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ABSTRACTOne essential question in the literature on trade governance concerns the relationship between state and non-state actors. This paper addresses the question by focusing on how the Chinese state deploys a strategy of cooperative control to govern cross-border trade with Myanmar. We identify three terrains of trade affairs – traffic flows, cross-border payment and anti-smuggling – which correspond to three modes of governance – active cooperation, acquiescence and compromise. It is found that the more the Chinese state cooperates to facilitate cross-border trade with Myanmar, the harder its unilateral crackdown on smuggling, showing the coordinative and coercive nature of state power to selectively cooperate with other actors. In the domain of cross-border trade, the Chinese state exercises cooperative control to forge network governance not in response to market dysfunction and state failure, but to overcome structural conditions brought by the territorial border between China and Myanmar. By analysing cooperative control at the border, this paper’s contribution is to overcome the government versus governance dualism, and shed light on innovative strategies in spatial and administrative orchestration aiming to facilitate legal trade and deter illegal trade at the border.

ABSTRACTPostmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP) is a chronic bone metabolic disease, which often causes fractures and various complications, it causes a great social and economic burden, and it is urgent to use modern research techniques to elucidate the pathogenesis of PMOP. At the same time, because of the complex physiological and pathological interaction mechanism between osteoporosis and sarcopenia, the correlation research has become a hot topic. Ovary removal is a commonly used experimental method to study the endocrine system of female animals, and it is also the best animal model to study PMOP. In this study, the preparation of the ovariectomized rat was confirmed through the detection of vaginal smear, the level of bone formation markers, and the analysis of bone tissue morphology. Transcriptome sequencing was used to analyze the molecular mechanism of PMOP in ovariectomized rats, qRT-PCR was used to verify the key targets. Results of Micro-CT and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the trabecular structure was disorganized and the symptoms of osteoporosis appeared, this indicating that the ovariectomized rats model was successfully prepared. Transcriptional sequencing results of femur tissue showed that 452 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened. Bioinformatics analysis results showed that the osteoporosis caused by ovariectomized rats was mainly related to muscle contraction, calcium signaling pathway, etc. Results of qRT-PCR were consistent with transcriptome analysis. These results reveal the pathogenesis of PMOP in ovariectomized rats and also offer a possibility for elucidating the relevance of action between PMOP and sarcopenia.

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•Conduct an urban planning perspective on enhancing electric vehicle (ev) adoption in Beijing.•Urban conditions and travel patterns drive electric vehicle preferences, influenced by factors like green space access, high-rises, parking, loans, commute time, and housing ownership.•Urban and suburban residents show variations in willingness and influencing factors.•Certain variables mediate and moderate EV preferences, highlighting complexity.•Study provides strategies for policymakers and urban planners to promote widespread EV adoption and sustainable transportation.

ABSTRACTThirty-seven years since reform and opening up, China has sustained rapid economic growth and urbanization. However, there was inadequate protection of natural, historical, and cultural heritage, especially in the past 17 years, which led to the outcome that urban and rural construction lacked features. To rebuild our urban features during urbanization, and avoid destroying them, we should probe into the reason of lacking features and how to protect them. Therefore, taking Jinan City as an example, this paper explored the crisis and its causes of urban characteristics during the period of rapid urbanization based on discussing roles of spring features, including economic effects, social effects, ecological effects and so on. What is more, this paper listed and analyzed those protection measures taken by Jinan. The results showed that spring groups spewed again and kept for 8 years through those measures, which meant that urban characteristics restored. Thus, Jinan City provides successful and significant reference for other cities in restoring urban features during urbanization construction. Also, the author deemed that cities could recollect their urban features as long as they take reasonable measures.

A highly selective and sensitive fluorescence detection platform based on nitrogen doped carbon dots (N-CDs) is developed for the first time for the determination of apigenin (Api) in celery. N-CDs were obtained by one-step hydrothermal treatment of sunflower seeds. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-vis absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy were used to characterize the resultant N-CDs. The presence of Api could lead to the obvious fluorescence quenching. The possible fluorescence quenching mechanism was verified to be a dynamic quenching mechanism. The proposed sensing platform was successfully used to detect Api and exhibited high sensitivity and selectivity. The linearity ranged from 0.1 to 60 μmol L−1with a detection limit (3σ) of 80 nM. The recovery of this assay was in the range of 90.67–109.02%. Moreover, possessing fascinating luminescence properties, low toxicity and good biocompatibility, the resultant N-CDs have displayed potential applications in cell imaging.

An easy, simple and selective colorimetric method for aluminum ions has been developed using 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid functionalized gold nanoparticles (MUA–AuNPs). The MUA–AuNPs could be induced to aggregate in the presence of Al3+ions according to the chelation effect between the carboxyl group and Al3+, and a color change from red to purple with increasing Al3+ion concentration was observed. The plasmon absorbance of the MUA–AuNPs allows the quantitative detection of Al3+ions. A sensitive linear correlation existed between the ratio of absorbance at 650 nm to that at 520 nm and the Al3+ion concentration ranging from 10−6M to 10−4M. The detection limit was 5.7 × 10−7M, which is below the maximum recommended contamination level of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the aluminum content (7.4 μM) in drinking water. The MUA–AuNPs chelated with Al3+showed excellent selectivity in the presence of EDTA compared to other metal ions (Ag+, Ba2+, Ca2+, Cd2+, Cr3+, Cu2+, Fe2+, Hg2+, Mg2+, Mn2+, Ni2+, Pb2+and Zn2+). The proposed method can offer the additional advantage of the efficient determination of Al3+ions in drinking water, and the recovery was in the range of 98.5–101.6% with a relative standard deviation below 2%.

With the urban expansion and economic restructuring, the jobs-housing relationship has become an important issue in studies on urban spatial structure. This paper employed a job accessibility model, which is an evaluation instrument to measure the jobs-housing relationship in Beijing Metropolitan Area from a job accessibility perspective. The results indicate that the population in the central city is declining, whereas the population in the suburbs is consistently growing and forming new population centers. However, the distribution pattern of employment is still highly centralized. Job accessibility varies in different locations, but the inner-city areas (within the Third Ring road) have seen improved job accessibility over time while job accessibility in the suburbs (especially outside the Fourth Ring road) has decreased, and this has led it to become a primary area of residential and employment mismatch. At the same time, the new towns in the outer suburbs have not yet demonstrated great potential to attract more jobs. In addition we find that, to some extent, urban planning changes the jobs-housing relationship, but a polycentric urban spatial structure is not yet evident. The floating population and related housing policy also affect the jobs-housing relationship. We propose some measures to resolve the spatial mismatch as well as some future research directions.

microRNA is necessary for osteoclast differentiation, function and survival. It has been reported that miR-199/214 cluster plays important roles in vertebrate skeletal development and miR-214 inhibits osteoblast function by targeting ATF4. Here, we show that miR-214 is up-regulated during osteoclastogenesis from bone marrow monocytes (BMMs) with macrophage colony stimulating factor (M-CSF) and receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL) induction, which indicates that miR-214 plays a critical role in osteoclast differentiation. Overexpression of miR-214 in BMMs promotes osteoclastogenesis, whereas inhibition of miR-214 attenuates it. We further find that miR-214 functions through PI3K/Akt pathway by targeting phosphatase and tensin homolog (Pten). In vivo, osteoclast specific miR-214 transgenic mice (OC-TG214) exhibit down-regulated Pten levels, increased osteoclast activity, and reduced bone mineral density. These results reveal a crucial role of miR-214 in the differentiation of osteoclasts, which will provide a potential therapeutic target for osteoporosis.

Aptamers have been used as molecular recognition elements for sensor development in combination with graphene oxide (GO), a nanomaterial with properties including fluorescence quenching, and selective adsorption of single-stranded nucleic acids. However, previous sensor designs based on aptamer-GO adsorption have not demonstrated wide applicability, and few studies have explored the potential of RNA aptamers. Herein, we present a new sensing strategy based on “regulated” GO adsorption that can accommodate various RNA aptamers. First, adsorption of a fluorophore-labeled RNA aptamer to GO results in fluorescence quenching due to close proximity of the fluorophore to GO. The addition of a complementary, “blocking” DNA strand (BDNA) that hybridizes to the 3′-end of the aptamer, weakens aptamer-GO interaction, and enables increased fluorescent signal generation upon the addition of target, as the sensing system becomes completely separated from GO. Our findings can be applied toward different aptamers, and adapted to enhance generality of existing sensing applications.

We report a versatile biosensing platform capable of achieving ultrasensitive detection of both small-molecule and macromolecular targets. The system features three components: reduced graphene oxide for its ability to adsorb single-stranded DNA molecules nonspecifically, DNA aptamers for their ability to bind reduced graphene oxide but undergo target-induced conformational changes that facilitate their release from the reduced graphene oxide surface, and rolling circle amplification (RCA) for its ability to amplify a primer-template recognition event into repetitive sequence units that can be easily detected. The key to the design is the tagging of a short primer to an aptamer sequence, which results in a small DNA probe that allows for both effective probe adsorption onto the reduced graphene oxide surface to mask the primer domain in the absence of the target, as well as efficient probe release in the presence of the target to make the primer available for template binding and RCA. We also made an observation that the circular template, which on its own does not cause a detectable level of probe release from the reduced graphene oxide, augments target-induced probe release. The synergistic release of DNA probes is interpreted to be a contributing factor for the high detection sensitivity. The broad utility of the platform is illustrated though engineering three different sensors that are capable of achieving ultrasensitive detection of a protein target, a DNA sequence and a small-molecule analyte. We envision that the approach described herein will find useful applications in the biological, medical, and environmental fields.

Two economic geographers analyze the unprecedented growth of China’s information and communication technology (ICT) industry over the past decade (2000–2010)—an industry increasingly important as a new engine powering exports and providing infrastructure and services critical to sustaining economic growth. Using agglomeration and inequality indices including the Herfindahl and the Gini, the authors show that the geographic concentration of ICT activities has decreased over time, in tandem with a decline in their regional inequality; however, a new ICT development index (IDI) designed for this study reveals a significant and persistent gap in ICT development between the country’s advancing and lagging provinces. The paper also explores a range of factors contributing to “leapfrog” ICT growth in some provinces, as well as the challenges likely to be faced by the industry in the future. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L630, L960, O180, O330. 2 figures, 4 tables, 85 references, 1 appendix.

We have successfully generated and characterized a stable packaging cell line for HIV-1-based vectors. To allow safe production of vector, a minimal packaging construct carrying only the coding sequences of the HIV-1 gag-pol, tat, and rev genes was stably introduced into 293G cells under the control of a Teto minimal promoter. 293G cells express the chimeric TetR/VP16 trans-activator and contain a tetracycline-regulated vesicular stomatitis virus protein G (VSV-G) envelope gene. When the cells were grown in the presence of tetracycline the expression of both HIV-1-derived and VSV-derived packaging functions was suppressed. On induction, approximately 50 ng/ml/24 hr of Gag p24 equivalent of vector was obtained. After introduction of the transfer vector by serial infection, vector could be collected for several days with a transduction efficiency similar or superior to that of vector produced by transient transfection both for dividing and growth-arrested cells. The vector could be effectively concentrated to titers reaching 109 transducing units/ml and allowed for efficient delivery and stable expression of a GFP transgene in the mouse brain. The packaging cell line and all vector producer clones described here were shown to be free from replication-competent recombinants, and from recombinants between packaging and vector constructs that transfer the viral gag-pol genes. The packaging cell line and the assays developed will advance lentiviral vectors toward the stringent requirements of clinical applications.