Divergence Displaced. Patterns of Economic and Political Change in Early Modern and Modern Global History

Der Autor erörtert die laufenden Debatten zur Great Divergence und die Schwierigkeiten, eine überzeugende komparatistische Strategie zu formulieren, die die einfache Opposition von zwei Fällen überwindet und das Problem der Falsifizierbarkeit adressiert. Weder sei es weiterführend, alles an einer europäischen Entwicklung zu messen, noch die englische Erfahrung mit der Gesamtheit Westeuropas in eins zu setzen. Um falsifizierbare Aussagen treffen zu können, gelte es etwa die Organisation des Fernhandels und seine Institutionalisierung in China und Europa zu vergleichen. Als zentrale Differenz arbeitet der Autor heraus, dass China ein einheitlicher Staat war, Europa dagegen politische Fragmentierung erlebte, die wiederum Krieg und den daraus folgenden Bedarf an Kapital und Arbeit in den Städten sowie eine dringendere Nachfrage nach Technologien nach sich zog. Im Unterschied zu Pomeranz sieht er hier die Ursprünge modernen Wirtschaftswachstums. Allerdings spielte für die britische Baumwollindustrie die Beziehungen nach Asien und Nordamerika eine wichtige Rolle, da die britische Industrie mit den niedrigen Arbeitskosten in Indien konkurrieren musste, woraus sich der rigorose Merkantilismus ergab, der positive, wenn auch unintendierte Effekte für das Wirtschaftswachstum hatte. Allerdings zeigt der Vergleich, dass andere Weltregionen vor anderen Problemen standen und mit anderen Kombinationen von Wissen und Problemlösungen reagierten. Dies führt zur Unterscheidung zwischen der Great Divergence als einem spezifischen Phänomen und einer allgemeinen Transformation, womit vermieden werden könne, in die Falle der Frage zu tappen, warum China nicht Großbritannien geworden sei

Before and Beyond Divergence: A New Look at the Economic History of China and Europe [Book Review]

Before and Beyond Divergence is a model of collaboration and academic production: between two disciplines—economics and history and between two area specialists—an economic historian of Europe and a socioeconomic historian of China

Suppression of interdiffusion in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum-well structure capped with dielectric films by deposition of gallium oxide

In this work, different dielectric caps were deposited on the GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well(QW) structures followed by rapid thermal annealing to generate different degrees of interdiffusion. Deposition of a layer of GaxOy on top of these dielectric caps resulted in significant suppression of interdiffusion. In these samples, it was found that although the deposition of GaxOy and subsequent annealing caused additional injection of Ga into the SiO₂ layer, Ga atoms were still able to outdiffuse from the GaAsQW structure during annealing, to generate excess Ga vacancies. The suppression of interdiffusion with the presence of Ga vacancies was explained by the thermal stress effect which suppressed Ga vacancydiffusion during annealing. It suggests that GaxOy may therefore be used as a mask material in conjunction with other dielectric capping layers in order to control and selectively achieve impurity-free vacancy disordering.J. Wong-Leung, P. N. K. Deenapanray, and H. H. Tan acknowledge the fellowships awarded by the Australian Research Council

Photochemical Response of Electronically Reconfigurable Molecule-Based Switching Tunnel Junctions

Robust molecular devices may be based on the photo‐switching between spiropyran and merocyanine isomers (see Scheme). The equilibrium has been investigated in a Langmuir–Blodgett film and then succesfully sandwiched into a solid‐state tunnel junction

In Vivo Imaging Reveals Dendritic Targeting of Laminated Afferents by Zebrafish Retinal Ganglion Cells

SummaryTargeting of axons and dendrites to particular synaptic laminae is an important mechanism by which precise patterns of neuronal connectivity are established. Although axons target specific laminae during development, dendritic lamination has been thought to occur largely by pruning of inappropriately placed arbors. We discovered by in vivo time-lapse imaging that retinal ganglion cell (RGC) dendrites in zebrafish show growth patterns implicating dendritic targeting as a mechanism for contacting appropriate synaptic partners. Populations of RGCs labeled in transgenic animals establish distinct dendritic strata sequentially, predominantly from the inner to outer retina. Imaging individual cells over successive days confirmed that multistratified RGCs generate strata sequentially, each arbor elaborating within a specific lamina. Simultaneous imaging of RGCs and subpopulations of presynaptic amacrine interneurons revealed that RGC dendrites appear to target amacrine plexuses that had already laminated. Dendritic targeting of prepatterned afferents may thus be a novel mechanism for establishing proper synaptic connectivity

Phenomenological Understanding of a Transport Regime with Reflection Symmetry in the Quantum Hall System in a Composite Fermion Picture

In this paper, we present a phenomenological picture based on the composite fermion theory, in responding to the recent discovery by Shahar et al. of a new transport regime near the transition from a $\nu=1$ quantum Hall liquid to a Hall insulator(ref[8]). In this picture, the seemingly unexpected reflection symmetry in the longitudinal resistivity $\rho_{xx}$ can be understood clearly as due to the symmetry of the gapful excitations which dominate $\sigma_{xx}$ across the transition, and the abrupt change in $\sigma_{xy}$ at the transition. The parameter $\alpha$ in the linear fit of $\nu_0(T)$ in ref[8] is also given a simple physical meaning and the effective mass can be calculated from $\alpha$, which gives a reasonable value of several electron band mass. When taking into account the result of network model, the almost invariant Hall resistivity $\rho_{xy}$ across the transition is also well-understood.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, final version to appear in Phys.Rev.

Photochemical Response of Electronically Reconfigurable Molecule-Based Switching Tunnel Junctions

Robust molecular devices may be based on the photo‐switching between spiropyran and merocyanine isomers (see Scheme). The equilibrium has been investigated in a Langmuir–Blodgett film and then succesfully sandwiched into a solid‐state tunnel junction

In situ Proteomic Profiling of Curcumin Targets in HCT116 Colon Cancer Cell Line

To date, the exact targets and mechanism of action of curcumin, a natural product with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties, remain elusive. Here we synthesized a cell permeable curcumin probe (Cur-P) with an alkyne moiety, which can be tagged with biotin for affinity enrichment, or with a fluorescent dye for visualization of the direct-binding protein targets of curcumin in situ. iTRAQ™ quantitative proteomics approach was applied to distinguish the specific binding targets from the non-specific ones. In total, 197 proteins were confidently identified as curcumin binding targets from HCT116 colon cancer cell line. Gene Ontology analysis showed that the targets are broadly distributed and enriched in the nucleus, mitochondria and plasma membrane, and they are involved in various biological functions including metabolic process, regulation, response to stimulus and cellular process. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis™ (IPA) suggested that curcumin may exert its anticancer effects over multiple critical biological pathways including the EIF2, eIF4/p70S6K, mTOR signaling and mitochondrial dysfunction pathways. Functional validations confirmed that curcumin downregulates cellular protein synthesis, and induces autophagy, lysosomal activation and increased ROS production, thus leading to cell death

Sensitivities of Low Energy Reactor Neutrino Experiments

The low energy part of the reactor neutrino spectra has not been experimentally measured. Its uncertainties limit the sensitivities in certain reactor neutrino experiments. The origin of these uncertainties are discussed, and the effects on measurements of neutrino interactions with electrons and nuclei are studied. Comparisons are made with existing results. In particular, the discrepancies between previous measurements with Standard Model expectations can be explained by an under-estimation of the low energy reactor neutrino spectra. To optimize the experimental sensitivities, measurements for \nuebar-e cross-sections should focus on events with large ($>$1.5 MeV) recoil energy while those for neutrino magnetic moment searches should be based on events $<$100 keV. The merits and attainable accuracies for neutrino-electron scattering experiments using artificial neutrino sources are discussed.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figure