Regulating Labour Relations in China : The Challenge of Adapting to the Socialist Market Economy

This paper examines the new Labour Law of the PRC, effective January 1, 1995, in the light of current and historical conditions of labour relations in China. Provisions regarding the labour contract system and dispute resolution are discussed in greater detail. Issues related to the introduction of collective bargaining and to the relationship between trade unions and the Communist Party are also examined. In their overall assessment, the authors recognize the potential significance of the Labour Law as a major step towards the legal protection of workers' rights, but point out that its effectiveness could be undermined by the preeminent policy of economic growth, by concerns about political control, and by obstacles to full implementation.Cet article analyse la nouvelle Loi de la RPC sur le travail, entrée en vigueur le 1er janvier 1995, dans le contexte historique et actuel des relations de travail en Chine. Les auteurs accordent une attention particulière aux dispositions relatives au contrat de travail et au règlement des différends. Ils examinent également les difficultés soulevées par l'introduction des conventions collectives dans les entreprises chinoises, et par les relations entre les syndicats et le Parti communiste. Tout en reconnaissant, dans leur appréciation globale de la loi, qu'elle pourrait marquer une étape importante vers la protection juridique des droits des travailleurs, ils signalent que sa portée réelle pourrait être amoindrie par la prépondérance de la politique de croissance économique, par le souci de préserver le contrôle politique et par des difficultés pratiques de mise en oeuvre

A thermal behavior of low-substituted hydroxyethyl cellulose and cellulose solutions in NaOH-water

The articles belonging to the special issue are open access, all published articles are freely available online.International audienceHydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) with low molar substitution has better solubility in 8%NaOH-water solution than pure cellulose. The thermal behavior of ternary HEC/NaOH/water mixtures was investigated by DSC, and the results are compared with those of cellulose/NaOH/water solutions, aiming at providing better understanding about cellulose dissolution mechanism in NaOH-water. At low polymer concentrations and below 0°C, HEC and cellulose solutions exhibit a similar thermal behavior with ice, eutectic and/or melting and recrystallization peaks, showing that the overall interactions between NaOH, water and cellulose or HEC are identical. However, when the concentration increases above 2%, the eutectic peak of HEC solutions disappeared, leaving only the ice peak, which is different from previous results for cellulose where the disappearance of the eutectic peak was related to the maximum solubility of cellulose (around 8 wt%). This implies that the dissolution behavior of HEC in NaOH solution is changed due to possible changes of chain flexibility and/or increased attractions to water caused by the hydrophilic hydroxyethyl groups. The melting and recrystallization peaks visible only at low concentrations of HEC or cellulose in solution also support the conclusion that dissolution of cellulose and HEC at low concentrations bears features which are not yet understood

Drosophila tan Encodes a Novel Hydrolase Required in Pigmentation and Vision

Many proteins are used repeatedly in development, but usually the function of the protein is similar in the different contexts. Here we report that the classical Drosophila melanogaster locus tan encodes a novel enzyme required for two very different cellular functions: hydrolysis of N-β-alanyl dopamine (NBAD) to dopamine during cuticular melanization, and hydrolysis of carcinine to histamine in the metabolism of photoreceptor neurotransmitter. We characterized two tan-like P-element insertions that failed to complement classical tan mutations. Both are inserted in the 5′ untranslated region of the previously uncharacterized gene CG12120, a putative homolog of fungal isopenicillin-N N-acyltransferase (EC 2.3.1.164). Both P insertions showed abnormally low transcription of the CG12120 mRNA. Ectopic CG12120 expression rescued tan mutant pigmentation phenotypes and caused the production of striking black melanin patterns. Electroretinogram and head histamine assays indicated that CG12120 is required for hydrolysis of carcinine to histamine, which is required for histaminergic neurotransmission. Recombinant CG12120 protein efficiently hydrolyzed both NBAD to dopamine and carcinine to histamine. We conclude that D. melanogaster CG12120 corresponds to tan. This is, to our knowledge, the first molecular genetic characterization of NBAD hydrolase and carcinine hydrolase activity in any organism and is central to the understanding of pigmentation and photoreceptor function

Estimates on compressed neural networks regression

When the neural element number nn of neural networks is larger than the sample size mm, the overfitting problem arises since there are more parameters than actual data (more variable than constraints). In order to overcome the overfitting problem, we propose to reduce the number of neural elements by using compressed projection AA which does not need to satisfy the condition of Restricted Isometric Property (RIP). By applying probability inequalities and approximation properties of the feedforward neural networks (FNNs), we prove that solving the FNNs regression learning algorithm in the compressed domain instead of the original domain reduces the sample error at the price of an increased (but controlled) approximation error, where the covering number theory is used to estimate the excess error, and an upper bound of the excess error is given

High CRLF2 expression associates with IKZF1 dysfunction in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia without CRLF2 rearrangement.

Overexpression of cytokine receptor-like factor 2 (CRLF2) due to chromosomal rearrangement has been observed in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and reported to contribute to oncogenesis and unfavorable outcome in ALL. We studied B-ALL and T-ALL patients without CRLF2 rearrangement and observed that CRLF2 is significantly increased in a subset of these patients. Our study shows that high CRLF2expression correlates with high-risk ALL markers, as well as poor survival. We found that the IKZF1-encoded protein, Ikaros, directly binds to the CRLF2 promoter and regulates CRLF2 expression in leukemia cells. CK2 inhibitor, which can increase Ikaros activity, significantly increases Ikaros binding in ALL cells and suppresses CRLF2 expression in an Ikaros-dependent manner. CRLF2 expression is significantly higher in patients with IKZF1 deletion as compared to patients without IKZF1 deletion. Treatment with CK2 inhibitor also results in an increase in IKZF1 binding to the CRLF2 promoter and suppression of CRLF2 expression in primary ALL cells. We further observed that CK2 inhibitor induces increased H3K9me3 histone modifications in the CRLF2 promoter in ALL cell lines and primary cells. Taken together, our results demonstrate that high expression of CRLF2 correlates with high-risk ALL and short survival in patients without CRLF2 rearrangement. Our results are the first to demonstrate that the IKZF1-encoded Ikaros protein directly suppresses CRLF2 expression through enrichment of H3K9me3 in its promoter region. Our data also suggest that high CRLF2 expression works with the IKZF1 deletion to drive oncogenesis of ALL and has significance in an integrated prognostic model for adult high-risk ALL

Using modern and fossil pollen data for climate and human influence reconstructions in China

Assessing the numerical relationships among pollen spectra, human influence and climate is a critical prerequisite for obtaining reliable and robust pollen-based quantitative reconstructions for past climatic variations and human-induced environmental changes. Here, modern pollen data from small river catchments in human-influenced mountainous ecosystems of northern China are collected to investigate the pollen/vegetation/land-use relationships. The effects of human influence index (HII) in comparison with key climate variables on influencing modern pollen distribution are evaluated using a continental-scale dataset. The importance of different climate variables accounting for modern pollen distribution is quantified for identifying the determinant variables that can be reconstructed in different bioclimatic regions of China. Furthermore, pollen-based calibration models for HII and climate parameters are developed and applied to a set of fossil pollen data for quantitative human influence and climate reconstructions. In addition, the bias caused by long-term and intensive human influence on vegetation in quantitative pollen-based palaeoclimatic reconstructions is examined, and pollen-based climate reconstructions are used to validate the reliability of climate model simulations. The results reveal that pollen assemblages from surface sediment samples in the Tuoliang and Qipanshan catchments from northern China are dominated by Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae, Pinus and Selaginella sinensis. Pollen types indicative of human activities such as Cerealia-type are common but not abundant. Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae percentages decline with decreasing altitude, whereas Pinus and S. sinensis percentages increase, suggesting that saccate Pinus pollen and S. sinensis spores can be transported further than non-saccate pollen types and that pollen sorting is taking place over water transportation. There is a positive linear relationship between percentages of Cerealia-type pollen and proportions of farmland, whereas correlation between percentages of trees, shrubs and herbs pollen and proportions of woodland, scrubland and grassland respectively is poor. This can be attributed to the differences in pollen productivity, deposition and dispersal. These findings may provide the basis for a modeling approach to reconstruct past land-cover changes at small catchment scale in northern China. The effects of HII on accounting for modern pollen distribution are smaller than annual precipitation (PANN) or annual average temperature (TANN) in most regions of China, with the exception of east-central China that has a significant pollen–HII relationship. The quantified importance of six climate variables (PANN; TANN; actual/potential evapotranspiration ratio, Alpha; mean temperature of the warmest month, MTWA; mean temperature of the coldest month, MTCO; annual sum of the growing degree days above 5 °C, GDD5) for the geographical distribution of modern pollen data differs among regions in China. Hydrological variables are more important than temperature-related variables in north-western and -eastern China and the Tibetan Plateau, whilst temperature-related variables are dominant in east-central and southern China. This suggests that the critical climate variables which can be optimally reconstructed from pollen data vary regionally in China. These regional differences are common to other large-scale surface pollen datasets and need to be taken into considerations in pollen-based climate reconstructions. The calibration models for HII, PANN and TANN show good statistical performances and are applied to a fossil pollen sequence from Lake Tianchi in east-central China. The inferred HII increases abruptly at 1100 cal. yr BP and remains high until present-day. Correspondingly, the reconstructed PANN shows a sudden decrease since 1100 cal. yr BP, whereas TANN displays an increase. However, other independent palaeoclimatic records mostly contradict the reconstructed climatic trends for the last 1100 years, suggesting that the Tianchi climate reconstructions for this period are biased by the intensification of human influence. This bias probably occurs in other palaeoclimatic reconstructions using pollen data from other regions where human impact on vegetation is also intensive and long-lasting. The calibration models for the summer monsoon precipitation (Pjja) also exhibit good predictive performances and are applied to a set of fossil pollen data from monsoonal China. The Holocene Pjja reconstructions from northern China are stacked to one record, showing that Pjja increases since 9500 cal. yr BP, reaches the maximum at 7000–4000 cal. yr BP, and falls down to present-day. The reconstructions are compared with Pjja simulations from the Kiel Climate Model (KCM). The model output and reconstructions are different for the early-Holocene for which the model suggests higher Pjja. The simulated Pjja changes for the Holocene summer monsoon maximum (HSMM) are lower than the reconstructed changes. The increasing or decreasing Pjja trends before or after the HSMM are more pronounced in the reconstructions than in the model results. Other palaeoclimatic data show substantial Holocene monsoon precipitation changes. This suggests that the KCM underestimates the magnitude of the summer monsoon precipitation changes. The results obtained in this work highlight the necessity for critically assessing the modern pollen/human-influence/climate relationships at various spatial scales and can be used to improve the correctness and robustness of pollen-based climate and human influence reconstructions in China and other regions of the world with large-scale surface pollen datasets. The pollen-based calibration models and their forthcoming applications can be employed to further quantitatively explore the past environmental changes and climatic dynamics and to validate the accuracy of climate model output