98 research outputs found
Jordan's Inequality: Refinements, Generalizations, Applications and Related Problems
No full textThis is an expository article. Some developments on refinements,
generalizations, applications of Jordan’s inequality and related problems, including
some estimates for three classes of complete elliptic integrals and several
proofs of Wilker’s inequality, are summarized
Some New Bounds for Mathieu's Series
Get PDFIn the paper, an upper bound and two lower bounds for Mathieu’s
series are established, which refine to a certain extent a sharp double inequality
obtained by Alzer-Brenner-Ruehr in 1998. Moreover, the very closer lower and
upper bounds for ζ(3) are deduced
Influence of academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation on Faculty of Education UTM postgraduates' academic performance
Get PDFThe purpose of this study was to find out the influence of academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation on Faculty of Education (FP) UTM postgraduates’ academic performance. This study discovered the level of academic self-concept and the level of academic achievement motivation of FP UTM postgraduates. It also investigated the gender and age differences in academic self-concept, as well as the gender and age differences in academic achievement motivation among FP UTM postgraduates. Respondents of this study were master degree postgraduates from Faculty of Education UTM. The sampling method employed was stratified sampling. Questionnaires were distributed to 250 respondents but only 215 sets of completed questionnaires were collected back. Data collected was organized and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16.0 for Windows. The level of academic self-concept among FP UTM postgraduates were measured using related items in the Self-Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ) III for late adolescents and young adults developed by Herbert William Marsh (1990). The level of academic achievement motivation of FP UTM postgraduates were measured using related items in the Deo-Mohan Achievement Motivation Scale developed by Pratibha Deo and Asha Mohan (1985). From the pilot test, internal consistency reliability for the overall items revealed a coefficient alpha value of 0.83. Independent Samples t-test found that there were significant difference of academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation among FP UTM postgraduates based on gender. Females scored higher than males in both academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation. One-way Analysis Covariance (ANOVA) found out that there was no significant difference in academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation among FP UTM postgraduates based on age. The influence of academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation towards academic performance was found out using Simple Regression Analysis. Findings revealed that academic self-concept had a weak positive influence on academic performance. Person’s Coefficient Correlation was used to analyse the correlation between academic selfconcept and academic achievement motivation. Results showed a significant and moderate correlation between academic self-concept and academic achievement motivation among FP UTM postgraduates
Histone acetylation modifiers in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease
No full textIt is becoming more evident that histone acetylation, as one of the epigenetic modifications or markers, plays a key role in the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Histone acetylases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs) are the well-known covalent enzymes that modify the reversible acetylation of lysine residues in histone amino-terminal domains. In AD, however, the roles of these enzymes are controversial. Some recent studies indicate that HDAChistone deacetylases inhibitors are neuroprotective by regulating memory and synaptic dysfunctions deficit in cellular and animal models of AD, while on the other hand, increases in histone acetylation have been implicated in AD pathology. In this review, we focus on the recent advances on the roles of histone acetylation covalent enzymes in AD and discuss how targeting these enzymes can ultimately lead to therapeutic approaches for treating AD
Carbon Transfer and Responsibility Sharing of Chinese Urban Agglomerations
No full textClearly defining the responsibility for carbon emissions can help urban agglomerations achieve their carbon peak and facilitate the construction of a low-carbon society. With the regional professional division of labor and intricate economic and trade links, the phenomenon of carbon transfer between urban agglomerations has become increasingly obvious, making it difficult to scientifically divide carbon emission responsibility based solely on producer or consumer responsibility. Based on the constructed multi-regional input-output model of cities in China, we calculated the scale and direction of carbon emissions and net carbon transfer on the production and consumption sides of each urban agglomeration. Considering the asymmetry of producer and consumer responsibility and the proportion of value-added trade of urban agglomeration outflow as the responsibility sharing factor, we propose a scheme for the power and responsibility distribution of net carbon transfer of urban agglomeration. The results show that (1) Under the accounting method of shifting from production-side responsibility to consumer responsibility, significant differences are observed in carbon emissions among urban agglomerations in China. Among them, the Hubao Eyu and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations have changed significantly. The inflow and outflow of intermediate products and the demand for end products from other urban agglomerations are the main reasons for the carbon transfer of urban agglomerations. 2) Some differences are observed in the responsibility-sharing factors among urban agglomerations. These factors are the largest on the West Bank of the Strait, followed by the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, central and southern Liaoning, and Changsha Zhuzhou Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration. The net carbon transfer of urban agglomerations occurs not only between economically developed coastal urban agglomerations but also between less developed inland urban agglomerations and coastal urban agglomerations. 3) The carbon emission scale of each urban agglomeration changed significantly under the carbon accounting scheme of "shared responsibility." Compared with the consumer side responsibility, the "responsibility sharing" carbon emissions of 12 urban agglomerations such as Hubao Eyu were relatively increased, which shows that these urban agglomerations bear more carbon emission responsibilities than those based on consumer responsibility when excluding the carbon transfer from responsibility sharing; Compared with the production side responsibility, the "responsibility sharing" carbon emissions of 9 urban agglomerations such as the Pearl River Delta were relatively increased, which shows that these urban agglomerations bear more carbon emission responsibilities than those based on producer responsibility when including the carbon transfer into responsibility sharing. The carbon emission responsibility determined according to the "benefit principle" considers the asymmetry of the carbon transfer responsibilities of producers and consumers. Sharing carbon responsibility according to the proportion of regional trade benefits reflects fairness and can better promote the implementation of carbon emission reduction measures
The strength of a remorseful heart: Psychological and neural basis of how apology emolliates reactive aggression and promotes forgiveness
No full textApology from the offender facilitates forgiveness and thus has the power to restore a broken relationship. Here we showed that apology from the offender not only reduces the victim’s propensity to react aggressively but also alters the victim’s implicit attitude and neural responses towards the offender. We adopted an interpersonal competitive game which consisted of two phases. In the first, passive phase, participants were punished by high or low pain stimulation chosen by the opponents when losing a trial. During the break, participants received a note from each of the opponents, one apologizing and the other not. The second, active phase involved a change of roles where participants could punish the two opponents when winning. Experiment 1 included an Implicit Association Test (IAT) in between the reception of notes and the second phase. Experiment 2 recorded participants’ brain potentials in the second phase. We found that participants reacted less aggressively towards the apologizing opponent than the non-apologizing opponent in the active phase. Moreover, female, but not male, participants responded faster in the IAT when positive and negative words were associated to the apologizing and the non-apologizing opponents, respectively, suggesting that female participants had enhanced implicit attitude towards the apologizing opponent. Furthermore, the late positive component (LPP) in brain potentials, a component associated with affective/motivational reactions, was larger for viewing the portrait of the apologizing than the non-apologizing opponent when participants subsequently selected low punishment. Additionally, the LPP elicited by the apologizing opponents’ portrait was larger in the female than in the male participants. These findings confirm the apology’s role in reducing reactive aggression and further reveal that this forgiveness process engages, at least in female, an enhancement of the victim’s implicit attitude and a prosocial motivational change towards the offender
The in vitro tolerant persister population in Burkholderia pseudomallei is altered by environmental factors
No full textBacterial persistence due to antibiotic tolerance is a critical aspect of antibiotic treatment failure, disease latency, and chronic or reemergent infections. The levels of persisters is especially notable for the opportunistic Gram-negative pathogens from the Burkholderia and Pseudomonas genera. We examined the rate of drug tolerant persisters in Burkholderia pseudomallei, Burkholderia thailandensis, Burkholderia cepacia complex organisms, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa at mid-log growth in LB broth culture. We found that a fraction of the antibiotic-sensitive cells from every species were tolerant to a 24 hour high-dose antibiotic challenge. All tested Burkholderia strains demonstrated a drug tolerant persister population at a rate that was at least 100 – 500 times higher than P. aeruginosa. When challenged with a 10X minimum inhibitory concentration 24 hour exposure to five different antibiotics with different modes of action we found that in B. pseudomallei Bp82 the same fraction of persisters in the bacterial population was revealed when using 4 of them. This observation suggests that our assay is detecting a single homogeneous persister population. Persistence in B. pseudomallei Bp82 was highly dependent on growth stage, with a surprisingly high persister fraction of >64% of the late stationary phase cells being antibiotic tolerant. Adaptation of B. pseudomallei to distilled water storage resulted in a population of drug tolerant cells up to 100% of the non-drug-challenged viable cell count. Cultivation of B. pseudomallei with a sub-inhibitory concentration of several antibiotics resulted in altered persister fractions within the population relative to cultures lacking the antibiotic. Our study provides insight into the sensitivity of the persister fraction within the population of B. pseudomallei due to environmental variables and suggests a lack of diversity within the persister population
Processing of Acoustic and Phonological Information of Lexical Tones in Mandarin Chinese Revealed by Mismatch Negativity
No full textThe accurate perception of lexical tones in tonal languages involves the processing of both acoustic information and phonological information carried by the tonal signal. In this study we evaluated the relative role of the two types of information in native Chinese speaker’s processing of tones at a preattentive stage with event-related potentials (ERPs), particularly the mismatch negativity (MNN). Specifically, we distinguished the acoustic from the phonological information by manipulating phonological category and acoustic interval of the stimulus materials. We found a significant main effect of phonological category for the peak latency of MMN, but a main effect of both phonological category and acoustic interval for the mean amplitude of MMN. The results indicated that the two types of information, acoustic and phonological, play different roles in the processing of Chinese lexical tones: acoustic information only impacts the extent of tonal processing, while phonological information affects both the extent and the time course of tonal processing. Implications of these findings are discussed in light of neurocognitive processes of phonological processing
Oxidative Stress-mediated HMGB1 Biology
No full textHigh mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is a widely-expressed and highly-abundant protein that acts as an extracellular signal upon active secretion by immune cells or passive release by dead, dying, and injured cells. Both intracellular and extracellular HMGB1 play pivotal roles in regulation of the cellular response to stress. Targeting the translocation, release, and activity of HMGB1 can limit inflammation and reduce tissue damage during infection and sterile inflammation. Although the mechanisms contributing to HMGB1 biology are still under investigation, it appears that oxidative stress is a central regulator of HMGB1’s translocation, release, and activity in inflammation and cell death (e.g., necrosis, apoptosis, autophagic cell death, pyroptosis, and NETosis). Thus, targeting HMGB1 with antioxidant compounds may be an attractive therapeutic strategy for inflammation-associated diseases such as sepsis, ischemia and reperfusion injury, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer
Stigmatic bodies: The corporeal Qiu Miaojin
Get PDFB1 - Research Book ChaptersDeposited with permission of University of Hawaii PressQiu Miaojin (1969–1995) is Taiwan’s best-known lesbian author. In local lesbian (nütongzhi) subcultures, Qiu’s books are frequently cited as classics, particularly her 1994 novel The Crocodile’s Journal (Eyu shouji), the first novel in Taiwan’s modern literary history to be written by an author commonly known to be a lesbian that takes erotic relationships between women as its central theme. Qiu’s fiction is much celebrated, too, in the mainstream literary establishment; The Crocodile’s Journal won the prestigious China Times Honorary Prize for Literature for Qiu posthumously, following her suicide in mid-1995. Qiu’s unique literary style—mingling cerebral, experimental language use, psychological realism, biting social critique through allegory, and a surrealist effect deriving from the use of arrestingly unusual metaphors—is strongly influenced by both European and Japanese literary and cinematic modernisms. Although her fiction has been compared, in its principal subject-matter, to Radclyffe Hall’s 1920s classic of lesbian alienation, The Well of Loneliness, most frequently cited in Qiu’s writings are male modernist and postmodernist ‘masters’ (many of whose work shows a strongly homoerotic aesthetic) including Andre Gide, Jean Genet, Kobo Abe, Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Derek Jarman—locally, Qiu’s work has been critiqued for this apparent masculinist bias. Qiu’s early short stories ‘Zero Degree’ (‘Linjiedian,’ 1988) and ‘Platonic Hair’ (‘Bolatu zhi fa,’ 1990), to be discussed in this chapter, appeared in her first collection, The Revelry of Ghosts (Guide kuanghuan) in 1991, following their earlier serialization in local daily newspapers. They are Qiu’s first works to treat thematically homoerotic desire between women
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