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Despite the steady growth in the recruitment and education of MBA students in China, there is a dearth of research on MBA students' perceptions of Business English Writing (BEW) in this context. This paper conducts a qualitative inquiry into Chinese MBA students' perceptions of BEW in English as a foreign language context in China. Forty-four MBA students of a ten-week BEW course participated in this study. An open-ended questionnaire was used near the end of the course to elicit their work-related writing needs, self-reflections on BEW abilities, and perceptions of the BEW course. A focus group was conducted with six students to provide insights into the students' work-related writing experience. The results showed that the students' work-related writing needs differed in terms of their respective job positions, with those working in foreign-funded enterprises or joint ventures having more job-related demands to write in English than those working at state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the students generally regarded their BEW abilities as moderately good or low, with distinct expectations of the BEW course raised. Pedagogic implications were drawn for improving BEW course in the Chinese context.

This paper develops an analytical model to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity of the integrated plug high-strength geocell (IPGC)-reinforced foundation under a square footing. The high strength and stiffness of the geocell wall and the typical failure of the integrated plug-in joint tearing were considered. The ultimate bearing capacity of the IPGC-reinforced foundation was calculated in two separate parts. The ultimate bearing capacity of an unreinforced foundation was calculated using the modified Terzaghi equation. The increased bearing capacity of the IPGC was calculated as the function of the tearing force of the geocell wall, the height and the diameter of a geocell, the empirical static earth pressure coefficient, and the vertical additional stress coefficient under uniformly distributed rectangular loading. The results showed that the maximum error between the experimental and the theoretical results is less than 18%. The ultimate bearing capacity of IPGC-reinforced foundations decreases with larger geocell diameters. When the diameter of the geocell exceeds 1.8 times the foundation width, the confinement effect of IPGC becomes negligible. The findings of this study offer a robust analytical equation for predicting IPGC-reinforced foundations, along with valuable insights into the efficacy of IPGC reinforcement in enhancing foundation stability.

Summary: Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is a promising therapy for solid tumors, but its effectiveness depends on biomarkers that are not precise. Here, we utilized genome-wide association study to investigate the association between genetic variants and tumor mutation burden to interpret ICB response. We identified 16 variants (p

AIGC has attracted much attention in the application of art and design professional fields and has gradually become an important auxiliary tool for art and design professionals creation. This paper utilizes AIGC as a starting point for design creativity and develops a text-guided image generation model based on AIGC, which employs a semantically consistent generative adversarial network. We compare different model indexes across different datasets to evaluate the image generation effect of the constructed model. Subsequently, we summarize and optimize the intelligent, creative workflow. Based on this workflow and the image generation model, we generate a series of images as an example of a cosmetic package. We then analyze the audience’s acceptance of these intelligently generated images through a questionnaire survey, thereby exploring the impact of AIGC-driven design and innovation. The GAN-SC model outperforms the comparison algorithms in various datasets, achieving an IS value higher than AttnGAN and DFGAN by 17.7% and 2.7%, respectively, and reducing the FID metrics by 29.43% and 19.6%, respectively. The acceptance rate of the AIGC-based design solution surpasses that of the traditional solution by 4.9%, and it excels across all design dimensions, showcasing the effectiveness of AIGC-driven design innovation.

The emergence of technological innovation in Dehua ceramics has brought new impetus to the spread of ceramic culture. By mining the market characteristics of ceramic technology innovation, we analyze the influencing factors of Dehua’s ceramic innovation development. Based on big data technology, this paper collects data related to the development of the Dehua ceramics industry, and after pre-processing the data, a classical division-based K-means clustering algorithm is used to make a division and explore the innovation characteristics of different Dehua ceramics industries. On this basis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were introduced to explore the influencing factors of innovative design and development in the Dehua ceramic industry. The second and third clusters in the purchase of innovatively designed Dehua ceramics accounted for 100% and 91%, respectively. It shows that the market demand for innovative design in Dehua Ceramics is large. The company type factor is the most critical influence factor for the development of innovative design in Dehua Ceramic Company, which can be changed by changing the type of company to promote the development of innovative design in the industry. The clustering result analysis in this paper accurately reflects the market characteristics of Dehua Ceramics, and the regression analysis accurately reflects the influence factors related to the development of innovative designs in the Dehua Ceramics industry.

Recent zoom-in cosmological simulations have shown that stellar feedback can flatten the inner density profile of the dark matter halo in low-mass galaxies. A correlation between the stellar/gas velocity dispersion (σ star, σ gas) and the specific star formation rate (sSFR) is predicted as an observational test of the role of stellar feedback in re-shaping the dark matter density profile. In this work we test the validity of this prediction by studying a sample of star-forming galaxies at 0.6 < z < 1.0 from the LEGA-C survey, which provides high signal-to-noise measurements of stellar and gas kinematics. We find that a weak but significant correlation between σ star (and σ gas) and sSFR indeed exists for galaxies in the lowest mass bin (M ∗ ∼ 1010 M o˙). This correlation, albeit with a ∼35% scatter, holds for different tracers of star formation, and becomes stronger with redshift. This result generally agrees with the picture that at higher redshifts star formation rate was generally higher, and galaxies at M ∗ ≲ 1010 M o˙ have not yet settled into a disk. As a consequence, they have shallower gravitational potentials more easily perturbed by stellar feedback. The observed correlation between σ star (and σ gas) and sSFR supports the scenario predicted by cosmological simulations, in which feedback-driven outflows cause fluctuations in the gravitation potential that flatten the density profiles of low-mass galaxies.

Abstract Background Metaplastic breast carcinoma (MpBC) typically consists of carcinoma of no special type (NST) with various metaplastic components. Although previous transcriptomic and proteomic studies have reported subtype-related heterogeneity, the intracase transcriptomic alterations between metaplastic components and paired NST components, which are critical for understanding the pathogenesis underlying the metaplastic processes, remain unclear. Methods Fifty-nine NST components and paired metaplastic components (spindle carcinomatous [SPS], matrix-producing, rhabdoid [RHA], and squamous carcinomatous [SQC] components) were microdissected from specimens obtained from 27 patients with MpBC for gene expression profiling using the NanoString Breast Cancer 360 Panel on a NanoString nCounter FLEX platform. BC360-defined signatures were scored using nSolver software. Results Hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis revealed a heterogeneous gene expression profile (GEP) corresponding to the NST components, but the GEP of metaplastic components exhibited subtype dependence. Compared with the paired NST components, the SPS components demonstrated the upregulation of genes related to stem cells and epithelial–mesenchymal transition and displayed enrichment in claudin-low and macrophage signatures. Despite certain overlaps in the enriched functions and signatures between the RHA and SPS components, the specific differentially expressed genes differed. We observed the RHA-specific upregulation of genes associated with vascular endothelial growth factor signaling. The chondroid matrix-producing components demonstrated the upregulation of hypoxia-related genes and the downregulation of the immune-related MHC2 signature and the TIGIT gene. In the SQC components, TGF-β and genes associated with cell adhesion were upregulated. The differentially expressed genes among metaplastic components in the 22 MpBC cases with one or predominantly one metaplastic component clustered paired NST samples into clusters with correlation with their associated metaplastic types. These genes could be used to separate the 31 metaplastic components according to respective metaplastic types with an accuracy of 74.2%, suggesting that intrinsic signatures of NST may determine paired metaplastic type. Finally, the EMT activity and stem cell traits in the NST components were correlated with specimens displaying lymph node metastasis. Conclusions We presented the distinct transcriptomic alterations underlying metaplasia into specific metaplastic components in MpBCs, which contributes to the understanding of the pathogenesis underlying morphologically distinct metaplasia in MpBCs.