Local Protectionism and Regional Specialization: Evidence from China’s Industries

This paper uses a dynamic panel estimation method to investigate the determinants of regional specialization in China’s industries, paying particular attention to local protectionism. Less geographic concentration is found in industries where the past tax-plus-profit margins and the shares of state ownership are high, re- flecting stronger local government protection of these industries. The evidence also supports the scale-economies theory of regional specialization. Finally, the overall time trend of regional specialization of China’s industries is found to have reversed an early drop in the mid 1980s, and registered a significant increase in the later years.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39951/3/wp565.pd

Local Protectionism and Regional Specialization: Evidence from China’s Industries

This paper uses a dynamic panel estimation method to investigate the determinants of regional specialization in China’s industries, paying particular attention to local protectionism. Less geographic concentration is found in industries where the past tax-plus-profit margins and the shares of state ownership are high, re- flecting stronger local government protection of these industries. The evidence also supports the scale-economies theory of regional specialization. Finally, the overall time trend of regional specialization of China’s industries is found to have reversed an early drop in the mid 1980s, and registered a significant increase in the later years.local protectionism, regional specialization, scale economy, external economy.

The Neutron-Gamma Pulse Shape Discrimination of CLLB Detector

Cs2LiLaBr6: Ce (CLLB) scintillator with the size of Φ 21mm × 25 mm coupled with PMT was used to detect neutron and gamma rays. The pulse shape discrimination (PSD) of neutrons and gamma rays by charge comparison method, the neutrons and gamma rays from AmBe source and fast neutron beam can be separated with figure-of-merit (FOM) values of 0.9 and 1.3, respectively. However, some neutron and gamma rays are difficult to distinguish, so new algorithms need to be investigated to improve the PSD performance of neutron and gamma. Artificial neural networks (ANN) have a very good image recognition capability, thus the ANN model was constructed to discriminate the waveforms of neutron and gamma rays. After ANN model training, the neutron and gamma signals of the CLLB detector were recognized with an accuracy of 98%, and the FOM value of the ANN method was calculated to be 19.4. This result is much higher than the charge comparison method, indicating better discrimination between neutrons and gamma rays with the ANN method

Effect of Water-Added Content on the Quality and Structural Characteristics of High-moisture Extruded SoybeanMeal-Based Meat Analogues

Soybean meal is a high quality plant protein resource. Exploring the possibility of using soybean meal instead of soybean protein isolate as raw material for high water extrusion plant protein meat processing is of great significance for production enterprises to control production cost and improve the economic value of soybean meal. In this study, the soybean meal was used as raw material to systemlly explore the effect of the water-added content (10.5, 11, 11.5, 12 kg/h) on the quality and structural characteristics of high-mositure extruded vegetable protein meat through determining the hardness, elasticity, chewiness, color and luster, water-holding capacity, oil-holding capacity, and chemical-crosslinking force and using Fourier infrared spectrum and scanning electron microscope. The results showed that the hardness, elasticity, and chewability of the vegetable protein meat were significantly decreased with the increasing water-added content during extrusion (P<0.05), while the brightness value, water-holding capacity, and oil-holding capacity showed a trend of increasing first and then decreasing. When the water-added content was 11.5 kg/h, the vegetable protein meat had better quality characteristics and appearance color, and the denser fibrous filaments were formed inside, and their layered structure became clear and neat, showing the fine directional structure. The results of Fourier infrared spectroscopy and chemical-crosslinking confirmed that the water-added content had a significant effect on the structure of vegetable protein meat, and the structure was maintained by the interaction of covalent bond and non-covalent bond

High Performance of Commercial PAC on the Simultaneous Desulfurization and Denitrification of Wastewater From a Coal-Fired Heating Plant

The flue gas desulfurization wastewater is highly saline and has too many refractory pollutants to be recycled during the desulfurization process of the coal-fired heating plant. Given that waste heat is abundant in coal-fired heating plants, a thermal treatment method was developed to simultaneously remove sulfates and nitrates from the wastewater, with the production of chemical-grade natroalunite and recycled water. The results showed that sulfates and nitrates were 50.3 and 10 g/L in the wastewater, respectively, and only 2.8% and 9.1% were removed after direct treatment at 270°C for 7 h; but these rates increased to 99.3% and 99.9%, respectively, with the addition of commercial poly aluminum chloride. Mass balance summarized that the treatment of 1 ton wastewater needed 0.1 ton PAC and produced 0.11 ton natroalunite and 0.92 ton recycle water. The removal of sulfates and nitrates was mainly done by the precipitation reaction of sulfates such as natroalunite and the redox reaction between nitrates and organics, respectively. Thermodynamic analysis demonstrated that the precipitate reaction occurred at 45°C and accelerated in the temperature range of 45–270°C, but became slow with the decrease of sulfate and Al concentrations in wastewater. Four other reagents were also used for wastewater treatment in comparison with PAC and showed the following order of performance: PAC &gt; citrate calcium &gt; limestone &gt; subacetate aluminum &gt; citrate ferric. This method provided a practical route to treat wastewater from flue gas desulfurization without generating secondary waste

Mutational Profile and Potential Molecular Therapeutic Targets of Pheochromocytoma

PurposePheochromocytoma/paraganglioma (PCC/PGL; collectively known as PPGL) can be driven by germline and somatic mutations in susceptibility genes. We aimed to investigate the mutation profile and clinical features of pathogenic genes in highly genetically heterogeneous PPGL and to preliminary explore molecular therapeutic targets in PPGL.MethodsWe established a panel of 260 genes, including susceptibility genes of PPGL and other important tumorigenic genes to sequence 107 PPGL tissues.ResultsOverall, 608 genomic mutations were identified in 107 PPGL tissues. Almost 57% of PPGL tissue samples exhibited pathogenic mutations, and the most frequently mutated gene was SDHB (15/107, 14%). SDHB and HRAS were the most commonly mutated genes in germline-mutated PPGL (25/107, 23%) and nongermline-mutated PPGL (36/107, 34%), respectively. In addition, novel pathogenic mutations were detected in sporadic PPGL. PPGL with mutations in the hypoxia pathway had an earlier onset and higher norepinephrine level than those in the kinase pathway. Receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK; 22%, 24/107), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK; 14%, 15/107), and tyrosine kinase (TK; 2%, 2/107) pathways were the most frequently mutated pathways in PPGL.ConclusionOur results provided the genetic mutation profile in PPGL tissues. Genetic mutations in PPGL were mainly concentrated in the RTK, TK, and MAPK pathways, suggesting potential molecular therapeutic targets for PPGL

SARS-CoV Infection in a Restaurant from Palm Civet

Contact with food animals was associated with SARS-CoV infection in the People’s Republic of China