The Limits to Buying Stability in Tibet: Tibetan Representation and Preferentiality in China's Contemporary Public Employment System

Based on an entirely unexplored source of data, this paper analyses the evolution of Tibetan representation and preferentiality within public employment recruitment across all Tibetan areas from 2007 to 2015. While recruitment collapsed after the end of the job placement system (fenpei) in the early to mid-2000s, there was a strong increase in public employment recruitment from 2011 onwards. Tibetans were underrepresented within this increase, although not severely, and various implicit practices of preferentiality bolstered such representation, with distinct variations across regions and time. The combination reasserted the predominant role of the state as employer of educated millennials in Tibetan areas to the extent of re-introducing employment guarantees. We refer to this as the innovation of a neo-fenpei system. This new system is most clearly observed in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) from 2011 to 2016, although it appears to have been abandoned in 2017. One effect of neo-fenpei, in contrast to its predecessor, is that it accentuates university education as a driver of differentiation within emerging urban employment. The evolution of these recruitment practices reflects the complex tensions in Tibetan areas regarding the overarching goal of security and social stability (weiwen) emphasized by the Xi–Li administration, which has maintained systems of minority preferentiality but in a manner that enhances assimilationist trends rather than minority group empowerment

The evolution of Tibetan representation and preferentiality in public employment during the Post-fenpei period in China: Insights from new data sources

This paper exploits a new and exciting source of data on public employment recruitment in order to analyse the evolution of Tibetan representation and preferential hiring practices in public employment in all Tibetan areas from 2007 to 2015. Despite the limitations of these data, they provide a far more substantiated understanding of recent conditions than currently exists in the literature, even in the Chinese literature. Several major insights can be made from scrutinizing these data. First, following the retrenchment in public employment in the early 2000s and then the ending of the job placement system (Ch. fenpei), there was a strong increase in public employment recruitment from 2011 onwards. Second, Tibetan representation within the recruitment did not collapse, although it lagged significantly; within our sample of outcome documents, Tibetans were underrepresented in the recruitments across all Tibetan areas from 2007 to 2015, without any apparent regional or temporal patterns, at an average of 83 percent of what would be parity with their population share. More information is also needed on the ethnic composition of people exiting from public employment in order to have a more holistic evaluation of the evolution of Tibetan representation. Nonetheless, despite underrepresentation, new recruitment from 2011 onwards employed a much larger share of the university-aged population than during the late fenpei period, thereby reasserting the role of the state as predominant employment provider for educated Tibetan millennials. Practices of preferentiality appear to significantly bolster representation, although they exhibited distinct temporal and regional variations. Language or Tibetan medium degree type requirements were generally on the decline (especially in the TAR and Gannan, where their use became very marginal), with the exception of the Amdo region in Qinghai. Conversely, the use of residency requirements across all Tibetan regions has emerged as a significant form of practicing preferentiality in public employment, especially in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), where all public sector recruitments specify local ‘origin’ (Ch. shengyuan) since at least 2007. The TAR also reintroduced employment guarantees for all local university graduates in 2011, in what we call the innovation of a neo-fenpei system. The decline in the use of linguistic requirements suggests the continuation and entrenchment of assimilationist trends in education and employment policies, and a lack of priority for Tibetan medium education more generally (with the exception of the Amdo region in Qinghai). However, the stable and in some cases increasing use of residency requirements, especially in civil service positions suggests a trend of local level protectionism in public employment, probably led by local governments

On the Influence of a Five-Hole-Probe on the Vibration Characteristics of a Low Pressure Turbine Rotor while Performing Aerodynamic Measurements

For many reasons it is essential to know and assess the flow field and its characteristics up- and downstream of a turbine stage. For these purpose measurements are conducted in test rigs such as the STTF-AAAI (subsonic test turbine facility for aerodynamic, acoustic, and aeroelastic investigations) at the Institute for Thermal Turbomachinery and Machine Dynamics at Graz University of Technology. A low pressure turbine is operated in engine relevant operating conditions. The turbine is experienced high mechanical loads and is excited to vibrate (forced response). In the rotor design process forced response predictions and structural assessments are performed. However, it is not common to include instrumentation (e.g. total pressure and temperature rakes, five-hole-probes, fast response aerodynamic pressure probes) in these forced response predictions. But, these measurement devices are essential and therefore this paper investigates the influence of such an instrumentation onto the vibrational behaviour of a low pressure turbine rotor of the STTF-AAAI. Several vibration measurements at distinct circumferential and radial positions of the five-hole-probe in the flow channel are conducted. These measurement results are compared to measurements performed without a five-hole-probe in the flow channel. A clear influence of the five-hole-probe on the vibration level is shown

Steel Primer Chamber Assemblies for Dual Initiated Pyrovalves

A solution was developed to mitigate the potential risk of ignition failures and burn-through in aluminum primer chamber assemblies on pyrovalves. This was accomplished by changing the assembly material from aluminum to steel, and reconfiguration of flame channels to provide more direct paths from initiators to boosters. With the geometric configuration of the channels changed, energy is more efficiently transferred from the initiators to the boosters. With the alloy change to steel, the initiator flame channels do not erode upon firing, eliminating the possibility of burn-through. Flight qualification tests have been successfully passed

Proteogenomics refines the molecular classification of chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Cancer heterogeneity at the proteome level may explain differences in therapy response and prognosis beyond the currently established genomic and transcriptomic-based diagnostics. The relevance of proteomics for disease classifications remains to be established in clinically heterogeneous cancer entities such as chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Here, we characterize the proteome and transcriptome alongside genetic and ex-vivo drug response profiling in a clinically annotated CLL discovery cohort (n = 68). Unsupervised clustering of the proteome data reveals six subgroups. Five of these proteomic groups are associated with genetic features, while one group is only detectable at the proteome level. This new group is characterized by accelerated disease progression, high spliceosomal protein abundances associated with aberrant splicing, and low B cell receptor signaling protein abundances (ASB-CLL). Classifiers developed to identify ASB-CLL based on its characteristic proteome or splicing signature in two independent cohorts (n = 165, n = 169) confirm that ASB-CLL comprises about 20% of CLL patients. The inferior overall survival in ASB-CLL is also independent of both TP53- and IGHV mutation status. Our multi-omics analysis refines the classification of CLL and highlights the potential of proteomics to improve cancer patient stratification beyond genetic and transcriptomic profiling

Theory of excited state absorptions in phenylene-based π\pi-conjugated polymers

Within a rigid-band correlated electron model for oligomers of poly-(paraphenylene) (PPP) and poly-(paraphenylenevinylene) (PPV), we show that there exist two fundamentally different classes of two-photon A$_g$ states in these systems to which photoinduced absorption (PA) can occur. At relatively lower energies there occur A$_g$ states which are superpositions of one electron - one hole (1e--1h) and two electron -- two hole (2e--2h) excitations, that are both comprised of the highest delocalized valence band and the lowest delocalized conduction band states only. The dominant PA is to one specific member of this class of states (the mA$_g$). In addition to the above class of A$_g$ states, PA can also occur to a higher energy kA$_g$ state whose 2e--2h component is {\em different} and has significant contributions from excitations involving both delocalized and localized bands. Our calculated scaled energies of the mA$_g$ and the kA$_g$ agree reasonably well to the experimentally observed low and high energy PAs in PPV. The calculated relative intensities of the two PAs are also in qualitative agreement with experiment. In the case of ladder-type PPP and its oligomers, we predict from our theoretical work a new intense PA at an energy considerably lower than the region where PA have been observed currently. Based on earlier work that showed that efficient charge--carrier generation occurs upon excitation to odd--parity states that involve both delocalized and localized bands, we speculate that it is the characteristic electronic nature of the kA$_g$ that leads to charge generation subsequent to excitation to this state, as found experimentally.Comment: Revtex4 style, 2 figures inserted in the text, three tables, 10 page

An ultra-deep sequencing strategy to detect sub-clonal TP53 mutations in presentation chronic lymphocytic leukemia cases using multiple polymerases

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) is the most common clonal B-cell disorder characterized by clonal diversity, a relapsing and remitting course, and in its aggressive forms remains largely incurable. Current front-line regimes include agents such as fludarabine, which act primarily via the DNA damage response pathway. Key to this is the transcription factor p53. Mutations in the TP53 gene, altering p53 functionality, are associated with genetic instability, and are present in aggressive CLL. Furthermore, the emergence of clonal TP53 mutations in relapsed CLL, refractory to DNA-damaging therapy, suggests that accurate detection of sub-clonal TP53 mutations prior to and during treatment may be indicative of early relapse. In this study, we describe a novel deep sequencing workflow using multiple polymerases to generate sequencing libraries (MuPol-Seq), facilitating accurate detection of TP53 mutations at a frequency as low as 0.3%, in presentation CLL cases tested. As these mutations were mostly clustered within the regions of TP53 encoding DNA-binding domains, essential for DNA contact and structural architecture, they are likely to be of prognostic relevance in disease progression. The workflow described here has the potential to be implemented routinely to identify rare mutations across a range of diseases

Comparing the value of mono- vs coculture for high-throughput compound screening in hematological malignancies

Large-scale compound screens are a powerful model system for understanding variability of treatment response and discovering druggable tumor vulnerabilities of hematological malignancies. However, as mostly performed in a monoculture of tumor cells, these assays disregard modulatory effects of the in vivo microenvironment. It is an open question whether and to what extent coculture with bone marrow stromal cells could improve the biological relevance of drug testing assays over monoculture. Here, we established a high-throughput platform to measure ex vivo sensitivity of 108 primary blood cancer samples to 50 drugs in monoculture and coculture with bone marrow stromal cells. Stromal coculture conferred resistance to 52% of compounds in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and 36% of compounds in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), including chemotherapeutics, B-cell receptor inhibitors, proteasome inhibitors, and Bromodomain and extraterminal domain inhibitors. Only the JAK inhibitors ruxolitinib and tofacitinib exhibited increased efficacy in AML and CLL stromal coculture. We further confirmed the importance of JAK-STAT signaling for stroma-mediated resistance by showing that stromal cells induce phosphorylation of STAT3 in CLL cells. We genetically characterized the 108 cancer samples and found that drug-gene associations strongly correlated between monoculture and coculture. However, effect sizes were lower in coculture, with more drug-gene associations detected in monoculture than in coculture. Our results justify a 2-step strategy for drug perturbation testing, with large-scale screening performed in monoculture, followed by focused evaluation of potential stroma-mediated resistances in coculture