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This paper examines the unexpected effects of cultural conflicts on individuals’ choices to study abroad, employing the Sino-US Boxer Indemnity Scholarship Program from 1909 to 1919. By exploiting the spatial variation of anti-missionary movements across 269 prefectures from 1860 to 1911, I show that there were more Chinese students studying in the US from prefectures with more previous conflicts. Conditional on studying abroad, they were also more likely to select STEM ma- jors during the study and return to China after the study, which accumulates the upper-tail human capital that facilitates early modernization and nation-building. Their preferences for modern education appear to reflect the locally increased nationalism, especially through revolutionist organizations.

Difficulties with social aspects of language are among the hallmarks of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These communication differences are thought to contribute to the challenges that adults with ASD experience when seeking employment, underscoring the need for interventions that focus on improving areas of weakness in pragmatic and social language. In this paper, we describe a transformer-based framework for identifying linguistic features associated with social aspects of communication using a corpus of conversations between adults with and without ASD and neurotypical conversational partners produced while engaging in collaborative tasks. While our framework yields strong accuracy overall, performance is significantly worse for the language of participants with ASD, suggesting that they use a more diverse set of strategies for some social linguistic functions. These results, while showing promise for the development of automated language analysis tools to support targeted language interventions for ASD, also reveal weaknesses in the ability of large contextualized language models to model neuroatypical language.

In recent years, large usage of wireless networks puts forward challenge to the utilization of spectrum resources, and it is significant to improve the spectrum utilization and the system sum data rates in the premise of fairness. However, the existing algorithms have drawbacks in efficiency to maximize the sum data rates of orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems in the premise of fairness threshold. To address the issue, a novel artificial bee colony algorithm with update quantities of nectar sources is proposed for OFDMA resource allocation in this paper. Firstly, the population of nectar sources is divided into several groups, and a different update quantity of nectar sources is set for each group. Secondly, based on the update quantities of nectar sources set for these groups, nectar sources are initialized by a greedy subcarrier allocation method. Thirdly, neighborhood searches and updates are performed on dimensions of nectar sources corresponding to the preset update quantities. The proposed algorithm can not only make the initialized nectar sources maintain high levels of fairness through the greedy subcarrier allocation but also use the preset update quantities to reduce dimensions of the nectar sources to be optimized by the artificial bee colony algorithm, thereby making full use of both the local optimization of the greedy method and the global optimization of the artificial bee colony algorithm. The simulation results show that, just in the equal-power subcarrier allocation stage, the proposed algorithm can achieve the required fairness threshold and effectively improve the system sum data rates.

The plateau vortex is one of the dominant weather systems that modulate summer rainfall in northwestern China, a typical arid/semi-arid area worldwide. Two heavy rainfall cases in the summer of 2012 and 2013, accompanying the northeastward movement of plateau vortexes, are selected here. The role of plateau vortexes in these two cases is explored by diagnosing their moist potential vorticity, helicity, and convective clouds characteristics, using numerous data (ERA-Interim reanalysis, multi-sourced precipitation data, FY-2E satellite images). The plateau vortexes enhanced convective instability in the rainfall area by entraining upper-level dry and cold air, manifested as salient vertical gradients of moist potential vorticity and steep pseudo-equivalent potential temperature isolines. The rainfall occurred eastward relative to the vortex movement track and intensified on the left of cloud black body temperature (TBB) with larger gradients at the middle to late stages of the vortex life span. The generation of moisture helicity is dictated by the water vapor transportation, with the negative value concentrated in the water vapor-rich areas. Notably, the two cases differ in tracks, life spans, water vapor sources, and precipitation amounts, which may be attributed to large-scale circulation background, vertical vortex structure, and moisture condition.

Additional file 1: Methods. Table S1. Participant characteristics in the GNHS. Table S2. Participant characteristics of the CHNS. Table S3. Associations between α-diversity and cognitive impairment in the GNHS (n = 1430). Table S4. Associations between α-diversity and cognitive decline in the CHNS (n = 1300). Table S5. Weights for genus features contributing to the LASSO models. Table S6. Associations between bacterial taxonomy and cognitive performance in the CHNS (n = 1300). Table S7. Associations between Odoribacter and SCFAs in the GNHS. Table S8. Associations between serum acetic acid and brain structure in the GNHS. Table S9. Distribution of metagenomic features in the GNHS. Table S10. Associations between intra-individual alterations in gut microbial composition and cognitive impairment in the GNHS. Table S11. Metagenomic and metabolomic features associated with cognitive impairment in the GNHS. Table S12. Correlations of metagenomic and metabolic features with MMSE domains in the GNHS. Table S13. Correlations between metagenomic features and metabolites in the GNHS. Fig. S1 Overview of the multi-omics datasets of the GNHS. Fig. S2 Distribution of metagenomic and metabolomic features in the GNHS. Fig. S3 Correlation analyses on cognition-related metagenomic and metabolic traits in the GNHS. Fig. S4 Association of metagenomic pathways and serum metabolomics with cognitive function in the GNHS. Fig. S5 Networks of metagenomic pathways in the GNHS.

Objective: To quantify the expression of miR-195 and miR-497 in acute stroke and to evaluate their correlations with post-stroke cognitive impairment. Methods: A total of 108 patients with acute stroke admitted to our hospital from January, 2019 to June, 2020 were enrolled as a patient group, and 76 healthy volunteers were recruited as a normal group. Levels of serum miR-195 and miR-497 in the two groups were quantified. Neurological and cognitive functions were tested by National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), respectively. Diagnostic value of serum miR-195 and miR-497 in acute stroke was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and independent risk factors were determined by multivariate logistic regression. Results: Levels of serum miR-195 and miR-497 increased in acute stroke. The area under the curve (AUC) of serum miR-195 in the diagnosis of acute stroke was 0.901, while that of serum miR-497 was 0.922. Levels of miR-195 and miR-497 were positively correlated with NIHSS score and negatively correlated with MoCA score. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that family history of stroke, diabetes, hypertension, NIHSS score, MoCA score, miR-195, and miR-497 were independent risk factors for acute stroke. Conclusion: Serum miR-195 and miR-497 are elevated in acute stroke and associated with the loss of neurologic and cognitive functions. They may be biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis of acute stroke.

Yuanjue Sun,1,* Liguo Liu,2,* Yaling Wang,3 Aina He,3 Haiyan Hu,3 Jianjun Zhang,3 Mingyong Han,1 Yujing Huang3 1Cancer Therapy and Research Center, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Shandong University, 250021, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of General Surgery, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, 200233 Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Medical Oncology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, 200233 Shanghai, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Purpose: The aims of this study were to determine the effect of curcumin on osteosarcoma (OS) cells due to inactivation of the p-JAK2/p-STAT3 pathway and evaluate the prognostic value of this pathway in OS. Materials and methods: We exposed a human OS cell line (MG-63) to different concentrations of curcumin. Then, we characterized the effects on MG-63 cells using assays (cell viability, colony formation, cell cycle, wound healing, invasion), flow cytometry, Western blot, immunohistochemical analyses, and tumor xenograft. Results: The half-maximal inhibitory of curcumin for MG-63 cells at 24 hours was 27.6 µM. The number of colonies of MG-63 cells was decreased obviously upon curcumin (10 and 20 µM) treatment. We also found increased accumulation of MG-63 cells in the G2/M phase upon curcumin (10 and 20 µM) treatment. Apoptosis was increased in 10 and 20 µM curcumin-treated MG-63 cells. After incubation of physically wounded cells for 24 hours, the percentage wound width increased upon curcumin exposure. Curcumin obviously decreased the expression of pJAK-2 and pSTAT-3 in MG-63 cells in a dose-dependent manner. Curcumin dose-dependently inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of MG-63 cells and induced arrest of the G0/G1 phase and apoptosis by inhibiting the p-JAK2/p-STAT3 pathway. The linear correlativity between expression of p-JAK2 and STAT3 was very prominent, and both were closely associated with lung metastasis. In vivo study suggested that curcumin suppressed tumor growth through JAK2/STAT3 signaling. Conclusion: Curcumin-mediated inhibition of the proliferation and migration of MG-63 cells was associated with inactivation of JAK/STAT signaling. Keywords: osteosarcoma, curcumin, multiplication, invasion

Rationale: Intracranial vascular atherosclerotic occlusion is one of the most common causes of ischemic stroke world wide. The involvement of large intracranial vessels, in particular, the middle cerebral artery, is usually associated with unfavorable outcomes in patients. Spontaneous recanalization of atherosclerotic occlusion is relatively rare. Patient concerns: The first patient was a 43-year-old male with slurred speech and left-sided weakness for a duration of 24 hours. The second was a 59-year-old male with left-sided weakness over a period of 13 hours. The last was a 49-year-old female patient presented with a 1-month history of right-sided headache. Diagnoses: Atherosclerotic middle cerebral artery occlusion. Interventions: In all cases, oral aspirin (100 mg; once daily), Plavix (75 mg; once daily), and Lipitor (40 mg; once daily) were used . Oral Plavix was stopped 3 months. Outcomes: Spontaneous recanalization occured in the three cases of atherosclerotic middle cerebral artery occlusion. Lessons: Spontaneous recanalization may occur in both early and late stages of atherosclerotic middle cerebral artery occlusion. Clinicians should be aware of this particular condition, as it may represent a relatively favorable prognosis.