The aim of the research is to reveal the role of internal motivations in the mechanism driving corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy in construction corporations. A framework was constructed ...based on neo‐institutional theory, and measurement scales were developed through interviews. Questionnaire surveys and hierarchical regression analysis were carried out to verify the framework in a sample of huge Chinese construction corporations. The results reveal the mediating and moderating roles of ethical leadership, managerial moral motivation, and managerial autonomy in driving CSR strategy, which will enrich the application of neo‐institutional theory in future CSR research. Furthermore, this study developed indicators, scales, and analytical frameworks with full consideration of the theoretical generality and the industrial particularity of Chinese construction corporations, which deepened the understanding of the driving mechanism of CSR strategy in the construction industry. The findings have practical implications for HCCCs in terms of developing CSR strategy and ultimately improving their CSR performance.
The HLA-C locus is distinct relative to the other classical HLA class I loci in that it has relatively limited polymorphism, lower expression on the cell surface, and more extensive ligand-receptor ...interactions with killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) 35 kb upstream of HLA-C (rs9264942; termed -35) associates with control of HIV, and with levels of HLA-C messenger RNA transcripts and cell-surface expression, but the mechanism underlying its varied expression is unknown. We proposed that the -35 SNP is not the causal variant for differential HLA-C expression, but rather is marking another polymorphism that directly affects levels of HLA-C. Here we show that variation within the 3' untranslated region (UTR) of HLA-C regulates binding of the microRNA hsa-miR-148 to its target site, resulting in relatively low surface expression of alleles that bind this microRNA and high expression of HLA-C alleles that escape post-transcriptional regulation. The 3' UTR variant associates strongly with control of HIV, potentially adding to the effects of genetic variation encoding the peptide-binding region of the HLA class I loci. Variation in HLA-C expression adds another layer of diversity to this highly polymorphic locus that must be considered when deciphering the function of these molecules in health and disease.
The reclamation of tidal fiats has been one of the important approaches to replenish the arable lands in the coastal areas; pollution status of reclaimed soils has received wide attention recently, ...especially for the study of heavy metals due to the relative high pollutant concentrations in wetlands. To understand the impact of land use change on heavy metal and arsenic （As） geochemistry by the reclamation of wetlands for agriculture, surface soils and soil profiles were collected from the agricultural land reclaimed in the 1990s and the intertidal flat wetland at Dongtan on Chongming Island in the Yangtze River Estuary, China. The soil samples were analyzed for total concentrations and chemical speciation of chromium （Cr）, zinc （Zn）, copper （Cu）, lead （Pb）, nickel （Ni）, cadmium （Cd） and As using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry （ICP-MS）. Results showed that soil properties （salinity, total organic carbon and grain-size distribution） and the concentrations of heavy metals and As in the soils differed under the different land use types. The conversion of wetland to forest had caused obvious losses of all the measured heavy metals. In paddy field and dryland with frequent cultivation, the concentrations of Cr, Zn, Cu, Ni and As were higher when compared to forest land which was disturbed rarely by human activities. Speciation analysis showed that Cr, Zn, Cu, Ni and As were predominated by the immobile residual fraction, while Pb and Cd showed relatively higher mobility. In general, metal （except Ni） and As mobility decreased in the following order： wetland 〉 dryland 〉 paddy field 〉 forest land, which suggested that the reclaimed soils had lower metal and As mobility than the intertidal fiat wetland. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the effects of land use on heavy metals and As in the reclaimed soils of the study area and other similar coastal areas.
The highly polymorphic human leukocyte antigen (
) locus encodes cell surface proteins that are critical for immunity.
expression levels vary in an allele-dependent manner, diversifying ...allele-specific effects beyond peptide-binding preference. Analysis of 9763 HIV-infected individuals from 21 cohorts shows that higher
levels confer poorer control of HIV. Elevated
expression provides enhanced levels of an HLA-A-derived signal peptide that specifically binds and determines expression levels of HLA-E, the ligand for the inhibitory NKG2A natural killer (NK) cell receptor.
haplotypes that favor NKG2A-mediated NK cell licensing (i.e., education) exacerbate the deleterious effect of high
on HIV control, consistent with NKG2A-mediated inhibition impairing NK cell clearance of HIV-infected targets. Therapeutic blockade of HLA-E:NKG2A interaction may yield benefit in HIV disease.
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•Use HYDRUS to simulate transport of in-situ leaching agent in a hilly rare earth mine.•Spatiotemporal distribution of soil NH4-N and NO3-N is highly heterogeneous across the ...hill.•Five years of rainwater leaching could remove <10% of soil NH4-N from the hill.•Nitrification and lateral flow led to buildup of NO3-N near surface at the bottom of the hill.
The large amount of residual soil ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N) after in-situ leaching is a legacy environmental issue for ionic rare earth mines. Understanding and mitigating the associated risk to the aquatic ecosystems of the mining as well as its downstream areas would benefit from a quantitative description and prediction of NH4-N transformation and transport during and after in-situ leaching. Up to date, studies related to the transport and leaching characteristics of residual soil NH4-N have been mostly limited to laboratory experiments. Few field process-based studies of the transport behaviors of residual leaching agents in rare earth mines have been conducted partially because of their remote locations, restricted accessibility, and scarce background data. Based on field investigations at a remote hilly rare earth mine in Ganzhou City, Southern China, we established a HYDRUS-2D model to simulate the transport and transformation of soil NH4-N in the mine throughout in-situ leaching, flushing, and subsequent rainwater leaching. Though subjected to conceptual generalization and limited background data, the established HYDRUS-2D model was able to satisfactorily simulate the observed distinctively different vertical soil NH4-N and nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N) profiles at the top, middle, and bottom of the hill in March 2021, with R2 ranging from 0.71 to 0.89 for soil NH4-N and 0.69 to 0.86 for soil NO3-N. Further analysis of the HYDRUS simulation results revealed a much different spatiotemporal distribution pattern between soil NH4-N and NO3-N throughout the simulation period. For soil NH4-N, the shape and spatial extent of its distribution was largely determined by in-situ leaching, whereas flushing and rainwater leaching slowly pushed its spatial extent further downward, and to a less extent downslope to the right. Flushing and five years of rainwater leaching could merely remove around 10% of residual soil NH4-N from the hill. Unlike NH4-N, the spatial distribution pattern of soil NO3-N varied considerably among various phases of in-situ leaching, flushing, and rainwater leaching. Soil water movement affected the spatial distribution of soil NO3-N considerably, which was especially evident from its significant buildup near surface at the bottom of the hill. Overall, our study results have revealed the critical role of continuous water movement and solute transport in shaping the distribution patterns of residual leaching agents in rare earth mining regions. The proposed HYDRUS model may serve as a promising framework for investigating the transport and spatiotemporal distribution of in-situ leaching agent in rare earth mining regions with scarce background data. It also has great potentials in facilitating the development of more effective in-situ leaching programs and the design of suitable water pollution control and ecological remediation measures.
Polymorphisms located within the
have been linked to many disease outcomes by mechanisms not yet fully understood in most cases. Variants located within untranslated regions of
genes are involved in ...allele-specific expression and may therefore underlie some of these disease associations. We determined sequences extending nearly 2 kb upstream of the transcription start site for 68 alleles from 57 major lineages of classical
class I genes. The nucleotide diversity within this promoter segment roughly follows that seen within the coding regions, with
showing the highest (∼1.9%), followed by
(∼1.8%), and
showing the lowest diversity (∼0.9%). Despite its greater diversity,
mRNA expression levels determined in 178 European Americans do not vary in an allele- or lineage-specific manner, unlike the differential expression levels of
or
reported previously. Close proximity of promoter sequences in phylogenetic trees is roughly reflected by similarity of expression pattern for most
and
loci. Although promoter sequence divergence might impact promoter activity, we observed no clear link between the phylogenetic structures as represented by pairwise nucleotide differences in the promoter regions with estimated differences in mRNA expression levels for the classical class I loci. Further, no pair of class I loci showed coordinated expression levels, suggesting that distinct mechanisms across loci determine their expression level under nonstimulated conditions. These data serve as a foundation for more in-depth analysis of the functional consequences of promoter region variation within the classical
class I loci.
Comprehensive sequence characterization across the MHC is important for successful organ transplantation and genetic association studies. To this end, we have developed an automated sample ...preparation, molecular barcoding and multiplexing protocol for the amplification and sequence-determination of class I HLA loci. We have coupled this process to a novel HLA calling algorithm to determine the most likely pair of alleles at each locus.
We have benchmarked our protocol with 270 HapMap individuals from four worldwide populations with 96.4% accuracy at 4-digit resolution. A variation of this initial protocol, more suitable for large sample sizes, in which molecular barcodes are added during PCR rather than library construction, was tested on 95 HapMap individuals with 98.6% accuracy at 4-digit resolution.
Next-generation sequencing on the 454 FLX Titanium platform is a reliable, efficient, and scalable technology for HLA typing.
A variant 35 kb upstream of the HLA-C gene (-35C/T) was previously shown to associate with HLA-C mRNA expression level and steady-state plasma HIV RNA levels. We genotyped this variant in 1,698 ...patients of European ancestry with HIV. Individuals with known seroconversion dates were used for disease progression analysis and those with longitudinal viral load data were used for viral load analysis. We further tested cell surface expression of HLA-C in normal donors using an HLA-C-specific antibody. We show that the -35C allele is a proxy for high HLA-C cell surface expression, and that individuals with high-expressing HLA-C alleles progress more slowly to AIDS and control viremia significantly better than individuals with low HLA-C expressing alleles. These data strongly implicate high HLA-C expression levels in more effective control of HIV-1, potentially through better antigen presentation to cytotoxic T lymphocytes or recognition and killing of infected cells by natural killer cells.
The killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene cluster shows extensive genetic diversity, as do the HLA class I loci, which encode ligands for KIR molecules. We genotyped 1,642 individuals from ...30 geographically distinct populations to examine population-level evidence for coevolution of these two functionally related but unlinked gene clusters. We observed strong negative correlations between the presence of activating KIR genes and their corresponding HLA ligand groups across populations, especially KIR3DS1 and its putative HLA-B Bw4-80I ligands (r = −0.66, P = 0.038). In contrast, we observed weak positive relationships between the various inhibitory KIR genes and their ligands. We observed a negative correlation between distance from East Africa and frequency of activating KIR genes and their corresponding ligands, suggesting a balance between selection on HLA and KIR loci. Most KIR-HLA genetic association studies indicate a primary influence of activating KIR-HLA genotypes in disease risk; concomitantly, activating receptor-ligand pairs in this study show the strongest signature of coevolution of these two complex genetic systems as compared with inhibitory receptor-ligand pairs.
Allotypes of the natural killer (NK) cell receptor KIR3DL1 vary in both NK cell expression patterns and inhibitory capacity upon binding to their ligands, HLA-B Bw4 molecules, present on target ...cells. Using a sample size of over 1,500 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)+ individuals, we show that various distinct allelic combinations of the KIR3DL1 and HLA-B loci significantly and strongly influence both AIDS progression and plasma HIV RNA abundance in a consistent manner. These genetic data correlate very well with previously defined functional differences that distinguish KIR3DL1 allotypes. The various epistatic effects observed here for common, distinct KIR3DL1 and HLA-B Bw4 combinations are unprecedented with regard to any pair of genetic loci in human disease, and indicate that NK cells may have a critical role in the natural history of HIV infection.
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