From demon to deity : Kang Wang in thirteenth-century Jizhou and beyond

This essay discusses the cult of a deity known as Kang Wang, worshipped throughout Jizhou in thirteenth-century Jiangxi. The identity of this deity remains to some extent mysterious; many different identifying stories for Kang Wang coexist. Underneath these guises, however, his origins as a fearsome and unnamed demon shine through. I argue that the various representations of Kang Wang must be understood as resulting from the very different agendas of the authors who created those identities, but they all share one aim: covering up the demonic roots of the deity. Providing a name and place of origin for the deity should be seen as attempts to exert authority over this demonic force

The tale of Lady Tan: negotiating place between Central and local in Song-Yuan-Ming China

This paper explores the story of Lady Tan across genres from biographical record to temple inscription and marvellous tale, highlighting different representations of ‘the local’ in these stories: the loss of local belonging for some, inscribing the morals of a local community for others. Focusing on this tale, this essay argues that locality and belonging were contested constructs, especially during the Song-Yuan-Ming transitional period. Ex-ploring how literati understood themselves in relation to their localities contributes to our understanding of literati identities and the meaning of ‘the local’, in a period with ‘weak central government’, or as a repeating pattern of centralisation and localisation. It reveals the complexities in-volved in giving meaning to locality and negotiating belonging. In Ji'an prefecture, the centralising policies of the Hongwu and Yongle emperors were felt locally and affected how literati positioned themselves between central government and local community. This focus on literati writings from a single prefecture suggests that a close reading of the negotiations that form part of constructing locality and belonging in Ji'an can reveal the potential for a complex interplay between central government and local communities throughout China

The staffing of science departments in New Zealand secondary schools : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University

This thesis attempts to ascertain the state of staffing in science departments of New Zealand Secondary Schools as at 1st September 1980. This study updates, and extends, the work done by E.J. Searle (1954) and O. Taylor (1965) of producing data about the staffing of science departments in secondary schools. The survey consisted of two different questionnaire forms. One was to be completed by the Head of Department (H.O.D.) Science while a second form was completed by every teacher in the schools who was teaching one or more science classes. The questionnaires were sent to all State and Private Secondary Schools, District High Schools and the Form 3-7 departments of Form 1-7 Schools. A response from 70% of the schools resulted. The major areas for which information was obtained included: qualifications held and qualifications relevant to senior science subjects being taught, the percentage of trained teachers teaching science, salaries, the resources available to the teacher of science, the main areas of concern in science education as perceived by the teacher of science, and information from H.O.D s about the numbers of science teachers leaving teaching and the type of employment they had gone to. Information was also obtained relating to class sizes, the level of training and the teaching ability of teachers in training (i.e. those on Section and List A teachers), morale in science departments, the extent to which science teachers have become subject specialists and the type of people involved in part-time science teaching. The responses made were hand coded by the researcher, punched on to computer discs and the necessary sorting and statistical analyses were done by Massey University's B6700 Computer. Listed below are some of the major findings of the project. It seems that most teachers of science teach mainly science (81.7%) which is a marked increase in subject specialisation since 1965. The teacher of science is generally much better qualified than in 1965 and 86.6% of the sample were trained teachers. Teachers with tertiary qualifications in Education, other than the Diploma in Teaching, are quite rare (13%). One of the major findings of Taylor's 1965 survey was that 57.7% of the science teachers in District High Schools and F. 1-7 Schools lacked completed degrees or diplomas. This value has now dropped to 20.5%. Most teachers (76.4%) are reasonably happy with their present salary even though they do lack salary relativity with other professions having similar qualifications. Excluding salary considerations, 64.4% of the sample were reasonably happy with their present situation as post-primary teachers of science. Science teachers did, however, recommend most strongly that less class contact time, better equipment and textbooks, more technician assistance and smaller teacher/pupil ratios are essential requisites of future modifications to their present conditions. There is a definite shortage of well-trained, well qualified teachers which has to some extent been improved by the recruitment of teachers from overseas. For the schools in the sample the total shortage of science teachers was 1170 class contact hours per week. The mean size of a science class has remained static at 23 over the past twenty-six years since Searle's 1954 survey. The thesis concludes with some recommendations of future changes that the researcher feels would help improve staffing and conditions in the science departments of New Zealand secondary schools

The many guises of Xiaoluan : the legacy of a girl poet in late Imperial China

Recent scholarship on women and gender has illustrated the prominent role played by women in the late-imperial Chinese literary establishment. Women wrote poetry, and often their ventures were dependent on the support of men who appreciated their poetic talents. This article discusses the ways in which the work of one woman poet (Ye Xiaoluan, 1616-1632) was transmitted. It argues that Xiaoluan's legacy was largely shaped by the ideals and desires of male literati. The process of recreating Xiaoluan's image to fit with constantly changing needs and desires, reminiscent of the continual recreation of the Greek poet Sappho, should form an important element of our understanding of Xiaoluan. The various guises of Xiaoluan suggest that her poetry was rarely central to her reception. Given the focus of much current scholarship on Chinese "woman writers," this article argues for broader awareness of the changing contexts in which their legacies came into bein

High-pressure behaviour of an X-ray preionized discharge pumped XeCl laser

The output characteristics are described of an X-ray preionized discharge pumped XeCl laser, fed by a low-impedance pulse forming line (PFL), at pressures up to 12 bar. The influence of a multichannel rail gap placed between the PFL and the laser head on the output energy was studied. We found an increase of output energy with increasing pressure up to 8 bar. At higher pressures a saturation behaviour was found. The maximum output energy per unit volume was 6.5 J/l

An investigation of the structure and kinematics of the spiral galaxy NGC 6503

The spiral galaxy NGC 6503 exhibits a regular kinematical structure except for a remarkable drop of the stellar velocity dispersion values in the central region. To investigate the dynamics of the disc a theoretical framework has been described. This includes a mass decomposition of the galaxy into a family of disc/halo realizations compatible with the observed photometry and rotation curve. For this family stellar velocity dispersion values and stability parameters were calculated, showing that the more massive discs, although having larger dispersions, are less stable. However, a reliable theoretical description of the inner regions where the drop occurs cannot be given. That is why we have resorted to numerical calculations. Pure stellar 3d simulations have been performed for the family of decompositions. A clear result is that disc/dark halo mass ratios approaching those of the maximum disc limit generate a large bar structure. This is incompatible with the observed morphology of NGC 6503. For the larger radii the stellar kinematics resulting from the simulations essentially agrees with that predicted by the theory, but the central velocity dispersion drop could not be reproduced. A close inspection reveals that the central nuclear region is very small and bright. Therefore, tentatively, this nucleus was considered as an isothermal sphere and a core fitting procedure was applied. For an adopted equal mass-to-light ratio of disc and nucleus, a velocity dispersion of 21.5 km/s is predicted, in excellent agreement with the observed central value. The observed dispersion drop can thus be explained by a separate kinematically distinct galactic component.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, use mn.sty style fil

Social Simulation and Analysis of the Dynamics of Criminal Hot Spots

Within the field of Criminology, the spatio-temporal dynamics of crime are an important subject of study. In this area, typical questions are how the behaviour of offenders, targets, and guardians can be explained and predicted, as well as the emergence and displacement of criminal hot spots. In this article we present a combination of software tools that can be used as an experimental environment to address such questions. In particular, these tools comprise an agent-based simulation model, a verification tool, and a visualisation tool. The agent-based simulation model specifically focuses on the interplay between hot spots and reputation. Using this environment, a large number of simulation runs have been performed, of which results have been formally analysed. Based on these results, we argue that the presented environment offers a valuable approach to analyse the dynamics of criminal hot spots.Agent-Based Modelling, Criminal Hot Spots, Displacement, Reputation, Social Simulation, Analysis

Diffusion of Monochromatic Classical Waves

We study the diffusion of monochromatic classical waves in a disordered acoustic medium by scattering theory. In order to avoid artifacts associated with mathematical point scatterers, we model the randomness by small but finite insertions. We derive expressions for the configuration-averaged energy flux, energy density, and intensity for one, two and three dimensional (1D, 2D and 3D) systems with an embedded monochromatic source using the ladder approximation to the Bethe-Salpeter equation. We study the transition from ballistic to diffusive wave propagation and obtain results for the frequency-dependence of the medium properties such as mean free path and diffusion coefficient as a function of the scattering parameters. We discover characteristic differences of the diffusion in 2D as compared to the conventional 3D case, such as an explicit dependence of the energy flux on the mean free path and quite different expressions for the effective transport velocity.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure