Technical Progress and the Share of Labor Income

Changes in the labor share of national income affect inequality (Piketty 2014). This paper aims at investigating the relationship between the labor share and technical progress, based on provincial data of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1978 to 2012. Our main empirical results show that technical progress in the PRC had been mostly capital biased, contributing to the fast rises in income inequality in the PRC. However, the employment proportion of state-owned enterprises seems to have played a role in offsetting this negative effect, helping contain inequality. In recent years, both effects have become more significant and larger in absolute terms

Apolipoprotein M

Apolipoprotein M (apoM) is a 26-kDa protein that is mainly associated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in human plasma, with a small proportion present in triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TGRLP) and low-density lipoproteins (LDL). Human apoM gene is located in p21.31 on chromosome 6 (chromosome 17, in mouse). Human apoM cDNA (734 base pairs) encodes 188-amino acid residue-long protein. It belongs to lipocalin protein superfamily. Human tissue expression array study indicates that apoM is only expressed in liver and in kidney and small amounts are found in fetal liver and kidney. In situ apoM mRNA hybridization demonstrates that apoM is exclusively expressed in the hepatocytes and in the tubule epithelial cells in kidney. Expression of apoM could be regulated by platelet activating factor (PAF), transforming growth factors (TGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF) and leptin in vivo and/or in vitro. It has been demonstrated that apoM expression is dramatically decreased in apoA-I deficient mouse. Hepatocyte nuclear factor-1α (HNF-1α) is an activator of apoM gene promoter. Deficiency of HNF-1α mouse shows lack of apoM expression. Mutations in HNF-1α (MODY3) have reduced serum apoM levels. Expression of apoM is significantly decreased in leptin deficient (ob/ob) mouse or leptin receptor deficient (db/db) mouse. ApoM concentration in plasma is positively correlated to leptin level in obese subjects. These may suggest that apoM is related to the initiation and progression of MODY3 and/or obesity

Expression and localization of apolipoprotein M in human colorectal tissues

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been well documented that apolipoprotein M (apoM) is principally expressed in the liver and kidney. However we found that there was weak apoM expression in other tissues or organs too, which could not be ignored. In the present study, we therefore examined apoM expression in human colorectal tissues including cancer tissues, cancer adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues and normal mucosa as well as inflammatory mucosa.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tissue samples were collected from patients who underwent surgical resection or endoscopic examination. ApoM mRNA levels were determined by the real-time RT-PCR and apoM protein mass were examined by the immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ApoM protein can be detected in all colorectal tissues. However, apoM protein mass were significantly lower in the cancer tissues than its matched adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues, normal mucosa and inflammatory mucosa. In parallel, apoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues (0.0536 ± 0.0131) were also significantly lower than those in their adjacent normal tissues (0.1907 ± 0.0563) (<it>P </it>= 0.033). Interestingly, apoM mRNA levels in colorectal cancer tissues were statistic significant higher in the patients with lymph node metastasis than the patients without lymph node metastasis (<it>P </it>= 0.008). Patients under Dukes' C and D stages had much higher apoM mRNA levels than patients under Dukes' A and B stages (<it>P </it>= 0.034).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is concluded that apoM could also be expressed in human colorectal tissues besides liver and kidney. ApoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues were significantly increased in the patients with lymph node metastasis. Whether increased apoM expression in the patients with lymph node metastasis being related to patients' prognosis and the physiopathological importance of apoM expression in colorectal tissues need further investigation.</p

Time-Free Solution to SAT Problem by Tissue P Systems

Tissue P systems are a class of computing models inspired by intercellular communication, where the rules are used in the nondeterministic maximally parallel manner. As we know, the execution time of each rule is the same in the system. However, the execution time of biochemical reactions is hard to control from a biochemical point of view. In this work, we construct a uniform and efficient solution to the SAT problem with tissue P systems in a time-free way for the first time. With the P systems constructed from the sizes of instances, the execution time of the rules has no influence on the computation results. As a result, we prove that such system is shown to be highly effective for NP-complete problem even in a time-free manner with communication rules of length at most 3

Expression of apolipoprotein M in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues

The present study examined mRNA levels and protein mass of apolipoprotein M (apoM) in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and in the adjacent tissues. Plasma apoM levels in these HCC patients were also determined and compared to the normal subjects. The mean level of plasma apoM in the HCC patients was 0.61 +/- 0.30 OD mm(-2), which was significantly higher than that in the normal subjects 0.37 +/- 0.07 OD mm(-2) (P < 0.01). However, both apoM mRNA levels and apoM protein mass in the HCC tissues were significantly lower than in the adjacent tissues (P < 0.05). It is concluded that human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues had a reduced capacity to produce apoM than the adjacent non-tumor tissues. However, the plasma apoM levels were higher in the HCC patients than in normal subjects, which suggested that tissues adjacent to the tumors or extra-hepatic apoM production in the HCC patients may contribute to the higher plasma apoM levels in these patients. The clinical significance of apoM in relation to HCC still needs further investigation. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier GmbH

Evaluation of Pseudo-Haptic Interactions with Soft Objects in Virtual Environments

This paper proposes a pseudo-haptic feedback method conveying simulated soft surface stiffness information through a visual interface. The method exploits a combination of two feedback techniques, namely visual feedback of soft surface deformation and control of the indenter avatar speed, to convey stiffness information of a simulated surface of a soft object in virtual environments. The proposed method was effective in distinguishing different sizes of virtual hard nodules integrated into the simulated soft bodies. To further improve the interactive experience, the approach was extended creating a multi-point pseudo-haptic feedback system. A comparison with regards to (a) nodule detection sensitivity and (b) elapsed time as performance indicators in hard nodule detection experiments to a tablet computer incorporating vibration feedback was conducted. The multi-point pseudo-haptic interaction is shown to be more time-efficient than the single-point pseudo-haptic interaction. It is noted that multi-point pseudo-haptic feedback performs similarly well when compared to a vibration-based feedback method based on both performance measures elapsed time and nodule detection sensitivity. This proves that the proposed method can be used to convey detailed haptic information for virtual environmental tasks, even subtle ones, using either a computer mouse or a pressure sensitive device as an input device. This pseudo-haptic feedback method provides an opportunity for low-cost simulation of objects with soft surfaces and hard inclusions, as, for example, occurring in ever more realistic video games with increasing emphasis on interaction with the physical environment and minimally invasive surgery in the form of soft tissue organs with embedded cancer nodules. Hence, the method can be used in many low-budget applications where haptic sensation is required, such as surgeon training or video games, either using desktop computers or portable devices, showing reasonably high fidelity in conveying stiffness perception to the user