Cultural Lineage Research Articles

A Study on Generative Artificial Intelligence to Enable Urban Red Literature Inheritance

In the current era of rapid development of informationization, the problem of urban cultural inheritance is becoming more and more prominent, especially the protection and development of red cultural lineage has attracted much attention. This study focuses on the inheritance needs of urban red cultural heritage, and explores the application mode and strategy of generative artificial intelligence technology in it. In this paper, we first systematically sort out the urban red cultural heritage, describe the key technology of generative artificial intelligence, and establish a research framework that integrates the two, aiming to realize an innovative way for the protection of urban cultural heritage. Based on rich experimental materials and combined with practical cases, this paper constructs a corresponding generative model to design an effective red cultural heritage inheritance program. Through the analysis of experimental data, this study demonstrates the potential of generative AI in the digital display, educational dissemination, and cultural experience of the red vein, highlighting its significant contribution to improving the efficiency of cultural inheritance. Summarizing the experimental results, the paper discusses the application prospects of the technology, points out the limitations of the study, and provides references and insights for future phase-related work.

Runx1+23 Enhancer Reporter Marks Erythro-Megakaryocyte Lineages in Human ESC Differentiation Culture

Runx1+23 Enhancer Reporter Marks Erythro-Megakaryocyte Lineages in Human ESC Differentiation Culture

Research on Ancient Academy Inscriptions and Documents in Zhejiang Province

This paper takes the inscriptions on ancient academies in Zhejiang as the main research object, tracing the cultural lineage of ancient academy culture from the inscriptions and creating a new pattern for the development of academy culture in Zhejiang. At the same time, the author examined ancient academy inscriptions around Zhejiang, delved into the collection, organization, and protection status of academy inscriptions, rescued abandoned inscriptions in the wilderness, and created a database and distribution map of inscriptions using new media technology, laying a solid foundation for the protection and development of academy inscriptions in the future.

Human intent and cultural lineages: a response to Bentley & O'Brien

I thank Bentley and O'Brien (2024) for their cogent review of issues associated with inheritance and intention in cultural evolution. Intent is, of course, present in cultural process and that begs the question as to when and how we concern ourselves with it as a factor in cultural evolution (Rosenberg 2022). Intent underlies our understanding of both micro- and macro-scale processes of cultural evolution. Lamarckian microevolutionary process depends on decision-makers choosing whether or not to accept and sometimes alter cultural traits (Boyd & Richerson 1985). Zeder (2009, 2018) points out that even long-term change may be affected by conscious infrastructural investments that alter capacity for socioeconomic production and, subsequently, canalise later developments.

Hyaluronic acid-alginate hydrogel stimulates the differentiation of neonatal mouse testicular cells into hepatocyte-like and other cell lineages in three-dimensional culture.

Extracellular matrix (ECM)-derived hydrogels are frequently used in three-dimensional (3D) cell culture and organoid formation in several tissues. However, in the 3D cultivation of testicular cells, the hyaluronic acid (HA) hydrogel has not received as much attention. This study examined the effects of three distinct composites, including HA-alginate (HA-Alg), HA-alginate-collagen (HA-Alg-Col), and HA-alginate-decellularized ECM (HA-Alg-dECM), on mouse testicular cell culture and in vitro spermatogenesis. For the creation of composites, the concentration of biomaterials used was 0.5% HA, 1% alginate, 2.5mg/mL collagen, and 25mg/mL dECM derived from the testicles of Rams. After 3D culture of 5 days post-partum (dpp) mouse testicular cells for 14 days, HA-Alg was selected as a superior composite due to the greater number and size of the produced organoids. Then, cell culture was rerun by HA-Alg for 14 days, which was later extended for an additional 28 days. In addition, the 3D culture of 10 dpp mouse testicular cells was used to compare with 5 dpp mice on day 14. The morphology and gene expression were analyzed using appropriate techniques. On day 14, the HA-Alg hydrogel showed significantly more organoids in terms of size and number than the other two groups (p<0.05); nevertheless, none of the groups showed the expected signs of testis organoids. Remarkably, on day 14, the histology and immunostaining tests revealed features of hepatocyte-like cells (HLCs) and albumin production as a marker of HLC functionality. Furthermore, the analysis of gene expression verified the significant expression of angiogenesis markers (p<0.01). After the extended culture to 28 days, 5 dpp testicular cells once more differentiated into erythrocytes and HLCs, while a small number of organoids showed the characteristic of renal cells. Cell culture of 10 dpp mice for 14 days showed a wide range of cell lineages, including renal, glandular, chondrocyte, and hepatocyte-like cells in comparison to the 5 dpp mice. While the HA-Alg composite did not support spermatogenesis in the 3D culture of mouse testicular cells, it demonstrated an unpredicted potential for promoting the differentiation of neonate mouse testicular cells into HLC, erythrocytes, and other cell lineages.

Research on Ancient academy Inscription Literature in Zhejiang Province

This paper takes ancient Zhejiang academy inscriptions as the main object of study, and will trace the cultural lineage of ancient academy culture from the inscriptions to create a new pattern of development of Zhejiang academy culture. At the same time, the author examines ancient academy inscriptions around Zhejiang, digs deeper into the current situation of collecting, collating and protecting academy inscriptions, rescues inscriptions abandoned in the wilderness, and uses new media technology to create a database of inscriptions and a distribution map of inscriptions, laying a solid foundation for the future protection and development of academy inscriptions.

Research on the Role of Geographic Literature in the Establishment of Tourism Image in the Context of Informatization

Abstract This paper utilizes web crawler in network text mining technology to obtain the Jiangsu garden review data on several OTAs and tourism UGC platforms, such as Baidu Tourism, Ctrip.com, and Ma’s Nest. The data preprocessing work such as text de-weighting, word frequency classification, and parameter solving is carried out on the document dataset by using the lexical algorithm, and the preprocessed text data is subjected to TF-IDF keyword extraction and LDA topic extraction. Starting from the characteristics of the cultural lineage, the intrinsic attraction elements affecting the commercial transformation of tourist attractions are explored, and taking the planning of the industrial, cultural tourism town in Ezhou as an example, the process of planning and designing from the establishment of tourism planning concepts, and thus the completion of the visual IP image, is elaborated. The tourism image perception of the four major gardens in Jiangsu is examined from both cognitive and emotional perspectives using the results of TF-IDF and LDA extraction. The results show that the trend of the frequency of each fraction of the emotion of the Humble Administrator’s Garden, Liouyuan Garden, Lion Grove, and Canglang Pavilion scenic spots is roughly the same, and the mean value of emotion is 0.758, 0.851, 0.828, and 0.845, respectively, reflecting the tourists’ average emotional perception of the individual scenic spots. This study provides new methods and ideas for promoting the integrated development of culture, commerce and tourism in small and medium-sized cities so that the culture and tourism industry can be developed sustainably.

Human Chondrocytes, Metabolism of Articular Cartilage, and Strategies for Application to Tissue Engineering

Hyaline cartilage, which is characterized by the absence of vascularization and innervation, has minimal self-repair potential in case of damage and defect formation in the chondral layer. Chondrocytes are specialized cells that ensure the synthesis of extracellular matrix components, namely type II collagen and aggregen. On their surface, they express integrins CD44, α1β1, α3β1, α5β1, α10β1, αVβ1, αVβ3, and αVβ5, which are also collagen-binding components of the extracellular matrix. This article aims to contribute to solving the problem of the possible repair of chondral defects through unique methods of tissue engineering, as well as the process of pathological events in articular cartilage. In vitro cell culture models used for hyaline cartilage repair could bring about advanced possibilities. Currently, there are several variants of the combination of natural and synthetic polymers and chondrocytes. In a three-dimensional environment, chondrocytes retain their production capacity. In the case of mesenchymal stromal cells, their favorable ability is to differentiate into a chondrogenic lineage in a three-dimensional culture.

THE CREATIVE THINKING DEDUCTION OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE PIANO MUSIC ELEMENTS - TAKING CULTURAL WORKS FROM DIFFERENT PERIODS IN HISTORY AS THE MAIN LINE

In the 70 years since the founding of China, piano music has undergone a unique process of development. In the early years of the founding, piano composers tended to favor folk material, focusing on nationalization and mass. This study explores multiple stages in the evolution of creative thinking about traditional elements of Chinese piano music, using the cultural lineage of piano works from different historical periods as the main thread. Among them, the first stage is 1949-1966, the seventeen years of unprecedented prosperity of piano creation in the early years of the founding of the country. To make piano music more accessible to the masses, the subjects of piano works had regional and mass characteristics, the melodies tended to be folk materials while not using overly complex musical language and the melody was served by form, weave, and harmony. The second stage was from 1967 to 1977, the decade of the Cultural Revolution. Although the subject matter could only be pianistic adaptations of model operas, revolutionary songs, and traditional instrumental pieces, it prompted composers to dig deeper into the musical language and explore the perfect use of folk music patterns, traditional branching vocal weaves, and nationalized harmonies in the piano. The third stage is 1978-2019, the period of diversified development. A variety of modern Western music genres influenced Chinese piano music composition. Composers used and modernized ethnic materials to varying degrees, resulting in different approaches to ethnicized subject matter. Non-traditional tonality and dissonant acoustics are two of the main characteristics of the musical language at this stage. Nationalization and modernization are explored in Chinese piano works in multiple ways, with remarkable achievements.

Lytic bacteriophages affect the population dynamics of multi-strain microbial communities.

Background: Lytic bacteriophages infect and lyse bacteria and, as a by-product, may affect diversity in microbial communities through selective predation on abundant bacterial strains. We used a complex dairy starter named Ur to investigate population dynamics of Lactococcus lactis, Lactococcus cremoris and Leuconostoc mesenteroides strains in terms of constant-diversity and periodic selection models. Methods: To mimic the starter Ur, we designed blends of 24 strains representing all eight previously identified genetic lineages in the starter culture. The blends were propagated by daily transfers in milk for over 500 generations in the presence or absence of a cocktail of lytic bacteriophages. The relative abundance of genetic lineages of L. lactis, L. cremoris and Lc. mesenteroides strains present in the complex blend, as well as phage presence, were monitored. Results: Control blends without phage predation showed decreased strain diversity, leading to a stable state due to the domination of the fittest strain(s) of a particular lineage according to periodic selection dynamics. However, in phage-challenged blends, predation caused a large shift in the microbial composition by killing the fittest and sensitive strains. Conclusion: It was demonstrated that phage-challenged blends maintained their diversity at the level of genetic lineages, thus providing experimental support for the constant-diversity dynamics model in a complex microbial community.

“The reader can never be sure what’s going to come next”: political reflexivity, ethics and queer affiliations in Oswell Blakeston’s 1950s travel writing/guide books

ABSTRACT Oswell Blakeston’s four now largely forgotten travel books, Portuguese Panorama (1955), Isle of St. Helena (1957), Sun at Midnight: Finland Holiday (1958), and Thank You Now: An Exploration of Ulster (1960), warrant the attention of contemporary scholars of travel writing. This article outlines how Blakeston’s writing about his travels, or holidays, further illuminates contemporary historical explorations of the continuum, rather than categorical opposition, between tourist guidebooks and travel writing. Blakeston's travel writing also exhibits a degree of what Debbie Lisle describes as “political reflexivity”. Related to this, his work narrates ethical interactions with new friends encountered on his journeys, while also dramatising some of the inevitable limitations this entails. Analysis of Blakeston’s travel writing also highlights links between the preoccupations detailed above and his queer modernist cultural lineage. This article therefore expands our historical understanding of the diversity of queer British travel writing during the twentieth century.

The Mother Herb: Plant Storywork, Grief &amp; More-Than-Human Care in Compromised Times

Herbalists and plants have healing relationships that shape cultures throughout collapse and regeneration. Indeed, the herbalist was once a highly esteemed role in communities, working-with plants to facilitate relational care and healing of human and non-human kin alike. This article explores the ethics of mothering and kinship, as experienced through the lens of a herbalist, by disrupting standardized notions of mothering as a human-to-human biological reality and embracing an understanding of mothering as an interspecies and multi-generational practice. To do so, we engage in an animist and ecofeminist auto-ethnographic process of thinking-with Mugwort (Artemisia Vulgaris) to re-story our own relationships with mothering without biologically being mothers and how this shapes our relationships with grief, loss, and love in contemporary times. We look to Mugwort as an important ancestral ‘plant mother’ in each of our cultural lineages and draw on herbal folklore and practices to think through the complexities of more-than-human care. We argue that mothering is a subjective and contextual practice of kin-making, and how herbalists have ritually engaged in this since time immemorial. Herbalism can thus be framed as an ecological praxis that takes seriously multispecies mothering and gestures toward future(s) where mutual flourishing can be enacted in plural forms.

Trusts in mixed jurisdictions

Closed legal systems are gone in modern world, “mixed” legal systems have become the norm. That has made so-called “transplants” easier but, contrary to a widely held view, legal institutions cannot be transplanted. English trust rules even less, for they are not a coherent set of rules. The British attempted to legislate on trusts for their colonies, for instance for Ceylon (the present-day Sri Lanka), and were thus obliged to be coherent. That made it necessary to introduce new legal concepts with unforeseeable consequences. A wave of legislation followed the adoption of the convention “On The Law Applicable To Trusts And On Their Recognition” by the 15th session of the Hague Conference on private international law (1985); it gave birth to the “international model” of trusts that quickly became the favourite setting of the rich and ultra-rich. Jersey in the Channel Islands was the leading jurisdiction, many others followed but it was not until the establishment of the International Finance Centres in the Gulf and later in Kazakhstan where “the laws of England and Wales” are taken as a source of law and local courts are staffed by former English judges or in any event by lawyers brought up in the common law that a proper transplant of the English trust took place. A totally different legal setting witnessed attempts to create imitations that had to run against well-established civil law conceptual attitudes that did not allow the existence of more than one patrimony per person or the segregation of assets within one person’s patrimony. In 2022 France decreed that each businessman is automatically the owner of two patrimonies; that open the way to a radical re-thinking of civil law notions. Québec and Louisiana are taken as examples of civil law legislation on trusts but Québec has followed its own idea that the assets that form the object of a fiducie belong to nobody, while Louisiana’s Trust Code is a deft admixture of civil law and common law elements based on the civilian notion of “fiduciary”. Luxembourg, France and other civil law countries are then examined: the focus then is on South Africa and Scotland, two countries which have a common past in a shared period of the European ius commune and a common present in being both orphaned from a cultural lineage that provided answers to current matters by drawing on Roman law. Now they both solve the problem of the patrimony by holding that a trustee has more than one patrimony, his own and then one for each trust of which he is the trustee.

YAP and TAZ play a crucial role in human erythrocyte maturation and enucleation

BackgroundYes-associated protein (YAP) and WW domain-containing transcription regulator protein 1 (WWTR1, also known as TAZ) are two key transcription co-activators of the Hippo pathway. Both were originally characterized as organ size and cell proliferation regulators. Later studies demonstrated that the Hippo pathway may play a role in Drosophila and mammal hematopoiesis. However, the role of the Hippo pathway in human erythropoiesis has not yet been fully elucidated.MethodsThe role of YAP and TAZ was studied in human erythropoiesis and hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) lineage determination by using mobilized peripheral blood (PB) and cord blood (CB)-derived HSC as a model. HSCs were isolated and cultured in an erythroid differentiation medium for erythroid differentiation and culture in methylcellulose assay for HSC lineage determination study.ResultsYAP and TAZ were barely detectable in human HSCs, but became highly expressed in pro-erythroblasts and erythroblasts. Depletion or knockdown of YAP and/or TAZ did not affect the ability of HSC lineage specification to erythroid lineage in either methylcellulose assay or liquid culture. However, depletion of YAP and TAZ did impair erythroblast terminal differentiation to erythrocytes and their enucleation. Moreover, ectopic expression of YAP and TAZ in pro-erythroblasts did not exert an apparent effect on erythroid differentiation, expansion, or morphology.ConclusionsThis study demonstrated that YAP/TAZ plays important role in erythroid maturation and enucleation but is dispensable for lineage determination of human HSCs.

Body and language as carriers of transculturality in two Sinophone transnational artists

In a global context characterized by a growing complexity of the dynamics of Chinese transnational mobility, we find the need to resort to a new vocabulary to understand the localized artistic expressions related to such dynamics. In this article, we focus on two Chinese artists, Musk Ming (1979–present) and Tony Cheung (1987–present), who live and work across China and Europe, reflecting on how their transnational life trajectories combine with the transculturality expressed in their works. Considering body and language as two privileged sites of ethnicity, the article suggests that, in their representation, the authors engage in a process of critical deconstruction of ‘national culture’ and ‘ethnic identity’. Such deconstruction is achieved by disconnecting cultural tokens from their ‘ethno-national’ or historical referents, creating instead unlikely or unexpected associations with elements extracted from non-Chinese contexts, or using them to critique the very cultural lineage they are supposed to embody. Considering the critical reception of the artists’ work in Europe, the article also discusses how this act of defamiliarization provokes the viewer by contesting both the ‘Chineseness’ and the ‘westernization’ of the artwork itself. The critical representation of body and language thus creates a powerful discourse to question the equation of ethnicity and culture, compelling viewers to go beyond a superficial characterization of the two artists’ work as either ‘genuinely’ Chinese or ‘critically’ hybrid.

How Bone Technology points to Cultural Lineages in Prehistory? New Insights from Danish Late- and PostGlacial Weapons’ Heads

The analysis provides a novel understanding of the technological details of the bone and antler manufacture in the 9th and 10th millennia before present as a proxy to emphasize contemporary Late-Glacial-originated versus Early Mesolithic bone technologies in Denmark. This paper contributes to the knowledge of newly dated bone weapons from Sjælland, Lolland and Bornholm’s islands in the Late Paleolithic (Late Glacial, Federmesser, Ahrensburg cultures) and the Danish Early Mesolithic (Maglemose culture)

Modeling Discontinuous Cultural Evolution: The Impact of Cross-Domain Transfer.

This paper uses autocatalytic networks to model discontinuous cultural transitions involving cross-domain transfer, using as an illustrative example, artworks inspired by the oldest-known uncontested example of figurative art: the carving of the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, or lion-human. Autocatalytic networks provide a general modeling setting in which nodes are not just passive transmitters of activation; they actively galvanize, or “catalyze” the synthesis of novel (“foodset-derived”) nodes from existing ones (the “foodset.”) This makes them uniquely suited to model how new structure grows out of earlier structure, i.e., cumulative, generative network growth. They have been used to model the origin and early evolution of biological life, and the emergence of cognitive structures capable of undergoing cultural evolution. We conducted a study in which six individual creators and one group generated music, prose, poetry, and visual art inspired by the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, and answered questions about the process. The data revealed four through-lines by which they expressed the Löwenmensch in an alternative art form: (1) lion-human hybrid, (2) subtracting from the whole to reveal the form within, (3) deterioration, and (4) waiting to be found with a story to tell. Autocatalytic networks were used to model how these four spontaneously derived through-lines form a cultural lineage from Löwenmensch to artist to audience. We used the resulting data from three creators to model the cross-domain transfer from inspirational source (sculpted figurine) to creative product (music, poetry, prose, visual art). These four spontaneously-generated threads of cultural continuity formed the backbone of this Löwenmensch-inspired cultural lineage, enabling culture to evolve even in the face of discontinuity at the level conventional categories or domains. We know of no other theory of cultural evolution that accommodates cross-domain transfer or other forms of discontinuity. The approach paves the way for a broad scientific framework for the origins of evolutionary processes.

Generation of a Cone Photoreceptor-specific GNGT2 Reporter Line in Human Pluripotent Stem Cells.

Fluorescent reporter lines generated in human pluripotent stem cells are a highly useful tool to track, isolate, and analyze cell types and lineages in live cultures. Here, we generate the first human cone photoreceptor reporter cell line by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing of a human embryonic stem cell (hESC) line to tag both alleles of the Guanine nucleotide-binding protein subunit gamma-T2 (GNGT2) gene with a mCherry reporter cassette. Three-dimensional optic vesicle-like structures were produced to verify reporter fidelity and track cones throughout their development in culture. The GNGT2-T2A-mCherry hESC line faithfully and robustly labels GNGT2-expressing cones throughout the entirety of their differentiation in vitro, recapitulating normal fetal expression of this gene. Our observations indicate that human cones undergo significant migratory activity during the course of differentiation in vitro. Consistent with this, our analysis of human fetal retinae from different stages of development finds positional differences of the cone population depending on their state of maturation. This novel reporter line will provide a useful tool for investigating human cone development and disease.

Engineering brain assembloids to interrogate human neural circuits.

The development of neural circuits involves wiring of neurons locally following their generation and migration, as well as establishing long-distance connections between brain regions. Studying these developmental processes in the human nervous system remains difficult because of limited access to tissue that can be maintained as functional over time in vitro. We have previously developed a method to convert human pluripotent stem cells into brain region-specific organoids that can be fused and integrated to form assembloids and study neuronal migration. In contrast to approaches that mix cell lineages in 2D cultures or engineer microchips, assembloids leverage self-organization to enable complex cell-cell interactions, circuit formation and maturation in long-term cultures. In this protocol, we describe approaches to model long-range neuronal connectivity in human brain assembloids. We present how to generate 3D spheroids resembling specific domains of the nervous system and then how to integrate them physically to allow axonal projections and synaptic assembly. In addition, we describe a series of assays including viral labeling and retrograde tracing, 3D live imaging of axon projection and optogenetics combined with calcium imaging and electrophysiological recordings to probe and manipulate the circuits in assembloids. The assays take 3-4 months to complete and require expertise in stem cell culture, imaging and electrophysiology. We anticipate that these approaches will be useful in deciphering human-specific aspects of neural circuit assembly and in modeling neurodevelopmental disorders with patient-derived cells.

THE REFRACTION OF WHITE: THE PRIMARY COLORS OF HAYDEN WHITE'S TROPOLOGICAL THEORY OF DISCOURSE

ABSTRACTThere has been sustained discussion of the narrativist approach in the Western tradition of theory of history, and it has focused especially on the work of Hayden White. While the reception of White's work in the non‐West has resulted in multiple translations of his oeuvre into Chinese and other languages, there has, as of yet, been no attempt to apply his tropological theory of discourse in a detailed study of non‐Western historiography. Any such future endeavor would require assessing the extent to which White's theory is culturally specific to the inside of the Western cultural tradition and determining which elements may be applicable to the outside of non‐Western discourse. In this vein, the article pries open a possibility for an outside in the narrativist study of history. It establishes a European family tree of White's tropological theory of discourse by first tracing its acknowledged intellectual ancestry to Peter Ramus's rhetorical reductionism and Giambattista Vico's poetic logic. It then extends the genealogy of White's tetragrammatical analysis further back into a European ancestry by identifying its roots in the patristic and medieval exegetical traditions of the four senses of scripture and the four words of Saint Paul. The analysis reveals that White's narrativist method of tropology belongs to a particular refraction of mythic consciousness having an identifiable beginning, middle, and end in the Western cultural tradition. Any methodological step beyond this consciousness would require reading the tropological spectrum of another cultural lineage of myth.