China, the United States, and the Climate Change Challenge

Outlines China's climate change policy, U.S. concerns about transfer of carbon-intensive jobs to China and ways to address them, ways for U.S. policy and legislation to spur China's adoption of clean technologies, and specific mechanisms for cooperation

It Should Be a Breeze: Harnessing the Potential of Open Trade and Investment Flows in the Wind Energy Industry

This working paper maps out the structure and value chains of the wind industry, analyzes the wind industry's increasing global integration via cross-border trade and investment flows, and offers recommendations to policymakers for the design of investment and trade policies to help realize wind energy's potential. We find that demand for wind energy through longterm government support policies creates the basis for local supply of wind capital equipment and services and associated local job creation; policies that put a price on carbon will further help to make wind energy more competitive and increase the overall demand for turbines and equipment. Cross-border investment rather than trade is the dominant mode of the wind industry's global integration. Principal barriers to global integration are nontariff trade barriers and formal and informal barriers that distort firms' investment decisions. These include local content requirements, divergent national industrial standards and licensing demands, and in particular political expectations. Intellectual property accounts for only a very small part of cost in the wind industry, and wind technology is widely available for licensing. Intellectual property rights are correspondingly not a major impediment for market participation. Credible long-term commitments coupled with a reduction or elimination of existing barriers to cross-border trade and investment are necessary to harness the full potential of global integration in reducing wind industry prices and increase worldwide deployment of wind energy.Wind Energy, Renewable Energy Subsidies, Energy Policy, Global Industry Integration, Foreign Direct Investment, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change

Specificity, exclusivity and complementarity in the transmission of plant viruses by plant parasitic nematodes : an annotated terminology

Dix-huit espèces de nématodes phytoparasites appartenant aux genres #Longidorus, #Paralongidorus et #Xiphinema sont vectrices de douze nepovirus, tandis que treize espèces des genres #Paratrichodorus et #Trichodorus$ sont vectrices de trois tobravirus. Une caractéristique de ces nématodes vecteurs et de leurs associations avec les virus avait été rapidement reconnue lorsque des nepovirus sérologiquement distincts et des souches différentes de virus avaient été reconnus transmis par des espèces de Longidorides différentes, mais proches. Les virus avaient donc été considérés comme ayant des espèces vectrices "spécifiques", ce qui avait conduit à adopter une terminologie suivant laquelle les chercheurs faisaient référence à la "spécificité" de la transmission des virus par les nématodes vecteurs. En outre, la spécificité de la transmission avait été confirmée par des recherches ultérieures et démontrée s'étendre au niveau des populations des espèces vectrices et à celui de variants sérologiques mineurs des nepovirus. Il a été également démontré que ce phénomène s'applique aux tobravirus et à leurs vecteurs. Sont décrits dans cet article les mécanismes qui pourraient déterminer l'association entre les nématodes vecteurs et leurs virus. Sont également données et expliquées les définitions d'un certain nombre de termes et concepts utilisés lors des recherches sur les vections par les nématodes. (Résumé d'auteur

Toward a Sunny Future? Global Integration in the Solar PV Industry

Policymakers seem to face a trade-off when designing national trade and investment policies related to clean energy sectors. They have pledged to address climate change and accelerate the large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies, which would benefit from increased global integration, but they are also tempted to nurture and protect domestic clean technology markets to create green jobs at home and ensure domestic political support for more ambitious climate policies. This paper analyzes the global integration of the solar photovoltaic (PV) sector and looks in detail at the industry’s recent growth patterns, industry cost structure, trade and investment patterns, government support policies and employment generation potential. In order to further stimulate both further growth of the solar industry and local job creation without constructing new trade and investment barriers, we recommend the following: (1) Governments must provide sufficient and predictable long-term support to solar energy deployment. Such long-term frameworks bring investments forward and encourage cost cutting and innovation, so that government support can decrease over time. A price on carbon emissions would provide an additional long-term market signal and likely accelerate this process. (2) Policymakers should focus not on solely the manufacturing jobs in the solar industry, but on the total number of jobs that could possibly be created including those in research, project development, installation, operations and maintenance. (3) Global integration and broader solar PV technology deployment through lower costs can be encouraged by keeping global solar PV markets open. Protectionist policies risk slowing the development of global solar markets and provoking retaliatory actions in other sectors. Lowering existing trade barriers—by abolishing tariffs, reducing non-tariff barriers and harmonizing industry standards—would create a positive policy environment for further global integration.Solar PV, climate change, renewable energy, government support, green protectionism, green jobs, global integration

Changing Power Relations and the Drag Effects of Habitus: Theoretical and Empirical Approaches in the Twenty-First Century; An Introduction

The objectives of this HSR Special Issue is to provide a comparative discussion and further perspectives of the Sociology of Transformation at the macro-, meso-, and micro-sociological levels. We would like to pursue this perspective based on a problem-oriented and comparative approach to the concepts of Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu. Despite all differences in their theoretical concepts such as habitus, social field, and figuration, these two sociologists share a great deal of similarities. Not only their critical reflections on the classical philosophy and their attempt to establish a theoretical-empirical science, but also their synthetic way of sociological reflections, distinguishes them from many of their contemporary sociologists. Both of them criticize the over-specialized approaches in their discipline and its dominant ethnocentric view limited to the present time based on experiences of some highly individualized societies. With the aid of the theoretical concepts of these both sociologists, the authors of this special issue deal with different topics and problems in their own field of sociology such as work, globalization, social conflicts, immigration, democratization, as well as education

Soziale Milieus im Kontext der Sozialstrukturanalyse

In diesem Beitrag soll geklärt werden, welchen Erkenntnisgewinn die Analyse sozialer Milieus für die Sozialstrukturanalyse, genauer eine sozioökonomisch orientierte Sozialstrukturforschung liefern kann. In der Frage wird bereits deutlich, dass nicht in erster Linie die Milieuforschung im Zentrum steht; den Ausgangspunkt bildet die Sozialstrukturanalyse und das Interesse, sozioökonomische Differenzierungen und die damit verbundenen Praktiken und Symbolwelten in ihrer Produktion und Reproduktion zu analysieren. In dem Beitrag wird drei Fragen nachgegangen: Was wird in der Soziologie/ Sozialstrukturanalyse unter sozialen Milieus verstanden? Aufwelcher Wirklichkeits- bzw. Konstruktebene wird von Milieus gesprochen? Was bringt dieses Wissen um soziale Milieus für die Sozialstrukturanalyse

Empirische Sozialforschung und sozialer Wandel

Der Autor diskutiert in seinem Aufsatz die Frage, wie die Soziologie bzw. die empirische Sozialforschung zu einer den zeitspezifischen Problemen angemessenen Forschungs- und Theoriearbeit gelangen kann. Dies betrifft auch die Frage nach den Steuerungsmodi von Wissenschafts- bzw. Forschungsprogrammen in der Soziologie und berührt implizit auch die immer wieder geführte Debatte um das Verhältnis von Grundlagen- und anwendungsbezogener Forschung in der Soziologie. Der Autor untersucht diese Fragen unter verschiedenen Aspekten, wozu er die institutionelle Struktur der empirischen Forschung, die Rolle wichtiger Akteure im Forschungsfeld, die Strukturen der akademischen Soziologie bzw. Sozialforschung sowie die besondere Struktur soziologischen Wissens in den Blick nimmt. Er skizziert abschließend die Umrisse einer problemorientierten Sozialforschung, welcher es nur im Zusammenspiel von innovativen Forschungsfragen und -ansätzen einerseits und der kritisch bilanzierenden Perspektive einer weiterentwickelten Sozialberichterstattung gelingen kann, adäquate Beiträge zur Analyse der Phänomen des sozialen Wandels zu leisten. (ICI2

Optimizing the identification of risk-relevant mutations by multigene panel testing in selected hereditary breast/ovarian cancer families

The introduction of multigene panel testing for hereditary breast/ovarian cancer screening has greatly improved efficiency, speed, and costs. However, its clinical utility is still debated, mostly due to the lack of conclusive evidences on the impact of newly discovered genetic variants on cancer risk and lack of evidence-based guidelines for the clinical management of their carriers. In this pilot study, we aimed to test whether a systematic and multiparametric characterization of newly discovered mutations could enhance the clinical utility of multigene panel sequencing. Out of a pool of 367 breast/ovarian cancer families Sanger-sequenced for BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, we selected a cohort of 20 BRCA1/2-negative families to be subjected to the BROCA-Cancer Risk Panel massive parallel sequencing. As a strategy for the systematic characterization of newly discovered genetic variants, we collected blood and cancer tissue samples and established lymphoblastoid cell lines from all available individuals in these families, to perform segregation analysis, loss-of-heterozygosity and further molecular studies. We identified loss-of-function mutations in 6 out 20 high-risk families, 5 of which occurred on BRCA1, CHEK2 and ATM and are esteemed to be risk-relevant. In contrast, a novel RAD50 truncating mutation is most likely unrelated to breast cancer. Our data suggest that integrating multigene panel testing with a pre-organized, multiparametric characterization of newly discovered genetic variants improves the identification of risk-relevant alleles impacting on the clinical management of their carriers

The 7Li(n,gamma)8Li Radiative Capture at Astrophysical Energies

The variants of intercluster interaction potentials were constructed for description of the resonance nature of some phase shifts of the n7Li elastic scattering at low energies and the P2 ground state of 8Li in the n7Li cluster channel. The possibility of describing the total cross sections of 7Li(n,g)8Li in the region from 5 meV (5 10-3 eV) to 1 MeV including resonance at 0.25 MeV was shown with the potentials obtained in the potential cluster model taking into account forbidden states.Comment: 18 p., 5 fig., 72 re