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PCT Strategy and Practice, a first-of-its-kind book on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), furnishes an in-depth explanation of carrying out the treaty’s procedures, from filing a single international patent application to starting prosecution before a plurality of national Offices. The book provides unique strategy points for the applicant to choose between options at the various stages of the procedures.

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This open access book introduces a multi-disciplinary and comprehensive research on China's long-term low-carbon emission strategies and pathways. After comprehensively considering China’s own socioeconomic conditions, policy design, energy mix, and other macro-development trends and needs, the research team has proposed suggestions on China’s low-carbon development strategies and pathways until 2050, with required technologies and policies in order to realize the goals of building a great modern socialist country and a beautiful China. These achievements are in conjunction with the climate goals set in the Paris Agreement alongside Global Sustainable Development. The authors hope that the research findings can serve as a reference for all sectors of Chinese society in their climate research efforts, offer support for the formulation and implementation of china’s national low-carbon development strategies and policies, and help the world to better understand China’s story in the general trend of global green and low-carbon development.

Sustainability --- Central government policies --- Sociology --- Energy technology & engineering --- Civil codes / Civil law --- Environmental management --- Low-Carbon Transformation of end-use Sectors --- Power System Transition --- Primary Energy Demand Carbon Emissions --- Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions --- Investment and Cost --- Global Climate Governance and International Cooperation --- Paris Agreement --- Economic Recovery Through Green and Low-Carbon Development --- Open Access

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The confluence area of the river Dijle and Demer has been subject to a lot of research in fluvial geomorphology as well as archeology. Previous studies have described the geomorphology of the area and the fluvial dynamics and its evolution since the end of the Pleistocene. Nevertheless, little attention was drawn to the small streams; the Laak, Leibeek and Binnenbeek, that flow next to the rivers Dijle and Demer. Based on their position in the landscape as derived from topographic maps and digital elevation models, these streams classify as yazoo streams. These yazoo streams were not discussed in previous fluvial geomorphic studies like yazoo streams in general which have received little attention from the scientific community. This type of stream is generally defined as a stream that flows parallel to a bigger river due to its inability to breach the levees of the larger stream. However, it has been observed that some yazoo streams are in fact remnants of larger rivers. This study has collected evidence that suggests that the Laak, a yazoo stream flowing parallel to the Demer, has migrated from south to north near its confluence area with the Dijle. Small abandoned valleys were formed that testify of the streams presence and channel sediments were found during a fieldcampaign. The fast migration of the stream is linked to the development of levees along the channel of the Dijle at the confluence of the Laak and the Dijle. Lack of erosive power to incise into the levees is the suggested cause for the migration and hence, the dynamics of the Laak confirm the definition of a yazoo stream. Additional discrepancies in literature exist when linking the evolution of the upper catchment of the Dijle with the Lower Scheldt basin. The upper Dijle catchment has evolved from a marshy environment with diffuse river system starting around 1500 BC to a single channel river system with a well developed floodplain over a time span of 3000 years. The Lower Scheldt basin is marked by anabranching river systems from the Middle Holocene and meandering channel systems since 3000 BP. The confluence area connects the upper Dijle catchment with the Lower Scheldt basin but knowledge about the origin of the yazoo streams and their relation to the general fluvial system is lacking. While the Laak was influenced by the levees of the Dijle, this study found evidence that suggests that the Binnenbeek is a remnant of a Subboreal river. The current position of the Leibeek was likely determined by human interference as channel deposits were not found below the current channel. However, other channel deposits in the Leibeek valley suggest the presence of a river in the valley during the Atlanticum. This suggests that the catchment area of the river was large enough for the formation of a river channel.

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Turbidite beds are unique timelines because of their rapid sedimentation and particular extension. Their associated sedimentation processes could have a direct response to changes in the relative sea level, climatic factors, and/or orogenesis. Extensive research has been done on the sedimentological and stratigraphic components of turbidite deposits. However, few have studied the relationship between turbidites and climate-related orbital cycles. Linssen (1991) investigated geomagnetic reversals in the Mediterranean, finding that four Gilbert Chron polarity reversals (upper Thvera, lower and upper Sidufjall, and lower Nunivak) occur in the Karousades basin. Then, Weltje and de Boer, (1993) defined the Sidari Turbidite System (STS) in Karousades basin as a deposit influenced by astronomical forces, showing the same behavior described in other deposits in the Mediterranean during the Neogene. The STS cyclicity is represented by the repetitive coupling of mudstone intervals with differences in composition. One organic-rich and the other carbonate-rich mudstone, the union of those two intervals defines one orbital cycle. Weltje and de Boer (1993), Schuppers (1995), and De Graaf and Noordijk (2012) worked on the definition of the structures, astronomical dating, and other detailed features to demonstrate the link with precession. However, the correlation between the age model of the cycles and the establishment of how the system evolved while taking into account the global reference of the orbital cycles of the Neogene (Trubi Composite) was still missing.

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In order to buy a property, people can apply at a bank for a mortgage to borrow most of the necessary capital. Banks thereby make use of a credit scoring system to decide whether the applicant will be able to pay off this mortgage (assess his creditworthiness), based on different variables like the job status, the income and the house value. Various studies in western countries however revealed that banks can exclude entire neighbourhoods from the access to a mortgage, thereby even excluding applicants that in fact are creditworthy. This is called redlining and it predominantly takes places in neighbourhoods with high shares of low-income people and ethnic minorities. On top of that, other studies have shown that banks might not redline entire parts of the city, but instead could include neighbourhood-related variables like the unemployment rate or the share of ethnic minorities within their scoring systems. These variables related to specific areas could be decisive factors for this assessment and thereby serve as a milder form of exclusion from a mortgage. Similar research has not been conducted yet within Belgium and this Master’s thesis therefore will examine if such exclusion processes are at stake in this country. Antwerp and Vilvoorde will serve as case studies, both showing similar characteristics as investigated cities in the literature related to redlining. 17 in-depth interviews with respondents that have relevant insights in the mortgage market were conducted, namely real estate agents, credit intermediaries and staff members of banks and the Vlaams Woningfonds. These interview outcomes are analyzed afterwards, supplemented with housing related datasets of both cities. The research reveals that, in both cities, no redlining processes are taking place. The same goes for the credit scoring systems that do not contain place-specific variables like the place and ethnicity to assess an application. Strong suggestions of more indirect processes of exclusion nonetheless are raised, especially for the first-time buyers and low-income people with a more limited amount of savings. This is due to various reasons that seem to reinforce each other. Small-scale investors want to earn some profit and therefore are interested in the same low-priced housing segments as these young and low-income people. Besides this increasing competition that drives up the housing prices, first-time buyers are hit by two other setbacks. The regional government repealed the mortgage tax benefit (woonbonus) from 2020 onwards. On top of that, the National Bank decided that banks need to limit the number of new high value mortgages (90% or more of the housing value). As a result, banks predominantly grant such high value mortgages to the better applicant profiles of young and high-income applicants, a process called cherrypicking. It thus becomes harder for first-time buyers and low-income people with limited savings to obtain such high value mortgages, especially if the financial support of the family is limited or absent. In this way, there seems to be a gradual evolution towards a growing housing inequality both between and within generations: younger generations face more difficulties to obtain their own property compared to older generations that could profit from lower housing prices and more governmental homeownership stimulation and also within the younger generations based on the extent of the financial family support.