bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
DTA measurements in the ternary Ag-Au-Ga system
Authors: Jendrzejczyk-Handzlik D. , Handzlik P.
Published: September 2020

In this work, the ternary Ag-Au-Ga system was studied experimentally by differential thermal analysis (DTA). The measurements were carried out along two chosen cross-sections determined by the ratio of mole fractions XAg/XGa=1:1 and XAu/XGa=1:1 by applying Pegasus 404 apparatus form Netzsch. The experiments were performed at three rates: 1 K min-1, 5 K min-1, and 10 K min-1. Next, the obtained experimental results were used to estimate the temperatures of liquidus by applying extrapolation to a zero rate. Moreover, the temperatures of invariant reactions and other phase transformations were investigated from DTA measurements which were carried out with the rate 1 K min-1. Finally, the experimental results were compared with the isopleths obtained from the prediction and calculation of the phase diagram which were done by using CALPHAD method. The experimental data obtained in this work are in good agreement with the calculation results.
Determination of metallization degree of pre-reduced chromite with image and rietveld analysis
Authors: Leino T. , Taskinen P. , Eric R.H.
Published: September 2020

Metallization degree of pre-reduced chromite was determined using two methods. The chromite samples were reduced in the solid state by methane-hydrogen gas mixtures. First method was image analysis of micrographs obtained by scanning electron microscope where heavier metallic phases appeared as bright white areas which were relatively easy to segment using a thresholding algorithm. The second technique was Rietveld analysis of X-ray powder diffraction pattern which fitted a calculated profile onto a measured X-ray diffraction pattern to gain information about phase quantities. Rietveld refinement and phase composition analysis was performed with PANalytical?s X?Pert HighScore Plus software from the XRPD (X-ray powder diffraction) data. Both techniques were in good agreement. Metallization degrees for the investigated samples ranged from 15 to 65 % depending on the extent of reduction which was a function of time, reduction temperature, and methane content of the gas mixture. These results were promising and indicate that either image analysis or X-ray Rietveld analysis can be used as a relatively fast method to determine the degree of metallization of pre-reduced samples in comparison to the slow and tedious chemical analysis.
A review study on micro fluid chips for enhancing the oil recovery by injecting the chemical floods
Authors: Tahir Muhhamad , Liu Wei , Zhou Hongtao , Memon Asadullah , Ansari Ubedullah , Akbar Imran , Zafar Atif , Shaikh Azizullah , Kashif Muhammad , Urinov Abrorbek
Published: September 2020

Surfactant and polymer flooding are the vital techniques used in petroleum
industry to enhance the oil recovery. Development and advancement in such
techniques has occurred time by time to overcome the challenges of oil and
gas recovery. However, micro fluid chips and its development provide a new
way to understand the real time behavior of fluid flow in porous media. The
essence of this study has been achieved by collecting the information from
literature studies and sorted the useful information to organize the pattern
of micromodels chip revolution. In this study, first precise review is
conducted by the innovations of micromodel chips into timescale from 1952
till date. Second, advancement in micromodel chip technology is included
based on different periods of time where micromodel chips have evolved from
chip design to nano scale visualization of chips. Third, some
recommendations are proposed based on evolution of micromodel chip
technology that it not only requires less time but also minimizing the
massive experimental setup and complications. The overall finding of this
research propose that in current times some microfluidic reforms made
recently has played versatile role in improving injection chemical selection
and similar improvements are expected to be developed in near future.
On strongly regular graphs with m2 = qm3 and m3 = qm2 for q = 7/2, 7/3, 7/4, 7/5, 7/6
Authors: Lepovic Mirko
Published: September 2020

We say that a regular graph G of order n and degree r ? 1 (which is not the
complete graph) is strongly regular if there exist non-negative integers ?
and ? such that |Si ? Sj| = ? for any two adjacent vertices i and j, and
|Si ? Sj| = ? for any two distinct non-adjacent vertices i and j, where Sk
denotes the neighborhood of the vertex k. Let ?1 = r, ?2 and ?3 be the
distinct eigenvalues of a connected strongly regular graph. Let m1 = 1, m2
and m3 denote the multiplicity of r, ?2 and ?3, respectively. We here
describe the parameters n, r, ? and ? for strongly regular graphs with m2 =
qm3 and m3 = qm2 for q = 7/2, 7/3, 7/4, 7/5, 7/6.
Introduction
Authors: Harris Ron
Published: September 2020

This chapter addresses a wide set of research questions on the organization of trade as a whole and then zooms in on research questions that focus on the development of the joint-stock business corporation. It explains why the European business corporation wasn't mimicked by other Eurasian regions for another three hundred years and why institutions that had some corporate-like features did not further evolve to compete successfully with the corporate-based European mercantile enterprises. The chapter closely examines the role played by organizational forms in the transformation of Eurasian trade roughly between 1400 and 1700. It also compares the organizational forms that were used in four major regions: China, India, the Middle East, and Western Europe. All four regions were involved in the same kind of business activity, such as long-distance trade, within the greater Indian Ocean.
Theoretical Frameworks for Analyzing the Development of Institutions in Interaction with Their Environment
Authors: Harris Ron
Published: September 2020

This chapter surveys institutional and organizational theories that are used for studying the statics and dynamics of the development of institutions in interaction with their environment. It outlines the theoretical frameworks on the development of institutions and particularly of trade organizations. The chapter also discusses theories that are useful for static analysis. It examines theories that can be deployed for the dynamic development of institutions within their environment and assert that the theoretical framework for the study of institutional migration is lacking. The chapter talks about the proliferation of academic research activity over the last half a century in areas including transaction-cost economics, theories of the firm, property-rights theories, and contract and agency theory.
The English East India Company
Authors: Harris Ron
Published: September 2020

This chapter focuses on the English East India Company (EIC). In September 1599, a group of London merchants held a number of meetings that turned out to be the founding meetings of the EIC. It describes two parallel tracks—one for obtaining a royal charter that would incorporate the promoters as a corporate entity and permit them to enter trade with new territories, and the other for raising equity capital for voyages to the East Indies from a large number of passive investors. By employing this dual track, the promoters of the EIC coupled the familiar legal structure of the corporation with the less familiar element of joint stock. In contemporary constitutional terms, incorporation was considered an essential component of the monarch's exclusive and voluntary prerogative to create and grant dignities, jurisdictions, liberties, exemptions, and franchises. The chapter covers how EIC was incorporated in its first charter for a period of fifteen years, ending on December 31, 1614.
Background
Authors: Teller Adam
Published: September 2020

This chapter presents a background of the relationship between German Jews and Polish Jews before 1648. Polish Jews were well aware that their ancestors had originated in the German lands and, long before the refugee crisis brought large numbers of them back there, knew a great deal about Jewish society in the empire. Much of what they knew came from meetings with German Jews, often in pursuit of trade, or from the stories of those who had traveled the relatively short distance to the German lands. Though there was much that separated them, both groups understood that they also had a great deal in common in cultural and religious terms. The meeting of Polish and German Jews in the mid-seventeenth century, for all its economic, social, and religious difficulties, was undoubtedly colored by this sense of kinship and belonging. To understand its significance, the chapter looks at the history of the connections between the two groups of Jews and the ways in which those connections were perceived by each side. In the years after 1648, this history of the connection between German and Polish Jews seems to have created a range of expectations on the part not only of the refugees but also of those in the empire who were to take them in.
The Trickle before the Flood
Authors: Teller Adam
Published: September 2020

This chapter focuses on the Jewish refugees in the Holy Roman Empire in 1648–1654. Though the vast majority of the Jews fleeing the Khmelnytsky uprising preferred to remain within the Commonwealth, there is evidence of Polish Jewish refugees in the empire from as early as 1649. There are no relevant data concerning Jewish refugees in Silesia before 1654, but it seems clear that Jewish refugees from Poland, together with displaced local Jews looking for a new home, were active in repopulating the towns in Bohemia and Moravia at that time. Since Jews had long been seen as important sources of income for their lords, there had often been power struggles for control over them between the monarch and the nobility. Thus, there was more going on than anti-Jewish legislation. In his orders of 1650, the king of Bohemia may have been continuing his efforts to put a brake on the nobility by depriving it of one of its sources of income: Jews. The chapter then considers the relationship between the Jewish refugee society and the local Jewish society. It also shows the limits of mercantilism, looking at the Polish Jews in Brandenburg.
Introduction
Authors: Teller Adam
Published: September 2020

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the refugee crisis that occurred in the mid-seventeenth century, when a huge wave of Jewish refugees and forced migrants from eastern Europe spread across the Jewish communities of Europe and Asia. Destitute, often traumatized by their experiences, and lacking any means of support, these refugees posed a huge social, economic, and ethical challenge to the Jewish world of their day. Communities across that world, touched by the crisis, answered this challenge in unprecedented ways and, both individually and jointly, began to organize relief for the Polish–Lithuanian Jews wherever they now found themselves. This book examines this refugee crisis in detail. At its heart are three major questions. The first asks how Jewish society reacted to the persecution and violence suffered by the Jews of Poland–Lithuania. The second question asks about the character of the relationship between the various Jewish communities that cooperated to help the refugees. The third question deals with how the nature of the refugee crisis in the seventeenth century may have something to contribute to the ways in which people understand the history of refugee issues in general.
Improving Industry
Authors: Delton Jennifer A.
Published: September 2020

This chapter considers how a group of six hundred manufacturers met in Cincinnati in January 1895 to address the challenges of their day, including deep depression, falling prices, and cutthroat competition. Manufacturers saw overproduction as the primary cause of their woes and had two responses to it. First, they turned to the promise of foreign markets, both to offload surpluses and find new markets. And second, they tried to find ways to subvert the debilitating effects of competition through cooperation and planning, first in the form of unworkable “pools” and “gentlemen's agreements” and eventually, more legitimately, in the form of trade associations. These manufacturers were creating an organization that would pursue both strategies, thereby facilitating the modernization of American industry and government. The result was the “corporate reconstruction of capitalism”: a new form of capitalism based on cooperation, rationality, and long-term planning superseded a nineteenth-century proprietary capitalism based on competition, “rugged individualism,” and decentralized government. Trade associations like the National Association of Manufacturers were key to this transition.
Nadir: The Reagan Era
Authors: Delton Jennifer A.
Published: September 2020

This chapter examines the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) during the 1980s. While Ronald Reagan's attacks on unions were ideologically satisfying, by this time NAM's principal battle was no longer against labor, which had lost its bargaining power. Indeed, the NAM of the 1980s had much in common with its historical enemy as both sought to shore up “old” industries against new import-dependent retailers (like Wal-Mart) and non-unionized high-tech industries. NAM and labor still skirmished, of course. But it is worth considering their common plight in the Reagan Era. Both had been losing both members and politicel clout. Both were part of the old “smokestack” industrial economy. And both were slowly being abandoned by the parties that had once fought their battles in Washington. Just as a new breed of Democrats were ignoring the demands of a shrinking union constituency, so too were Reagan Republicans less than thrilled about saving manufacturing. Once at the forefront of shaping industrial capitalism, NAM and its union foes were now struggling to survive in a post-industrial economy.
Back on Track?
Authors: Delton Jennifer A.
Published: September 2020

This chapter considers the National Association of Manufacturers' (NAM) revival in the 1990s. Indeed, NAM celebrated its one-hundredth anniversary in 1995 amid vastly improved conditions. Blasting premature claims about manufacturing's death, NAM president Jerry Jasinowski declared that American industry was back on track. Manufacturing had transformed itself to meet the global future. Granted, it did so through downsizing, automating, and relocating production abroad. But, Jasinowski insisted, it was still a generator of jobs—better jobs, smarter jobs, and jobs in which workers' input and empowerment were crucial to success. Like past NAM leaders, Jasinowski placed enormous importance on “getting out the story,” but the story was no longer about “free enterprise.” It was about the manufacturing sector's contribution to economic growth and global competitiveness.
Empires of Vice
Authors: Kim Diana S.
Published: September 2020

During the late nineteenth century, opium was integral to European colonial rule in Southeast Asia. The taxation of opium was a major source of revenue for British and French colonizers, who also derived moral authority from imposing a tax on a peculiar vice of their non-European subjects. Yet between the 1890s and the 1940s, colonial states began to ban opium, upsetting the very foundations of overseas rule—how did this happen? This book traces the history of this dramatic reversal, revealing the colonial legacies that set the stage for the region's drug problems today. The book challenges the conventional wisdom about opium prohibition—that it came about because doctors awoke to the dangers of drug addiction or that it was a response to moral crusaders—uncovering a more complex story deep within the colonial bureaucracy. The book shows how prohibition was made possible by the pivotal contributions of seemingly weak bureaucratic officials. Comparing British and French experiences across today's Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam, the book examines how the everyday work of local administrators delegitimized the taxing of opium, which in turn made major anti-opium reforms possible. The book reveals the inner life of colonial bureaucracy, illuminating how European rulers reconfigured their opium-entangled foundations of governance and shaped Southeast Asia's political economy of illicit drugs and the punitive state.
A Shared Turn: Opium and the Rise of Prohibition
Authors: Kim Diana S.
Published: September 2020

This chapter presents the guiding concepts, theoretical claims, and analytical frameworks that guide the book. It shows how colonial states came to ban opium consumption, a once permissible vice that they had taxed and justified collecting revenue from. The chapter reveals that the change was the product of longstanding tensions within the colonial bureaucracies. The everyday work of managing opium markets involved makeshift solutions to small problems that accumulated over time and escalated into large perceived challenges to the legitimacy of colonial governance. Local administrators played a key role in this process by constructing social, fiscal, and financial problems relating to opium, through their everyday work. The chapter lays out this argument in detail, while clarifying definitions of colonial vice, prohibition, and the state that the book uses throughout.
Rediscovering the Islamic Classics
Authors: El Shamsy Ahmed
Published: September 2020

Islamic book culture dates back to late antiquity, when Muslim scholars began to write down their doctrines on parchment, papyrus, and paper and then to compose increasingly elaborate analyses of, and commentaries on, these ideas. Movable type was adopted in the Middle East only in the early nineteenth century, and it wasn't until the second half of the century that the first works of classical Islamic religious scholarship were printed there. But from that moment on, as this book reveals, the technology of print transformed Islamic scholarship and Arabic literature. The book tells the story of how a small group of editors and intellectuals brought forgotten works of Islamic literature into print and defined what became the classical canon of Islamic thought. Through the lens of the literary culture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab cities—especially Cairo, a hot spot of the nascent publishing business—the book explores the contributions of these individuals, who included some of the most important thinkers of the time. Through their efforts to find and publish classical literature, the book shows, many nearly lost works were recovered, disseminated, and harnessed for agendas of linguistic, ethical, and religious reform. The book is an examination of the central role printing and its advocates played in the intellectual history of the modern Arab world.
The Rise of the Editor
Authors: El Shamsy Ahmed
Published: September 2020

This chapter examines the role of the editor in Arabo-Islamic book culture. The challenges of publishing a classical work in the early twentieth century included locating and procuring a manuscript of the work, producing a sufficiently accurate version of the text to serve as the basis of the published book, and securing the funds to cover the costs of printing. These challenges are vividly illustrated in the career of Aḥmad Zakī Pasha (1867–1934), who, like Aḥmad Taymūr and Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī, straddled the worlds of bureaucracy and scholarship. Zakī's efforts to raise the standards of Arabic scholarly publication inaugurated a host of enduring institutional and methodological developments. Most importantly, he established the model for a new, enormously significant cultural agent: the editor, muḥaqqiq.
The Backlash against Postclassicism
Authors: El Shamsy Ahmed
Published: September 2020

This chapter introduces some of the key figures in the emerging networks of reformist ʿulamāʾ (the Muslim scholarly class). In particular, the chapter discusses Maḥmūd Shukrī al-Ālūsī in Baghdad and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī in Damascus. It describes their efforts and motivations in discovering, circulating, and printing classical books. The chapter focuses on the search for and publication of writings specifically on religious thought and practice by these reformists. The reformist ʿulamāʾ were a small but active and intellectually high-powered group who diverged from the scholarly mainstream of their day by attacking esoteric Sufi beliefs and practices as superstitious, irrational, and contrary to Islamic ideals and by criticizing the Islamic legal status quo, which they saw as a fossilized doctrine unresponsive to the actual challenges Muslims were facing.
Hiring in the New Economy
Authors: Pedulla David S.
Published: September 2020

This chapter centers the challenges faced by workers with nonstandard, mismatched, and precarious employment experiences within the hiring process. It argues that evaluating job applicants does not happen in a vacuum. The broader social and economic context matters. As such, the chapter turns to the ways that work and employment have changed and developed in the United States. To examine how hiring works in the new economy and to understand the consequences of nonstandard, mismatched, and precarious work for hiring decisions, the chapter provides details on two complementary types of data: field-experimental data on actual hiring decisions and in-depth interviews with hiring professionals. While the field-experimental data provide a direct lens into employers' behaviors—how they actually treat workers with different types of employment experiences—the interviews provide fine-grained insights into how employers think and talk about different types of workers and employment histories.
Conclusion
Authors: Pedulla David S.
Published: September 2020

This concluding chapter discusses the broader implications of the book's findings for theoretical and empirical scholarship on work and employment, social inequality in the workplace, evaluation processes, and the intersection of social categories. Here, the processes of inclusion and exclusion in the labor market are hardly straightforward. While hiring professionals extract meanings from the nonstandard, mismatched, and precarious work histories on job applicants' resumes, they do so in a complex way. The chapter also articulates key points of interest for policy makers interested in improving the outcomes of working individuals. It concludes by discussing pathways forward for increasing our knowledge about how the nature of work and employment affect the opportunity structure for workers in the new economy.
A Renaissance Keyword
Authors: Mac Carthy Ita
Published: September 2020

This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the term became a mark of distinction in the questione della lingua and in the new language of literature. It was reenergised by the recovery of ancient texts that extolled its virtues as an instrument of persuasion in the language and visual arts. And it was the central bone of contention in Reformation and Counter-Reformation discussions about the nature of God's intervention in human salvation. Within each of these contexts, grace became a defining quality that Italians made their own. Grace provides a unique perspective on sixteenth-century Italy, for it rose to prominence in the context of so-called High Renaissance art, yet it also played a pivotal role in its polemical progress towards Mannerism. It was not, therefore, a banner that united artists in their advance towards the full maturity of their discipline, but a locus of encounter and conflict between different ways of conceiving of the visual arts.
Converting Tribute
Authors: Bian He
Published: September 2020

This chapter tells a parallel story of the State’s retreat from directly procuring materia medica from localities as tribute, resorting instead to collecting a monetized surtax. Building on rich literature which largely focused on social relations and productivity measured by grain, cloth, and labor, the chapter suggests that it may shed new light on a familiar aspect of Ming history by examining the monetization of tribute medicine. It shows that Ming actors almost always thought through and documented fiscal reform in very concrete terms. Gazetteers of Ming times, such as that of Longqing, were replete with discussions about objects of value: where they were found, how much they were worth, and the specific manners of their deployment in public affairs. Instead of an abstract preference for money, the debates were driven by inherently ethical concerns—and political negotiations—over the distribution of material wealth in official versus nonofficial domains. The ways in which local administrators came to terms with material resources show more complexity than the straightforward account of fiscal reform offered in dynastic histories.
Virtuosity and Orthodoxy
Authors: Bian He
Published: September 2020

This chapter picks up the transformation of bencao in post-Conquest Jiangnan. It highlights the vocal critics of amateur authors and considers the ways in which the Qing state’s cultural policy over the eighteenth century shaped the now-marginalized field. The chapter explains that with the Qing reforms in government and culture came a parallel, albeit less pronounced, reconfiguration of natural studies within Confucian learning. The centrality of pharmacy and the nature of drugs in the pre-Conquest years also came under intense questioning in postwar decades. In a move that was hardly premeditated, the Qing rulers found themselves in the company of new allies from the elite strata of literati and physicians who were championing a new approach to the field of bencao.
A New Type of Standardized Statistical Work
Authors: Ghosh Arunabh
Published: September 2020

This chapter explores early statistical work in the People's Republic of China's (PRC) Northeast, arguing that this work and the practical experience so gained was the foundation upon which the rest of the country's statistical apparatus was based. Unpacking the constituent elements of Wang Sihua's “new type of standardized statistical work” permits an articulation of the ways in which this new type of statistics was regarded as more standardized, correct, and scientific than what preceded it in the years before 1949. The chapter shows that the 1950s were shot through with the influence, rarely pedagogical or technical in nature but rather all-pervasive and methodological, of what by 1959 would come to be termed the Maoist model of ascertaining fact. This Maoist model, with its emphases on direct experience over technical knowledge and on ideological fervor as a source of expertise, rendered the earlier binary and the clean solutions it offered much more conflicted. As a result, statisticians and statistical workers throughout the 1950s found themselves not only transitioning from a “nonsocialist” to a “socialist” system of data collection and analysis but also operating in a milieu that particularly valued personal, individual, practical experience.
A “Great Leap” in Statistics
Authors: Ghosh Arunabh
Published: September 2020

This chapter discusses an “on-the-spot meeting” in the northern city of Baoding in the summer of 1958, which launched statistics in China down an altogether different path. During the ensuing months, the tussle between socialist statistics and its probabilistic alternatives was largely overwhelmed by Maoist mass science. In statistics this meant a rebadging and valorization of typical sampling, which was now explained as Mao Zedong's synthesis of Marxist–Leninist theory with the practice of revolution in China. Mao's 1927 Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan became the foundational text for this “revolutionary” method. It is this notion of mass science, with its antiexpert and antiprofessional credos, that has come to dominate our understanding of much of the Mao era.
The Personified Wisdom in the Wisdom Literature
Authors: Schäfer Peter
Published: September 2020

This chapter analyzes the wisdom tradition in the biblical Book of Proverbs, which goes back around the third century BCE. Wisdom emerged prior to the creation of the world, before the universe had taken on its final form. The chapter emphasizes that Wisdom is to be understood as a person and even enthroned on a cloud throne in heaven. But in contrast to Proverbs, Wisdom comes forth from the mouth of God and is obviously God's word, which is nevertheless interpreted as a person, since she lives in heaven, sits on a throne, compasses the heavenly and earthly vaults, and rules over the land, seas, and all people. The chapter also talks about Wisdom or the holy spirit as gifts from God to the righteous person.
The Son of God and Son of the Most High in the Daniel Apocryphon from Qumran
Authors: Schäfer Peter
Published: September 2020

This chapter covers another text from Qumran, the so-called Daniel Apocryphon. It refers directly to the Son of Man in the biblical Book of Daniel and has drawn attention from numerous scholars. The chapter describes Daniel Apocryphon as a fragment of an Aramaic scroll dating from the late Herodian period, which is the last third of the first century BCE. Its particular significance comes from its unique, straightforward way of mentioning a “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High.” The chapter also points out the relationship between the most high God El and Elohim-Melchizedek. Although Psalm 82:1 states that Elohim-Melchizedek holds judgment in the midst of the other gods, the judgment at the end of days is actually reserved for the Most High God El, as becomes clear from Psalm 7:8–9.
The Logos according to Philo of Alexandria
Authors: Schäfer Peter
Published: September 2020

This chapter highlights the Alexandrian philosopher Philo who ventures the world of Platonic, or more precisely Middle Platonic, philosophy in Jewish garb. It talks about how Philo's God is absolutely transcendent. To refer to him, Philo uses the Platonic term to on, “that which exists,” or ho agenētos, “the Uncreated One.” The chapter emphasizes that everyone knows that God exists, but they will never know what he is or his essence. Nevertheless, emanating from this God are “forces” or “powers”, facets of the unknowable and unattainable God, which through many stages embody the transcendent to on and enable its transition down to our visible world. It also focuses on Logos, who is responsible for the emergence of the purely intelligible world of ideas and Wisdom for the world perceived by senses.
Transition
Authors: Schäfer Peter
Published: September 2020

THIS ESSENTIALLY OUTLINES the binitarian ideas that developed in pre-Christian Judaism and can be viewed as the pool of ideas from which New Testament Christianity drew. Summarizing the range of the texts, it becomes apparent how many of them view the enigmatic godlike or semi-godlike figure alongside God to be an angel. This starts with the angel Michael in Daniel 7, the source of almost all further developments, and climaxes in the Qumran texts. This is hardly surprising, because the angels in Qumran are not by chance referred to as ...
The Son of Man–Messiah David
Authors: Schäfer Peter
Published: September 2020

This chapter talks about how Palestinian Judaism is different from the situation in the Babylonian Talmud or the Bavli, the main document of Judaism from the region between the Euphrates and Tigris that belonged to the Sasanian Empire and was still referred to by Jews as Babylonia. It discusses the Bavli, in which it provides a central and well-known interpretation of Daniel 7:9 that is put into the mouth of no one less than Rabbi Aqiva. The interpretation appears in two versions with different contextualizations, but the essence of both is identical. The chapter provides two examples of ostensibly contradictory bible verses that are reconciled in a Bavli-typical argumentation. Similar to the Mekhilta, the first example refers to two different manifestations of God. The second example refers to an apparent contradiction in Daniel 7:9 where God is described as an old man with white hair.
Railroads, Germs, and Gold
Authors: Urbansky Sören
Published: September 2020

This chapter covers the introduction of more assertive policies to govern the international border at the turn of the twentieth century that were replacing long-pursued laissez-faire practices. It examines the framing of local disputes over territorial boundaries in national terms as well as the reorganization of customs and sanitary borders as part of a general evolution toward a territorial boundary. In particular, the chapter takes a look at how the introduction of railroads not only reorganized space but also cross-border relations and national development. After the construction of the Great Siberian Railroad had begun in 1891, Russia made use of railroad diplomacy to wield imperial influence in China's Northeast—at a time when a number of powers began to compete fiercely over influence in Northeast Asia. Russia's vehicle in this struggle for supremacy, the Chinese Eastern Railroad, was not simply a joint Sino-Russian railroad company that happened to operate on Chinese soil, but a colonial railroad, which in its Russian (and later Soviet) comanagement represented a typical expression of informal imperialism.
Revolutions without Borders
Authors: Urbansky Sören
Published: September 2020

This chapter studies the revolutionary political struggles and indigenous secessionist movements following the collapse of imperial rule in China and Russia in 1911 and 1917, respectively. It shows that China's 1911 revolution opened an interregnum decade. When the Qing dynasty was overthrown, autochthonous people, ever dissatisfied with Chinese and Russian incursions into their native lands, claimed independence from Beijing. Their aspirations to sovereignty did not last long, however. Meanwhile, the Russian Revolution and the Civil War triggered changes in the structure of authority on the Russian side as well. At first, however, these produced a vacuum of power. As a result anarchy prevailed on the China–Russia frontier.
The Soviet State at the Border
Authors: Urbansky Sören
Published: September 2020

This chapter considers further breakdowns in Sino-Soviet relations. It introduces collectivization and other radical early Soviet programs of domestication that prohibited rather than regulated cross-border contacts and shows how they altered the political, ethnic, economic, and social landscapes in the upper Argun basin. After 1917, the new leadership in Moscow professed commitment to anti-imperialism, declaring equality with China. When the Soviet regime started consolidating its power along its borders with China, disregarding earlier promises to renounce tsarist privileges in that nation, it continued down the avenue that the tsarist government had pursued decades earlier. For its part, ignoring Bolshevik diplomatic maneuvers, the Chinese sought to exploit the roiling disorder of revolutionary Russia.
An Open Steppe under Lock and Key
Authors: Urbansky Sören
Published: September 2020

This chapter explores impacts of the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 and the 1931 Japanese occupation of Manchuria that affected the Argun borderland, compelling the regimes to considerably increase their peripheral power. Strictly speaking, the fourteen subsequent years of Japanese rule in Manchuria might be regarded as an interlude in the borderlands' development since, in a political sense, the Soviet Union did not encounter China at its borders. This rupture notwithstanding, that decade and a half might also be regarded as extending or perhaps even accelerating the process of border formation and the alteration of the borderland because many of the changes inscribed by the Japanese remained after their defeat in 1945. The history of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo was not a repetition of seemingly similar developments of the imperial expansion of Russia or the West but something that can be called “new imperialism.” Therefore, the chapter shifts the perspective away from borderlanders' lives to policies imposed by the metropoles.
Watermelons and Abandoned Watchtowers
Authors: Urbansky Sören
Published: September 2020

This chapter examines the development of Sino-Soviet relations and their impact on the Argun borderland from the post-Mao and post-Brezhnev years to the early 1990s. It explores how the boundary between the two communist states gradually became permeable again through center-driven political and economic reconciliation between the two countries and how, with slackening control at the border and the simultaneous political and economic power breakdown of the Soviet Union, informal cross-border contacts grew as well. While the border was still heavily guarded, the borderland soon slipped out of the control of the metropole, at least on the Soviet side of the barbed-wire fence. Indeed, the chapter argues that local initiatives accelerated the process of rapprochement between the two sides. Officially approved contact channels were quickly replaced by zones created by the local border people.
The Craft of College Teaching
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

The college classroom is a place where students have the opportunity to be transformed and inspired through learning—but teachers need to understand how students actually learn. This book provides an accessible, hands-on guide to the craft of college teaching, giving instructors the practical tools they need to help students achieve not only academic success but also meaningful learning to last a lifetime. The book explains what to teach—emphasizing concepts and their relationships, not just isolated facts—as well as how to teach using active learning strategies that engage students through problems, case studies and scenarios, and practice reinforced by constructive feedback. The book tells how to motivate students, run productive discussions, create engaging lectures, use technology effectively, and much more. Interludes between chapters illustrate common challenges, including what to do on the first and last days of class and how to deal with student embarrassment, manage group work, and mentor students effectively. There are also plenty of questions and activities at the end of each chapter. This book is an essential resource for new instructors and seasoned pros alike.
Course, Syllabus, and Lesson Design
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter discusses course design. Teachers are required to design courses, syllabi, and lessons; activities, assignments, and assessments. This also includes a variety of teaching materials, from handouts to websites. Ultimately teachers are responsible for designing the kinds of experiences students will have in the classrooms. The chapter thus considers the primary pedagogical design responsibilities: courses, syllabi, units, and lessons; activities, assignments, experiences, and assessments. These design elements encapsulate the teacher's purpose in the classroom and reflects their pedagogical goals and how they might best be achieved. The key is to align them coherently with one another and with course learning goals.
Discussion-Based Teaching
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter focuses on discussion-based teaching. It is about discussion-based learning as much as discussion-based teaching. Because discussion and lecture are the two most common forms of college classroom instruction, it is essential to consider the merits, value, and benefits of each when planning and delivering instruction for students. The chapter explains why discussion is used in teaching and how it can be used to promote student learning. It explores the types of challenges teachers confront in using discussion-based teaching, and how to address those challenges. The chapter also considers ways to begin discussions in class and then sustain and conclude them, and it provides general guidelines for class participation in both small and large classes.
Lecturing and PowerPoint
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter deals with creating spaces for engagement. It considers the issue of coverage in designing courses and lectures, and for setting coverage requirements at the curricular level, and how to balance that with what students do and experience in class to learn what is being covered. To solve the age-old problem of disengagement, the chapter argues that the heart of this problem is also the problem of how teachers help them learn during the presentation of content, material, or subject matter. In short: “Think of your audience. Think of your students.” Here, the teacher must design and deliver lectures with their subjective experience of the classroom in mind. These considerations will lead to informed choices about when and how to lecture, and how to lecture in ways that can engage students and enhance their learning rather than put them to sleep. The chapter explores some approaches to maximizing the benefits of lecturing for students, while minimizing the more common causes of disengagement.
Experiential Learning
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter takes a look at experiential learning. The central idea of “experiential learning,” as the term suggests, is the process of learning through experience. The “learning” part requires an additional element: reflection. Thus, a fuller concept of experiential learning includes reflection about the learning experiences in which students participate. The teacher's responsibility is to create worthwhile educational experiences so that students will have something of value on which to reflect. Like active learning, experiential learning involves many different forms of student engagement. Experiential learning is learning by doing. In this kind of hands-on learning, students assume responsibility for their learning, taking control of both the learning experience and their reflection on it.
Writing and Learning
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter is concerned with how writing can be used to enhance, extend, and deepen students' learning. Students normally think of writing as difficult and challenging—as a kind of work. And to some extent, it is. Even so, writing also has its pleasures, including the pleasure of discovery through the act of writing. One of writing's greatest pleasures is using one's minds actively and imaginatively—considering ideas, exploring them, and finding ways to express them effectively. Hence, the chapter shows that the teacher's goal is to help students experience writing as an opportunity to grow intellectually and imaginatively, to develop their thinking, and to enrich their learning. This can be done by designing assignments that engage them in meaningful, productive intellectual work. These assignments can often be linked with reading, another critical faculty that can help students develop.
Critical Thinking
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton , DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter explores critical thinking. Critical thinking is a type of thinking in which one reflects, considers, and analyzes when making decisions and solving problems. Based on careful reasoning, critical thinking is purposeful thinking guided by logic and supported by evidence. Critical thinking involves defining problems, identifying arguments, evaluating data, raising questions, and using information to make sound judgments. Someone engaged in critical thinking is typically making perceptive observations, establishing careful connections, asking probing questions, and making meaningful distinctions. Critical thinking involves analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating evidence; applying knowledge; and thinking both independently and interdependently. Critical thinking competencies include self-direction—the self-awareness and self-regulation to manage our thinking and our motivation for thinking—and the ability to ask productive questions; in fact, asking the essential significant questions is as important as answering them.
Assessment and Grading
Authors: DiYanni Robert , Borst Anton
Published: September 2020

This chapter considers assessment and grading. It argues that assessment is not grading, and grading is not assessment—though the two are often conflated and sometimes confused. Instead of seeing these two forms of evaluation as the same, this chapter argues for the need to distinguish between them, related though they may be. When students' work is being graded, teachers evaluate their performance against a standard that can be clarified and explained with a rubric, or evaluative tool. When a student's work is being assessed, teachers evaluate its level of proficiency as a work in progress. Grades are final in a way that assessments are not.
An Internet for the People
Authors: Lingel Jessa
Published: September 2020

Begun by Craig Newmark as an e-mail to some friends about cool events happening around San Francisco, craigslist is now the leading classifieds service on the planet. It is also a throwback to the early Internet. The website has barely seen an upgrade since it launched in 1996. There are no banner ads. The company doesn't profit off your data. This book explores how people use craigslist to buy and sell, find work, and find love—and reveals why craigslist is becoming a lonely outpost in an increasingly corporatized web. The book looks at the site's history and values, showing how it has mostly stayed the same while the web around it has become more commercial and far less open. It examines craigslist's legal history, describing the company's courtroom battles over issues of freedom of expression and data privacy, and explains the importance of locality in the social relationships fostered by the site. More than an online garage sale, job board, or dating site, craigslist holds vital lessons for the rest of the web. It is a website that values user privacy over profits, ease of use over slick design, and an ethos of the early web that might just hold the key to a more open, transparent, and democratic Internet.
Becoming Craig’s List
Authors: Lingel Jessa
Published: September 2020

This chapter describes craigslist's transformation from an e-mail list to a massively popular online marketplace. It starts with the role of the San Francisco Bay Area in the development of craigslist's purpose and ideology. During this early phase of the tech industry, democratic values of openness and access held sway, values that have shaped craigslist's look and feel ever since. Using interviews and textual analysis of craigslist's public-facing blog, the chapter describes the site's basic features and rules, as well as the company's values and policies. The goal here is to explain how the San Francisco tech scene shaped craigslist's ideas about online publics and politics.
Conclusion
Authors: Lingel Jessa
Published: September 2020

This concluding chapter shows how paying attention to the gaps between craigslist and its peers can help toward a more democratic, less gentrified Internet. To build a case for keeping the Internet weird and democratic, the chapter focuses on two distinctive features of craigslist's platform politics: making users anonymous and a transparent approach to monetizing user activity. While craigslist has always welcomed people on the margins, as a consequence the platform has become increasingly marginalized, both in its reputation for problems and for being behind the times compared with the mainstream web. Here, gentrifying the Internet is not just about how things look, it is also about social norms and business models. By keeping users anonymous and its monetization direct, craigslist issues a challenge to core assumptions about ways of being online and how tech companies make money.