China's new Government: Priorities, Programs, Reform Signals. Asia Policy Brief 2013/02, May 2013

Never before has any change of leadership in China drawn this much international attention. The composition of the new party and state leadership in China is the result of many years of probing and negotiating within the top levels of the Communist Party. New priorities and leadership styles may cause fundamental shifts in the mechanisms of governance during the decade that China’s new leadership will be in control. Thus, the installation of a new government in China has potentially stronger long-term effects than most government turnovers in Western Democracies

Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas vor dem Zusammenbruch? Politische Konsequenzen der Wirtschaftsreformen und die Zukunft der kommunistischen Herrschaft in China

'Gegenstand dieser Studie ist die Stellung der Kommunistischen Partei Chinas (KPCh) in einem sich rasch wandelnden wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Umfeld. Das erste Kapitel widmet sich dem innerpolitischen Strukturwandel und untersucht organisatorische und ideologische Veränderungen auf den verschiedenen Ebenen der Parteihierarchie. Im zweiten Teil wird der Frage nachgegangen, inwieweit Machtmonopol und Kontrollstrukturen der Kommunistischen Partei gegenüber Staatsinstitutionen, Militär, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft grundlegenden Modifizierungen unterworfen sind. In einem dritten Abschnitt werden die Machtgrundlagen der kommunistischen Herrschaft zusammengefaßt, um in einem abschließenden Teil den Entwicklungstendenzen nachzugehen, die sich aus dem tiefgreidenden wirtschaftlichen, gesellschaftlichen und politischen Wandel inder VR China ergeben. Zu diesem Zwecke werden Zukunftsszenarien dargelegt, die die Bandbreite alternativer Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten berücksichtigen. Personalpolitische Spekulationen sind nicht Gegenstand dieser Studie. Vielmehr sollen strukturelle Wandlungsprozesse und Entwicklungslinien herausgearbeitet werden, die mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit auch über kurzfristige personelle Veränderungen hinaus wirksam bleiben werden.' (Autorenreferat)'The subject of the present study is the status of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a rapidly changing economic and social environment. The first chapter is dedicated to structural change within the party and examines organisational and ideological changes at the various levels of the Party hierarchy. The second part investigates the extent to which the Communist Party's monopoly on power and structures for controlling the state institutions, the military, the economy and society are undergoing fundamental modifications. A third section recapitulates the power basis on which communist rule is built as background to a final part which traces the trends arising out of the deep-going economic, social and political chance in China. For this purpose, the study puts forward a number of future scenarious covering the range of potential alternative courses of development. Speculations as to future personnel policy are not the subject of this study. Instead, the author attemptsto identify processes of structural chance and lines of development which are highly likely to remain effective beyond any short-term personnel changes.' (author's abstract

The Rise of Industrial Policy in China, 1978-2012

Abstrac

Hybrid waveguide-bulk multi-path interferometer with switchable amplitude and phase

We design and realise a hybrid interferometer consisting of three paths based on integrated as well as on bulk optical components. This hybrid construction offers a good compromise between stability and footprint on one side and means of intervention on the other. As experimentally verified by the absence of higher-order interferences, amplitude and phase can be manipulated in all paths independently. In conjunction with single photons, the setup can, therefore, be applied for fundamental investigations on quantum mechanics.Comment: accepted in APL Photonic

Embracing Uncertainty: Guerrilla Policy Style and Adaptive Governance in China

Governmen

The meta-substituted isomer of TMPyP enables more effective photodynamic bacterial inactivation than para-TMPyP in vitro

Porphyrinoid-based photodynamic inactivation (PDI) provides a promising approach to treating multidrug-resistant infections. However, available agents for PDI still have optimization potential with regard to effectiveness, toxicology, chemical stability, and solubility. The currently available photosensitizer TMPyP is provided with a para substitution pattern (para-TMPyP) of the pyridinium groups and has been demonstrated to be effective for PDI of multidrug-resistant bacteria. To further improve its properties, we synthetized a structural variant of TMPyP with an isomeric substitution pattern in a meta configuration (meta-TMPyP), confirmed the correct structure by crystallographic analysis and performed a characterization with NMR-, UV/Vis-, and IR spectroscopy, photostability, and singlet oxygen generation assay. Meta-TMPyP had a hypochromic shift in absorbance (4 nm) with a 55% higher extinction coefficient and slightly improved photostability (+6.9%) compared to para-TMPyP. Despite these superior molecular properties, singlet oxygen generation was increased by only 5.4%. In contrast, PDI, based on meta-TMPyP, reduced the density of extended spectrum β-lactamase-producing and fluoroquinolone-resistant Escherichia coli by several orders of magnitude, whereby a sterilizing effect was observed after 48 min of illumination, while para-TMPyP was less effective (p < 0.01). These findings demonstrate that structural modification with meta substitution increases antibacterial properties of TMPyP in PDI

The square-lattice quantum liquid of charge c fermions and spin-neutral two-spinon s1 fermions

The momentum bands, energy dispersions, and velocities of the charge $c$ fermions and spin-neutral two-spinon $s1$ fermions of a square-lattice quantum liquid referring to the Hubbard model on such a lattice of edge length $L$ in the one- and two-electron subspace are studied. The model involves the effective nearest-neighbor integral $t$ and on-site repulsion $U$ and can be experimentally realized in systems of correlated ultra-cold fermionic atoms on an optical lattice and thus our results are of interest for such systems. Our investigations profit from a general rotated-electron description, which is consistent with the model global $SO(3)\times SO(3)\times U(1)$ symmetry. For the model in the one- and two-electron subspace the discrete momentum values of the $c$ and $s1$ fermions are good quantum numbers so that in contrast to the original strongly-correlated electronic problem their interactions are residual. The use of our description renders an involved many-electron problem into a quantum liquid with some similarities with a Fermi liquid.Comment: 61 pages, 1 figure, published in Nuclear Physics

Excitons in one-dimensional Mott insulators

We employ dynamical density-matrix renormalization group (DDMRG) and field-theory methods to determine the frequency-dependent optical conductivity in one-dimensional extended, half-filled Hubbard models. The field-theory approach is applicable to the regime of `small' Mott gaps which is the most difficult to access by DDMRG. For very large Mott gaps the DDMRG recovers analytical results obtained previously by means of strong-coupling techniques. We focus on exciton formation at energies below the onset of the absorption continuum. As a consequence of spin-charge separation, these Mott-Hubbard excitons are bound states of spinless, charged excitations (`holon-antiholon' pairs). We also determine exciton binding energies and sizes. In contrast to simple band insulators, we observe that excitons exist in the Mott-insulating phase only for a sufficiently strong intersite Coulomb repulsion. Furthermore, our results show that the exciton binding energy and size are not related in a simple way to the strength of the Coulomb interaction.Comment: 15 pages, 6 eps figures, corrected typos in labels of figures 4,5, and

Arthropod communities in fungal fruitbodies are weakly structured by climate and biogeography across European beech forests

Aim The tinder fungus Fomes fomentarius is a pivotal wood decomposer in European beech Fagus sylvatica forests. The fungus, however, has regionally declined due to centuries of logging. To unravel biogeographical drivers of arthropod communities associated with this fungus, we investigated how space, climate and habitat amount structure alpha and beta diversity of arthropod communities in fruitbodies of F. fomentarius. Location Temperate zone of Europe. Taxon Arthropods. Methods We reared arthropods from fruitbodies sampled from 61 sites throughout the range of European beech and identified 13 orders taxonomically or by metabarcoding. We estimated the total number of species occurring in fruitbodies of F. fomentarius in European beech forests using the Chao2 estimator and determined the relative importance of space, climate and habitat amount by hierarchical partitioning for alpha diversity and generalized dissimilarity models for beta diversity. A subset of fungi samples was sequenced for identification of the fungus’ genetic structure. Results The total number of arthropod species occurring in fruitbodies of F. fomentarius across European beech forests was estimated to be 600. Alpha diversity increased with increasing fruitbody biomass; it decreased with increasing longitude, temperature and latitude. Beta diversity was mainly composed by turnover. Patterns of beta diversity were only weakly linked to space and the overall explanatory power was low. We could distinguish two genotypes of F. fomentarius, which showed no spatial structuring. Main conclusion Fomes fomentarius hosts a large number of arthropods in European beech forests. The low biogeographical and climatic structure of the communities suggests that fruitbodies represent a habitat that offers similar conditions across large gradients of climate and space, but are characterized by high local variability in community composition and colonized by species with high dispersal ability. For European beech forests, retention of trees with F. fomentarius and promoting its recolonization where it had declined seems a promising conservation strategy