Chinese perceptions of the EU: the impact of social media use

With the rise of China and the deepening of China-EU interactions, it is crucial for both China and the EU to know the Chinese public perceptions of the EU and what factors influence the formation of perceptions, to enhance mutual understanding. Given the increasing role of social media in the political process, this study hypothesizes that social media use is a strong predictor for Chinese public perceptions of the EU and China-EU relations. We analyze the effects by utilizing original public opinion survey data collected in China in 2020. Our findings show that social media use as well as socioeconomic factors together predict Chinese public perceptions of the EU and China-EU relations. However, social media use effects vary across different social media platforms

FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1

In the earlier published article, “Herbei Province” included in the affiliation of the second author is incorrect. “Chongqing” is a municipality directly under the Central Government and does not belong to "Hebei Province”. At the request of the author, the correct affiliation is provided above. New citation: Zhang Q, Yang H, Tang C, Wang Q, Ren L, Jia C, et al. FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(8):1559-1564 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i8.2. Erratum: 2022; 21(8): 1807 doi: 10.4314/ tjpr.v 21i8.31 Earlier citation: Zhang Q, Yang H, Tang C, Wang Q, Ren L, Jia C, et al. FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(8):1559-1564 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i8.

Constructing Heterostructure through Bidentate Coordination toward Operationally Stable Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells

It has been reported that one of the influencing factors leading to stability issues in iodine-containing perovskite solar cells is the iodine loss from the perovskite layer. Herein, bidentate coordination is used with undercoordinated I− of the perovskite surface to construct the stable perovskite-based heterostructure. This strong halogen bonding effectively inhibits interfacial migration of I− into functional layers such as C60 and Ag. Moreover, passivation of the undercoordinated I− suppresses the release of I2 and further delays the formation of voids at the perovskite surface. The resulting inverted perovskite solar cell exhibits a power conversion efficiency of 22.59% and the unencapsulated device maintains 96.15% of its initial value after continuous operation for 500 h under illumination.journal articl

GeoGauss: Strongly Consistent and Light-Coordinated OLTP for Geo-Replicated SQL Database

Multinational enterprises conduct global business that has a demand for geo-distributed transactional databases. Existing state-of-the-art databases adopt a sharded master-follower replication architecture. However, the single-master serving mode incurs massive cross-region writes from clients, and the sharded architecture requires multiple round-trip acknowledgments (e.g., 2PC) to ensure atomicity for cross-shard transactions. These limitations drive us to seek yet another design choice. In this paper, we propose a strongly consistent OLTP database GeoGauss with full replica multi-master architecture. To efficiently merge the updates from different master nodes, we propose a multi-master OCC that unifies data replication and concurrent transaction processing. By leveraging an epoch-based delta state merge rule and the optimistic asynchronous execution, GeoGauss ensures strong consistency with light-coordinated protocol and allows more concurrency with weak isolation, which are sufficient to meet our needs. Our geo-distributed experimental results show that GeoGauss achieves 7.06X higher throughput and 17.41X lower latency than the state-of-the-art geo-distributed database CockroachDB on the TPC-C benchmark

Efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine decoction as an adjuvant treatment for diabetic nephropathy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Objective: This study aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine decoction as an adjunctive treatment for diabetic nephropathy in systematic evaluations.Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang databases, covering the period from January 2013 to July 2023. The search was restricted to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) conducted within the past decade that investigated the use of TCM decoction as an adjunctive treatment for diabetic nephropathy. The control group received western medicine treatment, while the intervention group received TCM decoction in addition to the conventional treatment. Endnote and Excel were employed for literature management and data organization, and Revman 5.3 and Stata 16 software were used for the analyses.Results: 66 RCTs involving 6,951 participants were included in this study. The clinical efficacy of TCM decoction as an adjunctive treatment for diabetic nephropathy was found to be significantly higher than that of the control group (OR = 3.12, 95% CI [2.70, 3.60], I2 = 0%, p < 0.00001). The incidence of adverse events did not differ significantly between the intervention group and the control group (OR = 0.94, 95% CI [0.60, 1.48], I2 = 0%, p = 0.94). According to the secondary outcomes of renal function and blood glucose indicators, the intervention group showed better therapeutic efficacy compared to the control group. The most frequently used TCM categories were tonifying medicine, blood-activating medicine, astringent medicine, diuretic medicine, heat-clearing medicine, and laxative medicine. Among them, the top five frequently used Chinese medicine were Astragalus mongholicus Bunge [Fabaceae; Astragali mongholici radix](58 times), Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge [Lamiaceae; Radix et rhizoma salviae miltiorrhizae] (42 times), Dioscorea oppositifolia L. [Dioscoreaceae; Dioscoreae rhizoma] (38 times), Poria cocos (Schw.) Wolf [Polyporaceae; Poria] (38 times), and Cornus officinalis Siebold & Zucc. [Cornaceae; Corni fructus] (35 times).Conclusion: The combined use of TCM decoction with western medicine in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy can enhance clinical effectiveness and 2 This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article achieve superior therapeutic effects in comparison to western medicine alone, without significant risks.Systematic Review Registration:https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/#recordDetails, identifier [CRD42022529144]

Decreased demand for olfactory periglomerular cells impacts on neural precursor cell viability in the rostral migratory stream

The subventricular zone (SVZ) provides a constant supply of new neurons to the olfactory bulb (OB). Different studies have investigated the role of olfactory sensory input to neural precursor cell (NPC) turnover in the SVZ but it was not addressed if a reduced demand specifically for periglomerular neurons impacts on NPC-traits in the rostral migratory stream (RMS). We here report that membrane type-1 matrix metalloproteinase (MT1-MMP) deficient mice have reduced complexity of the nasal turbinates, decreased sensory innervation of the OB, reduced numbers of olfactory glomeruli and reduced OB-size without alterations in SVZ neurogenesis. Large parts of the RMS were fully preserved in MT1-MMP-deficient mice, but we detected an increase in cell death-levels and a decrease in SVZ-derived neuroblasts in the distal RMS, as compared to controls. BrdU-tracking experiments showed that homing of NPCs specifically to the glomerular layer was reduced in MT1-MMP-deficient mice in contrast to controls while numbers of tracked cells remained equal in other OB-layers throughout all experimental groups. Altogether, our data show the demand for olfactory interneurons in the glomerular layer modulates cell turnover in the RMS, but has no impact on subventricular neurogenesis

Chinese perceptions of the EU: the impact of social media use

With the rise of China and the deepening of China-EU interactions, it is crucial for both China and the EU to know the Chinese public perceptions of the EU and what factors influence the formation of perceptions, to enhance mutual understanding. Given the increasing role of social media in the political process, this study hypothesizes that social media use is a strong predictor for Chinese public perceptions of the EU and China-EU relations. We analyze the effects by utilizing original public opinion survey data collected in China in 2020. Our findings show that social media use as well as socioeconomic factors together predict Chinese public perceptions of the EU and China-EU relations. However, social media use effects vary across different social media platforms.ISSN:2730-6305ISSN:2730-629

Schizophrenia and Alarmins

Schizophrenia, consisting of a group of severe psychiatric disorders with a complex etiology, is a leading cause of disability globally. Due to the lack of objective indicators, accurate diagnosis and selection of effective treatments for schizophrenia remain challenging. The association between schizophrenia and alarmins levels has been proposed for many years, but without solid evidence. Alarmins are prestored molecules that do not require processing and can be released upon cell death or damage, making them an ideal candidate for an early initiator of inflammation. Immunological biomarkers seem to be related to disease progression and treatment effectiveness. Several studies suggest strong associations among the high-mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), interleukin-1α, interleukin-33, S100B, heat-shock proteins, and uric acid with schizophrenic disorders. The purpose of this review is to discuss the evidence of central and peripheral immune findings in schizophrenia, their potential causes, and the effects of immunomodulatory therapies on symptoms and outline potential applications of these markers in managing the illness. Although there are currently no effective markers for diagnosing or predicting treatment effects in patients with schizophrenia, we believe that screening immune-inflammatory biomarkers that are closely related to the pathological mechanism of schizophrenia can be used for early clinical identification, diagnosis, and treatment of schizophrenia, which may lead to more effective treatment options for people with schizophrenia

Fabrication of a Novel and High-Performance Mesoporous Ethylene Tar-Based Solid Acid Catalyst for the Dehydration of Fructose into 5‑Hydroxymethylfurfural

In this article, a novel and high-performance mesoporous carbon-based solid acid catalyst was prepared using ethylene tar (ET) as a precursor, which is a byproduct of ethylene production. First, ET was carbonized at 550 °C by using magnesium acetate as the template. After that, the mesoporous ET-based solid acid catalyst was obtained by a one-step sulfonation process that removes the templates simultaneously. On the basis of these facts, the maximum yield of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (5-HMF) in the presence of an ET catalyst during the dehydration of fructose can reach 87.8%. This effective catalytic activity is mainly attributed to the large specific surface area and high density of sulfonic acid groups existing in the ET catalyst. Moreover, no distinct activity drop was observed during five recycling runs that confirmed good recyclability and thermal stability of the ET catalyst. This research provides a novel and promising method for the utilization of ET as a low-cost, recyclable, and high-performance catalyst