Carl Schmitt on land and sea

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), one of the leading conservative legal thinkers of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, is best known today for his critique of liberalism. Between the late 1930s and mid-1950s, Schmitt wrote numerous articles and two books addressing the mythical and geopolitical significance of land and sea. In recent years, these texts have begun to attract attention from historians as well as theorists. This article reconstructs the origins of Schmitt's theories about land and sea, and shows how they developed in the context of his efforts to delegitimize the British Empire and justify the persecution of Jews. It also explains how Schmitt selectively misread the history of maritime law in order to critique the ‘freedom of the seas.’ Finally, it reveals that the meaning Schmitt ascribed to ‘the opposition of the elements of land and sea’ changed dramatically to suit his political needs. For all their evocative qualities and insights, Schmitt's texts on land and sea do not constitute a coherent theory, but rather a shifting field of polemical positions in search of theoretical support.     

On the origin of UHF atmospherics

Assuming lightning discharge as a plasma it is shown that Bremsstrahlung is a possible source of UHF emissions. The computed power gives a flat frequency response with a magnitude of about 10⁻¹⁵ W m⁻² Hz⁻¹ at a distance of 1 km from the base of the channel. While partially ionized channels like stepped leader, dart leader and K-changes are the strong source of UHF emissions, the radiation from the return stroke is negligible. Our theoretical results are in excellent agreement with the experimental observations of Book and Kitagawa (1964) and Kosarevet al. (1969, 1970).     

Density and dispersion: the co-development of land use and rail in London

This article examines the changes that occurred in the railnetwork and density of population in London during the 19thand 20th centuries. It aims to disentangle the ‘chickenand egg’ problem of which came first, network or landdevelopment, through a set of statistical analyses clearly distinguishingevents by order. Using panel data representing the 33 boroughsof London over each decade from 1871 to 2001, the research findsthat there is a positive feedback effect between populationdensity and network density. Additional rail stations (eitherUnderground or surface) are positive factors leading to subsequentincreases in population in the suburbs of London, while additionalpopulation density is a factor in subsequently deploying morerail. These effects differ in central London, where the additionalaccessibility produced by rail led to commercial developmentand concomitant depopulation. There are also differences inthe effects associated with surface rail stations and Undergroundstations, as the Underground was able to get into central Londonin a way that surface rail could not. However, the two networkswere weak (and statistically insignificant) substitutes foreach other in the suburbs, while the density of surface railstations was a complement to the Underground in the center,though not vice versa.     

The day-to-day variation of atmospherics activity over the South American continent

Atmospherics activity at 5 kHz, observed during the southern summer at San Miguel, Argentina, is presented. Data are available for all directions of incidence during the time span of this investigation.The activity shows a pronounced variation from day-to-day. A spectral analysis of these data with an autocovariance function and the related power spectrum yields enhanced spectral contributions with periods at 2.4 and 7.5 days. An additional smaller peak in the power spectrum was also observed at a period of 4.7 days. These periods have the same time scale as planetary waves.     

Beached swords from Marano Lagoon (northern Adriatic) reveal ancient land–sea connections and recent coastal evolution

Depositional and erosional processes, subsidence and sea-level changes have strongly modified the coastal landscape of northern Adriatic lagoons. Such rapid transformations have induced significant consequences on human settlements and, thus, on the archaeological visibility of the area, still largely unexplored. We present here six metal swords fortuitously retrieved by fishermen over the last decades in front of the barrier islands of Marano Lagoon (north-eastern Italy). Multi-analytical analyses carried out on the artefacts (X-ray radiography and computed micro-tomography, radiocarbon dating and typo-chronology) combined with the study of the coastal paleo-environment (mainly based on historical cartography and remote sensing) allowed the items’ main features to be defined, and highlighted both the historical importance of the area and the significant morphological changes that have occurred there over the last millennium. Data presented indicate that Marano Lagoon was a major hub in the northern Adriatic in the Late Middle Ages, during the crucial period of the Crusades, and in Early Modern times, connecting inland Europe with the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, the research highlights the onset of coastal erosion that occurred in the last century after a phase of relatively geomorphic stability, possibly deriving from the intensification of human impact and climate change.     

甲午陆战与晚清陆军军事教育的发展

甲午陆战的失败是晚清陆军军事教育的重要转折点.由于汲取了甲午陆战失败的教训,陆军军事教育得到了空前的重视,无论是陆军军事学堂的数量还是教育人数都得到了飞速的发展,促进了中国军事教育近代化的发展.     

Archaeobotanical inference of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the eastern Mediterranean

Charcoal and charred seeds at five Bronze Age archaeological sites discern ancient land use in the eastern Mediterranean. Seed frequencies of orchard crops, annual cereals and pulses, and wild or weedy plants are used to characterize plant utilization at different archaeological sites on the island of Cyprus, in the Rift Valley of Jordan, and in the Jabbul Plain and along the upper Euphrates River valley in Syria. Seed to charcoal ratios provide proxies to determine the relative usage of dung versus wood for fuel across the ancient Mediterranean landscape. Greater charcoal and lower charred seed values are interpreted to represent a wooded environment, while higher amounts of charred seeds and minimal wood charcoal suggest a much great use of dung as a fuel source. Interestingly, Politiko-Troullia (Cyprus, Cypriot archaeological sites are, by convention, named for the nearest modern village (Politiko), followed by an italicized toponym (Troullia) referring to the plot of land that incorporates the site) has the lowest seed to charcoal ratio, suggesting its residents primarily burned wood and that the landscape surrounding Troullia remained relatively wooded during the Bronze Age. In contrast, villagers at Tell el-Hayyat (Jordan) utilized a mixture of wood and dung, in contrast to Tell Abu en-Ni’aj (Jordan), and especially Umm el-Marra and Tell es-Sweyhat (Syria), where inhabitants relied solely on dung fuel. Comparative analysis and interpretation of seed and charcoal evidence thus illustrates the variety of fuel use strategies necessitated by the dynamic and diverse Bronze Age landscapes of the Eastern Mediterranean.     

中秋海上看金门

<正>2007年9月11日清晨,我和同伴来到了素有海上花园之称的海滨城市厦门。让我们欣喜的是,这一天正好是中秋节,而且,我们将乘豪华游轮游览金门。不过,说是游金门,其实只是在靠近金门的海域远眺金门,因为金门目前还由台湾当局管辖,没有相关证件,大陆居民还不能自由出入。尽管如此,大家依然抑制不住兴奋的心情,恨不得一步跨到金门岛面前,好好看看这片神秘的土地。     

Analytic properties of the whistler dispersion function

The analytic properties of the dispersion function of a whistler are investigated in the complex frequency plane. It possesses a pole and a branch point at a frequency equal to the minimum value of the electron gyrofrequency along the path of propagation. An integral equation relates the dispersion function to the distribution of magnetospheric electrons along the path and the solution of this equation is obtained. It is found that the electron density in the equatorial plane is very simply related to the dispersion function. A discussion of approximate formulae to represent the dispersion shows how particular terms can be related to attributes of the electron density distribution, and a new approximate formula is proposed.     

论汉代土地所有制的结构和运动

本文从土地所有制形成和发展的前提--劳动与土地的结合这一思维视角,分析了汉代土地所有制的结构和运动的前提条件、基本结构、运动特点和运动的结果,从中总结出中国专制主义中央集权时代土地所有制的形成和发展规律.     

新时期以来农民建房与耕地保护问题的思考

新时期以来,农村住房建设速度呈日趋加快之势,这无疑反映出了农民生活水平的提高以及新农村建设扎实推进的发展进程,但其中一些无序的、不规范的建房行为亦带来了耕地大量流失的不良后果,直接危及我国的粮食安全。农村居民无序建房的一个突出表现就是宅基地面积超标和一户多宅;另一个严重后果是空心村大量形成。遏制耕地流失应采取的基本对策是规范农民建房用地行为,严格治理空心宅现象;坚持节约用地原则,合理规划村庄建设;加快农村城镇化建设,集中住宅节约耕地;严格控制人口增长,改善宅基地分配方式;加强宣传教育工作,提高农民对耕地的法律认识和基层干部的依法执政能力。     

Chiefdoms and the emergence of private property in land

A prevailing characteristic of complex, stratified societies is unequal access to critical resources, and in most cases land is the most fundamental of those resources. Gaining an understanding how relations to land are transformed is viewed as integral to revealing the origins of social inequality. Recent scholarship has proposed an evolution of property rights in land from open access to private property, the latter condition having been attributed to nation states. However, some scholars have concluded from their examinations of Early Medieval Irish texts that land within Irish chiefdoms was regarded as a commodity. The analysis carried out in this paper reveals that in Early Medieval Ireland some land could be considered to be private property, but the holding and transfer of land was restricted to chieftains and their dependents, the lands of commoners being held communally. The closest counterpart to this mode of land ownership is the form of feudalism proposed for the Classic and Post-Classic Maya.