Foreign shareholder, overseas sale and corporate profit margin.

China is actively promoting the development of a robust trading nation. In this context, utilizing data from China's A-share listed companies spanning from 2003 to 2021, this study investigates the impact of foreign shareholders on enterprises in a scenario where overseas sales reduce the profit margin of Chinese firms. The findings reveal that overseas sales do indeed decrease the profit margin of Chinese enterprises; however, foreign shareholders mitigate this negative effect and various robustness tests support this conclusion. Mechanism analysis confirms that foreign shareholders primarily enhance enterprise productivity through improved production technology spillover effects, thereby alleviating the adverse impact of overseas sales on Chinese firms' profit margins. Heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that both longer holding periods for foreign shareholders and multiple foreign shareholders significantly alleviate the negative influence of overseas sales on Chinese firms' profit margins. Moreover, there is significant heterogeneity in how foreign shareholders alleviate these detrimental consequences based on property rights nature, institutional environment, overseas related party transactions and subsidiaries, as well as industry attributes. These findings have important reference value for China's efforts towards becoming a strong trading nation and can contribute to enhancing trade capacity in other countries.

Increase in Cape Verde hurricanes during Atlantic Niño.

At seasonal-to-interannual timescales, Atlantic hurricane activity is greatly modulated by El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Atlantic Meridional Mode. However, those climate modes develop predominantly in boreal winter or spring and are weaker during the Atlantic hurricane season (June-November). The leading mode of tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) variability during the Atlantic hurricane season is Atlantic Niño/Niña, which is characterized by warm/cold SST anomalies in the eastern equatorial Atlantic. However, the linkage between Atlantic Niño/Niña and hurricane activity has not been examined. Here, we use observations to show that Atlantic Niño, by strengthening the Atlantic inter-tropical convergence zone rainband, enhances African easterly wave activity and low-level cyclonic vorticity across the deep tropical eastern North Atlantic. We show that such conditions increase the likelihood of powerful hurricanes developing in the deep tropics near the Cape Verde islands, elevating the risk of major hurricanes impacting the Caribbean islands and the U.S.

Circ_0003266 sponges miR-503-5p to suppress colorectal cancer progression via regulating PDCD4 expression.

BACKGROUND: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) feature prominently in tumor progression. However, the biological function and molecular mechanism of circ_0003266 in colorectal cancer (CRC) require further investigation. METHODS: Circ_0003266 expression in 46 pairs CRC tissues / adjacent tissues, and CRC cell lines was detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR); after circ_0003266 was overexpressed or knocked down in CRC cells, cell proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion were evaluated by the cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), flow cytometry, and Transwell assays, respectively; the interaction among circ_0003266, miR-503-5p, and programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) was confirmed using bioinformatics analysis and dual-luciferase reporter assay; PDCD4 protein expression in CRC cells was quantified using Western blot. RESULTS: Circ_0003266 was significantly lowly expressed in CRC tissues and cell lines. Circ_0003266 overexpression markedly repressed CRC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion, and accelerated the cell apoptosis, but its overexpression promoted the malignant phenotypes of CRC cells. PDCD4 was a direct target of miR-503-5p and circ_0003266 promoted PDCD4 expression by competitively sponging miR-503-5p. CONCLUSION: Circ_0003266 suppresses the CRC progression via sponging miR-503-5p and regulating PDCD4 expressions, which suggests that circ_0003266 may serve as a novel target for the treatment of CRC.

Synthesis and evaluation of novel angiotensin II receptor 1 antagonists as anti-hypertension drugs.

Three new angiotensin II receptor 1 antagonists, 1, 2 and 3 were designed, synthesized and evaluated. The AT1 receptor-binding assays in vitro showed that all the synthesized compounds had nanomolar affinity for the AT1 receptor. From which compound 3 was found to be the most potent ligands with an IC50 value of 2.67±0.23 nM. Biological evaluation in vivo revealed that all the compounds could cause significant decrease on MBP in a dose dependent manner in spontaneously hypertensive rats, and compound 3 especially showed an efficient and long-lasting effect in reducing blood pressure, whose maximal response lowered 41 mmHg of MBP at 10mg/kg and 62 mmHg at 15 mg/kg after oral administration, the significant anti-hypertensive effect lasted beyond 12 h, which is better than the reference compound losartan. The pharmacokinetic experiments showed that compound 3 could be absorbed efficiently and metabolized smoothly both in blood and in tissues in Wistar rats. The acute toxicity assay suggested that it has low toxicity with the LD50 value of 2974.35 mg/kg. These results demonstrate that compound 3 is a potent angiotensin AT1 receptor antagonist which could be considered as a novel anti-hypertension candidate and deserved for further investigation.

Synthesis and biological evaluation of novel potent angiotensin II receptor antagonists with anti-hypertension effect.

A series of novel angiotensin II type 1 receptor antagonists were prepared. Radioligand binding assay suggested that compounds 1b and 1c could be recognized by the AT(1) receptor with an IC(50) value of 1.6 ± 0.09 nM and 2.64 ± 0.7 nM, respectively. In vivo anti-hypertension experiments showed that compounds (1a, 1b, 1c, 1e) elicited a significant decrease in SBP and DBP of spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHRs). The antihypertensive effects maintained for 10 h, which indicated that these compounds had a favorable blood pressure-lowering effect. Acute toxicity testing suggested that the LD(50) value of compound 1b was 2316.8 mg/kg which was lower than valsartan (LD(50)=307.50 mg/kg) but higher than losartan (LD(50)=2248 mg/kg). So they could be considered as novel anti-hypertension candidates and deserved for further investigation.

A phosphorescent copper(I) complex: synthesis, characterization, photophysical property, and oxygen-sensing behavior.

In this paper, we report the synthesis, crystal structure, photophysical properties, and electronic nature of a phosphorescent Cu(I) complex of [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP)]BF4, where Phen-Np and POP stand for 2-(naphthalen-1-yl)-1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline and bis(2-(diphenylphosphanyl)phenyl) ether, respectively. [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP)]BF4 renders a yellow phosphorescence peaking at 545 nm, with a long excited state lifetime of 4.69 µs. Density functional calculation reveals that the emission comes from a triplet metal-to-ligand-charge-transfer excited state. We electrospun composite nanofibers of [Cu(Phen-Np)(POP)]BF4 and polystyrene (PS), hoping to explore the possibility of using the composite nanofibers as an oxygen sensing material. The finally obtained samples with average diameter of ∼300 nm exhibit a maximum sensitivity of 7.2 towards molecular oxygen with short response time of 7s due to the large surface-area-to-volume ratio of nanofibrous membranes. No photobleaching is detected in these samples.

Erlotinib in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer after gefitinib failure.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of erlotinib in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer after failure of gefitinib treatment. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with advanced or metastatic NSCLC, who had progressed after gefitinib treatment, were included in this study; patients received erlotinib 150 mg/day until disease progression or intolerable toxicity. RESULTS: Twenty-one patients were included in this study. Among them, 14 (66.7%) were male and 7 (33.3%) were female; median age was 63 years; 10 (47.6%) patients were smokers; 9 (42.9%)patients had squamous cell carcinoma subtype; 8 (38.1%) patients had adenocarcinoma subtype and 4 (19%) patients had the other NSCLC subtype. Out of 21 patients, 2 (9.5%) had PR and 4 (19.0%) had SD, giving an overall response rate of 9.5% and a disease control rate of 28.5%. The median TTP were 55 days, the median OS were 135 days. Two patients with PR to erlotinib treatment were female never smokers with adenocarcinoma histology and both had partial response to prior gefitinib treatment. Three of four patients with a SD to erlotinib treatment also had SD from prior gefitinib therapy. Smoking history, histology and response to erlotinib were significantly correlated with survival. The most common toxic effects were skin rash. CONCLUSIONS: Erlotinib may be an option for a more highly selected subset of patients, especially those who had already benefited from prior gefitinib treatment.