An analysis of the travel motivation of tourists from the People’s Republic of China

Since the Chinese economic reforms, the government’s policy towards travelling and tourism activity has changed. The population of the People’s Republic of China gained significant rights and possibilities to travel in their own country and conquer the international tourism market by package tours. However, the literature so far neglected the motivation of Chinese travellers in choosing their holiday destination. We compiled a new database of the preferences of Chinese tourists in domestic tourism and foreign tourists in China. The identification of the specific preferences of Chinese travellers helps to assess in how far tourists’ preferences for attractions and regions are similar. Another aspect of investigation is about the impact of tourism promotion in China on destination choice. The results of an analysis of Chinese marketing strategies are translated into recommendations for foreign travel promotion that targets at Chinese tourists.Tourism, China, travel motivation, pull factor, tourism promotion

Adaptation to Sea-level Rise in the People’s Republic of China – Assessing the Institutional Dimension of Alternative Organisational Frameworks

Global sea-levels are rising due to global warming. Major impacts on the world’s coasts are sand beach erosion, salination of ground water, and inundation. Adaptation is the only option to address these future threats as the mitigation of CO2 emissions is not capable of preventing sea-level rise. There are several organisational frameworks existing that can incorporate adaptation measures. Integrated Coastal Zone Management is proposed most often. Alternative frameworks are disaster management and sectoral frameworks involved in prevention activities, such as the water management that often holds responsibility for dike building. However, the integration of adaptation into an organisation framework is further dependent on institutional capacity within a political system. In order to illustrate what approach is feasible for a hierarchical political system the People’s Republic of China is taken as an example. An analysis of various frameworks and institutional responsibilities shows that the institutional dimension of organisation is decisive when seeking for an adequate framework to include adaptation to sea-level rise in. This paper is based on empirical results from a series of interviews and the analysis of official publications on frameworks and institutional responsibilities. It concludes with a recommendation on a climate change based framework.adaptation, sea-level rise, climate change, institutions, frameworks

Coastal Zone Management in the People’s Republic of China: A Unique Approach?

Integrated Coastal Zone Management, People’s Republic of China, Political Structure, Power Distribution, Jurisdictional Overlaps

Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the People’s Republic of China – An Assessment of Structural Impacts on Decision-making Processes

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) forms a generally accepted concept to ensure sustainable development in the coastal zone. The implementation of the ICZM framework as formulated, e.g. by the World Coast Conference, is often constrained by the political system within which it should be applied. This is the case in the People’s Republic of China. This study takes a political science perspective based on approaches inherent in neo-institutional and administrative theories. This way the relevant political structures are explained and the impacts that the transformation of the socio-economic system had on institutions are located. This is extended by the reflection of related political power distribution. This part of the analysis mainly contains existing knowledge on (integrated) CZM in China but evaluates it from a so far neglected point of view. The second part of the paper is taking the successful local ICZM approach of Xiamen and a proposed approach for Shanghai as an example to show that the adaptation of a working approach to other parts of the country is impossible without modifications to the organizational structures of decision-making and implementation. So far the literature emphasizes mostly modifications in content. An important reason for structural elements being comparably important is the choice of ICZM issues and the local power distribution. It furthermore shows that these are also the determining factors obstructing the upscaling of a local approach to the national level, a fact which constrains the formulation of national guidelines in China and leaves only the bottom-up alternative of introducing ICZM to China – a hard task that leaves a disproportional responsibility to the local governmental level.Integrated Coastal Zone Management, People’s Republic of China, Political Structure, Power Distribution, Jurisdictional Overlaps

THE CHINESE ARE COMING – AN ANALYSIS OF THE PREFERENCES OF CHINESE HOLIDAY MAKERS AT HOME AND ABROAD

We analyse the destination choice of Chinese tourists in China and abroad. Abroad, Chinese tourists prefer to travel to large and rich countries, and are little deterred by distance. Climate, coast, culture and political stability are irrelevant. Chinese tourists travel disproportionally to “approved destinations”, but this is being eroded as more countries acquire this status. The model predicts that Southeast Asian countries are harmed most by the extension of the ADS system, while North America suffers most from being excluded. Domestically, Chinese tourists prefer rich and densely population areas, but dislike cities. They value easy access by road and rail, and are attracted by nature. Cultural attractions are less important, and may even reduce tourist numbers. Although potential tourist numbers are large, tourist operators should not assume that Chinese tourists behave like other tourists.International tourism, domestic tourism, China, destination choice

Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the People’s Republic of China – An Assessment of Structural Impacts on Decision-making Processes

Global sea-levels are rising due to climate change. Latest estimates expect a rise of up to 88 cm within the next 100 years. In China the three main river deltas are considered most vulnerable to sea-level rise and a number of mega-cities, e.g. Shanghai, with high economic importance are perticularly at risk. The natural changes in sea-level are often accelerated by human induced phenomena, such as land subsidence due to over-exploitation of ground water or by sediment compression due to high rise building construction. Through a combination of natural events and artificial pressures on the coastal system a range of issues are developing, that can already have disastrous effects, depending on scale, area and existence of countermeasures. The concept of integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) offers a framework for a coordination of economic development and environmental protection in a sustainable way. Still sea-level rise is not incorporated into (I)CZM in China. Instead mitigation and protection issues are covered by diverse institutions on various governmental levels. One reason is that sea-level rise poses a long-term threat whereas development in the coastal zone in China is still mostly short-term oriented. With current CZM the effects of sea-level rise, such as erosion, salination and inundation of coastal areas are not effectively addressed. Generally the perception of sea-level rise is predominantly academic, without specific policies being formulated and only hesitant steps being taken to inform the public.Integrated Coastal Zone Management, People’s Republic of China, Political Structure, Power Distribution, Jurisdictional Overlaps

A GLOBAL DATABASE OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL TOURIST NUMBERS AT NATIONAL AND SUBNATIONAL LEVEL

We present a new, global data base on tourist destinations. The data base differs from other data bases in that it includes both domestic and international tourists; and it contains data, for the most important destinations, data at national level as well as at lower administrative levels. Missing observations are interpolated using statistical models. The data are freely accessible on the internet.tourism, data

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Controls the Embryo-to-Seedling Phase Transition

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is a key regulator of epigenetic states catalyzing histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation (H3K27me3), a repressive chromatin mark. PRC2 composition is conserved from humans to plants, but the function of PRC2 during the early stage of plant life is unclear beyond the fact that it is required for the development of endosperm, a nutritive tissue that supports embryo growth. Circumventing the requirement of PRC2 in endosperm allowed us to generate viable homozygous null mutants for FERTILIZATION INDEPENDENT ENDOSPERM (FIE), which is the single Arabidopsis homolog of Extra Sex Combs, an indispensable component of Drosophila and mammalian PRC2. Here we show that H3K27me3 deposition is abolished genome-wide in fie mutants demonstrating the essential function of PRC2 in placing this mark in plants as in animals. In contrast to animals, we find that PRC2 function is not required for initial body plan formation in Arabidopsis. Rather, our results show that fie mutant seeds exhibit enhanced dormancy and germination defects, indicating a deficiency in terminating the embryonic phase. After germination, fie mutant seedlings switch to generative development that is not sustained, giving rise to neoplastic, callus-like structures. Further genome-wide studies showed that only a fraction of PRC2 targets are transcriptionally activated in fie seedlings and that this activation is accompanied in only a few cases with deposition of H3K4me3, a mark associated with gene activity and considered to act antagonistically to H3K27me3. Up-regulated PRC2 target genes were found to act at different hierarchical levels from transcriptional master regulators to a wide range of downstream targets. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that PRC2-mediated regulation represents a robust system controlling developmental phase transitions, not only from vegetative phase to flowering but also especially from embryonic phase to the seedling stage

Comprehensive Research Synopsis and Systematic Meta-Analyses in Parkinson's Disease Genetics: The PDGene Database

More than 800 published genetic association studies have implicated dozens of potential risk loci in Parkinson's disease (PD). To facilitate the interpretation of these findings, we have created a dedicated online resource, PDGene, that comprehensively collects and meta-analyzes all published studies in the field. A systematic literature screen of ∼27,000 articles yielded 828 eligible articles from which relevant data were extracted. In addition, individual-level data from three publicly available genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were obtained and subjected to genotype imputation and analysis. Overall, we performed meta-analyses on more than seven million polymorphisms originating either from GWAS datasets and/or from smaller scale PD association studies. Meta-analyses on 147 SNPs were supplemented by unpublished GWAS data from up to 16,452 PD cases and 48,810 controls. Eleven loci showed genome-wide significant (P<5×10−8) association with disease risk: BST1, CCDC62/HIP1R, DGKQ/GAK, GBA, LRRK2, MAPT, MCCC1/LAMP3, PARK16, SNCA, STK39, and SYT11/RAB25. In addition, we identified novel evidence for genome-wide significant association with a polymorphism in ITGA8 (rs7077361, OR 0.88, P = 1.3×10−8). All meta-analysis results are freely available on a dedicated online database (www.pdgene.org), which is cross-linked with a customized track on the UCSC Genome Browser. Our study provides an exhaustive and up-to-date summary of the status of PD genetics research that can be readily scaled to include the results of future large-scale genetics projects, including next-generation sequencing studies

Genome-Wide Transcript Profiling of Endosperm without Paternal Contribution Identifies Parent-of-Origin–Dependent Regulation of AGAMOUS-LIKE36

Seed development in angiosperms is dependent on the interplay among different transcriptional programs operating in the embryo, the endosperm, and the maternally-derived seed coat. In angiosperms, the embryo and the endosperm are products of double fertilization during which the two pollen sperm cells fuse with the egg cell and the central cell of the female gametophyte. In Arabidopsis, analyses of mutants in the cell-cycle regulator CYCLIN DEPENDENT KINASE A;1 (CKDA;1) have revealed the importance of a paternal genome for the effective development of the endosperm and ultimately the seed. Here we have exploited cdka;1 fertilization as a novel tool for the identification of seed regulators and factors involved in parent-of-origin–specific regulation during seed development. We have generated genome-wide transcription profiles of cdka;1 fertilized seeds and identified approximately 600 genes that are downregulated in the absence of a paternal genome. Among those, AGAMOUS-LIKE (AGL) genes encoding Type-I MADS-box transcription factors were significantly overrepresented. Here, AGL36 was chosen for an in-depth study and shown to be imprinted. We demonstrate that AGL36 parent-of-origin–dependent expression is controlled by the activity of METHYLTRANSFERASE1 (MET1) maintenance DNA methyltransferase and DEMETER (DME) DNA glycosylase. Interestingly, our data also show that the active maternal allele of AGL36 is regulated throughout endosperm development by components of the FIS Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2), revealing a new type of dual epigenetic regulation in seeds