization of the tested markers mRNA expressions were observed after ERK inhibition.Conclusion: Our in vivo results suggested that MG could induce AD symptoms and in vitro results implied that ERK may regulate the promotion of inflammation and Aβ formation in MG-induced reactive astrocytes. Taken together, MG may participate in the dysfunction of brain cells resulting in possible diabetes-related neurodegeneration by promoting astrogliosis, Aβ production, and neuroinflammation through the ERK pathway. Our findings provide insight of targeting ERK as a therapeutic application for diabetes-induced AD.Keywords: diabetes, hyperglycemia, complications, advanced glycation end products, astrocytes, pathways

This study investigates the relationship between environmental quality and economic growth in Asian countries. The findings from Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator affirmed the existence of a long-run relationship between environmental quality and economic development. The higher the economic growth, the higher the CO2 consumption. In the short run, economic growth exacts no harmful impact. Researchers and policymakers should be careful about the effect of economic growth and rising incomes on environmental pollution with the prioritisation of sustainable usage of environmental policy. Investment and consumption of renewable energy that is less harmful to the environment should be focused on minimising environmental pollution. Keywords: environmental quality; economic growth; Asian countries; PMG eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i21.3676

Dysregulation of G6PD involved in the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) is known to promote tumorigenesis. The PPP plays a pivotal role in meeting the anabolic demands of cancer cells. However, the detailed underlying molecular mechanisms of targeting the G6PD-regulated PPP in breast cancer remain unclear. In this study, we aimed to elucidate the molecular pathways mediating the effects of G6PD on cancer progression. Clinical sample analysis found that the expression of G6PD in breast cancer patients was higher than that in normal controls, and patients with higher G6PD expression had poor survival. Gene knockdown or inhibition of G6PD by 6-AN in MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 cells significantly decreased cell viability, migration, and colony formation ability. G6PD enzyme activity was inhibited by 6-AN treatment, which caused a transient upregulation of ROS. The elevated ROS was independent of cell apoptosis and thus associated with abnormal activated autophagy. Accumulated ROS levels induced autophagic cell death in breast cancer. Inhibition of G6PD suppresses tumour growth in preclinical models of breast cancer. Our results indicate that targeting the G6PD-regulated PPP could restrain tumours in vitro and in vivo, inhibiting G6PD caused cell death by over-activating autophagy, therefore leading to inhibited proliferation and tumour formation.