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\"Traces the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance between 1949 and 1973, emphasizing tension over the Korean and Vietnam wars. Underscoring the theme of inherent conflict within the communist movement, this book shows that while that movement was an international campaign with an imposing theory and an impressive party structure, it was also a collection of sovereign states with disparate national interests. This book explains how this dissonance was further complicated by the unequal development of the Chinese and Soviet states and their communist parties, and traces some of China's actions to Mao's grasping at leadership of the communist movement after the death of Stalin.\"--Publisher's description.

The human history has witnessed the rapid development of technologies such as high-throughput sequencing and mass spectrometry that led to the concept of “omics” and methodological advancement in systematically interrogating a cellular system. Yet, the ever-growing types of molecules and regulatory mechanisms being discovered have been persistently transforming our understandings on the cellular machinery. This renders cell omics seemingly, like the universe, expand with no limit and our goal toward the complete harness of the cellular system merely impossible. Therefore, it is imperative to review what has been done and is being done to predict what can be done toward the translation of omics information to disease control with minimal cell perturbation. With a focus on the “four big omics,” i.e., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, we delineate hierarchies of these omics together with their epiomics and interactomics, and review technologies developed for interrogation. We predict, among others, redoxomics as an emerging omics layer that views cell decision toward the physiological or pathological state as a fine-tuned redox balance.

Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards (APIDA) is organised by the Hong Kong Interior Design Association. It aims to give recognition to outstanding interior design projects and designers, promoting professional standards and ethics among interior design practices operating in the Asia Pacific region. The awards accept the interior design projects completed in the Asia/Pacific Region, including Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Macau, Thailand, The Philippines, India, Indonesia, Korea, Australia & New Zealand. This book selects the best projects from the excellent entries for the 20th Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards (APIDA). They fall into chapters, including food space, hotel space, leisure and entertainment space, living space, installation and exhibition space, public space, work space, shopping space and students' projects. This collection shows the readers the wisdom and design ideas of the designers in Asia-pacific region and unveil the design hotspots which belong to the Asia-pacific region.

Brain organoids have been used to recapitulate the processes of brain development and related diseases. However, the lack of vasculatures, which regulate neurogenesis and brain disorders, limits the utility of brain organoids. In this study, we induced vessel and brain organoids, respectively, and then fused two types of organoids together to obtain vascularized brain organoids. The fused brain organoids were engrafted with robust vascular network-like structures and exhibited increased number of neural progenitors, in line with the possibility that vessels regulate neural development. Fusion organoids also contained functional blood–brain barrier-like structures, as well as microglial cells, a specific population of immune cells in the brain. The incorporated microglia responded actively to immune stimuli to the fused brain organoids and showed ability of engulfing synapses. Thus, the fusion organoids established in this study allow modeling interactions between the neuronal and non-neuronal components in vitro, particularly the vasculature and microglia niche. Understanding how the organs form and how their cells behave is essential to finding the causes and treatment for developmental disorders, as well as understanding certain diseases. However, studying most organs in live animals or humans is technically difficult, expensive and invasive. To address this issue, scientists have developed models called ‘organoids’ that recapitulate the development of organs using stem cells in the lab. These models are easier to study and manipulate than the live organs. Brain organoids have been used to recapitulate brain formation as well as developmental, degenerative and psychiatric brain conditions such as microcephaly, autism and Alzheimer’s disease. However, these brain organoids lack the vasculature (the network of blood vessels) that supplies a live brain with nutrients and regulates its development, and which has important roles in brain disorders. Partly due to this lack of blood vessels, brain organoids also do not develop a blood brain barrier, the structure that prevents certain contents of the blood, including pathogens, toxins and even certain drugs from entering the brain. These characteristics limit the utility of existing brain organoids. To overcome these limitations, Sun, Ju et al. developed brain organoids and blood vessel organoids independently, and then fused them together to obtain vascularized brain organoids. These fusion organoids developed a robust network of blood vessels that was well integrated with the brain cells, and produced more neural cell precursors than brain organoids that had not been fused. This result is consistent with the idea that blood vessels can regulate brain development. Analyzing the fusion organoids revealed that they contain structures similar to the blood-brain barrier, as well as microglial cells (immune cells specific to the brain). When exposed to lipopolysaccharide – a component of the cell wall of certain bacteria – these cells responded by initiating an immune response in the fusion organoids. Notably, the microglial cells were also able to engulf connections between brain cells, a process necessary for the brain to develop the correct structures and work normally. Sun, Ju et al. have developed a new organoid system that will be of broad interest to researchers studying interactions between the brain and the circulatory system. The development of brain-blood-barrier-like structures in the fusion organoids could also facilitate the development of drugs that can cross this barrier, making it easier to treat certain conditions that affect the brain. Refining this model to allow the fusion organoids to grow for longer times in the lab, and adding blood flow to the system will be the next steps to establish this system.

يضم هذا الكتاب ثلاث قصص قصيرة من روائع الكاتب الصيني شين تسونج ون، يدعونا فيها إلى رؤية جديدة، وقراءة جديدة ونظرة موضوعية إلى أخص مشاكلنا الإنسانية وخاصة في رائعته «الطفلة العروس» حيث التقط قلمه المرهف أحداث قصته من واقع الحياة الاجتماعية في قرية جبلية ويقرر حقيقة بديهية مفادها أن حياة بطلة القصة لم تكن صوابا بلا أخطاء، كما لم تكن خطأ غاب عنه الصواب. شأنها في ذلك شأن طبائع الأشياء، وشأن كافة أبناء آدم وحواء. في «زوج ريفي» يقدم الكاتب صورة للحياة الاجتماعية التي يئن تحت وطأتها فلاحو قرية فقيرة ولا يجدون ما يسد رمقهم ويقيم أودهم، ولذلك يدعو بحماس إلى حق الإنسان في الكرامة والحياة الإنسانية النبيلة ويعلن تأييده لحقوق الفلاحين المأزومين والمسحوقين في الحياة الكريمة من الحب والزواج مثل سائر البشر فوق أرجاء المعمورة. أما في «ابن النمر» فيصور الكاتب طباع الإنسان التي تأبى التغيير مركزا على أن المجتمع الذي ينشأ فيه الإنسان هو المسؤول عن خصاله وطباعه الشريرة والهمجية، وذلك بعد أن أخفقت الحضارة الحديثة في هزيمة البربرية والهمجية داخل الإنسان.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive and irreversible brain degenerative disorder. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a clinical precursor of AD. Although some treatments can delay its progression, no effective cures are available for AD. Accurate early-stage diagnosis of AD is vital for the prevention and intervention of the disease progression. Hippocampus is one of the first affected brain regions in AD. To help AD diagnosis, the shape and volume of the hippocampus are often measured using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, these features encode limited information and may suffer from segmentation errors. Additionally, the extraction of these features is independent of the classification model, which could result in sub-optimal performance. In this study, we propose a multi-model deep learning framework based on convolutional neural network (CNN) for joint automatic hippocampal segmentation and AD classification using structural MRI data. Firstly, a multi-task deep CNN model is constructed for jointly learning hippocampal segmentation and disease classification. Then, we construct a 3D Densely Connected Convolutional Networks (3D DenseNet) to learn features of the 3D patches extracted based on the hippocampal segmentation results for the classification task. Finally, the learned features from the multi-task CNN and DenseNet models are combined to classify disease status. Our method is evaluated on the baseline T1-weighted structural MRI data collected from 97 AD, 233 MCI, 119 Normal Control (NC) subjects in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. The proposed method achieves a dice similarity coefficient of 87.0% for hippocampal segmentation. In addition, the proposed method achieves an accuracy of 88.9% and an AUC (area under the ROC curve) of 92.5% for classifying AD vs. NC subjects, and an accuracy of 76.2% and an AUC of 77.5% for classifying MCI vs. NC subjects. Our empirical study also demonstrates that the proposed multi-model method outperforms the single-model methods and several other competing methods.

This monograph on the preeminent Chinese contemporary ink painter Li Huayi, with a comprehensive critical contribution by the art critic and curator Kuiyi Shen, is a retrospective of his most celebrated works. The book documents Huayi's artistic evolution, surveying his career through a selection of the most representative works from every period of his life. His paintings reveal how the great tradition of Chinese art, through the talented hands of the artist and his innovative mind, is able to interact with Western contemporary trends and provide a fascinating visual insight into the universe of a man suspended between two cultures. Li Huayi, born in 1948 in Shanghai, was raised in China where he learned antique drawing and painting techniques from the age of six. He was still a teenager when he became a \"worker artist\" during the Cultural Revolution, drawing mainly propaganda posters. He later discovered the paintings of the Song Dynasty and studied their techniques. He moved to San Francisco in 1982, where he received his M.F.A. at the Academy of Art.

Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) reduces methane emissions from marine ecosystems but we know little about AOM in rivers, whose role in the global carbon cycle is increasingly recognized. We measured AOM potentials driven by different electron acceptors, including nitrite, nitrate, sulfate, and ferric iron, and identified microorganisms involved across contrasting riverbeds. AOM activity was confined to the more reduced, sandy riverbeds, whereas no activity was measured in the less reduced, gravel riverbeds where there were few anaerobic methanotrophs. Nitrite-dependent and nitrate-dependent AOM occurred in all sandy riverbeds, with the maximum rates of 61.0 and 20.0 nmol CO 2 g −1 (dry sediment) d − 1 , respectively, while sulfate-dependent and ferric iron-dependent AOM occurred only where methane concentration was highest and the diversity of AOM pathways greatest. Diverse Candidatus Methylomirabilis oxyfera ( M. oxyfera )-like bacteria and Candidatus Methanoperedens nitroreducens ( M. nitroreducens )-like archaea were detected in the sandy riverbeds (16S rRNA gene abundance of 9.3 × 10 5 to 1.5 × 10 7 and 2.1 × 10 4 to 2.5 × 10 5 copies g − 1 dry sediment, respectively) but no other known anaerobic methanotrophs. Further, we found M. oxyfera -like bacteria and M. nitroreducens -like archaea to be actively involved in nitrite- and nitrate/ferric iron-dependent AOM, respectively. Hence, we demonstrate multiple pathways of AOM in relation to methane, though the activities of M. oxyfera -like bacteria and M. nitroreducens -like archaea are dominant.

A field guide to wildlife found in Southwest China. The guide includes 92 mammal species and 31 pheasant species (and 10 domestic species) found in the region. For each species we include the relevant body measurements and conservation status, descriptions of ecology and natural history, a map of their distribution, and images of the animal and its track and sign (if available). The book is prefaced with an overview of the ecology of the region and there are short introductions for some groups of species.-- Provided by publisher.

Background To systematically review the epidemiologic relationship between periodontitis and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods Four electronic databases were searched up until December 2018. The manual search included the reference lists of the included studies and relevant journals. Observational studies evaluating the relationship between T2DM and periodontitis were included . Meta-analyses were conducted using STATA. Results A total of 53 observational studies were included. The Adjusted T2DM prevalence was significantly higher in periodontitis patients (OR = 4.04, p  = 0.000), and vice versa (OR = 1.58, p = 0.000). T2DM patients had significantly worse periodontal status, as reflected in a 0.61 mm deeper periodontal pocket, a 0.89 mm higher attachment loss and approximately 2 more lost teeth (all p  = 0.000), than those without T2DM. The results of the cohort studies found that T2DM could elevate the risk of developing periodontitis by 34% ( p  = 0.002). The glycemic control of T2DM patients might result in different periodontitis outcomes. Severe periodontitis increased the incidence of T2DM by 53% ( p  = 0.000), and this result was stable. In contrast, the impact of mild periodontitis on T2DM incidence (RR = 1.28, p  = 0.007) was less robust. Conclusions There is an evident bidirectional relationship between T2DM and periodontitis. Further well-designed cohort studies are needed to confirm this finding. Our results suggest that both dentists and physicians need to be aware of the strong connection between periodontitis and T2DM. Controlling these two diseases might help prevent each other’s incidence.