Dilemmas of Change in Chinese Local Governance: Through the Lens of Heritage Conservation

The past few decades have seen significant changes and transformations in China, from the ideological, political, legal, social and economic perspectives. These changes lead to the argument that the regime in China now can be labeled as a developmental authoritarian state, which has seen a gradual opening-up of the space for associational life. In this context, in the face of rapid economic development and massive construction, local developments have witnessed a conflict between preserving the past for its intrinsic value and the need for change. In particular, there are different actors involved in heritage conservation, including the local government, the developer, specialists, the media and ordinary people. Since the notion of “a deliberative democracy” was made prominent by the Chinese government, there is a dilemma between the pursuit of economic development and the call for a democratic process in decision-making in heritage conservation. Thus, to follow this from one small clue, heritage conservation becomes a window to look into Chinese local governance. However, little research has been done on power structures within heritage conservation and how different forces interact and negotiate in transitional economies at the local level in China. Using the grounded theory method (Charmaz, 2006), the research aims to explore the dilemmas of changes in Chinese local governance through the lens of heritage conservation and to investigate the interactions between key players in the society. Based on the theoretical framework of networked governance by Bevir and Rhodes (2012) and their interpretive analysis, this study “decentres” the local governance in heritage conservation, providing the different narratives of the local government, specialists, the media and ordinary people, as well as their interactions. A comparative study between an urban and a rural case is conducted using a combination of qualitative research methods, including text analysis, in-depth interviews and participant observation. The study indicates that, facing the dilemmas of heritage conservation and local development, local governments employ different governing approaches, such as “public participation under government leadership”, “the rule of law” and “ideological cultivation”. I argue that local governments in China re-adapt the traditions in current local governance as a response to the dilemmas. In the city, there is an increasing importance of business enterprises and entrepreneurial elite in local policy and decision making. China’s urban governance thus features entrepreneurialism which shares both commonalities with and differences from its western counterparts. It is characterized by market regulation and official-businessperson collusion, and centred on land speculation in implementing entrepreneurialism. However, in the countryside, rural governance experiences a combination of changes and traditions: a formal institutional authority of the grassroots self-governance system and an informal form of authority generated under the influence of inclusive social and kinship ties. I suggest that local China is now experiencing the “authoritarian deliberation” put forward by He and Warren (2009), which is inherited from the governing traditions and is reinforced by continuing social and economic development. This study opens up a new discussion on how democracy survives under rapid economic development in China. This study also contributes to the knowledge of changes in Chinese local governance and the interpretations of different actors. As an empirical study using “decentring” approach, this study explores local governance from different perspectives, which emphasizes the traditions, dilemmas and networks in governance theory

DAVIS-Ag: A Synthetic Plant Dataset for Developing Domain-Inspired Active Vision in Agricultural Robots

In agricultural environments, viewpoint planning can be a critical functionality for a robot with visual sensors to obtain informative observations of objects of interest (e.g., fruits) from complex structures of plant with random occlusions. Although recent studies on active vision have shown some potential for agricultural tasks, each model has been designed and validated on a unique environment that would not easily be replicated for benchmarking novel methods being developed later. In this paper, hence, we introduce a dataset for more extensive research on Domain-inspired Active VISion in Agriculture (DAVIS-Ag). To be specific, we utilized our open-source "AgML" framework and the 3D plant simulator of "Helios" to produce 502K RGB images from 30K dense spatial locations in 632 realistically synthesized orchards of strawberries, tomatoes, and grapes. In addition, useful labels are provided for each image, including (1) bounding boxes and (2) pixel-wise instance segmentations for all identifiable fruits, and also (3) pointers to other images that are reachable by an execution of action so as to simulate the active selection of viewpoint at each time step. Using DAVIS-Ag, we show the motivating examples in which performance of fruit detection for the same plant can significantly vary depending on the position and orientation of camera view primarily due to occlusions by other components such as leaves. Furthermore, we develop several baseline models to showcase the "usage" of data with one of agricultural active vision tasks--fruit search optimization--providing evaluation results against which future studies could benchmark their methodologies. For encouraging relevant research, our dataset is released online to be freely available at: https://github.com/ctyeong/DAVIS-AgComment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 4 table

Reduced MLH3 Expression in the Syndrome of Gan-Shen Yin Deficiency in Patients with Different Diseases

Traditional Chinese medicine formulates treatment according to body constitution (BC) differentiation. Different constitutions have specific metabolic characteristics and different susceptibility to certain diseases. This study aimed to assess the characteristic genes of gan-shen Yin deficiency constitution in different diseases. Fifty primary liver cancer (PLC) patients, 94 hypertension (HBP) patients, and 100 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients were enrolled and classified into gan-shen Yin deficiency group and non-gan-shen Yin deficiency group according to the body constitution questionnaire to assess the clinical manifestation of patients. The mRNA expressions of 17 genes in PLC patients with gan-shen Yin deficiency were different from those without gan-shen Yin deficiency. However, considering all patients with PLC, HBP, and DM, only MLH3 was significantly lower in gan-shen Yin deficiency group than that in non-gen-shen Yin deficiency. By ROC analysis, the relationship between MLH3 and gan-shen Yin deficiency constitution was confirmed. Treatment of MLH3 (−/− and −/+) mice with Liuweidihuang wan, classical prescriptions for Yin deficiency, partly ameliorates the body constitution of Yin deficiency in MLH3 (−/+) mice, but not in MLH3 (−/−) mice. MLH3 might be one of material bases of gan-shen Yin deficiency constitution

Effects of Uniqueness, News Valence, and Liking on Personalization of Company News

Many online information systems are delivering personalized news to users today. The essence of this personalization process is to match a news article to the reader’s self-identity. However, prior studies mostly focus on matching a positive news story to a person’s desired identity. No known research has discussed the possibility of matching a negative news story to a person’s undesired identity. This study aims to fill this theoretical gap by testing a three-way interaction effect among news valence, identity desirability, and uniqueness on attitude toward the news story. Through a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment, it is shown that a positive news story tends to generate a more favorable attitude when matched to the reader’s desired self-identity, whereas a negative news story will generate a more favorable attitude when matched to the person’s undesired self-identity, and such an effect is especially pronounced when the identity is unique. Perceived news credibility is found to partially mediate these effects

“Liking” and being “liked”: How are personality traits and demographics associated with giving and receiving “likes” on Facebook?

On social media, users can express their favorable attitudes toward messages that others post by clicking the “like” button. In return, they may also receive “likes” from others for their own posts. This study aims to examine the “liking” behavior on social media by using the theoretical framework of gift giving and impression management. Specifically, the study investigates if and how different personality traits (i.e., self-esteem, empathy, interpersonal generosity, and public self-consciousness) and demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, and education) are associated with one's frequencies of giving and receiving “likes” on Facebook. A survey was conducted with 421 Facebook users in the United States. The study results revealed that frequency of giving “likes” was positively associated with both interpersonal generosity and public self-consciousness, but frequency of receiving “likes” was not significantly related to the examined personality traits. Age and gender were significantly associated with frequencies of both giving and receiving “likes.” Educational background was negatively associated with giving “likes.” •“Liking” is examined through the lens of gift giving and impression management.•People with different “liking” patterns differ in personality and demographics.•Giving “likes” is associated with interpersonal generosity and self-consciousness.•Receiving and giving “likes” are both associated with age and gender.•Giving “likes” is negatively associated with education level

Fluid interface moving for the concurrent production of gas cap and oil ring of gas cap reservoirs

The pressure balance between gas cap and oil ring is likely to be broken during their concurrent production in gas cap reservoirs. In order to increase the whole development efficiency of the concurrent production of gas cap and oil ring, the Zhanzhol gas cap reservoir of Kazakhstan was taken as example to carry out the research, a three-dimensional visualization physical model was established based on the similarity criterion of oil phase, gas phase and water phase, and a reservoir engineering model of fluid interface moving rate was also set up according to the material balance principle. The calculation results of reservoir engineering model tally with the results of physical simulation experiment and reservoir dynamic test data. The moving rate template of fluid interface under three development modes, depletion development, barrier water injection development and barrier plus pattern water injection development have been also established by reservoir engineering method. The main controlling factors under different development modes have been figured out: for depletion development, the main controlling factors on the stabilization of oil-gas contact are oil recovery rate and gas recovery rate; for barrier water injection development, the main controlling factors are oil recovery rate, gas recovery rate and production-injection ratio; and for barrier plus pattern water injection development, the main controlling factors are oil recovery rate, gas recovery rate, production-injection ratio and the ratio of barrier water injection to pattern water injection. Key words: Zhanzhol oil field, gas cap reservoir, concurrent production of gas cap and oil ring, fluid interface, moving rul

“You are a useful person”: Economic inequality leads people to approach instrumental others

Economic inequality has been shown to increase social distance. However, we proposed that in more unequal societies, people’s affiliation with others depends on whether the relationship is instrumental to self-enhancement goals. The results from four experiments (total N = 837) supported our proposition. We found that economic inequality increased people’s focus on the instrumentality aspects of others (Experiment 1). In a work setting, economic inequality prompted people to choose colleagues who were instrumental in achieving their performance goals as partners (Experiment 2). Moreover, the effect could be extended to situations where there is no clear benefit. Specifically, participants in high-inequality contexts tended to approach instrumental targets more than those in low-inequality contexts, and the effect was driven by the salience of self-enhancement goals (Experiments 3-4). Taken together, our findings suggest that economic inequality encourages instrumentality orientation in social interactions, which changes how people view relationships and interact with others

Development and genetic mechanism of complex carbonate reservoir fractures: A case from the Zanarol Oilfield, Kazakhstan

By core observation and slice analysis, two types of fractures can be identified in reservoirs of Zanarol Oilfield, including macro-fractures and micro-fractures. Macro-fractures refer to tectonic fractures and stylolites, and micro-fractures mainly refer to grain breakage fractures and micro-tectonic fractures. The development of the different scale fractures is controlled by lithology, formation texture and stress field. Macro-fractures are well developed in tight rocks such as micrite and micro-fractures are well developed in granular carbonate rocks of good porosity and permeability. The Zanarol Oilfield is a typical layered pool, with interbeds of granular carbonates and tight carbonates, and this texture controls the vertical distribution of macro-fractures and micro-fractures. Macro-fractures in the ? layer are well developed due to its tight reservoir, and micro-fractures are well developed in the ? layer because of its loose reservoir. The planar distribution of the fractures is controlled by principal stress, and fractures are well developed in zones with high principal stress. 摘 要: 通过岩心观察、薄片分析等方法研究让纳若尔油田储集层裂缝发育特征，发现油田发育宏观裂缝和微观裂缝两种不同尺度的裂缝，宏观裂缝包括构造裂缝和缝合线，微观裂缝主要是颗粒破裂纹和构造微缝。不同尺度的裂缝发育程度与碳酸盐岩岩性、地层结构和应力场大小有着密切的关系。宏观裂缝多发育于泥晶灰岩等胶结致密的岩石中，微裂缝多发育在孔渗性较好的颗粒灰岩中。让纳若尔油田是层状特征明显的碳酸盐岩油藏，储集层与致密隔夹层频繁间互的地层结构模式决定了宏观裂缝和微观裂缝的垂向分布模式：Д层储集层较为致密，在构造应力作用下形成宏观裂缝；Г层储集层较为疏松，在构造应力作用下多形成微观裂缝。平面上，裂缝发育与分布受主应力大小控制，在主应力场相对高值区，裂缝发育程度更高。 Key words: carbonate reservoir, fracture feature, macrofracture, microfracture, Zanarol Oilfiel

Productivity Evaluation of Vertical Wells Incorporating Fracture Closure and Reservoir Pressure Drop in Fractured Reservoirs

In most oilfields, many wells produce in pseudo-steady-state period for a long time. Because of large reservoir pressure drop in this period, fractured reservoirs always show strong stress sensitivity and fracture closure is likely to occur near wellbores. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate productivity of vertical wells incorporating fracture closure and reservoir pressure drop. Firstly, a new composite model was developed to deal with stress sensitivity and fracture closure existed in fractured reservoirs. Secondly, considering reservoir saturation condition, new pseudo-steady productivity equations for vertical wells were derived by using the proposed composite system. Thirdly, related inflow performance characteristics and influence of some factors on them were also discussed in detail. Results show that fracture closure has a great effect on vertical well inflow performance and fracture closure radius is negatively correlated with well productivity. In this composite model, the effects of stress sensitivity of the inner and outer zone on well productivity are rather different. The inner zone’s stress sensitivity affects well productivity significantly, but the outer zone’s stress sensitivity just has a weak effect on the productivity. Strong stress sensitivity in the inner zone leads to low well productivity, and both inflow performance and productivity index curves bend closer to the bottom-hole pressure axis with stress sensitivity intensifying. Meanwhile, both maximum productivity and optimal bottom-hole pressure can be achieved from inflow performance curves. In addition, reservoir pressure is positively correlated with vertical well productivity. These new productivity equations and inflow performance curves can directly provide quantitative reference for optimizing production system in fractured reservoirs