Organizing the environmental governance of the rare-earth industry: China’s passive revolution

The rare-earth industry is of strategic importance for China and many ‘clean’ technologies worldwide. Yet the processes of mining, smelting and separating rare-earth ores are heavily polluting. Using a neo-Gramscian perspective in the context of organization studies, this article analyzes the dynamic interactions between government agencies, business and civil society in the development of the environmental governance of China’s rare-earth industry over the past 30 years, with a particular focus on China’s ‘top-down’ passive revolution. Making use of rarely granted access to China’s biggest rare-earth company, one of the country’s key strategic assets, the analysis makes visible the changes of environmental contestations amongst five different governance actors over what we identify as three environmental governance eras in China. Besides offering unique empirical insights into the organizational processes that constitute the dynamically evolving hegemony of China’s rare-earth industry, the article makes three theoretical contributions to the field of organization studies. First, we analyze the changing role of state institutions in a non-Western context, which has been de-emphasized by existing organization scholars. Second, we conceptualize the dynamics of environmental governance in China as a form of top-down ‘passive revolution’. Third, we problematize the dual role of Chinese NGOs as both supporting and challenging state power. Overall, we contribute to our understanding of the organization of governance systems in non-Western contexts, which has been neglected in organizational studies

The bifurcation periods in low-mass X-ray binaries: the effect of magnetic braking and mass loss

The bifurcation period in low-mass X-ray binaries is the initial orbital pe- riod which separates the formation of converging systems (which evolve with decreasing orbital periods until the donor becomes degenerate) from the diverging systems (which evolve with increasing orbital periods until the donor star loses its envelope and a wide detached binary is formed). We calculate systematically the bifurcation periods of binary systems with a 1.4M_\sun neutron star and a 0.5-2M_\sun donor star, taking into account different kinds of magnetic braking and mass loss mechanisms. Our results show that the saturated magnetic braking can considerably decrease the values of bifurcation period compared to the traditional magnetic braking, while the influence of mass loss mechanisms on bifurcation periods is quite weak. We also develop a semi-analytical method to compute the bifurcation period, the result of which agrees well with the numerical method in the leading order.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted to be published in Ap

Extended Coagulation Profiling in Isolated Traumatic Brain Injury:A CENTER-TBI Analysis

Background: Trauma-induced coagulopathy in traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains associated with high rates of complications, unfavorable outcomes, and mortality. The underlying mechanisms are largely unknown. Embedded in the prospective multinational Collaborative European Neurotrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI) study, coagulation profiles beyond standard conventional coagulation assays were assessed in patients with isolated TBI within the very early hours of injury. Methods: Results from blood samples (citrate/EDTA) obtained on hospital admission were matched with clinical and routine laboratory data of patients with TBI captured in the CENTER-TBI central database. To minimize confounding factors, patients with strictly isolated TBI (iTBI) (n = 88) were selected and stratified for coagulopathy by routine international normalized ratio (INR): (1) INR &lt; 1.2 and (2) INR ≥ 1.2. An INR &gt; 1.2 has been well adopted over time as a threshold to define trauma-related coagulopathy in general trauma populations. The following parameters were evaluated: quick’s value, activated partial thromboplastin time, fibrinogen, thrombin time, antithrombin, coagulation factor activity of factors V, VIII, IX, and XIII, protein C and S, plasminogen, D-dimer, fibrinolysis-regulating parameters (thrombin activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, antiplasmin), thrombin generation, and fibrin monomers. Results: Patients with iTBI with INR ≥ 1.2 (n = 16) had a high incidence of progressive intracranial hemorrhage associated with increased mortality and unfavorable outcome compared with patients with INR &lt; 1.2 (n = 72). Activity of coagulation factors V, VIII, IX, and XIII dropped on average by 15–20% between the groups whereas protein C and S levels dropped by 20%. With an elevated INR, thrombin generation decreased, as reflected by lower peak height and endogenous thrombin potential (ETP), whereas the amount of fibrin monomers increased. Plasminogen activity significantly decreased from 89% in patients with INR &lt; 1.2 to 76% in patients with INR ≥ 1.2. Moreover, D-dimer levels significantly increased from a mean of 943 mg/L in patients with INR &lt; 1.2 to 1,301 mg/L in patients with INR ≥ 1.2. Conclusions: This more in-depth analysis beyond routine conventional coagulation assays suggests a counterbalanced regulation of coagulation and fibrinolysis in patients with iTBI with hemostatic abnormalities. We observed distinct patterns involving key pathways of the highly complex and dynamic coagulation system that offer windows of opportunity for further research. Whether the changes observed on factor levels may be relevant and explain the worse outcome or the more severe brain injuries by themselves remains speculative.</p

Structure-Based Virtual Screening for Drug Discovery: a Problem-Centric Review

Structure-based virtual screening (SBVS) has been widely applied in early-stage drug discovery. From a problem-centric perspective, we reviewed the recent advances and applications in SBVS with a special focus on docking-based virtual screening. We emphasized the researchers’ practical efforts in real projects by understanding the ligand-target binding interactions as a premise. We also highlighted the recent progress in developing target-biased scoring functions by optimizing current generic scoring functions toward certain target classes, as well as in developing novel ones by means of machine learning techniques

Genetic variants in novel pathways influence blood pressure and cardiovascular disease risk.

Blood pressure is a heritable trait influenced by several biological pathways and responsive to environmental stimuli. Over one billion people worldwide have hypertension (≥140 mm Hg systolic blood pressure or  ≥90 mm Hg diastolic blood pressure). Even small increments in blood pressure are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. This genome-wide association study of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which used a multi-stage design in 200,000 individuals of European descent, identified sixteen novel loci: six of these loci contain genes previously known or suspected to regulate blood pressure (GUCY1A3-GUCY1B3, NPR3-C5orf23, ADM, FURIN-FES, GOSR2, GNAS-EDN3); the other ten provide new clues to blood pressure physiology. A genetic risk score based on 29 genome-wide significant variants was associated with hypertension, left ventricular wall thickness, stroke and coronary artery disease, but not kidney disease or kidney function. We also observed associations with blood pressure in East Asian, South Asian and African ancestry individuals. Our findings provide new insights into the genetics and biology of blood pressure, and suggest potential novel therapeutic pathways for cardiovascular disease prevention

Genome-wide association study identifies six new loci influencing pulse pressure and mean arterial pressure.

Numerous genetic loci have been associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) in Europeans. We now report genome-wide association studies of pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP). In discovery (N = 74,064) and follow-up studies (N = 48,607), we identified at genome-wide significance (P = 2.7 × 10(-8) to P = 2.3 × 10(-13)) four new PP loci (at 4q12 near CHIC2, 7q22.3 near PIK3CG, 8q24.12 in NOV and 11q24.3 near ADAMTS8), two new MAP loci (3p21.31 in MAP4 and 10q25.3 near ADRB1) and one locus associated with both of these traits (2q24.3 near FIGN) that has also recently been associated with SBP in east Asians. For three of the new PP loci, the estimated effect for SBP was opposite of that for DBP, in contrast to the majority of common SBP- and DBP-associated variants, which show concordant effects on both traits. These findings suggest new genetic pathways underlying blood pressure variation, some of which may differentially influence SBP and DBP

Genetic associations at 53 loci highlight cell types and biological pathways relevant for kidney function.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate defines chronic kidney disease and is associated with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), combining data across 133,413 individuals with replication in up to 42,166 individuals. We identify 24 new and confirm 29 previously identified loci. Of these 53 loci, 19 associate with eGFR among individuals with diabetes. Using bioinformatics, we show that identified genes at eGFR loci are enriched for expression in kidney tissues and in pathways relevant for kidney development and transmembrane transporter activity, kidney structure, and regulation of glucose metabolism. Chromatin state mapping and DNase I hypersensitivity analyses across adult tissues demonstrate preferential mapping of associated variants to regulatory regions in kidney but not extra-renal tissues. These findings suggest that genetic determinants of eGFR are mediated largely through direct effects within the kidney and highlight important cell types and biological pathways