Policy Evaluation and Recommendation for Preserving Residential Compounds in Beijing: A Process-Oriented Approach

Between 1949 and 1958, a large number of residential compounds were built in Beijing to house the growing population in the capital city of the newly founded People’s Republic. They were planned as self-sufficient residential components of “work-units”, and usually consisted of groupings of three to five-story buildings with various amenities and institutions. The construction of these neighborhoods profoundly shaped the city’s landscape. Since the reform of the work-unit system and the opening of the housing market in the late 1990s, residential compounds gradually declined and are now threatened of demolition under the city\u27s redevelopment projects. The thesis researched into the history, evolution and current conditions of the residential compounds in Beijing, and argues that residential compounds deserve preservation because of their heritage and social values, yet traditional preservation policy is not sufficient to address the challenges posed by residential compounds, which requires a broader preservation perspective and an active participation in the urban redevelopment process. The thesis evaluates policies both already in place in China and used in the US, and proposes a new preservation process that makes meaningful interventions to better preserve these neighborhoods in Beijing

Smart Community Service Brand Functional Value and Sustainable Brand Relationship—The Mediating Role of Customer Emotional Cognition

More and more companies are developing customer service by building Smart Community Service Brand Platforms (SCSBP). However, the impact of digital platform functions on sustainable brand relationships, and the mediating mechanism of customer’s emotional cognition are still unclear. The functional value of digital services in the property service industry focuses on three dimensions, including service efficiency, personalization, and social interaction. Regarding consumers’ emotional cognition aspect, we investigate value consistency and brand image. The empirical analysis findings suggest: (1) the functional value of smart community service has a significant positive impact on consumers’ emotional cognition and is positively related to the construction of sustainable brand relationships; (2) consumers’ emotional cognition of smart community service is positively related to the sustainable brand relationship; (3) consumers’ emotional cognition plays a complete mediating role between service efficiency and sustainable brand relationship, demonstrating a partial mediating role between personalization and social interaction aspects of functional value and sustainable brand relationship. This study contributes to the customer-based sustainable brand relationship theory in the digital service environment and provides a reference for companies to continuously improve the SCSBP and customer-based brand construction

Neuroprotective effects of (Val8)GLP-1-Glu-PAL in the MPTP Parkinson's disease mouse model

Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) is a hormone and a growth factor. GLP-1 mimetics are currently on the market as treatments for type 2 diabetes. They also have shown neuroprotective properties in animal models of neurodegenerative disorders. In addition, the GLP-1 mimetic exendin-4 has shown protective effects in animal models of Parkinson's disease (PD), and a first clinical trial in PD patients showed promising results. (Val8)GLP-1-glu-PAL is a new GLP-1 analogue which has a longer biological half-life than exendin-4. We previously showed that (Val8)GLP-1-glu-PAL has neuroprotective properties. Here we tested the drug in the 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) mouse model of PD. MPTP was injected (30mg/kg i.p.) along with (Val8)GLP-1-glu-PAL (25nmol/kg i.p.) once-daily for 8 days. (Val8)GLP-1-glu-PAL showed good effects in preventing the MPTP-induced motor impairment (Rotarod, open field locomotion, swim test), reduction in tyrosine hydroxylase levels (dopamine synthesis) in the substantia nigra, a reduction of activated caspase 3 levels, of TUNEL positive cell numbers, of the pro-apoptotic signaling molecule BAX and an increase in the growth signaling molecule Bcl-2. The results demonstrate that (Val8)GLP-1-glu-PAL shows promise as a novel treatment of PD

A semiparametric likelihood-based method for regression analysis of mixed panel-count data

Panel-count data arise when each study subject is observed only at discrete time points in a recurrent event study, and only the numbers of the event of interest between observation time points are recorded (Sun and Zhao, 2013). However, sometimes the exact number of events between some observation times is unknown and what we know is only whether the event of interest has occurred. In this article, we will refer this type of data to as mixed panel-count data and propose a likelihood-based semiparametric regression method for their analysis by using the nonhomogeneous Poisson process assumption. However, we establish the asymptotic properties of the resulting estimator by employing the empirical process theory and without using the Poisson assumption. Also, we conduct an extensive simulation study, which suggests that the proposed method works well in practice. Finally, the method is applied to a Childhood Cancer Survivor Study that motivated this study