Foreign Trade and China¡¯s Economic Development: A Time-Series Analysis

This paper examines the relationship between trade and economic growth based on China¡¯s national data for the period of 1952 to 1997. It is found that the growth rate of exports, the growth rate of imports, and the growth rate of the volume of trade are positively related to the growth rate of per capita GDP. It is also found that the labor force growth was positively related to economic growth.

Pollution Across Chinese Provinces

We revisit the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis using 1987-1995 data for Chinese provinces. A comparison of off-sample (1996-2004) predictions to actual emissions indicates that more stringent rules are still needed to fight industrial (waste water and dust) pollution. Auxiliary regressions show that conditional on income, northern provinces have lower industrial waste water pollution; non-coastal and provinces with smaller secondary industry shares have lower industrial (waste water, COD, and dust) pollution; provinces with smaller state-owned enterprises share have lower industrial COD pollution; and, commitment to control industrial dust pollution is correlated with local governments budget balance.environmental Kuznets curves, Chinese provinces, pollution

Influence of air supply velocity on temperature field in the self heating process of coal

The air supply velocity is an important factor affecting the spontaneous combustion of coal. The appropriate air velocity can not only provide the oxygen required for the oxidation reaction, but maintains the good heat storage environment. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of the actual air velocity in the pore space on the self-heating process of coal particles. This paper focuses on studying the real space piled up by spherical particles. CFD simulation software is used to establish the numerical model from pore scale. Good fitness of the simulation results with the existing results verifies the feasibility of the calculation method. Later, the calculation conditions are changed to calculate and analyze the velocity field and the temperature field for self-heating of some particles (the surface of the particles is at a certain temperature) and expound the effect of different air supply velocities on gathering and dissipating the heat

Urban infrastructure financing in China

This paper introduces the ways in which urban infrastructure investment has been financed in China. It explains the main source of urban infrastructure financing in China’s development since the 1980s and the rationale behind such development and its evolution; highlights the policy actions, fiscal reforms in particular, taken by the Chinese government at both central and loca

Altitudinal Patterns of Leaf Traits and Leaf Allometry in Bamboo Pleioblastus amarus

Awareness of local-scale variation in leaf traits for a single species and the relationships between these traits and their dependence on altitude might be essential for extrapolating ecophysiological processes from the leaf to the ecosystem level. While altitudinal patterns of leaf traits have been extensively studied in a number of species, little is known about such patterns in bamboos. We analyzed leaf functional traits and leaf allometric relationships of Pleioblastus amarus at three different altitudes (200, 400, and 800 m). With increasing altitude, most functional traits, including leaf length, width, perimeter, area, dry weight, and water content, decreased significantly, while the leaf length:width ratio exhibited a marked increase, resulting in a tendency toward narrow leaves. Specific leaf area first increased, and then decreased, while the change in leaf dry matter content showed the opposite trend. Leaf area was positively correlated with leaf length, leaf width and leaf perimeter, but negatively correlated with the leaf length:width ratio. With increasing altitude, the slopes of these relationships for leaf area first increased, and then decreased. Leaf biomass was positively correlated with leaf length, width, perimeter, and area, with the slopes of the relationships being the same at all altitudes. Thus, the leaves of this bamboo species at middle altitude have the highest specific leaf area and lowest leaf dry matter content. Our findings suggest that this bamboo species has a big potential of growth and morphological plasticity

Joint analysis of two microarray gene-expression data sets to select lung adenocarcinoma marker genes

BACKGROUND: Due to the high cost and low reproducibility of many microarray experiments, it is not surprising to find a limited number of patient samples in each study, and very few common identified marker genes among different studies involving patients with the same disease. Therefore, it is of great interest and challenge to merge data sets from multiple studies to increase the sample size, which may in turn increase the power of statistical inferences. In this study, we combined two lung cancer studies using micorarray GeneChip(®), employed two gene shaving methods and a two-step survival test to identify genes with expression patterns that can distinguish diseased from normal samples, and to indicate patient survival, respectively. RESULTS: In addition to common data transformation and normalization procedures, we applied a distribution transformation method to integrate the two data sets. Gene shaving (GS) methods based on Random Forests (RF) and Fisher's Linear Discrimination (FLD) were then applied separately to the joint data set for cancer gene selection. The two methods discovered 13 and 10 marker genes (5 in common), respectively, with expression patterns differentiating diseased from normal samples. Among these marker genes, 8 and 7 were found to be cancer-related in other published reports. Furthermore, based on these marker genes, the classifiers we built from one data set predicted the other data set with more than 98% accuracy. Using the univariate Cox proportional hazard regression model, the expression patterns of 36 genes were found to be significantly correlated with patient survival (p < 0.05). Twenty-six of these 36 genes were reported as survival-related genes from the literature, including 7 known tumor-suppressor genes and 9 oncogenes. Additional principal component regression analysis further reduced the gene list from 36 to 16. CONCLUSION: This study provided a valuable method of integrating microarray data sets with different origins, and new methods of selecting a minimum number of marker genes to aid in cancer diagnosis. After careful data integration, the classification method developed from one data set can be applied to the other with high prediction accuracy

Downregulation of hnRNPA1 inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma cell progression by modulating alternative splicing of ZNF207 exon 9

IntroductionHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most prevalent liver cancer and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 (hnRNPA1) plays a critical role in RNA metabolism, including alternative splicing, which is linked to cancer progression. Our study investigated the role of hnRNPA1 in HCC and its potential as a therapeutic target.MethodsWe analyzed hnRNPA1 expression in HCC tissues compared to non-tumor tissues using RNA-seq and immunohistochemistry. hnRNPA1 was knocked down in Hep G2 cells to assess its impact on cell proliferation, migration, and apoptosis using scratch assays, flow cytometry, qPCR, and Western blot. We also explored the interaction between hnRNPA1 and ZNF207, as well as its splicing effects and downstream signaling pathways by RIP assay, bioinformatics, qPCR and Western blot.ResultshnRNPA1 was significantly upregulated in HCC tissues compared to normal tissues, correlating with poor patient survival. hnRNPA1 knockdown reduced Hep G2 cell proliferation and migration while increasing apoptosis. We identified that hnRNPA1 bound to ZNF207 and regulated its exon 9 skipping, influencing ZNF207 splicing and the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway, key regulators of cell growth and survival.ConclusionOur findings demonstrate that hnRNPA1 promotes HCC progression by regulating ZNF207 splicing and the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. hnRNPA1-ZNF207 interaction represents a potential therapeutic target for HCC, providing insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying HCC progression

Glycyrrhiza uralensis polysaccharides ameliorates cecal ligation and puncture-induced sepsis by inhibiting the cGAS-STING signaling pathway

Ethnopharmacological relevance:G. uralensis Fisch. (Glycyrrhiza uralensis) is an ancient and widely used traditional Chinese medicine with good efficacy in clearing heat and detoxifying action. Studies suggest that Glycyrrhiza Uralensis Polysaccharides (GUP), one of the major components of G. uralensis, has anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and hepatoprotective effects., but its exact molecular mechanism has not been explored in depth.Aim of the study: Objectives of our research are about exploring the anti-inflammatory role of GUP and the mechanisms of its action.Materials and methods: ELISA kits, Western blotting, immunofluorescence, quantitative real-time PCR, immunoprecipitation and DMXAA-mediated STING activation mice models were performed to investigate the role of GUP on the cGAS-STING pathway. To determine the anti-inflammatory effects of GUP, cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) sepsis models were employed.Results: GUP could effectively inhibit the activation of the cGAS-STING signaling pathway accompany by a decrease the expression of type I interferon-related genes and inflammatory factors in BMDMs, THP-1, and human PBMCs. Mechanistically, GUP does not affect the oligomerization of STING, but affects the interaction of STING with TBK1 and TBK1 with IRF3. Significantly, GUP had great therapeutic effects on DMXAA-induced agonist experiments in vivo as well as CLP sepsis in mice.Conclusion: Our studies suggest that GUP is an effective inhibitor of the cGAS-STING pathway, which may be a potential medicine for the treatment of inflammatory diseases mediated by the cGAS-STING pathway