906 research outputs found
Increased prevalence of middle ear diseases in Yucheng children prenatally exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls and dibenzofurans.
No full text
Canon Walls overhang the road, Shoshone Canon, Cody, Wy., The
No full textCanon Walls overhang the road, Shoshone Canon, Cody, Wy., Th
Distinct and shared cerebral activations in processing innocuous versus noxious contact heat revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
No full textRiver from way north of Shoshone Canon, Cody, WY, The
No full textRiver from way north of Shoshone Canon, Cody, WY, Th
Phase II study of weekly oxaliplatin and 24-hour infusion of high-dose 5-fluorouracil and folinic acid in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer.
No full textRegulation of shear-induced nuclear translocation of the Nrf2 transcription factor in endothelial cells
Full text linkAbstract Background Vascular endothelial cells (ECs) constantly experience fluid shear stresses generated by blood flow. Laminar flow is known to produce atheroprotective effects on ECs. Nrf2 is a transcription factor that is essential for the antioxidant response element (ARE)-mediated induction of genes such as heme-oxygenase 1 (HO-1). We previously showed that fluid shear stress increases intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) in ECs. Moreover, oxidants are known to stimulate Nrf2. We thus examined the regulation of Nrf2 in cultured human ECs by shear stress. Results Exposure of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) to laminar shear stress (12 dyne/cm2) induced Nrf2 nuclear translocation, which was inhibited by a phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor, a protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor, and an antioxidant agent N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), but not by other protein kinase inhibitors. Therefore, PI3K, PKC, and ROS are involved in the signaling pathway that leads to the shear-induced nuclear translocation of Nrf2. We also found that shear stress increased the ARE-binding activity of Nrf2 and the downstream expression of HO-1. Conclusion Our data suggest that the atheroprotective effect of laminar flow is partially attributed to Nrf2 activation which results in ARE-mediated gene transcriptions, such as HO-1 expression, that are beneficial to the cardiovascular system.</p
Decision rights, residual claim and performance: A theory of how the Chinese state enterprise reform works
No full textThis paper is intended to model the process of shifting decision rights and residual claim from the central agent (government) to the inside members of the firm in China, and to analyze how the reform has improved performance of the state-owned enterprises. We show that the bargaining solution between the central agent and the firm is preferred to a one-sided solution, and that managerial discretion of state enterprises can greatly improve efficiency through both its direct incentive effect and indirectly hardening budget constraints. Further improvement of efficiency requires that authority of selecting management is transferred from bureaucrats to capitalists, which implies privatization of the state enterprises. China is already well on its way.EconomicsSSCI10ARTICLE167-82
A Principal-agent Theory of the Public Economy and Its Applications to China
No full textThis paper is intended to model the principal-agent relationship and its associated monitoring-incentive problems of the public economy. The basic findings are: (1) the degree of publicness and the size of the public economy matter: the monitoring effort of the original principals and the work effort of the ultimate agents decrease with the degree of publicness and the size of the public economy; (2) a corrupt public economy can be a Pareto-improvement over the non-corrupt public economy. The first finding sheds some light upon performance comparison between different public economies (such as between Singapore and China). The second finding explains why all socialist economies are corrupt ones. The paper applies the above results particularly to the Chinese economy. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1998Chinese economy, corruption, hierarchy, principal-agent theory, public ownership,
In vitro activation of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor alpha by some extracts from food materials
Full text link[[abstract]]Peroxisome proliferator activated receptor a (PPAR alpha) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor that regulates the expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism and transport. Activators of PPAR alpha may be potential hypolipidemic agents, like the fibrate-type drugs. This study was therefore aimed at identifying potential hypolipidemic functional foods by screening activators of PPAR(X from food materials. CHO-K1 cells were stably transfected with vectors (pBKCMV) carrying cDNAs of a (UAS)(4)-tk-alkaline phosphatase reporter and a chimeric receptor Ga14-PPAR alpha LBD successively. Clones of cells responsive to Wy-14643, a known PPAR alpha activator were selected, characterized and used for testing the PPAR alpha activating potency of fractions extracted from food materials. Food materials were extracted with ethyl acetate and the extract (EAE) was cold-saponified and tested for the PPARct activating ability using the selected stable transfected clone of cells. 10 mu M Wy-14643 (WY) was used as the positive control. Among food materials tested, EAE of bitter gourd showed the highest activity that exceeded Wy-14643, although the activity significantly decreased after saponification. The non-saponifiable fraction of onion EAE had a high maximal fold of activation equivalent to Wy-14643, while that of peanut, lychee, ricinus seed and longan showed moderate activity. The saponifiable fraction of ricinus seed, sesame and peanut also showed moderate activity. Further investigation is needed to explore the health benefit of the PPAR alpha activating food extracts found in this Study
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