We propose a model of financial intermediation based on delegated monitoring, where firms' returns are private information that lenders can ascertain through costly state verification. Our model has ...two key features: lenders cannot commit to their verification strategies and there are aggregate shocks. Simple debt contracts are Pareto optimal with or without intermediation. We show that the benefits of intermediation can be limited by financial instability in the presence of aggregate shocks. However, a well-designed resolution mechanism ensures the Pareto optimality of financial intermediation, and a bail-out policy can restore financial stability.
The impact of environmental regulations (ER) on haze pollution control has been continuously debated in the field of sustainable development. This paper explores the direct and indirect threshold ...effects of ER on haze pollution, and five underlying mechanisms-technological innovation (TI), industrial structure (IS), foreign direct investment (FDI), urbanization (UR), and electricity consumption (EC)-are adopted to investigate the indirect threshold effects. Panel data, over the period 2008-2018, of 284 Chinese cities were used and the threshold effects were predicted endogenously based on the panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) model. The results showed the following: (1) For the direct threshold effect, there exists a U-shaped relationship between ER and haze pollution. ER significantly reduced haze pollution when ER < 38.86 due to "cost effects". However, ER increased haze pollution after the threshold owing to the "green paradox", which was not significant. (2) For the indirect threshold effect, when TI = 0.37, IS = 39.61, FDI = 7.25, and UR = 42.86, the relationships between ER and haze pollution changed. The changes and corresponding reasons for the indirect threshold effects are discussed in detail. (3) After a comprehensive analysis, the threshold effects have obvious regional distribution characteristics and internal connections. Finally, based on the results, it is essential for governments to enact appropriate environmental regulatory policies and enhance inter-regional synergies in environmental governance.
•Robot application increases the rate of occupational injuries in developing countries.•Robot application does not have a persistent impact on occupational injuries.•Local governments can reduce the ...effect of robot application by strengthening safety regulations.•Robot application imposes a burden on the public health expenditure of local governments.
Recent research argues that robots could replace workers in dangerous work environments to reduce occupational injuries. However, robot development and usage in most developing countries remain at an infant stage, robots may increase the likelihood of occupational injuries due to conditions such as limited human capital and defects. By using a city-level dataset based on the Guangdong Province in China, we find that robot application is associated with an increase in the rate of occupational injuries in the first two years, and then exhibits nonsignificant and even negative effects afterwards. We also find that local governments can reduce or even eliminate the effect of robot application on occupational injuries by strengthening safety regulations. In addition, although local governments are keen on pushing robot application and industrial intelligence, the wide application of robots may impose a burden on the public health expenditure of local governments due to occupational injuries. This study extends our knowledge by challenging the traditional view that robot application can reduce the rate of occupational injuries, and also provides suggestions on the safety regulations of developing countries at the early stage of industrial intelligence.
Cumulatively, biotic and abiotic stresses of various magnitudes can decrease the production of crops by 70%. miRNAs have emerged as a genetic tool with enormous potential that can be exploited to ...understand stress tolerance at the molecular level and eventually regulate stress in crops. Plant miRNA targets frequently fit into diverse families of TFs that control the expression of genes related to a certain trait. As key machinery in gene regulatory networks, it is agreed that a broad understanding of miRNAs will greatly increase our understanding of plant responses to environmental stresses. miRNA-led stress regulatory networks are being considered as novel tools for the development of abiotic stress tolerance in crops. At this time, we need to expand our knowledge about the modulatory role of miRNAs during environmental fluctuations. It has become exceedingly clear that with increased understanding of the role of miRNAs during stress, the techniques for using miRNA-mediated gene regulation to enhance plant stress tolerance will become more effective and reliable. In this review we present: (1) miRNAs as a potential avenue for the modulation of abiotic stresses, and (2) summarize the research progress regarding plant responses to stress. Current progress is explained through discussion of the identification and validation of several miRNAs that enhance crop tolerance of salinity, drought, etc., while missing links on different aspects of miRNAs related to abiotic stress tolerance are noted.
The world economy continues to witness a steady rise in carbon emissions, which makes it challenging to fulfill the terms of the Paris agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this context, ...countries worldwide enact environmental regulations to curtail environmental pollution to promote sustainable development. However, the importance of environmental regulations has not been fully validated in the previous literature. In addition, the concurrent roles of capital formation, green innovation, and renewability cannot be overlooked. Against this backdrop, this study selects data from G7 countries from 1994 to 2019 to explore the effect of environmental regulations, capital formation, green innovation, and renewable energy consumption on CO
emissions. In order to achieve the above research objectives, we employ the Method of Moments Quantile Regression (MM-QR) for empirical analysis. The results reveal that capital formation significantly enhances environmental quality by reducing CO
emissions across all quantiles (10th-90th). Environmental regulations show a significant and negative impact on CO
emission mainly at the middle and higher emissions quantiles, while the effect is insignificant at lower quantiles (10th). Moreover, green innovation and renewable energy consumption mitigate CO
emissions across all quantiles (10th-90th), while economic growth deteriorates environmental quality in G7 countries. The panel granger causality results indicate the unidirectional causality running from capital formation, environmental regulations, and renewable energy towards CO
emissions, which implies that any policy related to these variables will Granger cause CO
emissions but not the other way round. Based on the findings, important policy implications are proposed to promote sustainable development in G7 countries.
Long intergenic noncoding RNA p21 (lincRNA-p21) is considered a target of wild-type p53, but little is known about its regulation by mutant p53 and its functions during the progression of head and ...neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
RNAscope was used to detect the expression and distribution of lincRNA-p21. Chromatin immunoprecipitation and electrophoretic mobility shift assays were performed to analyze the transcriptional regulation of lincRNA-p21 in HNSCC cells. The biological functions of lincRNA-p21 were investigated in vitro and in vivo. RNA immunoprecipitation and pull-down assays were used to detect the direct binding of lincRNA-p21.
Lower lincRNA-p21 expression was observed in HNSCC tissues and indicated worse prognosis. Both wild and mutant type p53 transcriptionally regulated lincRNA-p21, but nuclear transcription factor Y subunit alpha (NF-YA) was essential for mutant p53 in the regulation of lincRNA-p21. Ectopic expression of lincRNA-p21 significantly inhibited cell proliferation capacity in vitro and in vivo and vice versa. Moreover, the overexpression of lincRNA-p21 induced G1 arrest and apoptosis. Knockdown NF-YA expression reversed tumor suppressor activation of lincRNA-p21 in mutant p53 cells, not wild-type p53 cells. A negative correlation was observed between lincRNA-p21 and the phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (p-STAT3) in HNSCC tissues. High lincRNA-p21 expression inhibited Janus kinase 2 (JAK2)/STAT3 signal activation and vice versa. Further, we observed direct binding to STAT3 by lincRNA-p21 in HNSCC cells, which suppressed STAT3-induced oncogenic potential.
Our results revealed the transcriptional regulation of lincRNA-p21 by the mutant p53/NF-YA complex in HNSCC. LincRNA-p21 acted as a tumor suppressor in HNSCC progression, which was attributed to direct binding to STAT3 and blocking of JAK2/STAT3 signaling.
Probiotic products in the United States are available for use in the general category of dietary supplements, bypassing the rigor of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process in ...safety, efficacy, and manufacturing standards. As a result, currently available probiotics lack FDA-approved drug labeling and cannot be marketed to treat or prevent disease in preterm infants, including necrotizing enterocolitis and late-onset sepsis. Despite lack of availability of a pharmaceutical-grade product, the number of preterm infants receiving probiotics in the United States and Canada is steadily increasing. According to recent reports from large collaborative databases in the United States, approximately 10% of extremely low gestational age neonates receive a probiotic preparation during their stay in the NICU, with wide variation in practice among units. In sum, more than 10 000 preterm infants have been enrolled in randomized clinical trials of probiotic supplementation worldwide. Methodologic differences among study protocols included different strains and combinations of therapy, masking of trials, and a priori definitions of the primary outcome measure. Large meta-analyses of these trials have demonstrated the efficacy of multiple-strain probiotics in reducing necrotizing enterocolitis and all-cause mortality, whereas the efficacy of single-strain probiotic preparations is less certain. In the absence of an appropriate medical-grade product in the United States, dietary supplement-grade probiotics, some of which have been the subject of recent recalls for contamination, are being prescribed. Given the lack of FDA-regulated pharmaceutical-grade products in the United States, conflicting data on safety and efficacy, and potential for harm in a highly vulnerable population, current evidence does not support the routine, universal administration of probiotics to preterm infants, particularly those with a birth weight of <1000 g.
Assigning functions to the vast array of proteins present in eukaryotic cells remains challenging. To identify relationships between proteins, and thereby enable functional annotation of proteins, we ...determined changes in abundance of 10,323 human proteins in response to 294 biological perturbations using isotope-labeling mass spectrometry. We applied the machine learning algorithm treeClust to reveal functional associations between co-regulated human proteins from ProteomeHD, a compilation of our own data and datasets from the Proteomics Identifications database. This produced a co-regulation map of the human proteome. Co-regulation was able to capture relationships between proteins that do not physically interact or colocalize. For example, co-regulation of the peroxisomal membrane protein PEX11β with mitochondrial respiration factors led us to discover an organelle interface between peroxisomes and mitochondria in mammalian cells. We also predicted the functions of microproteins that are difficult to study with traditional methods. The co-regulation map can be explored at www.proteomeHD.net .
Abstract
This paper examines the eco‐innovation effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) by its economic agents, multinational enterprises (MNEs), in the context of emerging economies. It ...particularly focuses on environmental regulations and industrial pollution intensity as the key moderating mechanisms. We develop hypotheses by combining economic rationality of natural‐resource‐based view and institutional rationality of institution‐based view. Our theoretical discussions highlight the importance of the intersection between the two theories in explaining the eco‐innovation effects of foreign ownership and FDI spillovers, and in particular in allowing a nuanced consideration around the under‐explored boundary conditions of FDI effects in the eco‐innovation domain. Using the propensity score matching method to match domestically owned enterprises (DOEs) with foreign MNE‐invested enterprises (FIEs) in China during the period of 2001–2013, we find clear evidence that FIEs outperform their domestic counterparts of similar characteristics in conducting eco‐innovation. This superior performance is particularly pronounced in cities with higher levels of environmental regulation and industries with higher levels of pollution. Furthermore, we assess the local impact of MNEs on eco‐innovation of DOEs and find evidence that the presence of FDI, in particular, that within cities, leads to increased eco‐innovation in DOEs. FIEs' eco‐innovation spillover effects within a city are conditional on environmental regulation and pollution intensity. Thus, in China, MNEs are found to act as agents of change who not only conduct eco‐innovation in the host country but also stimulate the eco‐innovation of DOEs.
PDF
