A study of the applicability of policy making theories in post-Mao China (1978-1995)

PhD ThesisTo examine the applicability of a range of policy making theories and models, which created by Western scholars, to the practice of post-Mao China is significant in view of what follows. First, to explore to what extent they are applicable to interpret China's practice is beneficial for both absorbing the useful elements from them and discovering and understanding the general features of China's policy making process. Second, particularly, in the post-Mao period, some remarkable changes in China's policy-making pattern have ended a period of stagnation which had lasted for nearly two centuries, and started a course of rejuvenation characterised by rapid economic growth and social prosperity. Thus, these changes and development are well worthy of study with the assistance of above-mentioned theories and models. Aiming at exploring the applicability of these theories and models and how and to what extent these changes occurred and influenced China's policy making processes in all major aspects including policy makers, motivation, policy-making methods, political environment and institutions, this thesis studied the development course (1978-1995) of China's Special Economic Zones (SEZ), which was an important programme of China's reform and opening-up strategy. In doing so, the thesis adopted a method that probes the major features, changes and development of the policy making process in post-Mao China, through examining the applicability of some selected policy making theories and models in China's practice. These selected theories and models consist of those concerning how policy is made, and those relating to how policy should be made. The above examination achieved two goals, which include (a) demonstrating the extent to which each of these theories and models can be used to observe and analyse Chinese policy making practice respectively and their reasons as well, and (b) obtaining the main findings of the thesis about China's policy making process in the post-Mao period as below. (1) Although Marxism was still the fundamental guiding thought of China's policy making, a great flexibility had been adopted, which enabled a series of new policies to be made in last two decades. (2) The twin approaches of incrementalism and pragmatism were the foundation of China's policy-making mechanism, which powerfully promoted its successful operation. (3) The rise of a pluralist tendency significantly influenced China's policy process, which included the increasing involvement of the non-CPC (Communist Party of China) or non-government political and social forces. (4) Political elites continued to dominate China's policy-making process, and this central role was much more prominent than it was in other modern countries. (5) Existing institutions were decisive in shaping China's policy-making mode, by determining the power structure and the power relations within which the policy-making actions taken place

ANALISIS PERBEDAAN HEDGING KAKAO FUTURES DENGAN CROSS HEDGING KOPI ROBUSTA FUTURES YANG DIPERDAGANGAN DI BURSA BERJANGKA JAKARTA PERIODE: 2012-2016

Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk menganalisis perbedaan antara hedging kakao futures dengan cross hedging kopi robusta futures dalam meminimalkan risiko di pasar fisik komoditi kakao dengan membandingkan nilai varians return yang dihasilkan dari kedua kontrak futures. Data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah data harian kakao spot, kakao futures, dan kopi robusta futures yang diperdagangkan di Bursa Berjangka Jakarta (BBJ) pada periode 2012-2016. Alat analisis yang digunakan adalah uji korelasi pearson yang bertujuan untuk menguji hubungan antara harga spot dengan futures pada saat melakukan hedging ataupun cross hedging; uji akar unit digunakan untuk melihat kestasioneritas data sebelum dilakukan uji beda; uji regresi sederhana digunakan untuk menghitung nilai ratio hedged dan ratio cross hedged; uji independent sample t-test digunakan untuk membandingkan nilai varians return yang dihasilkan dari kedua kontrak futures tersebut. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahwa tidak terdapat perbedaan varian returns yang dihasilkan dari keduanya. Dalam hal ini, penanganan risiko pada komoditi kakao di pasar fisiknya pada saat melakukan hedging ataupun cross hedging memiliki tingkat risiko yang sama, sehingga hedging kakao futures dan cross hedging kopi robusta futures sama-sama dapat digunakan untuk meminimalkan risiko pada pasar fisik kakao

Effects of artificial substrates on the growth, survival and spatial distribution of Litopenaeus vannamei in the intensive culture condition

In order to investigate the effects of artificial substrates (vertical surface of polypropylene fabrics) on cultured shrimp, we reared 28-day old Litopenaeus vannamei post-larvae (PL28) intensively for 90 days at a density of 510 shrimp/m^2 in each of 8 tanks. Two tanks containing no artificial substrate were a control group, and 1, 3 and 5 artificial substrates were present in other 6 tanks. The volume of each tank was 100 L. In the tanks with artificial substrates, the percentage of shrimp distribution on the bottom was less significant (P<0.05) than that in the control tanks. The percentage of shrimps attached to the artificial substrates increased and fewer shrimp occupied the tank bottom as more artificial substrates were added to the tanks. Moreover the trends were more significant as rearing days increased. These results showed that artificial substrates could disperse the shrimp from the tank bottom onto the artificial substrates and thus alleviate the negative effect of high stocking density on shrimp growth in the tanks. Both the average weight and survival in the tanks with artificial substrates were significantly higher (P<0.05) than those in the control tanks. Furthermore, weight and survival increased when more artificial substrates were added. Because the shrimps in all tanks were supplied with suitable water quality and adequate nutritional food, we suggest that the differences of growth and survival were affected mainly by living space added with the addition of artificial substrates

Estimation of Asian Dust Aerosol Effect on Cloud Radiation Forcing Using Fu-Liou Radiative Model and CERES Measurements

The impact of Asian dust on cloud radiative forcing during 2003-2006 is studied by using the Earth's Radiant Energy Budget Scanner (CERES) data and the Fu-Liou radiative transfer model. Analysis of satellite data shows that the dust aerosol significantly reduced the cloud cooling effect at TOA. In dust contaminated cloudy regions, the 4-year mean values of the instantaneous shortwave, longwave and net cloud radiative forcing are -138.9, 69.1, and -69.7 Wm(sup -2), which are 57.0, 74.2, and 46.3%, respectively, of the corresponding values in more pristine cloudy regions. The satellite-retrieved cloud properties are significantly different in the dusty regions and can influence the radiative forcing indirectly. The contributions to the cloud radiation forcing by the dust direct, indirect and semi-direct effects are estimated using combined satellite observations and Fu-Liou model simulation. The 4-year mean value of combination of indirect and semi-direct shortwave radiative forcing (SWRF) is 82.2 Wm(sup -2), which is 78.4% of the total dust effect. The direct effect is only 22.7 Wm(sup -2), which is 21.6% of the total effect. Because both first and second indirect effects enhance cloud cooling, the aerosol-induced cloud warming is mainly the result of the semi-direct effect of dust

Effects and Mechanism of Two Nanoparticles (Titanium Dioxide and Silver) to Moina mongolica Daday (Crustacea, Cladocera)

The nearshore and estuary are the main gathering areas of nanoparticles (NPs), and salinity change is a crucial characteristic in these marine areas. Moina mongolica Daday is an important open-ended bait in the nearshore aquaculture environment. Investigating the toxicity mechanism of NPs to M. mongolica under different salinity conditions is crucial to exploring the biological impact of NPs in the nearshore environment. Two typical metal oxide and metal NPs of TiO2 and Ag were used in this study to test the acute, chronic, and reproductive toxicities of M. mongolica (Cladocera) in marine environments of different salinity gradients. The toxic effects and mechanisms of the two NPs on M. mongolica were discussed by ecotoxicology and transcriptional analysis, respectively. A total of 27,274 genes were assembled, and 11,056 genes were successfully compared. Results suggested that TiO2 and Ag NPs showed particle toxicity with oxidation generation and immune emergencies on M. mongolica. Compared with TiO2, Ag NPs showed strong toxicity with reproductive toxicity due to the release of Ag+, resulting in a reduction in reproduction, which is a decrease in the number of offspring and the rm. Critical DEGs involved in carapace showed carapace damage of M. mongolica, due to adhesion and accumulation (approximately 40%–60% of all accumulation) on carapace, which was one of the toxic mechanisms of the two NPs. The salinity factor caused the aggregation of both NPs, and Ag+ release of Ag NPs. The toxicity of TiO2 NPs to M. mongolica increases with salinity, but that of Ag NPs decreases

T2M-GPT: Generating Human Motion from Textual Descriptions with Discrete Representations

In this work, we investigate a simple and must-known conditional generative framework based on Vector Quantised-Variational AutoEncoder (VQ-VAE) and Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) for human motion generation from textural descriptions. We show that a simple CNN-based VQ-VAE with commonly used training recipes (EMA and Code Reset) allows us to obtain high-quality discrete representations. For GPT, we incorporate a simple corruption strategy during the training to alleviate training-testing discrepancy. Despite its simplicity, our T2M-GPT shows better performance than competitive approaches, including recent diffusion-based approaches. For example, on HumanML3D, which is currently the largest dataset, we achieve comparable performance on the consistency between text and generated motion (R-Precision), but with FID 0.116 largely outperforming MotionDiffuse of 0.630. Additionally, we conduct analyses on HumanML3D and observe that the dataset size is a limitation of our approach. Our work suggests that VQ-VAE still remains a competitive approach for human motion generation.Comment: Accepted to CVPR 2023. Project page: https://mael-zys.github.io/T2M-GPT

Effects of plant diversity, soil microbial diversity, and network complexity on ecosystem multifunctionality in a tropical rainforest

IntroductionPlant diversity and soil microbial diversity are important driving factors in sustaining ecosystem multifunctionality (EMF) in terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about the relative importance of plant diversity, soil microbial diversity, and soil microbial network complexity to EMF in tropical rainforests.MethodsThis study took the tropical rainforest in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China as the research object, and quantified various ecosystem functions such as soil organic carbon stock, soil nutrient cycling, biomass production, and water regulation in the tropical rainforest to explore the relationship and effect of plant diversity, soil microbial diversity, soil microbial network complexity and EMF.ResultsOur results exhibited that EMF decreased with increasing liana species richness, soil fungal diversity, and soil fungal network complexity, which followed a trend of initially increasing and then decreasing with soil bacterial diversity while increasing with soil bacterial network complexity. Soil microbial diversity and plant diversity primarily affected soil nutrient cycling. Additionally, liana species richness had a significant negative effect on soil organic carbon stocks. The random forest model suggested that liana species richness, soil bacterial network complexity, and soil fungal network complexity indicated more relative importance in sustaining EMF. The structural equation model revealed that soil bacterial network complexity and tree species richness displayed the significantly positive effects on EMF, while liana species richness significantly affected EMF via negative pathway. We also observed that soil microbial diversity indirectly affected EMF through soil microbial network complexity. Soil bulk density had a significant and negative effect on liana species richness, thus indirectly influencing EMF. Simultaneously, we further found that liana species richness was the main indicator of sustaining EMF in a tropical rainforest, while soil bacterial diversity was the primary driving factor.DiscussionOur findings provide new insight into the relationship between biodiversity and EMF in a tropical rainforest ecosystem and the relative contribution of plant and soil microibal diversity to ecosystem function with increasing global climate change