“China's Entry into the WTO Will Be a Historical Event Enabling China to Play a Broader Role in the World Economy”─Interview with Dr. Fred Bergsten

Dr.C.FredBergrtenisDirectoroftheinstituteforinternationalEconomicsinWashington,D.C.,oneofthemostimPOrtantthink-tankSintheUnitedStates.HewasalsoChairmanoftheCompetitivenessPolicyCouncil(1991-97)andtheAPECEminentPersonsGrouP(1993-95)throughouttheirexis...

Historical Events in the Development of China Auto Industry (1949～1999)

On the occasion of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, we’d like to give our readers a rough picture reviewing how China auto industry has grown up, and what China auto industry has done during the 50 years. We hope you enjoy it.

Detection of functional diversity gradients and their geoclimatic filters is sensitive to data types(occurrence vs.abundance)and spatial scales(sites vs.regions)

Functional diversity(FD)reflects within-and between-site variation of species traits(α-and β-FD,respectively).Understanding how much data types(occurrence-based vs.abundance-weighted)and spatial scales(sites vs.regions)change FD and ultimately interfere with the detection of underlying geoclimatic filters is still debated.To contribute to this debate,we explored the occurrence of 1690 species in 690 sites,abundances of 1198 species in 343 sites,and seven functional traits of the Atlantic Forest woody flora in South America.All FD indices were sensitive and dependent on the data type at both scales,with occurrence particularly increasing a richness and dispersion(occurrence>abundance in 80%of the sites)while abundance increased β total,β replacement,and α evenness(abundance>occurrence in 60%of the sites).Furthermore,detecting the effect of geoclimatic filters depended on the data type and was scale-dependent.At the site scale,precipitation seasonality and soil depth had weak effects on α-and β-FD(max.R^(2)=0.11).However,regional-scale patterns of a richness,dispersion,and evenness strongly mirrored the variation in precipitation seasonality,soil depth,forest stability over the last 120 kyr,and cation exchange capacity(correlations>0.80),suggesting that geoclimatic filters manifest stronger effects at the regional scale.Also,the role of edaphic gradients expands the idea of biogeographical filters beyond climate.Our findings caution functional biogeographic studies to consider the effect of data type and spatial scale before designing and reaching ecological conclusions about the complex nature of FD.

Reconstruction of typhoons in the Yangtze River Delta during 1644-1949AD based on historical chorographies

The proxy records on typhoons in the Yangtze River Delta from 1644 to 1949AD were extracted from historical chorographies in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China Period. In reference to the basic principles for identifying historical typhoons, time series on the Yangtze River Delta over a period of 306 years were developed. The conclusions are as follows. （1） There were a total of 241 typhoons from 1644 to 1949AD. Using the historical chorographies from 1884 to 1949AD, the number of typhoons was 65, equal to 87.8% re- corded by meteorological observation. The number of years with differences in typhoon ac- tivities reconstructed using two ways no more than once is 55, reaching 83.3% in the period from 1884 to 1949AD. This result means the series of historical typhoons reconstructed using historical chorographies can represent the change of typhoon activities over years. （2） The average number of typhoon activities is 0.79 times per year from 1644 to 1949AD, and they show an increasing trend. These 306 years can be divided into three periods by the average number of typhoon activities： it is low from 1644 to 1784AD, and more typhoon activities are found from 1785 to 1904AD. It is worth noting that the number of typhoon activities reaches the summit in the last period, which is 1.2 times per year from 1905 to 1949AD. （3） Before the 20th century, the number of typhoon activities in warm periods is less than the number of cold periods. However, the number of typhoon activities increased dramatically in the early 20th century. Comparing the typhoon activities with El Nifio events, the data show that the number of typhoon activities did not increase when El Nifio occurred.