Master of Arts

thesisBy analyzing evidence from the China 2000 and 2010 County-level Censuses, which includes over 3,000 county units, questions regarding which socio-demographic covariates correlate with the sex ratio at birth can be answered. This study investigated variables that have connections to gender discrimination - such as gender difference in illiteracy - and conducted OLS and logistic analysis at the 2000, 2010, and 2000-2010 years. Results indicate the gender difference in college enrollment revealed the most conclusive findings, with a positive relationship to the SRB at the 0.001 significance level. In two of the models, there was a positive correlation of the prevalence of multigenerational households and the SRB. All the results suggest that urbanization is a negative covariate of SRB, although results are not significant in the 2010 analysis. According to these results, efforts ought to be made at targeting women's education in counties with a large gender gap in college enrollment, policies ought to be catered to rural areas as well as urban areas, and formation of nuclear families ought to be encouraged as opposed to families based on virilocal marriage

Rodent Biology and Management; Abstracts of papers presented at the International Conference on Rodent Biology and Management, held at Beijing, China, 5-9 October 1998

Farm Management,

Dealing with Health and Health Care System Challenges in China: assessing health determinants and health care reforms

This dissertation investigates the challenges faced by China around 2010 in two domains – population health and the health care system. Specifically, chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to health challenges, explaining the female health disadvantage in later life and assessing the effect of only children on their elderly parents’ mental wellbeing. Chapters 4 and 5 are devoted to health care system challenges, assessing in rural China if bottom-up results-based reforms could improve the health system performance under limited funding and if a simplified diagnosis-related group (DRG)-based hospital payment system could contain the fast-growing health expenditure

Parents\u27 perceptions and concerns about their children\u27s weight

Background: For parents to address overweight or obesity in their children, they first need to perceive their child to be overweight and to show some level of concern. We aimed to: (1) measure the level of misclassification between children&rsquo;s actual and parent-perceived weight status, and (2) determine the level of parent concern about their child&rsquo;s (actual) weight and whether concern varied according to the accuracy of parents&rsquo; perceptions.Methods: Participants were 1711 primary school children aged 5&ndash;12 years from the Barwon-South West region of Victoria, Australia. Height and weight were measured and weight status determined using international standards. Parents completed a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) that included questions relating to their child&rsquo;s weight.Results: 448 children (26.2% of sample) were overweight or obese. Of these, weight status for almost half (48%) was underestimated by parents. This &lsquo;bias&rsquo; did not vary according to the child&rsquo;s gender, parent&rsquo;s education, or household socio-economic status but did for child&rsquo;s age and parent-respondent gender. More than half (57%) of the parents of overweight-obese children expressed no concern about their child&rsquo;s weight. Parents who underestimated the weight status of their overweight child were significantly less concerned (P &lt; 0.001) about their child&rsquo;s weight than those who correctly perceived their child as overweight.Conclusions: Parents were relatively poor judges of overweight or obesity in their own child and consequently there was a lack of appropriately directed concern. Education to help parents correctly classify their child&rsquo;s weight status should be part of efforts to prevent unhealthy weight gain.<br /

Emerging infectious diseases

Emerging Infectious Diseases is providing access to these abstracts on behalf of the ICEID 2012 program committee (www.iceid.org), which performed peer review. Emerging Infectious Diseases has not edited or proofread these materials and is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions. All information is subject to change. Comments and corrections should be brought to the attention of the authors.Influenza preparedness: lessons learned -- Policy implications and infectious diseases -- Improving preparedness for infectious diseases -- New or rapid diagnostics -- Foodborne and waterborne infections -- Effective and sustainable surveillance platforms -- Healthcare-associated infections -- Molecular epidemiology -- Antimicrobial resistance -- Tropical infections and parasitic diseases -- H1N1 influenza -- Risk Assessment -- Laboratory Support -- Zoonotic and Animal Diseases -- Viral Hepatitis -- E1. Zoonotic and animal diseases -- E2. Vaccine issues -- E3. H1N1 influenza -- E4. Novel surveillance systems -- E5. Antimicrobial resistance -- E6. Late-breakers I -- Antimicrobial resistance -- Influenza preparedness: lessons learned -- Zoonotic and animal diseases -- Improving preparedness for infectious diseases -- Laboratory support -- Early warning systems -- H1N1 influenza -- Policy implications and infectious diseases -- Modeling -- Molecular epidemiology -- Novel surveillance systems -- Tropical infections and parasitic diseases -- Strengthening public health systems -- Immigrant and refugee health -- Foodborne and waterborne infections -- Healthcare-associated infections -- Foodborne and waterborne infections -- New or rapid diagnostics -- Improving global health equity for infectious diseases -- Vulnerable populations -- Novel agents of public health importance -- Influenza preparedness: lessons learned -- Molecular epidemiology -- Zoonotic and animal diseases -- Vaccine-preventable diseases -- Outbreak investigation: lab and epi response -- H1N1 influenza -- laboratory support -- effective and sustainable surveillance platforms -- new vaccines -- vector-borne diseases and climate change -- travelers' health -- J1. Vectorborne diseases and climate change -- J2. Policy implications and infectious diseases -- J3. Influenza preparedness: lessons learned -- J4. Effective and sustainable surveillance platforms -- J5. Outbreak investigation: lab and epi response I -- J6. Late-breakers II -- Strengthening public health systems -- Bacterial/viral coinfections -- H1N1 influenza -- Novel agents of public health importance -- Foodborne and waterborne infections -- New challenges for old vaccines -- Vectorborne diseases and climate change -- Novel surveillance systems -- Geographic information systems (GIS) -- Improving global health equity for infectious diseases -- Vaccine preventable diseases -- Vulnerable populations -- Laboratory support -- Prevention challenges for respiratory diseases -- Zoonotic and animal diseases -- Outbreak investigation: lab and epi response -- Vectorborne diseases and climate change -- Outbreak investigation: lab and epi response -- Laboratory proficiency testing/quality assurance -- Effective and sustainable surveillance platforms -- Sexually transmitted diseases -- H1N1 influenza -- Surveillance of vaccine-preventable diseases -- Foodborne and waterborne infections -- Role of health communication -- Emerging opportunistic infections -- Host and microbial genetics -- Respiratory infections in special populations -- Zoonotic and animal diseases -- Laboratory support -- Antimicrobial resistance -- Vulnerable populations -- Global vaccine initiatives -- Tuberculosis -- Prevention challenges for respiratory diseases -- Infectious causes of chronic diseases -- O1. Outbreak investigation: lab and epi response II -- O2. Prevention challenges for respiratory diseases -- O3. Populations at high risk for infectious diseases -- O4. Foodborne and waterborne infections -- O5. Laboratory support: surveillance and monitoring infections -- O6. Late-breakers IIIAbstracts published in advance of the conference

Sustainability transitions and leapfrogging in latecomer cities : a case of the diffusion of solar thermal energy in China

Sustainability transition has been a burgeoning research field and political practice due to its focus on the systemic and fundamental transformation of existing main human sectors to curb global climate change. The present thesis aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the potential of latecomer cities in sustainability transitions through a geographical lens. Inspired by the multi-level perspective, economic geography, and leapfrogging research, the thesis proposes to understand sustainability transitions as consequences of power struggles between niche development and regime resistance, and latecomer cities may have a higher potential for sustainability transitions as they are less locked-in by existing regimes and niche actors could be more powerful to direct desired changes. These ideas are explored through a qualitative investigation of the popularisation of solar thermal energy in a latecomer city, Dezhou, in contrast to a more developed counterpart, Beijing.Though the global and national landscape of green development has exerted unprecedented pressures on lower governance scales, it is interpreted and responded to differently at the local level. Unlike the development of other renewable energies, the popularisation of solar thermal energy in China is primarily driven by market forces. It is only recently that government’s policies began to play a significant role. When this technology was encouraged to enter the urban market, it confronted many obstacles such as low technology profile, high-end consumer preferences, and conflict of interests among the main actors. However, these resisting factors have different purchase in cities at different development stages.Dezhou’s transition to solar thermal energy is an interactive consequence of weak regime resistance (i.e. suitable building infrastructure, less hostile market selection, and less institutional inertia) and strong niche development with a positive feedback loop among a powerful lead industry, supportive government, networked users, and motivated estate developers. These interactions are conditioned by place-specific contexts, as well as multi-scalar interactions, through which knowledge learning, interest coordination, and empowering are realised by key niche champions such as green entrepreneurs and governments at the local level.The findings of this thesis suggest that the global landscape of green development is repositioning the role of less developed regions in sustainability transitions. Latecomer cities, though weak in technology innovation, demonstrate several advantages over developed cities in transition to decentralized energy systems, as they are generally less locked-in by incumbent unsustainable regimes, and green niche actors within them could be more powerful in directing transitions if they are able to meet economic interests at the local level and environmental benefits at the higher scales. Local scalar-transcending actors are of pivotal significance for latecomer cities to pursue green transitions because they are the key mechanism whereby external knowledge, resources, and legitimacy are brought in to sustain local transitions. This highlights the role of power and agency that has previously been overlooked in transition research. The thesis thus not only contributes to an in-depth understanding about why and how sustainability transitions take place in certain places, it also reveals the general potential of cities that are lagging behind in industrialisation and urbanisation in pursuing sustainability transitions. Based on this, policy implications are suggested for latecomer cities to achieve sustainability transitions

China's New Sources of Economic Growth

China’s efforts in searching for new sources of growth are increasingly pressing given the persistence of the growth slowdown in recent years. This year’s book elucidates key present macroeconomic challenges facing China’s economy in 2017, and the impacts and readiness of human capital, innovation and technological change in affecting the development of China’s economy. The book explores the development of human capital as the foundations of China’s push into more advanced growth frontiers. It also explores the progress of productivity improvement in becoming the primary mechanism by which China can sustain economic growth, and explains the importance of China’s human capital investments to success on this front. The book demonstrates that technical change is a major contributor to productivity growth; and that invention and innovation are increasingly driving technical change but so far lumpily across regions, sectors and invention motivations. Included are chapters providing an update on reform and macroeconomic development, educational inequality, the role of intangibles in determining China’s economic growth, and China’s progress in transitioning towards being an innovative country. The book also covers the regional dimension of innovation and technological progress by sector: in agricultural productivity, renewable energy and financial markets. Chapters on trade, investment, regional cooperation and foreign aid explore further the mechanisms through which technological change and innovative activities are emerging locally and internationally

Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China

Confronting Discrimination and Inequality in China focuses on the most challenging areas of discrimination and inequality in China, including discrimination faced by HIV/AIDS afflicted individuals, rural populations, migrant workers, women, people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities. The Canadian contributors offer rich regional, national, and international perspectives on how constitutions, laws, policies, and practices, both in Canada and in other parts of the world, battle discrimination and the conflicts that rise out of it. The Chinese contributors include some of the most independent-minded scholars and practitioners in China. Their assessments of the challenges facing China in the areas of discrimination and inequality not only attest to their personal courage and intellectual freedom but also add an important perspective on this emerging superpower