Between Mountains and the Sea: Trades in Early Nineteenth-Century Northern Vietnam

This article attempts to piece together the available data on Sino-Vietnamese trade of northern Vietnam in the early nineteenth century with a focus on its upland region. This essay shares the views expressed in the works by Oscar Salemink, Philip Talor, Sarah Turner and other scholars on northern uplands, and in particular their rejection of the “urban-rural,” “advanced-backward,” “civilized-barbarian,” lowland-highland dichotomies. But building upon these works, this essay also tries to determine what proportion of overland and maritime trade made up the Nguyễn revenue, and to understand the interactions among various peoples living between the mountains and the sea. The data seems to suggest that, contrary to the view that this upland region was remote and consequently isolated, the upland region (outer provinces) near the Sino-Vietnamese border represented an important and even crucial portion of the overall revenue of Nguyễn Vietnam in the early nineteenth century

Jiaozhi (Giao Chi) in the Han Period Tongking Gulf

This chapter introduces early Jiaozhi, a territorial unit covering the present-day Red River plains, coastal Guangxi, and western Guangdong, and discusses its importance in the exchange system of the Gulf of Tongking and South China Sea nearly two millennia ago. Contrary to conventional scholarship, which has stressed political forces pushing from north to south that resulted in Chinese colonization of the Red River plain, this chapter examines early Jiaozhi in its own context, as a territorial expanse occupying the same horizontal line. It argues that, by eliminating the once powerful Nanyue (southern Yue) kingdom in 111 B.C.E., the Han dynasty established Jiaozhi's dominant trading position as both market and entrep�t for goods brought by land and sea. Jiaozhi's emergence as the jewel of the Han south highlights the importance of the Gulf of Tongking for the early maritime silk road, as well as revealing the mutual interdependence of the region of modern Guangxi and the Red River plain so long ago.https://www.degruyter.com/view/books/9780812205022/9780812205022.223/9780812205022.223.xml Academy of the Social Sciences and ANU Cartography Uni

The inner region : a social and economic history of Nguyen Vietnam in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

The seventeenth and eighteenth century Nguyen kingdom was known as Dang Trong to Vietnamese at the time, and Cochinchina by the Westerners. It was a state built in today’s central Vietnam, separate from the royal Le government which was controlled by the Trinh rulers in the Red River delta and down to Nghe An. This thesis intends to examine Dang Trong in this period in the context of Vietnamese southward expansion, the military character of the Nguyen regime, its taxation system, the social structure, relations between Vietnamese migrants and uplanders, and particularly the involvement in overseas trade. Successful localisation of Vietnamese migrants in this period seems to be the reason why Dang Trong, a state weaker than the Trinh in every sense, not only survived on the former land of Champa, but obtained three fifths of the land of present-day Vietnam in merely two hundred years. The Nguyen experiment seems to suggest a different image of Vietnam, opening a door to an alternative world in which diversity was tolerated, indeed taken advantage of, for Vietnam s own development

Surface faceting and reconstruction of ceria nanoparticles

The surface atomic arrangement of metal oxides determines their physical and chemical properties, and the ability to control and optimize structural parameters is of crucial importance for many applications, in particular in heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis. Whereas the structures of macroscopic single crystals can be determined with established methods, for nanoparticles (NPs), this is a challenging task. Herein, we describe the use of CO as a probe molecule to determine the structure of the surfaces exposed by rod-shaped ceria NPs. After calibrating the CO stretching frequencies using results obtained for different ceria single-crystal surfaces, we found that the rod-shaped NPs actually restructure and expose {111} nanofacets. This finding has important consequences for understanding the controversial surface chemistry of these catalytically highly active ceria NPs and paves the way for the predictive, rational design of catalytic materials at the nanoscale.Postprint (author's final draft

Low-frequency ultrasound irradiation increases paclitaxel-induced sarcoma cells apoptosis and facilitates the transmembrane delivery of drugs

Sarcoma is a malignant tumor derived from interstitial tissues and requires comprehensive treatment including chemotherapy. Paclitaxel (PTX) is an active agent against sarcoma, but its effect is not sufficiently acceptable and needs to be improved. Low-frequency ultrasound (LFU) has been documented to improve the efficacy of drugs by inducing reversible changes in membrane permeability; however, the effects of the combined use of LFU and PTX for sarcoma tumors remain unclear and warrant further investigation. We investigated the effects of 30 kHz LFU treatment combined with PTX on sarcoma cells A-204 and HT-1080 by analyzing in vitro apoptosis and cell growth inhibition rates, and determined their antitumor effects by examining tumor weights with or without LFU in the S180 sarcoma xenograft model. Drug concentrations in the subcutaneous tumors were measured using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). LFU combined with PTX significantly induced cell apoptosis, and blocked the cell cycle of sarcoma cells in G2/M phase, and furthermore, inhibited the activation of JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway. Meanwhile, LFU combined with PTX inhibited the expression of PD-L1 in vitro, suggesting the potential of enhanced antitumor immunity by this treatment. LFU combined with PTX significantly inhibited the growth of S180 tumors transplanted subcutaneously in Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) mice, and its enhanced effect may be associated with increased local concentrations of PTX in tumor tissues in vivo, with no significant adverse subsequences on body weight observed. We conclude that the combination of LFU and PTX has synergistic antitumor effects and is a candidate for subcutaneous treatment of sarcoma by further increasing the intracellular concentration of PTX

A virus-targeted plant receptor-like kinase promotes cell-to-cell spread of RNAi

RNA interference (RNAi) in plants can move from cell to cell, allowing for systemic spread of an antiviral immune response. How this cell-to-cell spread of silencing is regulated is currently unknown. Here, we describe that the C4 protein from Tomato yellow leaf curl virus can inhibit the intercellular spread of RNAi. Using this viral protein as a probe, we have identified the receptor-like kinase (RLK) BARELY ANY MERISTEM 1 (BAM1) as a positive regulator of the cell-to-cell movement of RNAi, and determined that BAM1 and its closest homolog, BAM2, play a redundant role in this process. C4 interacts with the intracellular domain of BAM1 and BAM2 at the plasma membrane and plasmodesmata, the cytoplasmic connections between plant cells, interfering with the function of these RLKs in the cell-to-cell spread of RNAi. Our results identify BAM1 as an element required for the cell-to-cell spread of RNAi and highlight that signaling components have been coopted to play multiple functions in plants

Relationship Between Peer Assessment During Medical School, Dean’s Letter Rankings, and Ratings by Internship Directors

BACKGROUND: It is not known to what extent the dean’s letter (medical student performance evaluation [MSPE]) reflects peer-assessed work habits (WH) skills and/or interpersonal attributes (IA) of students. OBJECTIVE: To compare peer ratings of WH and IA of second- and third-year medical students with later MSPE rankings and ratings by internship program directors. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants were 281 medical students from the classes of 2004, 2005, and 2006 at a private medical school in the northeastern United States, who had participated in peer assessment exercises in the second and third years of medical school. For students from the class of 2004, we also compared peer assessment data against later evaluations obtained from internship program directors. RESULTS: Peer-assessed WH were predictive of later MSPE groups in both the second (F = 44.90, P < .001) and third years (F = 29.54, P < .001) of medical school. Interpersonal attributes were not related to MSPE rankings in either year. MSPE rankings for a majority of students were predictable from peer-assessed WH scores. Internship directors’ ratings were significantly related to second- and third-year peer-assessed WH scores (r = .32 [P = .15] and r = .43 [P = .004]), respectively, but not to peer-assessed IA. CONCLUSIONS: Peer assessment of WH, as early as the second year of medical school, can predict later MSPE rankings and internship performance. Although peer-assessed IA can be measured reliably, they are unrelated to either outcome