The Role of Agribusiness Firms in Agricultural Research: The Case of China

Despite the efforts of various economists and agricultural scientists in calling for more investments, funding for agricultural R&D has been stagnated for the last two decades in China. This will pose a great challenge for the China's agricultural sector. Productivity has leveled off, and farmers' income has been flat. As a result, poverty reduction in recent years has also not shown any significant progress. On the other hand, agribusiness firms have emerged rapidly since the rural reforms initiated in 1978. Emerging of these firms has fundamentally changed the landscape of Chinese agricultural production. In 2003, they account for a significant share in agricultural GDP (7%), and agricultural employment. More importantly, it is their role in agricultural research and technology adoption that will drastically affect the Chinese agricultural research system, and as a result the structure of the Chinese agricultural economy. In 2003, these firms invested more than 10% equivalence of public spending in agricultural research. If their spending on technology-intensive capital is included, the percentage rose to 30%. Back in the middle of the 1990s, these shares are minimal. It is obvious that these firms will play an even larger role in investing in agricultural research in China. But this increase didn't come automatically. It is the change in the investment environment and government policies that can be attributed to. The objective of the proposed paper is to investigate the structure of these agribusiness firms by sector, location and ownership, and their performance in agricultural research, and to analyze the determinants of growth of these firms and their investment in agricultural research. The data used for the proposed study will be based on a survey conducted by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2003. The authors provided substantial inputs in the design of questionnaire. More than 500 leading firms (based on their sales) were surveyed. They are located in different parts of China: coastal, central and western. They also represent different sectors, for example, crop production, livestock, feed processing and supply, vegetables/fruits/tree, tea, fishery, seed development/sales and biotechnology/medicine. There firms also vary by their ownership, for example state-, private-, and collective-owned, shareholding, and multinational companies. The proposed study will develop a conceptual framework and to empirically analyze how different factors have affected the performance of these firms. The performance indicators may include profitability, productivity, and more importantly their behavior in investing agricultural R&D. The factors may include their size, ownership (state, private, shareholding, or foreign), location (coastal, central or western), different types of businesses (crop production, livestock, fishery, processing, feed supply, seed breeding and supply, or biotechnology), credit/capital constraint, intellectual property rights regime, tax concession policy, and public investment in agricultural R&D. Many variables are province-specific as many government policies such as those on credit/capital, tax are made at this level of government. These variables will have to be treated carefully as they are potentially endogenous by themselves. Special econometric techniques will be used to minimize the potential bias. In addition, some firm-specific variables such as sectors they involve, ownership, and even locations are self-selected. Again, certain econometric techniques have to be used to test and to minimize the potential selection bias. The expected results will not only have potential contribution to the policy debate on how to mobilize private resources to support to agricultural research in China, but also have strong policy implications for many other developing countries. For the last decade, many developing countries have experienced stagnation or contraction in their public support to agricultural research. How government policies and public investment in agricultural research can build a productive partnership is a very much needed research topic. We hope that our research will shed light on this issue.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Variants of the low oxygen sensors EGLN1 and HIF-1AN associated with acute mountain sickness.

Two low oxygen sensors, Egl nine homolog 1 (EGLN1) and hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α inhibitor (HIF-1AN), play pivotal roles in the regulation of HIF-1α, and high altitude adaption may be involved in the pathology of acute mountain sickness (AMS). Here, we aimed to analyze single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the untranslated regions of the EGLN1 and HIF-1AN genes and SNPs chosen from a genome-wide adaptation study of the Han Chinese population. To assess the association between EGLN1 and HIF-1AN SNPs and AMS in a Han Chinese population, a case-control study was performed including 190 patients and 190 controls. In total, thirteen SNPs were genotyped using the MassARRAY® MALDI-TOF system. Multiple genetic models were tested; The Akaike's information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC) values indicated that the dominant model may serve as the best-fit model for rs12406290 and rs2153364 of significant difference. However, these data were not significant after Bonferroni correction. No significant association was noted between AMS and rs12757362, rs1339894, rs1361384, rs2009873, rs2739513 or rs2486729 before and after Bonferroni correction. Further haplotype analyses indicated the presence of two blocks in EGLN1; one block consists of rs12406290-rs2153364, located upstream of the EGLN1 gene. Carriers of the "GG" haplotype of rs12406290-rs2153364 exhibited an increased risk of AMS after adjustments for age and smoking status. However, no significant association was observed among HIF-1AN 3'-untranslated region (3'-UTR) polymorphisms, haplotype and AMS. Our study indicates that variants in the EGLN1 5'-UTR influence the susceptibility to AMS in a Han Chinese population

Molecular Mechanisms of Metformin for Diabetes and Cancer Treatment

Metformin has been the first-line drug treatment for hyperglycemia and insulin resistance for over 50 years. However, the molecular basis of its therapeutic role remained incompletely understood. Recent advances demonstrate that metformin could exert its glucose-lowering effect by multiple mechanisms, including activation of 5′-AMP-activated protein kinase, decreasing production of cyclic AMP, suppressing mitochondrial complex I of the electron transport chain, targeting glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, and altering the gut microbiome. In addition, epidemiological and clinical observation studies suggest that metformin reduced cancer risk in patients with type 2 diabetes and improved survival outcome of human cancers. Experimental studies have shown that this drug can inhibit cancer cell viability, growth, and proliferation through inhibiting mTORC1 signaling and mitochondrial complex I, suggesting that it may be a promising drug candidate for malignancy. Here, we summarize recent progress in studies of metformin in type 2 diabetes and tumorigenesis, which provides novel insight on the therapeutic development of human diseases