Performance of domestic and foreign-invested enterprises in China

Despite increasing attention paid to China's enterprise reform since the late 1970s, relatively little is known about the performance of reformed state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and newly formed private firms vis-à-vis foreign firms in China. In this study, we examine the performance of domestic Chinese firms in various ownership categories versus foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) based on two nation-wide surveys conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics in 1998 and 2002. We found that both domestic non-state-owned firms and foreign-invested enterprises performed better than state-owned enterprises. Meanwhile, three categories of Chinese firms-privately owned, collectively owned, and shareholding-had higher performance levels than the foreign-invested enterprises. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

The Bipolar II depression questionnaire: A self-report tool for detecting Bipolar II depression

Bipolar II (BP-II) depression is often misdiagnosed as unipolar (UP) depression, resulting in suboptimal treatment. Tools for differentiating between these two types of depression are lacking. This study aimed to develop a simple, self-report screening instrument to help distinguish BP-II depression from UP depressive disorder. A prototype BP-II depression questionnaire (BPIIDQ-P) was constructed following a literature review, panel discussions and a field trial. Consecutively assessed patients with a diagnosis of depressive disorder or BP with depressive episodes completed the BPIIDQ-P at a psychiatric outpatient clinic in Hong Kong between October and December 2013. Data were analyzed using discriminant analysis and logistic regression. Of the 298 subjects recruited, 65 (21.8%) were males and 233 (78.2%) females. There were 112 (37.6%) subjects with BP depression [BP-I = 42 (14.1%), BP-II = 70 (23.5%)] and 182 (62.4%) with UP depression. Based on family history, age at onset, postpartum depression, episodic course, attacks of anxiety, hypersomnia, social phobia and agoraphobia, the 8-item BPIIDQ-8 was constructed. The BPIIDQ-8 differentiated subjects with BP-II from those with UP depression with a sensitivity/specificity of 0.75/0.63 for the whole sample and 0.77/0.72 for a female subgroup with a history of childbirth. The BPIIDQ-8 can differentiate BP-II from UP depression at the secondary care level with satisfactory to good reliability and validity. It has good potential as a screening tool for BP-II depression in primary care settings. Recall bias, the relatively small sample size, and the high proportion of females in the BP-II sample limit the generalization of the results

PathCluster: a framework for gene set-based hierarchical clustering

Motivation: Gene clustering and gene set-based functional analysis are widely used for the analysis of expression profiles. The development of a comprehensive method jointly combining the two methods would allow for greater biological insights

Large enhancement of the thermopower in Nax_xCoO2_2 at high Na doping

Research on the oxide perovskites has uncovered electronic properties that are strikingly enhanced compared with those in conventional metals. Examples are the high critical temperatures of the cuprate superconductors and the colossal magnetoresistance in the manganites. The conducting layered cobaltate $\rm Na_xCoO_2$ displays several interesting electronic phases as $x$ is varied including water-induced superconductivity and an insulating state that is destroyed by field. Initial measurements showed that, in the as-grown composition, $\rm Na_xCoO_2$ displays moderately large thermopower $S$ and conductivity $\sigma$. However, the prospects for thermoelectric cooling applications faded when the figure of merit $Z$ was found to be small at this composition (0.6$<x<$0.7). Here we report that, in the poorly-explored high-doping region $x>$0.75, $S$ undergoes an even steeper enhancement. At the critical doping $x_p\sim$ 0.85, $Z$ (at 80 K) reaches values $\sim$40 times larger than in the as-grown crystals. We discuss prospects for low-temperature thermoelectric applications.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

A targeted gene panel that covers coding, non-coding and short tandem repeat regions improves the diagnosis of patients with neurodegenerative diseases

Genetic testing for neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) is highly challenging because of genetic heterogeneity and overlapping manifestations. Targeted-gene panels (TGPs), coupled with next-generation sequencing (NGS), can facilitate the profiling of a large repertoire of ND-related genes. Due to the technical limitations inherent in NGS and TGPs, short tandem repeat (STR) variations are often ignored. However, STR expansions are known to cause such NDs as Huntington\u27s disease and spinocerebellar ataxias type 3 (SCA3). Here, we studied the clinical utility of a custom-made TGP that targets 199 NDs and 311 ND-associated genes on 118 undiagnosed patients. At least one known or likely pathogenic variation was found in 54 patients; 27 patients demonstrated clinical profiles that matched the variants; and 16 patients whose original diagnosis were refined. A high concordance of variant calling were observed when comparing the results from TGP and whole-exome sequencing of four patients. Our in-house STR detection algorithm has reached a specificity of 0.88 and a sensitivity of 0.82 in our SCA3 cohort. This study also uncovered a trove of novel and recurrent variants that may enrich the repertoire of ND-related genetic markers. We propose that a combined comprehensive TGPs-bioinformatics pipeline can improve the clinical diagnosis of NDs

Paclitaxel induces immunogenic cell death in ovarian cancer via TLR4/IKK2/SNARE-dependent exocytosis

Emerging evidence shows that the efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs are reliant on their capability to induce immunogenic cell death (ICD), thus transforming dying tumor cells into antitumor vaccines. We wanted to uncover potential therapeutic strategies that target ovarian cancer by having a better understanding of the standard-of-care chemotherapy treatment. Here, we showed in ovarian cancer that paclitaxel induced ICD-associated DAMPs (i.e. damage-associated molecular patterns, such as CALR exposure, ATP secretion and HMGB1 release) in vitro and elicited significant antitumor responses in tumor vaccination assays in vivo. Paclitaxel-induced TLR4 signaling was essential to the release of DAMPs, which lead to the activation of NF-κB-mediated CCL2 transcription and IKK2-mediated SNARE-dependent vesicle exocytosis, thus exposing CALR on the cell surface. Paclitaxel induced ER stress, which triggered PERK activation and eIF2α phosphorylation independent of TLR4. Paclitaxel chemotherapy induced T cell infiltration in ovarian tumors of the responsive patients; CALR expression in primary ovarian tumors also correlated with patients' survival and patient response to chemotherapy. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of paclitaxel relied upon the activation of antitumor immunity through ICD via TLR4 and highlighted the importance of CALR expression in cancer cells as an indicator of response to paclitaxel chemotherapy in ovarian cancer