bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Selling China: Foreign Direct Investment During the Reform Era. By Yasheng Huang. [New York and London: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 383 pp. £40.00. ISBN: 0-521-81428-6.]
Internationalizing China: Domestic Interests and Global Linkages. By David Zweig. [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. 291 pp. $54.00. ISBN 0-8014-8755-2.]
Authors: Gallagher Mary 
Published: February 2004

In 2001 China attracted more foreign direct investment than any other nation in the world, including the United States. China's love affair with foreign capital and foreign investors' ardour for China is increasingly a subject of academic inquiry. What are the causes of this mutual attraction? And perhaps more important, what are its effects on China's internal political and economic development? Two recent books by political scientists are focused on answering the former question and, by way of conclusion, speculating on the latter. In their attempts they have contributed to a new and fascinating debate on how globalization (increased contact and interdependence between states, organizations, and individuals) is changing China.Despite their similar focus, these books are complementary rather than overlapping. They employ different theoretical approaches and modes of empirical evidence. Huang's book is situated in the general business literature on foreign direct investment with scant emphasis on political science while Zweig forges an eclectic argument that draws from political economy, China studies, and sociology. Zweig employs various methods of data collection and empirical evidence, relying both on extensive interviews and statistical data. Huang relies mainly on statistical data culled from various sources and a small number of interviews with firm managers and officials. Both books are data rich and are argued persuasively. While Zweig's research is more finely-grained and attentive to regional differences in opening up, Huang uses some key case studies to make his general points more specific.
Contemporary China: The Dynamics of Change at the Start of the New Millennium. Edited by P.W. Preston and Ju¨rgen Haacke. [London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. ix +360 pp. £60.00. ISBN 0-7007-1637-8.]
Authors: Kerr David 
Published: February 2004

This volume originated in a collection of workshop papers given at the University of Birmingham in June 2000. The problems with such collections are well known: the papers can quickly become out of date; their quality can be variable; or the collection can lack over-arching intellectual purpose. With this volume the first two problems are negligible: the papers are still largely relevant and of sufficient quality to demand our attention. The third problem is, however, evident: the volume has 14 main chapters divided into three sections covering economic, social and political, and foreign policy change in China, yet the relationship between some of the chapters within sections, or indeed between sections, is not established. This is not too apparent in the six chapters on economic change, which work well together, but much more so in the section on social and political change where chapters on welfare reform, the internet, Taiwan, neo-authoritarianism, and the Asian financial crisis sit alongside each other. The section on foreign policy is largely detached at the back of the volume with no apparent relationship to the preceding chapters.We can have some sympathy for the editors and their aspiration to present “a comprehensive book on the scope and dynamics of change affecting China” (p. ix): the facets of rapid change in China are so many and their interaction so complex that building a model of China's transformation is particularly challenging. Yet this is precisely what social science must attempt not least by rigorous use of theory, and it is a major weakness of the book that it is largely an exercise in micro-level empiricism with few appeals to theory building. This is not true of all contributions: Zhao Chenggen's chapter on the limits of rational authoritarianism in dealing with the problems arising from economic liberalization is acerbic and convincing. Guan Xinping ties China's struggle to create a modern welfare system to the pressures of neo-liberal globalization. But with regard to the volume as a whole the editors seem uncertain where to locate China's changes in social science terms: industrialization, modernization theory, Asian developmentalism, transition studies? They call for a dialogue of theoretical approaches (p. 9) but this feels as much like uncertainty as eclecticism.
Taiwan: A Political History. By Denny Roy. [Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. xiii +255 pp. Hard cover £31.50, ISBN: 0-8014-4070-X; paperback £11.95, ISBN 0-8014-8805-2.]
Authors: Rawnsley Gary D. 
Published: February 2004

Anyone wishing to read a compelling and thorough history of Taiwan will do no better than turn in the first instance to Denny Roy's new volume. Its aspiration is simple: to trace the political development of Taiwan from Chinese outpost and contested European colony to 21st-century democracy. Applying a broad-brush approach, Taiwan is a careful synthesis of the published research with few surprises for the specialist, but the book will appeal most to the non-specialist and the student market.In the opening pages, the author sells short his contribution. This book, he promises, “examines selected events from the last several centuries . . . ,” but “more recent periods are studied in greater depth” (p. 2). In fact, the first 54 pages that analyse the history of Taiwan prior to the more familiar story of the island's return to rule by mainlanders are the most fascinating. In saying this, I do not intend to demean the remaining 200 pages – far from it, for Roy's account of the rise and fall of the Kuomintang is among the finest available. However, authors rarely allow their readers to appreciate the full impact of pre-1945 colonial (European, Chinese or Japanese) administration on Taiwan, though for Roy this is an essential part of the story. Without this historical context, it is impossible to understand fully the foundations of Taiwan's recent regime change.
Industrialization and the State: The Changing Role of the Taiwan Government in the Economy, 1945–1998. Edited by Li-min Hsueh, Chen-kuo Hsu, and Dwight H. Perkins. [Cambridge, MA: Harvard Institute for International Development, 2001. v +350 pp. Hard cover £21.50, ISBN 0-674-00252-0; paperback £11.50, ISBN 0-674-00253-9.]
Authors: Wu Yongping 
Published: February 2004

This is the first volume to introduce Taiwan's industrial growth both in the early years and in the recent period. The existing English and Chinese literature on post-war Taiwan economic history does not go beyond the mid-1980s. Despite studies of individual sectors and cases, a more general introduction about the economic adjustments since the late 1980s from a historical perspective has remained absent. Therefore, this volume to some extent can fill this gap in the literature. The book also uses some new materials about the policy process and the factors that influenced government industrial policy.However, there are a number of weaknesses in the book. The theme of the volume – the role of government in economic growth – is not new. Readers may be disappointed to find that the book does not provide any new accounts of this issue. The major argument made by the authors is that the industrial success in Taiwan can be attributed to the state's capability to continually adopt new development strategies in response to changing circumstances. Thus, this is another volume on the statist paradigm that holds that a capable state is responsible for industrial success. The account provided by the developmental state thesis, a dominant approach in the statist paradigm, is an institutional approach – that the right institutional arrangements enable the state to formulate and implement its industrial policy to govern the market (see, Robert Wade, Governing the Market (Princeton, 1990)). What is the book's explanation for the government being able to adopt the right development models in response to changing environments? Do the authors agree with the developmental state thesis's argument of a strong state with autonomy and capability, or do they develop a new account? Surprisingly, no answers are provided. But without such an explanation, the argument is based on a shaky foundation.
The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study. By Lanxin Xiang. [London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. xvii +382 pp. $80.00. ISBN 0-7007-1563-0.]
Authors: Esherick Joseph W. 
Published: February 2004

This old-fashioned political and diplomatic history of the conflict between the Qing court and foreign powers in 1900 makes a significant, if not always convincing, contribution to our understanding of the Boxer troubles. Arguing that previous studies have been flawed by an excessive focus on “the so-called ‘Boxer Rebellion’ ” (p. vii), this book focuses on how the Qing court came to declare war on the foreign powers in June of 1900. Its close analysis of court politics and actions of the foreign diplomatic corps in Beijing makes excellent use of archival records from Belgium, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States plus published documents from Russia and Japan – an impressive research accomplishment that adds an important new dimension to our understanding this critical moment in modern Chinese history.In four chapters tracing the background to the Boxer incident, Xiang argues that the death of Prince Gong in 1898 deprived the Qing court of a critical balancing figure. When southern reformers overplayed their hand in the 1898 reforms, the Empress Dowager responded in a coup that brought an incompetent group of ultra-conservative Manchu princelings to power. At the same time, a new kind of imperialism representing an “unholy alliance” of nationalist elites, commercial interests and Christian missionaries threatened China with the scramble for concessions. Xiang is particularly effective in describing the catch-up imperialism of Germany, spurred by the erratic Catholic bishop Anzer, and the “theatrical performance” of the Italians, whose rebuff by the Qing court emboldened the conservative princes.
Mon Van Genechten (1903–1974), Flemish Missionary and Chinese Painter: Inculturation of Christian Art in China. By Lorry Swerts and Koen De Ridder. [Leuven: Leuven University Press and the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation, 2002. 188 pp. €16.15. ISBN 90-5867-222-0.]
Authors: Lufkin Felicity 
Published: February 2004

This books offers an appreciation of the life and work of Father Mon Van Genechten, a Belgian artist-priest who was a missionary in China from 1930 to 1946. It presents Father Van Genechten as an open-hearted and creative man of faith, and also makes the rather dramatic claim that Van Genechten, whose art combined Chinese styles with Christian iconography, should be seen as a Chinese artist.The book contains two essays: one by De Ridder, on the art-historical context of Van Genechten's work; and the other by Swerts, giving fuller biographical detail. It also includes a brief memoir of Van Genechten by a former student; reproductions of his paintings, woodcuts and photographs; a list of his exhibitions; and a catalog of his known works. This catalogue is, unfortunately, less useful than it might be as it gives neither the current location of a work nor where it is reproduced.Van Genechten is no neglected genius, but he is potentially interesting to students of Christian missionary work in China, of the modern development of Christian art, and also to students of modern Chinese art. His career – which encompassed decorating churches in Inner Mongolia, teaching at the Catholic University of Peking, and being prisoner of war in Shandong – offers a fresh perspective on East–West artistic interchange. But while the book introduces a worthwhile subject, it falls short in analysis and historical contextualization.
Autonomous Queenship in Cambodia, 1st–9th Centuries AD
Authors: Jacobsen Trudy 
Published: February 2004

AbstractA brief glance at any bibliography for a history of Cambodia written in the last hundred years will reveal the immense preoccupation that historians have had with the institution of kingship. Yet nothing has been written on autonomously ruling queens, despite the acceptance by some twentieth-century historians that at least two such queens apparently ruled in pre-classical Cambodia (c. 50-802). These female sovereigns have been considered an anomaly, their reigns evidence that the political and social fabric of pre-classical society was rent asunder by the intrusion of female rulers into a male domain. Such a scenario is at variance with epigraphic evidence. One of the queens accepted by twentieth-century historians as an autonomous female ruler belongs to the eleventh century, not the seventh, as previously determined. Moreover, it appears that in most pre-classical Cambodian polities, women held the power of sovereignty, even if they did not rule independently. This not only raises questions regarding the accepted understanding of gender and power in pre-classical Cambodia, but also calls for a revision of pre-classical Cambodian history.
Amyloid‐forming peptides selected proteolytically from phage display library
Authors: Koscielska‐Kasprzak Katarzyna , Otlewski Jacek 
Published: February 2004

AbstractWe demonstrated that amyloid‐forming peptides could be selected from phage‐displayed library via proteolysis‐based selection protocol. The library of 28‐residue peptides based on a sequence of the second zinc finger domain of Zif268, and computationally designed ββα peptide, FSD‐1, was presented monovalently on the surface of M13 phage. The library coupled the infectivity of phage particles to proteolytic stability of a peptide introduced into the coat protein III linker. It was designed to include variants with a strong potential to fold into ββα motif of zinc finger domains, as expected from secondary structure propensities, but with no structure stabilization via zinc ion coordination. As our primary goal was to find novel monomeric ββα peptides, the library was selected for stable domains with the assumption that folded proteins are resistant to proteolysis. After less than four rounds of proteolytic selection with trypsin, chymotrypsin, or proteinase K, we obtained a number of proteolysis‐resistant phage clones containing several potential sites for proteolytic attack with the proteinases. Eight peptides showing the highest proteolysis resistance were expressed and purified in a phage‐free form. When characterized, the peptides possessed proteolytic resistance largely exceeding that of the second zinc finger domain of Zif268 and FSD‐1. Six of the characterized peptides formed fibrils when solubilized at high concentrations. Three of them assembled into amyloids as determined through CD measurements, Congo red and thioflavin T binding, and transmission electron microscopy.
Stability of a 24‐meric homopolymer: Comparative studies of assembly‐defective mutants ofRhodobacter capsulatusbacterioferritin and the native protein
Authors: Kilic Mehmet A. , Spiro Stephen , Moore Geoffrey R. 
Published: February 2004

AbstractThe stability ofRhodobacter capsulatusbacterioferritin, a 24‐meric homopolymer, toward denaturation on variation in pH and temperature, and increasing concentrations of urea and guanidine. HCl was investigated with native PAGE, and CD and fluorescence spectroscopies. With temperature and urea, the wild‐type protein denatured without discernible intermediates in the equilibrium experiments, but with guanidine.HCl (Gnd.HCl) one or more intermediate species were apparent at relatively low Gnd.HCl concentrations. Dissociated subunit monomers, or aggregates smaller than 24‐mers containing the high α‐helical content characteristic of the native protein were not obtained at any pH without a high proportion of the 24‐mer being present, and taken together with the other denaturation experiments and the construction of stable subunit dimers by site‐directed mutagenesis, this observation indicates that folding of the bacterioferritin monomer could be coupled to its association into a dimer. Glu 128 and Glu 135 were replaced by alanine and arginine in a series of mutants to determine their role in stabilizing the 24‐meric oligomer. The Glu128Ala, Glu135Ala and Glu135Arg variants retained a 24‐meric structure, but the Glu128Ala/Glu135Ala and Glu128Arg/Glu135Arg variants were stable subunit dimers. CD spectra of the Glu135Arg, Glu128Ala/Glu135Ala, and Glu128Arg/Glu135Arg variants showed that they retained the high α‐helical content of the wild‐type protein. The 24‐meric Glu135Arg variant was less stable than the wild‐type protein (Tm, [Urea]50%and [Gnd.HCl]50%of 59°C, 4.9 M and 3.2 M compared with 73°C, ∼8 M and 4.3 M, respectively), and the dimeric Glu128Arg/Glu135Arg variant was less stable still (Tm, [Urea]50%and [Gnd.HCl]50%of 43°C, ∼3.2 M and 1.8 M, respectively). The differences in stability are roughly additive, indicating that the salt‐bridges formed by Glu 128 and Glu 135 in the native oligomer, with Arg 61 and the amino‐terminal amine of neighboring subunits, respectively, contribute equally to the stability of the subunit assembly. The additivity and assembly states of the variant proteins suggest that the interactions involving Glu 128 and Glu 135 contribute significantly to stabilizing the 24‐mer relative to the subunit dimer.
Identification of residues critical for catalysis in a class C β‐lactamase by combinatorial scanning mutagenesis
Authors: Goldberg Shalom D. , Iannuccilli William , Nguyen Tuan , Ju Jingyue , Cornish Virginia W. 
Published: February 2004

AbstractDespite their clinical importance, the mechanism of action of the class C β‐lactamases is poorly understood. In contrast to the class A and class D β‐lactamases, which contain a glutamate residue and a carbamylated lysine in their respective active sites that are thought to serve as general base catalysts for β‐lactam hydrolysis, the mechanism of activation of the serine and water nucleophiles in the class C enzymes is unclear. To probe for residues involved in catalysis, the class C β‐lactamase from Enterobacter cloacae P99 was studied by combinatorial scanning mutagenesis at 122 positions in and around the active site. Over 1000 P99 variants were screened for activity in a high‐throughput in vivo antibiotic resistance assay and sequenced by 96‐capillary electrophoresis to identify residues that are important for catalysis. P99 mutants showing reduced capability to convey antibiotic resistance were purified and characterized in vitro. The screen identified an active‐site hydrogen‐bonding network that is key to catalysis. A second cluster of residues was identified that likely plays a structural role in the enzyme. Otherwise, residues not directly contacting the substrate showed tolerance to substitution. The study lends support to the notion that the class C β‐lactamases do not have a single residue that acts as the catalytic general base. Rather, catalysis is affected by a hydrogen‐bonding network in the active site, suggesting a possible charge relay system.
Prediction of lipoprotein signal peptides in Gram‐negative bacteria
Authors: Juncker Agnieszka S. , Willenbrock Hanni , von Heijne Gunnar , Brunak Søren , Nielsen Henrik , Krogh Anders 
Published: February 2004

AbstractA method to predict lipoprotein signal peptides in Gram‐negative Eubacteria, LipoP, has been developed. The hidden Markov model (HMM) was able to distinguish between lipoproteins (SPaseII‐cleaved proteins), SPaseI‐cleaved proteins, cytoplasmic proteins, and transmembrane proteins. This predictor was able to predict 96.8% of the lipoproteins correctly with only 0.3% false positives in a set of SPaseI‐cleaved, cytoplasmic, and transmembrane proteins. The results obtained were significantly better than those of previously developed methods. Even though Gram‐positive lipoprotein signal peptides differ from Gram‐negatives, the HMM was able to identify 92.9% of the lipoproteins included in a Gram‐positive test set. A genome search was carried out for 12 Gram‐negative genomes and one Gram‐positive genome. The results for Escherichia coli K12 were compared with new experimental data, and the predictions by the HMM agree well with the experimentally verified lipoproteins. A neural network‐based predictor was developed for comparison, and it gave very similar results. LipoP is available as a Web server at www.cbs.dtu.dk/services/LipoP/.
Fast protein folding on downhill energy landscape
Authors: Cavalli Andrea , Haberthür Urs , Paci Emanuele , Caflisch Amedeo 
Published: February 2004

AbstractProteins fold in a time range of microseconds to minutes despite the large amount of possible conformers. Molecular dynamics simulations of a three‐stranded antiparallel β‐sheet peptide (for a total of 12.6 μsec and 72 folding events) show that at the melting temperature the unfolded state ensemble contains many more conformers than those sampled during a folding event.
High‐yield expression of isotopically labeled peptides for use in NMR studies
Authors: Lindhout Darrin A. , Thiessen Angela , Schieve Dean , Sykes Brian D. 
Published: February 2004

AbstractFusion protein constructs of the 56 amino acid globular protein GB‐1 with various peptide sequences, coupled with the incorporation of a histidine tag for affinity purification, have generated high‐yield fusion protein constructs. Methionine residues were inserted into the constructs to generate pure peptides following CNBr cleavage, yielding a system that is efficient and cost effective for isotopic labeling of peptides for NMR studies and other disciplines such as mass spectroscopy. Six peptides of varying sequences and hydrophobicities were expressed using this GB‐1 fusion protein technique and produced soluble fusion protein constructs in all cases. The ability to easily express and purify recombinant peptides in high yields is applicable for biomedical research and has medicinal and pharmaceutical applications.
Change in vegetation cover in East Timor, 1989–1999
Authors: Bouma George A. , Kobryn Halina T. 
Published: February 2004

Abstract Forest resources play a key role and provide many basic needs to communities in developing economies. To assess the patterns of vegetation cover change, as a corollary of resource utilization, satellite imagery, ground truth data, and image processing techniques can be useful. This article is concerned with identifying change in major vegetation types in East Timor between 1989 and 1999, using Landsat Thematic Mapper data. The results highlight a significant level of deforestation and decline in foliage cover. All major vegetation cover types declined from 1989 to 1999, and there was a sizeable increase in degraded woodlands. This decline has had considerable impact on the livelihoods of rural and urban communities. Causes for these changes include: economic exploitation of abundant resources; and implications of transmigration policies implemented during Indonesian rule, resulting in increased competition for land and woodland resources. As the new nation of Timor‐Leste establishes itself, it must consider its current stock and distribution of natural capital to ensure that development efforts are geared towards sustainable outcomes. Without the knowledge of historical patterns of resource consumption, development efforts may, unwittingly, lead to continuing decline in forest resources.