Chinese decision-making in reponse to foreign policy crises, 1949-1996 : a poliheuristic analysis

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on April 21, 2014).China is seen widely as a distinctive power when dealing with international relations in general and foreign policy crises in particular. Given the concerns about whether the rise of China will be peaceful or belligerent, this dissertation aims to illuminate how Chinese decision-makers make key decisions in foreign policy crises and what lead to such decisions in a systematic and theoretically driven way. To achieve this goal, this project tests the Poliheuristic Theory (PH), developed by Alex Mintz (1993, 2003a), which synthesizes the previously isolated psychological and rational theories of foreign policy decision-making. The evidence from the structured, focused comparative analysis of the processes and outcomes of Chinese decision-making in foreign policy crises, spanning from 1949 to 1996, clearly supports the core of PH in such a least-likely context. In a state as distinctive as China, crisis decision-making in the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not significantly deviant from that in many other states; Chinese decision-makers also make policies against domestic politics. In non-democratic systems, foreign policy decision-makers do not necessarily seek for re-election; however, they tend to seek for legitimacy and public support. Chinese decision-makers put primacy on political survivability at the onset of crisis decision-making. Their political survivability is closely associated with intra-CCP factional struggles, public legitimacy, and individual personalities. Following the initial elimination of politically unacceptable options, Chinese decision-makers do appear to switch to the compensatory rule of utility-maximizing to optimize the final choice with a comprehensive evaluation of the remaining options across all policy dimensions concerning national security

Strategies of gene transfer to the kidney

Strategies of gene transfer to the kidney. Kidney targeted gene transfer has been a realistic goal for many researchers since 1991, but unfortunately, to date there is no reliable gene transfer technique for gene therapy of renal diseases. However, at the experimental level, several in vivo gene transfer methods have attempted to target certain renal structures, for example, the HVJ-liposome method and renal perfusion of adenovirus for glomerular cells, intravenous injection of oligonucleotides (ODNs) for proximal tubule, intra-arterial injection of adenovirus followed by cold incubation with a vasodilator for interstitial vasculature of the outer medulla, and adenoviral injection into the renal pelvis for the inner medullary collecting duct. As an ex vivo gene transfer method targeting the glomerulus, the transfusion of genetically-modified mesangial cells has been attempted. Implantation of genetically-modified tubular epithelial cells into the subcapsular region has been employed for ex vivo transfection to the interstitium. Gene therapy has focused particularly on the transplanted kidney, where an exogenous gene can transferred in advance. In the future, an inducible system and individual cell targeting strategy should be developed. The improvement of gene transfer techniques, especially vectors for delivering genes, is crucial. The potential application of gene transfer technologies is enormous while the therapeutic approaches have just begun to be explored. Therapeutic interventions of the process of progression of glomerulonephritis in the rat have been directed towards inhibiting the actions of growth factors. Obviously, molecular biological intervention is coming of age and there is a tremendous excitement over its potential. We believe that gene transfer techniques will become common tools for the dissection of molecular aspects of diseases and possibly for gene therapy in the field of nephrology