Infrastructure and geography are the most important components of international trade. They provide trade-oriented amenities for the trade volume among trading partners. Thus, this study assesses the simultaneous impact of infrastructure and geographic factors on trade in Asian economies from 2004 to 2020. This work contributes to the existing literature by exploring the significance of infrastructure and geography in international trade. Furthermore, this research seeks to determine whether these factors have complementary or simultaneous effects. To examine these aspects, the augmented gravity model and cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags are used in the current model. Then, the multilateral resistance terms are corrected. Results reveal that infrastructure has a significant and positive impact on trade. More precisely, transport infrastructure, communication infrastructure, financial infrastructure, and border-transport efficiency are productive influencers for trade over a certain period. Notably, the simultaneous impacts of infrastructure and geographic factors can lead to the deterioration of trade volume. The policy implications and future research direction of this study suggest that economies should improve infrastructure and geographic factors through gross domestic product.

Surface urban heat island (SUHI) is a key climate risk associated with urbanization. Previous case studies have suggested that precipitation (water), radiation (energy), and vegetation have important effects on urban warming, but there is a lack of research that combines these factors to explain the global geographic variation in SUHI intensity (SUHII). Here, we utilize remotely sensed and gridded datasets to propose a new water-energy-vegetation nexus concept that explains the global geographic variation of SUHII across four climate zones and seven major regions. We found that SUHII and its frequency increase from arid zones (0.36 ± 0.15 °C) to humid zones (2.28 ± 0.10 °C), but become weaker in the extreme humid zones (2.18 ± 0.15 °C). We revealed that from semi-arid/humid to humid zones, high precipitation is often coupled with high incoming solar radiation. The increased solar radiation can directly enhance the energy in the area, leading to higher SUHII and its frequency. Although solar radiation is high in arid zones (mainly in West, Central, and South Asia), water limitation leads to sparse natural vegetation, suppressing the cooling effect in rural areas and resulting in lower SUHII. In extreme humid regions (mainly in tropical areas), incoming solar radiation tends to flatten out, which, coupled with increased vegetation as hydrothermal conditions become more favorable, leads to more latent heat and reduces the intensity of SUHI. Overall, this study offers empirical evidence that the water-energy-vegetation nexus highly explains the global geographic variation of SUHII. The results can be used by urban planners seeking optimal SUHI mitigation strategies and for climate change modeling work.

Although many African countries have made significant progress towards universal access to water, energy, and food resources (WEF), assessing the ecological response to the increasing productivity of these resources is not well researched, which carries the risk of ecological deficit, resource degradation, and inefficient policy responses to resource management. This study seeks to assess the ecological sustainability response to the high increase demand for WEF resources in well-developed African countries. The study developed new measurement metrics for the WEF production system, including three indicators of ecological footprint (EF), ecological biocapacity (EBC), and eco-balance. The overall analysis considers data from four distinct types of water and energy use activities, and eight distinct types of food consumption, in nine African countries with the highest WEF nexus performance. An evaluation tool for the Water, Energy, Food and Ecological Balance (WEFEB) nexus index is proposed as one of the study\'s outcomes. Despite having 100% access to WEF resources related to the SDG targets. The results reveal the significant levels of imbalance and large ecological deficits existing in many of the concerned countries, especially North Africa, Mauritius, and South Africa, which need to rethink their economic models. Projecting a sustained increase in resource demand so that each country achieves at least 1700 m3/capita/year as the minimum amount of water needed, most countries would suffer from a steady increase in ecological imbalance. According to the results, managing the ecological imbalances with increasing demand for WEF resources in well-developed African countries may require well-designed policies to effectively reduce certain types of human demand that have a large ecological footprint.

High-grade glioma has a poor prognosis, and GSCs can have pivotal roles in glioma pathology. This study investigated GSC exosome-containing circRNA mechanisms affecting the malignant progression of glioma.
In this study, we identified differentially expressed circRNAs and constructed a circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network through circRNA sequencing/bioinformatics analysis. Then, we identified circRNAs that were upregulated in GSC23 cells and employed them as downstream targets in subsequent investigations. Such investigations included downstream target knockout to assess any influence on A172 cell proliferation, invasion, migration and apoptosis. In addition, in vivo investigations using tumor-bearing animals evaluated the in vivo influences of the selected targets.
This study identified circ-Serpine2/miR-124-3p/KIF20A as a regulatory pathway in glioma. Our in vitro analysis confirmed that circ-Serpine2 could upregulate KIF20A by sponging miR-124-3p, consequently promoting A172 cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Such a signaling channel could also inhibit glioma cell apoptosis. Additionally, our research indicated that circ-Serpine2 inhibited glioma apoptosis and promoted in vivo tumor progression.
Circ-Serpine2 exacerbated the malignant progression of glioma mediated by the miR-124-3p/KIF20A nexus, thus providing novel predictive/prognostic biomarkers and drug targets against glioma.

It is meaningful to study how China can maintain the sustainable utilization of natural resources and the continuous improvement of environmental conditions while ensuring the stable development of the economy and society. In this study, a new indices system was proposed for the analysis of nexus among social-economic-natural resource-environment complex systems following the DPSIR (Driving Force - Pressure - State - Impact - Respond) framework, CCD (Coupling Coordination Degree) analysis and VAR (Vector Auto-Regressive) model were applied for quantifying the synergy and trade-off of China in the nexus framework. Results showed that: (1) Although China\'s rapid development has caused big consumption of natural resources and increasing pollutants discharges during 1978-2018, China has not got into trouble of extreme resource depletion and ecosystem collapse. On the contrary, China guaranteed food supply, stopped forest degradation, and avoided pollution-induced healthy crises & life-shortening. (2) Adjustment of water pollution industries and the increase of wastewater treatment investment contributed 39% and 37% to the reduction of water pollutant discharge, respectively. The contribution of energy structure adjustment to acid rain control was 26%. The pollutants discharged in no less than 70% of the provinces are strictly controlled below the environmental capacity. The increase of fertilizer application and effective irrigated area contributed 32% to China\'s grain increase, and China\'s grain self-sufficiency rate has been maintained above 110%. The improvement of the water-saving irrigation rate contributed 28% to the reduction of water consumption. The reduction of comprehensive efficiency contributed 23.8% to the decrease in energy consumptions per GDP. The CCD assessment showed that China has entered a phase of pre-eminently coordinated development since 2013.

The Water-Food-Energy nexus study identifies developmental challenges and trade-offs present along the transboundary river basins. Intensive reservoir development for hydropower production impacts existing actors in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. Concerns from these stakeholders highlight three major trade-offs that occur between hydropower and irrigation (HP-AG), hydropower and fisheries (HP-F), and irrigation and fisheries (AG-F). Dam construction has an impact not only on power production but also on ecosystems and ultimately the livelihood of people. In this study, we quantify the effects of reservoir operation on hydropower generation, irrigated crop production and fisheries yield in the Tonle Sap lake through a novel hydro-economic model at the whole basin scale. Our main finding is that trade-offs can be turned into synergetic opportunities. First, the dam operation can increase water availability for irrigation without severely harming hydropower production, raising irrigated crop revenue by 49% and reducing crop losses during droughts by 30%. Second, eco-friendly management increases fisheries yield by up to 75%, but decreases both irrigated crop production (-48%) and power production (-17%). Reservoirs can, therefore, benefit the whole basin by releasing more water in months with high irrigation demand (April and December) and by minimizing the adverse effects of flow fluctuations on the livelihood of farmers and fishers living downstream. Our results also reveal the overlooked trade-off between irrigated agriculture and fisheries. Cross-sectoral and transboundary partnerships should strengthen stakeholder participation in decision-making. Local solutions such as enhanced reservoir operation can respond to the broader global issue of natural resource trade-offs and sharing. Our alternative narrative enhances the dialogue about fair and efficient water use among Mekong riparian countries.

Across the globe, many regions import virtual resources to support their development. Although many researchers have studied transfers of a single virtual resource, interactions across two types of virtual resource transfer networks - energy and water, for example - have rarely been explored simultaneously. To address these knowledge gaps, we constructed and analyzed interprovincial virtual water and energy transfer networks, using China (the largest energy consumer and is undergoing severe water scarcity) as a demonstration. The results unexpectedly showed that more than 40% of provinces gained one kind of resource (either water or energy) through trade at the expense of losing the other kind of internal resource (energy or water), and 20% of provinces suffered a double loss of both water and energy. The remaining provinces gained both water and energy. Surprisingly, approximately 40% of transferred water/energy was from relatively water/energy-scarce provinces to water/energy-abundant provinces, further deepening resource inequality. Moreover, 33.3% and 26.7% of the provinces relied more on cross-border trade than on internal resources to support their water and energy consumption, respectively. Furthermore, in terms of total trade volume, 83.3% and 73.3% of provinces depended more on distant provinces via trade than adjacent ones to support their water and energy consumption, respectively. Overall, virtual water-energy networks tended to enhance each other. Trade largely shaped the nexus relationship between water and energy consumption in provinces. Our study suggests that there is an urgent need to assess multiple virtual resource networks simultaneously in other countries to uncover unintended consequences and to develop cross-sectoral and holistic policies to achieve global sustainability and human well-being.

In China, urbanization strengthens the water-food-health nexus by driving dietary changes both at home and away from home (AFH). However, few studies have compared the effects of dining location on water footprint generation and/or linked such habits to the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as hypertension, diabetes, asthma, myocardial infarction, stroke and cancer. Here, household survey data were used to develop a multiple-component urbanization sequence, on which the diet-related water footprint was quantified and the mechanisms under the water-food-health nexus were explored. Significant dietary changes due to urbanization have occurred at home (instead of AHF), and increases or decreases in various food groups are stratified across dining locations. Log mean Divisia index decomposition shows that the diet-structure effect outweighing the intake effect dominates the water footprint changes during China\'s urbanization. Animal products contribute 92(94)% of the diet-structure effect on net water footprint growth at home(AFH); in contrast, vegetal foods dominate the intake effect, contributing 67(49)%. The at-home water footprint ratio of animal products to vegetal foods is highly related to the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and asthma, and reaching statistical significance. Two urbanization components, namely housing situation and community diversity, serve as the key drivers of water-food-health nexus enhancement in urbanized China. Due to the complexity of water-food-health links, nexus thinking is needed to benefit human health and diet-related water consumption; besides, it may be reasonable to expand current dimension of food-energy-water nexus topic to include health issues.

As agricultural land and freshwater inextricably interrelate and interact with each other, the conventional water and land policy in \"silos\" should give way to nexus thinking when formulating the land and water management strategies. This study constructs a systems multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model to expound global land-water nexus by simultaneously tracking agricultural land and freshwater use flows along the global supply chains. Furthermore, land productivity and irrigation water requirements of 160 crops in different regions are investigated to reflect the land-water linkage. Results show that developed economies (e.g., USA and Japan) and major large developing economies (e.g., mainland China and India) are the overriding drivers of agricultural land and freshwater use globally. In general, significant net transfers of these two resources are identified from resource-rich and less-developed economies to resource-poor and more-developed economies. For some crops, blue water productivity is inversely related to land productivity, indicating that irrigation water consumption is sometimes at odds with land use. The results could stimulus international cooperation for sustainable land and freshwater management targeting on original suppliers and final consumers along the global supply chains. Moreover, crop-specific land-water linkage could provide insights for trade-off decisions on minimizing the environmental impacts on local land and water resources.