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Liquidity injections by central banks have become frequent and massive, but their real effects on corporate investment remain unclear. We examine the longer-term refinancing operations (LTROs) of the European Central Bank (ECB) during the eurozone sovereign crisis and show that greater LTRO funding to banks is associated with lower corporate investment. Riskier banks received funds through the LTROs and subsequently increased their holdings of risky sovereign debt. Corporate investment reductions are associated with these banks. Further, concurrent fiscal and regulatory policies impeded the effectiveness of the ECB liquidity injections. Our findings identify the contributing factors for these failures of monetary policy. (JEL E52, E58, G32) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Purpose: To examine the safety profiles of salbutamol and levosalbutamol reported in the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Methods: Retrospective pharmacovigilance disproportionality analysis for drug-related ADRs reported in the FAERS database was performed from October 1, 2003 to March 31, 2020. The proportion of report ratio (PRR), proportional reporting ratio (PRR), and reporting odds ratio (ROR) were calculated and used for the determination of safety signals. The definition was based on system organ class (SOCs) and Standardized Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities Queries (SMQ) by the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA). Results: A total of 83,166 and 3,133 adverse event reports were identified for albuterol and levalbuterol, respectively, and were linked mainly with 12 SOCs, i.e., cardiac, vascular disorders, respiratory, thoracic, mediastinal disorders, and immune system disorders. The largest ROR among the 20 most frequent SMQs was asthma/bronchospasm for reports both in salbutamol group (ROR: 13.585, 95% CI: 13.254, 13.923) and levosalbutamol group (ROR: 16.225, 95% CI: 14.575, 18.063). Conclusion: Data mining of the FAERS may be considered a useful approach for identifying salbutamol and levosalbutamol-related adverse events, which might provide additional information to guide their use in clinical practice.

The rapid detection of microparticles exhibits a broad range of applications in the field of science and technology. The proposed method differentiates and identifies the 2 µm and 5 µm sized particles using a laser light scattering. The detection method is based on measuring forward light scattering from the particles and then classifying the acquired data using support vector machines. The device is composed of a microfluidic chip linked with photosensors and a laser device using optical fiber. Connecting the photosensors and laser device using optical fibers makes the device more diminutive in size and portable. The prepared sample containing microspheres was passed through the channel, and the surrounding photosensors measured the scattered light. The time-domain features were evaluated from the acquired scattered light, and then the SVM classifier was trained to distinguish the particle's data. The real-time detection of the particles was performed with an overall classification accuracy of 96.06%. The optimum conditions were evaluated to detect the particles with a minimum concentration of 0.2 µg/mL. The developed system is anticipated to be helpful in developing rapid testing devices for detecting pathogens ranging between 2 µm to 10 µm.

China’s stock market (the “A share market”) has a lower correlation with the global market and is less affected by international financial contagions than any other major economy. The inclusion of mainland China stocks into an international portfolio increases its Sharpe ratio. However, we find that Chinese stocks providing the most diversification benefits also carry the most policy risk for international investors. Holding Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong does not reap the same diversification benefits. While global market integration and the increase in foreign ownership can diminish diversification benefits, mainland China stocks still provide valuable diversification opportunities for international investors up till the most recent time in late 2010s.

The given research revealed that the size of Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) could be controlled by varying the pre-mixing conditions in the solvothermal method. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the size of the MNPs gradually increased with increasing the initial temperature at which reaction components were mixed while the reaction component’s mixing time was kept constant. The smallest sized MNPs were achieved among the five treatments (25, 50, 75, 100, and 125 °C) when reaction components were mixed at 25 °C, while the larger sized MNPs were synthesized among the five treatments when reaction components were mixed at 125 °C. Then, Stöber method was followed for coating silica layer onto the MNPs. However, ammonium hydroxide was replaced with potassium hydroxide as a catalyst, which significantly increased the speed of silica coating onto MNPs. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer revealed that the MNPs were successfully covered with silica in five minutes. FTIR spectra exhibited a peak about 1088.8 cm−1, which belonged to the asymmetry stretching vibration of Si–O–Si. Transmission electronic microscopy (TEM) analysis was conducted to confirm the presence of silica layer onto MNPs. Thus, potassium hydroxide was successfully employed as a catalyst for quick silica layer coating onto MNPs. Furthermore, these silica coated MNPs were used to extract high quality nucleic acids from blood sample.

We provide direct evidence that governments selectively default on debt when they can identify creditors. Analyzing a comprehensive data set of subnational debt, we show that Chinese local governments choose to default on banks with weaker political power. A reduction in a bank's political power relative to other banks increases the likelihood of selective default by local governments. Such default selections are driven by banks’ influence over politician promotion. When local politicians are highly ranked or connected to national leaders, they engage less in selective default as their promotion is less affected by bank loan defaults. Our findings suggest a politics-finance nexus through which government defaults are restrained.

Background Tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) is a disease characterized by systemic hamartomas(1). Multifocal micronodular pneumocyte hyperplasia is a pulmonary manifestation of tuberous sclerosis complex presenting as diffuse multiple small nodules(2). Sclerotic bone lesions are commonly observed in TSC and present as multiple osteosclerotic bone lesions(3). The coexistence of these two benign lesions is easy to misdiagnose as malignant tumors. Case presentation A patient presented with multiple pulmonary ground-glass nodules and osteosclerotic bone lesions found in CT. 18F-FDG PET/CT showed metastatic carcinoma or diffuse lung cancer with multiple bone metastases. She was diagnosed with diffuse lung cancer with multiple bone metastases at first but ultimately confirmed as TSC by genetic sequencing. Conclusions Although 18F-FDG PET/CT is playing an increasingly important role in tumor diagnosis, we still need to take the results dialectically. Doctors from multiple disciplines need to be sensitive to the nonspecific findings of TSC found on imaging, skin manifestations are the most intuitive diagnostic clues to the disease.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunist pathogen responsible for causing several infections in the human body, especially in patients with weak immune systems. The proposed approach reports a novel pathogens detection system based on cultivating microdroplets and acquiring the scattered light signals from the incubated droplets using a microfluidic device. Initially, the microdroplets were generated and incubated to cultivate bacteria inside the microdroplets. The second part of the microfluidic chip is the detection module, embedded with three optical fibers to connect laser light and photosensors. The incubated droplets were reinjected in the detection module and passed through the laser light. The surrounding photosensors were arranged symmetrically at 45° to the flowing channel for acquiring the scattered light signal. The noise was removed from the acquired data, and time-domain waveform features were evaluated. The acquired features were trained using machine learning classifiers to classify P. aeruginosa. The k-nearest neighbors (KNN) showed superior classification performance with 95.6 % accuracy among other classifiers, including logistic regression (LR), support vector machines (SVM), and naïve Bayes (NB). The proposed research was performed to validate the method for pathogens detection with a concentration of 10

We reported a case of tuberous sclerosis complex with facial angiofibroma as the initial presentation and conducted a multidisciplinary discussion. The patient, a young female, was admitted to the Department of Dermatology for cosmetic purpose. After the examination, she was found to have multiple system involvement, including a large renal angiomyolipoma pressing on the liver. She never had any subjective symptom. After consultation by the multidisciplinary team of tuberous sclerosis complex, the patient was treated with everolimus orally and followed up regularly. It is suggested that dermatologists should pay attention to the systemic involvement of patients with tuberous sclerosis complex. Early intervention can prolong the life of patients and improve their life quality. Multidisciplinary collaboration for lifelong disease management is the key to enhance the diagnosis and treatment for tuberous sclerosis complex and enhance the prognosis of patients.报告1例以面部血管纤维瘤为首发症状的结节性硬化症病例并进行多学科讨论。患者为年轻女性，以皮肤美容为目的就诊于皮肤科。完善辅助检查后发现该患者全身多器官受累，其中包括巨大的肾血管平滑肌脂肪瘤压迫肝脏。患者无任何自觉症状。经中南大学湘雅医院结节性硬化症多学科团队会诊后，给予患者口服依维莫司治疗，并定期随访。皮肤科医师需要关注以皮肤损害为首发症状的结节性硬化症患者全身各器官受累的情况，以早期治疗内脏病变，延长患者的生命，改善患者的生活质量。多学科协作对该病进行终身的疾病管理是提高结节性硬化症的诊治水平，改善患者预后的关键。.

Recently, with the intensification of employee suicides in well-known international companies such as Facebook and Pinduoduo, people are paying more and more attention to the violation of employee rights and interests. As an important embodiment of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of employees, the corporate social responsibility to employees has become one of the focuses of academic discussions. The aim of this article is to build a corporate social responsibility evaluation system for employees for Chinese clothing companies. As a representative of labor-intensive enterprises, enterprises in the cloth industry often need to rely on the strength of their employees to create value more than ordinary enterprises. Therefore, it is of practical significance to study the corporate social responsibility of employees in the cloth industry. In addition, China is an important exporting country of clothing in the world, and its market environment is different from that of developed countries. Research with Chinese enterprises as samples may lead to different conclusions. Finally, unlike general CSR, the evaluation of employee CSR needs to consider the importance of subjective and objective factors. At this time, the use of the catastrophe progression method can more accurately evaluate the weight of each factor. The result of our research on 100 Chinese clothing companies shows that enterprises with higher rankings in clothing industry will fulfill social responsibility to employees better. The use of the catastrophe progression method to evaluate corporate social responsibility to employees can reduce errors caused by subjective steps such as assigning weights in Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and improve the accuracy of evaluation.

In recent years, economic growth has caused an increasing number of environmental problems in China. In order to achieve the goal of carbon peak on schedule, enterprises need to accelerate green transformation and upgrading. Environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation are important means of corporate environmental governance strategy, but it is unknown whether they can promote the sustainable development of enterprises. Therefore, this article will analyze the effect of enterprise environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation on financial performance. Based on relevant theories, this study builds a theoretical model to demonstrate how enterprise environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation can affect the financial performance of heavy polluting enterprises. Empirical tests are carried out using 293 heavy polluting enterprises in China as the sample. The results reveal that: (i) Enterprise environmental protection expenditure has significant negative effects on current enterprise financial performance, while green technology innovation can significantly promote enterprise financial performance. (ii) When the lag period is two periods, the enterprise environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation have positive effects on enterprise financial performance respectively, and the effects are the most significant. (iii) Enterprise environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation synergistically promote enterprise financial performance in the current period, and the impact has a lag effect. (iv) In state-owned enterprises and enterprises with higher corporate governance level, the synergetic promotion effect of environmental protection expenditure and green technology innovation on enterprise financial performance is more significant. Finally, this study provides suggestions for promoting the transformation and upgrading of heavy polluting enterprises and achieving sustainable development from the perspectives of the government, enterprises and the public.

During the period of COVID-19 protection, Internet of Things (IoT) has been widely used to fight the outbreak of pandemic However, the security is a major issue of IoT In this research, a new algorithm knn-bp is proposed by combining BP neural network and KNN Knn-bp algorithm first predicts the collected sensor data After the forecast is completed, the results are filtered Compared with the data screened by traditional BP neural network, k-nearest-neighbor algorithm has good data stability in adjusting and supplementing outliers, and improves the accuracy of prediction model This method has the advantages of high efficiency and small mean square error The application of this method has certain reference value Knn-bp algorithm greatly improves the accuracy and efficiency of the Internet of things Internet of things network security is guaranteed It plays an indelible role in the protection of COVID-19 © 2020 - IOS Press and the authors All rights reserved

Lung cancer is the most common cancer and one of the main causes of cancer-related deaths, presenting in most cases as metastatic disease. Given the frequent gene mutation and/or signaling deregulation in lung adenocarcinoma, identifying novel factors or agents that target these signaling pathways may be promising strategies for lung adenocarcinoma therapy. Herein, we identified inhibitor of DNA binding 2 (ID2) as an aberrantly downregulated gene in lung adenocarcinoma. ID2 overexpression not only suppressed the viability, colony formation ability, and migration ability of lung adenocarcinoma cells but also decreased the protein levels of N-cadherin, MMP2, MMP9 and the phosphorylation levels of AKT and mTOR. The effects of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling agonist on lung adenocarcinoma cells were opposite to those of ID2 overexpression, partially reversing the effects of ID2 overexpression. In these experimental tissue samples, ID2 protein levels and mRNA expression were also down-regulated compared with those in adjacent non-cancerous tissues. Altogether, these findings indicated that ID2 exerts its tumor-suppressive effects on the malignant behavior of lung adenocarcinoma cells by inhibiting the activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Restoration of ID2 expression in lung adenocarcinoma cells may improve the therapeutic efficacy of lung adenocarcinoma therapies.

Enterprises should bear the main responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. Disclosing carbon emission information is one of the important ways for enterprises to deal with climate change. Taking China’s A-share listed companies from 2014 to 2018 as the research sample, we study the impact of external explicit institutional pressure and implicit institutional pressure on corporate carbon information disclosure and analyze the mediating effect of enterprise peer influence in carbon disclosure. The empirical results show that external institutional pressure, namely environmental regulation and Confucian culture, has a significant positive impact on enterprise carbon information disclosure. Enterprise peer influence has a certain mediating effect between external institutional pressure and carbon information disclosure. The government should formulate and improve the carbon information disclosure institution and strengthen external supervision through the joint participation of all sectors of society.

While credit default swaps (CDSs) can be used to hedge credit risk exposures or to speculate, we examine another use of them: banks buy CDS referencing their borrowers to obtain regulatory capital relief. Such capital relief activities have unintended consequences, as banks extend riskier loans when they buy CDS to boost capital ratios. While capital-induced CDS-user banks achieve higher profitability during normal times, they perform worse and request more government support in crisis periods than other banks that use CDS for trading or speculation. Our findings suggest that banks’ CDS trading for capital relief purposes may make these banks riskier.

Green bonds are bonds with a defined use of proceeds toward mitigating and adapting to climate change and solving environmental problems. Although the green bond market has expanded rapidly in recent years and has attracted great investment attention, whether investors can identify greenwashing behaviors remains a primary concern. This article takes advantage of the unique feature of the Chinese green bond market that allows a proportion of the proceeds to be used for non-green purposes. The authors find that greener bonds (more proceeds are used for green projects) are sold at a premium. This pricing differential is primarily driven by bonds whose proceeds are 100% used for green projects. The authors also show that green bonds verified by a third party have lower yield spreads and the effect is stronger for more reputable third parties. Overall, the results suggest that investors only reward fully green bonds and that investors can discern “greenwashing.” TOPICS:Portfolio theory, portfolio construction, ESG investing Key Findings • The authors measure greenness by the share of proceeds used for green purposes. • Within-sample comparisons show that there is a premium for greener bonds and the effects are concentrated in bonds that are 100% green. • Verified green bonds are sold at a premium, and the pricing differentials are more pronounced for more reputable verifiers.

To evaluate the carbon disclosure quality of China’s Shenzhen-Shanghai listed companies and its impact on investor protection, this paper constructs an evaluation index framework for carbon disclos...

This letter reports room-temperature electrically pumped narrow-linewidth GaN-on-Si laser diodes. Unlike conventional distributed Bragg feedback laser diodes with hundreds of gratings, we employed only a few precisely defined slot gratings to narrow the linewidth and mitigate the negative effects of grating fabrication on the device performance. The slot gratings were incorporated into the ridge of conventional Fabry-Pérot cavity laser diodes. A subsequent wet etching in a tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide solution not only effectively removed the damages induced by the dry etching, but also converted the rough and tilted slot sidewalls into smooth and vertical ones. As a result, the threshold current was reduced by over 20%, and the reverse leakage current was decreased by over three orders of magnitude. Therefore, the room-temperature electrically pumped narrow-linewidth GaN-on-Si laser diode has been successfully demonstrated.

Background: Lung cancer is the most common cancer and one of the main causes of cancer-related deaths, and it manifests as metastatic disease in most cases. Considering frequent gene mutation and/or signaling deregulation in lung adenocarcinoma, identifying novel factors or agents targeting these signaling pathways might be promising strategies for lung adenocarcinoma therapy. Methods: GEO datasets were analyzed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in lung adenocarcinoma. The specific effects of candidate gene overexpression or knockdown on lung adenocarcinoma cell phenotypes were examined. Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) are used to connect the genomic and functional information of DEGs. The dynamic effects of candidate gene and signaling pathway agonist on lung adenocarcinoma malignant behaviors were investigated. Finally, clinical lung adenocarcinoma and adjacent non-cancerous tissues were collected and the levels of candidate gene were examined in tissue samples.Results: Inhibitor of DNA binding 2 (ID2) was identified as an aberrantly downregulated gene in lung adenocarcinoma. ID2 overexpression suppressed lung adenocarcinoma cell viability, colony formation capacity, and migration. ID2 overexpression also reduced the protein levels of N-cadherin, MMP2, MMP9, and the phosphorylation of AKT and mTOR. The PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling agonist exerted opposite effects on lung adenocarcinoma cells to those of ID2 overexpression, and partially reversed the effects of ID2 overexpression. In tissue samples, ID2 protein levels and mRNA expression were also downregulated compared with those in adjacent non-cancerous tissues. Conclusion: ID2 exerts its tumor-suppressive effects on lung adenocarcinoma cell malignant behaviors through inhibiting the activation of the PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Restoring ID2 expression in lung adenocarcinoma cells might improve the curative effect of lung adenocarcinoma therapies.

The increasingly serious environmental problems, such as rising sea levels and heavy smog, have made environmental consciousness in society more urgent. The key issue is how to motivate firms to di...

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a newly identified type of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) that plays crucial roles in many cellular processes and human diseases, and are potential disease biomarkers and therapeutic targets in human diseases. However, experimentally verified circRNA-disease associations are very rare. Hence, developing an accurate and efficient method to predict the association between circRNA and disease may be beneficial to disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Here, we propose a computational method named KATZCPDA, which is based on the KATZ method and the integrations among circRNAs, proteins, and diseases to predict circRNA-disease associations. KATZCPDA not only verifies existing circRNA-disease associations but also predicts unknown associations. As demonstrated by leave-one-out and 10-fold cross-validation, KATZCPDA achieves AUC values of 0.959 and 0.958, respectively. The performance of KATZCPDA was substantially higher than those of previously developed network-based methods. To further demonstrate the effectiveness of KATZCPDA, we apply KATZCPDA to predict the associated circRNAs of Colorectal cancer, glioma, breast cancer, and Tuberculosis. The results illustrated that the predicted circRNA-disease associations could rank the top 10 of the experimentally verified associations.

Pengbo Deng, Chengping Hu, Zeng Xiong, Yuanyuan Li, Juan Jiang, Huaping Yang, Yongjun Tang, Liming Cao, Rongli Lu Department of Respiratory Medicine, Key Site of National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, China Purpose: Large-scale studies have revealed that appropriate antiangiogenic treatment enables the recovery of the normal structure and function of solid tumor vessels. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a natural extract of green tea, has multiple effects on angiogenesis. However, normalization of blood vessels due to natural ingredients has not yet been reported. Therefore, we examined the microvasculature, microenvironment, and efficacy of EGCG combined with chemotherapy in a xenograft model. Methods: We treated A549 cell (human lung adenocarcinoma cell line) xenograft-bearing nude mice with EGCG in vivo. CD31, αSMA, and collagen IV were labeled and detected using quantum-dot double-labeled immunofluorescence to measure microvessel density, microvessel pericyte-coverage index, and collagen IV expression. Vessel-perfusion function was determined by lectin injection, permeability by Evans blue extravasation, interstitial fluid pressure using the wick-in-needle technique, and hypoxia levels using a polarographic electrode and immunohistochemical pimonidazole labeling. Cisplatin concentration in tumor tissue was detected using graphite-furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Xenograft mice were randomized into five groups: treated with saline, cisplatin, EGCG, EGCG + cisplatin on day 1, or EGCG + cisplatin during the vascular normalization window. Tumor-growth delay and tumor-suppression rate were measured to evaluate tumor growth. Results: EGCG treatment in vivo caused temporary changes, including transient depression of microvessel density, microvessel pericyte-coverage index, and collagen IV expression, transient elevation of vessel perfusion and permeability, and decreased interstitial fluid pressure and hypoxia. During vascular normalization, pretreatment with EGCG increased cisplatin concentration in tumor tissue compared with treatment with cisplatin only. Tumor-growth delay after treatment in the five groups during the vascular normalization window was 6.3±1.51, 7.5±1.57, 8.3±1.79, 12.1±1.35, and 15.4±1.99 days, indicating synergistic EGCG–cisplatin effects, especially during the vascular normalization window (P