BackgroundSynthetic biological systems are currently created by an ad-hoc, iterative
process of specification, design, and assembly. These systems would greatly
benefit from a more formalized and rigorous specification of the desired
system components as well as constraints on their composition. Therefore,
the creation of robust and efficient design flows and tools is imperative.
We present a human readable language (Eugene) that allows for the
specification of synthetic biological designs based on biological parts, as
well as provides a very expressive constraint system to drive the automatic
creation of composite Parts (Devices) from a collection of individual
Parts.ResultsWe illustrate Eugene's capabilities in three different areas: Device
specification, design space exploration, and assembly and simulation
integration. These results highlight Eugene's ability to create
combinatorial design spaces and prune these spaces for simulation or
physical assembly. Eugene creates functional designs quickly and
cost-effectively.ConclusionsEugene is intended for forward engineering of DNA-based devices, and through
its data types and execution semantics, reflects the desired abstraction
hierarchy in synthetic biology. Eugene provides a powerful constraint system
which can be used to drive the creation of new devices at runtime. It
accomplishes all of this while being part of a larger tool chain which
includes support for design, simulation, and physical device assembly.
Numerous public opinion surveys have found that Americans’ views of China have become extremely negative in recent years. Much less is understood about the trends in Chinese views of the USA and the countries’ bilateral relations. As leaders in both countries have come under public pressure about their policy stances toward the other side, it is critical to fill the gap. This study develops a theoretical argument about how a concern for political legitimacy may allow public opinion to influence foreign policy making in authoritarian countries, and it presents findings from a two-wave public opinion survey in China conducted before and after the 2020 US presidential election. The results show that Chinese evaluations of the bilateral relationship and of the USA slumped during the Trump era but rebounded somewhat after Biden took office. In addition, the majority of Chinese respondents believed their country to be the world’s largest and leading economy and favored China being the world’s leading power, either by itself or alongside the USA. Furthermore, younger and more educated respondents held more negative views, although these were mitigated by personal connections with and experiences in the USA. These findings have important policy implications.
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