Genetic Relationships of Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China Revealed by Microsatellite Markers

Population migrations in Southwest and South China have played an important role in the formation of East Asian populations and led to a high degree of cultural diversity among ethnic minorities living in these areas. To explore the genetic relationships of these ethnic minorities, we systematically surveyed the variation of 10 autosomal STR markers of 1,538 individuals from 30 populations of 25 ethnic minorities, of which the majority were chosen from Southwest China, especially Yunnan Province. With genotyped data of the markers, we constructed phylogenies of these populations with both DA and DC measures and performed a principal component analysis, as well as a clustering analysis by structure. Results showed that we successfully recovered the genetic structure of analyzed populations formed by historical migrations. Aggregation patterns of these populations accord well with their linguistic affiliations, suggesting that deciphering of genetic relationships does in fact offer clues for study of ethnic differentiation

La révision de la loi chinoise relative à la protection des intérêts du consommateur

With the development of the market economy, the Chinese government has been aware of the importance of the protection of consumers since the end of 1980’ s. Consequently, the Law of the protection of the consumers’ interests was promulgated in October 1993. However, China has experienced profound evolutions of the social and economic circumstance during twenty years after the enactment of the law, it was necessary to revise the law in order to improve the regime of the protection of the consumers. Therefore, the Chinese legislative body adopted the amendment in October 2013 which took into effect on March 15th of 2014. The objectives of revision were the enhancement of the protection of the consumer’s rights and to adapt the law to the new social and economic facts. The enhancement of the protections of the consumer’s rights is reflected by the improvement of the situation of the consumers and the reinforcement of the duties of the business professionals. The revision added new rights for the consumers, included pecuniary and non-pecuniary rights, especially the right to personal data and the human dignity. The reinforcement of the duties of the business professionals is explicated by the scrutiny of the abusive clause and the aggravation of the liability of the professionals. The new Chinese consumer law added new institutions in order to adapt itself to the electronic commerce and reform the dispute settlement mechanism. The new law conferred a new function for the associations of the consumers which are entitled to bring the action for the public interest against the professionals ; nonetheless, the law does not give precisions on the modalities of the exercise of the action. In conclusion, the new Chinese law of consumers in 2013 brought significant modifications for the old law ; nevertheless, it also leaves some ambiguities which should be clarified and completed by the Chinese courts during the implementation of the new law.Avec le développement de l’économie de marché, le gouvernement chinois a progressivement pris conscience dès la fin des années 1980 de l’importance de la protection des consommateurs. Par conséquent, la «Loi relative à la protection des intérêts du consommateur » a été promulguée en octobre 1993. Or, vingt ans après la naissance de cette loi, la Chine a connu une évolution profonde de la conjoncture économique et sociale, il était nécessaire de réviser la Loi afin d’améliorer le régime de protection du consommateur. Ainsi, l’organe législatif chinois a adopté le projet de révision en octobre 2013, entré en vigueur le 15 mars 2014. Cette révision a pour but de renforcer les droits du consommateur et de s’adapter aux nouvelles données économiques et sociales. Le renforcement des droits du consommateur dans la nouvelle Loi se réalise par l’amélioration de la situation du consommateur et le renforcement des devoirs du professionnel. La révision apporte de nouveaux droits au consommateur, y compris des droits patrimoniaux et des droits extra-patrimoniaux, notamment le droit aux données personnelles et la dignité humaine. Le renforcement des devoirs du professionnel se manifeste par le contrôle des clauses abusives et l’aggravation de la responsabilité du professionnel. La nouvelle loi chinoise apporte d’ailleurs de nouveaux dispositifs afin de s’adapter au contexte du commerce électronique et de renforcer l’effectivité du mécanisme du règlement des différends survenant en matière de consommation. La nouvelle Loi ajoute aussi une fonction importante aux associations de consommateurs puisqu’elles sont désormais habilitées à intenter une action dans l’intérêt du public ; or, elle n’a pas pu préciser certains aspects essentiels de cette action, notamment quant aux modalités de son exercice. En conclusion, la nouvelle Loi chinoise de 2013 a pu apporter des modifications significatives à l’ancienne Loi ; néanmoins, elle laisse également des ambiguïtés, qui devront être éclaircies et complétées par l’interprétation qu’en feront les tribunaux chinois dans leur mise en oeuvre.Shi Jiayou. La révision de la loi chinoise relative à la protection des intérêts du consommateur. In: Revue internationale de droit comparé. Vol. 67 N°1,2015. pp. 225-239

Wudai ji nian biao.

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Boosting heterogeneous Fenton reactions for degrading organic dyes via the photothermal effect under neutral conditions

Although the heterogeneous Fenton reaction has shown great promise in the remediation of refractory organic pollutants, its widespread application is still limited by the insufficient degradation performance under neutral conditions. Here, we present a photothermal-driven heterogeneous Fenton system capable of rapidly and sustainably degrading organic dyes under neutral conditions. A magnetic heterogeneous Fenton-like iron-based catalyst (MIC) was successfully constructed by loading Fe3O4 nanoparticles in hierarchically porous polydopamine (PDA) supports with excellent photothermal effect. After activating with near-infrared (NIR) irradiation, the PDA support can serve as an internal heating source to efficiently promote the iron-catalyzed decomposition efficiency of H2O2 to OH radical and the oxidation capacity of OH radical to organic pollutants. As a result, the resulting photothermal-driven heterogeneous Fenton system exhibits outstanding degradation performance for organic pollutants (e.g., methylene blue (MB) as a model pollutant) at pH 7.0. Even if the MB solution reaches an extremely high concentration of 200 mg L-1, MIC can degrade 97.7% of MB in only 6 minutes under NIR irradiation. This degradation performance is much better than its counterparts without NIR irradiation and outperforms traditional homogeneous Fenton reactions under acidic conditions. Meanwhile, the developed MIC shows excellent catalytic stability and recyclability. After 5 cycles, the regenerated MIC could still retain more than 98.8% of the original degradation efficiency. This study provides a feasible and guiding strategy for effectively improving the degradation performance of the heterogeneous Fenton system under neutral conditions via the photothermal effect, which not only can greatly expand the applicability of the heterogeneous Fenton reaction but also give some insights into how to develop the photothermal-driven heterogeneous Fenton systems activated by solar energy