Would the reputation and behaviour of the Chinese stock exchange be a disincentive to investors considering a Chinese REIT?

China has drawn the world’s attention with the emergence, rapid growth and increasing maturity of its real estate market in the past twenty years. Currently the world’s third largest economy, China was the second largest Asian country for commercial property transaction capital flows in 2006 (JLL, 2007). International investors have recently shown considerable interest regarding property investment in China, via both direct and indirect property and changes to the rules governing internal funds are likely to initiate high levels of effective demand from domestic institutions too. China is yet to develop a Real Estate Investment trust (REIT) market; despite this investment demand encouragement for development of pilot REITs by the PRC government has waxed and waned with political imperatives to manage market and economic volatility. Chinese REITs would theoretically provide the opportunity for investors to access Chinese “property” returns with liquidity and flexibility and might further play a significant role in stabilising the Chinese capital market in the medium and long term. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the reputation and behaviour of the Chinese stock exchanges is a disincentive to investors considering a Chinese REIT. This is addressed firstly by assessing Chinese stock market volatility compared to that of the Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges. Secondly, a survey was used to explore Chinese domestic investors’ attitudes to investment in Chinese property REITs and their preferences amongst the three main Asian stock exchanges where Chinese REITs might potentially be available

Augmented Weighted Estimators Dealing with Practical Positivity Violation to Causal inferences in a Random Coefficient Model.

The inverse probability of treatment weighted (IPTW) estimator can be used to make causal inferences under two assumptions: (1) no unobserved confounders (ignorability) and (2) positive probability of treatment and of control at every level of the confounders (positivity), but is vulnerable to bias if by chance, the proportion of the sample assigned to treatment, or proportion of control, is zero at certain levels of the confounders. We propose to deal with this sampling zero problem, also known as practical violation of the positivity assumption, in a setting where the observed confounder is cluster identity, i.e., treatment assignment is ignorable within clusters. Specifically, based on a random coefficient model assumed for the potential outcome, we augment the IPTW estimating function with the estimated potential outcomes of treatment (or of control) for clusters that have no observation of treatment (or control). If the cluster-specific potential outcomes are estimated correctly, the augmented estimating function can be shown to converge in expectation to zero and therefore yield consistent causal estimates. The proposed method can be implemented in the existing software, and it performs well in simulated data as well as with real-world data from a teacher preparation evaluation study

In vivo evidence for NMDA receptor mediated excitotoxicity in a murine genetic model of Huntington Disease

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) mediated excitotoxicity is implicated as a proximate cause of neurodegeneration in Huntington Disease (HD). However, this hypothesis has not been tested rigorously in vivo. NMDAR NR2B-subunits are the predominant NR2 subunit expressed by the striatal medium spiny neurons that degenerate in HD. To test this hypothesis, we crossed a well validated murine genetic model of HD (Hdh(CAG)150) with a transgenic line overexpressing NMDAR NR2B-subunits. In the resulting double mutant line, we show exacerbation of selective striatal neuron degeneration. These results provide the first direct in vivo evidence of NR2B-NMDAR mediated excitotoxicity in the context of HD. Our results are consistent with prior suggestions that direct and/or indirect interactions of mutant huntingtin with NMDARs are a proximate cause of neurodegeneration in HD

Evidence of novel type of ribosome in eukaryotic intermediate flatworm

In all organisms, messenger-directed protein synthesis is catalyzed by ribonucleoprotein particles called ribosomes. A ribosome is typically composed of one small and one large subunit which contain one short (18S) and one long (28S) rRNAs, respectively. Surprisingly, in this study, three similar size rRNAs (18-21S) were revealed in the electrophoresis profile of the total RNAs of tapeworm _Spirometra erinaceiuropaei_. Northern blot analysis shows that one of the three bands belongs to 18S rRNA, and the other two bands are of 28S rRNAs, implying structurally distinct ribosomes in this intermediate animal. Furthermore, similar, but not identical profiles were observed in two other tapeworms _Diphyllobothrium hottai_ and _Diphyllobothrium Nipponkaiizeme_. Relevant to this finding, in flatworm _Paragonimus westermani_, 18S rRNAs were found much more numerous than 28S rRNAs. Moreover, consistent with this biochemical finding, transmission electron microscopy examinations show that the ribosomes isolated from _Spirometra erinaceiuropaei_ are composed of either one ball or two similar size subunits (balls), while the structure of ribosomes isolated from control liver tissue exactly match the conventional large and small subunit ribosome model. Our study provides direct biochemical and biophysical evidence of structurally distinct novel type of ribosomes in intermediate eukaryotic flatworms. These finding may be important for re-recognition of biological protein synthesis and evolutionary process of living things

Are foreign investors attracted to weak environmental regulations? Evaluating the evidence from China

One of the most contentious debates today is whether pollution-intensive industries from rich countries relocate to poor countries with weaker environmental standards, turning them into pollution havens. Empirical studies to date show little evidence to support the pollution haven hypothesis, but suffer potentially from omitted variable bias, specification, and measurement errors. The authors estimate the strength of pollution-haven behavior by examining the location choices of equity joint venture (EJV) projects in China. They derive a location choice model from a theoretical framework that incorporates the firm's production and abatement decision, agglomeration, and factor abundance. The authors estimate conditional logit and nested logit models using new data sets containing information on a sample of EJV projects, effective environmental levies on water pollution, and estimates of Chinese pollution-intensity for 3-digit ISIC (International Standard Industrial Classification) industries. Results from 2,886 manufacturing joint venture projects from 1993-96 show that EJVs from all source countries go into provinces with high concentrations of foreign investment, relatively abundant stocks of skilled workers, concentrations of potential local suppliers, special incentives, and less state ownership. Environmental stringency does affect location choice, but not as expected. Low environmental levies are a significant attraction only for joint ventures in highly-polluting industries with partners from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan (China). In contrast, joint ventures with partners from OECD sources are not attracted by low environmental levies, regardless of the pollution intensity of the industry. The authors discuss the likely role of technological differences in explaining these results.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Water and Industry,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,ICT Policy and Strategies

Association Signals Unveiled by a Comprehensive Gene Set Enrichment Analysis of Dental Caries Genome-Wide Association Studies

Gene set-based analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS) data has recently emerged as a useful approach to examine the joint effects of multiple risk loci in complex human diseases or phenotypes. Dental caries is a common, chronic, and complex disease leading to a decrease in quality of life worldwide. In this study, we applied the approaches of gene set enrichment analysis to a major dental caries GWAS dataset, which consists of 537 cases and 605 controls. Using four complementary gene set analysis methods, we analyzed 1331 Gene Ontology (GO) terms collected from the Molecular Signatures Database (MSigDB). Setting false discovery rate (FDR) threshold as 0.05, we identified 13 significantly associated GO terms. Additionally, 17 terms were further included as marginally associated because they were top ranked by each method, although their FDR is higher than 0.05. In total, we identified 30 promising GO terms, including 'Sphingoid metabolic process,' 'Ubiquitin protein ligase activity,' 'Regulation of cytokine secretion,' and 'Ceramide metabolic process.' These GO terms encompass broad functions that potentially interact and contribute to the oral immune response related to caries development, which have not been reported in the standard single marker based analysis. Collectively, our gene set enrichment analysis provided complementary insights into the molecular mechanisms and polygenic interactions in dental caries, revealing promising association signals that could not be detected through single marker analysis of GWAS data. © 2013 Wang et al

FDA Oversight of the Tissue Bank Industry

Until recently, FDA oversight of the human tissue industry has been spotty, even nonexistent. However, industry explosion has forced the FDA to not only publish general industry standards in 1993 (finalized in 1997), but to update those standards with more comprehensive rules that are currently being reviewed. Needless to say, lack of adequate funding has proven problematic for the cash-strapped agency in terms of enforcing any regulations the agency hopes to promulgate