Central Government Documents on Property: Demolition, Relocation, and Compensation (I)
The first of three issues on demolition, relocation, and compensation in China provides a glimpse into the recent past by including the key regulation governing that area, implemented in 2001, and recently repealed. Other government issuances translated in this issue involve more detailed provisions on surveying and appraising properties as well as other guidelines for those performing such work. The first public draft of the new regulation on expropriation and compensation attempts to rectify shortcomings of the 2001 regulation by setting forth "public interest" requirements for expropriating property, and by requiring agencies performing expropriation duties to provide compensation prior to commencing the demolition process. An emergency notice promulgated after the issuance of the first draft but prior to the final, implemented new expropriation regulation, underscores concerns at the State Council level that agencies at lower levels, particularly at the municipal level and below, are at least acquiescing, if not willfully participating in wrongful expropriation and demolition practices in the rush to procure land for initial development or redevelopment. The next two issues will include the new expropriation regulation, as implemented, as well as province-level regulations and issuances, and judicial opinions in demolition and compensation cases.
Nail-Houses, Land Rights, and Frames of Injustice on China's Protest Landscape
This article highlights the way in which Chinese protestors resisting home eviction and demolition have begun to develop innovative, media-savvy tactics for winning public sympathy for their causes and framing their plights as unjust, and considers the political implications of this trend.
Electrophysiological evidence that a subset of midbrain dopamine neurons integrate the reward signal induced by electrical stimulation of the posterior mesencephalon
This study was aimed at determining whether midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons are trans-synaptically activated by rewarding electrical stimulation applied near the midline in the posterior mesencephalon (PM), and in the affirmative, whether the increase in firing was proportional to the rewarding effectiveness of the stimulation. Experiments were performed on male Long-Evans rats trained to lever press to obtain 400 ms trains of cathodal rectangular pulses. Following the training period, curves relating the rates of responding to the stimulation frequencies were determined at two current intensities and reward thresholds were calculated for each animal. Each animal was then anesthetized with urethane (1.2 g/kg, i.p.) and firing rate of DA neurons were recorded before, during, and after each of 50 trains (1 train/3 s) of stimulation to the PM using stimulation parameters that either sustained near threshold responding (rewarding), or failed to sustain responding (non-rewarding), in the behavioral tests. A total of 24 DA cells were recorded from 13 behaviorally trained animals, and of these, 17 (71%) responded to rewarding stimulation by an increase in firing, five (21%) were unresponsive and two (8%) were inhibited. In 12 of the 17 cells that were activated, the increase in firing was proportional to the rewarding effectiveness of the stimulation rather than the total strength of the stimulation. These results provide evidence that a subset of midbrain DA neurons are trans-synaptically activated by rewarding PM stimulation and constitute a second, or subsequent, stage of the reward-relevant pathway that integrates the PM reward signal.