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Life skill programs have been widely provided for vulnerable women in Third World Countries but not for the deprived rural migrant women in China. This study explored the way these women informally learned life skills in urban China and their primary sources of learning, in hopes of providing insights into possible life skill programs targeting them. A basic interpretive qualitative research was conducted by interviewing seventeen migrant women in Northwest and Central China. Findings show that these women learned certain core life skills informally as they adjusted to the urban life. They regarded rural migrant social networks as the main source of learning. Yet, their aspirations to acquire better communication and occupational skills remained mostly unfulfilled and a few of them demanded extra emotional support. This study strongly suggests life skill programs provided for rural migrant women in China to enhance their capability for self-protection, empowerment and social integration.

As blended learning pedagogy gains an increasing popularity in higher education, there is a need to continually report both students' and instructors' perceptions regarding blended learning in order to generate better learning outcomes. This paper examines how students and instructors perceived the incorporation of MOOCs in students' blended learning experience and the challenges they encountered. A total of 122 second-year undergraduates enrolling in an English course were surveyed, and five students and three lecturers were interviewed. The finding shows that students had favorable attitudes toward this blended course, expressing a higher level of interaction, flexibility, a better understanding of the learning content, and a richer learning experience. The instructors confirmed the positive impacts of blended learning but also admitted blended teaching increased their time commitment to their jobs. The impediments met by students and instructors in the blended learning environment must be taken into consideration.

This paper explores the relationship between girls' schooling and empowerment in western China in the first decade of the 21st century. This paper adopted a capability-empowerment framework based on Sen's capability approach into which were integrated concepts by Bourdieu, Appadurai, Nussbaum, Kabeer, and Unterhalter, to help to understand the tenacity with which village girls pursued schooling. In interviews with a group of 23 girls and young women, several valued functionings of intrinsic capability sets in the freedom dimensions of well-being and agency and their association with rising levels of school attainment were found. The girls were found to be gaining empowering capabilities through schooling, but that these were not equally distributed, neatly slicing the group into two sharply defined groups with different life paths. One set dropped out in the middle school years with a smaller set of empowerment capabilities to work in low-skilled jobs in cities, which offered them new places to change. The other set remained in school longer to achieve a larger set of empowering functionings that they converted into more substantive freedoms in a variety of settings.

Aspergillus flavus is a saprophytic fungus that can be found across the entire world. It can produce aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), which threatens human health. CreA, as the central factor in carbon catabolite repression (CCR), regulates carbon catabolism and AFB1 biosynthesis in A. flavus. Additionally, SsnF-RcoA are recognized as the corepressors of CreA in CCR. In this study, ssnF and rcoA not only regulated the expressions of CCR factors and hydrolase genes, but also positively affected mycelia growth, conidia production, sclerotia formation, and osmotic stress response in A. flavus. More importantly, SsnF and RcoA were identified as positive regulators for AFB1 biosynthesis, as they modulate the AF cluster genes and the relevant regulators at a transcriptional level. Additionally, the interactions of SsnF-CreA and RcoA-CreA were strong and moderate, respectively. However, the interaction of SsnF and RcoA was weak. The interaction models of CreA-SsnF, CreA-RcoA, and SsnF-RcoA were also simulated with a docking analysis. All things considered, SsnF and RcoA are not just the critical regulators of the CCR pathway, but the global regulators involving in morphological development and AFB1 biosynthesis in A. flavus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bronchial asthma is a chronic disease which is currently treated using various inhalants. However, the medication adherence with the inhalants is poor due to complex procedure to use them along with frequent dosing. In this paper, we have developed tulobuterol loaded Pluronic® F127-reduced graphene oxide transdermal hydrogel to sustain the release of tulobuterol to manage asthma for days. The synthesis of Pluronic® F127-reduced graphene oxide was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. The transmission electron microscope showed wrinkled flat nano sheets. The hydrogel showed sufficient mechanical properties for topical application and was safe in the skin irritation study (rabbit model). The ex vivo release data demonstrated the ability of reduced graphene oxide to sustain the release of tulobuterol for 72 h, due to strong π-π interaction between drug and graphene oxide. The pharmacokinetic profile in Sprague-Dawley rat model confirmed the potential of tulobuterol-Pluronic® F127-reduced graphene oxide hydrogel to sustain the release of tulobuterol for effective management of asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of the Study: Asthma is a common and complex chronic inflammatory disease induced by genetic and environmental factors that affects the airways of the lungs. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of various cellular processes and have been shown to be critically involved in asthma progression. The objective of our study was to clarify the function and molecular mechanism of miR-140 in the progression of asthma., Materials and Methods: MiR-140 expression was evaluated using RT-qPCR. Pathological changes in the lung tissue were confirmed using HE and PAS staining. The levels of IL-5, TGF-β1, and IL-13 in the serum or bronchioalveolar lavage fluid were detected with an ELISA. Cellular apoptosis was measured using a TUNEL assay. The levels of Bax, Bcl-2, Cleaved caspase-3, and glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β) were verified with a western blot. GSK3β expression was also confirmed by immunohistochemistry. The binding ability between miR-140 and GSK3β was confirmed using a luciferase reporter assay, RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay and Pull-down assay., Results: MiR-140 was markedly downregulated in asthmatic mice. Additionally, miR-140 weakened airway inflammation and bronchial epithelial cell apoptosis in asthmatic mice. Further experiments revealed that miR-140 negatively regulated GSK3β expression and could bind to GSK3β in asthma. Finally, rescue assays demonstrated that GSK3β overexpression rescued the effects of miR-140 on asthma progression., Conclusion: MiR-140 targeted GSK3β to suppress airway inflammation and inhibit bronchial epithelial cell apoptosis in asthma., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)