On the Causes of the Extinction of Some Animals at the end of the Pleistocene

A mathematical theory is developed to demonstrate the disputed hypothesis that hunting tribes of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe did play a decisive role in bringing about the extinction of the mammoth and other large herbivorous animals at the end of the Pleistocene. Formulas for the periods of time during which hunting did not greatly affect animal numbers and during which the numbers declined to zero are used to show that mammoth numbers remained relatively stable during most of the Upper Paleolithic (a period of 10,000 to 25,000 years) and then dropped rapidly within a few centuries to complete extinction. The theory is used to explain why only the largest animals became extinct and why elephants continued to survive in tropical areas while the mammoth vanished in the north.     

评蒙古帝国衰亡对蒙古社会发展的影响

成吉思汗建立了蒙古帝国,以千户制巩固了统治,国土横跨欧亚。至忽必烈在中原大地建立了蒙元王朝。１３６８年元朝灭亡后,众多蒙古人返回蒙古本土,与当地统治者发生权力斗争。蒙古本土也因无法为骤然增多的人口提供给养而导致经济崩溃。蒙古人不断侵扰明朝边境,迫使永乐皇帝率兵亲征,更加剧了蒙古困难局面。重建蒙古强力政权的努力一再破产。直至达延可汗,蒙古再现生机。     

论明清之际东北边疆城镇的衰落

文章对明清时期东北边疆城镇兴衰过程进行了探讨。认为由于战略地位的重要和军事斗争的需要 ,明在辽东兴建了大批城镇 ,但至明清之际 ,因后金 (清 )采取了“毁城迁民”的政策 ,明代以来在辽东地区兴起的城镇遭到了毁灭性打击。至康熙中期 ,辽东城镇仍未恢复元气 ,其原因主要在于大量人口的外迁和清在东北实行封禁政策。     

清末民初酒税制度因革论

清末财政困窘,支出浩繁,政府在维持旧有税收的同时,力图开辟新的税源,并因应时势而不断变化,酒税从厘捐到烟酒税这样的变化就体现了这一发展历程。民国初创,面临的财政危机依然如故,酒税征收仍然沿习清末旧制,弊病百出。当政者对酒税制度重新设计,意欲将其纳入国家财政收支系统的正轨。对原有酒税加以改革,举办公卖制度开征公卖费,新征烟酒牌照税,构成了民国初年酒税制度的主要内容。然而由于各种各样的原因,这一努力并没有达到制度设计者的初衷。     

Speaking the Truth to the Power of the Presidency

Abstract

Instead of focusing on what characteristics the next president of the United States should have, we need to focus on the institutional realities of the presidency. Those realities consistently reflect a system dedicated to maintaining the dominance of the United States through economic and military power, and maintaining the ruling elite's control of economic and political power in this country. Persons committed to the practice of the Gospel, especially in solidarity with the poor, must name, confront and resist those institutional and cultural realities. This truth-telling can take many forms, such as life in community with the poor, public speaking, preaching, writing, demonstrations, civil disobedience, and some involvement in electoral politics. All of these will be informed by a realism that struggles faithfully without placing undue hope on presidential politics.     

明碑所载官员助修北京清真寺考

碑刻是回族史研究的重要文献资料。本文利用北京明代伊斯兰教碑刻,细致梳理了碑文所载官员题名情况,考察了官员群体,特别是回族将领、文官、内廷宦官捐资兴建、修缮清真寺,或为其奏请名号等史实,试图从一个方面揭示回族形成过程中共同心理素质的形成。     

On the Question of Regulating the Level of the Caspian Sea

The author tries to show that the level of the Caspian Sea could be stabilized at relatively low cost at its present low level without further damage to the coastal economy. He denies the need for costly projects designed to increase the inflow into the Caspian or to separate the shallow northern section from the main body of the sea. He maintains that water gained by diverting the northern streams into the Volga basin should be used to irrigate the arid Southeast rather than to replenish the water supply of the Caspian Sea.     

退出印度前夕的英国殖民者与印度王公的消失

殖民地印度时期,在南亚次大陆上分布着560多个土邦。二战后英国工党政府背弃了以往保守党的土邦政策,采取了理论上继续支持王公、现实中则背弃王公的两面性政策。代表英王的副王和政治部支持王公拥有成立自治领的权力,试图以此为筹码为王公的未来争取更多的利益,而其真实态度则是鼓励宗主国从土邦撤离,要求王公加入未来的新政府。在印巴分治的前夜,英属印度政府成立土邦部,出台《加入协定》,采取了威逼利诱的两手策略。宗主国的政策转变、政策的两面性、对土邦态度的暖昧性和土邦策略的两手性使王公被迫加入了新成立的自治领,致使印度王公消失。     

始终把思想建设放在党的建设首位

把思想建设摆在党的建设首位,是中国共产党的历史选择和重要优势,是党提高创造力、凝聚力和战斗力的重要经验,是党领导革命、建设和改革伟大事业的理论支撑。中国共产党始终坚持思想建党的原则,坚持以马克思主义及其中国化理论成果武装全党并用以指导实践,使之成为全党和全国人民团结奋斗的共同思想基础。同时,强调思想建设要正确对待党内思想斗争、认真解决思想领域存在的突出问题。     

Situating the Asia Pacific in the age of the Anthropocene

ABSTRACT

The unprecedented and unsustainable impact of human activities on the biosphere threatens the survival of the Earth's inhabitants, including the human species. Several solutions have been presented to mitigate, or possibly undo, this looming global catastrophe. The dominant discourse, however, has a monolithic and Western-centric articulation of the causes, solutions, and challenges arising from the events of the Anthropocene which may differ from the other epistemes and geographies of the world. Drawing on the International Relations (IR) critical engagement with the Anthropocene, this paper situates the Asia-Pacific region in the Anthropocene discourse. The region’s historical and socio-ecological characteristics reveal greater vulnerability to the challenges of the Anthropocene compared to other regions while its major economies have contributed recently to the symptoms of the Anthropocene. On the other hand, the region’s ecocentric philosophies and practices could inform strategies of living in the Anthropocene. This contextualised analysis aims to offer an Asia-Pacific perspective as well as insights into the development of IR in the age of the Anthropocene.     

On the Diversion of the Vychegda and Pechora Rivers to the Basin of the Volga

The author of an economic geography of the Komi ASSR (1959) attempts to show that the present plan for the diversion of the Vychegda and Pechora rivers to the Volga basin would have an adverse effect on the economy of the Komi ASSR, particularly by flooding the limited amount of agricultural land available in the northern republic. Fisheries and shipping on the Pechora River would also suffer, in the opinion of the author. He proposes certain changes in the engineering aspects of the project to safeguard the northern economy. The changes would admittedly double the cost of the project.     

Locating the voices of the sterilized

Scholars have been studying eugenics and sterilization for years, but only recently have some begun to examine these issues from the point of view of those sterilized. This is in large part because so few records containing the voices of the sterilized exist or are accessible to scholars. This essay examines my own effort to recover the voices of women sterilized in the post-baby boom United States from the "bottom up" and includes my own experience researching and writing Fit to Be Tied?: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1960-1984. It represents the beginning of a discussion about locating and using sources containing the voices of the sterilized and working with the limitations inherent to them.     

清末民初北京地区的社会变迁与慈善组织的转型

北京地区的传统慈善组织在清末民初发生重大变化:数量上呈现较大幅度的增长趋势;救助功能方面普遍地由施养向教养转化;操作管理方式逐渐走上联合统一的道路。这些变化与北京地区在近代所具有的典型社会特征有着密切联系,因此一定程度上本文是对慈善事业研究的一种区域性探索。     

朝野纠葛:北京政府时期的舆论与外交--以关税特别会议为个案的考察

关于北京政府时期的外交,尽管学术界近来已开始有了较为客观的评价,不过对于其背后因素的考察还有待深入。实际上,在北京政府时期,由于特殊的时代背景,各种社会舆论被全面动员起来,以汹涌澎湃之势冲击着外交这一特殊的政治领域,从而形成了近代史上国民外交的黄金时期。于是,由于中央政府统治的虚弱,在其决策者进行外交运作时,就处处受到来自舆论界的影响,这是一个极为明显的历史特色,通过对当时舆论的考察,就会更深层次地探究北京政府外交的两难境地。笔者在考察时,主要以关税特别会议为个案,以上海舆论为核心,以《申报》、《东方杂志》等报刊为第一手资料。     

A rediscovered people: the poor,the very poor and the destitute in the Northwest

The author of this piece, Dr Margaret Hanly, died before it could be refereed or published. The editors subsequently sought referee comments and these were very positive. Changes to the text were undertaken by the team at Family and Community History but the article remains largely as it was submitted to us. At its core is an engagement with the idea of the process of poor relief, with a particular focus on Lancashire. The article argues that in this spatial context, the poor law had a significant exclusionary impetus, seeking to keep down the numbers accepted for relief and the amounts paid to them.     

Sorting the butchered from the boiled

Is it possible to identify cooked, rather than burnt, bone? Mild heating (≤100 °C,1 h) – typical of cooking – does not lead to detectable changes in any biochemical parameter of bone yet measured. If it is only possible to detect charred bone, how is it possible to detect cooking in the archaeological record? In a previous paper (Koon et al., 2003, J. Arch. Sci.), we used a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) based approach to investigate changes in the organization of the bone protein, collagen, as it is heated, using bone from heating experiments and short term burials. The work revealed that mineralized collagen, despite requiring aggressive treatment to gelatinise the protein (e.g. 90 °C, 240+ h), readily accumulates minor damage. We believe that the presence of mineral matrix stabilises the collagen enabling the damage to accumulate, but preventing it from causing immediate gelatinisation. Once the mineral is removed, the damage can be observed using appropriate visualization methods.     

南宋与金的边疆经略

本着重阐述南宋与金的边疆经略。南宋与金分立,各自按照中国传统制度治理本朝。同时,也均在中国传统边疆观念的支配下推行边政,针对边疆地区各族的治乱、向背问题采取了相应的军政对策和措施,南宋致力于西部至西南地区,金朝致力于东北、北部、西北地区。本还揭示了南宋与金的边疆经略与我国统一多民族国家向前发展曲关系问题。     

A history of the concept of the stimulus and the role it played in the neurosciences

The term stimulus, as it was used in science from its earliest appearance in the sixteenth century up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, shows a gradual progress in denotation from the physical object designed to produce nervous and muscular excitation to the generically conceived event or object that initiates sensory or motor activity. To this shift corresponds a shift in the understanding of sensory experience. Johannes Muller's law of specific energy of sensory nerves played a major role in the shift, and Hermann von Helmholtz gave the shift its most thorough philosophical explanation.     

龙游石窟砂岩的水稳定性研究

通过对龙游石窟砂岩胶结泥质中粘土矿物—蒙脱石的性质和结构特征;岩石中各类矿物在水中溶解度的变化;岩体与水反应的表面积,即岩石的孔隙率;与其相作用的水的化学性质,特别是水的pH值变化等方面的测试研究,证明被淹没在水下的石窟砂岩洞室相对较稳定。但洞室的水被抽干后,由于水环境的突变以及随后环境湿度的频繁变化,大大加速了洞室的风化。     

试论元朝中央政府对畏兀儿地区的统治

章依据元代畏兀儿书及汉史籍探索元朝政府治理畏兀儿地区的措施,考述其在畏兀儿地区的行政建设以及亦都护地方政权的性质与职掌。认为蒙元政府对其所统辖的畏兀儿社会的间接军事行政统治,乃是通过自上而下的蒙古制度与自下而上的当地制度之间相互交叉渗透的结合而实现的。