The Body Beautiful: Jonathan Spence’s Final Reith Lecture

Jonathan Spence gave his fourth and last Reith lecture on “The Body Beautiful.” This is a perfect fit for China’s Olympic year and a wonderful conclusion talk after his first lecture on mind (“Confucian Ways”), then on Chinese interactions with the former superpower (the second lecture “English Lessons”), and the current one (the third lecture “American Dreams”). From mind to body, from China as an ancient civilization through its turbulent relations with Western powers to a nation which is determined to compete with the world in hard power either economically or physically, the topic was extremely well thought. The lecture was given at no better venue: Lord’s Cricket Ground, London, which will play an important role in the 2012 London Olympic Games, according to the host of the lecture. Everything seems great. The 2008 BBC’s Reith lecturer entertained us with a brilliant explanation on issues such as ancient Chinese discussions of sports and athleticism, their practices of women’s Polo and men’s kickball roughly one thousand years ago, modern meets in the 20th century, and, most importantly, this year’s Olympics and its implications. His lecture also dealt with the transition from sports for the sake of personal character to sports in the name of nationalism. This is a great treat from a master. Listening to Spence’s many lectures always reminded me of Lao Zi’s political idea: “治大国若烹小鲜,” or it is the same to rule a big nation as to cook a small fish. Any topics for Spence, including this one, seem so easy for him to address, just like cooking a shrimp. But it is exactly Spence’s brilliance that presented some problems for this lecture. As Daoist theory points out, misfortune can become a base of fortune, and fortune can lead to failure. In the short presentation, Spence dazzled us with all the great stuff, and like a talented chef, served us a delicious dish. But for some of us who are greedy, that dish tasted so good that we wanted more—a feast. For instance, Spence explained in a relatively detailed way China’s past participations in Olympic Games and touched upon the issue between Taipei and Beijing of who should represent China in the Olympic family. But he did not elaborate on Beijing’s withdrawal from the Olympic movement nor the PRC’s absence for over two decades from the most of the world’s sports activities

The Green functor structure of RO(D2p)RO(D_{2p})-graded cohomology of a point

We compute the $RO(D_{2p})$-graded cohomology of a point with constant coefficient $\underline{\mathbb{Z}}$ together with its Green functor structure. Here $D_{2p}$ is the dihedral group with $p$ an odd prime. This result extends the additive computation of Kriz-Lu.Comment: 9 pages. Comments welcome

Seasonal variation of the three-dimensional mean circulation over the Scotian Shelf

The seasonal-mean circulation over the Scotian Shelf is studied numerically by computing mean and tidal current fields for winter, spring, and summer using a three-dimensional nonlinear diagnostic model. The mean current fields are forced by seasonal-mean baroclinic pressure gradients, tidal rectification, uniform wind stresses, and associated barotropic pressure gradients. A historical hydrographic database is used to determine the climatological mean baroclinic forcing. Upstream open boundary conditions are estimated from the density fields to give no normal geostrophic bottom flow and are specified as either along-boundary elevation gradients or depth-integrated normal velocities. The numerical solutions for nominal bimonthly periods (January–February, April–May, and July–August) reveal the dominant southwestward nearshore and shelf-break flows of relatively cool and fresh shelf water from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland Shelf, with speeds up to about 20 cm/s. The seasonal intensification of the southwestward flows is reproduced by the model, with the transport increasing from 0.3 Sv in summer to 0.9 Sv in winter on the inner Halifax section. There are also pronounced topographic-scale influences of submarine banks, basins, and cross-shelf channels on the circulation, such as anticyclonic gyres over banks and cyclonic gyres over basins. Baroclinicity is the dominant forcing throughout the domain, but tidal rectification is comparable on the southwestern Scotian Shelf (e.g., about 0.2 Sv recirculating transport around Browns Bank for all the periods). The mean wind stress generates offshore surface drift in winter. The solutions are in approximate agreement with observed currents and transports over the Scotian Shelf, although there are local discrepancies