Researching Dynamic Brand Competitiveness Based on Consumer Clicking Behavior

Analyzing brand dynamic competition relationship by using consumer sequential online click data, which was collected from JD.com. It is found that the competition intensity of the products across categories is quite different. Owing to the purchasing time of durable-like goods is more flexible, that is, the purchasing probability of such products changes more obviously over time. Therefore, we use the Local Polynomial Regression Model to analyze the relationship between the brand competition of durable-like goods and the purchasing probability of the specific brand. Finding that when brands increase at a half of the total market share for consumers cognition preference, the brands’ competitiveness is peak and makes no significant different from one hundred percent for consumer to complete a transaction. The findings contribute to brand competitiveness for setting up marketing strategy from the dynamic and online consumer behavior’s perspective

Modeling cross‐border supply chain collaboration: the case of the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has resulted in international, cross-border supply chains returning to a new prominence. The BRI presents opportunities for cross-border supply chain collaboration (SCC) research. Assessing the influencing factors of cross-border SCC is beneficial for understanding and improving this evolving, globally influential international trade policy. The BRI is quite complex so that subjective assessment methods are useful but need to be improved. To address this issue, this paper initially develops a cross-border SCC factor framework based on synergetic theory. A vague set and DEMATEL methods are integrated to form a unified model to support the assessment. A combination weighting that uses analytic hierarchy process and an entropy weighting method, that is, a data crawler for BRI-related documents, to ensure that objective importance weights of the factors in the Belt and Road context are achieved. The results show that information sharing, profit allotment, the degree of trust, and goal congruence as common drivers of SCC are not driving factors in the Belt and Road cross-border context. They are core issues that do not affect cross-border SCC directly. Senior manager support and customs regulation are two important drivers of cross-border SCC. The practitioners of cross-border SCC should not only focus on the support from senior managers and customs regulation but also attempt to improve performance, such as information sharing and trust, to obtain more support from senior managers and policy makers to promote cross-border SCC indirectly

Liver-Targeted Combination Therapy Basing on Glycyrrhizic Acid-Modified DSPE-PEG-PEI Nanoparticles for Co-delivery of Doxorubicin and Bcl-2 siRNA

Combination therapy based on nano-sized drug delivery system has been developed as a promising strategy by combining two or more anti-tumor mechanisms. Here, we prepared liver-targeted nanoparticles (GH-DPP) composed of 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-polyethylene glycol-polyetherimide (DSPE-PEG-PEI) with Glycyrrhetinic acid-modified hyaluronic acid (GA-HA) for co-delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) and Bcl-2 siRNA. Particles size, zeta potential and morphology were determined for the drug-loaded GH-DPP nanoparticles (siRNA/DOX/GH-DPP). Cellular uptake and in vitro cytotoxicity were analyzed against HepG2 cells. In vivo bio-distribution and anti-tumor therapeutic effects of siRNA/DOX/GH-DPP were evaluated in H22-bearing mice. The results showed that siRNA/DOX/GH-DPP nanoparticles were nearly spherical and showed dose-dependent cytotoxicity against HepG2 cells. Compared to Glycyrrhetinic acid-free co-delivery system (siRNA/DOX/DPP) and GH-DPP nanoparticles for delivery of DOX or Bcl-2 siRNA alone, siRNA/DOX/GH-DPP nanoparticles could induce more cellular apoptosis, and showed higher anti-tumor effect. Herein GH-DPP nanoparticles could simultaneously deliver both chemotherapy drugs and siRNA into the tumor region, exhibiting great potential in anti-tumor therapy

CD13 Inhibition Enhances Cytotoxic Effect of Chemotherapy Agents

Multidrug resistance (MDR) of hepatocellular carcinoma is a serious problem. Although CD13 is a biomarker in human liver cancer stem cells, the relationship between CD13 and MDR remains uncertain. This study uses liver cancer cell model to understand the role of CD13 in enhancing the cytotoxic effect of chemotherapy agents. Cytotoxic agents can induce CD13 expression. CD13 inhibitor, bestatin, enhances the antitumor effect of cytotoxic agents. Meanwhile, CD13-targeting siRNA and neutralizing antibody can enhance the cytotoxic effect of 5-fluorouracil (5FU). CD13 overexpression increases cell survival upon cytotoxic agents treatment, while the knockdown of CD13 causes hypersensitivity of cells to cytotoxic agents treatment. Mechanistically, the inhibition of CD13 leads to the increase of cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). BC-02 is a novel mutual prodrug (hybrid drug) of bestatin and 5FU. Notably, BC-02 can inhibit cellular activity in both parental and drug-resistant cells, accompanied with significantly increased ROS level. Moreover, the survival time of Kunming mice bearing H22 cells under BC-02 treatment is comparable to the capecitabine treatment at maximum dosage. These data implicate a therapeutic method to reverse MDR by targeting CD13, and indicate that BC-02 is a potent antitumor compound

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead