Recent years have witnessed great developments in biobased polymer packaging films for the serious environmental problems caused by the petroleum-based nonbiodegradable packaging materials. Chitosan ...is one of the most abundant biopolymers after cellulose. Chitosan-based materials have been widely applied in various fields for their biological and physical properties of biocompatibility, biodegradability, antimicrobial ability, and easy film forming ability. Different chitosan-based films have been fabricated and applied in the field of food packaging. Most of the review papers related to chitosan-based films are focusing on antibacterial food packaging films. Along with the advances in the nanotechnology and polymer science, numerous strategies, for instance direct casting, coating, dipping, layer-by-layer assembly, and extrusion, have been employed to prepare chitosan-based films with multiple functionalities. The emerging food packaging applications of chitosan-based films as antibacterial films, barrier films, and sensing films have achieved great developments. This article comprehensively reviews recent advances in the preparation and application of engineered chitosan-based films in food packaging fields.
Glutamate-gated AMPA receptors mediate the fast component of excitatory signal transduction at chemical synapses throughout all regions of the mammalian brain. AMPA receptors are tetrameric ...assemblies composed of four subunits, GluA1-GluA4. Despite decades of study, the subunit composition, subunit arrangement, and molecular structure of native AMPA receptors remain unknown. Here we elucidate the structures of 10 distinct native AMPA receptor complexes by single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). We find that receptor subunits are arranged nonstochastically, with the GluA2 subunit preferentially occupying the B and D positions of the tetramer and with triheteromeric assemblies comprising a major population of native AMPA receptors. Cryo-EM maps define the structure for S2-M4 linkers between the ligand-binding and transmembrane domains, suggesting how neurotransmitter binding is coupled to ion channel gating.
In 2002 and 2003, many Chinese banks implemented reforms that delegated authority to individual loan officers. The change followed China's entrance into the WTO and offers a plausibly exogenous shock ...to loan officer incentives to produce information. We find that the bank's internal risk rating becomes a stronger predictor of loan interest rates and ex post outcomes after reform. When the loan officer and the branch president who approves the loan work together longer, the rating also becomes more strongly related to loan prices and outcomes. Our results highlight how incentives and communication costs affect information production and use.
High-quality fluorescence bioimaging requires organic exogenous contrast agents with biocompatibility, brightness, and photostability. The recently discovered and rapidly developed ...aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) are excellent candidates because they exhibit enhanced emission upon the restriction of intramolecular motions (RIM) effect. AIEgens are individually lit up once bound with biomolecules or influenced by the surrounding bio-environment, and abundant biological information can be acquired on the basis of high-sensitivity fluorescence imaging. In addition, AIEgen-incorporated nanoparticles possess bright fluorescence and improved photostability, which is beneficial to long-term bioimaging with high contrast and spatial resolution. In this review, we summarize the latest advances in AIEgen-based fluorescence bioimaging, as well as the relevant applications in theranostics.
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For mankind, good health is the basis of well-being; thus, frontier biomedical and (pre-)clinical studies always draw great attention from scientists. Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is an opposite phenomenon to that documented in classic textbooks, called aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ). AIE luminogens (AIEgens) are weak or nonemissive molecules with free intramolecular motions, but they “light up” when they form aggregates and are excellent candidates as fluorescent bioprobes. In this review, we summarize the latest advances in AIEgen-based fluorescence bioimaging and theranostics. The working mechanisms of specific AIE light-up bioprobes and their biomedical applications are the key learning points. In the future, more exciting and practical ideas will be triggered to promote AIEgens for a wide range of biomedical and (pre-)clinical applications. For further information on AIE, readers are directed to our series of recently published review articles.
The rapidly developed AIEgens are ideal candidates as exogenous organic fluorescent agents. In this review, we focus on the latest advances in AIEgen-based high-quality fluorescence bioimaging, as well as the relevant applications in theranostics, including cellular imaging, cancer cell therapy, and in vivo imaging and theranostics. The biosamples of interest range from organelles to living animals.
Financing firms in India Allen, Franklin; Chakrabarti, Rajesh; De, Sankar ...
Journal of financial intermediation,
07/2012, Letnik:
21, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
With extensive cross-country datasets and India firm samples, as well as our own surveys of small and medium firms, we examine the legal and business environments, financing channels, and growth ...patterns of different types of firms in India. Despite the English common-law origin and a British-style judicial system, Indian firms face weak investor protection in practice and poor institutions characterized by corruption and inefficiency. Alternative finance, including financing from all nonbank, nonmarket sources, and generally backed by nonlegal mechanisms, constitutes the most important form of external finance. Bank loans provide the second most important external financing source. Firms with access to bank or market finance are not associated with higher growth rates. Our results indicate that bank and market finance is not superior to alternative finance in fast-growing economies such as India.
Legal and institutional differences shape the ownership and terms of bank loans across the world. We show that under strong creditor protection, loans have more concentrated ownership, longer ...maturities, and lower interest rates. Moreover, the impact of creditor rights on loans depends on borrower characteristics such as the size and tangibility of assets. Foreign banks appear especially sensitive to the legal and institutional environment, with their ownership declining relative to domestic banks as creditor protection falls. Our multidimensional empirical model paints a more complete picture of how financial contracts respond to the legal and institutional environment than existing studies.
Nanoscale or single-cell technologies are critical for biomedical applications. However, current mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomic approaches require samples comprising a minimum of thousands of ...cells to provide in-depth profiling. Here, we report the development of a nanoPOTS (nanodroplet processing in one pot for trace samples) platform for small cell population proteomics analysis. NanoPOTS enhances the efficiency and recovery of sample processing by downscaling processing volumes to <200 nL to minimize surface losses. When combined with ultrasensitive liquid chromatography-MS, nanoPOTS allows identification of ~1500 to ~3000 proteins from ~10 to ~140 cells, respectively. By incorporating the Match Between Runs algorithm of MaxQuant, >3000 proteins are consistently identified from as few as 10 cells. Furthermore, we demonstrate quantification of ~2400 proteins from single human pancreatic islet thin sections from type 1 diabetic and control donors, illustrating the application of nanoPOTS for spatially resolved proteome measurements from clinical tissues.
Implicit guarantees provided by financial intermediaries are a key component of China's shadow banking sector. We show theoretically that project screening by intermediaries, accompanied by their ...implicit guarantees to investors, can be the second-best arrangement and mitigate capital misallocation that favors state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Using a dataset of trusts’ investment products, we find, consistent with our model, that ex ante expected yields reflect borrower risks and implicit guarantee strength, and risk sensitivity is reduced by strong guarantees. Regulations in 2018 restricting implicit guarantees lead to a weaker relationship between yield spread and guarantee strength, and more credit rationing of non-SOEs.
Integrated optics provides a versatile platform for quantum information processing and transceiving with photons1–8. The implementation of quantum protocols requires the capability to generate ...multiple high-quality single photons and process photons with multiple high-fidelity operators9–11. However, previous experimental demonstrations were faced by major challenges in realizing sufficiently high-quality multi-photon sources and multi-qubit operators in a single integrated system4–8, and fully chip-based implementations of multi-qubit quantum tasks remain a significant challenge1–3. Here, we report the demonstration of chip-to-chip quantum teleportation and genuine multipartite entanglement, the core functionalities in quantum technologies, on silicon-photonic circuitry. Four single photons with high purity and indistinguishablity are produced in an array of microresonator sources, without requiring any spectral filtering. Up to four qubits are processed in a reprogrammable linear-optic quantum circuit that facilitates Bell projection and fusion operation. The generation, processing, transceiving and measurement of multi-photon multi-qubit states are all achieved in micrometre-scale silicon chips, fabricated by the complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor process. Our work lays the groundwork for large-scale integrated photonic quantum technologies for communications and computations.Four single-photon states are generated and entangled on a single micrometre-scale silicon chip, and provide the basis for the demonstration of chip-to-chip quantum teleportation.
We evaluate the efficiency of capital deployment for acquiring firms
before
mergers and acquisitions (M&As), defined as the return on invested capital net of the cost of capital, and link this ...measure to firms’ postacquisition performance. Acquirers with higher preacquisition net returns on investment have superior long-run operating and stock performance than do acquirers with lower returns. Acquirers with low net returns on investment also underperform matching nonacquirers. The relationship between preacquisition investment return and postacquisition performance is weakened when chief executive officer turnover occurs after deal completion. These results imply that managerial ability in deploying capital and creating value for shareholders persists through M&As.
The online appendix is available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2766
.
This paper was accepted by Wei Jiang, finance.
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