FIDELIO 3 manual: Equations and data sources

FIDELIO (Fully Interregional Dynamic Econometric Long-term Input-Output) is a multi-sectoral model developed by the unit B.5 of the Directorate General Joint Research Centre (JRC) — the circular economy and industrial leadership unit. Compared to neoclassical CGE models — which assume that the perfect flexibility of prices and quantities ensures the full use of the factors of production at all times — FIDELIO integrates some new-Keynesian features: consumption adjusts slowly to its optimal level according to an error correction model and wages do not clear the labour market. The assumptions that prices do not clear the markets and market "imperfections" exist generate the dynamics of the model that is solved sequentially (recursive dynamic). In addition, FIDELIO is an econometric model since the calibration of most of the behavioural parameters of the model (dynamic adjustment lags of prices and quantities, and elasticities) is based on econometric estimations. This technical report illustrates the third version of the FIDELIO model, FIDELIO 3. The changes introduced in the subsequent versions of the model have two main objectives. The first one is to increase the coverage of the model. The second one is to improve the efficiency and the capacity of the model to evaluate sustainable production and consumption policies. The aim of this report is twofold. First, it contains all the equations of the current version of the model; second, it illustrates the characteristics of the data used by FIDELIO 3.JRC.B.5-Circular Economy and Industrial Leadershi

Your Age Is No Secret: Inferring Microbloggers' Ages via Content and Interaction Analysis

Microblogging systems such as Twitter have seen explosive use in public and private sectors. The age information of microbloggers can be very useful for many applications such as viral marketing and social studies/surveys. Current microblogging systems, however, have very sparse age information. In this paper, we present MAIF, a novel framework that explores public content and interaction information in microblogging systems to explore the hidden ages of microbloggers. We thoroughly evaluate the accuracy of MAIF with a real-world dataset with 54,879 Twitter users. Our results show that MAIF can achieve up to 81.38% inference accuracy and outperforms the state of the art by 9.15%. We also discuss some countermeasures to alleviate the possible privacy concerns caused by MAIF

Global transport emissions in the Swedish carbon footprint

Transport is perhaps one of the more difficult sources of emissions to address. Whilst opportunities are available for electrification of road vehicle fleets, air transport and the long distance freight of goods are more challenging. Further, due to the fragmentation of global supply chains, where materials can cross the world multiple times before ending up with a final consumer, it is important to understand the contribution of emissions caused by transport, and especially international transport, in relation to the consumption of goods and services. This paper provides evidence based insights into the contribution of CO2 emissions from transport to consumption footprints in Sweden. We give an extensive discussion of the treatment of transport in multi-regional input-output based approaches which can give insight into how different transport emissions can be accounted for. Secondly, we estimate the amount of CO2 emissions in the footprint coming from transport for Sweden. Results show that 14% (12 Mton) of the total Swedish CO2 footprint (84 Mton) was coming from transport activities occurring in the global supply chain. Most of these emissions were caused by transport in supply chains of consumed goods and services such as construction, household appliances and motor vehicles (8.5 Mton). However, the final consumption of package holidays and flights form the single biggest category with 3.5 Mton of the total 12 Mton CO2 of embodied transport emissions. With direct household emissions of vehicle transport in Sweden being 8.5 Mton, the emissions embodied in goods and services (excluding the package holidays and flights) are nearly equivalent to all the private vehicle transport of Swedish citizens

Kill two birds with one stone: making multi-transgenic pre-diabetes mouse models through insulin resistance and pancreatic apoptosis pathogenesis

Background Type 2 diabetes is characterized by insulin resistance accompanied by defective insulin secretion. Transgenic mouse models play an important role in medical research. However, single transgenic mouse models may not mimic the complex phenotypes of most cases of type 2 diabetes. Methods Focusing on genes related to pancreatic islet damage, peripheral insulin resistance and related environmental inducing factors, we generated single-transgenic (C/EBP homology protein, CHOP) mice (CHOP mice), dual-transgenic (human islet amyloid polypeptide, hIAPP; CHOP) mice (hIAPP-CHOP mice) and triple-transgenic (11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1, 11β-HSD1; hIAPP; CHOP) mice (11β-HSD1-hIAPP- CHOP mice). The latter two types of transgenic (Tg) animals were induced with high-fat high-sucrose diets (HFHSD). We analyzed the diabetes-related symptoms and histology features of the transgenic animals. Results Comparing symptoms on the spot-checked points, we determined that the triple-transgene mice were more suitable for systematic study. The results of intraperitoneal glucose tolerance tests (IPGTT) of triple-transgene animals began to change 60 days after induction (p < 0.001). After 190 days of induction, the body weights (p < 0.01) and plasma glucose of the animals in Tg were higher than those of the animals in Negative Control (Nc). After sacrificed, large amounts of lipid were found deposited in adipose (p < 0.01) and ectopically deposited in the non-adipose tissues (p < 0.05 or 0.01) of the animals in the Tg HFHSD group. The weights of kidneys and hearts of Tg animals were significantly increased (p < 0.01). Serum C peptide (C-P) was decreased due to Tg effects, and insulin levels were increased due to the effects of the HFHSD in the Tg HFHSD group, indicating that damaged insulin secretion and insulin resistance hyperinsulinemia existed simultaneously in these animals. The serum corticosterone of Tg was slightly higher than those of Nc due to the effects of the 11βHSD-1 transgene and obesity. In Tg HFHSD, hepatic adipose deposition was more severe and the pancreatic islet area was enlarged under compensation, accompanying apoptosis. In the transgenic control diet (Tg ControlD) group, hepatic adipose deposition was also severe, pancreatic islets were damaged, and their areas were decreased (p < 0.05), and apoptosis of pancreatic cells occurred. Taken together, these data show the transgenes led to early-stage pathological changes characteristic of type 2 diabetes in the triple-transgene HFHSD group. The disease of triple-transgenic mice was more severe than that of dual or single-transgenic mice. Conclusion The use of multi-transgenes involved in insulin resistance and pancreatic apoptosis is a better way to generate polygene-related early-stage diabetes models

Effects of Different Regulating Measures on the Floral and Nutritional Physiology of Lemon

Lemon is an important economic crop in the world and can bloom several times each year. The Dehong prefecture of Yunnan province is one of the main lemon-producing areas in China, and is a suitable area for planting high-quality lemons in China. However, the hot and rainy summers in Yunnan are not conducive to flower bud differentiation, which leads to low lemon yield. Therefore, normal flower bud differentiation is important to guarantee lemon production and quality. In this study, we selected some lemon trees for a pot experiment, and we sprayed the lemon leaves with gibberellin and paclobutrazol to regulate lemon flower formation. We set four separate concentration gradients for each regulator: 50, 100, 150, and 200 mg/L. The PBZ concentration gradients were 200, 400, 600, and 1200 mg/L. After the experiment, we determined and analyzed the morphological index and fruit quality of the lemon trees. The results showed that under the same cultivation and management conditions, spraying paclobutrazol substantially inhibited the growth of lemon shoots, increased the fruit setting rate, and improved the fruit yield. However, gibberellin considerably reduced the number of lemon flowering branches and promoted the vegetative growth of the lemons. When the concentration of paclobutrazol was 600 mg/L, the amount of lemon fruits reached the maximum, which remarkably increased the titratable acid and soluble solids contents of the fruit and ultimately increased the fruit quality compared with the control. Altogether, selecting the appropriate concentration of regulators to control the flowering and fruit setting of fruit trees is important and has value in guiding actual production

MTHFD2 reprograms macrophage polarization by inhibiting PTEN

Summary: The one-carbon metabolism enzyme methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase 2 (MTHFD2) is involved in the regulation of tumor oncogenesis and immune cell functions, but whether it can contribute to macrophage polarization remains elusive. Here, we show that MTHFD2 suppresses polarization of interferon-γ-activated macrophages (M(IFN-γ)) but enhances that of interleukin-4-activated macrophages (M(IL-4)) both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, MTHFD2 interacts with phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) to suppress PTEN’s phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PIP3) phosphatase activity and enhance downstream Akt activation, independent of the N-terminal mitochondria-targeting signal of MTHFD2. MTHFD2-PTEN interaction is promoted by IL-4 but not IFN-γ. Furthermore, amino acid residues (aa 215–225) of MTHFD2 directly target PTEN catalytic center (aa 118–141). Residue D168 of MTHFD2 is also critical for regulating PTEN’s PIP3 phosphatase activity by affecting MTHFD2-PTEN interaction. Our study suggests a non-metabolic function of MTHFD2 by which MTHFD2 inhibits PTEN activity, orchestrates macrophage polarization, and alters macrophage-mediated immune responses

Deep sequencing reveals early reprogramming of arabidopsis root transcriptomes upon ralstonia solanacearum infection

Bacterial wilt caused by the bacterial pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the most devastating crop diseases worldwide. The molecular mechanisms controlling the early stage of R. solanacearum colonization in the root remain unknown. Aiming to better understand the mechanism of the establishment of R. solanacearum infection in root, we established four stages in the early interaction of the pathogen with Arabidopsis roots and determined the transcriptional profiles of these stages of infection. A total 2,698 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes during the initial 96 h after infection, with the majority of changes in gene expression occurring after pathogen-triggered root-hair development observed. Further analysis of differentially expressed genes indicated sequential activation of multiple hormone signaling cascades, including abscisic acid (ABA), auxin, jasmonic acid, and ethylene. Simultaneous impairment of ABA receptor genes promoted plant wilting symptoms after R. solanacearum infection but did not affect primary root growth inhibition or root-hair and lateral root formation caused by R. solanacearum. This indicated that ABA signaling positively regulates root defense to R. solanacearum. Moreover, transcriptional changes of genes involved in primary root, lateral root, and root-hair formation exhibited high temporal dynamics upon infection. Taken together, our results suggest that successful infection of R. solanacearum on roots is a highly programmed process involving in hormone crosstalk

Deep Sequencing Reveals Early Reprogramming of Arabidopsis Root Transcriptomes Upon Ralstonia solanacearum Infection

Ajuts: This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31601703), the Start-up Funds of Northwest A&F University (Z111021601), the Fundamental5 Research Fund for the Central Universities of China (Z109021706) and External Science and Technology Cooperation Program of Ningxia Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (DW-X-2018012). CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya

Structural insights into Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris NAD+ biosynthesis via the NAM salvage pathway

Abstract Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) plays an important role in the biosynthesis of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) via the nicotinamide (NAM) salvage pathway. While the structural biochemistry of eukaryote NAMPT has been well studied, the catalysis mechanism of prokaryote NAMPT at the molecular level remains largely unclear. Here, we demonstrated the NAMPT-mediated salvage pathway is functional in the Gram-negative phytopathogenic bacterium Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris (Xcc) for the synthesis of NAD+, and the enzyme activity of NAMPT in this bacterium is significantly higher than that of human NAMPT in vitro. Our structural analyses of Xcc NAMPT, both in isolation and in complex with either the substrate NAM or the product nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), uncovered significant details of substrate recognition. Specifically, we revealed the presence of a NAM binding tunnel that connects the active site, and this tunnel is essential for both catalysis and inhibitor binding. We further demonstrated that NAM binding in the tunnel has a positive cooperative effect with NAM binding in the catalytic site. Additionally, we discovered that phosphorylation of the His residue at position 229 enhances the substrate binding affinity of Xcc NAMPT and is important for its catalytic activity. This work reveals the importance of NAMPT in bacterial NAD+ synthesis and provides insights into the substrate recognition and the catalytic mechanism of bacterial type II phosphoribosyltransferases