204 research outputs found
Participation of literary elite in the compilation of Buddhist monastery gazetteers in Ming-Qing China - using as an example the activities of Liu Mingfang in the Jiangnan region in 1740s-1750s
No full textThe research topic of this article is the relationship between secular literati and Buddhist monasteries in China, one of the forms of which was the recruitment of literati by the monasteries for the composition of monastery chronicles. This paper focuses on the activities on Liu Mingfang (Liu Nanlu), the author of "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua," in the Jiangnan region in 1740-1750s. The importance of studying the circumstances of the compilation of this chronicle is justified by the fact that Mt. Baohua was the seat of the patriarchs of the Qianhua school, which claimed dominance within the Vinaya tradition of Chinese Buddhism in the late Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. The article examines what place the composition of this Buddhist mountain chronicle had in the activities of Liu Mingfang, who was a member of the secular literati. This research relies on several chronicles compiled by Liu Mingfang, as well as the texts of his contemporary associates. The main conclusions of this research are as follows: Liu Mingfang primarily associated himself with poetry and the Daoist culture. Lacking a stable income, Liu Mingfang compiled local chronicles under commission. Accordingly, on the one hand, "The Chronicle of Mt. Baohua" is not supposed to reflect any personal Buddhist ideas of Liu Mingfang, but on the other hand, it is very probable that the text of this chronicle reflects the wishes of its commissioner – Wenhai Fuju, the abbot of Mt. Baohua
An experimental study of vertical greenery systems for window shading for energy saving in summer
No full textPast studies have demonstrated the remarkable energy-saving effect of vertical greenery systems. The vast majority of these works focus on opaque building walls. While external shadings on windows are more effective than these on walls. Inspired by the climbing plants (vines) raised outside windows by residents, the present study proposed the design of movable green window shading systems (MGWSS) that can shade beam solar radiation but allows soft daylighting. On the basis of simplified MGWSS models, experiments were conducted in summer to evaluate the shading performance with three plant species. First, the energy-saving effect and climatic data were measured for test rooms with west-facing windows. The results indicated that the presence of green shading reduced the impact of solar radiation on the cooling energy consumption with the correlation coefficients from 0.94 to 0.61. Then, the shading coefficient, which is a key parameter for energy saving, was measured by a new technique using photovoltaic panels. The correlation between the coverage rate and the surface-averaged shading coefficient was established. The results showed that when the coverage rate of the MGWSS with Dishcloth gourd was 80%, the shading coefficient was 0.28, and the cooling energy consumption and heat flux transferred through the window glass were reduced by 11.5% and 64.8%, respectively. The shading characteristic was investigated using the instantaneous data. It found that stronger ambient solar radiation resulted in better shading performance (lower shading coefficient). For a west-facing window, the best shading performance was found at oblique solar incidence angles.Accepted Author ManuscriptHistory, Form & Aesthetic
Lei gong teng zhong de kang xue guan xin sheng ji
No full textFive traditional Chinese medicines were screened for their antiangiogenic activities through zebrafish angiogenic assay. Two of them, Tripterygium wilfordii and Rheum palmatum showed potential in the primary screening. T. wilfordii was selected in further study.In the further investigation of antiangiogenic activity of triptolide on mammal systems, triptolide showed potent activity in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) assays including proliferation, migration and tube formation assay. It inhibited HUVEC proliferation with IC50 as low as 34 nM. It also showed more potency in HUVEC migration and tube formation assay at as low concentration as nanomolar level than SU5416, a putative VEGFR-2 inhibitor currently in clinic trials. RT-PCR and western blotting analysis showed that the underlying mechanism of triptolide correlated with down-regulation of VEGFR-2 and Tie2 expression and production. Tie2 inhibition appeared to be a later event as compared with VEGFR-2. Tie2 overexpression in HUVEC could attenuate the inhibitory effect of triptolide on HUVEC proliferation. Tie2 knockdown mimicked the inhibition activity of triptolide in tube formation assay. These phenomemon revealed that Tie2 signaling pathway plays a crucial role in triptolide-mediated angiogenesis inhibition. In in vivo Matrigel Plug assay, triptolide showed inhibition effect at as low as 100 nM.T. wilfordii is an immune-suppressive, anti-inflammatory herb used in China for centuries. Through bioassay-guided purification, three antiangiogenic terpenoids were isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction, namely, celastrol, cangoronine and triptolide. Among them, triptolide manifested the most potent antiangiogenic activities against vessel formation. As low as 0.31microM, triptolide inhibited 20% of vessel formation, and the inhibition reached a plateau of 50% at 1.2 microM. Celatrol reduced vessel formation by more than 30% at 0.62microM, but killed 50% of the embryos at higher concentrations. Cangoronine was much weaker, inhibiting vessel formation by 20% at 2.5microM. These three components all showed stronger antiangiogenic activities than 2-methoxyestradiol, a putative compound currently under clinical trials as an antiangiogenic agent for cancer treatment, as the latter inhibited angiogenesis in zebrafish embryos by 34% at 10microM. The loss of vessel formation in the embryos treated with triptolide was further confirmed using endogenous alkaline phosphatase staining. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that triptolide dose- and time-dependently reduced the mRNA expression of angiopoietin (angpt2) and tie2 in zebrafish, indicating the involvement of angpt2/tie2 signaling pathway in the antiangiogenic action of triptolide.This research revealed that zebrafish model is a promising antiangiogenic model for both the screening of antiangiogenic agents from Chinese herbal medicine and the subsequent discovery for the drug targets. Triptolide, an anti-inflammatory component from T. wilfordii, is a potent angiogenic inhibitor through targeting VEGFR-2 and Tie2 pathways in mammal models whereas targeting ang2-tie2 pathway in zebrafish model. The anti-tumor action of triptolide was demonstrated to be partly through inhibition of tumor angiogenesis. Moreover, the potent antiangiogenic action exerted by triptolide at nanomolar dosage level gives proof that it is a promising lead compound for the development of antiangiogenic drug for cancer treatment. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)He, Mingfang.Adviser: Paul Pui-Hey Bot.Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 71-01, Section: B, page: 0247.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-106).Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.Abstracts in English and Chinese
Data-Driven Approximated Optimal Control for Chemical Processes with State and Input Constraints
No full textInput and state constraints widely exist in chemical processes. The optimal control of chemical processes under the coexistence of inequality constraints on input and state is challenging, especially when the process model is only partially known. The objective of this paper is to design an applicable optimal control for chemical processes with known model structure and unknown model parameters. To eliminate the barriers caused by the hybrid constraints and unknown model parameters, the inequality state constraints are first transformed into equality state constraints by using the slack function method. Then, adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) with nonquadratic performance integrand is adopted to handle the augmented system with input constraints. The proposed approach requires only partial knowledge of the system, i.e., the model structure. The value information of the model parameters is not required. The feasibility and performance of the proposed approach are tested using two nonlinear cases including a continuous stirred-tank reactor (CSTR) example
Development of American motorization and implications for China
No full textThis graduate project studies the development of American motorization and explores the implications for China. The fundamental objective of the study is to serve as a wake-up call and policy suggestions for Chinese government to mitigate the negative impacts of motorization. The study analyzes the motorization trends in China and negative impacts of motorization. The study emphasizes on four types of negative impacts of the current motorization in China: traffic safety, air pollution, energy consumption, and traffic congestion. How has American government coped with similar problems? What are their public policies and measures? What are the results? With all these questions, the author reviews the motorization of America in 20th century and studies the regulations and measures dealing with negative impacts of motorization. The study respectively examines auto air pollution and the Clean Air Act in America, energy consumption and CAFE regulations, road safety and FMVSS, traffic congestion and the traffic congestion mitigation. All the regulations and measures to deal with negative social impacts of American motorization discussed in this project follow the same process of American public policy. The author then narrows the scope of study to one specific problem: traffic congestion and discusses in depth the traffic congestion mitigation in the city of Santa Clarita as a case study. By learning the experience and lessons of American motorization, especially in the aspect of traffic congestion mitigation, the author applies the American policy analysis model to explore the traffic congestion mitigation measures in the City of Beijing, as a case study. A number of alternatives are given according to the several reasons that cause the traffic congestion in Beijing. They are increasing capacity, pricing strategy, public transportation, management of bicycles, staggered starting times of workday, upgrade of drivers' and pedestrians' behaviors. The conclusion is made that when the variety of alternatives is used as a combination, the outcome will be the most effective.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-71)California State University, Northridge. Department of Public Administration
Area-Efficient Systolic Multipliers for Finite Field GF(2m) Based on Irreducible Trinomial
No full textA High-Precision Identification Method for Maize Leaf Diseases and Pests Based on LFMNet under Complex Backgrounds
No full textMaize, as one of the most important crops in the world, faces severe challenges from various diseases and pests. The timely and accurate identification of maize leaf diseases and pests is of great significance for ensuring agricultural production. Currently, the identification of maize leaf diseases and pests faces two key challenges: (1) In the actual process of identifying leaf diseases and pests, complex backgrounds can interfere with the identification effect. (2) The subtle features of diseases and pests are difficult to accurately extract. To address these challenges, this study proposes a maize leaf disease and pest identification model called LFMNet. Firstly, the localized multi-scale inverted residual convolutional block (LMSB) is proposed to perform preliminary down-sampling on the image, preserving important feature information for the subsequent extraction of fine disease and pest features in the model structure. Then, the feature localization bottleneck (FLB) is proposed to improve the model’s ability to focus on and locate disease and pest characteristics and to reduce interference from complex backgrounds. Subsequently, the multi-hop local-feature fusion architecture (MLFFA) is proposed, which effectively addresses the problem of extracting subtle features by enhancing the extraction and fusion of global and local disease and pest features in images. After training and testing on a dataset containing 19,451 images of maize leaf diseases and pests, the LFMNet model demonstrated excellent performance, with an average identification accuracy of 95.68%, a precision of 95.91%, a recall of 95.78%, and an F1 score of 95.83%. Compared to existing models, it exhibits significant advantages, offering robust technical support for the precise identification of maize diseases and pests
CRLNet: A Multimodal Peach Detection Network Based on Cooperative Asymptotic Enhancement and the Fusion of Granularity Refinement
No full textAccurate peach detection is essential for automated agronomic management, such as mechanical peach harvesting. However, ubiquitous occlusion makes identifying peaches from complex backgrounds extremely challenging. In addition, it is difficult to capture fine-grained peach features from a single RGB image, which can suffer from light and noise in scenarios with dense small target clusters and extreme light. To solve these problems, this study proposes a multimodal detector, called CRLNet, based on RGB and depth images. First, YOLOv9 was extended to design a backbone network that can extract RGB and depth features in parallel from an image. Second, to address the problem of information fusion bias, the Rough–Fine Hybrid Attention Fusion Module (RFAM) was designed to combine the advantageous information of different modes while suppressing the hollow noise at the edge of the peach. Finally, a Transformer-based Local–Global Joint Enhancement Module (LGEM) was developed to jointly enhance the local and global features of peaches using information from different modalities in order to enhance the percentage of information about the target peaches and remove the interference of redundant background information. CRLNet was trained on the Peach dataset and evaluated against other state-of-the-art methods; the model achieved an mAP50 of 97.1%. In addition, CRLNet also achieved an mAP50 of 92.4% in generalized experiments, validating its strong generalization capability. These results provide valuable insights for peach and other outdoor fruit multimodal detection
PTH & bone resorbing protein effects on chick bone
No full textPLEASE NOTE: This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community: please log in with a valid BU account to access and click Download. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact [email protected] (M.Sc.D.)--Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry, 1986 (Oral Biology)Bibliography : leaves 72-84.A protein, Bone Resorbing Protein (BRP),isolated from human cancer ascites fluid, which has the ability to influence the metabolism of bone, was examined and compared with human 1-34 amino terminal fragment of parathyroid hormone (PTH) on bone calcium mobilization, matrix resorption, and collagen synthesis. Interactions of PTH and BRP on these areas of bone metabolism were also examined. Embryonic chick calvaria were chosen as an assay system because it is not primarily a resorbing system and permits measurement of all three areas of bone metabolism under identical conditions.
Using this type of assay system we have shown that both PTH and BRP are capable of stimulating bone resorption. In addition, both of these agents induced significant stimulation of proline incorporation and conversion to hydroxyproline. In contrast to their similar action on calcium mobilization and proline incorporation, PTH but not BRP was effective in stimulating matrix resorption. We found that a dosage as low as 25 ug/ml of BRP has slight but significant stimulatory effects on bone calcium mobilization and inhibitory effects on matrix resorption. A level of 333 ug/ml of BRP gave a maximum response for bone calcium mobilization. These bone resorption response can be detected as early as 24 hours after exposure. We also found that BRP and PTH have co-operative activity on calcium mobilization and antagonistic effects on matrix resorption. Calcitonin, an inhibitor of calcium mobilization, had antagonistic effects on proline incorporation with PTH but co-operative effects with BRP. In the induction of bone resorption, our data show that 2 hours exposure to BRP has the same significant activity on bone resorption as 72 hours exposure. These effects may have significance in explaining the mechanisms involved in producing humoral hypercalcemia of malignancy
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