Chinese parents' perceived social change and their organisation of preschoolers' learning activities.

China has experienced dramatic transformations over recent decades, which has significant implications for childrearing. This study examined whether Chinese parents' perceived social change would mediate the association between family socioeconomic status (SES) and children's involvement in various learning activities in the home, community and extracurricular contexts. The study included 312 urban Chinese parents with preschool-aged children. Parents completed measures on perceived social change, their involvement in children's home literacy, numeracy and play activities, as well as children's participation in community-based activities and commercially provided extracurricular activities (EAs). The results indicated that higher-SES parents perceived more opportunities and prospects and less work-related risk and adversity as a function of social change. Parents who perceived more opportunities and prospects were more involved in almost all types of children's learning activities except EAs. Parents who perceived more work-related risk and adversity only showed decreased involvement in home literacy activities. Parents who endorsed new values more strongly were more likely to enrol their children in EAs and demonstrate greater involvement in children's home literacy activities. The findings revealed substantial within-group variations in parents' subjective experiences with social change and how parents' perceived social change might shape their ways of organising children's learning environment.

Effectiveness of a double-carbapenem combinations against carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacteria.

The emergence of carbapenem-resistant organisms posed considerable threat to global health while only limited treatment options are available and led to efforts to discover a novel way to treat them. To evaluate in vitro synergistic activity of meropenem plus ertapenem, a total of 203 carbapenem-resistant strains, collected from 12 provinces and municipalities in China, were examined with a dual carbapenem combination therapy. The statistical software R was used for analysis. Two hundred and one (201) of carbapenem-resistant strains mainly produced four types of carbapenemase: KPC-2 (n = 142, 69.95%), OXA-232 (n = 7, 3.45%), NDM (n = 38, 18.72%; 36 NDM-1, 1 NDM-4, 1 NDM-5), and IMP (n = 15, 7.39%; 1 IMP-26, 10 IMP-30, 4 IMP-4). Fifty-one out of two hundred and three (51/203 or 25.12%) of the examined strains showed a synergistic effect for the meropenem plus ertapenem combination throughout the checkerboard method, while only three isolates showed potential clinically relevant synergy (3/203, 1.48%). An additive effect was observed in 55/203 (27.09%) of the examined strains. Ninety-seven of the examined isolates (47.78%) showed fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) greater or equal to 2 (indicating antagonism). The synergistic activity of meropenem plus ertapenem combination suggests this combination can be a possible way to treat the infection caused by the carbapenem-resistant organisms, especially for IMP or NDM producer with a lesser minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and the infected individual who was not recommended to use colistin or tigecycline.

A rare case of pediatric Crohn's disease and alveolar bone loss: a report and review.

Crohn's disease (CD) is a granulomatous inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, but its etiology is still unclear. CD patients usually have extraintestinal manifestations including oral manifestations, and this can also occasionally appear in children. Oral manifestations, including aphthous stomatitis, typically develop on the mucocutaneous tissue. As pediatric CD is not common, there have been no reports concerning alveolar bone resorption for these kinds of patients. An 11-year-old Chinese girl was referred to our hospital because of reoccurring painful oral ulcers, with a 2.5-year history of CD and recurrent oral ulcers. Clinical examinations revealed intestinal lesions, oral ulcers, and alveolar bone loss. CD and its related periodontitis were diagnosed. After comprehensive therapy, including periodontal scaling and anti-inflammatory treatment, the oral ulcers gradually healed. One year later, follow-up visit showed the anterior alveolar bone to be stable and new alveolar bone regenerating around the mandibular anterior teeth at some sites. It is rare for CD children to have periodontitis, especially with severe alveolar bone loss. This case suggests that when treating periodontitis in children, the possibility of systemic disease, such as CD, should be considered and attended to. Early diagnosis and symptomatic treatment and care are crucial.

pTAC10, an S1-domain-containing component of the transcriptionally active chromosome complex, is essential for plastid gene expression in Arabidopsis thaliana and is phosphorylated by chloroplast-targeted casein kinase II.

In higher plant chloroplasts, the plastid-encoded RNA polymerase (PEP) consists of four catalytic subunits and numerous nuclear-encoded accessory proteins, including pTAC10, an S1-domain-containing protein. In this study, pTAC10 knockout lines were characterized. Two ptac10 mutants had an albino phenotype and severely impaired chloroplast development. The pTAC10 genomic sequence fused to a four-tandem MYC tag driven by its own promoter functionally complemented the ptac10-1 mutant phenotype. pTAC10 was present in both the chloroplast stroma and thylakoids. Two-dimensional blue native polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (BN-PAGE), and immunoblotting assays showed that pTAC10:MYC co-migrates with one of the PEP core subunits, RpoB. A comprehensive investigation of the plastid gene expression profiles by quantitative RT-PCR revealed that, compared with wild-type plants, the abundance of PEP-dependent plastid transcripts is severely decreased in the ptac10-1 mutant, while the amount of plastid transcripts exclusively transcribed by NEP either barely changes or even increases. RNA blot analysis confirmed that PEP-dependent chloroplast transcripts, including psaB, psbA and rbcL, substantially decrease in the ptac10-1 mutant. Immunoblotting showed reduced accumulation of most chloroplast proteins in the ptac10 mutants. These data indicate the essential role of pTAC10 in plastid gene expression and plastid development. pTAC10 interacts with chloroplast-targeted casein kinase 2 (cpCK2) in vitro and in vivo and can be phosphorylated by Arabidopsis cpCK2 in vitro at sites Ser95, Ser396 and Ser434. RNA-EMSA assays showed that pTAC10 is able to bind to the psbA, atpE and accD transcripts, suggesting a non-specific RNA-binding activity of pTAC10. The RNA affinity of pTAC10 was enhanced by phosphorylation and decreased by the amino acid substitution Ser434-Ala of pTAC10. These data show that pTAC10 is essential for plastid gene expression in Arabidopsis and that it can be phosphorylated by cpCK2.