This thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B... Show moreThis thesis describes the design and synthesis of fragments of various cell wall carbohydrates of the Streptococcus species, including the branched Group B-specific antigen (GBC) of Group B Streptococcus, glycerol phosphate (GroP) modified group A carbohydrate (GAC), and the O-acetylated type 1 capsular polysaccharide of Streptococcus pneumonia (Sp1). All the synthesized fragments were equipped with a spacer at the reducing end for further conjugation with proteins or active small molecules to explore the mechanisms of carbohydrate-based vaccines in immune responses and to develop novel vaccines. To investigate the structure-activity relationship, several fragments of each polysaccharide were assembled varying in length. Show less
What do elections mean for a single-party regime? Can party-selected deputies do something meaningful for citizens in non-democracies? The dissertation explores how and under what conditions a... Show moreWhat do elections mean for a single-party regime? Can party-selected deputies do something meaningful for citizens in non-democracies? The dissertation explores how and under what conditions a single-party authoritarian regime instrumentalizes popularly elected congress to strengthen its rule in local society. It takes contemporary China as an empirical focus for this exploration. Instead of perceiving Chinese congress either simply as authoritarian window dressing or as an immediate catalyst for democratization, this research is devoted to examining the motivations, strategies, and behaviors of the party regime in playing the cards of congressional elections and representation to make its rule more robust and resilient. This project mainly adopts comparative case study methods, with some quantitative data serving as supportive statistical evidence. As a whole, my thesis argues that congressional election and post-election representation are two cards of China’s party regime. By strategically downplaying input electoral competition but promoting output congressional representation, the communist regime has been striving to develop a mass-line democracy as an alternative to liberal democracy, which features the “Leninist trinity” of the Party’s leadership, the rule of law, and people’s democracy, as well as a new brand of mobilized representation relying on the accountability from the top down. Show less
This thesis, from a comparative perspective, examines the worldview and its interplay to the frontier and military policies in early periods of the two ancient empires on Eurasian: Rome and Han... Show moreThis thesis, from a comparative perspective, examines the worldview and its interplay to the frontier and military policies in early periods of the two ancient empires on Eurasian: Rome and Han China. The first part (chapter 1 and chapter 2) concerns the formation and transformation of the world views of Rome and Qin-Han China in their respectively lengthy trajectories of empire-building. It is followed by part two (chapter 3 and chapter 4) in which I shift my focus from ideology to practical issues in attempt to observe how the distinctive world views held by the elite class of Rome and China were manifested and interacted with the actual policy-making and territorial conquests. The last part of the dissertation (chapter 5 and chapter 6) concentrates on the roles of emperors. By highlighting the distinctive roles that the Roman and Chinese emperors had played, it allows audience to have a better understanding in the similarities, and especially the crucial differences concerning the perception of the world and actual policies discussed above. Also, I hope this tentative comparative study sheds some lights on the reflection of the concept of empire in current scholarship of ancient history. Show less