Technical Progress and the Share of Labor Income

Changes in the labor share of national income affect inequality (Piketty 2014). This paper aims at investigating the relationship between the labor share and technical progress, based on provincial data of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1978 to 2012. Our main empirical results show that technical progress in the PRC had been mostly capital biased, contributing to the fast rises in income inequality in the PRC. However, the employment proportion of state-owned enterprises seems to have played a role in offsetting this negative effect, helping contain inequality. In recent years, both effects have become more significant and larger in absolute terms

Apolipoprotein M

Apolipoprotein M (apoM) is a 26-kDa protein that is mainly associated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) in human plasma, with a small proportion present in triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TGRLP) and low-density lipoproteins (LDL). Human apoM gene is located in p21.31 on chromosome 6 (chromosome 17, in mouse). Human apoM cDNA (734 base pairs) encodes 188-amino acid residue-long protein. It belongs to lipocalin protein superfamily. Human tissue expression array study indicates that apoM is only expressed in liver and in kidney and small amounts are found in fetal liver and kidney. In situ apoM mRNA hybridization demonstrates that apoM is exclusively expressed in the hepatocytes and in the tubule epithelial cells in kidney. Expression of apoM could be regulated by platelet activating factor (PAF), transforming growth factors (TGF), insulin-like growth factor (IGF) and leptin in vivo and/or in vitro. It has been demonstrated that apoM expression is dramatically decreased in apoA-I deficient mouse. Hepatocyte nuclear factor-1α (HNF-1α) is an activator of apoM gene promoter. Deficiency of HNF-1α mouse shows lack of apoM expression. Mutations in HNF-1α (MODY3) have reduced serum apoM levels. Expression of apoM is significantly decreased in leptin deficient (ob/ob) mouse or leptin receptor deficient (db/db) mouse. ApoM concentration in plasma is positively correlated to leptin level in obese subjects. These may suggest that apoM is related to the initiation and progression of MODY3 and/or obesity

Diet-Intestinal Microbiota Axis in Osteoarthritis: A Possible Role

Intestinal microbiota is highly involved in host physiology and pathology through activity of the microbiome and its metabolic products. Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common form of arthritis characterized by articular cartilage destruction and osteophyte formation. Although various person-level risk factors, such as age, sex, and obesity, have been proposed for the pathogenesis of OA, the underlying links between these person-level factors and OA are still enigmatic. Based on the current understanding in the crosstalk between intestinal microbiota and these risk factors, intestinal microbiota could be considered as a major hidden risk factor that provides a unifying mechanism to explain the involvement of these person-level risk factors in OA

Pollution and road infrastructure in cities of the People's Republic of China

Urban road infrastructure is crucial in determining air pollution. Yet, little is known about the roles played by road width vs. road length. This paper attempts to fill this gap by estimating the effects of road infrastructure on 10-micron particulate matter (PM10) using city-level data from the People's Republic of China (PRC). Our robust modeling results show that the road density index, defined as the ratio of surface area of roads to city territory size, is negatively correlated with PM10. More importantly, when the index of road density is decomposed into road width and road length components, the width is found to help reduce PM10, whereas the length is positively correlated with PM10, although the latter relationship is statistically insignificant

Expression and localization of apolipoprotein M in human colorectal tissues

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been well documented that apolipoprotein M (apoM) is principally expressed in the liver and kidney. However we found that there was weak apoM expression in other tissues or organs too, which could not be ignored. In the present study, we therefore examined apoM expression in human colorectal tissues including cancer tissues, cancer adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues and normal mucosa as well as inflammatory mucosa.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tissue samples were collected from patients who underwent surgical resection or endoscopic examination. ApoM mRNA levels were determined by the real-time RT-PCR and apoM protein mass were examined by the immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ApoM protein can be detected in all colorectal tissues. However, apoM protein mass were significantly lower in the cancer tissues than its matched adjacent normal tissues, polyp tissues, normal mucosa and inflammatory mucosa. In parallel, apoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues (0.0536 ± 0.0131) were also significantly lower than those in their adjacent normal tissues (0.1907 ± 0.0563) (<it>P </it>= 0.033). Interestingly, apoM mRNA levels in colorectal cancer tissues were statistic significant higher in the patients with lymph node metastasis than the patients without lymph node metastasis (<it>P </it>= 0.008). Patients under Dukes' C and D stages had much higher apoM mRNA levels than patients under Dukes' A and B stages (<it>P </it>= 0.034).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is concluded that apoM could also be expressed in human colorectal tissues besides liver and kidney. ApoM mRNA levels in the colorectal cancer tissues were significantly increased in the patients with lymph node metastasis. Whether increased apoM expression in the patients with lymph node metastasis being related to patients' prognosis and the physiopathological importance of apoM expression in colorectal tissues need further investigation.</p

Time-Free Solution to SAT Problem by Tissue P Systems

Tissue P systems are a class of computing models inspired by intercellular communication, where the rules are used in the nondeterministic maximally parallel manner. As we know, the execution time of each rule is the same in the system. However, the execution time of biochemical reactions is hard to control from a biochemical point of view. In this work, we construct a uniform and efficient solution to the SAT problem with tissue P systems in a time-free way for the first time. With the P systems constructed from the sizes of instances, the execution time of the rules has no influence on the computation results. As a result, we prove that such system is shown to be highly effective for NP-complete problem even in a time-free manner with communication rules of length at most 3

Urbanizing with Equity Consideration

Research has not yet been undertaken on the optimal level of urbanization, notwithstanding the pioneering work of Au and Henderson (2006) on optimal urban concentration. This paper develops two-sector general equilibrium models of urbanization, with and without equity consideration, respectively. It is shown that considering equity will result in a higher level of urbanization than otherwise, when urban inequality is sufficiently small or migration costs are sufficiently large. Such a theoretical prediction is confirmed by empirical modeling results using panel data from People's Republic of China (PRC). Provincial governments that paid attention to the inequality issue are found to have higher urbanization levels than those that did not. Finally, we explore possible equity consideration-to-urbanization transmission channels, and empirically establish that equity consideration in PRC (e.g., government initiatives towards combating rural poverty or the urban-rural gap) is positively correlated with road density, which helps reduce migration costs, and with bank lending to the manufacturing sector, which helps enhance the pulling force of migration. Thus, policymakers in the developing world should reverse their prevailing anti-urbanization attitudes and practices that tend to slow down urbanization or restrict rural-to-urban migration

Expression of apolipoprotein M in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues

The present study examined mRNA levels and protein mass of apolipoprotein M (apoM) in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues and in the adjacent tissues. Plasma apoM levels in these HCC patients were also determined and compared to the normal subjects. The mean level of plasma apoM in the HCC patients was 0.61 +/- 0.30 OD mm(-2), which was significantly higher than that in the normal subjects 0.37 +/- 0.07 OD mm(-2) (P < 0.01). However, both apoM mRNA levels and apoM protein mass in the HCC tissues were significantly lower than in the adjacent tissues (P < 0.05). It is concluded that human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues had a reduced capacity to produce apoM than the adjacent non-tumor tissues. However, the plasma apoM levels were higher in the HCC patients than in normal subjects, which suggested that tissues adjacent to the tumors or extra-hepatic apoM production in the HCC patients may contribute to the higher plasma apoM levels in these patients. The clinical significance of apoM in relation to HCC still needs further investigation. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier GmbH

Inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis share a common genetic structure

BackgroundThe comorbidity rate of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is high; nevertheless, the reasons behind this high rate remain unclear. Their similar genetic makeup probably contributes to this comorbidity.MethodsBased on data obtained from the genome-wide association study of IBD and RA, we first assessed an overall genetic association by performing the linkage disequilibrium score regression (LDSC) analysis. Further, a local correlation analysis was performed by estimating the heritability in summary statistics. Next, the causality between the two diseases was analyzed by two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR). A genetic overlap was analyzed by the conditional/conjoint false discovery rate (cond/conjFDR) method.LDSC with specific expression of gene analysis was performed to identify related tissues between the two diseases. Finally, GWAS multi-trait analysis (MTAG) was also carried out.ResultsIBD and RA are correlated at the genomic level, both overall and locally. The MR results suggested that IBD induced RA. We identified 20 shared loci between IBD and RA on the basis of a conjFDR of &lt;0.01. Additionally, we identified two tissues, namely spleen and small intestine terminal ileum, which were commonly associated with both IBD and RA.ConclusionHerein, we proved the presence of a polygenic overlap between the genetic makeup of IBD and RA and provided new insights into the genetic architecture and mechanisms underlying the high comorbidity between these two diseases