The impact of environmental, social, and governance, board diversity and firm size on the sustainable development goals of registered firm in China

Recently, sustainability practices have become a global requirement to attain the high-performance goals of the organizations and capture the focus of regulators and recent researchers. Therefore, the present article aim is to investigate the board diversity (percentage of women directors, percentage of nonexecutive directors and board member nationality) and firm size (logarithm of total assets) on the sustainability practices (expenditures on environmental sustainability) of the top ten registered firms in China. The researchers have adopted the secondary source of data collection and extracted the data from the financial statements of the adopted firms from 2005 to 2019. Additionally, the researchers used a fixed-effect model (FEM) and a robust standard error model to investigate the relationship between the two concepts. There were positive correlations between firm size (logarithmic total assets) and board diversity (percentage of women directors, percentage of non-executive directors, and board member nationality) and China’s top ten registered firms’ sustainability practises (expenditures on environmental sustainability). This research provides help to the policymakers while formulating strategies and policies related to the adoption of sustainability practices

Fabrication of three-dimensional microdisk resonators in calcium fluoride by femtosecond laser micromachining

We report on fabrication of on-chip calcium fluoride (CaF2) microdisk resonators using water-assisted femtosecond laser micromachining. Focused ion beam (FIB) milling is used to create ultra-smooth sidewalls. The quality (Q)-factors of the fabricated microresonators are measured to be 4.2x10^4 at wavelengths near 1550 nm. The Q factor is mainly limited by the scattering from the bottom surface of the disk whose roughness remains high due to the femtosecond laser micromachining process. This technique facilitates formation of on-chip microresonators on various kinds of bulk crystalline materials, which can benefit a wide range of applications such as nonlinear optics, quantum optics, and chip-level integration of photonic devices.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Tsc1 Regulates the Balance Between Osteoblast and Adipocyte Differentiation Through Autophagy/Notch1/βâ Catenin Cascade

A reduction in trabecular bone mass is often associated with an increase in marrow fat in osteoporotic bones. The molecular mechanisms underlying this inverse correlation are incompletely understood. Here, we report that mice lacking tuberous sclerosis 1 (Tsc1) in Osterixâ expressing cells had a significant decrease in trabecular bone mass characterized by decreased osteoblastogenesis, increased osteoclastogenesis, and increased bone marrow adiposity in vivo. In vitro study showed that Tsc1â deficient bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) had decreased proliferation, decreased osteogenic differentiation, and increased adipogenic differentiation in association with the downregulation of Wnt/βâ catenin signaling. Mechanistically, TSC1 deficiency led to autophagy suppression and consequent Notch1 protein increase, which mediated the GSK3βâ independent βâ catenin degradation. Together, our results indicate that Tsc1 controls the balance between osteoblast and adipocyte differentiation of BMSCs. © 2018 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146652/1/jbmr3530-sup-0001-SuppData-S1.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146652/2/jbmr3530_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146652/3/jbmr3530.pd

Electromagnetic Radiation Control for Nonlinear Dynamics of Hopfield Neural Networks

© 2024 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0194928Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) affects the dynamical behavior of the nervous system, and appropriate EMR helps to study the dynamic mechanism of the nervous system. This paper uses a sophisticated four-dimensional Hopfield neural network (HNN) model augmented with one or more memristors to simulate the effects of EMR. We focus on the chaotic dynamics of HNN under the influence of EMR. Complex dynamical behaviors are found and transient chaotic phenomena have the same initial value sensitivity, showing how transient chaos is affected by EMR. Multiperiodic phenomena induced by quasi-periodic alternations are found in the dual EMR, as well as the suppression properties of the dual EMR for system chaos. This implies that the dynamical behavior of the HNN system can be controlled by varying the amount of EMR or the number of affected neurons in the HNN. Finally, a strong validation of our proposed model is provided by Multisim and FPGA hardware.Peer reviewe

Association of ABCC2 and CDDP-Resistance in Two Sublines Resistant to CDDP Derived from a Human Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Cell Line

Cisplatin (CDDP) is one of the most active drugs to treat nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. To further understand the mechanisms of CDDP-resistance in NPC, two CDDP-resistant sublines (CNE2-CDDP and CNE2-CDDP-5Fu) derived from parental NPC cell line CNE2 were established. It was found that at the IC50 level, the resistance of CNE2-CDDP and CNE2-CDDP-5Fu against CDDP was 2.63-fold and 5.35-fold stronger than that of parental CNE2, respectively. Of the four ABC transporters (ABCB1, ABCC1, ABCC2 and ABCG2) related to MDR, only ABCC2 was found to be elevated both in CDDP-resistant sublines, with ABCC2 located in nucleus of CNE2-CDDP-5Fu but not in CNE2-CDDP and parental CNE2. Further research showed that compared to untreated CNE2, the intracellular levels of CDDP were decreased by 2.03-fold in CNE2-CDDP and 2.78-fold in CNE2-CDDP-5Fu. After treatment with PSC833, a modulator of MDR associated transporters including ABCC2, the intracellular level of CDDP was increased in CDDP-resistant sublines, and the resistance to CDDP was partially reversed from 2.63-fold to 1.62-fold in CNE2-CDDP and from 5.35-fold to 4.62-fold in CNE2-CDDP-5Fu. These data indicate that ABCC2 may play an important role in NPC resistant to CDDP

The International Database of Central Arterial Properties for Risk Stratification: Research Objectives and Baseline Characteristics of Participants

OBJECTIVE To address to what extent central hemodynamic measurements, improve risk stratification, and determine outcome-based diagnostic thresholds, we constructed the International Database of Central Arterial Properties for Risk Stratification (IDCARS), allowing a participant-level meta-analysis. The purpose of this article was to describe the characteristics of IDCARS participants and to highlight research perspectives. METHODS Longitudinal or cross-sectional cohort studies with central blood pressure measured with the SphygmoCor devices and software were included. RESULTS The database included 10,930 subjects (54.8% women; median age 46.0 years) from 13 studies in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America. The prevalence of office hypertension was 4,446 (40.1%), of which 2,713 (61.0%) were treated, and of diabetes mellitus was 629 (5.8%). The peripheral and central systolic/diastolic blood pressure averaged 129.5/78.7 mm Hg and 118.2/79.7 mm Hg, respectively. Mean aortic pulse wave velocity was 7.3 m per seconds. Among 6,871 participants enrolled in 9 longitudinal studies, the median follow-up was 4.2 years (5th–95th percentile interval, 1.3–12.2 years). During 38,957 person-years of follow-up, 339 participants experienced a composite cardiovascular event and 212 died, 67 of cardiovascular disease. CONCLUSIONS IDCARS will provide a unique opportunity to investigate hypotheses on central hemodynamic measurements that could not reliably be studied in individual studies. The results of these analyses might inform guidelines and be of help to clinicians involved in the management of patients with suspected or established hypertension