We present a theoretical explanation for why migrant workers in China should be less likely to participate in protests than other categories of workers. While grievance-based theories of protest would suggest that migrant workers have more incentive to protest than other categories of workers, resource mobilization theory suggests that their capacity to mobilize for collective action is impeded by the conditions of their work situation and their residence. Using survey data from CGSS 2010, we test propositions derived from this framework. We find that a greater sense of relative deprivation is associated with a greater likelihood of participating in protest across all categories of workers. However, we also find that migrant worker status functions as a moderator between grievances and protest participation: compared to urban registered workers, migrant workers are significantly less likely to take part in protest activities when both of them have high levels of perceived unfairness. These findings are robust across all models.

We present a theory on how trust in the central government to remedy grievances combined with a lack of trust in local government to act motivates people to participate in local protests in China. Low trust in local government combined with high trust in the central government gives people expectation that protest will not be an exercise in futility. People protest to redress injustices when they believe that such protests have a chance of producing a favorable resolution of their grievances. Utilizing individual level data from the Asian Barometer Survey Wave 4, our analysis suggests that, in contemporary China, people who have greater trust in the central government than the local government are more likely than others to report having participated in protests. In a society without meaningful elections, participating in protest is an effective strategy for attracting the attention from the upper-level authorities in hope of redressing unfavorable situations.

Neighboring tidewater glaciers often exhibit asynchronous dynamic behavior, despite relatively uniform regional atmospheric and oceanic forcings. This variability may be controlled by a combination of local factors, including glacier and fjord geometry, fjord heat content and circulation, and glacier surface melt. In order to characterize and understand contrasts in adjacent tidewater glacier and fjord dynamics, we made coincident ice-ocean-atmosphere observations at high temporal resolution (minutes to weeks) within a 10 000 km2 area near Uummannaq, Greenland. Water column velocity, temperature and salinity measurements reveal systematic differences in neighboring fjords that imply contrasting circulation patterns. The observed ocean velocity and hydrography, combined with numerical modeling, suggest that subglacial discharge plays a major role in setting fjord conditions. In addition, satellite remote sensing of seasonal ice flow speed and terminus position reveal both speedup and slow-down in response to melt, as well as differences in calving style among the neighboring glaciers. Glacier force budgets and modeling also point toward subglacial discharge as a key factor in glacier behavior. For the studied region, individual glacier and fjord geometry modulate subglacial discharge, which leads to contrasts in both fjord and glacier dynamics.

Although land reform is often portrayed as a remedy for rural unrest, its effectiveness at inoculating rural populations against the appeals of insurgent movements has yet to be established. By comparing land reform programs in Peru and El Salvador, I assess its effects on the distribution of popular support between rebels and regime, the limits on its ability to restore support for the regime, and the impact of other counterinsurgency tactics—especially repressive violence—on the effectiveness of agrarian reform as a counterinsurgency device. Both reform programs were intended to preempt popular support for insurgencies. Yet, Sendero Luminoso built its civilian support base after land reform, and insurgent violence persisted for more than a decade after the initiation of land reform in El Salvador. In both cases, repressive violence by the state undermined the remedial effects of land reform on popular support for the regime.

The euphoria over economic liberalization in China was shattered by the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989. This article uses rational choice theory to explain why these demonstrations should occur during a period of rapid economic growth, why college students (arguably, the privileged elite of China's youth) should serve as the instigators of these demonstrations, and why workers and other groups that had not participated in previous waves of demonstrations joined those of 1989. Despite remarkable growth in the Chinese economy, the costs and the benefits of reform increasingly have been allocated not by impersonal market forces nor the authority of the party but by corruption and favoritism. This became the issue that linked the interests of workers and students and allowed the mobilization of workers by students. Theory suggests that discriminatory allocation of the costs and benefits of reform encouraged coalitions that made it rational for individuals to participate in demonstrations.

We have expressed in E. coli a series of periodic polypeptides represented by sequence 1. Our objective has been an understanding of the role of chemical sequence in determining the chain folding behavior of periodic macromolecules. Molecular organization has been examined by infrared spectroscopy and 1H and 13C NMR methods and a preliminary model of the folded structure has been developed.

Existing rational choice treatments of collective violence have consistently discounted the role of the public goods component of the individual's decision calculus about whether or not to participate in such acts. By assuming free rider effects with respect to the public goods, these theories are unable to account for the initial inception of violence or for the later nonlooting behaviors that constitute aspects of a riot and, indeed, are preconditions for the inception of looting, the only riot behavior for which these theories can offer any explanation. Five dimensions of discrimination are defined in rational choice terms and their elimination (or reduction) is defined as the creation of a public good. I use existing theories of individual contributions to the provision of public goods to demonstrate that free rider effects need not be assumed and that the inception of a riot and later nonlooting riot behaviors can best be explained as individual contributions to the provision of the public goods represented by the elimination of the several forms of discrimination.