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Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2009.

The purpose of this study is to explore whether changes in consumption patterns contributed to the changes in waste composition in Jinan during 1999-2008 and to predict trend of the waste composition relevant total household consumer expenditure in the future 10 years. The results reveal that household consumption is the most significant contributors in changes of waste composition. Although this study points to the possibility of predictions for several important fraction such as food scraps, metal, glass, paper and plastic by according to household consumption, these predictions has not been strong enough to decrease errors, a trend can only be given in the future 10 years.

This thesis explores the puzzling subnational variation of policymaking for the online ride-hailing industry (ORS) in China. Chengdu and Jinan are two similar cities on many economic and political levels. They are both capital cities of their provinces, new first-tier cities in terms of their economic size and both have a large population. Yet, they adopted significantly different ORS policies. This thesis asks why two similar cities in China have diverging policy outcomes. Using a method of difference (MOD) strategy to compare these two similar cases with diverging outcomes, the thesis evaluates three potential explanations. They are as follows: (1) historical legacies and political communities, (2) the cadre evaluation system (CES), and (3) government-business relationships. Using a historical institutionalism theoretical framework with comparative capitalism and economic sociology roots, this thesis finds that a mixture of CES incentives and government business relationship patterns has had a determining impact on diverging outcomes in Jinan and Chengdu. There have been two phases of ORS policymaking in China until now. In phase 1, Chengdu had a laxer ORS policy than Jinan. A comparison of historical legacies and political communities tells us that Chengdu has been a more market-oriented city than Jinan. More importantly, Jinan’s government had a more intimate relationship with local taxi agencies, which proved to be the major cause of subnational differences. In phase 2, Chengdu’s ORS policy was found to be more stringent than Jinan’s. In this case, the significant variable leading to Chengdu’s tightened policy was the target-setting of the cadre evaluation system (CES). The CES specifically required Chengdu’s government to ban non-green vehicles from the ORS market while Jinan did not encounter the same requirement. Moreover, Jinan can exclude non-green vehicles from its environmental protection plan while Chengdu cannot. This thesis observes a structural distortion caused by the CES. Throughout the two phases of ORS policymaking, both governments play a consistently dominant role. However, the government-business relationship remains flexible. If the relationship is viewed as an institution, it is composed of informal procedures, conventions, and orders where actors accommodate each other. The largest privately-owned ORS enterprise, Didi, has declared that their preferences are taken into consideration by the government. Some questions remain as to how the government processes those preferences and how much importance it attaches to them, but this illustrates the mutual accommodation of the government and an enterprise within an informal institution. By some unwritten but conventional procedures, they coordinate with each other. This thesis furthers the study of the government-business relationship in China. It not only unearths the institutional factors of subnational variation for ORS policymaking, but also verifies the presence of institutional flexibility in China. This thesis is an important addition to the literature on government-business ties in China because it does beyond the study of rent-seeking to evaluate the multifaceted ways in which the Chinese government can build relationships with enterprises.

許英. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 354-392). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Xu Ying.

Rhabdoviridae family viruses attacking the plant hosts were only described at the angiosperms. In this work, a gymnosperm rhabdoviridae infection was described for the first time ever ? specifically at Ginkgo biloba. Even though there were not observed any kinds of obvious infection symptoms on any of randomly chosen plant samples, through the molecular methods and detection primers the rhabdoviridae infection was proved at six of the plant samples. The acquired nucleotide and amino acid sequences, which were compared with the GenBank sequences, confirm the Rhabdoviridae family viruses occurrence. These given sequences demonstrated a certain analogy with a Strawberry crinkle virus assigned to the genus of Cytorhabdoviruses. The analyses proved a different reciprocal homology among the nucleotide sequences of the individual isolates, and in all likelihood an occurrence of two up to now unknown viruses in the Ginkgo biloba samples was proved for the first time. A definite categorization will be dependent on an acquisition and comparison of other sequences from the isolates genome and also on certain biological characteristics observation.