Bibliometric overview and retrospective analysis of fund performance research between 1966 and 2019

Fund performance has been a hot topic in the financial research area, fair and correct evaluation of fund performance is of great significance for fund investors and companies. However, most of the relevant publications do not have any retrospective analysis of this topic in terms of knowledge domain to show its development trends and research concerns. To address this issue, two effective bibliometric tools namely Citespace II (The 5.3.R4 Edition) and SciMat are used to analyze the knowledge domain of this field in this paper. We have analyzed 979 articles related to fund performance from Web of Science between 1966 and 2019 (July), the analysis content includes the current status, collaboration network, co-citation network, and emerging trends of fund performance research, then we have derived the following desired conclusions: (1) In the last twenty years, there was a significant increase in the publication and citation numbers of fund performance research; especially, the relative research has become interdisciplinary and internationalized. (2) “Mutual Fund Performance”, “Fund Return”, “Investment Performance”, and “Portfolio Selection” are the hottest topics in the fund performance research. (3) “Small Fund” and “Investor Reaction” are the two emerging trends in the fund performance research. To sum up, there are two main contributions in this paper: First, we provide a full bibliometric analysis about the fund performance research. Second, we make the further development of fund performance research easier and more clearly to show the directions to learn and study for beginners

Trial of spesolimab for generalized pustular psoriasis.

BACKGROUND: Generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP) is a rare, life-threatening, inflammatory skin disease characterized by widespread eruption of sterile pustules. Interleukin-36 signaling is involved in the pathogenesis of this disorder. Spesolimab, a humanized anti–interleukin-36 receptor monoclonal antibody, is being studied for the treatment of GPP flares. METHODS: In a phase 2 trial, we randomly assigned patients with a GPP flare in a 2:1 ratio to receive a single 900-mg intravenous dose of spesolimab or placebo. Patients in both groups could receive an open-label dose of spesolimab on day 8, an open-label dose of spesolimab as a rescue medication after day 8, or both and were followed to week 12. The primary end point was a Generalized Pustular Psoriasis Physician Global Assessment (GPPGA) pustulation subscore of 0 (range, 0 [no visible pustules] to 4 [severe pustulation]) at the end of week 1. The key secondary end point was a GPPGA total score of 0 or 1 (clear or almost clear skin) at the end of week 1; scores range from 0 to 4, with higher scores indicating greater disease severity. RESULTS: A total of 53 patients were enrolled: 35 were assigned to receive spesolimab and 18 to receive placebo. At baseline, 46% of the patients in the spesolimab group and 39% of those in the placebo group had a GPPGA pustulation subscore of 3, and 37% and 33%, respectively, had a pustulation subscore of 4. At the end of week 1, a total of 19 of 35 patients (54%) in the spesolimab group had a pustulation subscore of 0, as compared with 1 of 18 patients (6%) in the placebo group (difference, 49 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], 21 to 67; P<0.001). A total of 15 of 35 patients (43%) had a GPPGA total score of 0 or 1, as compared with 2 of 18 patients (11%) in the placebo group (difference, 32 percentage points; 95% CI, 2 to 53; P=0.02). Drug reactions were reported in 2 patients who received spesolimab, in 1 of them concurrently with a drug-induced hepatic injury. Among patients assigned to the spesolimab group, infections occurred in 6 of 35 (17%) through the first week; among patients who received spesolimab at any time in the trial, infections had occurred in 24 of 51 (47%) at week 12. Antidrug antibodies were detected in 23 of 50 patients (46%) who received at least one dose of spesolimab. CONCLUSIONS: In a phase 2 randomized trial involving patients with GPP, the interleukin-36 receptor inhibitor spesolimab resulted in a higher incidence of lesion clearance at 1 week than placebo but was associated with infections and systemic drug reactions. Longer and larger trials are warranted to determine the effect and risks of spesolimab in patients with pustular psoriasis. (Funded by Boehringer Ingelheim; Effisayil 1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03782792.

Fractal Characteristics, Multiple Bubbles, and Jump Anomalies in the Chinese Stock Market

To consider the jump problem of the Chinese stock market, this paper takes the CSI 300 Index from April 2005 to November 2015 as the research object, uses the rescaled range analysis (R/S analysis) method to examine the fractal characteristics of the Chinese stock market in the past ten years, and deduces the possibility of multiple bubbles in the Chinese stock market. Based on this, combined with the log-periodic power law (LPPL) model, the stock market bubbles are identified in different periods. The results show that China’s stock market has some anomalies in terms of positive bubbles, negative bubbles, and reverse bubbles, as well as the cross occurrence of reverse-negative bubbles. Besides, through a comparison with the major foreign stock markets, it is found that the fluctuation range of the Chinese stock market is much larger than that of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the FTSE 100 indices in the same period and there are also more types of multibubbles, which is a connotative anomaly that makes the Chinese stock market different from other major stock markets. Furthermore, the bubble phenomenon in the Chinese stock market during the periods of 2005/4–2007/10 and 2015/6–2015/11 is studied, and it is found that there is a jump anomaly in the Chinese stock market. Finally, based on the above empirical analysis and the current state of the stock market, this paper provides some suggestions for improving the mechanism of the Chinese stock market

Odor Fingerprint Analysis Using Feature Mining Method Based on Olfactory Sensory Evaluation

In this paper, we aim to use odor fingerprint analysis to identify and detect various odors. We obtained the olfactory sensory evaluation of eight different brands of Chinese liquor by a lab-developed intelligent nose. From the respective combination of the time domain and frequency domain, we extract features to reflect the samples comprehensively. However, the extracted feature combined time domain and frequency domain will bring redundant information that affects performance. Therefore, we proposed data by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Variable Importance Projection (VIP) to delete redundant information to construct a more precise odor fingerprint. Then, Random Forest (RF) and Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) were built based on the above. Results showed that the VIP-based models achieved better classification performance than PCA-based models. In addition, the peak performance (92.5%) of the VIP-RF model had a higher classification rate than the VIP-PNN model (90%). In conclusion, odor fingerprint analysis using a feature mining method based on the olfactory sensory evaluation can be applied to monitor product quality in the actual process of industrialization

Characterization of the complete chloroplast genome of Linnaea borealis, a rare, clonal self-incompatible plant

Linnaea borealis L. is a creeping shrub which grows about 5–10 cm high and is a rare clonal plant. Linnaea is a monotypic genus. Here, we release and detail the complete chloroplast genome sequences of L. borealis, whose size is 161,576 bp, containing a large single copy region (LSC) of 85,609 bp and a single copy region (SSC) of 46,694 bp which typically separates by a pair of inverted repeats (IRs) of 29,210 bp. The amount of the overall genes is 136, which includes 37 tRNA genes, eight rRNA genes, and 91 protein-coding genes. The content of the G/C in whole plastome is 61.74% while the G/C content of the LSC, SSC, and IR region are 36.58%, 38.86%, and 42.25%, respectively. The complete cp genome sequences of L. borealis will be a useful resource to the phylogenetics study in family Caprifoliaceae

Histone demethylase JMJD3 downregulation protects against aberrant force-induced osteoarthritis through epigenetic control of NR4A1

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) is a prevalent joint disease with no effective treatment strategies. Aberrant mechanical stimuli was demonstrated to be an essential factor for OA pathogenesis. Although multiple studies have detected potential regulatory mechanisms underlying OA and have concentrated on developing novel treatment strategies, the epigenetic control of OA remains unclear. Histone demethylase JMJD3 has been reported to mediate multiple physiological and pathological processes, including cell differentiation, proliferation, autophagy, and apoptosis. However, the regulation of JMJD3 in aberrant force-related OA and its mediatory effect on disease progression are still unknown. In this work, we confirmed the upregulation of JMJD3 in aberrant force-induced cartilage injury in vitro and in vivo. Functionally, inhibition of JMJD3 by its inhibitor, GSK-J4, or downregulation of JMJD3 by adenovirus infection of sh-JMJD3 could alleviate the aberrant force-induced chondrocyte injury. Mechanistic investigation illustrated that aberrant force induces JMJD3 expression and then demethylates H3K27me3 at the NR4A1 promoter to promote its expression. Further experiments indicated that NR4A1 can regulate chondrocyte apoptosis, cartilage degeneration, extracellular matrix degradation, and inflammatory responses. In vivo, anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) was performed to construct an OA model, and the therapeutic effect of GSK-J4 was validated. More importantly, we adopted a peptide-siRNA nanoplatform to deliver si-JMJD3 into articular cartilage, and the severity of joint degeneration was remarkably mitigated. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that JMJD3 is flow-responsive and epigenetically regulates OA progression. Our work provides evidences for JMJD3 inhibition as an innovative epigenetic therapy approach for joint diseases by utilizing p5RHH-siRNA nanocomplexes

Luminescent Helical Nanofiber Self-Assembled from a Cholesterol-Based Metalloamphiphile and Its Application in DNA Conformation Recognition

Compared to pure organic amphiphiles, metalloamphiphiles display distinctive features, including luminescence, magnetism and catalytic properties. However, the self-organization of metalloamphiphiles is commonly driven by solvophobic effects. Alkyl chains and oligomeric ethylene glycol moieties are thus the most frequently used aggregation units to drive the self-assembly of metalloamphiphiles. We expect novel metallo-supramolecular structures with exciting functions to be created if additional noncovalent interaction modes are incorporated. In this work, a new type of metalloamphiphile, consisting of a Tb­(III) complex head and a cholesteryl unit (TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>)), was designed and synthesized. TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) spontaneously self-assembles into helical nanofibers (<i>d</i> = 6 nm) in water. This synthetic multivalent nanoscale binding array displays powerful capability for the recognition of DNA conformations through a turn-on luminescence sensing mechanism. ssDNA-kit1 triggered a 26-fold increase in the luminescence intensity of TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>). Its corresponding G-quadruplex structure (G-quadruplex-kit1), however, induced a 6.6-fold enhancement under the same conditions. Consequently, TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) nanofibers can monitor DNA folding. In contrast, neither ssDNA-kit1 nor G-quadruplex-kit1 markedly promoted the luminescence of molecularly dispersed TbL³⁺(<b>II</b>), illustrating that the multivalent electrostatic interactions between the phosphate groups on the backbone of DNA and TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) self-assembled into nanofibers could greatly improve the efficiency of the energy transfer between the guanine units and the organized TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>). The TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) nanofibers could bind and distinguish not only the kit1-ssDNA/G-quadruplex but also the conformations of other G-rich DNA, such as spb1, htelo, and intermolec-htelo. The self-assembly of luminescent metalloamphiphiles thus provides a general and convenient strategy for the efficient recognition and conversion of molecular information

Luminescent Vesicular Nanointerface: A Highly Selective and Sensitive “Turn-On” Sensor for Guanosine Triphosphate

A novel amphiphilic Tb³⁺ complex (TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>)) consisting of a +3 charged head and a hydrophobic alkyl chain has been developed. It spontaneously self-assembles in water and forms stable vesicles at neutral pH. TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) has no aromatic groups (functioning as an antenna), and its intrinsic luminescence is thus minimized. These features lead to the self-assembling TbL³⁺(<b>I</b>) receptor molecules demonstrating an increased luminescence intensity upon binding of nucleotides. Upon addition of guanosine triphosphate (GTP), the luminescence from Tb³⁺ was notably promoted (127-fold), as the light energy absorbed by the guanine group of GTP was efficiently transferred to the Tb³⁺ center. In the case of guanosine diphosphate (GDP) and guanosine monophosphate (GMP), respectively, 78-fold and 43-fold increases in luminescence intensity were observed. This enhancement was less significant than that observed for GTP, due to fewer negative charges on GDP and GMP. No other nucleotides or the tested nonphosphorylated nucleosides affected the luminescence intensity to any notable extent. In marked contrast, all tested nucleotides, including guanine nucleotides, barely promoted the luminescence of molecularly dispersed receptors, TbL³⁺(<b>II</b>), indicating that the confinement and organization of molecules in a nanointerface play vital roles in improving the performance of a sensing system. This Tb³⁺ complex nanointerface is successfully used for monitoring the GTP-to-GDP conversion

Complete Chloroplast Genome Sequence of <i>Triosteum sinuatum</i>, Insights into Comparative Chloroplast Genomics, Divergence Time Estimation and Phylogenetic Relationships among Dipsacales

Triosteum himalayanum, Triosteum pinnatifidum (Triosteum L., Caprifoliaceae, Dipsacales) are widely distributed in China while Triosteum sinuatum mainly occurrs in northeast China. Few reports have been determined on the genus Triosteum. In the present research, we sequenced 2 chloroplast genomes of Triosteum and analyzed 18 chloroplast genomes, trying to explore the sequence variations and phylogeny of genus Triosteum in the order Dipsacales. The chloroplast genomes of the genus Triosteum ranged from 154,579 bp to 157,178 bp, consisting of 132 genes (86 protein-coding genes, 38 transfer RNA genes, and 8 ribosomal RNA genes). Comparative analyses and phylogenetic analysis supported the division of Dipsacales into two clades, Adoxaceae and six other families. Among the six families, a clade of Valerianaceae+Dipsacaceae was recovered as a sister to a clade of Morinaceae+Linnaeaceae. A closer relationship of T. himalayanum and T. pinnatifidum among three species was revealed. Our research supported that Loniceraferdinandi and Triosteum was closely related. Zabelia had a closer relationship with Linnaea borealis and Dipelta than Morinaceae. The divergence between T. sinuatum and two other species in Triosteum was dated to 13.4 mya