Jimei University

A universal but simple procedure for identifying the α, β and γ phases in PVDF using FTIR is proposed and validated. An integrated quantification methodology for individual β and γ phase in mixed systems is also proposed.

Introduction: How Meaning Is Created Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs Representing People: Language and Identity Representing Actions: Transitivity and Verb Processes Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalization and Presupposition Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and Its Discontents Glossary

There is a growing appreciation that chromosome inversions affect rates of adaptation, speciation, and the evolution of sex chromosomes. Comparative genomic studies have identified many new paracentric inversion polymorphisms. Population models suggest that inversions can spread by reducing recombination between alleles that independently increase fitness, without epistasis or coadaptation. Areas of linkage disequilibrium extend across large inversions but may be interspersed by areas with little disequilibrium. Genes located within inversions are associated with a variety of traits including those involved in climatic adaptation. Inversion polymorphisms may contribute to speciation by generating underdominance owing to inviable gametes, but an alternative view gaining support is that inversions facilitate speciation by reducing recombination, protecting genomic regions from introgression. Likewise, inversions may facilitate the evolution of sex chromosomes by reducing recombination between sex determining alleles and alleles with sex-specific effects. However, few genes within inversions responsible for fitness effects or speciation have been identified.

Along with the intensification of culture systems to meet the increasing global demands, there was an elevated risk for diseases outbreak and substantial loss for farmers. In view of several drawbacks caused by prophylactic administration of antibiotics, strict regulations have been established to ban or minimize their application in aquaculture. As an alternative to antibiotics, dietary administration of feed additives has received increasing attention during the past three decades. Probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics and medicinal plants were among the most promising feed supplements for control or treatments of bacterial, viral and parasitic diseases of fish and shellfish. The present review summarizes and discusses the topic of potential application of probiotics as a means of disease control with comprehensive look at the available literature. The possible mode of action of probiotics (Strengthening immune response, competition for binding sites, production of antibacterial substances, and competition for nutrients) in providing protection against diseases is described. Besides, we have classified different pathogens and separately described the effects of probiotics as protective strategy. Furthermore, we have addressed the gaps of existing knowledge as well as the topics that merit further investigations. Overall, the present review paper revealed potential of different probiont to be used as protective agent against various pathogens.

Probiotics, like lactic acid bacteria, are non-pathogenic microbes that exert health benefits to the host when administered in adequate quantity. Currently, research is being conducted on the molecular events and applications of probiotics. The suggested mechanisms by which probiotics exert their action include; competitive exclusion of pathogens for adhesion sites, improvement of the intestinal mucosal barrier, gut immunomodulation, and neurotransmitter synthesis. This review emphasizes the recent advances in the health benefits of probiotics and the emerging applications of probiotics in the food industry. Due to their capability to modulate gut microbiota and attenuate the immune system, probiotics could be used as an adjuvant in hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cancer, and gastrointestinal diseases. Considering the functional properties, probiotics are being used in the dairy, beverage, and baking industries. After developing the latest techniques by researchers, probiotics can now survive within harsh processing conditions and withstand GI stresses quite effectively. Thus, the potential of probiotics can efficiently be utilized on a commercial scale in food processing industries.

The structural and electrical properties of a metal-halide cubic perovskite, CH(3)NH(3)SnI(3), have been examined. The band structure, obtained using first-principles calculation, reveals a well-defined band gap at the Fermi level. However, the temperature dependence of the single-crystal electrical conductivity shows metallic behavior down to low temperatures. The temperature dependence of the thermoelectric power is also metallic over the whole temperature range, and the large positive value indicates that charge transport occurs with a low concentration of hole carriers. The metallic properties of this as-grown crystal are thus suggested to result from spontaneous hole-doping in the crystallization process, rather than the semi-metal electronic structure. The present study shows that artificial hole doping indeed enhances the conductivity.

Despite advances in the bioprinting technology, biofabrication of circumferentially multilayered tubular tissues or organs with cellular heterogeneity, such as blood vessels, trachea, intestine, colon, ureter, and urethra, remains a challenge. Herein, a promising multichannel coaxial extrusion system (MCCES) for microfluidic bioprinting of circumferentially multilayered tubular tissues in a single step, using customized bioinks constituting gelatin methacryloyl, alginate, and eight-arm poly(ethylene glycol) acrylate with a tripentaerythritol core, is presented. These perfusable cannular constructs can be continuously tuned up from monolayer to triple layers at regular intervals across the length of a bioprinted tube. Using customized bioink and MCCES, bioprinting of several tubular tissue constructs using relevant cell types with adequate biofunctionality including cell viability, proliferation, and differentiation is demonstrated. Specifically, cannular urothelial tissue constructs are bioprinted, using human urothelial cells and human bladder smooth muscle cells, as well as vascular tissue constructs, using human umbilical vein endothelial cells and human smooth muscle cells. These bioprinted cannular tissues can be actively perfused with fluids and nutrients to promote growth and proliferation of the embedded cell types. The fabrication of such tunable and perfusable circumferentially multilayered tissues represents a fundamental step toward creating human cannular tissues.

This study has attempted to address prior knowledge gaps in the environmental economics literature by integrating the innovation shocks into the Environment Kuznets Curve (EKC) equation for twenty-six OECD economies using data from 1990 to 2014. Foreign direct investment (FDI), exports (EXP), renewable energy consumption (REC), and GDP per capita were included as control variables. The results from multiple empirical analyses indicated that positive shocks to innovation improve, but the negative shocks disrupt environmental quality. Data analyses also showed that a positive correlation exists between income per capita of OECD economies. From the negative coefficient of income per capita (squared) and the existence of a negative nexus between FDI and CO2e, both the EKC and the Pollution Halo Hypothesis (PHH) were confirmed in sampled economies, respectively. The paper offers empirical support for the favourable impacts of REC on the quality of the environment and calls for the adoption of innovation shocks as a policy instrument to formulate better environmental policies for a sustainable future.

Semantic segmentation of large-scale outdoor point clouds is essential for urban scene understanding in various applications, especially autonomous driving and urban high-definition (HD) mapping. With rapid developments of mobile laser scanning (MLS) systems, massive point clouds are available for scene understanding, but publicly accessible large-scale labeled datasets, which are essential for developing learning-based methods, are still limited. This paper introduces Toronto-3D, a large-scale urban outdoor point cloud dataset acquired by a MLS system in Toronto, Canada for semantic segmentation. This dataset covers approximately 1 km of point clouds and consists of about 78.3 million points with 8 labeled object classes. Baseline experiments for semantic segmentation were conducted and the results confirmed the capability of this dataset to train deep learning models effectively. Toronto-3D is released <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> to encourage new research, and the labels will be improved and updated with feedback from the research community.

Abstract The practice of multiculturalism in modern liberal democracies has been hampered by lack of a clear definition of 'racism' and 'anti-racism' as well as confusion about the role of multiculturalism in addressing disadvantage and combating racism. This lack of clarity has contributed to a marginalization of anti-racism within multiculturalism. As a prerequisite to re-centring anti-racist praxis within multiculturalism, this paper disentangles the concepts of 'equity' versus 'equality', 'racism', 'anti-racism', 'multiculturalism' and 'disadvantage'. We then distinguish between policies and practices designed to mitigate disadvantage, and those designed to address racism. Taking Australia as a case study, historical and contemporary notions of multiculturalism are examined before considering their relationship to racism, anti-racism and disadvantage. It is only through a clear understanding and inclusion of anti-racist praxis that the potential of multiculturalism to address the challenges of racial diversity in modern liberal democracies can be realized. Keywords: Racismanti-racismmulticulturalismtheorypolicyAustralia Acknowledgements The two authors contributed equally to this paper and are listed alphabetically. YP is supported by the CIPHER program, an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council population health capacity-building program (#236235) and an in-kind project of the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. During work on this manuscript GB was a Research Fellow at the McCaughey Centre, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne. Notes 1. The terms 'ethnorace' and 'ethnoracial' are used to capture notions of both ethnicity and race which are highly interdependent in discourse and practice (Paradies Citation2006). 2. This clearly does not include circumstances created by racist immigration policies and practice. 3. In this context 'elite discourse' refers to comments and debates made in the public domain by influential public figures. 4. This separation between Indigenous affairs and multiculturalism has resulted, in part, from the view that the history and experiences of Indigenous Australians are distinct from those of migrants. It has, however, been suggested that this dichotomy undermines the development of Australian anti-racism (Vasta and Castles Citation1996, p. 6). 5. One example is the Western Australian Substantive Equality Unit. This unit conducts racism audits and formulates anti-racism interventions within public sector departments. This project, however, is under-resourced, focusing on only one unit within one department of the Western Australian government each year. 6. The only exception being the Western Australian Substantive Equality Unit as described above. 7. Although this issue has been addressed in Victoria through the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 which includes the right to equal and effective protection against discrimination.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has evolved significantly over fifty years into a powerful analytical technique. This review aims to achieve five main goals. (1) Providing a comprehensive history of SERS's discovery, its experimental and theoretical foundations, its connections to advances in nanoscience and plasmonics, and highlighting collective contributions of key pioneers. (2) Classifying four pivotal phases from the view of innovative methodologies in the fifty-year progression: initial development (mid-1970s to mid-1980s), downturn (mid-1980s to mid-1990s), nano-driven transformation (mid-1990s to mid-2010s), and recent boom (mid-2010s onwards). (3) Illuminating the entire journey and framework of SERS and its family members such as tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) and shell-isolated nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SHINERS) and highlighting the trajectory. (4) Emphasizing the importance of innovative methods to overcome developmental bottlenecks, thereby expanding the material, morphology, and molecule generalities to leverage SERS as a versatile technique for broad applications. (5) Extracting the invaluable spirit of groundbreaking discovery and perseverant innovations from the pioneers and trailblazers. These key inspirations include proactively embracing and leveraging emerging scientific technologies, fostering interdisciplinary cooperation to transform the impossible into reality, and persistently searching to break bottlenecks even during low-tide periods, as luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Restriction or ban on antibiotic administration in aquaculture encourages the development of environment-friendly feed additives as immunostimulants. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and their salts are ‘Generally Regarded as Safe’ and are often used as antimicrobials in the livestock feed industry. Formate, acetate, propionate, butyrate and their salts are among the most studied SCFAs in aquaculture. These SCFAs affect the host performance as well as physiological response upon three ways: either through effects of the feeds that are being administered, through effects on the gastrointestinal tract of the animal or through direct effects on metabolism. To date, most of the available data are focused on the effects of SCFAs on growth performance and feed utilization. Despite extensive research studies on the effects of the different type of SCFAs and their salts on growth performance and feed utilization, the effects of these feed additives on the health of aquatic organisms have only been receiving attention recently. The results of the studies demonstrated beneficial effects of SCFAs as promising feed additives in aquaculture. The present review article summarizes and discusses the topic of dietary administration of SCFAs and their salts in aquaculture with a closer look at the recent findings regarding the effects of SCFAs on growth performance and health status of fish and shellfish. Furthermore, this review identifies the gaps of existing knowledge regarding the roles of SCFAs in the growth and health status of aquatic animals and suggests research areas that merit further investigations.

Smart gating membranes are important and promising in membrane science and technology. Rapid progress in developing smart membranes is transforming technology in many different fields, from energy and environmental to the life sciences. How a specific smart behavior for controllable gating of porous membranes can be obtained, especially for nano- and micrometer-sized multi-scale pore/channel-based membrane systems is addressed.

In this study, we examined the effects of the following eight experimental diets, which varied in fructo oligosaccharides (FOS), mannan oligosaccharides (MOS) and Bacillus clausii concentrations, on the Japanese flounder: control diet (no FOS, MOS and B. clausii), diet F (5 g kg−1 FOS), diet M (5 g kg−1 MOS), diet FM (2.5 g kg−1 FOS + 2.5 g kg−1 MOS), diet B (107 cells g−1B. clausii), diet FB (5 g kg−1 FOS + 107 cells g−1B. clausii), diet MB (5 g kg−1 MOS + 107 cells g−1B. clausii) and diet FMB (2.5 g kg−1 FOS + 2.5 g kg−1 MOS + 107 cells g−1B. clausii). Japanese flounder, initially weighing an average of 21 g, were distributed into 24 net cages at a stocking density of 20 fish per cage. Each diet was hand-fed to three groups of fish twice daily for 56 days. The weight gain rate (WGR) in fish fed diets B, MB and FMB were significantly higher than in fish fed the control diet, where the fish fed diet FMB had the highest WGR. Fish fed any of the diets, except diets F and B, exhibited better feed conversion ratio than those fed the control diet. Diets MB and FMB significantly elevated intestinal protease activity compared with the control diet, but only the diet FMB promoted amylase activity. Feeding diets FB and FMB increased body protein deposition; additionally, feeding diets B, MB and FMB significantly reduced body lipid deposition. Lysozyme (LSZ) activity was significantly higher in fish fed diets B, FB, MB and FMB than in fish fed the control diet. All diets, except diet M, decreased triglyceride (TG) levels compared to the control diet. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in fish fed diets F, FB and FMB were significantly lower than in fish fed the control diet. Without exception, no diets affected feeding rate, condition factor, body moisture, ash contents, phagocytic activity of leucocytes or cholesterol or high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Our results suggest that diets supplemented with FOS, MOS and B. clausii improved growth performance and health benefits of the Japanese flounder more than other diets or the control diet.

The regeneration of tooth enamel, the hardest biological tissue, remains a considerable challenge because its complicated and well-aligned apatite structure has not been duplicated artificially. We herein reveal that a rationally designed material composed of calcium phosphate ion clusters can be used to produce a precursor layer to induce the epitaxial crystal growth of enamel apatite, which mimics the biomineralization crystalline-amorphous frontier of hard tissue development in nature. After repair, the damaged enamel can be recovered completely because its hierarchical structure and mechanical properties are identical to those of natural enamel. The suggested phase transformation-based epitaxial growth follows a promising strategy for enamel regeneration and, more generally, for biomimetic reproduction of materials with complicated structure.

This paper presents an adaptive output-feedback neural network (NN) control scheme for a class of stochastic nonlinear time-varying delay systems with unknown control directions. To make the controller design feasible, the unknown control coefficients are grouped together and the original system is transformed into a new system using a linear state transformation technique. Then, the Nussbaum function technique is incorporated into the backstepping recursive design technique to solve the problem of unknown control directions. Furthermore, under the assumption that the time-varying delays exist in the system output, only one NN is employed to compensate for all unknown nonlinear terms depending on the delayed output. Moreover, by estimating the maximum of NN parameters instead of the parameters themselves, the NN parameters to be estimated are greatly decreased and the online learning time is also dramatically decreased. It is shown that all the signals of the closed-loop system are bounded in probability. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by the simulation results.

Abstract Freestanding 2D nanosheets with many unprecedented properties have been used in a myriad of applications. In this work, 2D copper‐bearing metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs; viz., Cu‐BDC) nanosheets are successfully fabricated via a facile and benign methodology through using Cu 2 O nanocubes (≈60 nm) as a confined metal ion source and 1,4‐benzenedicarboxylic acid (H 2 BDC) as an organic linker. The Cu 2 O nanocubes gradually release Cu + ions which are further oxidized by the dissolved oxygen and serve as nutrients for construction of 2D frameworks. In contrast, the conventional solvothermal synthesis with copper salt exclusively yields bulk Cu‐BDC with edge dimensions of 2–10 µm. Interestingly, the as‐prepared Cu‐BDC nanosheets show ultrathin thickness, oriented growth, and excellent crystallinity, which can be exploited as a platform for the design of a series of 2D‐integrated nanocatalysts by loading various metal nanocrystals such as Au, Ag, Pt, and Ru, with 3‐mercaptopropionic acid as molecular link. In addition, it is found that Cu‐BDC/M composites with highly accessible active sites on the surface exhibit high catalytic activity in several condensation reactions between benzaldehyde and primary amines. The findings offer an alternative strategy for rational design and synthesis of 2D MOF nanosheets and the derived 2D nanocomposites for catalytic applications.

Curcumin, an active ingredient from the rhizome of the plant, Curcuma longa, has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. It has recently been demonstrated that the chemopreventive activities of curcumin might be due to its ability to inhibit cell growth and induce apoptosis. In the present study, we have investigated the effects of curcumin on growth and apoptosis in the human ovarian cancer cell line Ho-8910 by MTT assay, fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry and Western blotting. Our data revealed that curcumin could significantly inhibit the growth and induce apoptosis in Ho-8910 cells. A decrease in expression of Bcl-2, Bcl-X(L) and pro-caspase-3 was observed after exposure to 40 microM curcumin, while the levels of p53 and Bax were increased in the curcumin-treated cells. These activities may contribute to the anticarcinogenic action of curcumin.

It is now a well-documented fact that there is a distinct relation between fish nutrition and health status. Intensification of aquaculture practice to meet market demand causes stress and elevates the risk of the disease outbreak. Therefore, provisions of proper diets as well as appropriate feeding regimens are of high importance in intensive aquaculture. Considering the negative impacts raised by prophylactic and therapeutic use of antibiotic in aquaculture, administration of dietary immunostimulant has been suggested as an alternative to antimicrobial agents. In this sense, functional dietary supplements, including pre-, pro- and synbiotic received increasing attention as an environment-friendly strategy for improving fish health. During the past years, administration of prebiotics in the diet of different fish species revealed promising results in immune response. In the present review article, the topic of the administration of dietary prebiotics in aquaculture is addressed with a special focus on recent findings regarding the effects of prebiotics on fish immune response and possible mode of action. Furthermore, the present study covers the gap in existing knowledge and suggests issues that merit further investigation.

Utilization of CO2 and its conversion to value-added chemicals are highly desirable to alleviate the environmental concerns caused by the massive anthropogenic CO2 emission. Although In2O3/Pd have been employed as efficient catalysts for hydrogenation of CO2 to methanol, the electronic effects by strong metal–support interaction (SMSI) between Pd and In2O3 are poorly understood, which is greatly affected by the morphology of In2O3. Herein, we use MIL-68(In) nanorod as a morphological template for the synthesis of hollow In2O3 nanotubes (h-In2O3) and the preparation of supported Pd catalysts for CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. Interestingly, loading Pd on h-In2O3 showed a much higher performance than In2O3 with other morphologies, which exhibited almost unchanged CO2 conversion of 10.5%, methanol selectively of 72.4%, and methanol space-time yield of 0.53 gMeOH h–1 gcat–1 over 100 h on stream at 3 MPa and 295 °C. After in-depth characterizations, we found that the different electronic properties of Pd species on In2O3 can be finely tuned by diverse synthetic conditions, which were responsible for high activity and stability. The molar fraction of Pd2+ species in the h-In2O3/Pd catalyst reached 67.6%, 3.2 times that of the In2O3@Pd catalyst (21.3%), due to the different surface chemistry of In2O3. Density function theory results indicated that the Pd donated more electrons to the curved In2O3 (222) surface than the pristine surface, and Pd2+ was critical to facilitate H2 adsorption and formation of the surface oxygen vacancy. This work demonstrates that controlling the morphology of In2O3 can modify both the Pd electronic property and SMSI between Pd and In2O3, which are the origins of the high catalytic performance.