Foreign dangers: activities,responsibilities and the problem of women abroad

This paper deals with the construction of the foreign woman as a category that could explain, in the sixth century, the agency or the dangers of wives in different narrative contexts. The diffusion of foreign women in the sixth and seventh centuries as brides of kings and aristocrats is compared to contemporary archaeological funerary evidence. The very important role of Theoderic as wife‐giver king and the context of his power – Italy – developed the concept of a new foreign subject, identifiable in particular among peregrini both from and within Italy. This development heightened the possibility of creating networks and exporting foreign models.     

论政府在民生问题上的职责

构建和谐社会,要把民生问题作为重中之重,让广大人民群众生活幸福。解决民生问题需要全社会的共同努力,需要各方力量共担责任。但是在责任主体的排序中,政府则应通过公共服务行为为老百姓排忧解难,提升人民的生活质量。     

Reform in the Canadian Parliament and the US Congress: Institutional Choices and Member Power

A spate of recent work on the Canadian Parliament highlights the importance of constituency pressures in understanding the legislative behavior of individual Members of Parliament (MPs). In light of this renaissance, we reexamine decisions by Canadian Liberal Party MPs to defy Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his cabinet by supporting party-weakening reform in 2002. More specifically, we model votes on the question of selecting committee chairs through secret ballot as a function of factors both internal and external to the Parliament. While we find some evidence of exogenous, constituency-based forces, we find that support for reform was largely driven by internal party power dynamics. We gain additional insight into our findings by comparing this reform to analogous reforms in the US Congress. The patterns we uncover highlight the stark difference between the “double monopoly of power” held by party leaders in Westminster-style legislatures and the lack of such a monopoly in Congress. We conclude by advocating for more such comparisons, arguing that careful efforts to synthesize these and other similar reforms can improve our understanding of both legislatures despite the obvious and important differences between them.     

Human conflict and ecosystem services: finding the environmental price of warfare

Environmental degradation resulting from warfare is a growing concern, particularly with increasing recognition of humanity's dependence on healthy ecosystems. Though environmental legislation does exist that seeks to prevent or mitigate environmental harm before, during and after conflict, it has limited scope and effectiveness. This may be one reason why the environmental laws of war are so rarely applied in attempts to bring parties responsible for environmental harm to justice. Enforcement of such legal instruments also requires appropriate quantification of environmental damage, which is particularly difficult in a warfare context. A focus on the loss of environmental resources, habitats or ecosystems is only part of the story—the real cost of environmental damage is in the loss of ecosystem services that such resources provide, both now and in the future, and which regional and global human societies depend upon. The ecosystem services framework, wherein the costs of damage to ecosystem services are quantified in economic terms, may prove a more effective way of highlighting the environmental damage resulting from warfare. Moreover, quantification along monetary lines is potentially more likely to establish a solid case for justifiable reparations than criteria relating to loss of biodiversity or ecosystem health, which are more difficult for society and governmental agencies to place specific values on. This article discusses the ecosystem services framework in the context of warfare, and highlights both the potential and the challenges that may accompany adoption of such a framework by the international community.     

时间与空间:清代中国与西方在税法上的文化选择

本文分为三部分。第一部分从税权、税制结构等方面分析清代中国与西方税法异同的表象 ;第二部分分析清代中西税收法律制度变迁的动力和原因 ;第三部分从时间与空间的角度审视学术界对清代税收法律制度的认知误区以及中西方税法的意蕴。     

Choices and Criteria for Seismic Strengthening

Risk assessment is affected by large uncertainties, depending on hazard, structure, damage, and loss analysis. Crucial problems and choices may refer to: (a) hazard parameters, including the definition of appropriate ground motion levels and of their probability to occur; (b) level of knowledge about materials, geometry, detailing; (c) assessed damage and failure modes; and (d) resulting potential for step changes in performances.

The cost of attaining a high level of knowledge may significantly reduce the remaining resources, it is therefore important to favor resilient solutions with a creative adoption of appropriate strengthening strategies.

In this framework, this article discusses the possible criteria for the mitigation of seismic risk and some of the alternative choices that may be adopted for strengthening, with reference to:

(a)?the modification of damage and collapse modes strengthening individual elements or locallyincreasing the deformation capacity;

(b)?the insertion of additional systems resisting to horizontal actions;

(c)?the introduction of base isolation, with the objective of capacity-protecting the existingstructure;

(d)?the reduction of displacement demand by added damping or introducing tuned masssystems.

Alternative strengthening choices lead to different protection levels and imply different performances that are, in general, represented by non linear or step functions of a cost parameter of the intervention. From these considerations, conceptual “structure driven” strengthening criteria, based on a logical use of resources, are discussed.     

石峁古城:人类早期文明发展与环境选择

石峁古城的发现揭示了一段被尘封的历史,也说明北方农牧交错地带的环境具有孕育和发展人类早期文明的有利条件。以石峁古城为中心和典型代表的龙山石城文化圈,可能是当时黄帝部族的活动区域,石峁古城可能是黄帝部落联盟的政治中心。石峁古城的衰落,或言与气候变迁有关,但还有一种可能,即进入青铜器时代后,掌握先进生产力的人们开始追求开发经济效益更好的中原地区,遂促成了经济中心区域的变迁。     

Brazil as an intermediate state and regional power: action, choice and responsibilities

Since the early years of the twentieth century, Brazil's major foreign policy aspiration has been to achieve international recognition based upon the belief that it should assume its 'natural' role as a 'big country' in world affairs. Although the bases for an autonomous foreign policy have become more restricted in the post-Cold War period, Brazil still seeks to preserve an independent voice within the international community and a certain level of independent capacity to determine its actions. In addition, the country has demonstrated a clear intention of wanting to expand the roles that it plays and the responsibilities that it assumes in regional politics, in Third World agendas and in multilateral institutions. As democracy deepens its roots within the country, Brazil has attempted to link an increasingly activist stance in world affairs with political support at home based upon a more active partisan involvement in foreign policy. In this context, the present government's fight against poverty and unequal income distribution at home and its assertive and activist foreign policy can be viewed as two sides of the same coin. In this article the authors provide an overview of the core features of Brazilian foreign policy, focusing upon four aspects: (i) the instrumental nature of Brazilian foreign policy and its close relationship with the country's economic and development objectives; (ii) the commitment of Brazil to multilateralism; (iii) the growing importance for Brazil of regional politics and security; and (iv) the recent evolution of Brazil's relations with the United States. The conclusion reviews the main challenges facing Brazil and the difficulty of matching increased ambition with concrete results.     

西北地区经济发展的理性选择:发展文化、旅游产业

西北地区生态脆弱,自然环境恶劣,沙漠面积较大,水土流失严重,不宜进行大规模的工业开发。同时,西北地区是中华民族发祥地之一,蕴含着灿烂的民族文化,旅游资源非常丰富。丝绸之路跨国申报世界遗产将提高西北地区文化、旅游品牌,除了一条"文化线路",沿线有48个遗产点之外,大量可移动遗产和非物质文化遗产进入文化旅游整体领域。西北地区文化旅游产业发展滞后,文化旅游产业发展潜力和空间巨大。按照科学发展观的要求、全国主体功能区规划和西部大开发的部署,以丝绸之路申报世界遗产为契机,加快产业结构调整,促进西北地区文化、旅游产业的发展。     

Harsh choices: Chinese women's paid work and unpaid care responsibilities under economic reform

China's economic reforms over the past three decades have dramatically changed the mechanisms for allocating goods and labour in both market and non-market spheres. This article examines the social and economic trends that intensify the pressure on the care economy, and on women in particular in playing their dual roles as care givers and income earners in post-reform China. The analysis sheds light on three critical but neglected issues. How does the reform process reshape the institutional arrangements of care for children and elders? How does the changing care economy affect women's choices between paid work and unpaid care responsibilities? And what are the implications of women's work–family conflicts for the well-being of women and their families? The authors call for a gendered approach to both social and labour market policies, with investments in support of social reproduction services so as to ease the pressures on women.     

汉简与《诗经》传本

本世纪以来,随着学术界思想理论方面的解放和西方理论的引进,<诗经>作为经学的研究格局,已经被彻底打破了.人们抛弃了所谓的圣人制作、圣人删削的神话,蒙在<诗经>之上的层层尘垢被全面廓清.     

审判与调解:新中国成立初期的清理积案与制度选择

新中国成立初期,面对大量民事案件,司法机关一度认为造成积案的原因是暂时的,这些问题可以在短期内通过应急突击得到解决,司法机关对调解的态度一度也较为审慎。基于处理民事案件和清理积案的现实需要,司法机关围绕审判与调解主辅关系的制度安排进行了探索和选择。至20世纪50年代后期,“调解为主”的方针得以确立并趋于稳固。关于民事案件的这种制度选择对新中国司法探索和制度形成产生了深远的影响。     

Material Choices for Fibre in the Neolithic: An Approach through the Measurement of Mechanical Properties

Studies of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Europe have focused on plants and animals exploited for food. However, the exploitation of plants for fibres underwent a significant change with the addition of domestic flax as a fibre crop. While the technology of flax fibre processing is increasingly understood by archaeologists, its material value as a fibre crop in comparison to indigenous fibre is less well explored. We examine the mechanical properties of flax and two indigenous fibres (lime bast, willow bast), by testing fibre strips for tensile properties and discuss the results in the light of material choices in these periods.     

A Rhetoric of Change: The Language of the Howard Government's 2005 Work Choices Agenda

Understanding how public political discourse acts or does not act as a persuasive force in promoting and justifying political policy remains of critical importance. This paper presents a rhetorical criticism of the public political language used by the then Prime Minister John Howard and Minister Kevin Andrews, the chief spokespersons for the introduction of the Work Choices legislation. We demonstrate that these speakers drew upon a metaphor of evolutionary change as a means of promoting their legislation to the Australian working public. We argue that although this metaphor has persuasive utility, this merit was outweighed by the contradictions that arose when the metaphor was situated within a surrounding discourse promoting the concept of individual choice.