論殘雪的隱藏現實主義傾向與異境歸往

殘雪的小說以主題獨特、難以解讀而見稱，出道之初就備受追捧。但隨著近年熱潮的冷卻，殘雪的研究也不再像以往熱烈。據殘雪所言，她現在正處於自己創作的第四階段，可惜現有的殘雪評論仍然集中在她一、二階段的作品，例如＜黃泥街＞、＜公牛＞等，對於殘雪的第三階段──轉型與成熟時期──的關注略欠不足。例如殘雪早期甚為抗拒現實主義，在第三階段卻可以找到這一方面的蛛絲馬跡，顯示出她的寫作方式有所轉變，值得研究。另一方面，殘雪的主題與表達手法在第三階段也開始沉澱、凝固，也更容易將文本集中起來比較分式。 有見及此，本論文劃出了兩個關注點，第一部份將敘述殘雪與現實主義的緊張關係，然後在文本中尋找殘雪的現實主義痕跡，並分析其意義。第二部分，本論文將把焦點集中在「異境」意象，使用「歸與往」的模式來協助分析殘雪的異境主題，再而一窺在殘雪的理想境界中，有何特別之處。最後，結論會重新放到先鋒小說在九十年代後發展脈絡中，比較殘雪與他們的同與不同，突顯殘雪對藝術主題的一貫堅持與努力

From God's home to people's house: Property struggles of church redevelopment

Religious organizations participate in urban redevelopment in various ways including redeveloping their churches. While the literature has attempted to explain church redevelopment from different perspectives, what has often been forgotten is the fundamental characteristic of churches as property in cities. Drawing on the established scholarship of legal geography, this article argues that the lens of property relations offers an insightful framework to examine church redevelopment. By presenting a case study in Hong Kong, this article unpacks the property struggles of church redevelopment to examine how that resulted from the conflicting property claims and why these claims emerged. This article contrasts and analyzes the religious and market-driven values underlying these claims in the context of a property-led society like Hong Kong. To understand how urban churches transform from God’s home to people’s house, it is necessary to recognize the diverse readings of property. In so doing, this article invites scholars to re-conceptualize urban struggles from the property lens

Neoadjuvant short-course radiotherapy or chemoradiation plus consolidative chemotherapy followed by radical operation for locally advanced rectal cancer

IntroductionLimited evidence compares short-course radiotherapy (SCRT) and long-course chemoradiotherapy (LCCRT), both of which are followed by consolidative chemotherapy before radical rectal surgery. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess treatment response, survival outcomes, and toxicity in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.Materials and methodsPatients (cT3–4 and/or N+) treated with SCRT or LCCRT, consolidative chemotherapy, or total mesorectal excision between 2013 and 2021 were identified. the cause-specific cumulative incidence of disease-related treatment failure, locoregional recurrence, distant metastases, and overall survival were evaluated using flexible parametric competing risk analysis and Kaplan–Meier methods, adjusted for treatment regimens and clinicopathological factors. A pathological complete response (pCR), tumor downstaging, and toxicity have been reported.ResultsAmong the 144 patients, 115 (80%) underwent curative rectal surgery. The LCCRT and SCRT groups achieved pCR in 10 (18%) and seven (12%) patients, respectively (odds ratio, 1.68; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59–4.78). The adjusted cause-specific hazard ratio for disease-related treatment failure with LCCRT versus SCRT was 0.26 (95% CI, 0.08–0.87). Three-year cumulative probability of disease-related treatment failure was 10.0% and 25.6% for LCCRT and SCRT, respectively. No significant differences in T-downstaging, N-downstaging, significant pathologic downstaging (ypT0-2N0), locoregional failure, distant metastasis, or overall survival were found. Late rectal toxicity occurred in 10 (15%) LCCRT and two (3%) SCRT patients, respectively.ConclusionLCCRT with consolidative chemotherapy demonstrated improved disease-related treatment failure compared with SCRT, despite higher late rectal toxicity. Further research is needed to assess the long-term oncologic outcomes and toxicity

Spatial heterogeneities in structural temperature cause Kovacs’ expansion gap paradox in aging of glasses

Volume and enthalpy relaxation of glasses after a sudden temperature change has been extensively studied since Kovacs’ seminal work. One observes an asymmetric approach to equilibrium upon cooling versus heating and, more counterintuitively, the expansion gap paradox, i.e., a dependence on the initial temperature of the effective relaxation time even close to equilibrium when heating. Here, we show that a distinguishable-particle lattice model can capture both the asymmetry and the paradox. We quantitatively characterize the energetic states of the particle configurations using a physical realization of the fictive temperature called the structural temperature, which, in the heating case, displays a strong spatial heterogeneity. The system relaxes by nucleation and expansion of warmer mobile domains having attained the final temperature, against cooler immobile domains maintained at the initial temperature. A small population of these cooler regions persists close to equilibrium, thus explaining the paradox

Contrasting Effects of Historical Sea Level Rise and Contemporary Ocean Currents on Regional Gene Flow of Rhizophora racemosa in Eastern Atlantic Mangroves

Mangroves are seafaring taxa through their hydrochorous propagules that have the potential to disperse over long distances. Therefore, investigating their patterns of gene flow provides insights on the processes involved in the spatial genetic structuring of populations. The coastline of Cameroon has a particular geomorphological history and coastal hydrology with complex contemporary patterns of ocean currents, which we hypothesize to have effects on the spatial configuration and composition of present-day mangroves within its spans. A total of 982 trees were sampled from 33 transects (11 sites) in 4 estuaries. Using 11 polymorphic SSR markers, we investigated genetic diversity and structure of Rhizophora racemosa, a widespread species in the region. Genetic diversity was low to moderate and genetic differentiation between nearly all population pairs was significant. Bayesian clustering analysis, PCoA, estimates of contemporary migration rates and identification of barriers to gene flow were used and complemented with estimated dispersal trajectories of hourly released virtual propagules, using high-resolution surface current from a mesoscale and tide-resolving ocean simulation. These indicate that the Cameroon Volcanic Line (CVL) is not a present-day barrier to gene flow. Rather, the Inter-Bioko-Cameroon (IBC) corridor, formed due to sea level rise, allows for connectivity between two mangrove areas that were isolated during glacial times by the CVL. Genetic data and numerical ocean simulations indicated that an oceanic convergence zone near the Cameroon Estuary complex (CEC) presents a strong barrier to gene flow, resulting in genetic discontinuities between the mangrove areas on either side. This convergence did not result in higher genetic diversity at the CEC as we had hypothesized. In conclusion, the genetic structure of Rhizophora racemosa is maintained by the contrasting effects of the contemporary oceanic convergence and historical climate change-induced sea level rise

Large heat-capacity jump in cooling-heating of fragile glass from kinetic Monte Carlo simulations based on a two-state picture

The specific-heat capacity c v of glass formers undergoes a hysteresis when subjected to a cooling-heating cycle, with a larger c v and a more pronounced hysteresis for fragile glasses than for strong ones. Here we show that these experimental features, including the unusually large magnitude of c v of fragile glasses, are well reproduced by kinetic Monte Carlo and equilibrium study of a distinguishable particle lattice model incorporating a two-state picture of particle interactions. The large c v in fragile glasses is caused by a dramatic transfer of probabilistic weight from high-energy particle interactions to low-energy ones as temperature decreases

Large‐scale changes in macrobenthic biodiversity driven by mangrove afforestation

1. Large- scale anthropogenic mangroves have been constructed in coastal regions worldwide but our understanding of their ecological effects is limited. In particu-lar, the question of whether and how anthropogenic mangroves influence biodi-versity patterns remains elusive.2. Here, we investigated the influence of large-scale anthropogenic mangroves on biodiversity patterns of mangrove macrobenthos. Specifically, we measure and seek to explain differences in species richness, abundance, assemblage composi-tion and distance-decay effect before and after the construction of anthropo-genic mangroves.3. We surveyed assemblages of gastropod, bivalve and crab species over a wide latitudinal extent (24–28°N) in subtropical China. For each, we calculated species richness, abundance, assemblage composition and distance-decay relationship before and after the construction of anthropogenic mangroves.4. After the large-scale anthropogenic mangroves, we found species richness of gas-tropods, bivalves and crabs increased by 23.81%, 100% and 20%, respectively. The distance-decay effects of gastropods and bivalves decreased by 25% and 91.43%, while that of crabs remained virtually unchanged, which mediated by in-creased dispersal rate of macrobenthos. With mangrove plantation, compositional similarity of crab and bivalve assemblages increased by 28.57% and 38.46%, sug-gesting that large-scale monospecific planting exacerbate biotic homogenization. Altogether, these results indicate that large-scale anthropogenic habitats increase the diversity of mangrove macrobenthos and change taxonomic compositions by reducing distance-decay effects and increasing dispersal rate of macrobenthos.5. Synthesis and applications. We emphasize that afforestation of coastal wetlands can drive major changes in benthonic communities. Monitoring and assessing the ecological effects of the anthropogenic habitats for the presence of functional faunas will be important in determining the future coastal restoration and main-taining economic aquaculture. Quantifying those effects in terms of regional bio-diversity composition will contribute to the management of coastal restoration to be based upon macroevidence rather than a one-sided local perspective.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Life-history, movement, and habitat use of Scylla serrata (Decapoda, Portunidae): current knowledge and future challenges.

The mud crab Scylla serrata is a highly exploited species, associated to mangrove ecosystems in the Indo-West-Pacific. It has a complex life cycle with a dispersing larvae phase, and benthic juveniles and adults. The former are stenohaline depending on high-salinity conditions to survive, whereas the latter are physiologically well adapted to changing temperatures and salinities, conditions that typically occur in mangrove habitats. Movement and habitat use of large juveniles and adults are well studied, and these life stages are known to utilize and move between various habitats within the mangrove ecosystem: intertidal flats as well as subtidal channels and flats. Females undertake long movements from brackish inshore waters to waters with oceanic conditions for spawning.Sensory abilities—of early stages and adult stages— have hardly been studied, and little is known about larval and early benthic stages in the wild. Summarizing, the literature revealed substantial gaps in the understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of thedifferent life stages and of the clues that trigger recruitment, movement, and other behavior. This is the first comprehensive review on the life history, movement patterns, habitat use, and systemic role of S. serrata with emphasis on the respective life stages and geographic differences. We emphasize the need forfurther research into these processes as a basis for the sustainable management and conservation of this species

Kauzmann paradox: A possible crossover due to diminishing local excitations

The configurational entropy of supercooled liquids extrapolates to zero at the Kauzmann temperature, causing a crisis called the Kauzmann paradox. Here, using a class of multicomponent lattice glass models, we study a resolution of the paradox characterized by a sudden but smooth turn in the entropy as temperature goes sufficiently low. A scalar variant of the models reproduces the Kauzmann paradox with thermodynamic properties at very low temperatures dominated by correlations. An exactly solvable vector variant without correlation illustrates that a sudden entropy turn occurs when discrete local excitations are largely suppressed. Despite being disordered and infinitely degenerate, the ground states have zero entropy per particl

Presence of tumour capsule on contrast-enhanced CT is associated with improved outcomes of stereotactic body radiation therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Purpose Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is a novel local therapy for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). While effective, there is currently noreliable radiological marker to guide patient selection. In this study, we investigated the prognostic value of capsule appearanceon contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) for patients undergoing SBRT. Materials and Methods Between 2006 and 2017, 156 consecutive patients with Child-Pugh score class A/B and HCC ≥5cm that underwent SBRT were retrospectively analysed. Baseline triple-phase CTs of the abdomen were reviewed for the presence of capsule appearances and correlated with objective response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS), and pattern of treatment failure. Results Capsule appearance on CT was present in 83 (53.2%) patients.It was associated with improved ORR by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours (RECIST) (60.2% vs 24.7%; p<0.001) andModified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumours(mRECIST) (ORR 78.3% vs 34.2%; p<0.001). The presence of a capsule was also associated with superior 2-year local control (89.1% vs. 51.4%; p<0.001) and 2-year OS (34.1% vs. 14.8%, p<0.01). Hepatic out-field failure was the dominant mode of progression, which was less common in patients with intact capsule (54.2% vs. 60.3%, p=0.01). Conclusion Capsule appearance on CT could potentially be a non-invasive prognostic marker for selecting HCC patients undergoing SBRT. Larger cohort is warranted to validate our findings