Search

Abstract Ischemic diseases are major contributors to global morbidity and mortality, posing a substantial threat to human health. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play an essential role in enhancing neovascularization in ischemic tissues, thereby facilitating tissue repair and regeneration. However, the utilization of EVs is hindered by their rapid uptake and clearance by the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS), which markedly impedes their therapeutic efficacy and organ-specific accumulation. Notably, CD47, upon binding to signal regulatory protein alpha, initiates a “don’t eat me” signal, enabling immune evasion from the MPS. Our research has demonstrated that phagocytes predominantly engulf CD47low dendritic DC2.4 cell-derived EVs (DV), while engineered CD47high EVs (MV47) experience minimal ingestion. Leveraging these findings, we have developed a dual-faceted “Engage & Evasion” strategy. Initially, DVs were employed to saturate the MPS, serving as the “engage” component. Subsequently, MV47, fortified with CD47, was introduced for “evasion” purposes. This approach effectively minimized entrapment by the liver and spleen, boosted serum concentration, and enhanced final accumulation in non-MPS organs. In summary, our “Engage & Evasion” therapeutic strategy offers a promising avenue to enhance EV therapeutic potential against ischemic challenges through improved systemic distribution.

The construction of a food certification system plays a vital role in upgrading export quality, which previous studies have largely overlooked. We match China's industry-level data of Green Food Certification with its HS6-digit export data of agri-food products to quantify the impact of Green Food Certification on export quality. We identify the significant and positive effect of Green Food Certification on export quality. The 2SLS estimation based on instrumental variables and a range of robustness checks confirm the validity and robustness of the benchmark conclusions. Further analysis discloses that Green Food Certification improves export quality by raising agricultural production efficiency and brand premiums. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect of Green Food Certification varies across regions, notably improving the quality of agri-food products exported to developed regions and regions with high levels of import supervision. Furthermore, among various product types, Green Food Certification significantly improves the export quality of primary products and products vulnerable to non-tariff measures. The above findings could guide the future development of agri-food quality certification systems, potentially leading to a transformation and promotion of the agri-food trade.

The focus of world governance on climate change has been on the industrial and transport sectors, yet the agricultural sector produces a lot of greenhouse gases, and this has always been ignored. This paper focuses on China, one of the world’s largest agricultural countries, and it investigates its agriculture carbon emission from a new perspective of the internal structure of it, which is relatively under-researched. Carbon metrology, the emission factor method and kernel density estimations are used to analyze China’s agricultural carbon emissions structure and its regional differences and its dynamic evolution characteristics. We find that: (1) China’s total amount of agricultural carbon emissions showed a ladder-like upward trend, but the growth rate of it has gradually slowed down; the inter-provincial heterogeneity of the agricultural carbon emissions was obvious. (2) From the standpoint of the grain functional areas, the annual total amount of agricultural carbon emissions and the amount of carbon emissions of each carbon source in the major grain producing areas were significantly higher than those in the major grain sales areas and the production–sales balance areas, and the carbon emission intensity in the major grain producing areas was the lowest overall. (3) In regard to the internal structure, China’s agricultural carbon emissions mainly came from the livestock and poultry, rice planting and agricultural energy sectors; the proportion of carbon emissions that were caused by the agricultural materials, agricultural energy and soil increased in general, and the inter-provincial differences between them expanded, while the inter-provincial differences between livestock and poultry gradually decreased. The proportion of carbon emissions from the six major agricultural carbon sources showed a convergence trend, and their kernel density had a right tail phenomenon. Our research deepens the understanding of China’s agricultural carbon emission structure, contributes to the rational optimization of the agricultural structure, and helps the agriculture sector and the rural areas to reach the carbon peak.

Poverty is one of the emerging problems being discussed and debated in various developed and developing countries including Pakistan. This study investigates influencing factors of poverty in Pakistan and discusses the theoretical linkages between poverty and its main macroeconomic variables. For this Johansen co-integration technique has been applied with multi diagnostics tests. The macroeconomic variables taken in this study are agricultural ratio to GDP, ratio of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to GDP, ratio of the primary education, ratio of the domestic credit to private sector and military expenditure as percentage of GDP. Results of the study show that all these variables have significant effect on poverty. In the case of agricultural ratio to GDP, an increase in agricultural output leads to decrease poverty. Education enrollment also has significant negative impact on poverty in long run. It helps in reducing poverty and improving the socio economic status of both the individuals as well as the society. Domestic credit has also significant negative impact on poverty but military expenditure has significant positive impact on poverty in Pakistan.