Genomic imprinting is an epigenetic regulation that leads to gene expression in a parent-of-origin specific manner. AFF3, the central component of the Super Elongation Complex-like 3 (SEC-L3), is enriched at both the intergenic-differentially methylated region (IG-DMR) and the Meg3 enhancer within the imprinted Dlk1-Dio3 locus to regulate the allele-specific gene expression in this locus. The localization of AFF3 to IG-DMR requires ZFP57. However, how AFF3 functions at the Meg3 enhancer in maintaining allele-specific gene expression remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that AFF3 is associated with the Krüppel-like zinc finger protein ZFP281 in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells. ZFP281 recruits AFF3 to the Meg3 enhancer within the imprinted Dlk1-Dio3 locus, thus regulating the allele-specific expression of the Meg3 polycistron. Our genome-wide analyses further identify ZFP281 as a critical factor generally associating with AFF3 at enhancers and functioning together with AFF3 in regulating the expression of a subset of genes. Our study suggests that different zinc finger proteins can recruit AFF3 to different regulatory elements and differentially regulate the function of AFF3 in a context-dependent manner.

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Three-port isolated (TPI) bidirectional DC/DC converters have three energy ports and offer advantages of large voltage gain, galvanic isolation ability and high power density. For this reason this kind of converters are suitable to connect different energy sources and loads in electric and hybrid vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to propose chaotic modulation and the related control scheme for TPI bidirectional DC/DC converters, in such a way that the switching harmonic peaks can be suppressed in spectrum and the conducted electromagnetic interference (EMI) is reduced. Two chaotic modulation strategies, namely the continuously chaotic modulation and the discretely chaotic modulation are presented. These two chaotic modulation strategies are applied for TPI bidirectional DC/DC converters with shifted-phase angle based control and phase-shifted PWM control. Both simulation and experiments are given to verify the validity of the proposed chaotic modulation-based control schemes.

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This study explores the causal relationship between Internet users’ ideologies and their corresponding attitudes to genetically modified (GM) food safety. Using the 2015 Chinese Internet User Survey data (N = 3780) as a representative sample of Internet users from China, the study investigates factors influencing people’s attitudes to GM food safety. Multinomial Logistic Regression Models are applied to examine the effects of demographic features (gender, age, education, family annual income, location, CPC membership, and occupation) and ideological factors (general ideology, political ideology, economic ideology, and cultural ideology) on attitudes to GM food safety. The results demonstrate that the percentage of people whose attitude is that “GM food is risky” (35.1%) surpasses those who think “GM food is safe” (20.4%). The young generation respondents think that GM food is safe, while those with higher levels of income and education are more inclined to view GM food as risky. In addition, public sector employees tend to think that GM food is risky. Respondents characterized with right-wing ideology in general tend to regard GM food as safe, compared to left-wing ideologists. However, their attitude varies in different ideological dimensions of politics, economics, and culture. This paper contributes new insights into understanding ideological influences on science development and sustainability.

A mission statement is an important instrument for strategic management for an enterprise. How to establish a mission statement and how to leverage its roles in conveying the vision of and leading the long-term and sustainable growth of the enterprise are critical in strategic planning for enterprises. The current study adopted a corpus analysis method and built a corpus of mission statements by selecting the mission statements of 100 companies each from Chinese and American companies in the 2017 Fortune 500 companies. Through the analysis of high-frequency words obtained from the corpus based on the appraisal system approach from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), we attempted to identify the characteristics discerning the mission statements of Chinese and American companies. Our results showed that (1) the distribution patterns of evaluation resource words of Chinese and American companies are similar; (2) Chinese companies highlight innovation, society and development of the enterprise, while American companies emphasize customers and product or service; (3) both Chinese and American enterprises highly concern survival, philosophy and public image; (4) American companies pay more attention to stakeholders, especially primary social stakeholders, while Chinese companies’ attention is inclined to secondary social stakeholders. It is concluded that the mission statements of Chinese companies are society oriented and emphasize the social roles of an organization, showing a corporate pertinence to a lesser extent, while American companies’ mission statements pay more attention to customers and partner relationships, which can be seen as the American companies’ market and individual orientation.