The Chinese New Middle Class and Green NGOs in South China: Vanguards of Guanxi (Connections)-Seeking, Laggards in Promoting Social Causes?

By examining the emerging Chinese new middle class as well as green non-governmental organisations, this study finds that while the emergence of the Chinese new middle class facilitates the growth of green NGOs, the Chinese new class is not activists or agitators working against the government. Based on in-depth interviews with leaders of green NGOs founded by the Chinese new middle class in Guangdong province, this research examines why green NGOs do not call for or advocate environmental protection It concludes that contrary to conventional wisdom, the Chinese new middle class is a vanguard of guanxi (connections)-seeking, but a laggard in promoting environmental protection and civil-society activism. Green NGOs are principally used as a tool to cultivate social capital in the form of guanxi in order to promote personal material interests

Hydrodynamic Description of Granular Convection

We present a hydrodynamic model that captures the essence of granular dynamics in a vibrating bed. We carry out the linear stability analysis and uncover the instability mechanism that leads to the appearance of the convective rolls via a supercritical bifurcation of a bouncing solution. We also explicitly determine the onset of convection as a function of control parameters and confirm our picture by numerical simulations of the continuum equations.Comment: 14 pages, RevTex 11pages + 3 pages figures (Type csh

Azimuthal anisotropy: transition from hydrodynamic flow to jet suppression

Measured 2nd and 4th azimuthal anisotropy coefficients v_{2,4}(N_{part}), p_T) are scaled with the initial eccentricity \varepsilon_{2,4}(N_{part}) of the collision zone and studied as a function of the number of participants N_{part} and the transverse momenta p_T. Scaling violations are observed for p_T \alt 3 GeV/c, consistent with a $p_T^2$ dependence of viscous corrections and a linear increase of the relaxation time with $p_T$. These empirical viscous corrections to flow and the thermal distribution function at freeze-out constrain estimates of the specific viscosity and the freeze-out temperature for two different models for the initial collision geometry. The apparent viscous corrections exhibit a sharp maximum for p_T \agt 3 GeV/c, suggesting a breakdown of the hydrodynamic ansatz and the onset of a change from flow-driven to suppression-driven anisotropy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figs; submitted for publicatio

Topology in Physics - A Perspective

This article, written in honor of Fritz Rohrlich, briefly surveys the role of topology in physics.Comment: 16pp, 2 figures included (encapsulated postscript

Unparticle physics in top pair signals at the LHC and ILC

We study the effects of unparticle physics in the pair productions of top quarks at the LHC and ILC. By considering vector, tensor and scalar unparticle operators, as appropriate, we compute the total cross sections for pair production processes depending on scale dimension d_{\U}. We find that the existence of unparticles would lead to measurable enhancements on the SM predictions at the LHC. In the case of ILC this may become two orders of magnitude larger than that of SM, for smaller values of d_\U, a very striking signal for unparticles.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, analysis for ILC has been adde

Fluctuations of the number of participants and binary collisions in AA interactions at fixed centrality in the Glauber approach

In the framework of the classical Glauber approach, the analytical expressions for the variance of the number of wounded nucleons and binary collisions in AA interactions at a given centrality are presented. Along with the optical approximation term, they contain additional contact terms arising only in the case of nucleus-nucleus collisions. The magnitude of the additional contributions, e.g., for PbPb collisions at SPS energies, is larger than the contribution of the optical approximation at some values of the impact parameter. The sum of the additional contributions is in good agreement with the results of independent Monte Carlo simulations of this process. Due to these additional terms, the variance of the total number of participants for peripheral PbPb collisions and the variance of the number of collisions at all values of the impact parameter exceed several multiples of the Poisson variances. The correlator between the numbers of participants in colliding nuclei at fixed centrality is also analytically calculated.Comment: updated version; as published by Phys. Rev.

Coulomb effects on growth of instabilities in asymmetric nuclear matter

We study the effects of the Coulomb interaction on the growth of unstable modes in asymmetric nuclear matter. In order to compare with previous calculations we use a semiclassical approach based on the linearized Vlasov equation. Moreover, a quantum calculation is performed within the R.P.A.. The Coulomb effects are a slowing down of the growth and the occurrence of a minimal wave vector for the onset of the instabilities. The quantum corrections cause a further decrease of the growth rates.Comment: 10 pages, revtex, 4 ps figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. C e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Traffic Equations and Granular Convection

We investigate both numerically and analytically the convective instability of granular materials by two dimensional traffic equations. In the absence of vibrations the traffic equations assume two distinctive classes of fixed bed solutions with either a spatially uniform or nonuniform density profile. The former one exists only when the function V(\rho) that monitors the relaxation of grains assumes a cut off at the closed packed density, \rho_c, with V(\rho_c)=0, while the latter one exists for any form of V. Since there is little difference between the uniform and nonuniform solution deep inside the bed, the convective instability of the bulk may be studied by focusing on the stability of the uniform solution. In the presence of vibrations, we find that the uniform solution bifurcates into a bouncing solution, which then undergoes a supercritical bifurcation to the convective instability. We determine the onset of convection as a function of control parameters and confirm this picture by solving the traffic equations numerically, which reveals bouncing solutions, two convective rolls, and four convective rolls. Further, convective patterns change as the aspect ratio changes: in a vertically long container, the rolls move toward the surface, and in a horizontally long container, the rolls move toward the walls. We compare these results with those reported previously with a different continuum model by Hayakawa, Yue and Hong[Phys. Rev. Lett. 75,2328, 1995]. Finally, we also present a derivation of the traffic equations from Enskoq equation.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figure