Chang Xu

Marxist theory is an important philosophical concept that has had a profound impact on French literature. This article aims to explore the relationship between Marxist theory and the study of French literature, analyze the manifestation of Marxist theory in French literature, and how to apply Marxist theory to the study of French literature. This article is divided into six chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction, mainly introducing the research background, research objectives and significance, as well as the structure of the paper. Chapter 2 will outline the main content of Marxist theory and its application in literary research. Chapter 3 will analyze the current situation and problems of French literary research. Chapter 4 will explore the relevance of Marxist theory to the study of French literature, including its impact on literary criticism, literary creation, and literary reception. Chapter 5 will analyze the application of Marxist theory in French literary research through specific examples. Finally, Chapter 6 will summarize the reference significance of Marxist theory for the study of French literature and look forward to the future development trends of French literary research.

© 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited All rights reserved. Genome-wide gene expression measurements have enabled comprehensive studies that integrate the changes of gene expression and phenotypic information to uncover their novel associations. Here we reported the association analysis between psychophysical phenotypes and genome-wide gene expression changes in human adaptation to one of the most extreme climates on Earth, the Antarctic Dome Argus. Dome A is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, and may be the coldest, driest and windiest location on earth. It is considered unapproachable due to its hostile environment. In 2007, a Chinese team of 17 male explorers made the expedition to Dome A for scientific investigation. Overall, 133 psychophysical phenotypes were recorded, and genome-wide gene expression profiles from the blood samples of the explorers were measured before their departure and upon their arrival at Dome A. We found that mood disturbances, including tension, depression, anger and fatigue, had a strong, positive, linear relationship with the level of a male sex hormone, testosterone, using the Pearson correlation coefficient analysis. We also demonstrated that significantly lowest-level Gene Ontology groups in changes of gene expression in blood cells with erythrocyte removal were consistent with the adaptation of the psychophysical characteristics. Interestingly, we discovered a list of genes that were strongly related to significant phenotypes using phenotype and gene expression PCC analysis. Importantly, among the 70 genes that were identified, most were significantly related to mood disturbances, where 42 genes have been reported in the literature mining, suggesting that the other 28 genes were likely novel genes involved in the mood disturbance mechanism. Taken together, our association analysis provides a reliable method to uncover novel genes and mechanisms related to phenotypes, although further studies are needed.

We explored the home learning environments of 173 Mexican preschool children (aged 3–6 years) in relation to their numeracy performance. Parents indicated the frequency of their formal home numeracy and literacy activities, and their academic expectations for children’s numeracy and literacy performance. Children completed measures of early numeracy skills. Mexican parent–child dyads from families with either high- or low-socioeconomic status (SES) participated. Low-SES parents (n= 99) reported higher numeracy expectations than high-SES parents (n= 74), but similar frequency of home numeracy activities. In contrast, high-SES parents reported higher frequency of literacy activities. Path analyses showed that operational (i.e., advanced) numeracy activities were positively related to children’s numeracy skills in the high- but not in the low-SES group. These findings improve the understanding of the role of the home environment in different contexts and provide some insights into the sources of the variable patterns of relations between home learning activities and children’s numeracy outcomes. They also suggest that SES is a critical factor to consider in research on children’s home numeracy experiences.