Expressions of the particular terms of love in the Song of Songs

ABSTRACT

This article discovers expressions of love by examining the particular terms of love in the Song. The expressions in various scenes show the excitement and pleasure of fulfillment in the sexual love relationship as the power of love. They also demonstrate the primary meaning of love in the Song is the celebration of joys of physical intimacy of human love relationship. The study of the chosen verses shows how the Hebrew text contains uncertainties and a variety of meanings which cannot be easily conveyed in other language. However, it portrays the significant of studying in the original language in order to bring about a better appreciation of the expressions of love in the Song.     

Low‐temperature dunite hydration: evaluating CH4 and H2 production from H2O and CO2

Abiotic methane (CH₄) and hydrogen (H₂) produced after hydration of mafic/ultramafic rocks represent energy sources for microbes that may thrive in the deep subsurface regions of Earth and possibly on other planets. While H₂ is a direct product of serpentinization, CH₄ can form via Fischer–Tropsch Type (FTT) reactions (carbon reduction) that, due to potential H₂ migration, can be spatially and temporally detached from serpentinization. We tested an alternative process hypothesized by some scholars, in which CO₂ can be reduced through dunite hydration without initially added H₂, implying that CH₄ can form in the same serpentinized fluid–rock system. The experiment used natural dunite sand (Forsterite 92), CO₂ with δ¹³C ~ ?25‰ (VPDB), and a 1 mm dissolved SiO₂ solution mixed in 30 glass bottles (118 mL) stored for up to 8 months at low temperature (50°C) to simulate land‐based serpentinization systems. In addition, 30 control bottles without olivine were used as blanks. Trivial amounts of CH₄ (orders of 0.2–0.9 ppmv) were detected in both samples and blanks, likely representing analytical noise; essentially, no significant amount of CH₄ formed under the experimental conditions used in this work. Low amounts of H₂ (~2.55 ± 1.39 ppmv) were generated, with production yields that were one order of magnitude lower than in previously published experiments. Moderate concentrations of SiO₂ appeared to hinder low‐temperature H₂ production. Our experiment confirms that the low‐temperature reduction of CO₂ into CH₄ through direct olivine hydration, without initial H₂, is sluggish and not straightforward, which is consistent with previous studies. The presence of substantial amounts of H₂, as well as suitable metal catalysts, appears to be essential in the low‐temperature production of abiotic CH₄, as observed in published FTT experiments.     

LOCATIONAL FACTORS IN THE DECLINING INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF THE NEW YORK URBAN REGION*

This paper investigates the locational factors that contributed to the decline of the New York urban region's industries during 1972-1975. Based on the static concept of a specialization index, a dynamic comparative advantage index is constructed. A model is then formulated to test the hypothesis that regional competitive advantage (vis-à-vis the nation) is a function of relative disparities in the change of these locational factors. Regression results show that the region's competitive advantage is influenced positively by the differential rate of change in market size, by the differential profit rate before tax, and negatively by the differential rate of change in unit labor cost and in unit energy cost. The differential tax rate does not seem to affect the region's competitive advantage. Nevertheless, a progressive corporate income tax structure tends to neutralize the beneficial effects of the economies of agglomeration and the urban attraction of the region.     

An Economic Regionalization of North Vietnam

A North Vietnamese graduate student at Moscow University offers a division of North Vietnam into four economic regions and assesses their future development in terms of energy-and-production cycles (groups of technologically interrelated activities proposed by N. N. Kolosovskiy). In a second paper, the author conceptualizes economic regions as consisting of a core or center, accounting for most of the production; an inner shell dependent on the core, and an outer shell that may gravitate to any of a number of adjoining core areas depending on the purpose of the study. The original boundaries of the four-region system of North Vietnam are reviewed in light of the “outer shell” concept. The four-region system is essentially confirmed, but the allocation of some provinces in the “outer shell” is found to be disputable, and regional boundaries have been adjusted.     

Business associations and the politics of contained participation in Vietnam

The development of the private sector in Vietnam since the mid-1990s has accompanied the emergence of organised business interests, which is recognised as vital to pursuing the agenda of economic modernisation. This article aims to explore the significance of the interactions between the state and business associations representing small-and-medium enterprises. It demonstrates that business associations have transformed state–business relations in a way that is distinguishable from state corporatism or societal pluralism. The analysis examines the interplay between state actors and emerging non-state entities, and the deliberative capacity of intermediary organisations in the policy-making process, specifically through the Vietnam Association of Small and Medium Enterprises. It is argued that this process constitutes a new mode of political participation that reflects the entanglement of the state and private capital interests. It reveals features of contained participation and contributes to the research agenda on deliberative and governance practices in post-socialist transitional economies.

越南私有部门自1990年代中期以来的发展,伴随着管理有组织商业利益的立法的出台。而有组织的商业利益被视为实现经济现代化的关键。本文探讨了国家与商业协会在为中小企业打造适宜市场环境方面所进行的互动。商业协会成为具有战略意义的政治主体,以一种不同于国家统合主义或社会多元主义的方式改写了政府和商业的关系。本文探讨了国家主体与新兴非国家实体之间的相互作用,并评价了中间组织——尤其像越南中小企业协会——在政策制定过程中的协商能力。作者认为,该过程造成了一种新的政治参与方式,反映了国家和私人资本利益之间的纠结。它还揭示了其中所包含的参与的诸特点,并对于研究后社会主义转型经济体中出现的协商及治理实践,或能起到抛砖引玉的作用。     

PROPERTY LEFT BEHIND: AN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE OF A NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND “FAILING” SCHOOL DESIGNATION

Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools receiving Title I funding that fail to meet adequate academic performance targets for two consecutive years are deemed “failing.” This broadly defined, but often misunderstood designation has exerted a negative and unintended effect on low‐income neighborhoods—the same neighborhoods NCLB was originally intended to help. Specifically, we find that “failing” designations significantly decrease home prices. This property value response is observed even after controlling for a myriad of traditional test score measures and school‐level student demographics. Additional analyses suggest that this home price effect is largely due to strong perceptions of poor school quality or social stigma surrounding a “failing” designation.     

Agricultural Modernization and Climate Change in Vietnam's Post‐Socialist Transition

This article presents a critique of Vietnam's agricultural modernization in the context of its post‐socialist transition and the emerging climate crisis. Agricultural modernization has led to impressive rates of wealth creation that have pulled many Vietnamese out of poverty and food insecurity over the past two decades. However, the model's own logic of accumulation has also made the country increasingly reliant on complex processes and has locked in various technological path dependencies. These include energy‐ and input‐intensive production, engineered landscapes, reduced agro‐biodiversity, and weakened social networks, knowledge and skills. As a result, Vietnam is becoming more sensitive and less able to adapt to structural shocks, notably that of climate change. Furthermore, and crucially, the post‐socialist transition since the launch of ??i m?i (market reform) has given rise to a political economy with dominant interests increasingly vested in the continuity of this modernization model. The article argues that it is this new dynamics of class and state–society relations that now represents the main obstacle to the development of credible solutions to the climate crisis.     

Rethinking State-Society Relations in Vietnam: The Case of Business Associations in Ho Chi Minh City

The growing private sector in the post-reform Vietnamese economy and its new forms of mobilisation have led to newly emergent social forces that have shaped internal state agendas and political deliberations. With a view to exploring the nature of institutional change in Vietnam, I argue that business associations have played a crucial intermediary role between the state and the private sector over past decades. These associations and the spaces of governance that they constitute are neither characteristic of autonomous actors as suggested by liberal theory nor a form of state corporatism. This paper adopts the “state-in-society” approach, which contends that the state and society should be considered through new governance spaces within the state. These spaces create institutional mechanisms for interaction between the government and business, and provide a framework for deliberative engagement between state and non-state actors. This framework will be tested through an examination of associations of small and medium enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City and their connections to the city authorities. I argue that business associations will be accommodated by the state and will coalesce with existing bureaucratic interests. This proposition contributes to the new research agenda that applies the state-in-society approach to post-socialist institutions.     

Translocal Householding: Care and Migrant Livelihoods in a Waste‐trading Community of Vietnam's Red River Delta

This article examines the shifting household organization of care and livelihoods in a community of Vietnam's Red River Delta that has a history of migrating to work in the urban waste trade, and has been doing so increasingly since the socialist country embraced a market economy in the mid‐1980s. In Spring District, household care and livelihood activities have been taking place across the city and the countryside for decades, indicating the degree to which the rural household reflexively opens up its spatial and social boundaries in response to broader processes of change. Their trajectories reveal fluidity in terms not only of spatial mobility but also of the gendered configuration of paid work and care, and complex dynamics between household care practices and the development of waste trading as a particular migrant livelihood activity. The analysis draws on and advances the concept of ‘householding’ emerging from recent discussion of the globalization of social reproduction.