Scaling in local to global condensation of wealth on sparse networks

The prevalence of wealth inequality propels us to characterize its origin and progression, via empirical and theoretical studies. The Yard-Sale(YS) model, in which a portion of the smaller wealth is transferred between two individuals, culminates in the concentration of wealth to a single individual, while distributing rest of the wealth with a power-law of exponent one. By incorporating redistribution to the model, in which the transferred wealth is proportional to the sender's wealth, we show that such extreme inequality is suppressed if the redistribution occurs more frequently than the inverse of the population size. Studying our model on a sparsely-connected population, we find that the wealth inequality ceases to grow for a period, when local rich nodes can no longer acquire wealth from their broke nearest neighbors. Subsequently, inequality resumes growth due to the redistribution effect by allowing locally amassed wealth to move and coalesce. Analyzing the Langevin equations and the coalescing random walk on complex networks, we elucidate the scaling behaviors of wealth inequality in those multiple phases. These findings reveal the influence of network structure on wealth distribution, offering a novel perspective on wealth inequality.Comment: Main script: 5 pages, Supplemental Material: 9 pages, 3 main figures, 6 supplemental figure

Effect of IT Capability on the Alignment between Business and Service Innovation Strategies

Information Technology (IT) capability is believed to encourage and facilitate service innovation. In addition, since effective competitive strategy is particularly important for service firms, it is imperative to align their service innovation strategy with their business strategy to achieve better firm performance. Many service innovation studies have been performed on the influence of IT capability and the strategic alignment separately in the past, but this study combines them by investigating the moderating effect of IT capability on the alignment between business and service innovation strategies. Based on empirical data collected from 183 service firms in Korea, this study aims first to explore whether a certain service innovation strategy is more effective with a particular business strategy for better firm performance. We then investigate the moderating effect of IT capability on the relationship between the strategic alignments and firm performance. The empirical evidence indicates that there is a synergistic effect between strategic alignment and IT capability on firm performance. Firms that have aligned service innovation strategy with business strategy need to consider the improvement of organizational IT capability with an assurance that they will be leveraged substantially. Lastly, we discuss our study’s implications for further research and practice

PPM1A Controls Diabetic Gene Programming through Directly Dephosphorylating PPAR?? at Ser273

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) is a master regulator of adipose tissue biology. In obesity, phosphorylation of PPAR gamma at Ser273 (pSer273) by cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK5)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) orchestrates diabetic gene reprogramming via dysregulation of specific gene expression. Although many recent studies have focused on the development of non-classical agonist drugs that inhibit the phosphorylation of PPAR gamma at Ser273, the molecular mechanism of PPAR gamma dephosphorylation at Ser273 is not well characterized. Here, we report that protein phosphatase Mg2+/Mn2+-dependent 1A (PPM1A) is a novel PPAR gamma phosphatase that directly dephosphorylates Ser273 and restores diabetic gene expression which is dysregulated by pSer273. The expression of PPM1A significantly decreases in two models of insulin resistance: diet-induced obese (DIO) mice and db/db mice, in which it negatively correlates with pSer273. Transcriptomic analysis using microarray and genotype-tissue expression (GTEx) data in humans shows positive correlations between PPM1A and most of the genes that are dysregulated by pSer273. These findings suggest that PPM1A dephosphorylates PPAR gamma at Ser273 and represents a potential target for the treatment of obesity-linked metabolic disorders

Mechanical rolling formation of interpenetrated lithium metal/lithium tin alloy foil for ultrahigh-rate battery anode

To achieve good rate capability of lithium metal anodes for high-energy-density batteries, one fundamental challenge is the slow lithium diffusion at the interface. Here we report an interpenetrated, three-dimensional lithium metal/lithium tin alloy nanocomposite foil realized by a simple calendering and folding process of lithium and tin foils, and spontaneous alloying reactions. The strong affinity between the metallic lithium and lithium tin alloy as mixed electronic and ionic conducting networks, and their abundant interfaces enable ultrafast charger diffusion across the entire electrode. We demonstrate that a lithium/lithium tin alloy foil electrode sustains stable lithium stripping/plating under 30mAcm(-2) and 5mAhcm(-2) with a very low overpotential of 20mV for 200 cycles in a commercial carbonate electrolyte. Cycled under 6C (6.6mAcm(-2)), a 1.0mAhcm(-2) LiNi0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2 electrode maintains a substantial 74% of its capacity by pairing with such anode