The archaeological record witnesses the presence of glass beads in early Iron Age Taiwan and the potential evidence of glass beadmaking on the southeastern coast. Previous research has proposed that the appearance of glass beads in Taiwan is in association with the South China Sea exchange network, and this particular material culture replaced the indigenous nephrite in local societies in Taiwan. Therefore, this research studies glass beads from 7 Iron Age sites (Kiwulan, Jiuxianglan, Guishan, Daoye, Wujiancuo, Shisanhang and Xiliao) in Taiwan in an attempt to understand the provenance and hence exchange, consumption and production of glass beads in the 1st millennium AD in Taiwan and the interaction shown by these specific goods with the South China Sea network. Beads from around the island, from Kiwulan, Jiuxianglan, Guishan, Daoye and Wujiancuo are analysed data in this research, and this is supplemented with data from Shisanhang and Xiliao from published reports. The evidence of glass beadmaking from Jiuxianglan is also investigated. The material covers a wide geographic region including northern, northeastern, southeastern, southern and southwestern Taiwan, and spans the 1st millennium AD. To elucidate the research questions, the methodology chosen combines the typological study, compositional analysis (to trace elemental level), microstructural investigation and archaeological context of glass beads from each site. This research proposes regional and chronological patterns in terms of the typology and chemical composition of glass beads in early Iron Age Taiwan, which suggests primarily a Southeast Asian source of early Iron Age glass beads in Taiwan and later a transition to a Chinese origin during the turn of the 2nd millennium AD. The results also indicate the presence of a regional exchange network within Taiwan, particularly within northern and northeastern Taiwan, which may be related to the socio-political interaction between societies. It is also found that the mortuary contexts of glass beads from different sites shows different degrees of social differentiation between the broad eastern and southwestern Taiwan. In addition, this research reveals a paradox between the glass beads and glass waste from Jiuxianglan, which does not suggest the local production of finished beads at this site. The findings also do not indicate the exchange of glass beads made at Jiuxianglan to other contemporary sites in Taiwan. In addition, the production of m-Na-Al glass and v-Na-Ca glass and their movement within the broad South China Sea network suggests the possibility of shared knowledge but less standardised process of m-Na-Al glass production of the beads found in Taiwan, and a different tradition of glass colouring between m-Na-Al glass and v-Na-Ca glasses which may be related to different provenances.

John D.C. Little and Jeremy F. Shapiro.

This dissertation examines the discourses of race, nation and ethnicity in late Qing and early republican China, focusing primarily on representations of the Han. It argues that the competing and changing representations of the Han in this period formed an integral part of the process of modern Chinese nation building. The empirical basis of the dissertation consists of three layers: intellectuals discourses, school textbooks and dictionaries. These layers constituted interconnected layers of discourses that were involved in the broader process of Chinese nation-building. The dissertation demonstrates that intellectuals discourses played a central role in constructing new notions of Chinese identity and the role of the Han, and thereby also in producing different templates or for Chinese nation-building during the late Qing and early republican period. After the establishment of the Chinese Republic in 1911, these modern perceptions of Chinese national identity were endorsed by the ruling elites and were gradually disseminated and popularised further by means of school textbooks and dictionaries. Taken together, the examination of discourses on the Han in these three types of sources therefore offers an account of how early Chinese nationalist ideas were produced among the elites and then disseminated among the broader population.

No description available.

This thesis is centered on the roles of wooden chamber tombs in defining, negotiating and reinforcing status and identity of their owners in early imperial China. The archaeological materials under discussion are wooden chamber burials in the mid-Yangzi region, including the modern provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and north Anhui. The first reason why I have chosen this area is because these tombs are well-preserved and provide excellent examples to examine the different material expressions of rank and status at each rank in mortuary contexts. They are complemented by some extensive contemporary texts written on bamboo strips recently discovered in the same general area. The waterlogged burial environment in the mid-Yangzi region allows organic materials, such as textiles, lacquers and bamboo manuscripts, to survive while in other regions, such as the Central Plain, they often perished. Secondly, these tombs are also of a traditional form—constructed as a wooden chamber dug into a vertical pit, and can therefore be considered in relation to earlier Zhou practices. Wooden chamber tombs started to flourish from the eleventh century and became more elaborate from the sixth to the first century B.C. From the first century onward, such a burial type still prevailed in the mid-Yangzi region, while they were replaced by horizontal tombs built with bricks or stones in other areas. Many scholars have, therefore, regarded the prevailing timber structure in the area as a cultural continuity from Zhou system. They interpret them in terms of funeral regulations, especially linking them to archaic ranks and ritual norms drawn from transmitted texts. However, many of these texts that archaeologists consult and cite were written long after the burials and sites were constructed and used. These later texts were modified and passed through many editorial hands over the centuries, and there are considerable inconsistencies between different textual sources. Therefore the second reason why I have chosen this area is because it provides data demonstrating that the text-centered assumptions with respect to archaeological material do not contribute to a better understanding of social relationships in early Han society. Thirdly, there is a strong connection with local Chu tombs. The Jianghan Plain was the heartland of the Chu state before the Qin unification. The tomb construction of the Chu state incorporates a striking preference for timber structures. The timber structure tombs grew more widespread and dominant in this area during the early Han dynasty. In using multiple burial chambers and nested coffins, the local Han elites in the mid-Yangzi region seem to have followed the Chu mortuary practice, as well as in burying a large number of lacquers and bamboo manuscripts. The abundant material evidence of Chu tombs in the area sheds light on understanding of changes in funerary beliefs, showing that the tombs were arranged to meet specific needs of tomb owners. Rather than simply seeing a wooden chamber burial as a passive reflection of written regulation, I consider it as a medium for conveying the different thoughts of its owner and their associates. The material evidence manifested the status and identities of the deceased in concrete physical form. The burial assemblages belong to carefully planned contexts, and serve to constitute idealized social relations, rather than necessarily mirroring day to day reality. As such, burial evidence not only exhibited a part of the biography of the dead, but also expressed identity and socio-political claims of the living. This thesis will show that rank is not the only and major determinant, but is accompanied or outperformed by status and identity. The period covered by this thesis is the initial stage of early imperial China. The Western Han Empire (206 B.C.--A.D. 25) is traditionally regarded as a period when a unified social, political, and ideological framework was initially established. In 202 B.C., Liu Bang (256--195 B.C.) from the former Chu state in eastern China, defeated Xiang Yu (232--202 B.C.) and set up the Western Han imperial court, with its capital in Chang'an (modern Xi'an, Shaanxi province). The Han Empire was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (A.D. 9--23), established by Wang Mang (45 B.C.--A.D.23), a Confucian official from the Liu family. This interregnum divides the Han dynasty into two periods: the Western Han (206 B.C.--A.D.9) and the Eastern Han (A.D.25--220).

Apatite group of minerals have been widely used in applications like detoxification of wastes, disposal of nuclear wastes and energy applications in addition to biomedical applications like bone repair, substitution, and coatings for metal implants due to its resemblance to the mineral part of the bone and teeth. X-ray diffraction patterns of bone are similar to mineral apatites such as hydroxyapatite and fluorapatite. Formation and physicochemical properties of apatites can be understood better by computer modeling. For this reason, lattice parameters of possible apatite compounds (A10(BO4)6C2), constituted by A: Na+, Ca2+, Ba2+, Cd2+, Pb2+, Sr2+, Mn2+, Zn2+, Eu2+, Nd3+, La3+, Y3+ / B: As+5, Cr+5, P5+, V5+, Si+4 / and C: F-, Cl-, OH-, Br-1 were predicted from their elemental ionic radii by artificial neural networks techniques. Using artificial neural network techniques, prediction models of lattice parameters a, c and hexagonal lattice volumes were developed. Various learning methods, neuron numbers and activation functions were used to predict lattice parameters of apatites. Best results were obtained with Bayesian regularization method with four neurons in the hidden layer with &lsquo / tansig&rsquo / activation function and one neuron in the output layer with &lsquo / purelin&rsquo / function. Accuracy of prediction was higher than 98% for the training dataset and average errors for outputs were less than 1% for dataset with multiple substitutions and different ionic charges at each site. Non-stoichiometric apatites were predicted with decreased accuracy. Formulas were derived by using ionic radii of apatites for lattice parameters a and c.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:47:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JoseMS.pdf: 1057927 bytes, checksum: 2fb0b885cdff7c8f9e8f9d1d07d2627f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001-07-17 / The intervalar arithmetic well-known as arithmetic of Moore, doesn't possess the same properties of the real numbers, and for this reason, it is confronted with a problem of operative nature, when we want to solve intervalar equations as extension of real equations by the usual equality and of the intervalar arithmetic, for this not to possess the inverse addictive, as well as, the property of the distributivity of the multiplication for the sum doesn t be valid for any triplet of intervals. The lack of those properties disables the use of equacional logic, so much for the resolution of an intervalar equation using the same, as for a representation of a real equation, and still, for the algebraic verification of properties of a computational system, whose data are real numbers represented by intervals. However, with the notion of order of information and of approach on intervals, introduced by Aci?ly[6] in 1991, the idea of an intervalar equation appears to represent a real equation satisfactorily, since the terms of the intervalar equation carry the information about the solution of the real equation. In 1999, Santiago proposed the notion of simple equality and, later on, local equality for intervals [8] and [33]. Based on that idea, this dissertation extends Santiago's local groups for local algebras, following the idea of Σ-algebras according to (Hennessy[31], 1988) and (Santiago[7], 1995). One of the contributions of this dissertation, is the theorem 5.1.3.2 that it guarantees that, when deducing a local Σ-equation E t t in the proposed system SDedLoc(E), the interpretations of t and t' will be locally the same in any local Σ-algebra that satisfies the group of fixed equations local E, whenever t and t have meaning in A. This assures to a kind of safety between the local equacional logic and the local algebras / A aritm?tica intervalar conhecida como aritm?tica de Moore, n?o possui as mesmas propriedades dos n?meros reais, e por este motivo, defrontase com um problema de natureza operat?ria, quando se deseja resolver equa??es intervalares como extens?o de equa??es reais atrav?s da igualdade usual e da aritm?tica intervalar, por esta n?o possuir o inverso aditivo, como tamb?m, a propriedade da distributividade da multiplica??o pela soma n?o ser v?lida para qualquer terno de intervalos. A falta dessas propriedades impossibilita a utiliza??o da l?gica equacional, tanto para a resolu??o de uma equa??o intervalar usando a mesma, como para uma representa??o de uma equa??o real, e ainda, para a verifica??o alg?brica de propriedades de um sistema computacional, cujos dados sejam n?meros reais representados atrav?s de intervalos. Entretanto, com a no??o de ordem de informa??o e de aproxima??o sobre intervalos, introduzida por Aci?ly[6] em 1991, surge a id?ia de uma equa??o intervalar representar satisfatoriamente uma equa??o real, j? que os termos da equa??o intervalar carregam a informa??o sobre a solu??o da equa??o real. Em 1999, Santiago prop?s a no??o de igualdade simples e, posteriormente, igualdade local para intervalos [8] e [33]. Baseado nessa id?ia, esta disserta??o estende os conjuntos locais de Santiago para ?lgebras locais, seguindo a id?ia de Σ-?lgebras contidas em (Hennessy[31], 1988) e (Santiago[7], 1995). Uma das contribui??es desta disserta??o ? o teorema 5.1.3.2 que garante que, ao se deduzir uma Σ-equa??o local ⊢ E t t no sistema SDedLoc(E) proposto, as interpreta??es de t e t ser?o localmente iguais em qualquer Σ-?lgebra local que satisfa?a o conjunto de equa??es locais E fixado, sempre que t e t tiverem significado em A. Isto garante um tipo de seguran?a entre a l?gica equacional local e as ?lgebras locais

This thesis is a study of zandaqa, or heresy, in the early medieval period of al-Andalus. The goal of this work is to uncover subtexts between caliphal power and legal authority through an analysis of the historiography of the Andalusian Muhammad ibn `Abd Allah Ibn Masarra al-Jabali (d. 319/931). This is accomplished by applying the Foucauldian theories of limit and transgression on the scholarly reconstructions of his life. The formation of the madhahib in al-Andalus, the construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy in Islam, and the historical-legal development of zandaqa colours how scholars have approached the subject, and leads to questions concerning the relationship that marginal or subversive intellectual developments had with authoritative bodies. The resulting play of divergent and authoritative discourses that emerge from a Post-Modernist analysis of the Masarrian context have the capacity to illustrate intellectual developments within early Andalusian society and provide an alternate explanatory narrative for historical reconstruction.

This thesis investigates southern China as a part of dynamic and extensive interregional networks from the third to the first millennium BC and explores the changing roles of different southern regions within the interregional relationships. This was an important transitional period for southern China as it was the time when several prominent and farreaching innovations of technologies and material culture were made or adopted in the area. Four key sets of materials – rice, bronze, ceramics and jade – are examined with a World-system perspective to reveal interregional contacts in different directions and of different nature between southern China and a number of neighbouring regions. By stressing on local responses towards different technologies and material culture in different period, an alternative narrative to that stemmed from Chinese historiography is, therefore, suggested. Instead of being a passive and 'backward' periphery in the traditional sense, southern China presents diversification of material culture over time. Many of the mechanisms of transmission and circulation in the south are characterised by 'leaked' technologies and designs, as well as 'selective adoption' and local redevelopment of material culture.

No description available.