Anti-cancer effects and mechanism of actions of aspirin analogues in the treatment of glioma cancer

INTRODUCTION: In the past 25 years only modest advancements in glioma treatment have been made, with patient prognosis and median survival time following diagnosis only increasing from 3 to 7 months. A substantial body of clinical and preclinical evidence has suggested a role for aspirin in the treatment of cancer with multiple mechanisms of action proposed including COX 2 inhibition, down regulation of EGFR expression, and NF-κB signaling affecting Bcl-2 expression. However, with serious side effects such as stroke and gastrointestinal bleeding, aspirin analogues with improved potency and side effect profiles are being developed. METHOD: Effects on cell viability following 24 hr incubation of four aspirin derivatives (PN508, 517, 526 and 529) were compared to cisplatin, aspirin and di-aspirin in four glioma cell lines (U87 MG, SVG P12, GOS – 3, and 1321N1), using the PrestoBlue assay, establishing IC50 and examining the time course of drug effects. RESULTS: All compounds were found to decrease cell viability in a concentration and time dependant manner. Significantly, the analogue PN517 (IC50 2mM) showed approximately a twofold increase in potency when compared to aspirin (3.7mM) and cisplatin (4.3mM) in U87 cells, with similar increased potency in SVG P12 cells. Other analogues demonstrated similar potency to aspirin and cisplatin. CONCLUSION: These results support the further development and characterization of novel NSAID derivatives for the treatment of glioma

Financial development and health care expenditure in Sub Saharan Africa Countries

The study aimed to examine the relationship between financial development and health care expenditure in 46 Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. The paper argues that health care expenditure is a key transmission mechanism through which financial development influences better health outcomes. The study used random and fixed effects as well as instrumental variable estimation methods using data from 1995 to 2014. The results showed that financial development leads to increased health care expenditure. In terms of policy implications, the findings underscore the need to foster financial development in SSA economies to assist with domestic resource mobilisation to finance health care expenditure

Consequences of Covid-19 on the Social Isolation of the Chinese Economy: Accounting for the Role of Reduction in Carbon Emissions

The main contribution of the present study to the energy literature is linked to the interaction between economic growth and pollution emission amidst globalization. Unlike other studies, this research explores the effect of economic and social isolation as a dimension of globalization. This allows underpinning the effects on the Chinese economic development of the isolation phenomenon as a consequence of coronavirus (COVID-19). To this end, annual time frequency data is used to achieve the hypothesized claims. The study resolutions include (i) The existence of a long-run equilibrium bond between the outlined variables (ii) The long-run estimates suggest that the Chinese economy over the investigated period, is inelastic to pollutant–driven economic growth as reported by the dynamic ordinary least squares, fully modified ordinary least squares and canonical regressions with a magnitude of 0.09%. (iii) The Chinese isolation is less responsive to its economic growth while the country political willpower is elastic as demonstrated by current government commitment to dampen the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is marked by the aggressive response on the government officials resolute by flattening the exponential impact of the pandemic. Based on these robust results some far-reaching policy implication(s) are underlined in the concluding remark section

Is the long-run relationship between economic growth, electricity consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and financial development in Gulf Cooperation Council Countries robust?

The relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, economic growth, electricity consumption and financial development in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is investigated in this study using panel data for the period of 1980-2012. A number of econometric techniques: dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) and the dynamic fixed effect model (DFE) are applied in order to estimate the long-run relationship between the variables. The long-run relationship is found to be robust across these different econometric specifications. No significant short-run significant relationship was observed. Electricity consumption and economic growth have a positive long run relationship with carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions whilst a negative and significant relationship was found between CO2 emissions and financial development. The findings imply that electricity consumption and economic growth stimulate CO2 emissions in GCC countries while financial development reduces it. Granger causality results reveal that there is a bidirectional causal link between economic growth and CO2 emissions and a unidirectional causal link running from electricity consumption to CO2 emissions. However, there is no causal link between financial development and CO2 emissions. Also, impulse response and variance decomposition analysis outline forecasted impacts of economic growth and electricity consumption on future CO2 emissions