Fintech platforms serve the financial information market as a new player in corporate finance along with traditional analysts, and individual investors' preferences for these two service providers ...will affect market efficiency. This paper focuses on the financial information service industry in the context of the COVID-19, and discusses the information service quality of financial information service providers (fintech platforms vs. analysts) from the perspective of individual investors' cognition. Based on the theory of organizational information processing, through survey method, it has been found that investors believe that the information service quality of fintech platforms is higher than that of analysts, and is mediated by information planning comprehensiveness. It was also found that economic environment uncertainty moderates the mediating information service providers and information service quality through information planning comprehensiveness. Specifically, in a low economic environment uncertainty (Non-Lockdown Policy), investors believe that financial technology platforms have higher information planning comprehensiveness and higher quality of information services compared to analyst; In a high economic environment uncertainty (Lockdown Policy), the aforementioned impact is weakened. Robustness results indicate that the above main effects remain when considering the sub-sample and investors' Internet search behaviour. In addition, the heterogeneity results indicate that the more economically developed the region, the higher the investors' evaluation of the quality of financial information services. This study promotes the understanding of fintech substitution effect from the perspective of investor perception and reveals the psychological mechanism of individual investors, which provides micro ideas for the governance of fintech platforms for new participants in startups' financing and regional fintech development.
•Investors believe that the quality of information services of fintech platforms is higher than that of analysts, which is mediated by information planning comprehensiveness.•Economic environment uncertainty moderates the mediation between information service providers and information service quality through information planning comprehensiveness.•I define the concepts of fintech platform, network interaction platform, Internet platform, etc.
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a major cause of cardiac death and heart transplantation. It has been known that black people have a higher incidence of heart failure and related diseases compared to ...white people. To identify the relationship between gene expression and cardiac function in DCM patients, we performed pathway analysis and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) using RNA-sequencing data (GSE141910) from the NCBI Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and identified several gene modules that were significantly associated with the left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF) and DCM phenotype. Genes included in these modules are enriched in three major categories of signaling pathways: fibrosis-related, small molecule transporting-related, and immune response-related. Through consensus analysis, we found that gene modules associated with LVEF in African Americans are almost identical as in Caucasians, suggesting that the two groups may have more common rather than disparate genetic regulations in the etiology of DCM. In addition to the identified modules, we found that the gene expression level of Na/K-ATPase, an important membrane ion transporter, has a strong correlation with the LVEF. These clinical results are consistent with our previous findings and suggest the clinical significance of Na/K-ATPase regulation in DCM.
Tung tree (
), an economically important woody oil plant, is a monoecious and diclinous species with male and female flowers on the same inflorescence. The extremely low proportion of female flowers ...leads to low fruit yield in tung orchards. The female flower normally develops along with stamen abortion; otherwise sterile ovules will be produced. However, little knowledge is known about the molecular basis of the female flower development in tung tree. In this study, integrated analyses of morphological and cytological observations, endogenous phytohormone assay and RNA-seq were conducted to understand the molecular mechanism of the female flower development in tung tree. Cytological observation suggested that the abortion of stamens in female flowers (SFFs) belongs to the type of programmed cell death (PCD), which was caused by tapetum degeneration at microspore mother cell stage. A total of 1,366 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in female flowers by RNA-seq analysis, of which 279 (20.42%) DEGs were significantly enriched in phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, phenylalanine metabolism, flavonoid biosynthesis, starch and sucrose metabolism, and plant hormone signal transduction. Stage-specific transcript identification detected dynamically expressed genes of important transcription regulators in female flowers that may be involved in PCD and floral organ development. Gene expression patterns revealed that 17 anther and pollen development genes and 37 PCD-related genes might be involved in the abortion of SFF. Further analyses of phytohormone levels and co-expression networks suggested that salicylic acid (SA) accumulation could trigger PCD and inhibit the development of SFF in tung tree. This study provides new insights into the role of SA in regulating the abortion of SFF to develop normal female flowers.
Hepatic ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury (IRI) occurs during liver transplantation, hepatectomy, and hemorrhagic shock. Oleanolic acid (OA) is a natural compound with antioxidant and ...anti-inflammatory activity that has been used to treat liver disorders in clinical practice for several years. Here, we investigated the effects and underlying mechanisms of OA in hepatic IRI. A 60-minute partial (70%) hepatic, warm, ischemic reperfusion model was established in BALB/c mice, and two doses (30 and 60 mg/kg) of OA were administered intragastrically for 7 consecutive days prior to hepatic IR. Orbital blood and liver specimens were collected at 2, 8, and 24 h after IR. The results showed that OA preconditioning significantly alleviated hepatic injury, as evidenced by decreased alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels; improved histology, inhibition of JNK phosphorylation, and high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1); and tumor necrosis factor-α downregulation in hepatic IR mice. OA upregulated Bcl-2 and downregulated caspase-3, caspase-9, Bax, Beclin 1, and LC3, which play crucial roles in the regulation of apoptosis and autophagy. These findings highlighted the protective effects of OA against hepatic IRI mediated by the inhibition of apoptosis and autophagy and the release of HMGB1, which acted as a late inflammatory mediator in hepatic IRI.
The numerical transformation of text is a key step in natural language processing tasks, among which the word embedding model is the most representative. However, the word embedding model is ...insufficient in representing unregistered and low-frequency words, and the character-level embedding model makes up for it. Most Chinese character-level models focus on the independent use of Chinese character features such as strokes, radicals, and pinyin, or the shallow correlations between some features, while the inherent correlations among different features such as pronunciation, glyph, stroke order, and word frequency are not fully utilized. Through the statistical analyses of various features of Chinese characters, this paper proposes a precoding method based on Character Helix Alternative Representation Model (CHARM), which can realize the reversible mapping of Chinese characters or words to English-like sequences, and the advantage of this method is verified in three tasks: text classification, named entity recognition and machine translation. Experimental results on several test sets show that the model performs well, and can be a replacement character-level corpus for the original Chinese text.
A coupled diffusion model based on continuum thermodynamics is developed to quantitatively describe the transport properties of glassy thin films during physical aging. The coupled field equations ...are then embodied and applied to simulate the transport behaviors of O₂ and CO₂ within aging polymeric membranes to validate the model and demonstrate the coupling phenomenon, respectively. It is found that due to the introduction of the concentration gradient, the proposed direct calculating method on permeability can produce relatively better consistency with the experimental results for various film thicknesses. In addition, by assuming that the free volume induced by lattice contraction is renewed upon CO₂ exposure, the experimental permeability of O₂ within Matrimid
thin film after short-time exposure to CO₂ is well reproduced in this work. Remarkably, with the help of the validated straightforward permeability calculation method and free volume recovery mechanism, the permeability behavior of CO₂ is also well elucidated, with the results implying that the transport process of CO₂ and the variation of free volume are strongly coupled.
Tissue fibrosis is a significant health issue associated with organ dysfunction and failure. Increased deposition of collagen and other extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins in the interstitial area is ...a major process in tissue fibrosis. The microRNA-29 (miR-29) family has been demonstrated as anti-fibrotic microRNAs. Our recent work showed that dysregulation of miR-29 contributes to the formation of cardiac fibrosis in animal models of uremic cardiomyopathy, whereas replenishing miR-29 attenuated cardiac fibrosis in these animals. However, excessive overexpression of miR-29 is a concern because microRNAs usually have multiple targets, which could result in unknown and unexpected side effect. In the current study, we constructed a novel Col1a1-miR-29b vector using collagen 1a1 (Col1a1) promoter, which can strategically express miR-29b-3p (miR-29b) in response to increased collagen synthesis and reach a dynamic balance between collagen and miR-29b. Our experimental results showed that in mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF cells) transfected with Col1a1-miR-29b vector, the miR-29b expression is about 1000 times less than that in cells transfected with CMV-miR-29b vector, which uses cytomegalovirus (CMV) as a promoter for miR-29b expression. Moreover, TGF-β treatment increased the miR-29b expression by about 20 times in cells transfected with Col1a1-miR-29b, suggesting a dynamic response to fibrotic stimulation. Western blot using cell lysates and culture media demonstrated that transfection of Col1a1-miR-29b vector significantly reduced TGF-β induced collagen synthesis and secretion, and the effect was as effective as the CMV-miR-29b vector. Using RNA-sequencing analysis, we found that 249 genes were significantly altered (180 upregulated and 69 downregulated, at least 2-fold change and adjusted p-value <0.05) after TGF-β treatment in MEF cells transfected with empty vector. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis using GAGE R-package showed that the top 5 upregulated pathways after TGF-β treatment were mostly fibrosis-related, including focal adhesion, ECM reaction, and TGF-β signaling pathways. As expected, transfection of Col1a1-miR-29b or CMV-miR-29b vector partially reversed the activation of these pathways. We also analyzed the expression pattern of the top 100 miR-29b targeting genes in these cells using the RNA-sequencing data. We identified that miR-29b targeted a broad spectrum of ECM genes, but the inhibition effect is mostly moderate. In summary, our work demonstrated that the Col1a1-miR-29b vector can be used as a dynamic regulator of collagen and other ECM protein expression in response to fibrotic stimulation, which could potentially reduce unnecessary side effect due to excessive miR-29b levels while remaining an effective potential therapeutic approach for fibrosis.
Scutellarin (SCU) is an active ingredient extracted from
. Its main physiological functions are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant. In this study, we established a STZ-induced model of type 2 diabetes ...(T2DM) and a homocysteine (Hcy)-induced apoptosis model of LO2 to investigate whether SCU can alleviate liver damage by regulating Hcy in type 2 diabetes. Biochemical analysis indicated that SCU could improve the lipid metabolism disorder and liver function in diabetic rats by downregulating the levels of triglycerides (TG), cholesterol (CHO), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST), and by upregulating the level of high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Interestingly, SCU also could down-regulate the levels of Hcy and insulin and enhance the ability of type 2 diabetic rats to regulate blood glucose. Mechanistically, our results indicated that SCU may control the level of Hcy through regulating the levels of β-Cystathionase (CBS), γ-Cystathionase (CSE) and 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate (MTHFR) in liver tissue, and up-regulate folic acid, VitB
and VitB
levels in serum. Furthermore, SCU inhibits apoptosis in the liver of T2DM rats and in cultured LO2 cells treated with Hcy. Together, our findings suggest that SCU may alleviate the liver injury thorough downregulating the level of Hcy in T2DM rats.
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