Campaign-style governance of air pollution in China? A comprehensive analysis of the central environmental protection inspection

Central environmental protection inspection (CEPI) is a major institutional innovation in China's environmental governance, but its effectiveness in improving air quality is still unclear. However, the effectiveness of CEPI is of great significance and can be regarded as an important reference for deepening the reform of environmental governance system in China. This article takes the CEPI as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the regression discontinuity design (RDD) and the difference-in-differences (DID) methods to examine the effectiveness of this policy. The study found that the first round of CEPI reduced the air pollution of cities in the inspected provinces in a short time. Moreover, this positive policy effect persisted in the aftermath of the inspection, but this long-term effect is mainly reflected in PM10 and SO2. Heterogeneity analysis showed that CEPI was only effective in reducing air pollutants of industry-oriented cities, cities in Central and Eastern China, and cities with large or small population size. The moderating effect analysis indicated that a healthy relationship (close and clean) between the local governments and businesses was conducive to reducing air pollution. The research confirmed the presence of “selective” reduction of air pollutants in the long run caused by CEPI, thereby providing new inspiration for the improvement of campaign-style environmental governance and the follow-up CEPI work

Ku80 cooperates with CBP to promote COX-2 expression and tumor growth.

Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) plays an important role in lung cancer development and progression. Using streptavidin-agarose pulldown and proteomics assay, we identified and validated Ku80, a dimer of Ku participating in the repair of broken DNA double strands, as a new binding protein of the COX-2 gene promoter. Overexpression of Ku80 up-regulated COX-2 promoter activation and COX-2 expression in lung cancer cells. Silencing of Ku80 by siRNA down-regulated COX-2 expression and inhibited tumor cell growth in vitro and in a xenograft mouse model. Ku80 knockdown suppressed phosphorylation of ERK, resulting in an inactivation of the MAPK pathway. Moreover, CBP, a transcription co-activator, interacted with and acetylated Ku80 to co-regulate the activation of COX-2 promoter. Overexpression of CBP increased Ku80 acetylation, thereby promoting COX-2 expression and cell growth. Suppression of CBP by a CBP-specific inhibitor or siRNA inhibited COX-2 expression as well as tumor cell growth. Tissue microarray immunohistochemical analysis of lung adenocarcinomas revealed a strong positive correlation between levels of Ku80 and COX-2 and clinicopathologic variables. Overexpression of Ku80 was associated with poor prognosis in patients with lung cancers. We conclude that Ku80 promotes COX-2 expression and tumor growth and is a potential therapeutic target in lung cancer

Loss of COPZ1 induces NCOA4 mediated autophagy and ferroptosis in glioblastoma cell lines

Dysregulated iron metabolism is a hallmark of many cancers, including glioblastoma (GBM). However, its role in tumor progression remains unclear. Herein, we identified coatomer protein complex subunit zeta 1 (COPZ1) as a therapeutic target candidate which significantly dysregulated iron metabolism in GBM cells. Overexpression of COPZ1 was associated with increasing tumor grade and poor prognosis in glioma patients based on analysis of expression data from the publicly available database The Cancer Genome Atlas (P < 0.001). Protein levels of COPZ1 were significantly increased in GBM compared to non-neoplastic brain tissue samples in immunohistochemistry and western blot analysis. SiRNA knockdown of COPZ1 suppressed proliferation of U87MG, U251 and P3#GBM in vitro. Stable expression of a COPZ1 shRNA construct in U87MG inhibited tumor growth in vivo by ~60% relative to controls at day 21 after implantation (P < 0.001). Kaplan–Meier analysis of the survival data demonstrated that the overall survival of tumor bearing animals increased from 20.8 days (control) to 27.8 days (knockdown, P < 0.05). COPZ1 knockdown also led to the increase in nuclear receptor coactivator 4 (NCOA4), resulting in the degradation of ferritin, and a subsequent increase in the intracellular levels of ferrous iron and ultimately ferroptosis. These data demonstrate that COPZ1 is a critical mediator in iron metabolism. The COPZ1/NCOA4/FTH1 axis is therefore a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of human GBM.publishedVersio

Scale-Up Production of Chicken Myoblasts in Microcarrier-Based System

With the rapid development of the cultivated meat industry, large-scale cell culture technology applied to cultivated meat production has received extensive attention. In this study, two microcarriers, Cytodex 1 and 3D TableTrix™, were used for suspension culture of myoblasts in spinner flasks to select a more suitable one for large-scale culture of myoblasts, and then the effects of different culture conditions on the large-scale culture of cells were explored. The microscopic results showed that Cytodex 1 was spheres with a smooth surface and no macroporous structure, and 3D TableTrix™ was irregular spheres with a porous surface and large pores. The results of cell culture in spinner flasks showed that the cells grew on 3D TableTrix™ more efficiently, and after 10 days of culture, the cell yield was 8.97 × 105 cells/mL. The optimal conditions for cell attachment were intermittent stirring at 40 r/min for 10 min with intervals of 50 min. The best cell culture efficiency was obtained by using cell inoculation density of 1 × 105 cells/mL, microcarrier density of 2 mg/mL, agitation speed of 40 r/min, and initial culture serum concentration of 20% as well as replacing the medium with a new one containing 10% serum (V/V) after 24 h of culture, and replacing 50% of the medium with a new one with every other day. By bead to bead transfer of the microcarriers, the cells were transferred to a 2 L spinner flask. Finally, 1.07 × 109 cells were harvested with a survival rate of more than 95%. Microcarriers loaded with cells could be cryopreserved and resuscitated, and no significant differences in proliferation status and morphology were observed compared with thawed cells. The optimized microcarrier based culture process will have promising applications in the industrial scale production of cultivated meat

Proteome analysis of Physcomitrella patens exposed to progressive dehydration and rehydration

Physcomitrella patens is an extremely dehydration-tolerant moss. However, the molecular basis of its responses to loss of cellular water remains unclear. A comprehensive proteomic analysis of dehydration- and rehydration-responsive proteins has been conducted using quantitative two-dimensional difference in-gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE), and traditional 2-D gel electrophoresis (2-DE) combined with MALDI TOF/TOF MS. Of the 216 differentially-expressed protein spots, 112 and 104 were dehydration- and rehydration-responsive proteins, respectively. The functional categories of the most differentially-expressed proteins were seed maturation, defence, protein synthesis and quality control, and energy production. Strikingly, most of the late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins were expressed at a basal level under control conditions and their synthesis was strongly enhanced by dehydration, a pattern that was confirmed by RT-PCR. Actinoporins, phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein, arabinogalactan protein, and phospholipase are the likely dominant players in the defence system. In addition, 24 proteins of unknown function were identified as novel dehydration- or rehydration-responsive proteins. Our data indicate that Physcomitrella adopts a rapid protein response mechanism to cope with dehydration in its leafy-shoot and basal expression levels of desiccation-tolerant proteins are rapidly upgraded at high levels under stress. This mechanism appears similar to that seen in angiosperm seeds

The Origin of Proactive Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR) of Large Firms: Institutional Embeddedness—Driven, Family Involvement-Promoted, or Resource-Dependent?

Why are some firms in China highly engaged in proactive environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) while others are not? Knowledge of the determinants of proactive ECSR is a key research question among academics and practitioners. This study seeks to advance the ECSR literature by suggesting a configuration way of integrating institutional embeddedness, family involvement, and the resource base factors of firms to predict proactive ECSR investment, a proxy for proactive ECSR. Specifically, this study explores how the combination of institutional embeddedness, family involvement, and the resource base factors of firms jointly shape the proactive ECSR investment of large firms. Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) on a sample of 162 large private firms in China, this study finds that no condition alone is sufficient to account for high proactive ECSR investment. Institutional embeddedness, family involvement, and the resource base factors of firms must interact with one another to produce highly proactive ECSR investments. There exist two distinctive configurations that provide a nuanced picture of the drivers of proactive ECSR investment. These findings provide meaningful insights for theory and practice and pave the way for future research in the domain of ECSR

A Local TR-MUSIC Algorithm for Damage Imaging of Aircraft Structures

Lamb wave-based damage imaging is a promising technique for aircraft structural health monitoring, as enhancing the resolution of damage detection is a persistent challenge. In this paper, a damage imaging technique based on the Time Reversal-MUltiple SIgnal Classification (TR-MUSIC) algorithm is developed to detect damage in plate-type structures. In the TR-MUSIC algorithm, a transfer matrix is first established by exciting and sensing signals. A TR operator is constructed for eigenvalue decomposition to divide the data space into signal and noise subspaces. The structural space spectrum of the algorithm is calculated based on the orthogonality of the two subspaces. A local TR-MUSIC algorithm is proposed to enhance the image quality of multiple damages by using a moving time window to establish the local space spectrum at different times or different distances. The multidamage detection capability of the proposed enhanced TR-MUSIC algorithm is verified by simulations and experiments. The results reveal that the local TR-MUSIC algorithm can not only effectively detect multiple damages in plate-type structures with good image quality but also has a superresolution ability for detecting damage with distances smaller than half the wavelength