As recent trends in comparing the Han and Roman empires from primarily the point of view of literary evidence has brought forth new frameworks and opportunities of research, one asks how these developments could contribute to the comparison of governance behaviors, such as the administration of the iron industry. The paper first surveys the Han and the Roman literary sources regarding the iron industry governance, with which to establish parameters of the modus operandi in the respective imperial domains, and, when possible, identifies problems articulated by ancient authors. An interesting contrast is how Han sources showed particular concern for the impact of the iron industry on agricultural performance, while the primary concerns of Roman administrators were performances in leasing and taxation. Among the items known are mines, nails, and recycled iron. Both imperial administrations took a spatially oriented approach, establishing offices and bureaus across their respective domains to address their different concerns. Mapping iron production and administration sites in the Han and the Roman empires spatially further illustrate the governance behaviors identified above. Focused discussions on new excavations in the Martys (80km NW of Narbo) and Taicheng (90km W of Chang'an) further provide local frames of reference to interrogate the priorities and challenges highlighted. The preliminary results suggest that while concerns may differ between the two imperial governments, there are similarities in governance behaviors that are not technologically related, as some scholars suggest. Both imperial governments seemed to have been capitalizing on existing iron industry communities through managerial posts, at times bureaucratizing them. While the Han empire, in particular, attempted to bureaucratize iron production and distribution wholesale, the eventual scaling back of such mobilization marks the shared limitations of imperial control on the traditional culture of production and distribution of this basic commodity.
This paper explores the socio-political evolution of Amastris, a city in northern Anatolia founded by the Achaemenid princess Amastris in the early 3rd century BCE, with a particular focus on its territorial scope—the Amastriane—during Roman and Hellenistic times. Based on Christian Marek’s reconstruction, the Roman Amastriane stretched far beyond its coastal nucleus, reaching deep into the Paphlagonian interior. This paper investigates whether this expansive territory was a Roman creation or if it echoed earlier Hellenistic configurations, possibly dating back to Amastris or the Mithridatid kings.
Section one reviews Marek’s methodological framework, emphasizing the diverse, geographically challenging territory governed by Amastris in Roman times, which required transcending typical coastal-urban dynamics. In section two, epigraphic and archaeological evidence from the Eflani-Pınarbaşı region sheds light on the integration of rural inland communities, highlighting a deep continuity of Macedonian, Achaemenid, and local traditions into the Roman period.
Finally, the paper explores whether Amastris’ Hellenistic chora could have reached similar extents, potentially through dowry lands or political marriages rather than military conquest, as suggested by Memnon-in-Photios. The long-lasting cultural ties between coastal and inland Paphlagonia, preserved in cult practices and social structures, point toward a cohesive region predating Roman intervention, raising critical questions about the nature of territorial governance in both Hellenistic and Roman Amastris.
This paper explores why Sinope may have shifted from its initial commemorative epoch of 45 BCE, suggesting that the city’s adoption of a new era might have been a modification rather than a complete overhaul, influenced by traditions or challenges related to Achaemenid-Seleucid periods. The analysis extends to the impact of regional externalities on Sinope’s decision-making processes, particularly whether the Lucullan era was adopted for better regional integration with northern Paphlagonia. This regional alignment, evident in cities like Amastris and Abonuteichos and facilitated through the “Koinon of the Cities in Pontus,” implies Amastris’s significant influence due to its long-standing use of the Lucullan era and its political stature. The paper attempts to advance two arguments. First, Sinope's era system alignment could be voluntary, aimed at regional conformity. Second, the intent to conform to regional norms may have been due to broader regional dynamics and potential gubernatorial pressures, and hence a decision informed by both local and global factors.
In economics and many other forecasting domains, the real world problems are too complex for a single model that assumes a specific data generation process. The forecasting performance of different methods changesChange(s) depending on the nature of the time series. When forecasting large collections of time series, two lines of approaches have been developed using time series features, namely feature-based model selection and feature-based model combination. This chapter discusses the state-of-the-art feature-based methods, with reference to open-source software implementationsImplementation.
Hu Z, Miao X, Shao L. Tests of Classical Gravity with Radio Pulsars. In: Bambi C, Cárdenas-Avendaño A Recent Progress on Gravity Tests. Challenges and Future Perspectives. ; 2024. pp. 61-99.
Both developed and developing countries have seen a proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in recent years. As digital transformation has influenced almost every aspect of everyday life, including interpersonal communication, information seeking and sharing, e-commerce, and entertainment, the dichotomy between online and offline has become less distinct compared to the early years of internet development. These routine practices on the internet, nevertheless, are fundamental to understanding the impact of digital technologies on society. It is, therefore, important for social scientists to theorise and scrutinise how the internet has influenced the routine and mundane lives. To date, social scientists from multiple disciplines, including sociology, political science, communication and information science, have studied how the internet has influenced the society and economy. These include the roles of the internet in establishing and maintaining social networks, mobilising social movements, and revolutionising labour markets. However, little research has addressed the impact of the internet in the everyday lives of its users. In this chapter, I will start with reviewing theoretical frameworks from different fields that focus on the impact of the internet on daily practices, to understand the profound influence of digital technologies in everyday contexts. In particular, I will discuss how the study of everyday life information seeking (information science), domestication theory (communication science), and digital divides (sociology) contribute to the theorisation of daily uses of the internet. I will summarise empirical studies that apply these theoretical frameworks in exploring the adoption and use of ICTs in daily practices. The overview and reflection of theories and empirical studies across different social science fields will provide a comprehensive picture of the role of the internet on everyday lives, as well as point out future directions for the study of the embeddedness of the internet in people’s daily lives.
As the Buddhist community in China carried forth the Buddhist yogic traditions into the modern era, a new form of yoga was imported to China via the West as the intermediary in a global network of knowledge transmission with metropolitan port cities like Shanghai as its enclaves. By examining newspapers, archives, and books published in the first half of the twentieth century, this chapter recollects the largely forgotten early history of yoga in modern China. Buddhist scholar Liu Renhang, with his translation of Japanese scholar Kaiten Nukariya’s study of yoga in North America, was the first to introduce yoga as a remedy for the nation, then suffering from endless warfare. The theosophist Hari Prasad Shastri lectured on yoga and established a yoga study group called “Holy Yoga”. The first teacher to offer yoga classes regularly in China was Eugenia Peterson, later known as Indra Devi, and her assistant Michael Volin. They successfully enlisted hundreds of pupils, many of whom were Westerners living in Shanghai. However, with the demise of the Shanghai concessions, the spread of yoga in modern China halted abruptly before it was incorporated into the everyday life of ordinary Chinese people.
余典、马佳磊、吴小希. 发展政治学代表学者. In: 《发展政治学学科地图》. 北京: 北京大学出版社; 2023. pp. 437-448. 豆瓣链接Abstract
As typical titanium nanomaterials, TiO2 and titanate nanotubes (TNTs) are extensively used. Although the toxicity of nano-TiO2 under solar light has been investigated, it is not enough to evaluate its environmental toxicity because the dark environment is also important in the natural environment. In addition, little is known about the environmental toxicity and mechanism of the emerging TNTs. In this study, we investigated the toxicity of nano-TiO2 and TNTs based on the inactivation performance on Escherichia coli cells under simulated solar light and in a dark chamber, and their toxicity mechanisms were explored on a subcellular level. The inactivation performance was: nano-TiO2-solar (100.0%) > TNTs-solar (62.7%) > TNTs-dark (36.6%) > TiO2-dark (0.5%). The excellent inactivation performance of nano-TiO2 under solar light is caused by the large amount of active free radicals attacking cell organelles until peroxidation and death, which is due to the strong photocatalytic properties. The lower inactivation ability of nano-TiO2 in the dark was due to the absence of radicals and its accessible physical morphology. For TNTs, the inactivation ability under solar light is derived from a combination of its weak photocatalytic performance and morphological effects, and TNTs in a dark environment can only attack cells via physical piercing.
Titanate nanotubes (TNTs), derived from TiO2 nanoparticles through hydrothermal treatment, have been attracting intensive research interests in recent years. Unlike the precursor TiO2 nanoparticles that have high photocatalytic activity under ultraviolet light, TNTs exhibit multi-layered and tubular structures. In addition, TNTs are composed of corrugated ribbons of edge-sharing [TiO6] octahedrons as the skeleton and H+/Na+ are located in the interlayers. Thus, TNTs usually have uniform tubular microstructures, large specific surface area, abundant functional groups (–ONa/–OH), good ion-exchange properties, high solution stability and high photoelectric quantum conversion effects. The specific physicochemical properties of TNTs indicate their great application potential in water and wastewater treatment. This chapter provides an overview of the latest research on the environmental applications and implications of TNTs. Conventional methods for the synthesis and characterization of TNTs are also summarized. TNTs and modified TNTs used as adsorbents, photocatalysts and catalysts for peroxymonosulfate/peroxydisulfate activation are systematically discussed. The environmental behaviors of aggregation and sedimentation of TNTs in water are also described.
This article reviews Chinese academic papers from the past 20 years to investigate the digital literacy of normal students of pedagogical faculties. The main body of the article concerns “student literacy, to teacher literacy, then to normal student literacy”; regarding the theme, the context is “from digital literacy, to information literacy, then to digital information teaching ability.” Under the guidance of the Chinese education administration, the digital literacy of Chinese normal students has gradually taken on the Chinese characteristics of being practice-oriented and ability-oriented. The findings of this article are as follows: (1) In terms of research trends, the digital literacy of normal students has increased overall. This has depended on the gradual in-depth understanding of its value to the academic world, which promotes in-depth academic research while also focusing on clear and continuous policy planning. (2) In terms of research themes, the digital literacy of normal students is biased toward practice and training, and there is less research on the development of digital teaching ability in specific subjects. (3) In terms of research methods, qualitative research is still the mainstream method, but increasingly, quantitative research, including surveys, is used. (4) In terms of research results, based on the current survey report data, the digital practice ability of Chinese normal students still needs improvement. The current research has indicated the direction for the future academic community and also proposed requirements for policy researchers and makers.
This chapter investigates China's recent higher education reform by developing applied education to addressing the issue of underemployment and unemployment of college graduates. Reviewing China's highly segmented labor market and the growth of flexible employment, we suggest that the negative effect of overeducation is mainly on those college graduates employed in the informal sector. Our analysis identifies a restructuring process of HE system aiming to break down the homogeneity among the elite and non-elite universities by making a dual process of differentiation. We conclude that it is difficult to achieve the ``parity of esteem'' between academic and applied education within a steeply stratified HE system and suggest that the relationship between HE system and cooperate employers deserves an in-depth investigation to turn around the fortunes of graduates from lower-tier universities.