Study on the Dual Asymmetric Effect of Monetary Policy Shocks: Empirical Test Based on China’s Stock and Bond Market

The research on dual asymmetric effects of monetary policy shock has important practical significance for laying down capital market regulation monetary policy. This paper uses two-step OLS method to empirically test the dual asymmetric effects of monetary policy shock on stock and bond markets. The test results show that the expansionary and tight monetary policy shocks on the stock and bond markets have dual asymmetric effects; the expansionary and tight monetary policy shocks have dual asymmetric effects during the rise and fall periods. Therefore, when laying down capital market regulation and control policies, government needs to consider the dual asymmetric effects of monetary policy shock, and adopts appropriate monetary policies. Key words: Monetary policy shocks; Dual asymmetric effects; Two-step OLS method; Empirical tes

A multi-demand negotiation model based on fuzzy rules elicited via psychological experiments

This paper proposes a multi-demand negotiation model that takes the effect of human users’ psychological characteristics into consideration. Specifically, in our model each negotiating agent's preference over its demands can be changed, according to human users’ attitudes to risk, patience and regret, during the course of a negotiation. And the change of preference structures is determined by fuzzy logic rules, which are elicited through our psychological experiments. The applicability of our model is illustrated by using our model to solve a problem of political negotiation between two countries. Moreover, we do lots of theoretical and empirical analyses to reveal some insights into our model. In addition, to compare our model with existing ones, we make a survey on fuzzy logic based negotiation, and discuss the similarities and differences between our negotiation model and various consensus models

Protective Effects of Armillaria mellea Polysaccharides against Ethanol-Induced Vascular Endothelial Cell Injury in Rats

The aim of this study is to evaluate the protective effect of Armillaria mellea polysaccharides (AMP) against ethanol-induced vascular endothelial cell injury in rats. Altogether 40 SD rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: normal control, injury, low- and high-dose AMP. The rats from all groups except the normal control group were gavaged with 40% ethanol at 10 mL/kg mb to induce endothelial cell injury. The rats in the low- and high-dose groups were gavaged with AMP at 100 and 400 mg/kg mb, respectively, while the remaining groups were given an equal volume of physiological saline. The administration period lasted for 4 weeks. The histopathological changes of carotid arteries were observed by hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. Serum triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (T-CHO), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), nitric oxide (NO), endothelin 1 (ET-1), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels were detected. In addition, the effects of different doses (100 and 400 μg/mL) of AMP on the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), mitochondrial transmembrane potential, apoptosis, and the expression of apoptosis-associated proteins such as B cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax), and caspase-3 in human umbilical vein endothelial cell injured by 600 μmol/mL ethanol were investigated. Results: AMP attenuated ethanol-induced endothelial cell injury, decreased T-CHO, TG, LDL-C, iNOS, NO, ET-1, and MDA levels, and increased HDL-C and SOD activity. In vitro, AMP reduced cellular ROS levels, inhibited the ethanol-induced decrease in mitochondrial transmembrane potential and apoptosis, increased Bcl-2/Bax ratio and down-regulated the expression of cleaved caspase-3. Conclusion: AMP have a protective effect against ethanol-induced endothelial cell injury in rats, and the mechanism may be related to their lipid-lowering, antioxidant, and anti-apoptotic effects

Sarcopenia Was a Poor Prognostic Predictor for Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer Treated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

BackgroundIt remains not well known whether skeletal muscle mass (SMM) loss has any impact on the effectiveness of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in patients with advanced lung cancer. We aimed to evaluate the association between SMM and clinical outcome of patients with advanced lung cancer receiving ICIs as first line or second line.Materials and MethodsFrom March 1st, 2019 to March 31st, 2021 at our hospital, 34 patients with advanced lung cancer treated with first-line or second-line ICIs were enrolled retrospectively. The estimation of skeletal muscle index (SMI) for sarcopenia was assessed at the level of the third lumbar vertebra (L3) on computed tomography (CT) images obtained within 4 weeks before initiation of ICIs treatment. The impact of sarcopenia (low SMI) on progression free survival (PFS) was analyzed using Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank tests. The effect of various variables on PFS was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression model with univariate and multivariate analysis. The impact on treatment response including objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) and immunotherapy related adverse events (irAEs) between patients with and without sarcopenia was compared by the chi-squared test. The comparison of SMI value between patients with objective response (OR), disease control (DC) and those without OR and DC was used student t-test or Mann-Whitney U test.ResultsBoth in univariate and multivariate analysis, sarcopenia and treatment lines were the predictive factors for PFS (p < 0.05). Patients with sarcopenia had significantly shorter PFS than that of non-sarcopenic ones [6.57 vs. 16.2 months, hazard ratios (HR) = 2.947 and 3.542, and 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.123–13.183 and 1.11–11.308, p = 0.022 and 0.033]. No significant difference in ORR and irAEs was found. Patients with sarcopenia had lower DCR than those without sarcopenia. The mean SMI value of DCR group and non-DCR group was 32.94 ± 5.49 and 44.77 ± 9.06 cm2/m2, respectively (p = 0.008).ConclusionSarcopenia before immunotherapy might be a significant predictor for poor prognosis including shorter PFS and lower DCR in patients with advanced lung cancer treated with ICIs as first line or second line

High-Fidelity and High-Efficiency Digital Class-D Audio Power Amplifier

This study presents a high-fidelity and high-efficiency digital class-D audio power amplifier (CDA), which consists of digital and analog modules. To realize a compatible digital input, a fully digital audio digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is implemented on MATLAB and Xilinx System Generator, which consists of a 16x interpolation filter, a fourth-order four-bit quantized delta-sigma (ΔΣ) modulator, and a uniform-sampling pulse width modulator. The CDA utilizes the closed-loop negative feedback and loop-filtering technologies to minimize distortion. The audio DAC, which is based on a field-programmable gate array, consumes 0.128 W and uses 7100 LUTs, which achieves 11.2% of the resource utilization rate. The analog module is fabricated in a 0.18 µm BCD technology. The postlayout simulation results show that the CDA delivers an output power of 1 W with 93.3% efficiency to a 4 Ω speaker and achieves 0.0138% of the total harmonic distortion (THD) with a transient noise for a 1 kHz input sinusoidal test tone and 3.6 V supply. The output power reaches up to 2.73 W for 1% THD (with transient noise). The proposed amplifier occupies an active area of 1 mm2

Immunoenhancement of Edible Fungal Polysaccharides (Lentinan, Tremellan, and Pachymaran) on Cyclophosphamide-Induced Immunosuppression in Mouse Model

Fungal polysaccharides display a variety of important biological activities, including anti-inflammatory, antitumor, and immune-stimulating activities. The aim of present study was to investigate the immunomodulatory effect of fungal polysaccharides on cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppression in mice. Mice were pretreated orally with lentinan, tremellan, pachymaran, or a mixture of the three, respectively. The results showed that pretreatments with polysaccharides significantly increased the thymus index in cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppression mice. The level of the cytokine IL-10 in sera of cyclophosphamide-induced mice was decreased after pretreatments of polysaccharides. Flow cytometry results showed that pretreatments with polysaccharides enhanced the phagocytosis of peritoneal macrophages in mice. The increased levels of serum antibody IgG and IgM were observed in the groups pretreated with polysaccharides. Our work demonstrated that the treatment of polysaccharides elicited strong immune activity and a protective effect against cyclophosphamide-induced immunosuppression

Modeling flight delay propagation in airport and airspace network

International audience; An Airport-Sector Network Delays model is developed in this paper for flight delay estimation within air transport network. This model takes both airports and airspace capacities into account by iterating among its three main components: a queuing engine, which treats each airport in the network as a queuing system and is used to compute delays at individual airport, a Link Transmission Model, which computes delays at individual sector and transmits all air delays into ground delays, and a delay propagation algorithm that updates flight itineraries and demand rates at each airport on the basis of the local delays computed by the queuing engine and flow control delays computed by the Link Transmission Model. The model has been implemented to a network consisting of the 21 busiest airports in China and 2962 links that represent to 151 enroute control sectors in mainland China, and its performance is evaluated by comparing with the actual delay data and results of Airport Network Delays model. It is found that the proposed model is well-suited for simulating delays in air transport system where either airports or airspace could be the bottleneck of the system.; 14357

Development of Immunoassays for Detecting Clothianidin Residue in Agricultural Products

Two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) based on polyclonal antibodies (PcAbs) for clothianidin are described: colorimetric detection format (ELISA) and pattern of chemiluminescent assay (CLEIA). Clothianidin hapten was synthesized and conjugated to bovine serum albumin (BSA) and ovalbumin (OVA) to produce immunogen and coating antigen. Anticlothianidin PcAbs were obtained from immunized New Zealand white rabbits. Under optimal conditions, the half-maximal inhibition concentration (IC₅₀) and the limit of detection (LOD, IC₂₀) of clothianidin were 0.046 and 0.0028 mg/L for the ELISA and 0.015 and 0.0014 mg/L for the CLEIA, respectively. There were no obvious cross-reactivities of the antibodies with its analogues except for dinotefuran. Recoveries of 76.4–116.4% for the immunoassays were achieved from spiked samples. The results of immunoassays for the spiked and authentic samples were largely consistent with gas chromatography. Therefore, the proposed immunoassays would be convenient and satisfactory analytical methods for the monitoring of clothianidin in agricultural products

Topological-skeleton controlled chirality expression of supramolecular hyperbranched and linear polymers

The topology of polymers plays an essential role in their chemical, physical and biological properties. However, their effects on chirality-related functions remain unclear. Here, we reported the topology-controlled chirality expression in the chiral supramolecular system for the first time. Two topological supramolecular polymers, hyperbranched (HP) and linear (LP) supramolecular polymers produced by the host–guest interactions of branched and linear monomers, respectively, exhibited completely different chirality expressions despite the same molecular chirality of their monomers. Significantly, due to the branch points and strong steric hindrance existing in HP, cis-HP showed an enhanced and sign-inverted Cotton effect in the n–π* bands compared with cis-LP, as a result that the distinctive chirality induction and transfer were controlled by the topological skeletons. This topology-controlled chirality induction and transfer in the photoswitchable supramolecular polymers not only enables us to elucidate the in-depth effects of topology on the chiral expression in biopolymers but also inspires the design of chiroptical and bioinspired materials