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This present study was undertaken to determine whether beta-blockers produce the cutaneous analgesic effect, comparing them with the long-acting local anesthetic bupivacaine.Using a rat model of infiltrative cutaneous analgesia, the effect of 5 beta-blockers (oxprenolol, carteolol, butaxamine, metoprolol, and acebutolol) and bupivacaine was compared and eventually combined with epinephrine.Among 5 beta-blockers, oxprenolol exhibited the most potent and the longest duration of cutaneous analgesia. In dose-response studies, the rank order of efficacy (EDOxprenolol and carteolol had greater potencies and longer durations of cutaneous analgesia than butaxamine, metoprolol, and acebutolol. Oxprenolol produced a similar duration of action when compared to bupivacaine, while carteolol had a greater duration of action than bupivacaine. Cutaneous analgesia of oxprenolol (or carteolol) plus adrenaline was greater than that of bupivacaine plus adrenaline.

In response to the recently rising number of academic papers that empirically examine local variances in China’s Belt and Initiative (BRI) projects in various foreign lands, this paper points out the tension between attempts to theorize BRI projects. The Sino-localized approach and the assemblage theory were the two main attempts used by scholars from disparate academic disciplines to conceptualize local agency and to understand how local conditionalities, practices, and norms may affect the outcome of BRI projects. We need to examine their differences and similarities, and determine whether they are really irreconcilable. In addition, how their ontological differences lead to epistemological, methodological and analytical differences in studying BRI projects should be clarified as well.

The aim of the experiment was to investigate the effects of treadmill exercise on postthoracotomy pain and the expression of spinal pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines.Animals were randomly distributed into four groups: (a) sham surgery, (b) rats following 60 min thoracotomy and rib retraction (thoracotomy), (c) thoracotomy rats received treadmill training (thoracotomy+treadmill), and (d) sham surgery rats received treadmill training (sham surgery+treadmill). Treadmill workouts were started on postoperative day 10 (POD10) and lasted for 6 weeks (5 days per week). Rats were examined for cold allodynia using acetone and mechanical allodynia using von Frey hairs (in grams) at the surgical site. Spinal pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines were analyzed on PODs 28 and 49.Both thoracotomy and thoracotomy+treadmill groups exhibited a decrease in mechanical force thresholds (g) and an increase in scratches per min on POD10. Mechanical hypersensitivity and incremental scratches lasted from POD14 and POD49 in the thoracotomy group. Although force thresholds and scratches remained not return to baseline, incremental force thresholds (Mechanical allodynia using von Frey filament testing and cold allodynia by acetone testing were improved in thoracotomy rats after treadmill workouts.. Treadmill exercise restrained excess pro-inflammatory cytokine expression but increased anti-inflammatory cytokine level in a rib retraction model.

In February 2021, Asian Ethnicity formed a new team of editors-in-chief, led by Ian G. Baird, professor of geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Matthew W. King, associate professor of religi...

Football is among the world’s most popular sports. It is also one which China has sought to develop in the field of global professional sport. Nevertheless, the professionalization of football in China has not to date actually improved China’s Olympic achievement in the sport. In stark contrast to the glory of being the country that won most gold medals at the 2008 Olympics, China’s poor football performance has been troublesome for the country’s leader. In 2009, newly elected Xi Jin-Ping made a public statement about promoting elite football and expressed his personal hope that China would be capable of both qualifying for the final stages and winning the FIFA World Cup. With such concern on the part of the state leader, attention turned to football, with many private enterprises beginning to echo government policy by demonstrating a willingness to promote elite football. In addition, to accelerate football development, the Chinese Government promised to take action on the separation of governmen...

Discourse analysis of different languages of newspapers in Kazakhstan reveals that Kazakhstanis’ views towards China and the Chinese are divided. The official discourse in both state-sponsored Russian and Kazakh newspapers is in accordance with the country's policy towards further engagement with their rising Chinese neighbour. However, negative stereotypes of China and the Chinese, as well as sinophobia, are pervasive in private Kazakh language newspapers. Private Russian newspapers have a more nuanced view towards China, with a hidden inclination towards being critical of that country and its people. Although the majority of these societal voices do not have a direct impact on changing the national policies of Kazakhstan, they are important in the sense that Kazakhstan's ruling elite must continue to gauge social views and to placate differences in order to secure the stability and legitimacy of the regime.

Sinophone cyberspace, the imagined, global space where netizens write and communicate predominantly in Chinese, is a dynamic set of encounters and narratives in the lived realities of ‘Chineseness’...

This study aims to explore the relationship between the Chinese government and the globalization of sport. The analysis looks at how the Chinese government has developed and managed its national sport, table tennis, as the sport became more and more globalized. This research developed a theoretical framework and an analytical tool based on Houlihan's model for analyzing ‘global reach and local response in sport’ and adopted a qualitative approach of content analysis and semi-structured interviews. A total of 16 interviewees contributed to this study, consisting of officials from Chinese sports administrations and Chinese scholars specializing in sports studies. This study found that the Chinese government has responded to the challenges associated with the globalization of table tennis in the dimensions of ‘participating in international organizations’ and ‘commercialization’ in two and five different ways, respectively. As this case study of China shows, a country's response to the globalization of sport...

The purpose of the present study was to compare acute changes in oxidative stress and inflammation in response to steady state and low volume, high intensity interval exercise (LV-HIIE). Untrained healthy males (n = 10, mean ± s: age 22 ± 3 years; VO2MAX 42.7 ± 5.0 ml · kg(-1) · min(-1)) undertook three exercise bouts: a bout of LV-HIIE (10 × 1 min 90% VO2MAX intervals) and two energy-matched steady-state cycling bouts at a moderate (60% VO2MAX; 27 min, MOD) and high (80% VO2MAX; 20 min, HIGH) intensity on separate days. Markers of oxidative stress, inflammation and physiological stress were assessed before, at the end of exercise and 30 min post-exercise (post+30). At the end of all exercise bouts, significant changes in lipid hydroperoxides (LOOH) and protein carbonyls (PCs) (LOOH (nM): MOD +0.36; HIGH +3.09; LV-HIIE +5.51 and PC (nmol · mg(-1) protein): MOD -0.24; HIGH -0.11; LV-HIIE -0.37) were observed. Total antioxidant capacity (TAC) increased post+30, relative to the end of all exercise bouts (TAC (µM): MOD +189; HIGH +135; LV-HIIE +102). Interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 increased post+30 in HIGH and LV-HIIE only (P0.05). HIGH caused the greatest lymphocytosis, adrenaline and cardiovascular response (P0.05). At a reduced energy cost and physiological stress, LV-HIIE elicited similar cytokine and oxidative stress responses to HIGH.

Xiaowei Zang is an authoritative scholar in the study of ethnicity in China. He joined the City University of Hong Kong as the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in 2013. His p...

This compilation brings together a rich and diverse array of studies centered on Chinese migration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) from the sixteenth century to the present. A deficiency i...

This article presents the fatigue reliability analysis of welded details of a 40-year old steel box-girder bridge, based on the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) and the long-term stress monitoring. The fatigue crack growth is described by using the LEFM, based on which the ultimate limit state is established as a function of the crack size. Effective stress ranges are obtained from daily stress range histograms, and lognormal probability density functions (PDFs) are used to model the uncertainties in stress data. Details at discontinuous backing bar splices, which have not been explicitly listed in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) specification, and the welded details at the base of bridge bents are evaluated on their fatigue reliabilities. It is found that the backing bar splice detail may have high fatigue reliability, considering that low stress ranges and small number of cycles occurred in the monitoring period. For the weld detail at the base of ...

This article explores the adoption of geographic information system (GIS) knowledge and skills through in-service training for high school geography teachers in Taiwan. Through statistical analysis of primary data collected from a census of Taiwan's high school geography teachers, it explores what motivates these teachers to undertake GIS training. The design of the questionnaire was largely inspired by the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the social influence model (SIM). The former model postulates the influence of perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use (PEOU) of GIS on teachers' actual adoption of the technology. The latter, in contrast, postulates that teachers' usage of GIS is affected by their peers and their schools. Statistical findings indicate that PU and school support are important factors influencing teachers' adoption of GIS in Taiwan.

Phosphopantetheine adenylyltransferase (PPAT) catalyses the penultimate step in coenzyme A biosynthesis in bacteria and is therefore a candidate target for antibacterial drug development. We randomly mutated the residues in the Helicobacter pylori PPAT sequence to identify those that govern protein folding and ligand binding, and we describe the crystal structure of one of these mutants (I4V/N76Y) that contains the mutations I4 → V and N76 → Y. Unlike other PPATs, which are homohexamers, I4V/N76Y is a domain-swapped homotetramer. The protomer structure of this mutant is an open conformation in which the 65 C-terminal residues are intertwined with those of a neighbouring protomer. Despite structural differences between wild-type PPAT and IV4/N76Y, they had similar ligand-binding properties. ATP binding to these two proteins was enthalpically driven, whereas that for Escherichia coli PPAT is entropically driven. The structural packing of the subunits may affect the thermal denaturation of wild-type PPAT and I4V/N76Y. Mutations in hinge regions often induce domain swapping, i.e. the spatial exchange of portions of adjacent protomers, but residues 4 and 76 of H. pylori PPAT are not located in or near to the hinge region. However, one or both of these residues is responsible for the large conformational change in the C-terminal region of each protomer. To identify the residue(s) responsible, we constructed the single-site mutant, N76Y, and found a large displacement of α-helix 4, which indicated that its flexibility allowed the domain swap to occur.

This report presents cartographic evidence of the government of the Republic of China's (ROC) change of attitude from denying to asserting sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands in the early 1970s. Scholars have hinted that China kept silent about the Japanese claim on the Diaoyutai Islands since its 1895 annexation. As cartographic evidence in this report reveals, however, the ROC did not keep silent. By not including the Diaoyutai Islands in its official cartographic productions, the ROC admitted that the Diaoyutai Islands were not part of its territory. This has significant implications for the ROC because Japan exerts its claim over the islands not only on the terra nullius principle, but also on the fact that Taiwan viewed these islands as non-ROC territory until the 1970s. Today, Taiwan continues to exert the claim that it has owned these islands since ancient times. Our cartographic evidence suggests difficulties for Taiwan in defending its claim in this longstanding battle.

Given the recent increase of scholarly interest in the Uyghur diaspora's international activism, this research note presents the development of the Uyghur issue in Germany. Although the Uyghur issue has gradually received attention in German legislative debate, this was not primarily achieved through diasporic efforts; rather, the willingness of sympathetic German parliamentarians to offer Uyghur activists the opportunities and venues to operate played a determining role. However, party politics and reservations from the executive branch have prevented Berlin from accepting Uyghur Guantanamo inmates.

Please click here to download the map associated with this article. The leitmotif of creating “Taiwan's East Asian Neighbors” lies in providing alternative perspectives of observing Taiwan that are absent in traditional maps. Instead of using a conventional Mercator projection, leading to serious distortions of territories at the mid and high latitudes, this map uses an oblique Mercator projection and tactful selection of standard lines to present a precise image of Taiwan and its surrounding countries of the East Asian island arcs. The novelty of this cartographic product has stirred debates from various corners of Taiwan society. These debates reflect the success of this map because it has achieved the aim of stimulating plural perspectives of observing and understanding Taiwan. “Taiwan's East Asian Neighbors” manifests well the potential geopolitical impacts of cartography on a society.

During the past 400 years, Taiwan has experienced the dominance of various political regimes, which allowed the development of a diversity of cartographic styles for academic comparison. A detailed analysis of historical maps across centuries demonstrates that this contested island has been illustrated with a blending of reality, misconception and imagination. This paper narrates how maps reveal political rulers’ conscious and unconscious perceptions of this island. We call attention to the abundant cartographic materials in existence and suggest that they can be fascinating materials for the study of the contested colonial histories of this island in various disciplines.

In the introduction to Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History, Kathleen Lopez illustrates the lives of two Chinese men. Tung Kun Sen was kidnapped in his native China in the mid-nineteenth century...

1. Borderland politics in northern India 2. Space and community between the local and the global: two examples from the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam 3. Choosing the Gorkha: at the crossroads of class and ethnicity in the Darjeeling hills 4. Ethnic identities and the dynamics of regional and sub-regional assertions in Jammu and Kashmir 5. Research note: Ethnic mobilisation for decolonisation: colonial legacy (the case of the Zo people in Northeast India)

Xinjiang: China's Muslim borderland, edited by S. Frederick Starr, New York & London, M.E. Sharpe, 2004, 484 pp., £34/$28 (hardback), ISBN 0-7656-1317-4 When Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland was...

Adaptive PID control with an adjustable identification interval is proposed. The difficulty of choosing a suitable sampling time for control systems is prevented. The identification algorithm depends on that the identification interval is different from the sampling interval. Tuning of the PID controller is based on an adaptive first-order plus dead time model at each identification step. The model is obtained directly from an identified second-order one. Two illustrative examples are presented to show the considerable promise that the method exhibits.

A theoretical model of catalyst deactivation by a first order heterogeneous reaction is presented for a kinetically controlled configuration. The deactivation rate is shown to be a function of the first Damkohler similarity parameter and the ratio of initial adsorption site density to poison concentration in the feed stream.

A theoretical analysis is presented to describe the rate data in terms of fundamental reaction steps involved in the overall methanation kinetics. A model involving reaction inhibition (by adsorbed CO) was used in combination with the physical properties of the catalysts to determine the ranges of temperature and partial pressure of CO where pore diffusion significantly influences the observed methanation rate.

Gas phase compositions in equilibrium with Fe3O4, Fe2C, and Fe3C have been calculated over the complete composition range of the C‐H‐O system. The calculations were performed via the free energy minimization technique and cover a range of temperatures from 500 to 800 K, and pressures from 1 to 33? atm. Also, over this range of conditions iron oxide and iron carbides boundaries were determined. These are presented on triangular coordinates in terms of atom percent of the elements C, H, and O. In addition, the equilibrium gas phase compositions are presented graphically as a function of the O/H atom ratio, and are discussed.