The influence of FDI on GHG emissions in BRI countries using spatial econometric analysis strategy: the significance of biomass energy consumption.

Indeed, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plays an increasingly important role in global economic and climate change mitigation. However, scientists have insufficient attention to the issues related to the elements that contribute to justifying these impacts and bolstering its response in BRI nations. Accordingly, the existent study executed an in-depth examination of the spatial direct and spillover effects of foreign direct investment inflows (FDI) and biomass energy consumption (BEC) on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for 57 BRI countries (1992-2012). We applied the spatial lag model (SLM), the spatial error model (SEM), and the spatial Durbin model (SDM) with five different weights matrices to verify the existence of the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH), the pollution halo hypothesis (P-HH), and the N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). We linked the study results with the implementation level of the sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings of local Moran's I (LMI) and Lagrange Multiplier (LM) tests confirm the existence of spatial autocorrelation (SAR). The empirical results revealed that FDI has a positive direct and spillover influence on GHG emissions, which supports the presence of PHH. Also, the nexus between economic growth and GHG emission is an N-shaped curve. The results revered that BEC has a negative sign for direct and spillover effects. In contrast to BEC, Fossil Fuel Energy Consumption (FFEC) and population positively sign for direct and indirect impact. Some policy proposals and future research directions are discussed for BRI countries.

Asymmetric impacts of disaggregated energy consumption and oil price fluctuations on the MENA net oil-exporting and importing economies.

This paper asymmetrically analyzes the impact of energy consumption and oil price fluctuations on the economic growth of the MENA net oil-exporting and importing nations from 1990 to 2019 using panel nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (PNARDL) model developed by (Salisu and Isah, Econ Model 66:258-271, 2017). The findings revealed that for the net-oil exporting countries, the impact of nonrenewable energy on economic growth is nonlinear in both terms, where in the both terms, high consumption of nonrenewable energy is influencing economic growth and its low consumption is limiting it. Furthermore, the impact of renewable energy is linear and it is influencing and limiting economic growth in both terms respectively. Moreover, the impact of oil price fluctuations on economic growth is linear in the long run and nonlinear in the short run, where in the long run, increase in it is not influencing economic growth but in the short run, while its decrease has no effect. For the net-oil importing countries, the impact of nonrenewable energy on economic growth is nonlinear in both terms, where in the long run, high consumption of nonrenewable energy is influencing economic growth but in the short run, it is discouraging it; however, in both terms, low consumption of nonrenewable energy has no effect. In addition, in the long run, the impact of renewable energy is nonlinear but linear in the short run; however, none of its impacts is significant in both terms. Also, the impact of oil price fluctuations on economic growth is linear in both terms and in the both terms, it is influencing economic growth. Nonetheless, for all the variables, the impacts are higher in the net-oil exporting countries. Policy recommendations were provided.

Inhibition of HeLa cell growth by doxorubicin-loaded and tuftsin-conjugated arginate-PEG microparticles.

In order to improve the release pattern of chemotherapy drug and reduce the possibility of drug resistance, poly(ethylene glycol amine) (PEG)-modified alginate microparticles (ALG-PEG MPs) were developed then two different mechanisms were employed to load doxorubicin (Dox): 1) forming Dox/ALG-PEG complex by electrostatic attractions between unsaturated functional groups in Dox and ALG-PEG; 2) forming Dox-ALG-PEG complex through EDC-reaction between the amino and carboxyl groups in Dox and ALG, respectively. Additionally, tuftsin (TFT), a natural immunomodulation peptide, was conjugated to MPs in order to enhance the efficiency of cellular uptake. It was found that the Dox-ALG-PEG-TFT MPs exhibited a significantly slower release of Dox than Dox/ALG-PEG-TFT MPs in neutral medium, suggesting the role of covalent bonding in prolonging Dox retention. Besides, the release of Dox from these MPs was pH-sensitive, and the release rate was observably increased at pH 6.5 compared to the case at pH 7.4. Compared with Dox/ALG-PEG MPs and Dox-ALG-PEG MPs, their counterparts further conjugated with TFT more efficiently inhibited the growth of HeLa cells over a period of 48 h, implying the effectiveness of TFT in enhancing cellular uptake of MPs. Over a period of 48 h, Dox-ALG-PEG-TFT MPs inhibited the growth of HeLa cells less efficiently than Dox/ALG-PEG-TFT MPs but the difference was not significant (p > 0.05). In consideration of the prolonged and sustained release of Dox, Dox-ALG-PEG-TFT MPs possess the advantages for long-term treatment.

Optimization of release pattern of FGF-2 and BMP-2 for osteogenic differentiation of low-population density hMSCs.

In the modern design, most delivery systems for bone regeneration focus on a single growth factor (GF) or a simple mixture of multiple GFs, overlooking the coordination of proliferation and osteogenesis induced by various factors. In this study, core-shell microspheres with poly-l-lactide core-poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) shell were fabricated, and two GFs, basic fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2) and bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) were encapsulated into the core or/and shell. The effects of different release patterns (parallel or sequential manners) of FGF-2 and BMP-2 from these core-shell microspheres on the osteogenic differentiation of low-population density human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) were investigated and the temporal organization of GF release was optimized. In vitro experiments suggested that induction of osteogenic differentiation of low-population density hMSCs by the sequential delivery of FGF-2 followed by BMP-2 from the core-shell microspheres (group S2) was much more efficient than that by the parallel release of the two factors from uniform microspheres (group U). The osteogenic induction by the sequential delivery of BMP-2 followed by FGF-2 from core-shell microspheres (group S1) was even worse than that from microspheres loaded with BMP-2 in both core and shell (group B), although comparable to the cases of parallel delivery of dual GFs (group P). This study showed the advantages of group S2 microspheres in inducing osteogenic differentiation of low-population density hMSCs and the necessity of time sequence studies in tissue engineering while multiple GFs are involved.