Sources of Chinese Demand for Resource Commodities

Is China’s demand for resources driven predominantly by domestic factors or by global demand for its exports? The answer to this question is important for many resource-exporting countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Canada and India. This paper provides evidence that China’s (mainly manufacturing) exports have been a significant driver of its demand for resource commodities over recent decades. First, it employs input-output tables to demonstrate that, historically, manufacturing has been at least as important as construction as a driver of China’s demand for resource-intensive metal products. Second, it shows that global trade in non-oil resource commodities can be described by the gravity model of trade. Using this model it is found that, controlling for domestic expenditure (including investment), exports are a sizeable and significant determinant of a country’s resource imports, and that this has been true for China as well as for other countries.China; trade; investment; resource commodities; gravity model

China's Steel Industry

China's steel industry has grown rapidly in recent decades, with China now the world's largest producer and consumer of steel. This has resulted in a sharp increase in demand for iron ore and coal, Australia's two largest exports, which are key inputs for the steelmaking process. This article discusses the growth of the Chinese steel industry over the past couple of decades.China; steel industry; Chinese steel industry; iron ore; coking coal

China's Labour Market

This article discusses some of the key characteristics of China's labour market, including the role of the changing demographic structure, the nature and composition of employment, as well as the important role of the country's rural migrant workforce.China; labour market; labour force participation; migration; employment and wages; demography

Use of an interactive website to improve communication and education at an academic hospitalist program

Statement of Problem: The academic hospitalist section at UNM expanded by nearly 50% over just 12 months and was intimately involved with major changes in the residency ward structure. Section members repeatedly cited the need for improved communication about administrative and educational matters. Innovation Objectives: To provide a readily available interactive website for use by our hospitalist section to communicate about administrative and educational matters. Program Description: We established an interactive website for use by our hospitalist section through a commercial internet service. Section members were invited to register, and were allowed to contribute comments, edit existing pages, add pages, upload files, and provide links to other websites. Viewing rights to the website were unrestricted. The initial website was begun with 6 pages. Findings to Date: In the first month, 16/17 of our hospitalists and 2/3 of our mid-level providers registered and subsequently make contributions to the website. In the first 90 days, 85 new pages were created and 132 files were uploaded to create a website of 120 MB. Of the first 91 pages, 47 dealt with administrative issues (such as schedules, committee meetings, minutes, credentialing, billing and coding); 27 involved specific information about the residency and new ward structure; 14 specifically addressed educational topics; and 4 addressed faculty development and research efforts. At the end of one year, 289 pages and 330 files were added, creating a website of 627 MB. Lectures by hospitalist are now recorded and uploaded to the site. The website is now frequently viewed by residents and medical students who cite the value of the educational pages and pages that deal with residency issues. 80% of surveyed hospitalists found the site to be helpful or very helpful. To date the size of the website has not exceeded the initial free service, and the Section has incurred no direct cost related to this project. Key Lessons Learned: Establishment of an interactive website resulted in contributions by almost all hospitalists in our Section, has improved communication, and proved to be of value to medical students and residents with regard to educatio

Temperature dependence of erythromelalgia mutation L858F in sodium channel Nav1.7

BACKGROUND: The disabling chronic pain syndrome erythromelalgia (also termed erythermalgia) is characterized by attacks of burning pain in the extremities induced by warmth. Pharmacological treatment is often ineffective, but the pain can be alleviated by cooling of the limbs. Inherited erythromelalgia has recently been linked to mutations in the gene SCN9A, which encodes the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.7. Nav1.7 is preferentially expressed in most nociceptive DRG neurons and in sympathetic ganglion neurons. It has recently been shown that several disease-causing erythromelalgia mutations alter channel-gating behavior in a manner that increases DRG neuron excitability. RESULTS: Here we tested the effects of temperature on gating properties of wild type Nav1.7 and mutant L858F channels. Whole-cell voltage-clamp measurements on wild type or L858F channels expressed in HEK293 cells revealed that cooling decreases current density, slows deactivation and increases ramp currents for both mutant and wild type channels. However, cooling differentially shifts the midpoint of steady-state activation in a depolarizing direction for L858F but not for wild type channels. CONCLUSION: The cooling-dependent shift of the activation midpoint of L858F to more positive potentials brings the threshold of activation of the mutant channels closer to that of wild type Nav1.7 at lower temperatures, and is likely to contribute to the alleviation of painful symptoms upon cooling in affected limbs in patients with this erythromelalgia mutation

Durability of symptomatic responses obtained with adjunctive vagus nerve stimulation in treatment-resistant depression

Objective: To compare the durations of response achieved with adjunctive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS + TAU) vs treatment as usual (TAU) alone in treatment-resistant depression (TRD) over a 5-year period in the TRD registry. Materials and methods: Data from 271 participants on TAU and 328 participants on VNS + TAU were analyzed. Response was defined as \u3e /=50% decrease in baseline Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score at postbaseline visit and was considered retained until the decrease was \u3c 40%. MADRS was obtained quarterly in year 1 and biannually thereafter. Time-to-events were estimated using Kaplan-Meier method and compared using log-rank test. HR was estimated using Cox proportion hazard model. Results: In the VNS + TAU arm, 62.5% (205/328) of participants had a first response over 5 years compared with 39.9% (108/271) in TAU. The time to first response was significantly shorter for VNS + TAU than for TAU (P \u3c 0.01). For responders in the first year, median time to relapse from first response was 10.1 months (Q1=4.2, Q3=31.5) for VNS + TAU vs 7.3 months (Q1=3.1, Q3=17.6) for TAU (P \u3c 0.01). HR=0.6 (95% CI: 0.4, 0.9) revealed a significantly lower chance for relapse in VNS + TAU. Probability of retaining first response for a year was 0.39 (0.27, 0.51) for TAU and 0.47 (0.38, 0.56) for VNS + TAU. Timing of the onset of the response did not impact the durability of the response. Conclusion: VNS therapy added to TAU in severe TRD leads to rapid onset and higher likelihood of response, and a greater durability of the response as compared to TAU alone

CaMKII enhances voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.6 activity and neuronal excitability

Nav1.6 is the primary voltage-gated sodium channel isoform expressed in mature axon initial segments and nodes, making it critical for initiation and propagation of neuronal impulses. Thus, Nav1.6 modulation and dysfunction may have profound effects on input-output properties of neurons in normal and pathological conditions. Phosphorylation is a powerful and reversible mechanism regulating ion channel function. Because Nav1.6 and the multifunctional Ca2+/CaM-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) are independently linked to excitability disorders, we sought to investigate modulation of Nav1.6 function by CaMKII signaling. We show that inhibition of CaMKII, a Ser/Thr protein kinase associated with excitability, synaptic plasticity, and excitability disorders, with the CaMKII-specific peptide inhibitor CN21 reduces transient and persistent currents in Nav1.6-expressing Purkinje neurons by 87%. Using whole-cell voltage clamp of Nav1.6, we show that CaMKII inhibition in ND7/23 and HEK293 cells significantly reduces transient and persistent currents by 72% and produces a 5.8-mV depolarizing shift in the voltage dependence of activation. Immobilized peptide arrays and nanoflow LC-electrospray ionization/MS of Nav1.6 reveal potential sites of CaMKII phosphorylation, specifically Ser-561 and Ser-641/Thr-642 within the first intracellular loop of the channel. Using site-directed mutagenesis to test multiple potential sites of phosphorylation, we show that Ala substitutions of Ser-561 and Ser-641/Thr-642 recapitulate the depolarizing shift in activation and reduction in current density. Computational simulations to model effects of CaMKII inhibition on Nav1.6 function demonstrate dramatic reductions in spontaneous and evoked action potentials in a Purkinje cell model, suggesting that CaMKII modulation of Nav1.6 may be a powerful mechanism to regulate neuronal excitability

International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) and New Zealand Physical Activity Questionnaire (NZPAQ): A doubly labelled water validation

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Relationship of a big five personality questionnaire to the symptoms of affective disorders

Online assessments allow cost-effective, large-scale screening for psychiatric vulnerability (e.g., university undergraduates or military recruits). However, conventional psychiatric questionnaires may worsen mental health outcomes due to overmedicalizing normal emotional reactions. Personality questionnaires designed for occupational applications could circumvent this problem as they utilise non-clinical wording and it is well-established that personality traits influence susceptibility to psychiatric illness. Here we present a brief, free-to-use occupational personality questionnaire, and test its sensitivity to symptoms of Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in an online sample. Our study used a cross-sectional, self-report design to assess the relationship between self-reported symptoms of affective disorders and scores on the personality dimensions of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. We used SEM to compare affective symptoms in 8,470 individuals (mean age 25.6 ± 7.0 years; 4,717 male) with scores on an online adaption of the TSDI, a public-domain ‘Big Five’ personality questionnaire. ROC curve analyses assessed cut off scores for the best predictors of overall vulnerability to affective disorders (represented by a composite screening score). Neuroticism was the most robust predictor of QIDS-16 depression symptoms and MDQ Hypomania symptoms (β = 0.68 and 0.39 respectively, p < .0001). Extraversion was the most robust predictor of HCL-16 Hypomania symptoms (β = 0.34, p < .0001). ROC curve analyses suggest if the TSDI was used for screening in this sample, neuroticism cut offs of approximately 58 for men and 70 for women would provide the most useful classification of overall vulnerability to affective disorders