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Purpose To investigate the relationship between renal artery anatomical configuration and renal artery plaque (RAP) based on 320-row CT. Methods The abdominal contrast-enhanced CT data from 210 patients was retrospectively analyzed. Among 210 patients, there were 118 patients with RAP and 92 patients with no RAP. The anatomical parameters between lesion group and control group were compared and analyzed by using t-test, χ2-test and logistic regression analysis. Results (1) There were statistical differences on age, hypertension, diabetes, hypertriglyceridemia and hypercholesterolemia between lesion group and control group. (2) The differences on the distribution and type and of RAP between lesion group and control group were statistically significant. The most common position was the proximal, and the most common type was calcified plaque. (3)There were significant statistical differences on the proximal diameter of renal artery and renal artery-aorta angle A between lesion group and control group. The differences on the other anatomical factors between two groups were not statistically significant. (4) The result of logistic regression analysis showed that right RAP was related to age, hypertension and right renal artery angle A (the AUC of ROC = 0.82), and left RAP was related to high serum cholesterol, age and left renal artery angle A(the AUC of ROC = 0.83). (5) The RAP was associated with renal artery-aorta angle A, but the differences on distribution, type stability of RAP between R1 (L1) group and R2 (L2) group were not statistically significant. Conclusions The RAP was associated with age, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and renal artery-aorta angle A. Adults which had the greater renal artery-aorta angle A and the other above risk factors may be at increased risk for RAP.

The research literature indicates that self-regulated learning can strengthen teacher agency in taking charge of their own learning and teaching, which is important when teachers encounter difficulties or challenges due to the requirements of educational and curriculum reform. This study explores how professional teacher development training activates rural teachers’ agency in transforming their practice and becoming self-regulated practitioners in China. Data were collected from two teacher mentors and seven primary school teachers, including classroom observation records, teachers’ narratives and reflections, and individual interviews. These participants’ self-regulated learning was found to develop through three phases: goal setting and assimilation; implementation of the teaching goal and the teaching methods being learned; and self-reflection. This process intertwined with and reciprocated other-regulated learning. The teachers’ agency shifted from initial resistance to adoption of the training, and then to innovation in practice, during which both their cognition and practices were transformed. Implications for teacher learning programs were also discussed.

Traditional rationalism has treated cognition and emotion separately. Pre-service teachers’ emotional experiences during teacher preparation programmes have not been sufficiently discussed in research. This study uses Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory perspective to analyse the nature of the emotion-cognition nexus of pre-service teachers during professional experience. Sociocultural theory regards emotions as originated from social interaction and playing a catalytic role for teachers’ development. Data were collected from questionnaire surveys and pre-service teachers’ narratives. The findings indicate that the prominent factors impacting on the participants’ emotional patterns are their students and supervising teachers. In addition, this study reveals the dialectical relationship between pre-service teachers’ emotion-cognition, which impact on the development of their professional personality as teachers. During this process, the creation of tools and support from others play key roles in their conceptual and emotional development. The findings imply that pre-service teachers’ emotional experience can be used as a resource for their professional growth and development.

This study aims to examine how pre-service teachers learn to teach in Australia context during their practicum and how this learning experience constructs their identities as teachers through activity theory framework. Data were drawn from interviews with two pre-service teachers, interviews with their supervising teachers and university mentors, lesson plans, and supervising teacher’s feedback. The findings indicate that the two pre-service teachers’ identity formation is a continuing process and an outcome of the collective activity through their interaction with their coordinating teachers, mentors and students. We argue that teachers’ identity formation is related to their agency to seek and offer support to others. The pre-service teachers could produce and reproduce their identity in the relevant community through their agentive action to interact with others.

To explore Chinese medicine (CM) syndrome distribution of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) carriers in immunotolerant phase (ITP).One hundred and eighty-five chronic HBV carriers in ITP, seen in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from May 2009 to December 2010, were admitted in an observational study under the guidance of CM. Patients' CM symptoms and signs, demographics, liver biochemistries, and qualitative HBV DNA were recorded in the questionnaires. CM syndromes were then differentiated to 15 detailed types and analyzed by generalization. Lastly, the location, pathogenic factors and nature of the disease were also assessed.When CM syndrome patterns were differentiated to 15 types, there were 27 (15%) no syndrome cases, 94 (50%) single syndrome cases and 64 (35%) compound syndromes cases. The main detailed syndromes included Liver (Gan)-qi depression (LQD), Kidney (Shen)-qi deficiency (KQD), Spleen (Pi)-qi deficiency (SQD) and Kidney-yang deficiency (KYAD). After CM syndromes generalized to five types, their frequency was Spleen-Kidney deficiency (SKD)LQDinner dampness-heat retention (IDHR)Liver-Kidney deficiency (LKD)blood stasis blocking collateral (BSBC). SKD and LQD occupied 64%. The disease location included Liver, Gallbladder (Dan), Spleen, Stomach (Wei) and Kidney. The pathogenic factors were mainly qi stagnation, qi deficiency, yang deficiency, concurrently dampness-heat and blood stasis. The deficiency syndrome was more than excess syndrome in its nature.Most of chronic HBV carriers in ITP have their CM syndrome, and the most common types are SKAD, LQD. This study suggests that the natural history may be improved through breaking the state of immune tolerance or shorten the time of ITP by strengthening Spleen-Kidney and reliving Liver qi.

In this paper, we introduce two pairs of operators in fuzzy formal contexts. Based on the proposed operators, we present two kinds of multi-level formal concepts. We also propose two pairs of rough approximation operators by employing the two kinds of multi-level formal concepts. By the proposed rough set approximation operators, we not only approximate a crisp set, but also approximate a fuzzy set. Finally, we discuss the properties of the proposed approximation operators in details.

This paper deals with the mechanics problem of dynamic walking of anthropomorphic biped robots. Through analysing the mechanics system of this kind of robots in detail, the motion constraint equations are established, three mechanics laws describing the relationships among the external forces are obtained, and the approaches to measuring and computing these forces using the pressure sensors are proposed. The results not only reveal the mechanics characteristics of dynamic walking of anthropomorphic biped robots but also are of an important significance in realizing the on-line computation and real-time control of their dunamic walking.