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The present study aimed to investigate the association between the serum SIRT1 protein and the severity of spinal cord injury (SCI) as well as the neurological recovery in mice. In this study, the wild-type (WT), Mx1-Cre+ SIRT1loxP/loxP (Mx1), and LCK-Cre+SIRT1loxP/loxP (LCK) mice were subjected to sham surgery, mild, moderate, or severe SCI, respectively. The serum was collected at intervals of 12 h, 1 day (d), 3 d, 5 d, 7 d, 10 d, 14 d, and 21 d after the injury. The locomotor function of all the animals was assessed using the Basso mouse scale (BMS) and the serum SIRT1 proteins were analyzed using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The results demonstrated that about 7–10 d after SCI, the levels of SIRT1 protein in the serum correlated significantly with the severity of the injury and at 28 d post-injury, there was a distant neurological recovery (BMS score). The serum SIRT1 concentration in both the Mx1 and LCK mice in the sham group was significantly reduced compared to that in the WT mice, and there was a delayed increase in the serum SIRT1 levels after injury. These findings indicate that the SIRT1 concentrations in the serum of the SCI mice closely correlated with the acute severity and neurological outcome.

The School Development Planning [XUE-XIAO-FA-ZHAN-GUI-HUA] as a term has not been included in the China’s lexicon of school leadership and management until the late 1980s and early 1990s (Cao & Hui, 2009; Chu, 2008; Zhu, 2010). “School development planning” is valued because of the role of school leaders was intensified following the China’s educational reform launched in 1985. The government policies regarding educational reform during the late 1980s and early 1990s yielded two big changes for school leadership. In the Decision of the CCCPC on the Reform of the Educational System, the CCCPC decided that “reform the management system, while strengthening macro-management, resolutely implement simplified administration and decentralization, and increase the level of school autonomy.” (CCCPC, 1985). This position of the CCCPC resulted in the first change that a part of power was delegated from local education authority to school. As we know, the autonomy was always accompanied by accountability.

China and the Western countries have different historical traditions in terms of the relations between school and community. The Chinese educational historians have a summary of Chinese school education in ancient times, which is called XUE-ZAI-GUAN-FU [education never takes place out of official compound]. This saying is based on three fundamental characteristics of school education during initial stage of school education in ancient China (the period of time so-called the Chinese society with slave system). The first characteristic is that school education is exclusively the experience of the children from royal and noble families, and never allowed to extend to common man. Secondly, the school house is set in the royal palace or an official residence, in which a certain official or a couple of officials take the role of teachers. To be more exactly, these officials are only part-time teachers, since they also take other governing responsibilities in central or local governments.

As one of school leadership key practices, the “optimizing internal management” was initially set out by The Professional Standards for Principals of Compulsory Education Schools (MOE, 2013a) and The Professional Standards for Principals of Senior High Schools (MOE, 2015), and was more specifically described in the Management Standards for Compulsory Education Schools (MOE, 2017). According to above-mentioned RHDs, this leadership key practice consists of two prongs of requirements for school internal management

Among the professional standards for principals formulated by the Ministry of Education in 2013 and 2015, the “creating a culture fostering student development” was set as one of the six core practices of school leadership (MOE, 2013, 2015).

The differences between school leadership in China and in other countries, especially in Western countries, can be largely attributed to their different sources of school leadership knowledge and different external and internal institutional environment for school leadership. To understand how China’s school leadership unfolds in day-to-day practice and what knowledge underpins its leadership practice, it is essential to figure out the sources of China’s school leadership knowledge and to examine the educational administration system and the school leadership system of China.

Historically, the Chinese nation had a tradition of respecting teachers and valuing education. For example, Confucius as the typical and outstanding representative of ancient Chinese educator has been respected for thousands of years in China.

As we examined in Chapter 1, the principal plays so important role in school leadership under the Principal Responsibility System that they are inevitably viewed by China’s educational policymakers as key to success in school development and improvement.

In China, instructional leadership is not a theme that has only recently emerged. In fact, instructional leadership has long been placed in the center stage of China’s school leadership and management, and it has been regarded as a key factor to promote school improvement.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of learning-centered leadership on teacher professional learning in mainland China. The research tested a model of leadership effects on teacher learning using two mediators, teacher trust and teacher agency. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze survey data collected from 1259 teachers in 41 primary and secondary schools in three different Chinese provinces. The results affirmed the efficacy of a partial mediation model with learning-centered leadership, teacher trust and teacher agency yielding significant small to moderate effects on the professional learning of teachers.

Purpose In this era of global education reform, teacher professional learning (TPL) has emerged as a key factor in efforts to create sustainable school improvement. The same holds in Mainland China where ambitious curriculum reforms have been undertaken since 2000. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of learning-centered leadership (LCL) and teacher trust (TT) in fostering TPL in Chinese schools. More specifically, the authors examined two research questions: (1) What is the nature of the relationship of LCL to TT and professional learning?; and (2) How LCL practices influence TT and professional learning. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a cross-sectional survey design. The authors collected survey data from 1,259 teachers in 41 primary and secondary schools in three different Chinese provinces. The research employed confirmatory factor analysis to confirm the measurement model and structural equation modeling to examine interactions among the three main variables. Findings The results affirmed a positive association between LCL and TPL, and highlighted TT as a significant mediator in this relationship. Additional analyses distinguished between the effects of different dimensions of LCL on TT and TPL. Although the results of these analyses were broadly consistent with prior findings reported in the literature, divergent findings also emerged. More specifically, there was a limited use and no significant impact of “leadership modeling” on either TT or professional learning. Research limitations/implications The authors suggest that this pattern of leadership practice is linked with features of China’s institutional cum socio-cultural context. The authors recommend the use of qualitative and mixed methods studies capable of gaining further insight into relationships. Practical implications These findings in Mainland China reaffirm the efficacy of school-level leadership that builds a safe, trusting but focussed environment for teacher learning in the workplace. This is a potentially significant finding in a society where the use of top-down directives and reliance on legitimate authority by leaders can rob teachers of the motivation and initiative that undergirds sustainable professional learning. The findings, in concert with those of other scholars, suggest that “building trust” represents a useful strategy for principals who seek to establish productive learning environments for their teachers. Originality/value The value of this study lies in two areas. First, this is one of a growing but still limited set of quantitative empirical studies of school leadership in Mainland China. Second, the study tests the nature of mediation in the relationship between leadership, trust and TPL, a topic of relatively recent vintage in the educational leadership literature.

Using structure based drug design, a novel class of potent coagulation factor IXa (FIXa) inhibitors was designed and synthesized. High selectivity over FXa inhibition was achieved. Selected compounds were evaluated in rat IV/PO pharmacokinetic (PK) studies and demonstrated desirable oral PK profiles. Finally, the pharmacodynamics (PD) of this class of molecules were evaluated in thrombin generation assay (TGA) in Corn Trypsin Inhibitor (CTI) citrated human plasma and demonstrated characteristics of a FIXa inhibitor.

With the tide of globalization, the external environment that schools face turns uncertain and complex. In response to the new challenges, teacher teams need to manage boundaries to maintain the sustainable development. The two studies reported in this paper, aimed to examine the boundary activities of teacher teams of middle schools in China. In order to achieve the research objective, the first study employed an inductive approach to identify a set of boundary activities that teacher teams engage in to manage the relationships with the outside. In the second study, the exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to build a valid and reliable scale for the boundary activities of teacher teams. Data from 332 teachers of 72 subject-based “teaching study” teams in 12 middle schools indicate a four-factor model of teacher team boundary activities includes the following subscales: scouting activities; task-coordinating activities; information filtering activities; and emotion cultivating activities. Similarities and differences between the current findings and existing literature have been discussed.

In this paper, we present a scalable three-dimensional hybrid parallel Delaunay image-to-mesh conversion algorithm (PDR.PODM) for distributed shared memory architectures. PDR.PODM is able to explore parallelism early in the mesh generation process thanks to the aggressive speculative approach employed by the Parallel Optimistic Delaunay Mesh generation algorithm (PODM). In addition, it decreases the communication overhead and improves data locality by making use of a data partitioning scheme offered by the Parallel Delaunay Refinement algorithm (PDR). PDR.PODM supports fully functional volume grading by creating elements with varying size. Small elements are created near boundary or inside the critical regions in order to capture the fine features while big elements are created in the rest of the mesh. We tested PDR.PODM on Blacklight, a distributed shared memory (DSM) machine in Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. For the uniform mesh generation, we observed a weak scaling speedup of 163.8 and above for up to 256 cores as opposed to PODM whose weak scaling speedup is only 44.7 on 256 cores. PDR.PODM scales well on uniform refinement cases running on DSM supercomputers. The end result is that PDR.PODM can generate 18 million elements per second as opposed to 14 million per second in our earlier work. The varying size version sharply reduces the number of elements compared to the uniform version and thus reduces the time to generate the mesh while keeping the same fidelity. Represents the surface with topological and geometrical guarantees.Recovers the surface and meshes the volume simultaneously in parallel.Supports parallel graded mesh generation for multi-material objects.

We consider the co-clustering of time-varying data using evolutionary co-clustering methods. Existing approaches are based on the spectral learning framework, thus lacking a probabilistic interpretation. We overcome this limitation by developing a probabilistic model in this paper. The proposed model assumes that the observed data are generated via a two-step process that depends on the historic co-clusters. This allows us to capture the temporal smoothness in a probabilistically principled manner. To perform maximum likelihood parameter estimation, we present an EM-based algorithm. We also establish the convergence of the proposed EM algorithm. An appealing feature of the proposed model is that it leads to soft co-clustering assignments naturally. We evaluate the proposed method on both synthetic and real-world data sets. Experimental results show that our method consistently outperforms prior approaches based on spectral method. To fully exploit the real-world impact of our methods, we further perform a systematic application study on the analysis of Drosophila gene expression pattern images. We encode the spatial gene expression information at a particular developmental time point into a data matrix using a mesh-generation pipeline. We then co-cluster the embryonic domains and the genes simultaneously for multiple time points using our evolutionary co-clustering method. Results show that the co-clusters of gene and embryonic domains reflect the underlying biology.

Introduction: The aim of the study was to investigate the role of the intra-operative three-dimensional imaging in the tibial plateau fractures with complex depressions. Material and methods: Thirty tibial plateau fracture patients with complex depression were treated with the use of intra-operative three-dimensional imaging (Arcadis 3D). The image quality as well as the clinical benefit was evaluated. Results: In total 74 plates were used in these 30 patients. Six Kirschner wires and 50 screws were used outside the plate as raft technique in 4 and 21 patients. The additional critical imaging information which was unachievable in plain fluoroscopy was gain in 12 patients. Four patients among these 12 patients were revised because of the depression. Two patients were revised due to the misplacement of screws. Conclusion: The intra-operative three-dimensional imaging (Arcadis) is necessary when the two-dimensional fluoroscopy was unsatisfactory in the depressed tibial plateau fracture.

A novel rhodium-catalyzed intermolecular direct C—H olefinic allylation of electron-deficient alkenes with easily available allyl acetates as electrophiles is developed.

The synthetic utility of the methodology is demonstrated by the representative derivatization of one product [cf.

Rh(III)-catalyzed C–H olefinic alkynylation of enamides for the stereospecific construction of synthetically useful Z-type enynamides is reported. This protocol displays good functionality tolerance and operational simplicity thus providing an alternative synthetic opportunity for the ease of access to specific 1,3-enyne derivatives.

An imidazolylpyrimidine was identified in a CXCR2 chemokine receptor antagonist screen and was optimized for potency, in vitro metabolic stability, and oral bioavailability. It was found that subtle structural modification within the series affected the oral bioavailability. Potent and orally available CXCR2 antagonists are herein reported.

Rhodium-catalyzed C–H allylation of acrylamide derivatives with various allyl acetates was reported. The use of weakly coordinating directing group resulted in high reaction efficiency and excellent γ-selectivity. This reaction displays broad functional group tolerance, which opens a new synthetic pathway for the access of functionalized 1,4-diene skeletons.

Rh(iii)-catalyzed C–H olefinic alkynylation of enamides for the stereospecific construction of synthetically useful Z-type enynamides is reported. This protocol displays good functionality tolerance and operational simplicity thus providing an alternative synthetic opportunity for the ease of access to specific 1,3-enyne derivatives.

Polysubstituted piperidines were prepared via radical cyclization of α-aminoalkyl radicals onto unactivated double bonds. [1,2]-aza-Wittig rearrangements were observed when an aryl group was attached to the α-aminoalkyl radical center.

1,2,4-Triazole stabilized allene anions are intermediates for the synthesis of 4-alkyl-2(5H)-thiophenones and 8-phenylimino-1,2,4-triazolo[5,1-c]-1,4-thiazines. Structures are confirmed by X-ray crystallography.Key words: allene anion, 4-alkyl-2(5H)-thiophenones, 8-phenylimino-1,2,4-triazolo[5,1-c]-1,4-thiazines, X-ray crystallography.

1-(α-Alkoxyalkyl)benzotriazoles 1a−d add to phenyl vinyl ether to form key intermediates 4a−d, which readily undergo lithiation and subsequent trapping by a variety of electrophiles to give the expected substituted derivatives 7a−d, 9a−c, 11, 13, 15, and 18 in high yields. Subsequent hydrolysis of these compounds provides a novel high-yield acyl anion synthon approach for the synthesis of β-alkoxy ketones 8 or α‘-functionalized β-alkoxy ketones 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19 by short procedures from readily available starting materials.

Tosylmethylamines (1) are advantageous synthon equivalents for “nonstabilized” α-aminocarbanions of aromatic amines. Clean reactions and high yields are observed provided one-step procedures are ut...

Novel and facile routes to alkenyl, alkynyl, and aryl 1,2-diketones utilize treatment of benzotriazole derivatives 1, 7a,b, and 15a−d with butyllithium and subsequent reaction with esters or acid chlorides to yield the substituted intermediates 2a−d, 8a,b, and 16a−g. Reactions of the deprotonated 1 and 7 with α,β-unsaturated aldehydes followed by oxidation also produces similar intermediates 5 and 11a,b. Subsequent hydrolyses of the intermediates of type 2, 5, 8, 11, and 16 afford diverse 1,2-diketones in good yields.

1-(Benzotriazol-1-yl)-3-(diphenylphosphoryl)-1-ethoxy-1-propene (3), prepared from N-(α-ethoxyallyl)benzotriazole (1), underwent selective Horner reactions with aldehydes to give substituted dienes. Subsequent hydrolysis of these intermediates readily produced β,γ-unsaturated esters 2a−c in good yields. Similar reactions with ketones followed by hydrolysis of 10 produced, depending on the conditions, either the corresponding γ,γ-disubstituted β,γ-unsaturated esters 11a−d or γ-lactones 9a−c and 13. A double lithiation process provided β,γ,γ-trisubstituted β,γ-unsaturated esters 15, 18, and β,γ,γ-trisubstituted γ-lactone 14.

C−Benzotriazole bonds were selectively transformed to give the corresponding α-aminocarbanions when N-(α-aminoalkyl)benzotriazoles were reacted with either Li/LiBr or SmI2 in the presence of representative electrophiles. The ranges of applicability of the two reagents complement each other, and together the two protocols provide a general route from readily available crystalline starting materials to a variety of “nonstabilized” α-aminocarbanions that can be trapped in moderate to good yields.

The dianion 12 (right harpoon over left harpoon 13) of 1-(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)phenylpropargyl ethyl ether 11(readily prepared from phenylpropargylaldehyde diethyl acetal 8 and 1,2,4-triazole) reacts with alkyl halides, aldehydes, ketones, and alpha,beta-unsaturated ketones to give exclusively gamma-substituted allenic products of type 10. These adducts underwent mild in situ hydrolysis enabling convenient syntheses of alpha,beta-unsaturated esters 9a-c and alpha,beta-unsaturated gamma-lactones 16, 18, 20, and 22. Reactions of dianion 13 with imines generated the 1,3,4-trisubstituted 2-alkoxypyrroles 27, 30, and 31 in high yields. The alkyl-substituted analog 34 underwent similar reactions to give predominantly the gamma-products 39,40, and 42 along with a small proportion of alpha-analogs.