The Determinants of Debt Maturity Structure for Chinese Listed Companies

The funds from financing are necessary for companies to maintain their business activities in the process of operation and development. Debt financing is a crucial financing method, whose maturity choice is a key element of debt financing decisions. So determiners of debt maturity decision are research priorities, which regard Chinese listed companies as research subject in this article. First, the theories of debt maturity are reviewed, including agency cost theory, signaling and liquidity risks hypothesis, maturity matching principles, and tax theory. Then, variables are determined and hypotheses are proposed by combing these theories and previous research results. Third, data of 1,494 A-shares Chinese listed companies over 8 years between 2012 and 2019 are used as the full sample. And according to the firm scales which is based on the median company size, different periods which are from 2012 to 2015 and from 2016 to 2019, and ownership which are state-owned firms or non-state-owned firms, seven fixed effects models are established. Finally, the empirical findings show that asset maturity, firm scale, leverage, and working capital ratio (LIQU) have direct relation to debt maturity, which partly support the agency cost theory, signaling and liquidity risks hypotheses, matching principles theory, and tax hypothesis. Although outcomes of interest rates’ term structure is conversely connected to debt maturity, it is inverse to theoretical prediction. In conclusion, firm size, liquidity, leverage, asset maturity, quality, and interest rates’ term structure are a link to debt maturity for Chinese listed companies based on the 0.05 significance level. In the last, the limitations and suggestions of this paper are noted

Determinants of Residential Satisfaction During the Initial Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Xiangyang City, China

Objectives: To explore the impacts of psychological character strengths, self-efficacy, and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on residential satisfaction at the initial stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in China.Methods: To achieve the study aim, we collected data from 281 observations from Xiangyang City, China, via an online survey. Data were analyzed using linear regression.Results: Character strengths and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases significantly impacted residential satisfaction. While self-efficacy did not directly impact residential satisfaction, it moderated the relationship between the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and residential satisfaction. The control variables of social trust and shared value positively impacted residential satisfaction, and their influence on residential satisfaction was higher than that of character strengths. The sociodemographic variables of marriage, age, educational attainment, and housing area per capita also impacted residential satisfaction significantly. However, strong ties and weak ties became insignificant variables due to social distancing strategies.Conclusion: The study findings offer insights for local governments to enhance residential satisfaction in the community to avoid social panic during unpredictable threats or future pandemics

RAI-Net: Range-Adaptive LiDAR Point Cloud Frame Interpolation Network

LiDAR point cloud frame interpolation, which synthesizes the intermediate frame between the captured frames, has emerged as an important issue for many applications. Especially for reducing the amounts of point cloud transmission, it is by predicting the intermediate frame based on the reference frames to upsample data to high frame rate ones. However, due to high-dimensional and sparse characteristics of point clouds, it is more difficult to predict the intermediate frame for LiDAR point clouds than videos. In this paper, we propose a novel LiDAR point cloud frame interpolation method, which exploits range images (RIs) as an intermediate representation with CNNs to conduct the frame interpolation process. Considering the inherited characteristics of RIs differ from that of color images, we introduce spatially adaptive convolutions to extract range features adaptively, while a high-efficient flow estimation method is presented to generate optical flows. The proposed model then warps the input frames and range features, based on the optical flows to synthesize the interpolated frame. Extensive experiments on the KITTI dataset have clearly demonstrated that our method consistently achieves superior frame interpolation results with better perceptual quality to that of using state-of-the-art video frame interpolation methods. The proposed method could be integrated into any LiDAR point cloud compression systems for inter prediction.Comment: Accepted by the IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting 202

ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITIES IN VITRO AND HEPATOPROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF NELUMBO NUCIFERA LEAVES IN VIVO

Background: Herbal medicines played a major role in the treatment of hepatic disorders, and a number of medicinal plants and their compounds were widely used for the treatment of these disorders, and oxidant stress injury was one of the mechanism of liver injury. Materials and Methods: Antioxidant activity of Nelumbo nucifera leaves (NU) extracts was assayed by the methods of scavenging 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), 2,2´-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzo- thiazoline-6-sulfonicacid) (ABTS) radical and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) in vitro. By intraperitoneal injection carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) to establish acute liver injury model in mice, the levels of Glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (GPT), glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (GOT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the content of and maleicdialdehyde (MDA) were detected to evaluate hepatoprotective effect of NU using corresponding test kit. Results: EtOAC (NUEA) and n-BuOH extracts (NUBU) of N. nucifera leaves had good scavenging DPPH and ABTS radical activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power in vitro. DPPH radical scavenging activity and ferric reducing antioxidant power of NUEA (IC50= 6.68±0.29 µg/mL, RACT50=1749.82±67.03 µmol/g) and NUBU (IC50= 4.61±0.01 µg/mL, RACT50=1995.27±135.71 µmol/g ) were higher than that of BHT (IC50=8.76±0.20 µg/mL, RACT50=1581.68±97.41 µmol/g) and Dangfeiliganning (IC50=28.06±0.17 µg/mL, RACT50=1028.55±3.28 µmol/g). ABTS radical scavenging activity of NUEA (IC50= 5.32±0.12 µg/mL) and NUBU (IC50= 8.16±0.27 µg/mL) were higher than that of Dangfeiliganning (IC50= 9.76±0.16 µg/mL). Thus, hepatoprotective effect of NUEA and NUBU was evaluated on CCl4-induced acute liver injury mice. The results showed that the levels of GOT and GPT in each treatment group significantly decreased (

Emerging trends on the mechanism of pelvic organ prolapse from 1997 to 2022: visualization and bibliometric analysis

ObjectiveAt present, there is no feature description of the mechanism of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in the literature. This study aimed to map the emerging trends regarding the mechanism of POP from inception to 2022 by bibliometric analysis and to analyze its research hotspots and frontiers.MethodsWe downloaded pertinent publications from inception to 2022 from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) on 30 June 2022. The data were then examined using the Bibliometrix program in R (Version 4.1.0), CiteSpace software, the Online Analysis Platform of Literature Metrology (https://bibliometric.com), and a bibliometrix online interface.ResultsA total of 290 qualified records on the mechanism of POP were identified and included in the analysis. The most productive journal was International Urogynecology Journal. Bump RC and Olsen AL were the most cited authors. Extracellular matrix, collagen, apoptosis, elastin, oxidative stress, gene expression, matrix metalloproteinase, and tissue engineering were among the 25 most relevant terms. According to the analysis of trending topics, tissue engineering has become a new research hotspot.ConclusionExtracellular matrix remodeling, oxidative stress and apoptosis are the three main directions for studying the mechanism of POP. In addition, tissue engineering has become a new research hotspot. In the future, in-depth research on the interaction between different mechanisms will be carried out, and attempts will be made to combine biomimetic materials and seed cells to achieve the regeneration and reconstruction of POP-related organs

In Vivo Toxicity Evaluation of PEGylated CuInS2/ZnS Quantum Dots in BALB/c Mice

In recent years, quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as a potential contrast agent for bioimaging due to their bright luminescence and excellent photostability. However, the wide use of QDs in vivo has been limited due to underlying toxicity caused by leakage of heavy metals. Although non-cadmium QDs have been developed to resolve this issue, a comprehensive understanding of the toxicity of these newly developed QDs remains elusive. In this study, we administered PEGylated copper indium sulfide/zinc sulfide (CuInS2/ZnS), which are typical non-cadmium QDs, and analyzed the long-term effects of these nanoparticles in BALB/c mice. Body weight, hematology, blood biochemistry, organ histology, and biodistribution were examined at different time points. We found no significant difference in body weight after injection of CuInS2/ZnS QDs. These CuInS2/ZnS QDs entered and were accumulated in major organs for 90 days post-injection. The majority of biochemical indicators were not significantly different between the QDs-treated group and the control group. In addition, no significant histopathological abnormalities were observed in the treated mice compared with the control mice. CuInS2/ZnS QDs did not lead to observable toxicity in vivo following either the administration of a high or low dose. Our research not only provides direct evidence of the bio-safety of CuInS2/ZnS QDs, but also a feasible method for evaluating nanoparticle toxicity

Specifics of training specialists in the field of water resources logistics

The article defines the problem of training specialists who manage water resources logistics. The problems of water logistics are related to peculiarities of transportation of water resources in order to preserve their quality characteristics, operation of hydraulic structures, preservation of coastal territories and their corresponding ecosystems. Effective implementation of the processes related to the above features requires constant analysis of a multitude of parameters and processes, which in most cases are random in nature. The development of operational management solutions requires the use of specialized intelligent software tools. Their effective use requires professional training. The study developed a model of the educational process that uses technologies of digital twins of real natural objects, which allowed forming professional competencies in the field of water resources logistics in an interactive form

Upconversion NIR-II fluorophores for mitochondria-targeted cancer imaging and photothermal therapy

Acknowledgements: The work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0908800), NSFC (81773674, 81573383), Shenzhen Science and Technology Research Grant (JCYJ20190808152019182), Hubei Province Scientific and Technical Innovation Key Project, National Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2017CFA024, 2017CFB711), the Applied Basic Research Program of Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology (2019020701011429), Tibet Autonomous Region Science and Technology Plan Project Key Project (XZ201901-GB-11), the Local Development Funds of Science and Technology Department of Tibet (XZ202001YD0028C), Project First-Class Disciplines Development Supported by Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CZYJC1903), Health Commission of Hubei Province Scientific Research Project (WJ2019M177, WJ2019M178), the China Scholarship Council, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Identification of rare DNA variants in mitochondrial disorders with improved array-based sequencing.

A common goal in the discovery of rare functional DNA variants via medical resequencing is to incur a relatively lower proportion of false positive base-calls. We developed a novel statistical method for resequencing arrays (SRMA, sequence robust multi-array analysis) to increase the accuracy of detecting rare variants and reduce the costs in subsequent sequence verifications required in medical applications. SRMA includes single and multi-array analysis and accounts for technical variables as well as the possibility of both low- and high-frequency genomic variation. The confidence of each base-call was ranked using two quality measures. In comparison to Sanger capillary sequencing, we achieved a false discovery rate of 2% (false positive rate 1.2 × 10⁻⁵, false negative rate 5%), which is similar to automated second-generation sequencing technologies. Applied to the analysis of 39 nuclear candidate genes in disorders of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) maintenance, we confirmed mutations in the DNA polymerase gamma POLG in positive control cases, and identified novel rare variants in previously undiagnosed cases in the mitochondrial topoisomerase TOP1MT, the mismatch repair enzyme MUTYH, and the apurinic-apyrimidinic endonuclease APEX2. Some patients carried rare heterozygous variants in several functionally interacting genes, which could indicate synergistic genetic effects in these clinically similar disorders