Efficiency assessment of green technology innovation of renewable energy enterprises in China: a dynamic data envelopment analysis considering undesirable output

The rapid development of renewable energy enterprises has produced important benefits for contemporary efforts to address serious environmental pollution and depletion of fossil energy resources. However, the environmental pollution that exists in the production and operation of enterprises has been ignored, and so an objective evaluation of this issue is becoming urgent. This paper established an evaluation index system for green technology innovation efficiency and used dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) considering undesirable output to measure the green technology innovation efficiency of renewable energy enterprises, and the improvement potential of ineffective enterprises was put forward. The results show that: (1) the green technology innovation of renewable energy enterprises needs to be greatly improved. The average efficiency score of sample was 0.385 over four years, and only 16 enterprises were found to operate effectively; (2) when effective and inefficient DMUs were compared, the latter were found to have significant output shortfalls, especially in environmental tax, and were found to show an improvement potential of 55.71 percent; (3) the efficiency analysis of different types of renewable energy enterprises found that the green technology innovation efficiency score of nuclear energy enterprises was the highest, and rapidly rose; (4) the green technology innovation efficiency of renewable energy enterprises in the western region greatly exceeded the efficiency of the eastern and central regions. The efficiency evaluation results could not only provide a guidance for central and local governances to optimize the structure of renewable energy sector, but also potentially provide a reference for the operation and management of renewable energy enterprises in China

MiR-148a-3p suppresses the progression of gastric cancer cells through targeting ATP6AP2

Purpose: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most frequent tumors with high mortality rate, worldwide. A proper understanding of the mechanism  underlying its progression is required for its diagnosis and development of novel treatment option. MicroRNAs are associated with the development and advancement of different types of cancer, including GC. The current research was aimed at investigating the molecular and biological function of miR-148a-3p in GC development.Methods: A human normal gastric epithelial cell line, GES-1 (control) as well as four GC cell lines (NUGC-4, SNU-520, STKM-2 and MKN-74) were employed for the study. MiR-148a-3p and ATP6AP2 expression levels in GC cell lines were examined by RT-qPCR technique. Transfection procedure was used to upregulate miR-148a-3p expression in the MKN-45 cell line. MTT assay was utilized to evaluate cell viability in GC cell lines. The molecular interaction between miR-148a-3p and ATP6AP2 was predicted using bioinformatics system and the prediction was then validated by luciferase reporter assay.Results: Expression levels of miR-148-3p was low, whilst that of ATP6AP2 was high in GC cell lines. MiR-148a-3p overexpression resulted in the reduction of cell viability in GC cell lines. More so, it was confirmed that miR-148-3p, as a post-transcriptional regulator inhibited ATP6AP2 expression by having a negative association with it in GC cells. More so, ATP6AP2 was found to be a direct target of miR-148a-3p.Conclusion: Our results revealed that miR-148a-3p plays a crucial function in GC development through targeting ATP6AP2. This finding could be explored in the discovery of new therapeutic approaches for GC treatment. Keywords: ATP6AP2, Cell viability, Gastric cancer, miR-148a-3p, Progressio

Molecular cloning and biochemical characterization of a novel erythrose reductase from Candida magnoliae JH110

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Erythrose reductase (ER) catalyzes the final step of erythritol production, which is reducing erythrose to erythritol using NAD(P)H as a cofactor. ER has gained interest because of its importance in the production of erythritol, which has extremely low digestibility and approved safety for diabetics. Although ERs were purified and characterized from microbial sources, the entire primary structure and the corresponding DNA for ER still remain unknown in most of erythritol-producing yeasts. <it>Candida magnoliae </it>JH110 isolated from honeycombs produces a significant amount of erythritol, suggesting the presence of erythrose metabolizing enzymes. Here we provide the genetic sequence and functional characteristics of a novel NADPH-dependent ER from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The gene encoding a novel ER was isolated from an osmophilic yeast <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110. The ER gene composed of 849 nucleotides encodes a polypeptide with a calculated molecular mass of 31.4 kDa. The deduced amino acid sequence of ER showed a high degree of similarity to other members of the aldo-keto reductase superfamily including three ER isozymes from <it>Trichosporonoides megachiliensis </it>SNG-42. The intact coding region of ER from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 was cloned, functionally expressed in <it>Escherichia coli </it>using a combined approach of gene fusion and molecular chaperone co-expression, and subsequently purified to homogeneity. The enzyme displayed a temperature and pH optimum at 42°C and 5.5, respectively. Among various aldoses, the <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER showed high specific activity for reduction of erythrose to the corresponding alcohol, erythritol. To explore the molecular basis of the catalysis of erythrose reduction with NADPH, homology structural modeling was performed. The result suggested that NADPH binding partners are completely conserved in the <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER. Furthermore, NADPH interacts with the side chains Lys252, Thr255, and Arg258, which could account for the enzyme's absolute requirement of NADPH over NADH.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A novel ER enzyme and its corresponding gene were isolated from <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110. The <it>C. magnoliae </it>JH110 ER with high activity and catalytic efficiency would be very useful for <it>in vitro </it>erythritol production and could be applied for the production of erythritol in other microorganisms, which do not produce erythritol.</p

Hippocampal atrophy is associated with hearing loss in cognitively normal adults

Objectives: A growing body of evidence suggests that age-related hearing loss (HL) is associated with morphological changes of the cerebral cortex, but the results have been drawn from a small amount of data in most studies. The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between HL and gray matter volume (GMV) in a large number of subjects, strictly controlling for an extensive set of possible biases.// Methods: Medical records of 576 subjects who underwent pure tone audiometry, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and the Korean Mini-Mental State Exam (K-MMSE) were reviewed. Among them, subjects with normal cognitive function and free of central nervous system disorders or coronary artery disease were included. Outliers were excluded after a sample homogeneity check. In the end, 405 subjects were enrolled. Pure tone hearing thresholds were determined at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz in the better ear. Enrolled subjects were divided into 3 groups according to pure tone average: normal hearing (NH), mild HL (MHL), and moderate-to-severe HL (MSHL) groups. Using voxel-based morphometry, we evaluated GMV changes that may be associated with HL. Sex, age, total intracranial volume, type of MRI scanner, education level, K-MMSE score, smoking status, and presence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia were used as covariates. // Results: A statistically significant negative correlation between the hearing thresholds and GMV of the hippocampus was elucidated. Additionally, in group comparisons, the left hippocampal GMV of the MSHL group was significantly smaller than that of the NH and MHL groups. // Conclusion: Based on the negative correlation between hearing thresholds and hippocampal GMV in cognitively normal old adults, the current study indicates that peripheral deafferentation could be a potential contributing factor to hippocampal atrophy

The Taiji-TianQin-LISA network: Precisely measuring the Hubble constant using both bright and dark sirens

In the coming decades, the space-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors such as Taiji, TianQin, and LISA are expected to form a network capable of detecting millihertz GWs emitted by the mergers of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs). In this work, we investigate the potential of GW standard sirens from the Taiji-TianQin-LISA network in constraining cosmological parameters. For the optimistic scenario in which electromagnetic (EM) counterparts can be detected, we predict the number of detectable bright sirens based on three different MBHB population models, i.e., pop III, Q3d, and Q3nod. Our results show that the Taiji-TianQin-LISA network alone could achieve a constraint precision of $0.9\%$ for the Hubble constant, meeting the standard of precision cosmology. Moreover, the Taiji-TianQin-LISA network could effectively break the cosmological parameter degeneracies generated by the CMB data, particularly in the dynamical dark energy models. When combined with the CMB data, the joint CMB+Taiji-TianQin-LISA data offer $\sigma(w)=0.036$ in the $w$CDM model, which is close to the latest constraint result obtained from the CMB+SN data. We also consider a conservative scenario in which EM counterparts are not available. Due to the precise sky localizations of MBHBs by the Taiji-TianQin-LISA network, the constraint precision of the Hubble constant is expected to reach $1.2\%$. In conclusion, the GW standard sirens from the Taiji-TianQin-LISA network will play a critical role in helping solve the Hubble tension and shedding light on the nature of dark energy.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures; published in Science China Physics Mechanics & Astronom

1-[9-Ethyl-6-(2-methyl­benzo­yl)-9H-carbazol-3-yl]ethanone

In the title compound, C24H21NO2, the pendant benzene ring is inclined at a dihedral angle of 86.66 (18)° with respect to the adjacent aromatic ring of the carbozole unit. In the crystal structure, symmetry-related mol­ecules are linked via C—H⋯O and C—H⋯π inter­actions

Anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects of corilagin in a rat model of acute cholestasis

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, treatments for cholestasis remain largely nonspecific and often ineffective. Recent studies showed that inflammatory injuries and oxidative stress occur in the liver with cholestasis. In this study, we would use corilagin to treat the animal model of acute cholestasis in order to define the activity to interfere with inflammation-related and oxidative stress pathway in cholestatic pathogenesis. METHODS: Rats were administrated with alpha-naphthylisothiocyanate to establish model of cholestasis and divided into corilagin, ursodeoxycholic acid, dexamethasone, model and normal groups with treatment of related agent. At 24h, 48h and 72h time points after administration, living condition, serum markers of liver damage, pathological changes of hepatic tissue, nuclear factor (NF)-kappaB, myeloperoxidase (MPO), malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and nitric oxide (NO) were examined and observed. RESULTS: Compared to model group, corilagin had remarkable effect on living condition, pathological manifestation of liver tissue, total bilirubin, direct bilirubin, (P<0.01), but no effect on alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). With corilagin intervention, levels of MPO, MDA and translocation of NF-κB were notably decreased, and levels of SOD and NO were markedly increased (P<0.05 or P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: It is shown that corilagin is a potential component to relieve cholestasis through inflammation-related and oxidation-related pathway