In the Circulation Sphere of the Biomolecular Age: Economics and Gender Matter**

This contribution draws attention to the circulation of materialities and persons as a central feature in the constitution of experimental cultures. The protein and ribosome research at the Max Planck Society (MPG)—with a main focus on the research conducted by Brigitte Wittmann-Liebold at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics—serves as an example to highlight some of the central conditions that determined the material circulation in molecular biology: the very organizational framework of gender and economics. In doing so, this contribution argues for a historical narrative that stresses the conditions facilitating the circulation of technologies, materials, and personnel. Histories of this kind contribute to an integrated view of the scientific, technological, social, political, economic, and cultural specificities of experimental cultures.     

Of Some Paradoxes in the Historiography of Molecular Biology**

Just when molecular biology is arguably delivering on some of its long-promised medical applications—think mRNA vaccines, monoclonal antibody drugs, PCR testing, and gene therapies—the history of molecular biology has lost much of its shine. What not too long ago seemed like a burgeoning field of research with endless possibilities, is now often reduced to the “central dogma” that saw its apotheosis in the effort to sequence the human genome but has since unraveled. The essay will discuss several possible answers to this apparent paradox.     

Approaches in Post-Experimental Science. The Case of Precision Medicine**

In the introduction to his Spalt und Fuge, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger points to the possibility that we are currently experiencing a new turning point regarding forms of experimentation, which is characterized by the growing importance of high-throughput methods and big data analytics. This essay will explore the thesis that data-intensive research indeed constitutes a form of post-experimental research by interrogating research practices in precision medicine. Section 1 will introduce this thesis and highlight salient features of precision medicine as an example of post-experimental research. Section 2 suggests approach as a category that is broader than experimental system, as discussed by Rheinberger, and can serve to analyze and compare diverse forms of research, including experimental and post-experimental practices. The essay concludes with a reflection on how categories developed for the historiography of recent science might require an update when the science or its context changes (section 3).     

Experimental history: the appeal of postmodemism in historiography

Use, truth and time constitute the basic elements of the epistemological structure of history. That structure went through three stages: pre-modern (from ancient times to the late eighteenth century, before the professionalization of history took place), modern (the period of professional history, from the late eighteenth century to the 1970s), and post modern (post 1970s). In these three stages, use, truth, and time successively occupied the core of the epistemological structure of history. Postmodernist history, which puts time at the core of its epistemology, is an extreme form of historicism. Even more than historicism, it has emphasized the determining effect of time and change on historical truth and historical consciousness. The privatization of historical narrative and reading has prodded history to become experimental. Experimental history no longer proclaims the truth about the past. Instead, under specific historical circumstances, it strives to produce texts that will be recognized by individual historians and provides these texts to readers, who will make their own judgments. Whether these texts are true will be decided through the uses they produce. In this way, any historiographical practice will be an experiment conducted by an historian in the present and that will consist in searching for the truth about the past. The success of this experiment will depend entirely on the experimental environment, that is, on the conditions provided by the reading environment. __________ Translated from: Beijing Shifan Daxue Xuebao 北京师范大学学报 (Journal of Beijing Normal University), Vol. 5, 2004     

War-Games in the Song of Songs: A Reading of Song 2,4 in Light of Cognitive Linguistics

While the Song of Songs is often considered a tender love po-em, it also uses military metaphors to describe the loving relationship of its characters. This suggests that the Song’s concept of love may be more com-plex and perhaps more paradoxical than is usually assumed. Cognitive Lin-guistics, which currently represents the central point of reference for the study both of ordinary and literary metaphors, can shed light on the Song’s concep-tualization of love in terms of war. The present article provides i) a presenta-tion of some insights on metaphorical phenomena coming from Cognitive Linguistics, and ii) a reading of a paradigmatic warlike metaphor, i.e. Song 2,4, in light of this new, pioneering approach.     

Experimental and Conceptual Innovators in the Sciences: The Cases of Darwin and Einstein

Abstract

During the past decade, analyses of artistic creativity have demonstrated the contrast in creative life cycles between experimental old masters and conceptual young geniuses. This article extends the analysis to scientists. Charles Darwin was a great experimental innovator, who spent decades accumulating evidence on evolution and its mechanisms, and made his greatest contributions late in his career. In contrast, Albert Einstein was a great conceptual innovator, who made discoveries through highly abstract reasoning, and made his greatest contributions early in his career. The careers of these two great scientists are thus consistent with the thesis that, as in the arts, conceptual creativity is associated with youth, but experimental creativity increases with age.     

集体化时期农村合作医疗制度评析——以河北省深泽县为个案

集体化时期的合作医疗制度始终坚持缓解农村医疗困境的大方向,通过发挥集体经济的优势、进行医务人员"在地化"培训以及坚持"预防为主"等方式,让有史以来人数最多的农民有了制度化的健康保障,充分体现了社会主义制度的优越性,并赢得国际社会的广泛赞誉。取得如此成就的原因,国家领导人的高度重视、国家的政策倾向,以及"文化大革命"的推动缺一不可。而这些因素发挥作用,又必须以集体经济为依托。虽然合作医疗制度在具体操作中也存在基层干部及赤脚医生玩忽职守、营私舞弊等问题,但其在国家一穷二白的条件下所取得的成就依然是共和国医疗卫生史上的制高点。     

中共第三代领导集体对"一国两制"方针的继承与发展

以江泽民为核心的中共第三代领导集体,继承和发展了党的"一国两制"方针,根据两岸形势的变化,与时俱进地制定了一系列的对台方针、政策和措施:坚持一个中国原则,坚决反对分裂,反对"台独"活动,维护祖国统一;坚持通过两岸对话和谈判来实现祖国的和平统一;高度重视对台湾人民的工作,贯彻"更寄希望于台湾人民"的方针;积极推动两岸的经贸交流与合作;不承诺放弃使用武力,积极做好军事斗争准备,有力地推进了祖国统一的历史进程.     

A Dynamic Systems Framework for Studying Technological Change: Application to the Emergence of the Potter's Wheel in the Southern Levant

The dynamic systems framework may be considered an alternative to traditional approaches that study technological change. The benefits of this framework are simultaneously methodological and metaphorical. Methodologically, the framework provides a coherent analytic process for studying empirical data to explain the complexity of technological change. Metaphorically, the framework appeals to local-scale interactive mechanisms to account for the origins of change. Applicability of the dynamic systems framework for studying technological change is illustrated with an archaeological case study: the emergence of the potter's wheel in southern Levant during the 4th millennium BC.     

Development of Local Financial Systems in Mainland China

Two Beijing-based economic geographers present a comprehensive study of local financial systems in China. The paper analyzes the most recently available (2006) regional data on exogenous (state-owned, foreign-owned, and joint shareholder-owned) and endogenous (city commercial banks and rural credit cooperatives) banks, highlighting the differences between the country's coastal and the lagging rural provinces located in China's central and western macroregions. A key component of the analysis is the geographic distribution of bank branches and assets. Special attention is devoted to Shanghai, the country's traditional financial center, which has attracted the bulk of foreign-owned banks and financial service providers seeking entry into the vast Chinese market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: G21, G28, O18, P34. 9 figures, 3 tables, 54 references.     

论释赞宁《宋高僧传》的史料价值

释赞宁《宋高僧传》承继梁代释慧皎《高僧传》、唐代释道宣《续高僧传》而作,是记载唐初至北宋初三百多年间佛教僧人精英的总传。要了解佛教在中国的生存发展情况离不开佛教史籍,同时佛教与社会生活密切相关,所以《宋传》成为研究唐代至宋初中国佛教史、政治史、经济史、文化史、历史学等方面的重要资料。     

略论民国时期对内蒙古开发道路的认识与认定

民国时期关于内蒙古的开发道路 ,存在“农垦实边”、“林牧兴边”、“农牧并重”三重认识分野 ,内含了巩固边防、内地问题、边省利益、经济增长、民族关系、生态平衡等六种目标取向。受边疆危机、内地灾荒等现实问题的困扰 ,关乎长远的林牧一途无由践行 ,内蒙古未能越出以农为主的误区。     

《乐府诗集》明清校本述评

文章在评述明清主要校本——冯校本、毛校本、赵校本、钱校本、陆校本、劳校本的基础上,着重强调了它们的史料价值,即为《乐府诗集》版本研究提供了材料和线索。诸校本中,冯校本、毛校本、陆校本和劳校本尤为重要。这些校本提供的材料帮助我们部分复原了亡佚了的两个宋本,并且使我们比较细致地了解到明末元本的流传状况和汲古阁校刻《乐府诗集》的诸多细节问题。     

荥阳小胡村墓地出土部分铜器的科学分析

小胡村墓地为殷墟晚期"舌"氏家族墓地,为探讨其出土铜器的腐蚀特征,揭示其所蕴含制作技术和相应考古学信息,从而为器物保护修复提供科学依据,采用金相显微镜和扫描电镜及能谱仪对墓地出土12件铜器进行基体锈层结构和制作技术分析研究。研究表明,相较纯铜、铜锡和铜锡铅合金,铜铅合金耐腐蚀能力较弱,腐蚀严重;铜器经冷热加工处理易造成内部组织结构不均内应力残存,间接加速铜器腐蚀;12件铜器材质:纯铜2件、铜铅合金4件、铜锡合金3件和铜锡铅合金3件;仅2件兵器(刀M28:1、戈M38:1)经有意铸后热锻和冷加工,其余皆直接铸造成型。M21墓4件铜器皆为铜铅合金明器,小胡村墓地作为殷墟周边商文化系统,趋同商文化中心区,亦呈现部分中小贵族随葬铜器明器化现象。研究结果可为器物修复保护提供科学依据。     

Practical Knowledge in the Viking Age: the use of mental templates in clinker shipbuilding

It has long been recognized that ships built according to the Nordic clinker tradition during the Viking Age were conceived and constructed simultaneously by eye, in a shell‐first manner, and using rules‐of‐thumb to control both the longitudinal and transversal shape of the hull. While a lot of attention has been paid to the conceptual definition of the keel and stems, far less research has explored how such rules would have worked while planking the hull. Two cargo‐ships, Skuldelev 3 and Skuldelev 1, are used to argue for pre‐design and the use of mental templates. This highlights a cognitive dimension of practical knowledge, in particular how it was accumulated, stored and transmitted.     

Against Value: Accumulation in the Oil Industry and the Biopolitics of Labour Under Finance

Current theses on the financialization of capitalism postulate a shift from investment in material growth to financial channels, with the implication that the extraction of value from the labour process is no longer the central locus of corporate profitability and that the antagonism between labour and capital in the accumulation process has been displaced by the tension between corporate managers and financial markets. This article challenges both claims of financialization and its political implications. Using an analysis of the oil industry in the US, focusing particularly on layoffs, I argue that, instead of inhibiting material accumulation, financialization signals a change in the form of investment that has led to the intensification of labour and its deepening subsumption under capital, transcending labour exploitation and extending the sovereignty of capital over the life of living labour.     

Northern Laboratories of Nature and the Quest for Scientific Honour in Early Modern Sweden

Abstract

This article studies the role of climate and geography in the scientific networks which were taking form in Europe in the early modern period. It seeks to contribute to an analysis of the meanings attributed to the North as a scientific environment or an object of study and, in particular, show the wider contextual motivations behind the research of the northern lights as well as phenomena related to physical cold. The analysis will concentrate on the learned discussions taking place between scholars in the Kingdom of Sweden and the Académie des Sciences in Paris. The great scholarly interest in the aurora borealis starting in the early eighteenth century emerged rapidly after the sudden appearance of this striking and enigmatic phenomenon across a large part of Europe during the first decades of the eighteenth century. In a similar manner, cold winters experienced all over Europe during the late seventeenth century had inspired the first scientific societies in Europe to carry out experiments that under ordinary circumstances could not have been pursued. These events underlined the dependency of early empiricists on nature's help when extending the scope of their scientific inquiries. The awareness of the constraints of empirical study, combined with a new ideological view of scientific societies as seats of a collective scientific effort, prompted a new kind of specialization in science. The idea was introduced that each scholar or country should take care of producing experiments and observations that were best attainable in their particular environment. The need became most obvious in research topics such as the cold which – unlike heat – could not be produced artificially. As a demand for observations that were specific to northern tracts emerged in Europe, northern scholars discovered in their expertise on the northern issues a niche to negotiate a new prestige in the European scientific networks. Traditional views had maintained that only the warm, southern climates offered a natural environment for civilisation and arts to flourish. New empirical sciences practised by the scientific societies seemed to provide a convenient break with this assumption.     

英属北美殖民地法律的早期现代化

关于英属北美殖民地社会经济属何种性质的讨论,涉及到对当时法律制度的历史地位进行评价的问题,美国学术界在这些方面至今还存在很多争议。从美国学者的学术交锋来看,尽管英属北美殖民地是否已进入资本主义发展阶段仍有待商榷,但当时市场经济的扩张确实已达到了一定的程度,从而使殖民地的法律制度出现了早期现代化的趋势,主要表现为陪审团在民事审判中的初步式微、从事实性答辩向法律性答辩的转变、普通法令状制度的逐步健全、专业律师队伍的出现和仲裁的正规化或边缘化。因此,英属北美殖民地法律在美国法律史上占有重要地位,殖民地时期绝不是美国法律的“黑暗时代”,当然也不可和19世纪混为一谈。     

唐宋地方监察体制变革初探

唐前期的地方监察体制由御史和诸道使臣组成,属于朝廷派出性质的单一型监察体制。安史之乱以后,伴随赋役制度的改革,出使郎官、转运使、巡院等新的监察体系出现,我国封建社会地方监察体制开始向固定型、多元化、多层面变革,宋代完成了这一变革。元、明、清各朝基本延续和发展了宋代多元化、多层面的地方监察体制。由此而论,唐宋地方监察体制变革是我国封建社会地方监察制度前后两期的分界线。     

The Baptistry of Saint John in Florence: The Scientific Dating of the Timber Structure of the Dome

The construction of the Baptistry of Saint John has a debated and uncertain history; the hypothesis on its main construction phases may span from the Roman period to the 13th century, according to different authors. This uncertainty is mainly due to the lack of primary sources and certain dating issues. By combining dendrochronological analysis and radiocarbon dating, some light was shed on the building’s history. Open at least from 897, in 1059 Pope Nicholas II re-consecrated the baptistry after several renovations. Around that period, the octagonal dome was probably built by using chestnut beams to tie the structure together. The dendrochronological analysis dated the silver fir element to 1268. This element possibly represents a replacement coincident with the period, between 1270 and 1300, when a substantial part of the mosaics of the dome was positioned.