MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small RNAs playing an important regulatory function in plant development and stress responses. Among them, some are evolutionally conserved in plant and others are only expressed in certain species, tissue or developmental stages. Cucumber is among the most important greenhouse species in the world, but only a limited number of miRNAs from cucumber have been identified and the experimental validation of the related miRNA targets is still lacking. In this study, two independent small RNA libraries from cucumber leaves and roots were constructed, respectively, and sequenced with the high-throughput Illumina Solexa system. Based on sequence similarity and hairpin structure prediction, a total of 29 known miRNA families and 2 novel miRNA families containing a total of 64 miRNA were identified. QRT-PCR analysis revealed that some of the cucumber miRNAs were preferentially expressed in certain tissues. With the recently developed ‘high throughput degradome sequencing’ approach, 21 target mRNAs of known miRNAs were identified for the first time in cucumber. These targets were associated with development, reactive oxygen species scavenging, signaling transduction and transcriptional regulation. Our study provides an overview of miRNA expression profile and interaction between miRNA and target, which will help further understanding of the important roles of miRNAs in cucumber plants.

PurposeThis study draws on the upper echelon perspective and effectuation theory to put insights on the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable performance.Design/methodology/approachThe study had adopted the cluster-sampling approach to collect data from 500 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) established in China and India with 46.60% response rate. The SmartPLS 3.0 was employed for data analysis.FindingsThis study verified the mediating role of frugal innovation in emerging markets. Both market and technological turbulence significantly moderated the sustainable leadership-frugal innovation relationship. Nevertheless, the effect of sustainable leadership on frugal innovation did not vary for the different values of entrepreneurial bricolage.Originality/valueThis article contributes by revealing the moderating effect of market and technological turbulence as moderator. Greater market and technological turbulence led to greater impact of sustainable leadership practices on frugal innovation.

Considering the severe environmental climate in frontier Asia and the substantial role of the manufacturing industry for any economy, the present study investigates the mechanism of sustainable leadership-environmental performance based on the upper echelon theory (UET). Data were collected from 500 employees of large manufacturing firms listed under the Pakistan Stock Exchange, Pakistan. The response rate in this study was 52.60%. Furthermore, structural equation modelling was adopted to test the proposed hypothesis. Based on the results, frugal innovation partially mediated sustainable leadership on environmental performance. The practical implications and limitations were also summarised in the study.

This study investigated the performance of Chinese banks following the full adoption of e-banking system, particularly in profitability and cost efficiency performance. The study became more important with the development of e-banking and internet because of increased penetration of e-banking which has redefined the banking operations in China and in globe. Secondary method was adopted in this study. The report and data of five banks in China were used for sample analysis. The bank performance was measured in terms of return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), operating margin (OM), net interest margin (NIM) and efficiency ratio. With the data collected, the different performance means between development stage and developed stage of e-banking in China were compared. The study revealed that e-banking could improve the Chinese bank performance in terms of ROA, ROE, and OM. On the contrary, e-banking has a slight impact on Chinese bank performance with respect to NIM and efficiency ratio. The findings of this study were to provide banks with suggestions for e-banking adoption for banking operations.

Curcumin, a principle bioactive component of Curcuma longa L, is well known for its anti-hyperlipidemia effect. However, no holistic metabolic information of curcumin on hyperlipidemia models has been revealed, which may provide us an insight into the underlying mechanism. In the present work, NMR and MS based metabolomics was conducted to investigate the intervention effect of curcumin on hyperlipidemia mice induced by high-fat diet (HFD) feeding for 12 weeks. The HFD induced animals were orally administered with curcumin (40, 80 mg/kg) or lovastatin (30 mg/kg, positive control) once a day during the inducing period. Serum biochemistry assay of TC, TG, LDL-c, and HDL-c was conducted and proved that treatment of curcumin or lovastatin can significantly improve the lipid profiles. Subsequently, metabolomics analysis was carried out for urine samples. Orthogonal Partial Least Squares-Discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) was employed to investigate the anti-hyperlipidemia effect of curcumin and to detect related potential biomarkers. Totally, 35 biomarkers were identified, including 31 by NMR and nine by MS (five by both). It turned out that curcumin treatment can partially recover the metabolism disorders induced by HFD, with the following metabolic pathways involved: TCA cycle, glycolysis and gluconeogenesis, synthesis of ketone bodies and cholesterol, ketogenesis of branched chain amino acid, choline metabolism, and fatty acid metabolism. Besides, NMR and MS based metabolomics proved to be powerful tools in investigating pharmacodynamics effect of natural products and underlying mechanisms.