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It is important of tax burden stickiness to reveal the special phenomena that the operating conditions of enterprises are not synchronised with the changes of tax burden, but research on overall tax burden stickiness in emerging markets is relatively scarce. This study aims to investigate the suppressing effect of R&D investment on overall tax avoidance and overall tax burden stickiness of Chinese listed companies. We obtain the following conclusions: (1) Overall tax burden stickiness exists among listed Chinese companies. (2) Chinese listed companies have generally significant overall tax avoidance. (3) Overall tax avoidance has a significant positive direct effect, alleviating overall tax burden stickiness, but R&D investment partially offsets the positive influence of overall tax avoidance on overall tax burden stickiness, and the suppressing effect reaches 0.007. Our results illustrate that the implementation of tax planning for R&D projects can reduce R&D investment, so overall tax avoidance will deteriorate overall tax burden stickiness through R&D investment. Therefore, to improve resource utilisation efficiency and tax burden sensitivity to changes in revenue, tax planning should strike a balance between an effective reduction of R&D investment and alleviating tax burden stickiness as operating conditions fluctuate to achieve maximum tax benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the wafer size increases, dual frequency (DF) inductively coupled plasma (ICP) sources have been proposed as an effective method to achieve large-area uniform plasma processing. A twodimensional (2D) self-consistent fluid model, combined with an electromagnetic module, has been employed to investigate the influence of the low frequency (LF) source on the plasma radial uniformity in an argon DF discharge. When the DF antenna current is fixed at 10 A, the bulk plasma density decreases significantly with the LF due to the less efficient heating, and the best radial uniformity is obtained at 3.39MHz. As the LF decreases to 2.26 MHz, the plasma density is characterized by an edge-high profile, and meanwhile the maximum of the electron temperature appears below the outer two-turn coil. Moreover, the axial ion flux at 3.39MHz is rather uniform in the center region except at the radial edge of the substrate, where a higher ion flux is observed. When the inner five-turn coil frequency is fixed at 2.26 MHz, the plasma density profiles shift from edge-high over uniform to center-high as the LF coil current increases from 6A to 18 A, and the best plasma uniformity is obtained at 14 A. In addition, the maximum of the electron temperature becomes lower with a second peak appears at the radial position of r=9 cm at 18A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic, a curative agent for acute promyelocytic leukemia, induces cell apoptosis and degradation of BCR-ABL in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). We demonstrated that ubiquitination and degradation of BCR-ABL was mediated by c-CBL a RING-type E3 ligase that was also shown to be involved in ubiquitination for many other receptor/protein tyrosine kinases. Our data showed that c-CBL protein was considerably up-regulated by arsenic sulfide (As454). Interestingly, arsenic directly bound the RING finger domain of c-CBL to inhibit its self-ubiquitination/degradation without interfering with the enhancement of ubiquitination and subsequent proteolysis of its substrate BCR-ABL. Degradation of BCR-ABL due to c-CBL induction as a result of arsenic treatment was also observed in vivo in CML mice. These findings provide insight into the molecular mechanisms of arsenic and further support its therapeutic applications in CML in combination with tyrosine kinase inhibitors and potentially also in other malignancies involving aberrant receptor/protein tyrosine kinase signaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planar radio frequency inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) are employed for low-voltage ion implantation processes, with capacitive pulse biasing of the substrate for modulation of the ion energy. In this work, a two-dimensional (2D) self-consistent fluid model has been employed to investigate the influence of the pulsed bias power on the nitrogen plasmas for various bias voltages and pulse frequencies. The results indicate that the plasma density as well as the inductive power density increase significantly when the bias voltage varies from 0 V to 4000 V, due to the heating of the capacitive field caused by the bias power. The fraction increases rapidly to a maximum at the beginning of the power-on time, and then it decreases and reaches the steady state at the end of the glow period. Moreover, it increases with the bias voltage during the power-on time, whereas the fraction exhibits a reverse behavior. When the pulse frequency increases to 25 kHz and 40 kHz, the plasma steady state cannot be obtained, and a rapid decrease of the ion density at the substrate surface at the beginning of the glow period is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continuous phase plate (CPP), which has a function of beam shaping in laser systems, is one kind of important diffractive optics. Based on the Fourier transform of the Gerchberg–Saxton (G–S) algorithm for designing CPP, we proposed an optical diffraction method according to the real system conditions. A thin lens can complete the Fourier transform of the input signal and the inverse propagation of light can be implemented in a program. Using both of the two functions can realize the iteration process to calculate the near-field distribution of light and the far-field repeatedly, which is similar to the G–S algorithm. The results show that using the optical diffraction method can design a CPP for a complicated laser system, and make the CPP have abilities of beam shaping and phase compensation for the phase aberration of the system. The method can improve the adaptation of the phase plate in systems with phase aberrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the chloride diffusivity of concrete subjected to long-term exposure in a simulated marine environment with sustained compressive loading for up to 224 days. A series of concrete prisms were loaded under five different compressive stress levels (0, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7fc) and were subjected to different numbers (4, 8, 12, and 16) of wet/dry seawater exposure cycles. At the end of each exposure period, the concrete specimens were analyzed to determine their chloride penetration profile, the apparent chloride diffusion coefficient Da of the concrete, and the surface chloride content Cs. It was found that the Da and Cs values are both time and stress dependent and that these two dependencies have complex interactions. The value of Da decreases with time due to the hydration of the cement matrix, whereas the value of Cs increases over time. The effects of compressive stress on the values of Da and Cs strongly depend upon the applied stress level, which has a threshold value at approximately 30% of the ultimate compressive strength. Below this threshold, the value Cs remains constant; after this threshold, Cs increases linearly as the applied stress increases. Below the threshold, the value of Da decreases marginally as the stress level increases. However, above the threshold, Da increases rapidly with the stress level as a result of microcracking. Through regression of the chloride penetration profiles, empirical models are proposed to quantify the dependence of Da and Cs on the exposure time and stress level. The validity of these models is evaluated through comparisons with test results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete mitochondrial genomes of Leptidea morsei Fenton (Lepidoptera: Pieridae: Dismorphiinae) and Catopsilia pomona (F.) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae: Coliadinae) were determined to be 15,122 and 15,142 bp in length, respectively, with that of L. morsei being the smallest among all known butterflies. Both mitogenomes contained 37 genes and an A+T-rich region, with the gene order identical to those of other butterflies, except for the presence of a tRNA-like insertion, tRNALeu (UUR), in C. pomona. The nucleotide compositions of both genomes were higher in A and T (80.2% for L. morsei and 81.3% for C. pomona) than C and G; the A+T bias had a significant effect on the codon usage and the amino acid composition. The protein-coding genes utilized the standard mitochondrial start codon ATN, except the COI gene using CGA as the initiation codon, as reported in other butterflies. The intergenic spacer sequence between the tRNAser (UCN) and ND1 genes contained the ATACTAA motif. The A+T-rich region harbored a poly-T stretch and a conserved ATAGA motif located at the end of the region. In addition, there was a triplicated 23 bp repeat and a microsatellite-like (TA)9(AT)3 element in the A+T-rich region of the L. morsei mitogenome, while in C. pomona, there was a duplicated 24 bp repeat element and a microsatellite-like (TA)9 element. The phylogenetic trees of the main butterfly lineages (Hesperiidae, Papilionidae, Pieridae, Nymphalidae, Lycaenidae, and Riodinidae) were reconstructed with maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods based on the 13 concatenated nucleotide sequences of protein-coding genes, and both trees showed that the Pieridae family is sister to Lycaenidae. Although this result contradicts the traditional morphologically based views, it agrees with other recent studies based on mitochondrial genomic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the vaginal microbiome throughout full-term uncomplicated pregnancy, a longitudinal study was designed for 12 healthy women who had prepared to become pregnant and then delivered at term (38-42 weeks) without complications. The vaginal microbial community was studied at pre-pregnancy, 8-12, 24-28, 37-38 weeks of gestation, and puerperium, using hypervariable tag sequencing of the V3-V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene. Sequencing produced approximately 10 million reads on the Illumina MiSeq. Members of the Firmicutes phyla were prevailing before and during pregnancy periods, and the proportion was quite as Proteobacteria until puerperium. Lactobacillus genus was abundant before and during pregnancy, but post-delivery vaginal microflora variety turned diverse. The species-level analysis revealed that a healthy vaginal microbiome before or during pregnancy was prominently dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus. Furthermore, PCoA analysis revealed for differences in the bacterial community composition between the two levels of Lactobacillus species in pre-pregnancy and pregnancy period (PC1 contribution of 58.46%, PC3 contribution of 8.64%). Based on the taxonomic and PCoA analysis, we found that L. crispatus was dominant in the vaginal microflora of healthy women before or during pregnancy, but at the puerperium, the status changed leading to decreased abundance of protective Lactobacillus species that made vaginal micro-ecological barrier vulnerable to diseases. Additionally, vaginal pH was an important environmental property affecting the vaginal microbial community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driven diffusive systems are important models in nonequilibrium state statistical mechanics. This paper studies an asymmetric exclusion process model with nearest rear neighbor interactions associated with energy. The exact flux expression of the model is obtained by a cluster mean-field method. Based on the flux expression, the properties of the fundamental diagram have been investigated in detail. To probe the energy's influence on the coarsening process of the system, Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to acquire the monotonic phase boundary in energy-density space. Above the phase boundary, the system is inhomogeneous and the normalized residence distribution p(s) is nonmonotonically decreasing. Under the phase boundary, the system is homogeneous and p(s) is monotonically decreasing. Further study comparatively shows that the system has turned into a microscopic inhomogeneous state from a homogeneous state before the system current arrives at maximum, if nearest rear neighbor interactions are strong. Our findings offer insights to deeply understand the dynamic features of nonequilibrium state systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:To investigate the association of NFKB1 -94 ins/del ATTG, NFKBIA -826C>T and NFKBIA -881A>G polymorphisms with risk of lung cancer in a Chinese population. Methods:Genotyping of the polymorphisms were performed on 1,436 subjects (718 cases and 718 controls) by using PCR-RFLP technique, followed by DNA sequencing. Results:We found a significant risk reduction associated with heterozygous ins/del (OR=0.705, 95% CI=0.566-0.878, P=0.002) and variant del/del (OR=0.342, 95% CI=0.221-0.528, P<0.001) genotypes of the NFKB1 polymorphism. In contrast, the heterozygous and variantgenotypes of theNFKBIA polymorphisms showed association with increased lung cancer risk (NFKBIA -826 CT,OR=1.256, 95%CI=1.004-1.572, P=0.046; TT,OR=1.773, 95% CI=1.131-2.778, P=0.013; NFKBIA -881 AG,OR=1.277, 95% CI=1.023-1.599, P=0.031; GG,OR=1.801, 95% CI=1.169-2.775, P=0.008). Several genotypic combinations of the three polymorphisms also showed significant association with lung cancer risk. The risk association of NFKB1 polymorphism remained significant when analyses were done according to gender and smoking status (P<0.05). The significance of NFKBIA risk association was not observed when gender-specific analyses were made (P>0.05), while only NFKBIA -881 GG genotype showed significant risk association among smokers when analyzed according to smoking status (P=0.032). Conclusions: Polymorphisms in NFKB1 and NFKBIAgenes were associated with risk of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]