Mark Twain was listening to a famous violinist at a private reception.The piece contained some particularly long rests.During one of the intervals,Mark Twain said to the soloist.“Young man,why don’t you play
As basic facts of life,illness and healing occur frequently and in a variety of patterns in Chinese non-medical literature,starting from the earliest sources inscribed on oracle bones and continuing throughout literar...As basic facts of life,illness and healing occur frequently and in a variety of patterns in Chinese non-medical literature,starting from the earliest sources inscribed on oracle bones and continuing throughout literary history up to the present day.This article looks at illness narratives in early medieval anecdotal literature(3rd to 6th century CE)to understand how the experience of being sick or of attending to the sick was reflected in these socio-literary environments and what rhetorical and ideological roles these narratives played in their larger narrative contexts.By focusing on the experiences of the sick and those around them,this article aims at“Honoring the Stories of Illness,”in Rita Charon’s words,that are hiding in plain sight in much of Chinese non-medical literature.展开更多
Climate change and variability, has embarked societies in Zanzibar to rely on horticulture (i.e. watermelon production) as an adaptive measure due to an unpromising situation of commonly used agricultural yields. Curr...Climate change and variability, has embarked societies in Zanzibar to rely on horticulture (i.e. watermelon production) as an adaptive measure due to an unpromising situation of commonly used agricultural yields. Currently, there is either no or scant information that describes the influence of climate changes and variability to watermelon production in Zanzibar. Thus, this study aimed to determine the influence of climate variability on the quantity of watermelon production in Zanzibar. The study used both primary and secondary datasets, which include the anecdotal information collected from interviewers’ responses from four districts of Unguja and Pemba, and climate parameters (rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature (Tmax and Tmin) acquired from Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) at Zanzibar offices. Pearson correlation was used for analyzing the association between watermelon production and climate parameters, while paired t-test was applied to show the significance of the mean differences of watermelon and climate parameters for two periods of 2014-2017 and 2018-2021, respectively. Percentage changes were used to feature the extent to which the two investigated parameters affect each other. The anecdotal responses were sorted, calculated in monthly and seasonal averages, plotted and then analyzed. Results have shown a strong correlation (r = 0.8 at p ≤ 0.02, and r = 0.7) between watermelon production, Tmax and rainfall during OND, especially in Unguja, as well as Tmin during JJA (i.e. r = - 0.8 at p ≤ 0.02) in Pemba. Besides, results have shown the existence of significant differences between the means of watermelon production and climate parameter for the two stated periods, indicating that the climate parameters highly affects the watermelon production by either enhancing or declining the yields by 69% - 162% and 17% - 77%, respectively. Moreover, results have shown that respondents were aware that excess temperature intensity during dry periods can lead to high production costs due number of soil and other environmental factors. Besides the results have shown that OND seasonal rainfall and MAM Tmax had good association with watermelon production in Unguja while JJA Tmin declined the production in Pemba. Thus, the study concludes that seasonal variability of climate parameter has a significant influence on the watermelon production. The study calls for more studies on factors affecting watermelon production (e.g. soil characteristics, pest sides and manure), and recommends for climate based decision making on rain fed agricultural yields and routine monitoring of weather information.展开更多
“Stop laughing,I’m dead”explores the implications and potentialities of the mode of address in the novel Suicide byÉdouard Levéin the valences of identification and potential overidentification of the sub...“Stop laughing,I’m dead”explores the implications and potentialities of the mode of address in the novel Suicide byÉdouard Levéin the valences of identification and potential overidentification of the subject of the novel with the author or the reader himself.The mode of address in question is the consistent and highly suggestive use of the personal pronoun“you”as a route of invocation of the novel’s main character.The essay is conceived as an overlaying dialogue between two polarities of writing-academic writing and automatic journaling,which serves as a reflection and exploration of the fissure created by Levéhimself through his writing strategies and life events coinciding with the content of the novel.The essay thus attempts to speak from and speak to both the cognitive and affective tensions that arise from the reading and interpretation of Levé’s opus and continually renegotiate the positions of the reader,the writer,and the corpse.展开更多
Developing new pharmaceuticals requires massive amounts of time,money and efforts.The key step is how to find a safe and effective entity for a disease condition and how to develop it as new drug effectively.Unfortuna...Developing new pharmaceuticals requires massive amounts of time,money and efforts.The key step is how to find a safe and effective entity for a disease condition and how to develop it as new drug effectively.Unfortunately,the FDA’s rate of approving new entities has declined dramatically in the last three decades.There is a strong need to review the current strategy and to optimize process in developing new drugs,both to shorten the process and increase the success rate.Chinese medicine has used natural products to treat patients for thousands of years,and Chinese medicine practitioners have chronicled the patients and treatment methods for thousands of years.There is much information that has not yet been used.The success stories of artimisinin and arsentic trioxide are wonderful examples of how the annals of Chinese medicine can provide leads for discovering new drugs.This paper argues that the annals of Chinese medicine are valuable and describes how they can be used in modern drug discovery.The major topics addressed are:(i)why Chinese medicine is a rich resource for finding new drugs;(ii)how to identify a potential valuable record from Chinese medicine annals;(iii)when a potential valuable record is identified from annals,how to proceed;and(iv)both why and how the approach used for chemical drugs should be revised for drugs based on the historical documents related to herbal medicine.In conclusion,we argue here that the annals of Chinese medicine offer not only a rich resource for new drugs,but also several centuries of patient data with regard to safety and efficacy,that in effect represent pilot studies.Acknowledging and using these data can shorten new drug discovery time and improve efficiency of the drug development process,bringing more effective,safe drugs to market much more quickly and cheaply.展开更多
文摘Mark Twain was listening to a famous violinist at a private reception.The piece contained some particularly long rests.During one of the intervals,Mark Twain said to the soloist.“Young man,why don’t you play
文摘As basic facts of life,illness and healing occur frequently and in a variety of patterns in Chinese non-medical literature,starting from the earliest sources inscribed on oracle bones and continuing throughout literary history up to the present day.This article looks at illness narratives in early medieval anecdotal literature(3rd to 6th century CE)to understand how the experience of being sick or of attending to the sick was reflected in these socio-literary environments and what rhetorical and ideological roles these narratives played in their larger narrative contexts.By focusing on the experiences of the sick and those around them,this article aims at“Honoring the Stories of Illness,”in Rita Charon’s words,that are hiding in plain sight in much of Chinese non-medical literature.
文摘Climate change and variability, has embarked societies in Zanzibar to rely on horticulture (i.e. watermelon production) as an adaptive measure due to an unpromising situation of commonly used agricultural yields. Currently, there is either no or scant information that describes the influence of climate changes and variability to watermelon production in Zanzibar. Thus, this study aimed to determine the influence of climate variability on the quantity of watermelon production in Zanzibar. The study used both primary and secondary datasets, which include the anecdotal information collected from interviewers’ responses from four districts of Unguja and Pemba, and climate parameters (rainfall, maximum and minimum temperature (Tmax and Tmin) acquired from Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) at Zanzibar offices. Pearson correlation was used for analyzing the association between watermelon production and climate parameters, while paired t-test was applied to show the significance of the mean differences of watermelon and climate parameters for two periods of 2014-2017 and 2018-2021, respectively. Percentage changes were used to feature the extent to which the two investigated parameters affect each other. The anecdotal responses were sorted, calculated in monthly and seasonal averages, plotted and then analyzed. Results have shown a strong correlation (r = 0.8 at p ≤ 0.02, and r = 0.7) between watermelon production, Tmax and rainfall during OND, especially in Unguja, as well as Tmin during JJA (i.e. r = - 0.8 at p ≤ 0.02) in Pemba. Besides, results have shown the existence of significant differences between the means of watermelon production and climate parameter for the two stated periods, indicating that the climate parameters highly affects the watermelon production by either enhancing or declining the yields by 69% - 162% and 17% - 77%, respectively. Moreover, results have shown that respondents were aware that excess temperature intensity during dry periods can lead to high production costs due number of soil and other environmental factors. Besides the results have shown that OND seasonal rainfall and MAM Tmax had good association with watermelon production in Unguja while JJA Tmin declined the production in Pemba. Thus, the study concludes that seasonal variability of climate parameter has a significant influence on the watermelon production. The study calls for more studies on factors affecting watermelon production (e.g. soil characteristics, pest sides and manure), and recommends for climate based decision making on rain fed agricultural yields and routine monitoring of weather information.
文摘“Stop laughing,I’m dead”explores the implications and potentialities of the mode of address in the novel Suicide byÉdouard Levéin the valences of identification and potential overidentification of the subject of the novel with the author or the reader himself.The mode of address in question is the consistent and highly suggestive use of the personal pronoun“you”as a route of invocation of the novel’s main character.The essay is conceived as an overlaying dialogue between two polarities of writing-academic writing and automatic journaling,which serves as a reflection and exploration of the fissure created by Levéhimself through his writing strategies and life events coinciding with the content of the novel.The essay thus attempts to speak from and speak to both the cognitive and affective tensions that arise from the reading and interpretation of Levé’s opus and continually renegotiate the positions of the reader,the writer,and the corpse.
文摘Developing new pharmaceuticals requires massive amounts of time,money and efforts.The key step is how to find a safe and effective entity for a disease condition and how to develop it as new drug effectively.Unfortunately,the FDA’s rate of approving new entities has declined dramatically in the last three decades.There is a strong need to review the current strategy and to optimize process in developing new drugs,both to shorten the process and increase the success rate.Chinese medicine has used natural products to treat patients for thousands of years,and Chinese medicine practitioners have chronicled the patients and treatment methods for thousands of years.There is much information that has not yet been used.The success stories of artimisinin and arsentic trioxide are wonderful examples of how the annals of Chinese medicine can provide leads for discovering new drugs.This paper argues that the annals of Chinese medicine are valuable and describes how they can be used in modern drug discovery.The major topics addressed are:(i)why Chinese medicine is a rich resource for finding new drugs;(ii)how to identify a potential valuable record from Chinese medicine annals;(iii)when a potential valuable record is identified from annals,how to proceed;and(iv)both why and how the approach used for chemical drugs should be revised for drugs based on the historical documents related to herbal medicine.In conclusion,we argue here that the annals of Chinese medicine offer not only a rich resource for new drugs,but also several centuries of patient data with regard to safety and efficacy,that in effect represent pilot studies.Acknowledging and using these data can shorten new drug discovery time and improve efficiency of the drug development process,bringing more effective,safe drugs to market much more quickly and cheaply.