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The measurement of knowledge contribution in collaborative knowledge building is an important research topic in computer-supported collaborative learning. The information measures of knowledge contribution based on information theory are proposed in this study, which includes two measures: amount of information and information gain. Discourse data collected from a collaborative knowledge building activity were analyzed to validate these measures. The results showed that our information measures can complement the traditional behavioral. With the help of the two measures, community-level variation tendency and individual-level knowledge contribution characteristics could be analyzed in collaborative knowledge building activities. A log function was used to fit the community knowledge variation tendency to measure the convergence of knowledge building. Students were clustered into five types according to their behaviors and contributions in collaborative knowledge building. Both teachers and researchers can benefit from these two information measures by using them in practice.

Despite the continuous emphasis on emotion in multimedia learning, it was still unclear how pedagogical agent emotional cues might affect learning. In the present study, a between-subjects experiment was performed to examine the effects of a pedagogical agent with dual-channel emotional cues on learners' emotions, cognitive load, and knowledge transfer performance. Participants from a central Chinese university (age mean = 21.26, N = 66) were randomly divided into three groups. These groups received instructions from an affective pedagogical agent, a neutral pedagogical agent, or a neutral voice narration without pedagogical agent embodiment. Results showed that learners assigned the affective pedagogical agent reported a significantly higher emotional level than learners assigned the neutral pedagogical agent. Learners' perceived task difficulty was not significantly different among groups while instructional efficiency was significantly higher for learners with the affective pedagogical agent. Moreover, learners assigned to the affective pedagogical agent performed significantly better on the knowledge transfer test than those assigned the neutral pedagogical agent or the neutral voice.

A big challenge in educational resources construction is the intelligent and personalized resource recommendation for learners. This paper proposes a semantic recommendation framework of educational resources based on semantic web and pedagogics. In this framework, a domain ontology is constructed to describe the knowledge structure of the domain. All the resources and user portfolio are described with ontology technology and resource description framework to support semantic inference. Based on the semantic resource organization, we made a set of reasoning rules based on pedagogics. These rules are made from the synthesis of the type of the knowledge, the internal structure of knowledge and learner's learning performance. A case study was implemented on the course "theory and practice of database". In this case, learners are recommended different learning materials according to the different knowledge structure and different learning performance. Three typical learning modes are proposed to describe the personalized learning experience. This framework can be used as a guide for teachers and resource designers.

Background: Both socially regulated learning and cognitive quality are important factors affecting collaborative knowledge building, but the current research lacks a joint quantified evaluation method that combines these two aspects. Objectives: Based on the existing framework, we proposed a joint evaluation method for regulated learning and cognitive quality in collaborative knowledge building, and further extracted the evaluation indicators. Methods: This study involved 74 learners enrolled in a course named 'the Application of Modern Educational Technology' as the subject of study, and made a case analysis with this method. Results and Conclusions: First, the indicators of this joint evaluation method could complement the indicators of traditional frequency statistics methods and facilitate an analysis of regulated learning and cognitive quality in collaborative knowledge building. Second, the group with a higher proportion of high‐level cognitive quality and socially shared regulation in collaborative knowledge building achieved better final scores. Finally, four types of groups were obtained through clustering: excellent, risky, mixed group, and highly collaborative group. This study introduced a joint evaluation method for regulated learning and cognitive quality in collaborative knowledge building and provides suggestions for future research. Lay Description: What is currently known about this topic?: Online collaborative knowledge building is increasingly important.Regulated learning and cognitive quality are considered very important for successful collaborative learning.Without quantitative methods, it is difficult to assess regulated learning and cognitive quality during collaborative knowledge building in a timely manner. What does this paper add?: This paper provided a joint evaluation method of regulated learning and cognitive quality (JERC) for online collaborative knowledge building.A case study was conducted to identify JERC's usefulness. Using descriptive statistics and visualization, it was determined that indicators of JERC can not only capture the state of cognitive quality and regulated learning status, but also elucidate the nature of that status (i.e., comprehensive, dynamic, cyclical).Through clustering analysis, four distinct groups were identified, each exhibiting different characteristics and moving patterns of regulated learning and cognitive quality over time. These patterns indicate that the quality of cognitive and regulatory learning cannot be determined solely by behavioural frequency. Moreover, an excessive proportion of individual regulation cannot predict better learning performance. Implications for practice: A computable representation model of regulated learning and cognitive quality was constructed to support automated perception and intervention in regulated learning and cognitive processing.With JERC, it is possible for researchers to capture, process, analyse and predict dynamic data to examine online collaborative knowledge building combined with shared physiological arousal events.The results of JERC can be used by researchers to develop advanced techniques, such as AI deep learning, for designing adaptive supports that can foster students' online collaborative knowledge building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmland ecosystems represent a vital carbon source and sink within terrestrial ecosystems. The investigation into the characteristics of carbon emissions and their influencing factors within farmland ecosystems is crucial for the realization of carbon reduction and the promotion of low-carbon development. This study leveraged the analytical prowess of CiteSpace software (version 6.1.5) to examine a comprehensive body of 2805 scholarly works related to carbon emissions within agricultural ecosystems, as documented in the Web of Science Core Database from 1991 through to 2023. Through a visual dissection of data based on national, institutional, and thematic dimensions, the study elucidated emergent focal points and evolving trajectories within this scholarly domain. The findings revealed that current scholarly discussions on carbon emissions from agricultural lands have primarily focused on three key areas: the factors that influence these emissions, the possibilities for their reduction, and the subsequent environmental impacts. Focal points of research have predominantly centered on four key themes: "greenhouse gas emissions from farmland ecosystems", "carbon emission models for farmland ecosystems", "carbon sequestration in farmland ecosystems", and "sustainable development in agricultural ecosystems". The academic perspective has gradually shifted from a broad overview of carbon emissions towards a detailed examination of the determinants of emissions and the efficiency of agricultural resource utilization. Looking forward, it is crucial to explore the mechanisms behind high-carbon agricultural practices and to establish their optimal operational thresholds. The focus of research is shifting from macro carbon emissions to the analysis of emission factors and the efficiency of agricultural input use. Future efforts should emphasize exploring the mechanisms of the environmental impacts caused by high-carbon agricultural inputs and the optimal input levels, refining emission reduction methods in agricultural ecosystems, and promoting collaboration and exchange among researchers worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tripterygium wilfordii multiglucoside (TWM) is a fat-soluble extract from a Chinese herb T. wilfordii, that’s used in treating rheumatoid arthritis, nephrotic syndrome and other skin diseases. Triptolide (TP) is a major active component in TWM. However, clinical applications of TWM are limited by its various toxicities especially hepatotoxicity. In recent studies, it has been reported that drug-induced liver injury (DILI) could induce the disorder of lipid metabolism in animals. Hence, this study focuses on the metabolic profile of fatty acids in TWM- and TP-induced liver-injured rats. In serum and liver tissue, 16 free and 16 esterified fatty acids were measured by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. Metabolic profile of serum fatty acids in rats with liver injury was identified by multivariate statistical analysis. The fatty acid levels in the serum of TWM- and TP-treated rats significantly decreased, whereas those in the liver tissue of TWM- and TP-treated rats obviously increased when compared with the vehicle-treated rats. Four free fatty acids were identified as candidate biomarkers of TWM- and TP-induced liver injury. Therefore, the targeted metabolomic method may be used as a complementary approach for DILI diagnosis in clinic.

Problem‐oriented teaching (POT) activities are important in classroom instruction. The level of student response can be influenced by different teacher behaviours in POT. However, the characteristics of teachers' multimodal behaviours at different levels of response are unclear. This study applied epistemic network analysis to explore the characteristics of teachers' multimodal behaviours in POT with different response levels. Using 256 POT segments from 12 classroom teaching videos in primary and secondary schools, this study found that authentic questions and iconic gestures occupied a central position in multimodal behaviours. The concomitant use of multimodal behaviours and the flexibility in eye contact could improve the response levels of students. These findings help understand how teachers' multimodal behaviours can promote students' responses. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Various behaviours have been shown to impact learners' response, such as teachers' responses to students and teachers' non‐verbal behaviours.Epistemic network analysis can be used to analyse the structure of the connections between cognitive, social and interaction data.What this paper adds This study analyses the characteristics of teachers' multimodal behaviours during problem‐oriented activities.It also compares the salient properties of non‐verbal, verbal and multimodal behavioural networks generated by interactive fragments of students' responses of different cognitive levels.Implications for practice and policy Teachers should ask more authentic questions in the classroom to promote in‐depth thinking processes in students.The appropriate coordination of multimodal behaviours by teachers is crucial to promote the cognitive level of students' responses.Upon making eye contact with students, teachers should also use iconic gestures and be flexible regarding the use of eye contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To examine the prospective association between fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and the modifying effect of overweight/obesity for this association. Methods: Serum FGF21 levels were measured at 6–15 weeks of gestation among 332 GDM cases and 664 matched controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to evaluate its association with GDM risk. Interaction analyses on multiplicative and additive scales were conducted to investigate the modifying effect of overweight/obesity. Results: Elevated FGF21 levels were associated with a higher risk of GDM in multivariable models, but the positive association was attenuated after further adjustment for pre‐pregnancy body mass index (BMI). A significant multiplicative interaction was noted between FGF21 (both continuous and dichotomous) and pre‐pregnancy BMI (p for interaction = 0.049 and 0.03), and the association was only significant in participants with pre‐pregnancy BMI ≥24 kg/m2. When participants were grouped based on pre‐pregnancy BMI (≥24 and <24 kg/m2) and FGF21 levels (≥median and

Objective: To examine the association of a combined healthy lifestyle in early pregnancy with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) risk. Design, setting and population: A Chinese prospective cohort study with 6980 pregnant women. Methods: Individual modifiable lifestyle factors were assessed in early pregnancy and a combined lifestyle score was derived from the sum of the lifestyle factors, with a higher score indicating a healthier lifestyle. The association of a combined healthy lifestyle with GDM risk was examined. Main outcome measures: Gestational diabetes mellitus was diagnosed in middle pregnancy according to the International Association of Diabetes and Pregnancy Study Group criteria or diagnoses in medical records. Results: Overall, 501 (7.2%) pregnant women were diagnosed with GDM. Being physically active (total energy expenditure in upper three quintiles, i.e. ≥100.1 metabolic equivalent of task [MET]‐hours/week; odds ratio [OR] 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.63–0.92), healthy diet (total intake of vegetables and fruits ≥5 times/day; OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.59–0.94), sufficient sleep (night‐time sleep duration ≥7 hours/night; OR 0.66, 95% CI 0.48–0.90) and healthy weight (early‐pregnancy BMI <24.0 kg/m2; OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.46–0.71) were associated with lower GDM risk. The GDM risk decreased linearly across the combined lifestyle score (Ptrend <0.001): women with 2, 3 and 4 lifestyle factors compared with those with 0–1 factor had 38% (OR 0.62, 95% CI 0.46–0.84), 57% (OR 0.43, 95% CI 0.31–0.58) and 66% (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.22–0.52) lower risks of GDM, respectively. Conclusion: A healthy lifestyle in early pregnancy was associated with a substantially lower GDM risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the needs of secondary water quality evaluation and intelligent operation and maintenance management, the data quality evaluation of two major secondary water supply online monitoring indicators (residual chlorine and turbidity) was carried out, and the variance analysis and covariance analysis of the impact factors of the water quality of the four major secondary water supply were proposed, and the water quality evaluation method of secondary water supply online monitoring based on K-means clustering method and entropy value method was proposed, which was applied in the secondary water supply management system of L City, and the evaluation results provided an important reference for the secondary water supply manager. Evaluation methods can be widely applied in the water quality management of secondary water supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thesaurus dataset of educational technology is a knowledge description of educational technology in Chinese. The aims of this thesaurus were to collect the subject terms in the domain of educational technology, facilitate the standardization of terminology and promote the communication between Chinese researchers and scholars from various countries. This thesaurus contains 2,367 subject terms and 752 relation pairs between subject terms. This thesaurus can be used in bilingual control, index and retrieval of information resources.

Ecological restoration, as a vital means of effectively enhancing the carbon sink function of ecosystems, is currently the subject of active research by scientists. Researchers are actively exploring how to scientifically assess the response mechanisms of ecosystem carbon reservoirs during the process of ecological restoration. In this study, CiteSpace 6.1.(R3 and R6) literature visualization software was employed to conduct data mining on 1566 research articles published from 1996 to 2022, focusing on the impact of ecological restoration on ecosystem carbon reservoirs, as recorded in the Web of Science core database. The analysis involved visualizing various aspects, including the countries involved, research institutions, publication output, research hotspots, and cutting-edge research areas. The research indicates that China holds significant influence in the study of the impact of ecological restoration on ecosystem carbon reservoirs. The literature covers a wide range of research directions and encompasses rich content on the subject matter. The current research focuses on ecological restoration, and its impact on the carbon sink function of ecosystems mainly revolves around four key themes: "the carbon sequestration potential of ecological restoration", "technological approaches to enhancing the carbon sink function of ecological restoration", "the importance of assessing carbon sink in terrestrial ecosystems", and "characteristics of carbon sources/sinks in terrestrial ecosystems". Currently, the development of research findings on the impact of ecological restoration on the carbon reservoirs of ecosystems is progressing rapidly. Novel research theories, methodologies, and scientific techniques are emerging, necessitating the continuous monitoring and investigation of scholarship in this field. It is crucial to integrate ongoing global environmental-change factors, ensuring the continuity of research and observations and, thus, furnishing robust data support for the assessment and computation of ecosystem carbon sinks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: MPUV/chlorine increased the chlorine demand and DBPFP of benzoic acid and nitrobenzene. MPUV/chlorine showed no further activation on active DBP precursors. MPUV/chlorine at pH 6 showed greater impact on precursors' DBPFP than at pH 8. MPUV/chlorine increased the BSF of THMs in the presence of bromine. Linear correlation was observed between changes in precursors' chlorine demand and DBPFP. UV/chlorine advanced oxidation process (AOP), as a potential alternative to UV/H2O2 in water treatment, may pose a potential risk of increased disinfection by-product (DBP) formation and is of great concern. In this paper, seven benzene derivatives, containing two chlorine-inert and five chlorine-active compounds, were selected as typical model DBP precursors, and the effects of medium pressure UV/chlorine (MPUV/chlorine) on their chlorine demand and DBP formation potential (DBPFP) were evaluated. The results showed that MPUV/chlorine could significantly increase the chlorine demand and DBPFP of the two inert precursors. For the four slow but active DBP precursors, MPUV/chlorine may accelerate their short-term DBP formation, whereas it showed an insignificant effect or even reduced their chlorine demand and DBPFP. For the only fast and active DBP precursor, MPUV/chlorine showed an insignificant effect on its short-term DBP formation or DBPFP. The overall effect of MPUV/chlorine was more significant at pH 6 than at pH 8. In the presence of Br−, MPUV/chlorine significantly increased the bromine substitution factors of THMs. In addition, linear fitting results indicated that the UV/chlorine-induced change in overall chlorine demand may be considered as a potential indicator for the prediction of DBPFP alteration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The study aimed to identify BMI-related lipids and to explore the role of lipids linking BMI and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).Methods: Plasma lipidome, height, and weight were measured in early pregnancy among 1008 women. Pearson correlation analyses and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression (LASSO) were performed to identify BMI-associated lipids. Based on these lipids, a lipid score was created using LASSO, and its association with GDM risk was evaluated by conditional logistic regression. The causal relationships between BMI and lipids were tested by Mendelian randomization analysis with genotyping data. Mediation analysis was conducted to evaluate the mediating effect of lipids on the association of BMI with GDM.Results: Of 366 measured lipids, BMI was correlated with 28 lipids, which mainly belong to glycerophospholipids and glycerolipids. A total of 10 lipid species were associated with BMI, and a lipid score was established. A causal relationship between BMI and lysophosphatidylcholine 14:0 was observed. The lipid score was associated with a 1.69-fold increased risk of GDM per 1-point increment (95% CI: 1.33-2.15). Furthermore, BMI-associated lipids might explain 66.4% of the relationship between BMI and GDM.Conclusions: Higher BMI in early pregnancy was associated with altered lipid metabolism that may contribute to the increased risk of GDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nano-systems (size range: 1 ~ 1000 nm) have been widely investigated as pulmonary drug delivery carriers, and the safety of inhaled nano-systems has aroused general interests. In this work, bibliometric analysis was performed to describe the current situation of related literature, figure out the revolutionary trends, and eventually forecast the possible future directions. The relevant articles and reviews from 2001 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. The documents were processed by Clarivate Analytic associated with Web of Science database, Statistical Analysis Toolkit for Informetric, bibliometric online platform and VOSviewer, and the data were visualized. The bibliometric overview of the literature was described, citation analysis was performed, and research hotspots were showcased. The bibliometric analysis of 3362 documents of interest indicated that most of the relevant source titles were in the fields of toxicology, pharmacy, and materials science. The three research hotspots were the biological process of inhalable nano-systems in vivo, the manufacture of inhalable nano-systems, and the impact of nano-systems on human health in the environment. Toxicity and safety have always been the keywords. The USA was the major contributing country, and international collaboration and co-authorship were common phenomena. The general situation and development trend of literature of inhalable nano-systems were summarized. It was anticipated that bibliometrics analysis could provide new ideas for the future research of inhalable nano-systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The measurement of knowledge contribution in collaborative knowledge building is an important research topic in computer-supported collaborative learning. The information measures of knowledge contribution based on information theory are proposed in this study, which includes two measures: amount of information and information gain. Discourse data collected from a collaborative knowledge building activity were analyzed to validate these measures. The results showed that our information measures can complement the traditional behavioral. With the help of the two measures, community-level variation tendency and individual-level knowledge contribution characteristics could be analyzed in collaborative knowledge building activities. A log function was used to fit the community knowledge variation tendency to measure the convergence of knowledge building. Students were clustered into five types according to their behaviors and contributions in collaborative knowledge building. Both teachers and researchers can benefit from these two information measures by using them in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) have been widely used in a variety of drug delivery routes, which have the outstanding advantage of controlled drug release. The release of SLN is dominated by many factors, among which the particle size of SLN is a critical one. The aim of this project was to explore the relationship between drug release profile and particle size of SLN. SLN were synthesized via the hot high-pressure homogenization (HPH) method, budesonide (BUD) was used as the model drug, and BUD-SLN1–BUD-SLN4 with increasing particle size was obtained, i.e. 120, 240, 360, and 480 nm. The prepared SLN has good encapsulation efficiency, drug loading capacity, and stability. In vitro release behavior studies showed that the cumulative release of BUD-SLN in Tris-Maleate (Tris-M) media was negligible, while that in Tris-M plus pancreatin media or Tris-M-ethanol media obeyed Ritger-Peppas model or first-order kinetic model, respectively. Noticeably, the release behavior of SLN was to some extent related to the average particle size of SLN, but the correlation was insignificant when the intersection degree of particle size distribution was great. This study provides a new idea for the understanding of in vitro release of SLN and has a certain referencing value for the research and development of novel nanomedicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the continuous emphasis on emotion in multimedia learning, it was still unclear how pedagogical agent emotional cues might affect learning. In the present study, a between-subjects experiment was performed to examine the effects of a pedagogical agent with dual-channel emotional cues on learners' emotions, cognitive load, and knowledge transfer performance. Participants from a central Chinese university (age mean = 21.26, N = 66) were randomly divided into three groups. These groups received instructions from an affective pedagogical agent, a neutral pedagogical agent, or a neutral voice narration without pedagogical agent embodiment. Results showed that learners assigned the affective pedagogical agent reported a significantly higher emotional level than learners assigned the neutral pedagogical agent. Learners' perceived task difficulty was not significantly different among groups while instructional efficiency was significantly higher for learners with the affective pedagogical agent. Moreover, learners assigned to the affective pedagogical agent performed significantly better on the knowledge transfer test than those assigned the neutral pedagogical agent or the neutral voice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liver is an important organ for amino acid metabolism, and its damage can be reflected in the changes of amino acid level in the body. Triptolide (TP) has broad anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor activities, but its clinical application is limited due to hepatotoxicity. In this work, a simple, accurate and sensitive gas chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC-QqQ-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for evaluating the serum levels of amino acids from control and TP-induced liver injured rats, and chemometric analysis was employed for amino acid metabolic profiles analysis. It was found that 11 amino acids showed significant changes after TP administration, and they were mainly involved in 5 metabolic pathways that are phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis, alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, glutamine and glutamate metabolism, phenylalanine metabolism and arginine biosynthesis. Five amino acids including tyrosine, glutamine, glutamic acid, tryptophan and alanine were identified as biomarkers of TP hepatotoxicity by further analysis. These results indicated that the novel amino acid metabolic profiling study based on the GC-QqQ-MS/MS provided not only exact concentrations of serum amino acids, but also a prospective methodology for evaluation of chemically induced liver injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The testes are suspected target organs of SARS‐CoV‐2. However, the results of studies on the effect of COVID‐19 on male reproduction are controversial. Objective: To summarize current research on the effects of COVID‐19 on male reproduction. Methods: A systematic review of English literature was performed using PubMed and Ovid Embase up to 18 August 2020. Research articles on the presence of SARS‐CoV‐2 in semen, the effects of the virus on semen parameters and any pathological changes in the testes were evaluated. Results: Fourteen studies were included in this review. Six of 176 survivors (3.4%) and 1 of 13 decedents (7.7%) in 2 of 12 studies were positive for viral RNA in semen and testicular tissue, respectively. After stratification of patient groups, we found that the virus was detected in the relatively early stage of infection, 6–16 days after disease onset, in semen from survivors. Two of 3 studies reported that some participants had substandard semen quality after COVID‐19, and 1 study found that COVID‐19 may impair semen quality in a severity‐related manner. Pathological analyses showed that injuries to the seminiferous tubule occurred in all decedents (N = 11). Another study found that orchitic and testis fibrin microthrombi occurred in patients with fatal disease (100%, N = 2). Scrotal discomfort of orchiepididymitis or spermatic cord inflammation has also been reported in COVID‐19 patients. Conclusion: Current studies suggest that semen is rarely considered a carrier of SARS‐CoV‐2 genetic material during the infection period but not in the semen of recovered patients. Fatal COVID‐19 may cause testicular structure damage without the presence of virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]