Who gets caught for corruption when corruption is pervasive? Evidence from China’s anti-bribery blacklist

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article empirically investigates why in a corruption-pervasive country only a minority of the firms get caught for bribery while the majority get away with it. By matching manufacturing firms to a blacklist of bribers in the healthcare sector of a province in China, we show that the government-led blacklisting is selective: while economically more visible firms are slightly more likely to be blacklisted, state-controlled firms are the most protected compared to their private and foreign competitors. Our finding points to the fact that a government can use regulations to impose its preferences when the rule of law is weak and the rule of government is strong

Who gets caught for corruption when corruption is pervasive? Evidence from China’s anti-bribery blacklist

This article empirically investigates why in a corruption-pervasive country only a minority of the firms get caught for bribery while the majority get away with it. By matching manufacturing firms to a blacklist of bribers in the healthcare sector of a province in China, we show that the government-led blacklisting is selective: while economically more visible firms are slightly more likely to be blacklisted, state-controlled firms are the most protected compared to their private and foreign competitors. Our finding points to the fact that a government can use regulations to impose its preferences when the rule of law is weak and the rule of government is strong

Recent advances in nanoparticle formulation of oleanolic acid

Oleanolic acid (OA) is a natural triterpenoid possessing anti-inflammatory, antitumor, antiviral, hepatoprotective and antihyperlipidemic effects. Research on the pharmacological activities and clinical applications of OA has made significant progress in the past decade, particularly in the areas such as isolation and purification, chemical modifications, pharmacological research, toxicity studies and clinical use of OA. However, due to its poor aqueous solubility, instability and low bioavailability, OA's clinical applications are still rather limited. Recently, nanoparticulate drug delivery as the biological dimension of nanotechnology has been developed, which may help generate useful formulations of OA for clinical applications. Nanoparticulate drug delivery system enhances the dissolution rate and bioavailability of OA, providing a feasible formulation method for clinical applications

The Underlying Mechanisms of Chinese Herbal Medicine-Induced Apoptotic Cell Death in Human Cancer

The high incidence of cancer is a global burden. Cancer cells acquire immortality, which results in loss of control in cell proliferation and population expansion. Cancer cells undergo a series of genomic instability, leading to mutated amplification or deletion of certain genes that strictly control the cell fate. Programmed cell death is a mechanism of cell fate control that is aberrantly regulated in cancer cells. Apoptosis is the major form of programmed cell death regulated by both intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. Discovering effective and specific alternative solutions that can reprogram apoptosis in cancer cells is always a challenge. Chinese herbal medicine has captured increasing attention from both researchers and manufacturers, as evidenced by observable curative effects from previous clinical experience. Hence, to clarify and reinforce the understanding of the effect of Chinese medicine on cancer, in this chapter, we will retrospectively review the latest 5 years of literature and summarize the mode of action of Chinese herbal medicine on apoptotic cell death in cancer. Both Chinese medicine-induced intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of apoptosis will be discussed, and common compounds from Chinese medicine with druggable potential as novel apoptosis-inducing agents will be highlighted

Nanotechnologies for Curcumin: An Ancient Puzzler Meets Modern Solutions

Curcumin, a low-molecular-weight natural polyphenol mainly found in the plant Curcuma longa (turmeric), is widely used as a food colorant and as a potential protective agent against several chronic diseases including cancer, HIV-infection, neurological, cardiovascular, and skin diseases. Moreover, evidences from long-term use process and preclinical trials have demonstrated low toxicity of curcumin, even at relatively high doses. However, it has been well known that the application of curcumin was limited owing to its water insolubility, instability, and poor bioavailability. For decades, many attempts have been made to compensate for these disadvantages, with the development of improved delivery platforms as the feasible approaches. The past ten years witnessed the encouraging progress in the use of nanoscale drug delivery systems on curcumin such as loading curcumin into liposomes or nanoparticles, forming self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems (SMEDDS), cyclodextrin inclusions, and solid dispersions, as well as the latest reported technologies such as nadodisks and nanotubes. This paper summarizes the recent works on the design and development of nanoscale delivery systems of curcumin, with the goal of harnessing the true difficulties of this multifunctional agent in the clinical arena

Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface Assisted High-Speed Train Communications: Coverage Performance Analysis and Placement Optimization

Reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) emerges as an efficient and promising technology for the next wireless generation networks and has attracted a lot of attention owing to the capability of extending wireless coverage by reflecting signals toward targeted receivers. In this paper, we consider a RIS-assisted high-speed train (HST) communication system to enhance wireless coverage and improve coverage probability. First, coverage performance of the downlink single-input-single-output system is investigated, and the closed-form expression of coverage probability is derived. Moreover, travel distance maximization problem is formulated to facilitate RIS discrete phase design and RIS placement optimization, which is subject to coverage probability constraint. Simulation results validate that better coverage performance and higher travel distance can be achieved with deployment of RIS. The impacts of some key system parameters including transmission power, signal-to-noise ratio threshold, number of RIS elements, number of RIS quantization bits, horizontal distance between base station and RIS, and speed of HST on system performance are investigated. In addition, it is found that RIS can well improve coverage probability with limited power consumption for HST communications.Comment: 14 figures, accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technolog

Anti-cancer natural products isolated from chinese medicinal herbs

In recent years, a number of natural products isolated from Chinese herbs have been found to inhibit proliferation, induce apoptosis, suppress angiogenesis, retard metastasis and enhance chemotherapy, exhibiting anti-cancer potential both in vitro and in vivo. This article summarizes recent advances in in vitro and in vivo research on the anti-cancer effects and related mechanisms of some promising natural products. These natural products are also reviewed for their therapeutic potentials, including flavonoids (gambogic acid, curcumin, wogonin and silibinin), alkaloids (berberine), terpenes (artemisinin, β-elemene, oridonin, triptolide, and ursolic acid), quinones (shikonin and emodin) and saponins (ginsenoside Rg3), which are isolated from Chinese medicinal herbs. In particular, the discovery of the new use of artemisinin derivatives as excellent anti-cancer drugs is also reviewed