The Theories of Musical Pitch in the Song Times

In imperial China, the court used the absolute pitch named huangzhong as the standard of measurement for length, volume, and weight.That is why many scholars from the Han period on suggested how to make correct pitch pipes in their philosophical discussions.Emperor Ren Zong ordered a revision of the method of determining pitches to Li Zhao, who insisted on adopting the yardstick of Taifu-si to determine twelve absolute pitches.He attached such importance to the number ‘twelve’ that he was against the suggestion that provision of four bells as semitones be necessary to play music in harmony.Fan Zhen also adhered to ‘twelve’, and debated with his friend Si-ma Guang on the subject how to define the pitch pipe of huangzhong, that is, whether regulating it with a volume of one thousand and two hundred grains of millet or with the length of ninety grains of millet.Chen Yang made a point of the character of the sacred number ‘twelve’, too.But he denied to use an artificial measure as the pitch pipe.This way of thinking was developed by some of Neo-Confucianists.One of them was Cai Yuan-ding, who established the theory of pitches with flat tones and semitones.He mentioned the term li (principle) in his work on music so as to get adherence to ‘twelve’.His theory kept its established status until Zhu Zai-yu found the mathematical solution of the equal-tempered chromatic scale in late Ming

The Transformations of the Suburban Sacrifice System

The suburban cult was one of the most important sacrifices in imperial China.The emperors deify Heaven and Earth with their ancestors at the suburbs of the capitals.This system began in the Han period, and was not abolished until the fall of Qing.After an outline of its history in Chapter One, the other two chapters discuss two subjects each.The first one deals with how they chose the ancestors associated with Heaven and Earth: who made a distinguished contributions to the dynasty? The wife of the founder accompanied Earth in the original style, but it has been changed since Northern Zhou.There were disputes on the character of the founders in Tang and Song.The second is when and where Earth was to be worshipped.As a fundamental rule, it was at the time of the summer solstice at the square alter in the northern suburbs that the ceremony should be held.But as being unable to fulfill this condition, debates occured in Song and Ming.These two discussions will elucidate the character of Heaven in the official cult

The Reformation of Ritual in the Jiajing Era

The Ming emperor Shizong, who had ascended the throne as a member of a collateral line of the Imperial Household, reformed a number of state sacrifices between 1529 and 1531. There has already been research on the dispute in early Jiajing over how to honor Shizong\u27s own father. In this essay I will discuss the reformation of the state sacrifices. This essay describes four reforms:(i) The Deities of Heaven and Earth came to be sacrificed to at the prayers for rain and the suburban sacrifices. (2) Of the ancestors of the Imperial Household, Taizu and Chengzu were singled out for special treatment as companions to a main deity and in the imperial clan\u27s ancestral temple. (3) At the Shidian, or sacrifice to Confucious, the ranks and images of Confucious and other Confucian scholars were abolished. (4) Sacrifices in which the Empress participated, such as the sacrifices to the First Sericulturalist and the Supreme Intermediary, were revived. These reforms took as their keyword the continuation of Ming Taizu\u27s style of state sacrifices. Taizu had introduced a heavily Neo-Confucian system of rituals. Shizong also followed Neo-Confucian thought in interpreting the classics and reforming state sacrifices in the manner described above. I term Shizong\u27s thought “Ritualistic Fundamentalism” and point out that it has some points in common with the spirit of the Wang Yangming School, which was flourishing during the same period

Political Idea on the Theory of Heaven\u27s Warning in Song China

Correlative cosmology was the heart of the political theory in justification of all the dynasties in China.Various kinds of natural anomalies showed Heaven\u27s warning to the ruler against his political errors.This theory, which was established under Han dynasty, was still effective in Song, by changing its substance.It is explained in Chapter One how the correlative thought served political purposes in Northern Song.Some of the scholars criticized the schematized form that said a phenomenon was the response to one particular governmental misconduct, but they also relied on correlative theory.In Chapter Two, the samples are introduced from the texts on the crop losses by locusts and on the solar eclipses.While refuting Han schema, the scholars insisted that emperor should recfify his mind.When the Song philosophers were changing the schema, they were giving a higher position to the term of li (principle).As it is made clear in Chapter Three, in the new scheme of correlative theory, li was pursued in one\u27s mind

On Ebara Soroku 1842-1922

陶徳民先生退休記念

正祠と淫祠 : 福建の地方志における記述と論理

This article deals with the discourse about the temples of popular gods (廟) in the local histories of Fujian, rather than actual religious belief or practice. The intention is to make clear the place of these gods in intellectual discourse. Intellectuals distinguished between what they called orthodox temples (正祠) and heterodox (“excessive” or “profligate”) tem-ples (淫祠). A list of these temples is produced in the first chapter which shows what kind and how many temples were recorded in the local histories. Some of these gods are introduced in the second chapter. They are the Wall-and-Moat God (城隍神), the Emperor Guan (関帝), the God of Mt. Tai (泰山神), the Empress of Heaven (天后), the True Warrior (真武神), Elder Li (李長者) and Consort Qian (銭妃), the Nine Hermits of Hes (何氏九仙), the Great Emeror who protects life (保生大帝), the Legions of Hell (陰兵), and the Dragon Gods (龍神). The last chapter analyzes how the local histories discriminated between the characters of the gods. Each local history had its own yardstick to categorize the temples, but they shared a common system of categorization. Neo-Confucianism influenced the discou-rse of the local histories, and made a world of temples recognized as orth-odox ones

Nonlinearity-Tolerant Modulation Formats for Coherent Optical Communications

Fiber nonlinearity is the main factor limiting the transmission distance of coherent optical communications. We overview several modulation formats intrinsically tolerant to fiber nonlinearity. We recently proposed family of 4D modulation formats based on 2-ary amplitude 8-ary phase-shift keying (2A8PSK), covering the spectral efficiency of 5, 6, and 7 bits/4D symbol, which will be explained in detail in this chapter. These coded modulation formats fill the gap of spectral efficiency between DP-QPSK and DP-16QAM, showing superb performance both in linear and nonlinear regimes. Since these modulation formats share the same constellation and use different parity bit expressions only, digital signal processing can accommodate those multiple modulation formats with minimum additional complexity. Nonlinear transmission simulations indicate that these modulation formats outperform the conventional formats at each spectral efficiency. We also review DSP algorithms and experimental results. Their application to time-domain hybrid modulation for 4–8 bits/4D symbol is also reviewed. Furthermore, an overview of an eight-dimensional 2A8PSK-based modulation format based on a Grassmann code is also given. All these results indicate that the 4D-2A8PSK family show great promise of excellent linear and nonlinear performances in the spectral efficiency between 3.5 and 8 bits/4D symbol

Early Cretaceous radiolarians from the Indus suture zone, Ladakh, northern India

The Nidar ophiolitic complex in estern Ladakh, northem India, consists of u1tramafic rocks, gabbro and sedimentary-volcanic member, in ascending order. The sedimentary-volcanic member in thee Nidar area is about 370 m in thickness, and is composed of altemating chert, japerite, volcanic rocks, red shale, volcanic conglomerate, sandstone and shale. Among these rocks, chert and shale yields well-preserved radiolarian fossils, which range in age, at least, from Hauterivian to Aptian (Early Cretaceous). These ages are consistent with the Sm-Nd mineral-whole rock isochron age of the underlying gabbro. The lithology, ages and geochemical characteristics of the Nidar ophiolitic complex indicate that the complex formed in an intra-oceanic volcanic arc setting. A chert block from the Shergol ophiolitic melange in westem Ladakh yields Albian radiolarians

Management of vocal fold lesions in difficult laryngeal exposure patients in phonomicrosurgery.

[Objectives]Endolaryngeal microsurgery using a direct laryngoscope is a well-established procedure in phonosurgery. Adequate laryngeal exposure is essential, but in some cases sufficient view of the glottis cannot be obtained, leading to treatment failure. This study reports how to manage vocal fold lesions in difficult laryngeal exposure (DLE) cases. [Methods]From 2003 to 2009, 212 patients underwent endolaryngeal microsurgery at Kyoto Medical Center and Kyoto University Hospital. Phonomicrosurgery was performed under sniffing (Boyce–Jackson) position with triangular shaped laryngoscope for laryngeal exposure. However, in DLE cases, the posture and laryngoscope were modified as needed to adequately expose the lesion. Fiberoptic laryngeal surgery (FLS) with local anesthesia was also used for the most difficult cases. [Results]The number of the patients with DLE was 14 (6.6%). Endolaryngeal microsurgery was possible in DLE cases by selecting the appropriate posture and laryngoscope. However, the procedure could not be completed in two patients with an anterior web and a vocal fold cyst, both of which required a subsequent revision procedure. Fiberoptic laryngeal surgery with topical anesthesia was a feasible alternative for these cases. [Conclusions]Phonosurgery was possible even in DLE cases. It is important to modify the setup of direct laryngoscopy as needed to obtain adequate exposure. Fiberoptic surgery may also be used in certain difficult cases