Search

As economic globalization deepens, academic attention has shifted from the pattern and spatial organization of global production to the important participants of globalization: workers. Existing studies pay much attention to the added value and profits from economic upgrading in the process of globalization. Few works examine the improvement of workers' employment quality and social participation level brought about by social upgrading. In particular, there is a shortage of research on the relationship between economic upgrading and social upgrading. To further explore the relationship and synchronous process between these two and provide policy implications to help promote the type of upgrading that benefits the majority of workers rather than a small number of enterprise owners, this study adopts the entropy value method to comprehensively compare the characteristics of economic and social upgrading in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in South China from 2006 to 2019. It uses the improved coupling coordination model to quantitatively measure the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree of economic and social upgrading, and analyzes the factors affecting the coupling coordination degree based on several panel data regression models. The results are as follows. First, the process of economic and social upgrading in the PRD from 2006 to 2019 shows a fluctuating upward trend overall. The global financial crisis and the local industrial transformation in the region are important factors affecting the process of economic and social upgrading. Second, the overall coupling degree of the economic and social upgrading in the PRD during 2006-2019 shows a U-shaped evolution, changing from a high-level coupling stage down to a running-in stage and then up to a high-level coupling stage. Third, from 2006 to 2019, the coupling coordination degree in the PRD shows an overall increasing trend. This period saw improved coordination between the economic upgrading system and the social upgrading system. Finally, the level of regional human capital, consumption demands, foreign investment, and public governance have positive effects on the degree of the coupling coordination of economic and social upgrading in the PRD, while environmental pollution has a negative effect. This study contributes to the existing literature on social upgrading by integrating economic and social upgrading into the framework of regional development and revealing the coupling and coordination relationship between economic and social upgrading. The results advance our understanding of the relationship between economic and social upgrading and explores the policy implications for promoting regional economic and social development. Enhancing workers' human capital, increasing consumption demands, attracting global capital, and strengthening public governance are likely to stimulate the role of economic upgrading in promoting social upgrading.

The focus on the concept of upgrading in the study of global production networks has expanded from economic upgrading to encompass social and environmental upgrading. However, rare research pays attention to the complex interplay among these three aspects. This paper tries to integrate the economic, social, and environmental upgrading into an analytical framework through the lens of coupling coordination. Using the Granger causality test and panel regression model, it provides empirical evidence and an explanation of the triad's interaction based on the Chinese case study. It is found that, over the past twenty-five years from 1996 to 2020, China has seen a significant improvement in the coupling coordination of economic, social, and environmental upgrading with the coordination degree rising from 0.35 to 0.51, though it remains at a low level of coordination. Regional disparities in economic upgrading are more pronounced than those in social and environmental upgrading, and the inter-group disparities between economic and environmental upgrading have widened following the economic crisis. Panel regression analysis shows that economic globalization, public governance, legal environment, and environmental regulation positively influence the coupling coordination of the three types of upgrading, while economic privatization and corporate violations of law tend to have a negative impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing the whole set of aneuploids, for one naturally evolved allopolyploid species, provides a unique opportunity to elucidate the transcriptomic response of the constituent subgenomes to serial aneuploidy. Previously, the whole set of monosomic alien addition lines (MAALs, C1-C9) with each of the nine C subgenome chromosomes, added to the extracted A subgenome, was developed in the context of the allotetraploid Brassica napus donor “Oro,” after the restitution of the ancestral B. rapa (RBR Oro) was realized. Herein, transcriptomic analysis using high-throughput technology was conducted to detect gene expression alterations in these MAALs and RBR. Compared to diploid RBR, the genes of all of the MAALs showed various degrees of dysregulated expressions that resulted from cis effects and more prevailing trans effects. In addition, the trans-effect on gene expression in MAALs increased with higher levels of homology between the recipient A subgenome and additional C subgenome chromosomes, instead of gene numbers of extra chromosomes. A total of 10 trans-effect dysregulated genes, among all pairwise comparisons, were mainly involved in the function of transporter activity. Furthermore, highly expressed genes were more prone to downregulation and vice-versa, suggesting a common trend for transcriptional pattern responses to aneuploidy. These results provided a comprehensive insight of the impact of gene expression of individual chromosomes, in one subgenome, on another intact subgenome for one allopolyploid with a long evolutionary history.

SUMMARY: Sinapis alba and Sinapis arvensis are mustard crops within the Brassiceae tribe of the Brassicaceae family, and represent an important genetic resource for crop improvement. We performed the de novo assembly of Brassica nigra, S. alba, and S. arvensis, and conducted comparative genomics to investigate the pattern of genomic evolution since an ancient whole‐genome triplication event. Both Sinapis species retained evidence of the Brassiceae whole‐genome triplication approximately 20.5 million years ago (Mya), with subgenome dominance observed in gene density, gene expression, and selective constraint. While S. alba diverged from the ancestor of Brassica and Raphanus at approximately 12.5 Mya, the divergence time of S. arvensis and B. nigra was approximately 6.5 Mya. S. arvensis and B. nigra had greater collinearity compared with their relationship to either Brassica rapa or Brassica oleracea. Two chromosomes of S. alba (Sal03 and Sal08) were completely collinear with two ancestral chromosomes proposed in the Ancestral Crucifer Karyotype (ACK) genomic block model, the first time this has been observed in the Brassiceae. These results are consistent with S. alba representing a relatively ancient lineage of the species evolved from the common ancestor of tribe Brassiceae, and suggest that the phylogeny of the Brassica and Sinapis genera requires some revision. Our study provides new insights into the genome evolution and phylogenetic relationships of Brassiceae and provides genomic information for genetic improvement of these plants. Significance Statement: The genomes of Brassica and Sinapis share evidence of the ancestral whole‐genome triplication event that distinguishes tribe Brassiceae from other lineages within the family Brassicaceae. This is validated through high‐quality genome assemblies of Brassica nigra, Sinapis alba and Sinapis arvensis that also reveal that Sinapis may represent the more ancient lineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A novel lanthanide metal-organic framework (MOF), (bpy) [Eu (ip)1.5(H2O)4] (bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine, ip=isophthalate) (1) has been synthesized via hydrothermal method. Single-crystal X-ray analysis reveals that the three-dimensional (3D) network is formed by one-dimensional (1D) chains through hydrogen bonds. The channel regions of the framework are host to neutral 4,4′-bipyridine molecules which serve as guest-templates. These 4,4′-bipyridine molecules do not coordinate to the metal centers but rather show hydrogen bond participation with metal-bound water molecules. The emission spectra show that 1 emits intense sharp red light when it is excited by different wavelength light of the absorption band. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]