Collective Action in State and Society: 19th and 20th Century China

Free rider problems and prisoner dilemmas may mitigate the potential for collective action, but prominent examples throughout history show that organized collective action can be highly effective. Collective action, for example, can foment revolutions and precipitate institutional change and new state formations (Tilly, 1990), and collective bargaining through worker strikes can be effective in increasing wages (Card and Olson, 1995) or in protecting status quo working conditions (O&rsquo;Rourke, Rahman, and Taylor, 2013). More generally, the contrasting belief systems between &ldquo;collectivist&rdquo; and &ldquo;individualist&rdquo; societies may help explain why different societies evolved along different institutional trajectories (Greif, 1994, 2006). The first three chapters of the dissertation describe three research projects that study episodes of collective movements in history. The projects describe specific events that took place within an approximately one-hundred-year period from the mid-19th to mid-20th century China. The fourth chapter provides the historical background of the first chapter. The projects consider the origins of group mobilization in specific contexts of historical development, and the lessons may be useful in understanding how collective action and collective organizations emerge and gain cohesion in other times and places as well. In the first chapter, I examine the political persuasion effect of newspapers in mobilizing the 1911 Chinese Revolution. Nations and nation-states are products of modernity, but they also have historical roots. In the conquest of China in the mid-17th century, the Manchu-led Qing government oppressed the Han Chinese, the native population of China. Two centuries later, when modern newspaper technology became available, revolutionary propagandists seized the opportunity to reframe political repression as an ethnic conflict to fan the flames of discontent. Applying machine learning to analyze 0.3 million newspaper article titles, I find that prefectures characterized by repression and resistance responded to the anti-Manchu propaganda by producing more nationalist revolutionaries. Using the historical political cycle as the instrumental variable, I confirm the causal link. The proposed mechanism is the preservation of historical memories by deep cultural traits created by repression and resistance. After the 1911 Revolution, revolutionaries strove to establish a modern nation-state by organizing the Kuomintang (Nationalist) party, army, and government. The results indicate that propaganda utilizing historical repression and resistance shaped the political identity and played a pivotal role in the nation-building of modern China. In the second chapter, I investigate the role of land reform in the evolution of support for communism, assessing the hypothesis that land reform was a strategy that ultimately helped the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeat the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949. How did the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rally millions of farmers to win in 1949? The crucial step was to initiate land reform through class struggle, empowering farmers to violently grab land from landlords. Farmers desired land ownership but feared reprisals from landlords, who were backed by the Kuomintang (KMT) government. Therefore, farmers had to choose between joining the CCP's army to defend their land and free-riding. Adopting a Difference-in-Difference design and examining the death records of 566,161 communist soldiers, I find that for counties within 82 kilometers of KMT forces, a greater share of land redistribution to farmers encouraged farmers to fight, leading to a rise in CCP soldier deaths after land reform. However, for counties that were farther than 82 kilometers from KMT forces, a greater share of land transfer to farmers discouraged farmers from fighting (free-riding), resulting in fewer soldier deaths after land reform. A model of class struggle for land ownership explains the two different patterns. This paper develops a novel theory of war mobilization and partially explains the emergence of communism in the twentieth century. The third chapter investigates the effect of labor unions on strike outcomes in 20th-century China by examining 2,465 strikes that occurred in Shanghai between 1918 and 1932. Through manual data collection and union-strike matching, the study produced several findings. For KMT-affiliated unions, the presence of such unions at a firm increased the likelihood of an unfavorable outcome for workers by 9.1 percent; however, no significant impact was observed at the industry level. On the other hand, for Communist-affiliated unions, the presence of a CCP-affiliated union at the firm increased the probability of workers achieving a completely favorable outcome by 23.2 percent. Similarly, when a CCP-affiliated union was present in the industry, the likelihood of workers achieving a completely favorable outcome increased by 13.8 percent. The study offers two possible explanations for the superior effectiveness of CCP-affiliated unions in securing favorable outcomes for workers: different political control models and union membership size. This fourth chapter investigates the effect of the large-scale censorship campaign on the writings of intellectuals in Qing China from 1644 to 1911. Adopting a Difference-in-Difference design and examining 23,000 poems, I find that the frequency of censored words was reduced by 1.65-1.73 standard deviations in poems whose writers were subjected to censorship. Additionally, if a word was censored a second time, the frequency of censored words decreased by 2.01-2.06 standard deviations. There was no room to circumvent censorship by adopting homophones, split-words, and variant characters. The machine learning analyses uncover some indication that the censorship campaign influenced intellectuals' writing styles, with intellectuals shifting away from censored poetry. The censorship campaign created extreme political pressures, even inducing individuals to self-censor. However, after the censorship ceased, it had no lasting effect on word choices.</p

Progress of the satellite laser ranging system TROS1000

AbstractThe mobile satellite laser ranging system TROS1000, successfully developed in 2010, achieves a high repetition rate and enables daytime laser ranging. Its measurement range has reached up to 36000 km with an accuracy as precise as 1 cm. Using recent observations in Wuhan, Jiufeng, Xianning, and Rongcheng, Shandong, we introduce the progress made using this mobile observation system

Identification of a peripheral blood long non-coding RNA (Upperhand) as a potential diagnostic marker of coronary artery disease

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been confirmed to be involved in the pathologi­cal processes of multiple diseases. However, the characteristic expression of lncRNAs in peripheral blood of coronary artery disease (CAD) patients and whether some of these lncRNAs can be used as diagnostic biomarkers for CAD requires further investigation. Methods: Six healthy and CAD individuals were selected for microarray analysis, and 5 differentially expressed lncRNAs were selected and confirmed in the second cohort consisting of 30 control individu­als and 30 CAD patients with different SYNTAX scores. Upperhand were verified in the third cohort consisting of 115 controls and 137 CAD patients. Results: Thirty one lncRNAs were differentially expressed between the two groups, among whom, 25 were upregulated in the CAD group and 6 were downregulated. Four of the selected five lncRNAs were significantly upregulated in the CAD group, and Upperhand had the largest area under the curve (AUC). The diagnostic value of Upperhand was tested further, and it remained having a high diagnostic value. Conclusions: The expression level of Upperhand in peripheral blood of CAD patients is significantly higher than in control individuals, and is correlated with severity of CAD. Upperhand is a potential diagnostic biomarker of CAD, and when combined with TCONS_00029157, diagnostic value slightly increased

Actividad antioxidante, fenoles totales y flavonoides totales en extractos de tallos de Jasminum nervosum Lour

Guangxi traditional Chinese Medical University Universidad de Medicina Tradicional China de Guangxi This study evaluated the antioxidant activities of the extracts of Jasminum nervosum Lour. stems along with the effects of different extract solvents on total phenolics (TP), total flavonoids (TF), and antioxidant potential. The antioxidant activity of the extracts was assessed using the following methods: DPPH, ABTS+ both free radicals scavenging assays, and reducing assays. TP and TF were detected by spectrophotometric and HPLC methods. In former methods, the highest amount of TP content was ethy lacetate extract (EAE), expressed as gallic acid equivalents. The greatest TF content was in the n-butanol extract (BE), expressed as lutin equivalents. No significant difference was observed in the TP/TF content between these two extracts. The antioxidant activity and TP/TF content of three extracts seemed to follow the same trend. This implied that there is a good correlation between antioxidant activities and TP/TF content. But in HPLC methods, EAE contained the highest content of lutin and gallic acid, which decreased in the same order of EAE > BE > PE, the rank order of TP/TF content of EAE and BE were different according to antioxidant ability. The overall results showed that the EAE and BE were richer in phenolics and flavonoids than petroleum ether extract (PE), and may represent a good source of antioxidants.Este estudio evaluó las actividades antioxidantes de extractos de tallos de Jasminum nervosum Lour., y el efecto de diferentes disolventes de extracción en los fenoles totales (TP) y flavonoides totales (TF), y su potencial antioxidante. La actividad antioxidante de los extractos fue evaluada usando los siguientes métodos: DPPH, ABTS+ y ensayos reductores. TP y TF fueron detectados por métodos espectroscópicos y por HPLC. Con el primer método, el contenido más alto de TP se obtuvo en el extracto con acetato de etilo (EAE), expresado como equivalentes de ácido gálico. Por su parte, el mayor contenido de TF se obtuvo en el extracto con n-butanol (BE), expresado como equivalentes de luteína. No se observaron diferencias significativas en la relación TP/TF entre los dos extractos. La actividad antioxidante y la relación TP/TF de los tres extractos parecen seguir el mismo comportamiento. Esto implica que hay una buena correlación entre las actividades antioxidantes y la relación TP/TF. Con el método de HPLC, el extracto EAE contenía los más altos contenidos de luteína y ácido gálico, que decrecieron en el mismo orden de EAE > BE > PE, el orden de la relación TP/TF de EAE y BE fueron diferentes de acuerdo a su capacidad antioxidante. En conjunto, los resultados muestran que los extractos de EAE y de BE fueron más ricos en compuestos fenólicos y flavonoides que el extracto de éter (PE), y pueden representar una buena fuente de antioxidantes

Research on water-out mode and differential perforation in thick carbonate reservoir

The development of anti-rhythmic carbonate reservoirs in the Middle East often encounters challenges such as water hold-up and reverse coning during the water injection process, leading to premature water breakthrough and various water-out issues. The unclear understanding of these phenomena, attributed to strong reservoir heterogeneity, results in a relatively low recovery degree in water injection development. This paper investigates the mechanisms behind water hold-up and reverse coning phenomena, offering detailed solutions. Numerical models of the oil reservoirs were developed, and an extensive study of influencing factors, including reservoir types, Kv/Kh, water injection pressure differential, wettability, and perforation position, was conducted to unveil the underlying mechanisms. Key findings indicate that the water hold-up phenomenon is influenced by capillary force barriers due to wettability and high-perm streaks, while the reverse coning phenomenon depends on the combined forces of gravity, capillary force and downward production differential among which downward production differential is the dominant factor compared to capillary force and gravity. The study also proposes a differential perforation principle tailored to different water-out types to enhance vertical sweep efficiency. The differential perforation principle is as follows: the optimal perforation position is at top layer and the optimal perforation length approximately accounts for 1/4 of the total oil layer thickness for water-out in bottom; the avoidance perforation height in top accounts for 1/6 of the total oil layer thickness and the optimal perforation length approximately accounts for 1/2 of the total oil layer thickness for water-out in top; the avoidance perforation height in top and bottom accounts for 1/5 and 2/5 of the total oil layer thickness respectively for water-out in both top and bottom

WFTNet: Exploiting Global and Local Periodicity in Long-term Time Series Forecasting

Recent CNN and Transformer-based models tried to utilize frequency and periodicity information for long-term time series forecasting. However, most existing work is based on Fourier transform, which cannot capture fine-grained and local frequency structure. In this paper, we propose a Wavelet-Fourier Transform Network (WFTNet) for long-term time series forecasting. WFTNet utilizes both Fourier and wavelet transforms to extract comprehensive temporal-frequency information from the signal, where Fourier transform captures the global periodic patterns and wavelet transform captures the local ones. Furthermore, we introduce a Periodicity-Weighted Coefficient (PWC) to adaptively balance the importance of global and local frequency patterns. Extensive experiments on various time series datasets show that WFTNet consistently outperforms other state-of-the-art baseline

Platform opening and cooperation: a literature review and research agenda

Purpose – The review aims to facilitate a broader understanding of platform opening and cooperation and points out potential research directions for scholars. Design/methodology/approach – This study searches Web of Science (WOS) database for relevant literature published between 2010 and 2021 and selects 86 papers for this review. The selected literature is categorized according to three dimensions: the strategic choice of platform opening and cooperation (before opening), the construction of an open platform (during opening) and the impact of platform opening and cooperation (after opening). Through comparative analysis, the authors identify research gaps and propose four future research agendas. Findings – The study finds that the current studies are fragmented, and a research system with a theoretical foundation has not yet formed. In addition, with the development of platform operations, new topics such as platform ecosystems and open platform governance have emerged. In short, there is an urgent need for scholars to conduct exploratory research. To this end, the study proposes four future research agendas: strengthen basic research on platform opening and cooperation, deeply explore the dynamic evolution and cutting-edge models of platform opening and cooperation, analyze potential crises and impacts of platform openness and strengthen research on open platform governance. Originality/value – This is the first systematic review on platform opening and cooperation. Through categorizing literature into three dimensions, this article clearly shows the research status and provides future research avenues