What explains the performance of Chinese exporting firms?

Drawing on the entry mode literature and the strategic tripod framework, we examine whether firm performance is influenced by its outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) mode, controlling other firm-, industry- and institution-specific factors. It is found that employing OFDI does not improve an exporting firm’s performance. This is not surprising as anecdotal evidence shows that many Chinese firms with OFDI have been making loss in the host country. This may indicate exporting firms employ OFDI to seek complementary and strategic resources/assets, not to improve immediate firm performance. Furthermore, firm performance is influenced by strategic assets, including technology-based capabilities (TBCs) and brands, at the firm level, industry entry barriers at the industry level and the home and host country institutional support at the country level

A Random Forest and Current Fault Texture Feature-Based Method for Current Sensor Fault Diagnosis in Three-Phase PWM VSR

Three-phase PWM voltage-source rectifier (VSR) systems have been widely used in various energy conversion systems, where current sensors are the key component for state monitoring and system control. The current sensor faults may bring hidden danger or damage to the whole system; therefore, this paper proposed a random forest (RF) and current fault texture feature-based method for current sensor fault diagnosis in three-phase PWM VSR systems. First, the three-phase alternating currents (ACs) of the three-phase PWM VSR are collected to extract the current fault texture features, and no additional hardware sensors are needed to avoid causing additional unstable factors. Then, the current fault texture features are adopted to train the random forest current sensor fault detection and diagnosis (CSFDD) classifier, which is a data-driven CSFDD classifier. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by simulation experiments. The result shows that the current sensor faults can be detected and located successfully and that it can effectively provide fault locations for maintenance personnel to keep the stable operation of the whole system.Comment: Frontiers in Energy Researc

Large viewing angle holographic 3D display system based on maximum diffraction modulation

An ideal holographic 3D display should have the characteristics of large viewing angle, full color, and low speckle noise. However, the viewing angle of the holographic 3D display is usually limited by existing strategies, which vastly hinders its extensive application. In this paper, a large viewing angle holographic 3D display system based on maximum diffraction modulation is proposed. The core of the proposed system comprises the spatial light modulators (SLMs) and liquid crystal grating. We also present a new feasible scheme for the realization of large viewing angle holographic 3D display. This is achieved by considering the maximum diffraction angle of SLM as the limited diffraction modulation range of each image point. By doing so, we could not only give access to the maximum hologram size of the object, but also tune the reconstructed image of secondary diffraction by using a self-engineered liquid crystal grating. More importantly, the proposed maximum diffraction modulation scheme enables the viewing angle of the proposed system to be enlarged to 73.4°. The proposed system has huge application potential in the fields such as education, culture, and entertainment

Electrocardiographic characteristics of bladder cancer patients receiving preoperative chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy.

Objective Patients treated with preoperative chemotherapy and immunotherapy for bladder cancer may be at increased risk of cardiotoxicity and electrophysiological abnormalities. This study aimed to analyze their electrocardiographic (ECG) alterations. Methods Patients with bladder cancer who were hospitalized and receiving tislelizumab plus nab-paclitaxel (TnP) were enrolled prospectively. ECG, cardiac biomarkers, and echocardiography were performed at baseline and the end of TnP. Results A total of 60 patients (76.7% males), including 30 muscle-invasive and 30 non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, received three or four cycles of TnP, respectively. Hypertension was the commonest comorbidity (41.7%), and 25 patients (41.7%) were prescribed cardiovascular drugs. In comparison with baseline characteristics, cardiac troponin I (cTnI) and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) were within normal ranges after TnP. However, echocardiographic parameter of left ventricular ejection fraction slightly decreased after TnP (62.81 ± 3.81% to 61.10 ± 4.37%, p = .011). The incidence of abnormal ECG increased from 65.0% at baseline to 76.7%, of which only a higher prevalence of fragmented QRS (fQRS) was observed (33.3% to 50.0%, p = .013; mainly in inferior leads). ECG parameters of QT dispersion (QTd) were prolonged significantly after the regimen (39.50 ± 11.37 to 44.20 ± 15.85 ms, p = .019). Conclusion In bladder cancer patients receiving preoperative chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy, the main ECG abnormality was fQRS and QTd, with relatively normal cardiac biomarkers and echocardiographic parameters. Regular ECG screening should be carried out carefully to detect potential cardiotoxicity in the long-term follow-up

Snailase Preparation of Ginsenoside M1 from Protopanaxadiol-Type Ginsenoside and Their Protective Effects Against CCl4-Induced Chronic Hepatotoxicity in Mice

To investigate the protective effects of protopanaxadiol-type ginsenoside (PDG) and its metabolite ginsenoside M1 (G-M1) on carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced chronic liver injury in ICR mice, we carried out conversion of protopanaxadiol-type ginsenosides to ginsenoside M1 using snailase. The optimum time for the conversion was 24 h at a constant pH of 4.5 and an optimum temperature of 50 °C. The transformation products were identified by high-performance liquid chromatography and electrospray ion-mass spectrometry. Subsequently, most of PDG was decomposed and converted into G-M1 by 24 h post-reaction. During the study on hepatoprotective in a mice model of chronic liver injury, PDG or G-M1 supplement significantly ameliorated the CCl4-induced liver lesions, lowered the serum levels of select hepatic enzyme markers (alanine aminotransferase, ALT, and aspartate aminotransferase, AST) and malondialdehyde and increased the activity of superoxide dismutase in liver. Histopathology of the liver tissues showed that PDG and G-M1 attenuated the hepatocellular necrosis and led to reduction of inflammatory cell infiltration. Therefore, the results of this study show that PDG and G-M1 can be proposed to protect the liver against CCl4-induced oxidative injury in mice, and the hepatoprotective effect might be attributed to amelioration of oxidative stress

Association between leucocyte telomere length and the risk of atrial fibrillation: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis

Advancing age is the most important risk factor of atrial fibrillation (AF). The shortening of telomere length is a biomarker of biologic aging. There is an increasing body of evidence that leucocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with the risk of AF development. However, the results in these studies were controversial. The current systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to examine the role of LTL in predicting the incidence of AF. Observational studies reporting the association between LTL and the risk of AF were retrieved through 25th June, 2022 from PubMed and Embase. A total of twelve studies including 18,293 patients were included in the present analysis. Leucocyte telomere shortening was found to be an independent predictor of AF as a continuous variable in both univariate [OR:2.14; 95%CI(1.48,3.10); P < 0.0001] and multivariate analyses [OR:1.41;95%CI(1.11,1.79); P = 0.005], as well as categorical variable in multivariate analysis [OR:1.53; 95%CI(1.04,2.27); P = 0.03]. Furthermore, leucocyte telomere shortening was significantly associated with recurrent AF [OR:4.32;95%CI(2.42,7.69); P < 0.00001] but not new-onset AF [OR:1.14; 95%CI(0.90,1.45); P = 0.29]. Leucocyte telomere shortening was also associated with an increased risk of persistent AF [OR:14.73;95%CI (3.16,68.67); P = 0.0006] and paroxysmal AF [OR:2.74;95%CI(1.45,5.18); P = 0.002]. Besides, LTL was an independent predictor for progression from paroxysmal AF to persistent AF [OR:3.2;95%CI(1.66,6.18); P = 0.0005]. Differences between males [OR:1.99; 95%CI(1.29,3.06); P = 0.002] and females [OR:0.86; 95%CI (0.29,2.56);P = 0.79] were observed. Leucocyte telomere shortening predicts the risk of AF, especially recurrent AF. The predictive value is more prominent in males than in females. Shortening in LTL can predict the progression from paroxysmal to persistent AF

Ab initio identification of transcription start sites in the Rhesus macaque genome by histone modification and RNA-Seq

Rhesus macaque is a widely used primate model organism. Its genome annotations are however still largely comparative computational predictions derived mainly from human genes, which precludes studies on the macaque-specific genes, gene isoforms or their regulations. Here we took advantage of histone H3 lysine 4 trimethylation (H3K4me3)’s ability to mark transcription start sites (TSSs) and the recently developed ChIP-Seq and RNA-Seq technology to survey the transcript structures. We generated 14 013 757 sequence tags by H3K4me3 ChIP-Seq and obtained 17 322 358 paired end reads for mRNA, and 10 698 419 short reads for sRNA from the macaque brain. By integrating these data with genomic sequence features and extending and improving a state-of-the-art TSS prediction algorithm, we ab initio predicted and verified 17 933 of previously electronically annotated TSSs at 500-bp resolution. We also predicted approximately 10 000 novel TSSs. These provide an important rich resource for close examination of the species-specific transcript structures and transcription regulations in the Rhesus macaque genome. Our approach exemplifies a relatively inexpensive way to generate a reasonably reliable TSS map for a large genome. It may serve as a guiding example for similar genome annotation efforts targeted at other model organisms

Complementary Lateral‐Spin–Orbit Building Blocks for Programmable Logic and In‐Memory Computing

Current-driven switching of nonvolatile spintronic materials and devices based on spin-orbit torques offer fast data processing speed, low power consumption, and unlimited endurance for future information processing applications. Analogous to conventional CMOS technology, it is important to develop a pair of complementary spin-orbit devices with differentiated magnetization switching senses as elementary building blocks for realizing sophisticated logic functionalities. Various attempts using external magnetic field or complicated stack/circuit designs have been proposed, however, plainer and more feasible approaches are still strongly desired. Here we show that a pair of two locally laser annealed perpendicular Pt/Co/Pt devices with opposite laser track configurations and thereby inverse field-free lateral spin-orbit torques (LSOTs) induced switching senses can be adopted as such complementary spin-orbit building blocks. By electrically programming the initial magnetization states (spin down/up) of each sample, four Boolean logic gates of AND, OR, NAND and NOR, as well as a spin-orbit half adder containing an XOR gate, were obtained. Moreover, various initialization-free, working current intensity-programmable stateful logic operations, including material implication (IMP) gate, were also demonstrated by regarding the magnetization state as a logic input. Our complementary LSOT building blocks provide a potentially applicable way towards future efficient spin logics and in-memory computing architectures.