27 research outputs found

    GujiBERT and GujiGPT: Construction of Intelligent Information Processing Foundation Language Models for Ancient Texts

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    In the context of the rapid development of large language models, we have meticulously trained and introduced the GujiBERT and GujiGPT language models, which are foundational models specifically designed for intelligent information processing of ancient texts. These models have been trained on an extensive dataset that encompasses both simplified and traditional Chinese characters, allowing them to effectively handle various natural language processing tasks related to ancient books, including but not limited to automatic sentence segmentation, punctuation, word segmentation, part-of-speech tagging, entity recognition, and automatic translation. Notably, these models have exhibited exceptional performance across a range of validation tasks using publicly available datasets. Our research findings highlight the efficacy of employing self-supervised methods to further train the models using classical text corpora, thus enhancing their capability to tackle downstream tasks. Moreover, it is worth emphasizing that the choice of font, the scale of the corpus, and the initial model selection all exert significant influence over the ultimate experimental outcomes. To cater to the diverse text processing preferences of researchers in digital humanities and linguistics, we have developed three distinct categories comprising a total of nine model variations. We believe that by sharing these foundational language models specialized in the domain of ancient texts, we can facilitate the intelligent processing and scholarly exploration of ancient literary works and, consequently, contribute to the global dissemination of China's rich and esteemed traditional culture in this new era.Comment: 22pages,0 figur

    Exploring Written Artefacts

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    This collection, presented to Michael Friedrich in honour of his academic career at of the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, traces key concepts that scholars associated with the Centre have developed and refined for the systematic study of manuscript cultures. At the same time, the contributions showcase the possibilities of expanding the traditional subject of ‘manuscripts’ to the larger perspective of ‘written artefacts’

    Preparing One’s Act: Performance Supports And The Question Of Human Nature In Early China

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    Since the 20th century, Chinese institutions have been recovering a growing number of ancient objects, among which figure manuscripts produced during the Warring States (453–221 BCE) era. These are the protagonists of this dissertation. Chapter 1 articulates the overarching goal of my study: the importance of rigorous philological and intellectual engagement to promote the significance of these manuscripts in and beyond the study of early Chinese history. In Chapter 2, I analyze manuscripts produced around 300 BCE as what I call “performance supports,” rather than self-contained philosophical and historical essays. My notion of performance supports incorporates observations about the composite nature of early Chinese manuscripts, but better accounts for other textual features, such as errors, abrupt endings, list-like passages, etc. Chapter 3 discusses the implications of my thesis. I show how performance supports were used in practices of knowledge management that relied on, but went beyond, the written medium. I explore oratory, recitation, literary compositions, and writings used to organize and retrieve knowledge. Second, I compare performance supports to other Warring States texts, so as to highlight the peculiarities of both groups and confirm that the concept of performance support is not an ad-hoc solution. Chapter 4 focuses on the performance support *Natural Dispositions Come from Endowment 性自命出, and reconstructs ways in which this manuscript functioned as the basis for central philosophical debates on human nature during the Warring States period. The dissertation is completed by a new philological study of *Natural Dispositions

    Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies

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    In the second volume a wide range of economic actors – from kings and armies to cities and producers – are discussed within different imperial settings as well as the tools which enabled and constrained economic outcomes. A central focus are nodes of consumption that are visible in the archaeological and textual records of royal capitals, cities, religious centers, and armies that were stationed in imperial frontier zones

    Buddhism and the Dynamics of Transculturality: New Approaches

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    For over 2500 years, Buddhism was implicated in processes of cultural interaction that in turn shaped Buddhist doctrines, practices and institutions. The contributions to this volume present detailed case studies on Buddhism's transcultural dynamics, ranging across different time periods, regions and disciplines, and addressing methodological challenges and theoretical problems

    The Time-Suturing Technologies of Northern Song Musicology

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    University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.June 2019. Major: Music. Advisor: Gabriela Currie. 1 computer file (PDF); xiii, 371 pages.Scholars of ritual music in the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) keenly sensed a temporal distance from the ancient sages that manifested as a divergence from canonical norms. To maintain a distinctive intellectual heritage and counterbalance outward-facing political and economic conditions, they located cultural identity in the idealized past. Given the overwhelming discursive importance of music, ministers and rulers alike sought to restore powerful practices and thereby transcend the boundedness of the dynastic cycle. Since their principal sources about antiquity, the textual classics, provided limited practical information about music, scholars had to supplement them with technologies grounded in linguistics, mathematics, and visualizations, which I explore in this dissertation. First, I observe how ritual music prescriptions were constituted in allusive or even paronomastic scholarly language. The Confucian principle of the rectification of names, stressing an enduring concord between words and reality, gave scholars rhetorical tools with which to critique at once society and music practices. Three case studies, treating the symbolism of the pentatonic scale, the discourse of harmony in the ritual bell-knife, and the implications of pitch metaphors, illustrate how reformers interrelated sociological commonplaces and concrete reform measures. Second, contrasting parallel mathematized and unmathematized music discourses, I trace the evolving relationship between mathematical and classical learning, showing how by Northern Song times mathematics could signify invariance. This discursive adoption afforded music reformers a precision that dovetailed elegantly with the royal prerogative of standardizing metrological systems. A case study explores the resilience of the numerical measurement of the standard pitch pipe across time and the overlapping metonymy that made it resistant to metrical reorganization. Finally, I contextualize the turn toward visual epistemology in the Northern Song in terms of classical precedent, the explosion of woodblock printing, and nascent archaeology. I compare two kinds of musical images, cosmological diagrams and prescriptive illustrations of ancient instruments. Though quite distinct in assumptions, intellectual pedigree, and style, both image types demonstrate a technology surpassing the power of text to organize, preserve, and disseminate orthodox musical practice. These technologies allowed the scholars to suture time, bringing them into more direct contact with their own exalted history

    Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Aesthetics, Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media

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    The Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade and the Society for Aesthetics of Architecture and Visual Arts of Serbia (DEAVUS) are proud to be able to organize the 21st ICA Congress on “Possible Worlds of Contemporary Aesthetics: Aesthetics Between History, Geography and Media”. We are proud to announce that we received over 500 submissions from 56 countries, which makes this Congress the greatest gathering of aestheticians in this region in the last 40 years. The ICA 2019 Belgrade aims to map out contemporary aesthetics practices in a vivid dialogue of aestheticians, philosophers, art theorists, architecture theorists, culture theorists, media theorists, artists, media entrepreneurs, architects, cultural activists and researchers in the fields of humanities and social sciences. More precisely, the goal is to map the possible worlds of contemporary aesthetics in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. The idea is to show, interpret and map the unity and diverseness in aesthetic thought, expression, research, and philosophies on our shared planet. Our goal is to promote a dialogue concerning aesthetics in those parts of the world that have not been involved with the work of the International Association for Aesthetics to this day. Global dialogue, understanding and cooperation are what we aim to achieve. That said, the 21st ICA is the first Congress to highlight the aesthetic issues of marginalised regions that have not been fully involved in the work of the IAA. This will be accomplished, among others, via thematic round tables discussing contemporary aesthetics in East Africa and South America. Today, aesthetics is recognized as an important philosophical, theoretical and even scientific discipline that aims at interpreting the complexity of phenomena in our contemporary world. People rather talk about possible worlds or possible aesthetic regimes rather than a unique and consistent philosophical, scientific or theoretical discipline

    The University of Iowa 2017-18 General Catalog

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    Rethinking Binarism in Translation Studies A Case Study of Translating the Chinese Nobel Laureates of Literature

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    The theorisation of translation originated in a binary opposition embodied by the debate of word-for-word vs. sense-for-sense translation methods. It is true that by now, theories in Translation Studies (TS) have become significantly more elaborate and sophisticated. However, it cannot be denied that some of its most dominant and pertinent concepts continue to get portrayed in binary concepts, such as translation vs. original, translatability vs. untranslatability and translation vs. interpreting, among many others. This study believes that TS, not different from most intellectual inquiries of the human mind, has been built upon binarism. The current research project aims to identify the traces of this epistemological tradition in the different stages of the discipline’s development, encompassing various theoretical models in the field, while reflecting upon the evolution of TS that marks its departure from such a tradition. It approaches the issue by examining three prevailing dichotomies in the field, namely source vs. target, prescriptive vs. descriptive and translation vs. non-translation. To propose an alternative to the existing binary perspective, this study borrows from the sociological models of Parsons and Giddens to portray translation as a social action. The binary concepts are then evaluated against empirical evidence obtained through a case study of two translators of Chinese Nobel Laureates, Howard Goldblatt and Mabel Lee. Both paratexts and metatexts are consulted to demonstrate that the scenario is much more complex than what is suggested by these dichotomies. It should be clarified that this study does not advocate that scholars discard these terms altogether. Instead, it acknowledges that dichotomies serve a definite purpose in certain contexts, but aims to problematise their uncritical application. Eventually, it seeks to heighten the awareness of binarism in the discipline and strives for a balance between the precision and standardisation of the metalanguage employed in discussing translation
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