Jun Shi

ABSTRACT This is the second paper in a series of papers on juxtapositions between Chinese moral education and Western character education; the first paper analysed the reasons why the Western character education approach represented by neo-Aristotelian character education (neo-ACE) is not popular in China. However, the authors do not deem neo-ACE to be entirely incompatible with Chinese moral education and, in fact, identifying misalignments between neo-ACE and Chinese moral education helps identify which aspects of neo-ACE are potentially beneficial for introduction and application in China. The present paper thus extends the remit of the previous paper by looking ahead and focusing on what Chinese moral educators can learn from neo-ACE, represented especially by the Jubilee Centre’s work. Four aspects are proposed: promoting the idea of the ‘flourishing student’, highlighting the importance of ‘virtue literacy’, absorbing wisdom from ‘positive psychology/education’, and teaching phronesis or practical wisdom.

© 2017 American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved.Aliphatic and aromatic lipids are both essential structural components of the plant cuticle, an important interface between the plant and environment. Although cross links between aromatic and aliphatic or other moieties are known to be associated with the formation of leaf cutin and root and seed suberin, the contribution of aromatic lipids to the biosynthesis of anther cuticles and pollen walls remains elusive. In this study, we characterized the rice male sterile mutant, defective pollen wall 2, which showed an abnormal anther cuticle, a defective pollen wall, and complete male sterility. Compared with the wild type, dpw2 anthers have increased amounts of cutin and waxes and decreased levels of lipidic and phenolic compounds. DPW2 encodes a cytoplasmically localized BAHD acyltransferase. In vitro assays demonstrated that recombinant DPW2 specifically transfers hydroxycinnamic acid moieties, using v-hydroxy fatty acids as acyl acceptors and hydroxycinnamoyl-CoAs as acyl donors. Thus, The cytoplasmic hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA:v-hydroxy fatty acid transferase DPW2 plays a fundamental role in male reproduction via the biosynthesis of key components of the anther cuticle and pollen wall.