The emergence of civil society and intellectuals in China

This study investigates the emergence of civil society in China. The existence and sustainability of civil society in China has bearing on the country’s further economic, political and social development. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, this study employs secondary statistical data as well as individual and focus groups interviews to address the emergence of civil society and intellectuals in China. The position of this paper is that Chinese civil society has developed in ‘fits and starts’ since the beginning of economic liberalization in 1978. This contributed to changes in the political and social spheres, allowing more autonomous bodies to grow out of society as well as state structures, and facilitating the emergence of Chinese civil society. Intellectuals in particular have been able to exercise their autonomy in the Chinese policy process, influencing the direction of state policy towards their own interests, and consequently strengthening the public sphere and civil society. Chinese civil society is punctuated by the influence of the historical, cultural, and political factors that constitute the form of its institutions, organizations and associations, as well as how these social actors communicate in the public sphere. It differs from that generally found in western countries. Unlike the west, it does not exist in opposition to the state. Instead, Chinese institutions of civil society also exist at the interstices between state and society and across them as well. This entwining entanglement of civil society with the state is indicative of the specific social, political, economic, and cultural conditions that have contributed to its development. As it continues to emerge, Chinese civil society is increasingly becoming a sphere of identity formation, social integration, and cultural reproduction

Exposures: Exploring Selves and Landscapes in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

This thesis contributes to understandings of tourism and landscape by detailing how embodied tourist subjects are active producers of knowledge and place, rather than passive consumers. However tourists are not understood as the sole producers and this thesis details a world of active agencies in negotiation and mutual re-configuration. It is based upon an ethnographic study through participant observation of 25 day-trip tours to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine. The participant observation was undertaken as researcher, visitor and tour guide and offers a range of perspectives and accounts. The thesis offers an account of embodied subjectivity and landscape as mutually implicated and in a co-becoming, but a mutuality that is fraught, negotiated and uncertain rather than a given vitality. The thesis is presented as five 'cuts' through this ethnographic material, each broaching specific theoretical and empirical concerns. First, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is argued to be a site of post-apocalypse in a manner which re-purposes a post-apocalyptic imaginary as a salient political narrative that holds a fidelity to events, pasts and futures and in contrast to Hollywood spectacle and certain climate change prophecies. Secondly the thesis examines practices of meaning-making in the ruins of Pripyat, drawing on theories that highlight material, embodied practices of making-sense through encounters with vestiges of other lives. Thirdly it presents a post-phenomenological account of embodied subjectivity. Merleau-Ponty's philosophy of the flesh is examined and, through the work of Luce Irigaray, a re conceptualisation is presented that asserts a necessary passivity of exposure as the predicate for all action and that offers a radical account of the reversibility of the flesh that de-centres the embodied subject. Fourthly the map that accompanies this thesis is presented as a means of examining networks of negotiation with the resistant, wilful, trickster agencies of radiation. Drawing on the work of Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway the thesis focuses on the Geiger counter as a key mediator in practices which assert a topographical account of networked practices in contrast to topological accounts associated with actor-network theory. Finally, the thesis offers a conception of difference and boundary-making practices as performative re-configurations where difference is understood not only as produced, rather than given through a priori assumptions of bodily and worldly boundaries, but also as actively productive. The thesis contributes to debates on subjectivity, landscape and knowledge production

Modeling Acreage Response and US Farm Policy In a New Market Environment

Replaced with revised version of poster 9/2/11.Agricultural and Food Policy,

2-aminophenols containing electron-withdrawing groups from N-aryl hydroxylamines

Reaction of substituted N-aryl hydroxylamines with methanesulfonyl chloride, p-toluenesulfonyl chloride, or trifluoromethanesulfonic anhydride under basic conditions leads to the rearranged 2-aminophenols (45-94%). The overall reaction sequence can be performed using polymer-supported sulfonyl chloride resin allowing for the effective conversion of N-aryl hydroxylamines to the 2-aminophenols without the need for chromatography

Anisotropy of critical correlations in moderately delocalized cerium and actinide systems

The equilibrium and excitation magnetic behavior of a class of cerium and light actinide compounds have been explained previously, in a theory first developed by Siemann and Cooper, in terms of a band-f-electron anisotropic hybridization-mediated two-ion interaction of the Coqblin- Schrieffer type. Using the same theory, we present here a calculation, within the random-phase approximation, of the longitudinal component of the static wave-vector-dependent susceptibility in the paramagnetic phase. The calculations have been performed in the presence of a cubic crystal field (CF) and yield results for the ratio of inverse critical correlation lengths, K||/K_, parallel and perpendicular to the moment direction, that compare well with those of diffuse critical neutron scattering experiments. In Ce3+ (f1) compounds, we find that as the CF interaction (F7 ground state) predominates over the two-ion interaction, the relative strength of the coupling within the ferromagnetic [001] planes (with moments perpendicular to the planes) and that between the [001] planes is gradually reversed, resulting in a ratio K||/K_ smaller than unity, as is experimentally observed. We also present results for the effect of differing intraionic (L-S,intermediate, and j-j) coupling on K||/K_ for the case of Pu3+(f5) and U3+(f3) compounds

Identification of a novel ß-adrenergic octopamine receptor-like gene (ßAOR-like) and increased ATP-binding cassette B10 (ABCB10) expression in a Rhipicephalus microplus cell line derived from acaricide-resistant ticks

Background: The cattle tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus is an economically important parasite of livestock. Effective control of ticks using acaricides is threatened by the emergence of resistance to many existing compounds. Several continuous R. microplus cell lines have been established and provide an under-utilised resource for studies into acaricide targets and potential genetic mutations associated with resistance. As a first step to genetic studies using these resources, this study aimed to determine the presence or absence of two genes and their transcripts that have been linked with acaricide function in cattle ticks: β-adrenergic octopamine receptor (βAOR, associated with amitraz resistance) and ATP-binding cassette B10 (ABCB10, associated with macrocyclic lactone resistance) in six R. microplus cell lines, five other Rhipicephalus spp. cell lines and three cell lines representing other tick genera (Amblyomma variegatum, Ixodes ricinus and Hyalomma anatolicum). Methods: End-point polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for detection of the βAOR gene and transcripts in DNA and RNA extracted from the tick cell lines, followed by capillary sequencing of amplicons. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) was performed to determine the levels of expression of ABCB10. Results: βAOR gene expression was detected in all Rhipicephalus spp. cell lines. We observed a second amplicon of approximately 220 bp for the βAOR gene in the R. microplus cell line BME/CTVM6, derived from acaricide-resistant ticks. Sequencing of this transcript variant identified a 36 bp insertion in the βAOR gene, leading to a 12-amino acid insertion (LLKTLALVTIIS) in the first transmembrane domain of the protein. In addition, nine synonymous SNPs were also discovered in R. appendiculatus, R. evertsi and R. sanguineus cell lines. Some of these SNPs appear to be unique to each species, providing potential tools for differentiating the tick species. The BME/CTVM6 cell line had significantly higher ABCB10 (P = 0.002) expression than the other R. micropluscell lines. Conclusions: The present study has identified a new βAOR gene and demonstrated a higher ABCB10 expression level in the BME/CTVM6 cell line, indicating that tick cell lines provide a useful experimental tool for acaricide resistance studies and further elucidation of tick genetics

Dragons in the Drawing Room: Chinese Embroideries in British Homes

Chinese embroideries have featured in British domestic interiors since at least the seventeenth century. However, Western imperial interests in China during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century created a particular set of meanings around Chinese material culture, especially a colonial form of nostalgia for pre-nineteenth century China, with its emperors and 'exotic' court etiquette. This article examines the use of Chinese satin-stitch embroideries in British homes between 1860 and 1949, and explores how a range of British identities was constructed through the ownership, manipulation and display of these luxury Chinese textiles