New trends In urban and regional governance in the Pearl River Region

Parallel Session 3: 3.1 UrbanizationThe impacts of globalization and the collapse of the global credit market, along with the shift in economic production, forced economic restructurings, are greatly affecting and stimulating the trajectories of China's economic developments. Under these circumstances, urban and regional governance is changing rapidly with complicated relations between government, the economy and the emerging civil society. The Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the PRD 2008-2020 and other national plans for revitalizing key industries provide impetus for possible mid-term regional economic development and transformation in south China.published_or_final_versio

Analysis of stray current induced by cathodic protection on steel-framed masonry structures

Cathodic protection (CP) has been successfully employed to protect steel-framed masonry buildings from corrosion related damage. When a CP system is installed to protect the structural members, other metallic items which are within the fabric of the structure but are not in direct electrical continuity may suffer from stray current interactions, resulting in accelerated corrosion of the discontinuous items. Therefore, these must be considered when CP systems are designed prior to installation. This paper presents both experimental and numerical studies into the risk and extent of stray current corrosion in steel-framed masonry structures when subject to impressed current cathodic protection. The objective is to allow CP systems to be optimised so that interference is minimised without compromising the technical or cost benefits of this method of corrosion control

A new design method for industrial portal frames in fire

For single-storey steel portal frames in fire, especially when they are situated close to a site perimeter, it is imperative that the boundary walls stay close to vertical, so that fires which occur are not allowed to spread to adjacent properties. A current UK fire design guide requires either that the whole frame be protected as a single element, or that the rafter may be left unprotected if column bases and foundations are designed to resist the forces and moments generated by rafter collapse, in order to ensure the lateral stability of the boundary walls. This can lead to very uneconomical foundation design and base-plate detailing. In previous studies carried out at the University of Sheffield it was found that a fundamental aspect of the collapse of a portal frame rafter is that it usually loses stability in a “snap-through” mechanism, but is capable of re-stabilising at high deflections, when the roof has inverted but the columns remain close to vertical. Numerical tests performed using the new model show that the strong base connections recommended by the current design method do not always lead to a conservative design. It is also found that initial collapse of the rafter is always caused by a plastic hinge mechanism based on the frame’s initial configuration. If the frame can then re-stabilize when the roof is substantially inverted, a second mechanism relying on the re-stabilized configuration can lead to failure of the whole frame. In this paper, a portal frame with different bases is simulated numerically using Vulcan, investigating the effect of different base strength on the collapse behaviour. The test results are compared with the failure mode assumed by the current design method. A new method for the estimation of re-stabilized positions of single-span frames in fire, using the second failure mechanism, is discussed and calibrated against the numerical test results

TGF-β signaling links E-cadherin loss to suppression of nucleotide excision repair.

E-cadherin is a cell adhesion molecule best known for its function in suppressing tumor progression and metastasis. Here we show that E-cadherin promotes nucleotide excision repair through positively regulating the expression of xeroderma pigmentosum complementation group C (XPC) and DNA damage-binding protein 1 (DDB1). Loss of E-cadherin activates the E2F4 and p130/107 transcription repressor complexes to suppress the transcription of both XPC and DDB1 through activating the transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) pathway. Adding XPC or DDB1, or inhibiting the TGF-β pathway, increases the repair of ultraviolet (UV)-induced DNA damage in E-cadherin-inhibited cells. In the mouse skin and skin tumors, UVB radiation downregulates E-cadherin. In sun-associated premalignant and malignant skin neoplasia, E-cadherin is downregulated in association with reduced XPC and DDB1 levels. These findings demonstrate a crucial role of E-cadherin in efficient DNA repair of UV-induced DNA damage, identify a new link between epithelial adhesion and DNA repair and suggest a mechanistic link of early E-cadherin loss in tumor initiation

New neighborhood based rough sets

Neighborhood based rough sets are important generalizations of the classical rough sets of Pawlak, as neighborhood operators generalize equivalence classes. In this article, we introduce nine neighborhood based operators and we study the partial order relations between twenty-two different neighborhood operators obtained from one covering. Seven neighborhood operators result in new rough set approximation operators. We study how these operators are related to the other fifteen neighborhood based approximation operators in terms of partial order relations, as well as to seven non-neighborhood-based rough set approximation operators

1-D modelling and 3-D simulation of confined bubble formation and formation and pressure fluctuations during flow boiling in a microchannel with a rectangular cross-section of high aspect ratio

Copyright @ 2009 ASMEA simple 1-D model with low requirements for computing time is required to investigate parametric influences on the potentially adverse effects of pressure fluctuations driven by confined vapour bubble growth in microchannel evaporative cooling systems operating at high heat fluxes. A model is developed in this paper for the particular conditions of a channel of rectangular cross-section with high aspect ratio with a constant inlet flow rate (zero upstream compressibility). (The model will later be extended to the conditions of finite upstream compressibility that lead to transient flow reversal). Some parametric trends predicted by the model are presented. The simplifying assumptions in the model are examined in the light of a 3-D simulation by a commercial CFD code, described in an accompanying paper by the same authors. The predictions of pressure changes are in reasonable agreement. It is suggested that the 1-D model will be a useful design tool.This work is supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grants EP/D500095/1 and EP/D500125/1

医疗化进程在中国男性肾病类广告中的体现 = Medicalization and Chinese TV advertisements for male kidney disorder drugs

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.本研究在康拉德的社会医疗化理论的框架下，通过批判性话语分析的方法，分析中国电视媒体中出现的男性肾虚类广告，提出制药厂是通过去处方化来达到社会医疗化和用药平民化的目的，其潜在的危害更大，这是一个不同于医生主导的社会医疗化过程。 Employing the framework of Peter Conrad’s social medicalization theory and the methodology of critical discourse analysis, the present research analyzed major advertisements of male kidney disorder on Chinese TV channels. It demonstrates that, by converting prescription drugs into nonprescription drugs, pharmaceutical companies make their products accessible to lay people without professional intervention. The thesis argues that this process of social medicalization, unlike the one described by Conrad which is dominated by medical professions, is initiated and influenced by pharmaceutical companies and potentially more detrimental to lay people

Restoring Values

The content can be viewed at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GAC_GlobalAgendaOutlook_2013.pd