On the Role of Teacher-Student Rapport and Teacher Support as Predictors of Chinese EFL Students' Affective Learning.

Students' affective learning is critical for their academic success; therefore, considerable attention has been devoted to the role of various student-related and teacher-related factors as predictors of student affective learning. Notwithstanding, the impact of two important teacher-related factors, namely teacher-student rapport and teacher support, has not been adequately researched. To address this gap, the present study sought to explore the role of teacher support and teacher-student rapport in Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) students' affective learning. To do so, three valid inventories of the variables were administered to 497 Chinese EFL students. Performing correlational analyses, favorable associations were found between teacher-student rapport, teacher support, and student affective learning. The predictive power of teacher support and teacher-student rapport was assessed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Chinese EFL students' affective learning was shown to be largely influenced by teacher-student rapport and teacher support. The pedagogical implications and future directions are also discussed.

Expression and Purification of a PEDV-Neutralizing Antibody and Its Functional Verification.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a highly infectious and pathogenic virus causing high morbidity and mortality, especially in newborn piglets. There remain problems with contemporary PEDV vaccines, in part because of the rapid variation of PEDV, poor conferred immunity, and numerous side effects. The ability to produce PEDV-neutralizing antibodies suggests that we may be able to increase the success rate of PEDV prevention in piglets using these antibodies. In this study, we produced an anti-PEDV S protein monoclonal antibody (anti-PEDV mAb-2) that neutralized PEDV-CV777 (a G1 strain), PEDV-SDSX16 and PEDV-Aj1102 (two G2 strains). In vivo challenge experiments demonstrated that anti-PEDV mAb-2 inhibited the PEDV infection in piglets. We also produced three HEK293 cell lines that expressed anti-PEDV mAb-2. Overall, our study showed that anti-PEDV mAb-2 produced from hybridoma supernatants effectively inhibited PEDV infection in piglets, and the recombinant HEK293 cell lines expressed anti-PEDV mAb-2 genes.

MC4R deficiency in pigs results in hyperphagia and ultimately hepatic steatosis without high-fat diet.

Melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R)-deficient mice had been used for several years to study human nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). However, although liver pathologic and biochemical indicators have been examined, mice models do not always faithfully display the phenotype of the human disease. In this study, we investigated the MC4R knockout phenotype in miniature pigs. We found that pigs lacking MC4R exhibited hyperorexia, insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, disordered lipid metabolism and their livers accumulated significant amounts of fat. We have shown that deletion of MC4R results in hyperphagia and increased body fat, ultimately leading to hepatic steatosis without atherogenic diet.

Association analysis of mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms with oocyte number in pigs.

In pigs, correlations between mitochondrial (mt) DNA polymorphisms and economic traits have been widely reported across and within swine breeds. In fecundity studies, the number of oocytes within ovaries was highly correlated with litter size. However, the effect of mitochondrial polymorphisms on porcine oocyte number remained unclear. In this study, 181 porcine ovaries were collected to analyse the relationship between oocyte number and mtDNA polymorphisms. There were considerable differences in oocyte numbers among different ovaries from commercial pig breeds, ranging from 2.7×105 to 1.3×106. Mitochondrial D-loop sequencing discovered 53 polymorphic sites. Association analysis revealed that 13 variations were associated with the number of oocytes (P<0.05). A C323T polymorphism showed the largest value between the C and T carriers, which differed at 105 oocytes (P<0.05). The 53 polymorphic sites generated 45 haplotypes, which clustered into two haplogroups, A and B. Haplogroup A had a higher number of oocytes than Haplogroup B (P<0.05), whereas Haplotype H6 in Haplogroup A had the highest number of oocytes (~7.5×105) of all haplotypes studied (P<0.05). The results of this study highlight a correlation between mtDNA polymorphisms and oocyte number, and suggest the potential application of mtDNA polymorphism analyses in pig selection and breeding practices.