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Promoting the ESG concept is of great significance for the realization of the 'Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality' Goals and ESG has gradually become a comprehensive system for evaluating sustainable development. Based on the 2015 ESG ratings of SynTao Green Finance as a quasi-natural experiment and based on the panel data of China's A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2020, this study deeply explores the impact of ESG ratings on the continuous innovation ability of enterprises by constructing a multi-temporal double-difference model and a triple-difference model. The results show that ESG ratings can significantly enhance firms' continuous innovation ability, a conclusion supported by a series of robustness tests. The positive impact of ESG ratings is more prominent for firms with low market attention, state-owned enterprises, and firms with high digital transformation. The impact mechanism suggests that ESG ratings advance firms' ability to continuously innovate by increasing employment, improving employee income, and enhancing firm value. It is further found that ESG ratings are more effective in enhancing the continuous innovation ability of heavy polluters and capital – and technology-intensive firms than other firms. The findings of the study help to promote the sustainable development of enterprises and realize the synergy between ESG construction and high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the environmental efficiency level and trend of the transportation sector in the upper–mid–downstream of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the JingJinJi region in China and assess the effectiveness of policies for protecting the low-carbon environment. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses the meta-frontier slack-based measure (SBM) approach to evaluate environmental efficiency, which targets and classifies specific regions into regional groups. First, this study employs the SBM with the undesirable outputs to construct the environmental efficiency measurement models of the four regions under the meta-frontier and group frontiers, respectively. Then, this study uses the technology gap ratio to evaluate the gap between the group frontier and the meta-frontier. Findings: The analysis reveals several key findings: (1) the JingJinJi region and the downstream of the YEB had achieved the overall optimal production technology in transportation than the other two regions; (2) significant technology gaps in environmental efficiency were observed among these four regions in China; and (3) the downstream region of the YEB exhibited the lowest levels of energy consumption and excessive CO2 emissions. Originality/value: To evaluate the differences in environmental efficiency resulting from regions and technological gaps in transportation, this study employs the meta-frontier model, which overcomes the limitation of traditional environmental efficiency methods. Furthermore, in the practical, the study provides the advantage of observing the disparities in transportation efficiency performed by the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: The moss Physcomitrium patens is crucial for studying plant development and evolution. Although the P. patens genome includes genes acquired from bacteria, fungi and viruses, the functions and evolutionary significance of these acquired genes remain largely unclear. Killer protein 4 (KP4) is a toxin secreted by the phytopathogenic fungus Ustilago maydis that inhibits the growth of sensitive target strains by blocking their calcium uptake. Here, we show that KP4 genes in mosses were acquired from fungi through at least three independent events of horizontal gene transfer. Two paralogous copies of KP4 (PpKP4‐1 and PpKP4‐2) exist in P. patens. Knockout mutants ppkp4‐1 and ppkp4‐2 showed cell death at the protonemal stage, and ppkp4‐2 also exhibited defects in tip growth. We provide experimental evidence indicating that PpKP4‐1/2 affects P. patens protonemal cell development by mediating cytoplasmic calcium and that KP4 genes are functionally conserved between P. patens and fungi. The present study provides additional insights into the role of horizontal gene transfer in land plant development and evolution. Significance Statement: Plants are intimately associated with fungi. However, it remains largely unclear how fungi may have affected the biology of plant partners through genetic integration (e.g. horizontal gene transfer) following organismal interaction. In the present study, we show that KP4 genes in mosses were acquired from fungi through at least three independent horizontal gene transfer events and that the acquired KP4 genes affect the protonemal development of mosses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The secondary products of lipid oxidation are one of the main factors inducing protein oxidation. The effects of oxidation treatment with malondialdehyde (MDA) on the immunoreactivity of amandin and its digestion were studied. Materials and Methods The rabbit IgG binding ability of amandin was analyzed by western blotting, and the changes in amandin oxidation and immunoreactivity during digestion of amandin with different degrees of oxidation were investigated in combination with an almond allergen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. Alteration of linear epitopes of amandin by oxidation was investigated by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Results The results showed that the immunoreactivity of amandin was significantly reduced after 1 mmol/L MDA and 100 mmol/L MDA treatment. However, the 1 mmol/L MDA treatment was owing to cleavage of linear epitope peptide in amandin and oxidation of the active amino acid. The 100 mmol/L MDA treatment was due to aggregation of amandin and significant decrease in its solubility. Oxidation also reduced digestibility of amandin and significantly affected immunoreactivity during digestion. LC-MS/MS also identified four oxidation-prone methionine sites (aa 264–274, 298–308, 220–240, and 275–297) in gamma conglutinin 1. Conclusions MDA treatment reduced the immunoreactivity of amandin. MDA treatment also led to protein aggregation, which slowed down the digestion of amandin and altered the immunoreactivity of amandin during digestion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to provide an efficient calcium transporter for the development of calcium supplement products, embryo eggs were selected for incubation. Carrying out calcium ions chelation on the embryo egg-derived egg white peptides (EED-EWPs) with high calcium binding activity produced incubation. The changes of EED-EWPs before and after chelation with calcium ions were compared, ζ-potential absolute value increased significantly, indicating that the embryo egg-derived egg white peptides calcium chelates (EED-EWPs-Ca) was successfully formed. Calcium binding activity results displayed that EED-EWPs on the 9th day of incubation had the highest calcium binding ability (6.96 μg/mg), which was 1.17 times that before incubation (5.97 μg/mg). EED-EWPs were isolated by IMAC metal chelating preloaded column, calcium binding amount was improved to 17.88 μg/mg, which was about 3 times that of those before isolation. The EED-EWPs were analyzed by mass spectrometry, six peptides with high calcium binding ability were identified. The mechanism of promoting calcium absorption of EED-EWPs produced during incubation was investigated by molecular docking with TRPV6 (a key protein for calcium transporter in the human small intestine). Results elucidated that amino and carboxyl groups in EED-EWPs were possible sites for calcium ions binding. This study would provide an efficient calcium transporter with high nutritional value for the development of calcium supplement products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of different glycosylation degrees on molecular structure and foaming property of egg white protein (EWP) was investigated using ball milling‐assisted glycosylation. The results showed the foaming ability (FA) and foam stability (FS) of EWP improved when the degree of glycosylation was increased. In particular, FA of ball milling‐assisted glycosylation of EWP enhanced by 39.9% and 28.8%, and the FS increased by 28.7% and 24.0% compared with EWP and ball milling egg white protein (BE) at 150 min of reaction. Sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS‐PAGE) analysis could reflect the grafting degree of EWP and glucose molecules from the side. When EWP was fully grafted with glucose, endogenous fluorescence and free sulfhydryl groups indicated that tertiary structure of EWP was depolymerized, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy showed the secondary structure tended to change from order to disorder. The results of this study indicated that ball milling‐assisted glycosylation modification was a practical method to improve the foaming property of EWP. Practical Application: EWP has great FA and FS, making it indispensable in the baking industry. In this study, ball milling‐assisted glycosylation was used to improve the foaming property of EWP, and the molecular structure of EWP with different degrees of glycosylation was fully resolved. The results demonstrated that ball milling, as a physical pretreatment, can fully unfold the structure of EWP. When sugar molecules were fully grafted, the particle size of EWP reduced, solubility increased, and the stability of system improved, thus enhancing the foaming property of EWP. The results can provide theoretical basis for improving the foaming property of EWP and provide a reference value for its industrial application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pulse signal analysis plays an important role in promoting the objectification of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Like electrocardiogram (ECG) signals, wrist pulse signals are mainly caused by cardiac activities and are valuable in analyzing cardiac diseases. A large number of studies have reported ECG signals can distinguish gender characteristics of normal healthy subjects using entropy complexity measures, consistently showing more complexity in females than males. No research up to date, however, has been found on examining gender differences with wrist pulse signals of healthy subjects on entropy complexity measures. This paper is aimed to fill in the research gap, which could, in turn, provide a deeper insight into the pulse signal and might identify potential differences between ECG signals and pulse signals. In particular, several complementary entropy measures with corresponding refined composite multiscale versions are established to perform the analysis for the filtered TCM pulse signals. Experimental results reveal that regardless of entropy measures used, there is no statistically significant gender difference in terms of entropy complexity, indicating that the pulse signal holds less gender characteristics than the ECG signal. In view of these findings, wrist pulse signals could be likely to provide different pieces of information to ECG signals. The present study is the first to quantitatively evaluate gender differences in healthy pulse signals with measures of entropy complexity and more importantly; we expect this study could make contribution to the ongoing pulse intelligent diagnosis and objective analysis, further facilitating the modernization of TCM pulse diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this communication, the liquid metal alloy (LMA) is utilized to design a metasurface with switchable reflection phases, which serves as the superstrate of an antenna array to manipulate its scattering features. The proposed metasurface is composed of a silicone rubber etched with microfluidic channels. Hence, its electromagnetic properties can be controlled by the filling of LMA. Simulated results reveal that the injection of LMA shifts the phase of waves reflected from the proposed metasurface by 180° ranging from 8 to 32 GHz. Then, the proposed metasurface covers a slot antenna array to regulate its scattering characteristic. By arranging the filling of LMA with various configurations, the scattering pattern can be switched among four different states with a slight influence on its radiation performance. Fulfilling all microfluidic channels with air, the reference antenna has a normal scattering pattern like a metallic plate. Moreover, by switching the filling area of LMA, monostatic radar cross-section (RCS) reduction is realized in three of these four working states. Finally, we had processed and tested a demonstrated prototype of the slot antenna array along with the proposed metasurface superstrate. Measured results are consistent well with the simulation. An implication of this research is the possibility that manipulating the scattering features of an antenna array without influences on its radiation characteristics by employing LMA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this communication, a microfluidically frequency- and polarization-reconfigurable slot antenna using liquid metal (LM) is proposed. The polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) structure with narrow-banded microchannels is loaded on the printed circuit board (PCB) of a square slot antenna, providing condition for reconfiguration. The left-hand circular polarization (LHCP), right-hand circular polarization (RHCP), and linear polarization (LP) are achieved by injecting LM into +45° and −45° channels with respect to the $x$ -axis or keeping the channels empty. Three operating frequency bands of LHCP and RHCP states can be realized by filling the microchannels with different lengths. Both states have an overall tuning 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of 26.42% (2.3–3 GHz). In LP state, the proposed antenna realizes a −10 dB impedance bandwidth of 11.6% (2.03–2.28 GHz). A prototype of the proposed antenna has been fabricated and measured. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results validates the feasibility of this technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant colonization of land has been intimately associated with mycorrhizae or mycorrhizae-like fungi. Despite the pivotal role of fungi in plant adaptation, it remains unclear whether and how gene acquisition following fungal interaction might have affected the development of land plants. Here we report a macro2 domain gene in bryophytes that is likely derived from Mucoromycota, a group that includes some mycorrhizae-like fungi found in the earliest land plants. Experimental and transcriptomic evidence suggests that this macro2 domain gene in the moss Physcomitrella patens, PpMACRO2, is important in epigenetic modification, stem cell function, cell reprogramming and other processes. Gene knockout and over-expression of PpMACRO2 significantly change the number and size of gametophores. These findings provide insights into the role of fungal association and the ancestral gene repertoire in the early evolution of land plants. Plant evolution is intimately associated with fungal partners. Here the authors provide evidence that Physcomitrella patens MACRO2, a gene likely derived from early mycorrhizae-like fungi, was transferred to early land plants and plays an important role in regulating stem cell growth and gametophore development in moss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smartphones have come a long way over the past 10 years—from containing a simple database of calendar entries and contacts to including a digital camera, digital compass, GPS, and thousands of apps available with the touch of a button on the screen. People like smartphones for many reasons, particularly because of their mobility, friendly user interface, large number of useful applications, interactive games, and higher bandwidth with the help of 3G networks. From a technical point of view, the fundamental reason behind the popularity of smartphones is that they are not only a communications device, but also provide a powerful sensing and computing platform. A growing number of computing tasks previously executed on PCs are now being performed on smartphones. Because of all this, smartphones are increasingly attracting attention from researchers, with research efforts in mobile media streaming, video retargeting, location-based systems, and mobile vision systems, among others. PositionIt, a mobile media-based remote target-localization and tracking system, is one part of a comprehensive system that uses networked smartphones to localize a remote target of interest by fusing data sensed by microphones, cameras, and other embedded sensors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]