The China's Rise as an International Trading Power

This paper undertakes a detailed review of the policies that have shaped China's explosion of a global supply of exports, and examines long trend statistics on the evolution of China's trading partners and the goods it trades in the post-reform period. This review notes common characteristics in China's trade experience with those of earlier successful export-based economies of East Asia, such as South Korea and Japan. The survey finds that China's pattern of trade and trading partners are similar to those of more market-based Asian economies, but that the Chinese economy's orientation toward foreign trade is considerably greater than expected for an economy of its size and level of development. The authors argue that China still has a long way to go in terms of its export boom, especially if compared to the experiences of South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. This suggests that China is on track to become one of the world's most formidable trading powers and its export policies and export performance will exert increasing influence on how the global trade regime evolves in the future.

Which finitely generated Abelian groups admit isomorphic Cayley graphs?

We show that Cayley graphs of finitely generated Abelian groups are rather rigid. As a consequence we obtain that two finitely generated Abelian groups admit isomorphic Cayley graphs if and only if they have the same rank and their torsion parts have the same cardinality. The proof uses only elementary arguments and is formulated in a geometric language.Comment: 16 pages; v2: added reference, reformulated quasi-convexity, v3: small corrections; to appear in Geometriae Dedicat

MECHANISM OF BLAST TRAUMA-INDUCED HETEROTOPIC OSSIFICATION: ROLE OF MUSCLE TRAUMA

Heterotopic ossification (HO) is a pathological condition of abnormal bone formation in soft tissue. HO causes pain and restricts range of motion, greatly impairing functional mobility of the patient. Blast trauma-induced HO, in particular, has the highest incidence, and is the single most significant obstacle for combat-injured military personnel to return to active duty. Despite the clinical importance, the underlying mechanism of HO is poorly understood and effective treatment options are lacking. This study aims to explore the cellular and molecular mechanism of blast trauma-induced HO. Using a live animal blast trauma model, we firstly showed that muscle trauma resulting from blast wave exposure is associated with HO formation. We then investigated the role of muscle injury in HO pathogenesis and showed that bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7) expression was highly upregulated following muscle injury. Inhibition of BMP-7 activity in vitro suppressed the osteogenesis-promoting effect of culture medium conditioned by injured muscle tissue on muscle-derived stromal cells (MDSCs), and in vivo reduced the volume of HO. These results indicate that BMP-7 is a key osteoinductive factor in injured muscle that facilitates HO formation. Next, we sought to identify additional factors that could contribute to the pathogenesis of blast trauma-induced HO. We investigated the impact of glucocorticoids on HO formation since excessive endogenous glucocorticoid production due to stress is found in severe trauma patients. Our results showed that dexamethasone treatment together with cardiotoxin (CTX)-induced muscle injury led to a significant amount of dystrophic calcification (DC) in muscle. This effect was likely related to decreased circulating transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-β1) level, as supplementation of recombinant TGF-β1 markedly rescued this phenomenon. Lastly, we investigated the involvement of muscle tissue death in HO pathogenesis. We observed that implantation of devitalized muscle tissue together with muscle injury induced by CTX injection caused DC formation, accompanied by a systemic effect of lowered circulating TGF-1 level. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that a two-hit mechanism of blast trauma-induced HO, namely muscle injury-induced BMP-7 upregulation combined with pathological condition-induced downregulation of circulating TGF-1 level, is an important causative mechanism of DC/HO formation

Land Rights Insecurity and Temporary Migration in Rural China

Like most other developing countries, China experiences huge migration outflows from rural areas. Their most striking characteristic is a high geographical and temporal mobility. Rural migrants keep going back and forth between origin villages and destination areas. In this paper, we show that this temporary feature of migration can be linked to land rights insecurity. As village land ownership remains collective and as land use rights can be periodically reallocated, individual out-migration can result in deprivation of those rights. Moreover, the intensity of this insecurity varies according to the village-level management of land and the contractual status of land plots. We use these variations to identify the effect of land rights insecurity on migration behavior. Empirical results based on representative 2002 rural data demonstrate substantial impact.migration, land rights insecurity, China, semiparametric censored regression models

Gauge Symmetries and Amplitudes in N=2 Strings

Picture changed operators are discussed in $N=2$ strings with space-time signature $(2,2)$. A gauge symmetry algebra is derived in a background of torus space-time $T^{2,2}$ and its simple representation on the picture changed operators is given. Simple Ward identities associated with the gauge algebra and their consequences for three and four point amplitudes of arbitrary loops are also discussed.Comment: 16 page

Factor V Leiden and thrombosis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: a meta-analysis.

The aim of this study was to perform a meta-analysis of the association between the factor V Leiden polymorphism (FVL) and thrombosis among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and/or antiphospholipid antibody (aPL) positivity. Included studies recruited patients based on SLE or aPL-positive status, confirmed subjects' SLE diagnosis as defined by the American College of Rheumatology, and documented thrombotic events. Excluded studies were non-English or considered only arterial thrombosis. Individual patient data, available from 5 studies, together with unpublished data from 1210 European-American SLE patients from the UCSF Lupus Genetics Collection genotyped for FVL, were further analyzed. Seventeen studies (n=2090 subjects) were included in the initial meta-analysis. Unadjusted odds ratios (OR) were calculated to assess association of FVL with thrombosis. The OR for association of thrombosis with FVL was 2.88 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.98-4.20). In the secondary analysis with our individual patient dataset (n=1447 European-derived individuals), SLE subjects with the FVL polymorphism still had more than two times the odds of thrombosis compared to subjects without this polymorphism, even when adjusting for covariates such as gender, age and aPL status. SLE and/or aPL-positive patients with the FVL variant have more than two times the odds of thrombosis compared to those without this polymorphism

Zeta Potential of Modified Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes in Presence of poly (vinyl alcohol) Hydrogel

The main objective of this study is investigate the behavior of the Zeta Potential of the MWCNT modified with SDS(Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate) and CTAB(Cetyl Tetraethyl Ammonium Bromide) in presence of PVA. Full hydrolyzed PVA was used. As a result, adding PVA in the CNT solution led to decrease the Zeta Potential. The Zeta Potential of suspended colloid varied from 42.00mV to 6.48mV and -45.00mV to -6.4mV at 1.5% concentration of PVA; according with the changing pH, the Zeta Potential dropped to near zero at pH 3 and 11. The pH and PVA has strong influence in the reduction of ZP of MWCNT solution. MWCNT-PVA solution with 33.30mV, -35.69mV at 0.01% of PVA was exposed under AC field; a uniform coat was obtained, with the SDS-MWCNT-PVA solution.National Natural Science Foundation of China Project (Grant No.51073024), the Royal Society-NSFC international joint project (Grant No.51111130207) and Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Plan Projects (No. Z111103066611005)