Native Roots and Foreign Grafts: The Spiritual Quest of Uchimura Kanzō

Between 1875 and 1890, Japanese academics, writers, legal experts, and intellectuals discussed and debated a host of new ideas and programs in the rapidly-expanding national media. Of great consequence were the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education and the Meiji Constitution. The first sought to establish a strong nativist basis for a Japanese identity under the aegis of an imperial hegemon. The second sought to create a structure for modern citizenship based on Western notions of law and social contract. These seemingly antithetical documents came to symbolize the problematical status of the individual in Meiji Japan. They would become the touchstone of a larger discussion that concerned the Christian intellectual Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930), who in 1891 refused to bow before a document bearing the personal signature of Emperor Meiji. My dissertation positions Uchimura Kanzō as a pivotal figure in an ongoing examination of, and debate regarding, notions of citizenship, national identity, the proper role of writers and intellectuals, and the very notion of subjectivity and selfhood. Uchimura’s traditional values, social idealism, resolute Christian faith, and embrace of Western literary icons such as Dante Alighieri, Thomas Carlyle, and Johann Goethe helped inspire his deeply principled promotion of the inviolability of one’s personal credo and the responsibility of individuals to act for the greater good. Placing Uchimura in the late-Meiji intellectual and literary context, the dissertation studies three key autobiographical works written by Uchimura in the early 1890s. These are compared to the work of important literary contemporaries, with an eye to the key role of the print media in the discussion and dissemination of ideas concerning the individual, the state, and the construction of a national identity. My interdisciplinary analysis, which incorporated historical, religious, philosophical, and literary approaches, will illuminate the manner in which Uchimura Kanzō’s life and writing both reflected the Meiji context and contributed to Japan’s national discourse at the turn of the twentieth century

From Microsound to Vaporwave:internet-mediated musics, online methods, and genre

How is the internet transforming musical practices? In this article, through a study of five prominent popular and crossover music genres spanning the period from the late 1990s to the present, we examine how the internet has augmented the creative, aesthetic, communicative and social dimensions of music. Analysing the internet-based practices associated with these genres poses methodological and theoretical challenges. It requires new research tools attentive to the online practices involved in their creation and reception. To this end we adapt the Issue Crawler software, an established digital method that analyses networks of hyperlinking on the world-wide web. In addition, it requires a theoretical framework that can respond to music’s profuse mediations in the digital environment. We propose that a version of genre theory offers such a framework. The paper concludes by reflecting on the implications of our analysis for theorising music and place and for historical periodization after the internet

Sagnac effect in a chain of mesoscopic quantum rings

The ability to interferometrically detect inertial rotations via the Sagnac effect has been a strong stimulus for the development of atom interferometry because of the potential 10^{10} enhancement of the rotational phase shift in comparison to optical Sagnac gyroscopes. Here we analyze ballistic transport of matter waves in a one dimensional chain of N coherently coupled quantum rings in the presence of a rotation of angular frequency, \Omega. We show that the transmission probability, T, exhibits zero transmission stop gaps as a function of the rotation rate interspersed with regions of rapidly oscillating finite transmission. With increasing N, the transition from zero transmission to the oscillatory regime becomes an increasingly sharp function of \Omega with a slope \partialT/\partial \Omega N^2. The steepness of this slope dramatically enhances the response to rotations in comparison to conventional single ring interferometers such as the Mach-Zehnder and leads to a phase sensitivity well below the standard quantum limit

Evaluating the productivity of four main tree species in Germany under climate change with static reduced models

International audienceAbstract Key messageWe present simple models of forest net primary production (NPP) in Germany that show increasing productivity, especially in mountainous areas, under warming unless water becomes a limiting factor. They can be used for spatially explicit, rapid climate impact assessment. ContextClimate impact studies largely rely on process-based forest models generally requiring detailed input data which are not everywhere available. AimsThis study aims to derive simple models with low data requirements which allow calculation of NPP and analysis of climate impacts using many climate scenarios at a large amount of sites. MethodsWe fitted regression functions to the output of simulation experiments conducted with the process-based forest model 4C at 2342 climate stations in Germany for four main tree species on four different soil types and two time periods, 1951–2006 and 2031–2060. ResultsThe regression functions showed a reasonable fit to measured NPP datasets. Temperature increase of up to 3 K leads to positive effects on NPP. In water-limited regions, this positive effect is dependent on the length of drought periods. The highest NPP increase occurs in mountainous regions. ConclusionRapid analyses, using reduced models as presented here, can complement more detailed analyses with process-based models. Especially for dry sites, we recommend further study of climate impacts with process-based models or detailed measurements

Integrating parameter uncertainty of a process-based model in assessments of climate change effects on forest productivity

The parameter uncertainty of process-based models has received little attention in climate change impact studies. This paper aims to integrate parameter uncertainty into simulations of climate change impacts on forest net primary productivity (NPP). We used either prior (uncalibrated) or posterior (calibrated using Bayesian calibration) parameter variations to express parameter uncertainty, and we assessed the effect of parameter uncertainty on projections of the process-based model 4C in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) stands under climate change. We compared the uncertainty induced by differences between climate models with the uncertainty induced by parameter variability and climate models together. The results show that the uncertainty of simulated changes in NPP induced by climate model and parameter uncertainty is substantially higher than the uncertainty of NPP changes induced by climate model uncertainty alone. That said, the direction of NPP change is mostly consistent between the simulations using the standard parameter setting of 4C and the majority of the simulations including parameter uncertainty. Climate change impact studies that do not consider parameter uncertainty may therefore be appropriate for projecting the direction of change, but not for quantifying the exact degree of change, especially if parameter combinations are selected that are particularly climate sensitive. We conclude that if a key objective in climate change impact research is to quantify uncertainty, parameter uncertainty as a major factor driving the degree of uncertainty of projections should be included

Engaging residents to choose wisely: Resident Doctors of Canada resource stewardship recommendations

Background: Resident doctors are integral to healthcare delivery in Canada. Engaging residents in resource stewardship is important for professional development, but also as they are drivers of healthcare resource use. To date, no national resident-specific resource stewardship guideline has been developed. Resident Doctors of Canada (RDoC) in collaboration with Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC) sought to develop an evidence-informed, consensus-based list of five recommendations to promote resource stewardship.                  Methods: RDoC convened a taskforce with diverse geographic and specialty representation to develop candidate recommendations targeting resident resource stewardship behaviours using a consensus-based process, supported by a literature review. Residents across the country provided feedback on the candidate recommendations via an online questionnaire. The taskforce used this feedback to finalize the list.Results: The taskforce prepared 28 candidate recommendations for consideration. A detailed literature review and consensus process narrowed this list to 12 candidate recommendations for consultation. A total of 754 residents (754/10,068 residents = 7.5%) representing all provinces and levels of residency training reviewed and ranked the candidate recommendations. The highest-ranked recommendations comprised the final list.Conclusion: Resident doctors are willing and able to demonstrate leadership in advancing resource stewardship by the development of a national resident-specific list of Choosing Wisely Canada recommendations

Fire, late frost, nun moth and drought risks in Germany's forests under climate change

Ongoing climate change affects growth and increases biotic and abiotic threats to Germany's forests. We analysed how these risks develop through the mid-century under a variety of climate change scenarios using the process-based forest model 4C. This model allows the calculation of indicators for fire danger, late frost risk for beech and oak, drought stress and nun moth risk. 4C was driven by a set of 4 simulations of future climate generated with the statistical model STARS and with 10 simulations of future climate based on EURO-CORDEX model simulations for the RCP2.6, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 pathways. A set of about 70000 forest stands (Norway spruce, Scots pine, beech, oak, birch), based on the national forest inventory describing 98.4 % of the forest in Germany, was used together with data from a digital soil map. The changes and the range of changes were analysed by comparing results of a recent time period (1971–2005) and a scenario time period (2011–2045). All indicators showed higher risks for the scenario time period compared to the recent time period, except the late frost risk indicators, if averaged over all climate scenarios. The late frost risk for beech and oaks decreased for the main forest sites. Under recent climate conditions, the highest risk with regard to all five indicators was found to be in the Southwest Uplands and the northern part of Germany. The highest climate-induced uncertainty regarding the indicators for 2011–2045 is projected for the East Central Uplands and Northeast German Plain

Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion and Self-Identity

The article begins by outlining a dominant conception of these relations in sociologically informed analysis of music, which sees music primarily as a positive resource for active self-making. My argument is that this conception rests on a problematic notion of the self and also on an overly optimistic understanding of music, which implicitly sees music as highly independent of negative social and historical processes. I then attempt to construct a) a more adequately critical conception of personal identity in modern societies; and b) a more balanced appraisal of music-society relations. I suggest two ways in which relations between self, music and society may not always be quite so positive or as healthy as the dominant conception suggests: 1) Music is now bound up with the incorporation of authenticity and creativity into capitalism, and with intensified consumption habits. 2) Emotional self-realisation through music is now linked to status competition. Interviews are analysed

Electroactive nanoporous metal oxides and chalcogenides by chemical design

The archetypal silica- and aluminosilicate-based zeolite-type materials are renowned for wide-ranging applications in heterogeneous catalysis, gas-separation and ion-exchange. Their compositional space can be expanded to include nanoporous metal chalcogenides, exemplified by germanium and tin sulfides and selenides. By comparison with the properties of bulk metal dichalcogenides and their 2D derivatives, these open-framework analogues may be viewed as three-dimensional semiconductors filled with nanometer voids. Applications exist in a range of molecule size and shape discriminating devices. However, what is the electronic structure of nanoporous metal chalcogenides? Herein, materials modeling is used to describe the properties of a homologous series of nanoporous metal chalcogenides denoted np-MX2, where M = Si, Ge, Sn, Pb, and X = O, S, Se, Te, with Sodalite, LTA and aluminum chromium phosphate-1 structure types. Depending on the choice of metal and anion their properties can be tuned from insulators to semiconductors to metals with additional modification achieved through doping, solid solutions, and inclusion (with fullerene, quantum dots, and hole transport materials). These systems form the basis of a new branch of semiconductor nanochemistry in three dimensions

Description and evaluation of the process-based forest model 4C v2.2 at four European forest sites

The process-based model 4C (FORESEE) has been developed over the past 20 years to study climate impacts on forests and is now freely available as an open-source tool. The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive description of this 4C version (v2.2) for scientific users of the model and to present an evaluation of 4C at four different forest sites across Europe. The evaluation focuses on forest growth as well as carbon (net ecosystem exchange, gross primary production), water (actual evapotranspiration, soil water content), and heat fluxes (soil temperature) using data from the PROFOUND database. We applied different evaluation metrics and compared the daily, monthly, and annual variability of observed and simulated values. The ability to reproduce forest growth (stem diameter and biomass) differs from site to site and is best for a pine stand in Germany (Peitz, model efficiency ME=0.98). 4C is able to reproduce soil temperature at different depths in Sorø and Hyytiälä with good accuracy (for all soil depths ME > 0.8). The dynamics in simulating carbon and water fluxes are well captured on daily and monthly timescales (0.51 < ME < 0.983) but less so on an annual timescale (ME < 0). This model–data mismatch is possibly due to the accumulation of errors because of processes that are missing or represented in a very general way in 4C but not with enough specific detail to cover strong, site-specific dependencies such as ground vegetation growth. These processes need to be further elaborated to improve the projections of climate change on forests. We conclude that, despite shortcomings, 4C is widely applicable, reliable, and therefore ready to be released to the scientific community to use and further develop the model