Extending political participation in China: new opportunities for citizens in the policy process

Authoritarian political systems are portrayed as offering few opportunities for citizens to participate in politics – particularly in the policy process. This paper’s contribution is to set out new mechanisms that enable Authoritarian political systems are portrayed as offering few opportunities for citizens to participate in politics – particularly in the policy process. This paper’s contribution is to set out new mechanisms that enable Chinese citizens to evaluate government performance, contribute to decision-making, shape policy agendas and feed back on implementation. Based on fieldwork in the city of Hangzhou, we argue that the local party-state orchestrates citizen participation in the policy process, but members of the public nevertheless do have influence. Political participation is widening in China, but it is still controlled. It is not yet clearly part of a process of democratization, but it does establish the principle of citizen rights to oversee the government

Imaging of a patterned and buried molecular layer by coherent acoustic phonon spectroscopy

A molecular layer of aminopropyltriethoxysilane is patterned with a focused ion beam and subsequently covered by a gold film. The gold-polymer-substrate structures are afterwards imaged by ultrafast coherent acoustic phonon spectroscopy in reflection geometry. We demonstrate that the lateral structure of the covered polymer layer can be detected via the damping time of the vibrational mode of the gold film. Furthermore, we utilize Brillouin oscillations originating from the silicon substrate to map the structures and to estimate the molecular layer thickness.Fil: Hettich, Mike . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: Jacob, Karl . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: Ristow, Oliver . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: He, Chuan . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: Mayer, Jan . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: Schubert, Martin . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; AlemaniaFil: Gusev, Vitalyi . Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Bruchhausen, Axel Emerico. University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; Alemania. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche); Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; ArgentinaFil: Dekorsy, Thomas . University of Konstanz. Department of Physics and Center for Applied Photonics; Alemani

Electrogenicity accompanies photoreduction of the iron-sulfur clusters FA and FB in photosystem I

AbstractPhotovoltage responses accompanying electron transfer on the acceptor side of photosystem I (PS I) were investigated in proteoliposomes containing PS I complexes from the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 6301 using a direct electrometrical technique. The relative contributions of the FX→FB and the FX→FA electron transfer reactions to the overall electrogenicity were elucidated by comparing the sodium dithionite-induced decrease in the magnitude of the total photoelectric responses in control and in FB-less (HgCl2-treated) PS I complexes. The results obtained suggest that the electrogenesis on the acceptor side of PS I is related to electron transfers between both FX and FA and FA and FB. Based on the electrogenic nature of the latter reaction in PS I complexes, we conclude that FA rather than FB is the acceptor proximal to FX

A Flow Cytometry-Based FRET Assay to Identify and Analyse Protein-Protein Interactions in Living Cells

Försters resonance energy transfer (FRET) microscopy is widely used for the analysis of protein interactions in intact cells. However, FRET microscopy is technically challenging and does not allow assessing interactions in large cell numbers. To overcome these limitations we developed a flow cytometry-based FRET assay and analysed interactions of human and simian immunodeficiency virus (HIV and SIV) Nef and Vpu proteins with cellular factors, as well as HIV Rev multimer-formation.Amongst others, we characterize the interaction of Vpu with CD317 (also termed Bst-2 or tetherin), a host restriction factor that inhibits HIV release from infected cells and demonstrate that the direct binding of both is mediated by the Vpu membrane-spanning region. Furthermore, we adapted our assay to allow the identification of novel protein interaction partners in a high-throughput format.The presented combination of FRET and FACS offers the precious possibility to discover and define protein interactions in living cells and is expected to contribute to the identification of novel therapeutic targets for treatment of human diseases

Microsphere Solid-State Biolasers

Microsphere solid-state biolasers made of biomaterials-bovine serum albumin, pectin and cellulose are demonstrated. The fabrication is simple, based on emulsion, and with green processing. A lasing threshold of 1 microJ/mm2 and Q factor of 3000 are measured. The lasers are biocompatible, do not interfere with cell growth and division

Spectral Identification of Lighting Type and Character

We investigated the optimal spectral bands for the identification of lighting types and the estimation of four major indices used to measure the efficiency or character of lighting. To accomplish these objectives we collected high-resolution emission spectra (350 to 2,500 nm) for forty-three different lamps, encompassing nine of the major types of lamps used worldwide. The narrow band emission spectra were used to simulate radiances in eight spectral bands including the human eye photoreceptor bands (photopic, scotopic, and “meltopic”) plus five spectral bands in the visible and near-infrared modeled on bands flown on the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM). The high-resolution continuous spectra are superior to the broad band combinations for the identification of lighting type and are the standard for calculation of Luminous Efficacy of Radiation (LER), Correlated Color Temperature (CCT) and Color Rendering Index (CRI). Given the high cost that would be associated with building and flying a hyperspectral sensor with detection limits low enough to observe nighttime lights we conclude that it would be more feasible to fly an instrument with a limited number of broad spectral bands in the visible to near infrared. The best set of broad spectral bands among those tested is blue, green, red and NIR bands modeled on the band set flown on the Landsat Thematic Mapper. This set provides low errors on the identification of lighting types and reasonable estimates of LER and CCT when compared to the other broad band set tested. None of the broad band sets tested could make reasonable estimates of Luminous Efficacy (LE) or CRI. The photopic band proved useful for the estimation of LER. However, the three photoreceptor bands performed poorly in the identification of lighting types when compared to the bands modeled on the Landsat Thematic Mapper. Our conclusion is that it is feasible to identify lighting type and make reasonable estimates of LER and CCT using four or more spectral bands with minimal spectral overlap spanning the 0.4 to 1.0 um region

Neutron electric dipole moment: Constituent-dressing and compositeness

Contributions to the neutron's EDM, are calculated using a well-constrained Ansatz for the nucleon's Poincare' covariant Fadde'ev amplitude. The momentum-dependent quark dressing amplifies the contribution from the current-quarks' EDMs; and dressed-quark confinement and binding make distinguishable the effect of the two CP and T violating interactions: i gamma_5 sigma_{mu nu} (p_1-p_2)_nu and gamma_5 (p_1+p_2)_mu, where p_{1,2} are the current-quarks' momenta. The value of |d_n| obtained using the current-quark EDMs generated by a minimal three Higgs doublet model of spontaneous CP violation is close to the current experimental upper bound.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX2e. Errors in Table 1 corrected; five references added. To appear in Phys. Rev.

A High-Temporal Resolution Technology for Dynamic Proteomic Analysis Based on 35S Labeling

As more and more research efforts have been attracted to dynamic or differential proteomics, a method with high temporal resolution and high throughput is required. In present study, a 35S in vivo Labeling Analysis for Dynamic Proteomics (SiLAD) was designed and tested by analyzing the dynamic proteome changes in the highly synchronized A549 cells, as well as in the rat liver 2/3 partial hepatectomy surgery. The results validated that SiLAD technique, in combination with 2-Dimensional Electrophoresis, provided a highly sensitivity method to illustrate the non-disturbed endogenous proteins dynamic changes with a good temporal resolution and high signal/noise ratio. A significant number of differential proteins can be discovered or re-categorized by this technique. Another unique feature of SiLAD is its capability of quantifying the rate of protein expression, which reflects the cellular physiological turn points more effectively. Finally, the prescribed SiLAD proteome snapshot pattern could be potentially used as an exclusive symbol for characterizing each stage in well regulated biological processes

Fossil fuel prices and the economic and budgetary challenges of a small energy-importing economy : the case of Portugal

This paper examines the economic and budgetary impacts of fuel prices using a dynamic general equilibrium model of the Portuguese economy which high- lights the mechanisms of endogenous growth and includes a detailed modeling of the public sector. The fuel price scenarios are based on forecasts by the US Department of Energy (DOE-US) and the International Energy Agency (IEA-OECD) and represent a wide range of projections for absolute and relative fossil fuel prices. In terms of the long term economic impact, our results suggest a 1.9 % drop in GDP in the DOE-US scenario and 1.6 % in the IEA-OECD scenario. As to the budgetary impact, higher fuel prices lead to lower tax revenues, which, coupled with a reduction in public spending, translate into lower public deficits. Accordingly, increasing fuel prices create an important policy trade off in that they can contribute to reducing the public deficit while hindering economic growth. We find that fairly strong incentives for wind energy can reduce the economic impact of fuel prices by 14.2 % in the DOE-US price scenario and 18.5 % reduction in the IEA-OECD price scenario. Finally, our results highlight the importance of public sector spending decisions and the mechanisms of endogenous growth in understanding the impact of fossil fuel prices. Indeed, a scenario of higher fuel prices would, with exogenous public decisions and exogenous economic growth assumptions, result in substantially smaller economic effects and yield adverse budgetary effects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio