With the continuous development of technology, intelligent production, which brings huge changes to social welfare, has gradually become the main trend in the economic development of many countries. ...Does intelligent production featuring robot adoption help improve the environment and solve energy problems? In this study, we first construct a theoretical model at the micro-level to analyze how robot adoption affects a firm’s energy efficiency. Then, based on Propensity Score Matching-Difference in Differences (PSM-DID) method, we use the data of China’s firms from 2001 to 2012 to identify the causal relationship between robot adoption and firm’s energy efficiency. We find that the adoption of robots in production can significantly increase firms’ energy efficiency. Further mechanism tests show that the increase of productivity is an important factor through which adopting robots can improve a firm’s energy efficiency. In addition, the increase in the firm’s energy efficiency is mainly due to the increase in the firm’s output rather than the decrease in total energy consumption. Altogether, this study provides the first micro evidence on the relationship between robot adoption and energy efficiency, providing significant implications for the world’s sustainable development.
•Robot adoption affects firm’s energy efficiency and thus improve environment.•A theoretical model at micro-level analyzes the issue.•Based on PSM-DID, China’s firm-level data is used to identify causal relationship.•Improvement is due to increase in output, instead of decrease in energy consumption.
Soft on‐skin electronics have broad applications in human healthcare, human–machine interface, robotics, and others. However, most current on‐skin electronic devices are made of materials with ...limited gas permeability, which constrain perspiration evaporation, resulting in adverse physiological and psychological effects, limiting their long‐term feasibility. In addition, the device fabrication process usually involves e‐beam or photolithography, thin‐film deposition, etching, and/or other complicated procedures, which are costly and time‐consuming, constraining their practical applications. Here, a simple, general, and effective approach for making multifunctional on‐skin electronics using porous materials with high‐gas permeability, consisting of laser‐patterned porous graphene as the sensing components and sugar‐templated silicone elastomer sponges as the substrates, is reported. The prototype device examples include electrophysiological sensors, hydration sensors, temperature sensors, and joule‐heating elements, showing signal qualities comparable to conventional, rigid, gas‐impermeable devices. Moreover, the devices exhibit high water‐vapor permeability (≈18 mg cm−2 h−1), ≈18 times higher than that of the silicone elastomers without pores, and also show high water‐wicking rates after polydopamine treatment, up to 1 cm per 30 s, which is comparable to that of cotton. The on‐skin devices with such attributes could facilitate perspiration transport and evaporation, and minimize discomfort and inflammation risks, thereby improving their long‐term feasiblity.
A simple, versatile, and effective approach for making multifunctional, on‐skin bioelectronic sensing systems using laser‐induced porous graphene as the sensing components and sugar‐templated elastomer sponges as the substrates is reported. The porous structures of the devices can facilitate perspiration transport and evaporation, and minimize discomfort and inflammation risks, thereby improving their long‐term feasibility.
Thioridazine (THD) is a common phenothiazine antipsychotic drug reported to suppress growth in several types of cancer cells. We previously showed that THD acts as an antiglioblastoma and anticancer ...stem-like cell agent. However, the signaling pathway underlying autophagy and apoptosis induction remains unclear. THD treatment significantly induced autophagy with upregulated AMPK activity and engendered cell death with increased sub-G1 in glioblastoma multiform (GBM) cell lines. Notably, through whole gene expression screening with THD treatment, frizzled (Fzd) proteins, a family of G-protein-coupled receptors, were found, suggesting the participation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling. After THD treatment, Fzd-1 and GSK3β-S9 phosphorylation (inactivated form) was reduced to promote β-catenin degradation, which attenuated P62 inhibition. The autophagy marker LC3-II markedly increased when P62 was released from β-catenin inhibition. Additionally, the P62-dependent caspase-8 activation that induced P53-independent apoptosis was confirmed by inhibiting T-cell factor/β-catenin and autophagy flux. Moreover, treatment with THD combined with temozolomide (TMZ) engendered increased LC3-II expression and caspase-3 activity, indicating promising drug synergism. In conclusion, THD induces autophagy in GBM cells by not only upregulating AMPK activity, but also enhancing P62-mediated autophagy and apoptosis through Wnt/β-catenin signaling. Therefore, THD is a potential alternative therapeutic agent for drug repositioning in GBM.
Conventional tumor markers for non-invasive diagnosis of gastric cancer (GC) exhibit insufficient sensitivity and specificity to facilitate detection of early gastric cancer (EGC). We aimed to ...identify EGC-specific exosomal lncRNA biomarkers that are highly sensitive and stable for the non-invasive diagnosis of EGC. Hence, in the present study, exosomes from the plasma of five healthy individuals and ten stage I GC patients and from culture media of four human primary stomach epithelial cells and four gastric cancer cells (GCCs) were isolated. Exosomal RNA profiling was performed using RNA sequencing to identify EGC-specific exosomal lncRNAs. A total of 79 and 285 exosomal RNAs were expressed at significantly higher levels in stage I GC patients and GCCs, respectively, than that in normal controls. Through combinational analysis of the RNA sequencing results, we found two EGC-specific exosomal lncRNAs, lncUEGC1 and lncUEGC2, which were further confirmed to be remarkably up-regulated in exosomes derived from EGC patients and GCCs. Furthermore, stability testing demonstrates that almost all the plasma lncUEGC1 was encapsulated within exosomes and thus protected from RNase degradation. The diagnostic accuracy of exosomal lncUEGC1 was evaluated, and lncUEGC1 exhibited AUC values of 0.8760 and 0.8406 in discriminating EGC patients from healthy individuals and those with premalignant chronic atrophic gastritis, respectively, which was higher than the diagnostic accuracy of carcinoembryonic antigen. Consequently, exosomal lncUEGC1 may be promising in the development of highly sensitive, stable, and non-invasive biomarkers for EGC diagnosis.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Until now, studies on the environmental effect of foreign investment opening (FIO) in service sector are still blank. Actually, development of service sector is significant force for promoting ...economic modernization for the countries, thus development of service sector is extremely significant for developing countries. In this paper, we select China, the largest developing country, as representative country, in studying environmental effect of FIO in service sector. Our analyses construct theoretical model in studying impacts of FIO in service sector on enterprise's energy efficiency. Then, our analyses employ strictly exogenous policy change of China's foreign investment control clauses to measure FIO in service sector, and empirically identify the causal effects of FIO in service sector on firm's energy efficiency by using unique energy consumption data of Chinese enterprises from 2001 to 2012. Our results imply FIO in service sector could raise energy efficiency, suggesting that FIO in service sector has a positive effect on the environment. Further mechanism tests show that FIO in service sector could lead to improvement of energy efficiency by technology spillover effect and innovation effect. Our analyses give the first evidence on environmental impact of FIO in service sector, which reveals its significant role in promoting economic development of developing countries.
•Foreign investment opening in service industry leads to increase of firm's energy efficiency.•Technology spillover effect and innovation effect are two important mechanisms.•A theoretical model at micro level analyzes the issue.•China's firm-level data is used to identify causal relationship.
Great progress has been achieved in the study of Hippo signaling in regulating tumorigenesis; however, the downstream molecular events that mediate this process have not been completely defined. ...Moreover, regulation of Hippo signaling during tumorigenesis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely unknown. In the present study, we systematically investigated the relationship between Yes‐associated protein/TEA domain family member (YAP‐TEAD) and hepatocyte nuclear factor 4‐alpha (HNF4α) in the hepatocarcinogenesis of HCC cells. Our results indicated that HNF4α expression was negatively regulated by YAP1 in HCC cells by a ubiquitin proteasome pathway. By contrast, HNF4α was found to directly associate with TEAD4 to compete with YAP1 for binding to TEAD4, thus inhibiting the transcriptional activity of YAP‐TEAD and expression of their target genes. Moreover, overexpression of HNF4α was found to significantly compromise YAP‐TEAD‐induced HCC cell proliferation and stem cell expansion. Finally, we documented the regulatory mechanism between YAP‐TEAD and HNF4α in rat and mouse tumor models, which confirmed our in vitro results. Conclusion: There is a double‐negative feedback mechanism that controls TEAD‐YAP and HNF4α expression in vitro and in vivo, thereby regulating cellular proliferation and differentiation. Given that YAP acts as a dominant oncogene in HCC and plays a crucial role in stem cell homeostasis and tissue regeneration, manipulating the interaction between YAP, TEADs, and HNF4α may provide a new approach for HCC treatment and regenerative medicine. (Hepatology 2017;65:1206‐1221).
There is currently no research on the diagnostic value of metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) for a single pathogens in CSF. The aim of this study was to analyse the value of mNGS for ...identifying Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) in paediatric bacterial meningitis.
Bacterial meningitis (BM) cases from October 23, 2014, to December 31, 2016, and December 1, 2017, to July 31, 2018 at Beijing Children's Hospital were reviewed. Clinical features and pathogens were analysed.
We diagnosed 135 patients with BM in this study. A total of 43 S. pneumoniae were identified by combination methods. 26/135 (19.3%) patients had positive results in S. pneumoniae by blood and/or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) culture. Alere BinaxNow®Streptococcus pneumoniae Antigen test was positive in 35/135(25.9%) cases. 32/135 (23.7%) S. pneumoniae were identified by mNGS. Six CSF samples were identified as S. pneumoniae only by mNGS technology. Taking culture as the gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of mNGS for diagnosing S. pneumoniae meningitis were 73.1 and 88.1%, respectively. The positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of diagnosing S. pneumoniae meningitis by mNGS were 59.4 and 93.2%, respectively. When comparison between mNGS and combined tests (culture and Alere BinaxNow®Streptococcus pneumoniae Antigen test), the sensitivity and specificity of mNGS for S. pneumoniae identification were 70.3 and 93.9%, the PPV and NPV in the identification of S. pneumoniae by mNGS were 81.4 and 89.3%, respectively. The difference in number of unique reads of S. pneumoniaein from CSF sample (< 14 days onset) and CSF sample (> 14 days from onset) was statistically significant (170.5 VS. 13, P = 0.019). The difference in the collected time of CSF for culture and mNGS was statistically significant (4 days VS. 14 days, P < 0.001).
mNGS has high sensitivity and specificity for S. pneumoniae identification. The pathogen load (number of unique reads) of S. pneumonia is related to the CSF collection time. mNGS was less affected than culture by the use of antibiotics before CSF collection.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The shiitake mushroom (
) is the second most popular edible mushroom globally due to its rich nutritional value and health benefits associated with consumption. However, the characteristics of ...growing at low temperatures limit the area and time of its cultivating. We selected a low-temperature cultivar as the original strain. We proposed to construct a heat-shock protein expression vector to achieve genetic transformation in this low-temperature strain to improve the survivability of the strain against the heat-shock response. In this study, an overexpression vector pEHg-gdp-
for the heat shock protein 20 gene of
was constructed using a homologous recombination method. This vector was transferred into dikaryotic and monokaryotic mycelia by the
-method. The integration of
and
into the genome of
mycelia was verified by growth experiments on resistant plates and PCR analysis. The expression of the reporter gene mgfp5 was verified by fluorescence microscopy analysis and statistically resulted in 18.52 and 26.39% positivity for dikaryon, and monokaryon, respectively. Real-time PCR analysis showed that the expression of the
gene was more than 10-fold up-regulated in the three transformants; the mycelia of the three overexpression transformants could resume growth after 24 h heat treatment at 40°C, but the mycelia of the starting strain L087 could not recover growth at 25°C indicating that strains that successfully expressed
had greater overall recovery after heat shock. According to the study,
gene overexpression effectively improves the defensive capability of low-temperature mushroom strains against heat shock, laying the foundation for breeding heat-resistant high-quality transgenic shiitake mushrooms.
Triglyceride glucose (TyG) index and inflammatory markers are reported to have a positive association with metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, no previous study has assessed the value of TyG index ...and inflammatory markers as predictors of metabolic syndrome in the same study. This study looks at the comparison of the triglyceride index and blood leukocyte indices as predictors of metabolic syndrome in the Chinese population. The study cohort involved 1542 Chinese population without metabolic syndrome. The subjects underwent comprehensive routine health examination in 2011 and returned for a follow-up examination in 2016. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to Chinese Diabetes Society criteria, using body mass index for the replacement of waist circumference. TyG index, total leukocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes, and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were measured. Adjust d logistic models were used to assess the relationship between TyG index, blood leukocyte indices, and incident MetS. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were performed to determine the predictive value of TyG index and blood leukocyte indices for MetS. Results from multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that, in the adjusted model, the subjects with the highest quartile of TyG index and neutrophils had a 3.894- and 1.663-fold increased incidence of MetS (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.027), respectively. No significant association was observed between total leukocytes, lymphocytes, NLR with incident MetS. ROC analysis showed that the AUC of TyG index and neutrophils were 0.674 and 0.568 for incident MetS, respectively. TyG index rather than blood leukocyte indices may have the strongest predictive value in MetS development over a 5-year period.
Comprehensive Summary
Development of subcellular organelle‐targeted bioimaging probes is of great importance in the field of early detection of diseases and exploring the behaviors of subcellular ...organelles. Herein, we present a triphenylphosphonium functionalized conjugated macrocyclic tetramaleimide (TPP‐CMT) as a mitochondrial‐targeting bioimaging probe. The core of TPP‐CMT is obtained by connecting two pyrenes and two benzenes through four maleimides. This unique structure endows TPP‐CMT with exceptional far red/near‐infrared aggregation‐induced emission (FR/NIR‐AIE) characteristics. TPP‐CMT is an excellent fluorescent emitter in most solvents and even in solid states. The quantum yield of TPP‐CMT was higher than 27% when dissolved in common middle‐polarity organic solvent and this value remained at 28.2% in its solid state. The introduction of four triphenylphosphonium on maleimide positions endows TPP‐CMT with mitochondrial‐targeting ability. Thanks to the FR/NIR‐AIE characteristics and the mitochondrial‐targeting ability, this well‐designed fluorescent probe was successfully employed for mitochondrial targeting bioimaging of HeLa and HepG2 cells.
A triphenylphosphonium functionalized conjugated macrocyclic tetramaleimide (TPP‐CMT) with FR/NIR‐AIE characteristics and mitochondrial‐ targeting ability has been developed and its mitochondrial targeting bioimaging has been conducted.
PDF
