BRI’s Employment Effect on Participating Countries and Mechanism Analysis

Based on the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI)as a quasi-natural experiment,this paper uses panel data from 124 countries between 2006 and 2019 to build a difference-in-differences(DID)model to investigate the BRI employment effect on participating countries and mechanisms.We observed that the BRI had significantly increased employment rates in participating countries,and that this result remained robust after using the instrumental variable(IV)to mitigate endogeneity and perform a robustness test.There are differences in the BRI’s employment effect depending on the income level,labor conditions,and the digital economy’s development level of BRI countries:compared with low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries,the BRI has a more significantly positive effect on the employment rates of upper-middle-income and high-income countries;the BRI’s employment effect is stronger in countries with higher labor market efficiencies and better labor relations;In countries with higher levels of digital economy,the BRI has a relatively greater positive effect on employment.The BRI has increased employment rates in participating countries on both the supply and demand sides by building infrastructure,interconnecting industries and resources,and improving human capital through the exchange of human resources.Further analysis suggests that the BRI’s employment effect promotes the sophistication of participating countries’employment structures,hence improving employment quality,and that participating countries’employment levels may continue to improve in the medium and long run.

Correlation of DNA methylation patterns to the phenotypic features of Tibetan elite alpinists in extreme hypoxia

High altitude is an extreme environment that imposes hypoxic pressure on physiological processes,and natives living at high altitudes are more adaptive in certain physiological processes.So far,epigenetic modifications under extreme changes in hypoxic pressures are relatively less understood.Here,we recruit 32 Tibetan elite alpinists(TEAs),who have successfully mounted Everest(8848 m)at least five times.Blood samples and physiological phenotypes of TEAs and 32 matched non-alpinist Tibetan volunteers(non-TEAs)are collected for analysis.Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis identifies 23,202 differentially methylated CpGs(P_(adj)<0.05,|β|>0.1)between the two groups.Some differentially methylated CpGs are in hypoxia-related genes such as PPP1R13L,MAP3K7CL,SEPTI-9,and CUL2.In addition,Gene ontology enrichment analysis reveals several inflammation-related pathways.Phenotypic analysis indicates that 12 phenotypes are significantly different between the two groups.In particular,TEAs exhibit higher blood oxygen saturation levels and lower neutrophil count,platelet count,and heart rate.For DNA methylation association analysis,we find that two CpGs(cg16687447,cg06947206)upstream of PTEN were associated with platelet count.In conclusion,extreme hypoxia exposure leads to epigenetic modifications and phenotypic alterations of TEA,providing us clues for exploring the molecular mechanism underlying changes under extreme hypoxia conditions.

The HuaBiao project:whole-exome sequencing of 5000 Han Chinese individuals

Next-generation sequencing technologies have significantly accelerated the identification of disease-causing mutations and facilitated the emergence of personalized medicine(Genomes Project Consortium et al.,2015;Goodwin et al.,2016;Sirugo et al.,2019).In comparison with whole-genome sequencing,whole-exome sequencing(WES),which covers the coding regions of the genome,offers a cost-efficacy balance.WES provides deeper sequencing depth(>100)and allows the more accurate detection of rare variants that are tailored for clinical applications(Lek et al.,2016).