Sustainable grain production growth of farmland-A role of agricultural socialized services.

The main aim of this study is to examine the evolving landscape of agricultural socialized services and their impact on the consistent growth of grain production in China. Using panel data from 2007 to 2020, we employ the Entropy Method to gauge the dynamic changes in agricultural socialized services that have contributed to the steady increase in grain production. The research methods include static panel, mediator, and threshold regression models to investigate the effects and mechanisms underpinning the improvement of agricultural socialized services on grain production growth. The empirical findings demonstrate a significantly positive correlation between enhanced agricultural socialized services, such as means of production services, sci-tech information services, and social public services, and increased grain production. This positive impact persists even with limited grain production resources. A mediating effect was identified, whereby agricultural socialized services indirectly stimulate grain production growth by encouraging large-scale agricultural land management. Furthermore, threshold analysis indicates the presence of a single threshold effect linked to the level of agricultural socialization services. This threshold effect plays a pivotal role in the relationship between large-scale agricultural management and steady grain production growth. The study suggests an enhancement of agricultural socialized services can promote sustained growth in grain production.

Sustainable tourism development for traditional Chinese drama's intangible cultural heritage.

This study establishes an expert-driven evaluation system to assess the sustainable tourism development of drama-related intangible cultural heritage in China. Utilizing the Saaty 1-9 scale and hierarchical analysis method, 52 experts determined indicator weights and current development levels. Four dimensions are evaluated: humanistic value, project quality, tourism development, and sustainability. Results reveal humanistic value as most vital at 41.70 % weight. Secondary factors are project quality (29.89 %), tourism development (20.87 %), and sustainability (7.54 %). Aesthetic value, dissemination degree, and location conditions proved to the crucial tourism indicators. The ideological value of drama is paramount, alongside visibility and climate factors. The evaluation demonstrated strong preservation of humanistic value but deficiencies in tourism development, especially regarding infrastructure. Key recommendations include balancing preservation, dissemination, and innovation; emphasizing ideological value, visibility, and climate suitability; maintaining humanistic diversity; and improving site infrastructure. Further testing of evaluation indicators across periods is warranted alongside examining green revitalization potential. This assessment, guided by experts, offers a thorough framework for the sustainable development and preservation of the precious intangible heritage embodied in Chinese drama.

Management of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia During Pregnancy: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during pregnancy necessitates treatment with high-dose chemotherapy, which can threaten the lives of both the mother and fetus. The aim of the treatment not only focuses on selecting and administering optimal chemotherapy with appropriate doses to the mother but also reflects the crucial understanding of the fetal gestational age at the time of administration of chemotherapy to minimize fetal exposure. We describe the case of a 19-year-old patient diagnosed with ALL at 29 weeks gestation. She received treatment in the third trimester with the Berlin-Frankfurt-Munster (BFM) 2000 induction chemotherapy protocol consisting of a combination of daunorubicin, vincristine, pegaspargase, prednisolone, and intrathecal (IT) methotrexate and gave birth to a healthy baby girl via vaginal delivery four weeks after initiating the induction of chemotherapy.

Decoupling livestock and poultry pollution emissions from industrial development: A step towards reducing environmental emissions.

China has implemented policies like Leading areas for Agricultural Green Development (LAGD) to mitigate livestock and poultry farming pollution while promoting industry growth. However, it remains uncertain whether LAGDs have successfully balanced emission reduction with stable development. This study examines 165 LAGDs to analyze changes in emissions, assess the decoupling of emission reduction from output value, and identify influencing factors. Findings reveal that emissions from livestock and poultry in LAGDs initially increased and then decreased between 2010 and 2019. Cattle were responsible for over 40% of fecal emissions, and pigs for more than 20%. Additionally, pigs contributed to over 61% of urine emissions. From 2010 to 2014, increases in chemical oxygen demand were mainly due to pigs and cattle. Total nitrogen levels were significantly impacted by cattle, while pigs were affected by total phosphorus. From 2014 to 2019, reductions in emissions were largely attributed to a decrease in pig-related pollutants. The decoupling status shifted from strong to weak and then back to strong between 2014 and 2019. Production efficiency played a crucial role in reducing emissions, while changes in industrial structure moved from supporting to hindering this reduction. Economic development was a primary factor in driving these changes. Standard emissions in Chinese regions showed a rising and then declining trend from 2010 to 2019. The Northeast and Northwest regions of China demonstrated emission trends that were in sync with the growth in rural income. This study offers insights into the successes and challenges of LAGDs in achieving a balance between reduced emissions and development, using quantitative analysis. The findings are instrumental in informing policies for a sustainable livestock and poultry industry. Recommendations include evaluating coordinated approaches to pollution reduction and industrial growth, setting decoupling goals, designing policies based on influential factors, conducting regional assessments of livestock and poultry demand, and implementing region-specific strategies.

Contemporary innovations in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide-based P-N junctions for optoelectronics.

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDCs) with various physical characteristics have attracted significant interest from the scientific and industrial worlds in the years following Moore's law. The p-n junction is one of the earliest electrical components to be utilized in electronics and optoelectronics, and modern research on 2D materials has renewed interest in it. In this regard, device preparation and application have evolved substantially in this decade. 2D TMDCs provide unprecedented flexibility in the construction of innovative p-n junction device designs, which is not achievable with traditional bulk semiconductors. It has been investigated using 2D TMDCs for various junctions, including homojunctions, heterojunctions, P-I-N junctions, and broken gap junctions. To achieve high-performance p-n junctions, several issues still need to be resolved, such as developing 2D TMDCs of superior quality, raising the rectification ratio and quantum efficiency, and successfully separating the photogenerated electron-hole pairs, among other things. This review comprehensively details the various 2D-based p-n junction geometries investigated with an emphasis on 2D junctions. We investigated the 2D p-n junctions utilized in current rectifiers and photodetectors. To make a comparison of various devices easier, important optoelectronic and electronic features are presented. We thoroughly assessed the review's prospects and challenges for this emerging field of study. This study will serve as a roadmap for more real-world photodetection technology applications.

Successful Renal Transplantation in a Patient With Senior-Loken Syndrome and Antiphospholipid Syndrome: A Case Report.

Senior-Loken syndrome (SLS) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder affecting the eyes and the kidneys. It is an extremely rare disorder with an incidence of 1/1,000,000. Like most hereditary disorders, it is more commonly seen in families with consanguineous marriages. Here, we present a case of a 35-year-old male with a complicated past medical history, who presented to us in the outpatient department for kidney transplant consideration. The patient was diagnosed case of Senior-Loken syndrome with a family history of autoimmune diseases, renal disease, and multiple unexplained miscarriages. He also had multiple dialysis access-related complications requiring frequent access changes. He previously had an unrelated pre-emptive renal transplant which resulted in graft failure within 48 hours. In view of his history, a prothrombotic condition was suspected and the patient was started on warfarin. Workup was positive for lupus anticoagulant and hematology recommended lifelong anticoagulation. The patient had a related renal transplant that was successful. He is now on apixaban and has not had any thrombotic complications to date. This patient had antiphospholipid syndrome leading to multiple thrombotic events and a failed graft, but was never worked up for autoimmune disorders despite having a strong family history. His renal disease was presumed to be secondary to a rare condition - Senior-Loken syndrome and he was not investigated for a co-existing condition (e.g., antiphospholipid syndrome {APLS} in this case) which led to early graft failure. Hence when considering a patient for transplant, care should be taken to rule out autoimmune diseases and not ignore possible co-existing conditions in the presence of a renal pathology.

The supercapattery designed with a binary composite of niobium silver sulfide (NbAg2S) and activated carbon for enhanced electrochemical performance.

A supercapattery is a hybrid device that is a combination of a battery and a capacitor. Niobium sulfide (NbS), silver sulfide (Ag2S), and niobium silver sulfide (NbAg2S) were synthesized by a simple hydrothermal method. NbAg2S (50/50 wt% ratio) had a specific capacity of 654 C g-1, which was higher than the combined specific capacities of NbS (440 C g-1) and Ag2S (232 C g-1), as determined by the electrochemical investigation of a three-cell assembly. Activated carbon and NbAg2S were combined to develop the asymmetric device (NbAg2S//AC). A maximum specific capacity of 142 C g-1 was delivered by the supercapattery (NbAg2S//AC). The supercapattery (NbAg2S/AC) provided 43.06 W h kg-1 energy density while retaining 750 W kg-1 power density. The stability of the NbAg2S//AC device was evaluated by subjecting it to 5000 cycles. After 5000 cycles, the (NbAg2S/AC) device still had 93% of its initial capacity. This research indicates that merging NbS and Ag2S (50/50 wt% ratio) may be the best choice for future energy storage technologies.

Environmental Governance Goals of Local Governments and Technological Innovation of Enterprises under Green Performance Assessment.

The current study empirically estimates the impact of local government environmental governance on enterprise technological innovation from the perspective of a green political performance assessment of local governments with Chinese characteristics. Fourteen years of data (from 2006 to 2019) on pollutant emissions, and the patents of A-share listed companies were collected from 230 cities in China. A fixed effect model and tool variable method were applied to empirically analyze the objectives of the study. The results show that the environmental governance formulated by the local government has regional differences, which are shown as lower governance indicators for underdeveloped areas and higher governance indicators for developed areas. Environmental governance has a greater promotion effect on technological innovation in enterprises in developed regions, as well as in large and private enterprises. Moreover, mechanism analysis showed that the local governments preferred the path of financial subsidies to promote the level of technological innovation in enterprises. This study provides a foundation for attaining the "win-win" scenario of local government environmental stewardship and high-quality green economic growth.

Co-finance for energy project under the Belt and Road Initiative: an application of evidential reasoning-group decision-making method.

Cooperation among consortium countries for energy projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) faces various uncertainties, and urges institutional investors to choose the co-finance mode to diversify the investment risk of energy projects. Recently, responsible investing in energy finance has been raised as a path to make the BRI greener. However, few studies focused on the issue on how to make the optimal decision in the process of collaboration. Therefore, this study constructed the financial-environment, social, and governance (F-ESG) evaluation indicator system from the perspective of responsible investors and proposed an integrated evidential reasoning group decision-making (ER-GDM) model. Then, programmed algorithms were designed to analyze and visualize the selection of the desired alternative. Finally, we applied the evaluation framework to the co-finance for four energy projects under the BRI. The results showed that after multiple rounds of discussion and negotiation (DAN), the consensus level reached 95.1%. It depicts that the optimized collective opinion has been obtained despite heterogeneous preferences. The analysis framework and proposed model in this study not only help international investors to co-finance energy project efficiently but also provide a solution for policy-makers to realize sustainable and high-quality cooperation in investment and financing under the BRI.

The impact of environmental pollution on labor supply: empirical evidence from China.

The current study focuses on determining mediating effect using the fixed and instrumental variable models to understand how PM2.5 affects labor supply. To approach study objectives, a 20-year dataset (from 2000 to 2019) of 287 Chinese prefecture-level cities were collected. To deal with potential endogeneity, the ventilation coefficient was used as an instrumental variable to identify the reverse causality between PM2.5 and labor supply. Results depicted that the PM2.5 pollution significantly and negatively impacts the labor supply. It was found that PM2.5 indirectly reduced labor forces because of pollution-induced health losses. Moreover, when the pollution level was above 30 µg/m3, the PM2.5 significantly reduced the labor supply. The result suggests that China's local and national governments should enact stringent policy measures to reduce air pollution.

Do Green Finance Policies Foster Environmental, Social, and Governance Performance of Corporate?

The green finance policy is crucial for enterprises to participate in environmental governance actively. Taking the "Green Credit Guidelines" issued by China in 2012 as a quasi-natural experiment, this study investigated the impact of green finance policies on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance by using a continuous Difference-in-Differences (DID) model based on the data of listed companies from 2006 to 2020. The conclusions are: (1) The green finance policy significantly improves corporate ESG, but the effects vary across enterprises. (2) The policy has encouraged enterprises to develop and adopt green products and technologies. Still, it has not had a positive effect on the treatment of enterprise pollutant emissions because the implementation of the policy makes enterprises pay more attention to front-end risk control than pollution treatment after production. (3) Research results have heterogeneity. The impact of green finance policies on enterprises at different levels of environmental regulation is different. Enterprises in areas with high intensity of environmental regulation are more vulnerable to green credit. The conclusion of this paper helps improve the green finance policy system, enhance the awareness and level of corporate ESG, and strengthen the collaborative governance of policies and enterprises on environmental issues in combination with the mandatory environmental regulations and incentive mechanisms to promote the green development of enterprises and realize the goal of carbon neutrality.

Levosulpiride-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers for brain delivery with antipsychotic and antidepressant effects.

AIMS: Herein, we investigate the potential of levosulpiride-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers (LEVO-NLCs) for effective brain delivery with anti-psychotic and antidepressant effects. MAIN METHODS: Micro-emulsion method was used to prepare LEVO-NLCs, followed by its optimization using Design Expert®, investigation of the particles properties and entrapment efficiency (%EE). Moreover, in-vitro release, in-vivo plasma and brain kinetic studies of LEVO-NLCs were executed. Anti-psychotic activity of LEVO-NLCs was accomplished in LPS-induced psychosis mice model. Additionally, expressions of neuro inflammatory mediators, neurodegeneration and neuro-inflammation in brain tissues was investigated. KEY FINDINGS: The optimized LEVO-NLCs were rounded shaped nanoparticles (157.2 nm) with suitable zeta potential (-29.6 mV), low PDI (0.395) and high EE (83.67 %). No chemical interactions were found, however, the crystalline drug was changed to amorphous. LEVO-NLCs displayed sustained drug release behavior when compared with drug suspension. Moreover, a meaningfully higher AUC (106,642.27 ± 876.44 ng.h/mL) and Cmax (38,534.72 ± 2344.10 ng/mL) of the LEVO-NLCs in brain was observed as compared to the AUC (15,684.33 ± 1005.49 ng.h/mL) and Cmax (7717.56 ± 871.23 ng/mL) of LEVO-Suspension. Similar profiles of both the formulations were perceived in plasma pharmacokinetic studies. Furthermore, LEVO-NLCs exhibited a meaningfully improved anti-psychotic activity in LPS-induced psychosis mice model with reduced immobility time and enhanced struggling time. Likewise, treatment with LEVO-NLCs showed reduced levels of neuro inflammatory markers (p-NF-κB and COX-2) in LPS-induced mice. Additionally, no neuro-degeneration and neuro-inflammation in brain tissues treated with LEVO-NLCs mice group was detected. SIGNIFICANCE: These results concluded that NLCs may effectively be used for the brain delivery of various active pharmaceutical agents with enhanced biopharmaceutical performance.

Immune Modifying Effect of Drug Free Biodegradable Nanoparticles on Disease Course of Experimental Autoimmune Neuritis.

Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an autoimmune disease of demyelination and inflammation of peripheral nerves. Current treatments are limited to plasma exchange and intravenous immunoglobulins. Cargo-free nanoparticles (NPs) have been evaluated here for their therapeutic benefit on the disease course of experimental autoimmune neuritis (EAN), mimicking the human GBS. NPs prepared from poly-lactic co-glycolic acid (PLGA) with variable size and surface charge (i.e., 500 nm vs. 130 nm, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) vs. sodium cholate), were intravenously administered in before- or early-onset treatment schedules in a rat EAN model. NP treatment mitigated distinctly the clinical severity of EAN as compared to the P2-peptide control group (P2) in all treatments and reduced the trafficking of inflammatory monocytes at inflammatory loci and diverted them towards the spleen. Therapeutic treatment with NPs reduced the expression of proinflammatory markers (CD68 (P2: 34.8 ± 6.6 vs. NP: 11.9 ± 2.3), IL-1ß (P2: 18.3 ± 0.8 vs. NP: 5.8 ± 2.2), TNF-α (P2: 23.5 ± 3.7 vs. NP: 8.3 ± 1.7) and elevated the expression levels of anti-inflammatory markers CD163 (P2: 19.7 ± 3.0 vs. NP: 41.1 ± 6.5; all for NP-PVA of 130 nm; relative to healthy control). These results highlight the therapeutic potential of such cargo-free NPs in treating EAN, which would be easily translatable into clinical use due to their well-known low-toxicity profile.

China's integration in the Asia-Pacific regional economic cooperation.

China is actively deepening integration into economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) has come into force and China is one of its members. Furthermore, China is applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). This study uses the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model to measure the impact of the RCEP and CPTPP on Gross Domestic Production (GDP), import, export, terms of trade, and social welfare of major economies under various scenarios, as well as the competitive effects and complementarity of the RCEP and CPTPP. We found that the CPTPP with China's accession and the RCEP will complement and strengthen each other and that the members of the two agreements can obtain substantial benefits. If China and the United States join the CPTPP, China's import growth rate will be higher than its exports. This would transmit growth to other nations and help bridge the trade gap between China and the United States.

Behavioural Psychology of Unique Family Firms Toward R&D Investment in the Digital Era: The Role of Ownership Discrepancy.

This study examines the R&D investment behaviour of different types of family-controlled firms with the moderating role of ownership discrepancy between cash-flow rights and excess voting rights by using the sufficiency conditions' theoretical framework of ability and willingness developed by De Massis. It uses data from family firms that have issued A-shares from 2008 to 2018. They used pooled OLS regression for data analysis and Tobit regression for robustness checks. This study classifies family firm types into two categories, namely, the lone-controller family firms (LCFFs) and the multi-controller family firms (MCFFs), with each being further classified as "excess" or "no excess" voting rights. Both LCFFs without excess voting rights and MCFFs with excess voting rights have the "ability" and "willingness" toward R&D investment. LCFFs with excess voting rights and MCFFs without excess voting rights only have the ability but low willingness to invest in R&D. The study also establishes that Chinese family-controlled firms are heterogeneous toward risky investment. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to differentiate Chinese family firms by their unique ownership structure characteristics in investigating the effect of the family firm structure on R&D investment. The study is a novel attempt to test the willingness and ability framework of LCFFs and MCFFs. Previous studies based on agency theory have tacitly assumed that ability and willingness exist in family-controlled firms. However, this study challenges this implicit assumption.

A nexus of social capital-based financing and farmers' scale operation, and its environmental impact.

The study constructs a theoretical model of social capital, farm household financing, and scale operation and their environmental effects, and conducts an empirical test based on data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) which is conducted in 2018 using causal mediation analysis. The results showed that farmers who spent more on human interaction have a higher probability of choosing scale operation by renting land, the mechanism of which is that the social capital accumulated by farmers based on human interaction facilitates their access to formal and informal financing, which in turn alleviates the financing constraint of scale operation. In addition, we found that the farmers with low education were more dependent on social capital to obtain informal financing to achieve scale operation. The environmental effects of scale operation found that the farmers significantly reduced the proportion of fertilizer and pesticide use, which could effectively mitigate possible pollution problems caused by excessive fertilizer and pesticide use. These findings confirm that social capital can alleviate the financing constraints of farmers to expand their operation scale through formal and informal financing, which in turn has a positive environmental effect.

Fintech, Bank Risk-Taking, and Risk-Warning for Commercial Banks in the Era of Digital Technology.

Fintech risks commercial banks in three ways, particularly operational efficiency, financial innovation, and risk management. Based on the data of 37 Chinese-listed commercial banks from 2011 to 2020, the study empirically analyzes the impact of fintech on bank risk-taking, and the intermediary effects of the three channels, such as operational efficiency, financial innovation, and risk management. The results show that fintech can effectively reduce the risk of banks. The results of heterogeneity analysis revealed that fintech strongly affects the risk-taking of state-owned banks but not obviously for rural commercial banks. Financial efficiency, financial innovation, and risk management indirectly affect the risk-taking of banks that contributed 8.51, 7.18, and 5.77%, respectively. We also constructed the commercial bank risk-warning index. Based on the quarterly data of banks from 2011 to 2020, we empirically tested the early warning effect of the bank risk-warning index. The results showed that when the signal month is set to 12 months, the bank risk-warning index can have a warning effect in this period.

Does the green credit policy affect the scale of corporate debt financing? Evidence from listed companies in heavy pollution industries in China.

The current study constructs a quasi-natural experiment based on China's 2012 Green Credit Guidelines and develops a difference-in-difference model using the financial data of listed companies from 2006 to 2018 to conduct empirical testing. The results reveal that the green credit policy has significantly reduced the short-term and long-term debt financing of heavily polluting enterprises; however, the restrictions on short-term debt financing are insufficient. At the same time, the decline in operating performance brings financial penalty effects, among which state-owned, large-scale, and heavily polluting enterprises in high-emission areas have strong financial penalty effects. The green credit policy encourages heavy-polluting companies to increase R&D investment and increase fixed assets investments to obtain long-term credit support with short-term investment. Furthermore, it is found that the green credit policies have significantly restrained the scale of debt financing of heavily polluting companies. The Chinese government should formulate green financial policies based on local conditions and provide credit resources to favor environmentally friendly companies. Financial institutions should strictly implement green credit standards and modify financial products and services. Companies should take the initiative to eliminate outdated production capacity to obtain green credit support.

A review on two-dimensional (2D) perovskite material-based solar cells to enhance the power conversion efficiency.

With perovskite materials, rapid progress in power conversion efficiency (PCE) to reach 25% has gained a significant amount of attention from the solar cell industry. Since the development of solid-state perovskite solar cells, rapid research development and investigation on structure design, device fabrication and fundamental studies have contributed to solid-state perovskite solar cells to be a strong candidate for next-generation solar energy. The promising efficiency with low-cost materials is the key point over the other material-based solar cells. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of two-dimensional (2D) perovskite materials is yet to be enhanced in order to contest with the 3D perovskite-based solar cells. Their enormous variety compromises better prospects and possibilities for research. Two-dimensional (2D) perovskites play a multi-functional role within a solar cell, such as a capping layer, passivating layer, prime cell absorber, and in a hybrid 3D/2D perovskite-based solar cell absorber. This review summarizes the evolution of solar cells that are based on 2D perovskites and their prominent character in solar cells, along with the significant trends. The fundamental configuration and the optoelectronic characteristics, including the band orientation and the transportation of the charges, are discussed in detail. The 2D perovskites are analyzed to study the confined charges within the inorganic structure due to the dielectric and quantum confinement influence. Furthermore, the importance of cesium cation (Cs+) doped with 2D substance (BA)2(MA3) PbI3 approach has been discussed to attain high power conversion efficiency (PCE). These attributes offer an efficient step towards air-stable and small-sized perovskites as a new group of renewable energy sources.

Internet Access and Nutritional Intake: Evidence from Rural China.

Over the past 4 decades, China has experienced a nutritional transition and has developed the largest population of internet users. In this study, we evaluated the impacts of internet access on the nutritional intake in Chinese rural residents. An IV-Probit-based propensity score matching method was used to determine the impact of internet access on nutritional intake. The data were collected from 10,042 rural households in six Chinese provinces. The results reveal that rural residents with internet access have significantly higher energy, protein, and fat intake than those without. Chinese rural residents with internet access consumed 1.35% (28.62 kcal), 5.02% (2.61 g), and 4.33% (3.30 g) more energy, protein, and fat, respectively. There was heterogeneity in regard to the intake of energy, protein, and fat among those in different income groups. Moreover, non-staple food consumption is the main channel through which internet access affects nutritional intake. The results demonstrate that the local population uses the internet to improve their nutritional status. Further studies are required to investigate the impact of internet use on food consumed away from home and micronutrient intake.