Relativity in Introductory Physics

A century after its formulation by Einstein, it is time to incorporate special relativity early in the physics curriculum. The approach advocated here employs a simple algebraic extension of vector formalism that generates Minkowski spacetime, displays covariant symmetries, and enables calculations of boosts and spatial rotations without matrices or tensors. The approach is part of a comprehensive geometric algebra with applications in many areas of physics, but only an intuitive subset is needed at the introductory level. The approach and some of its extensions are given here and illustrated with insights into the geometry of spacetime.Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures, several typos corrected, some discussion polishe

Distributional composition using higher-order dependency vectors

This paper concerns how to apply compositional methods to vectors based on grammatical dependency relation vectors. We demonstrate the potential of a novel approach which uses higher-order grammatical dependency relations as features. We apply the approach to adjective-noun compounds with promising results in the prediction of the vectors for (held-out) observed phrases

Zhang Yimou's Shanghai Triad

Just when it seemed as if every variety of the gangster genre had been played out, Mainland Chinese director Zhang Yimou sprang a pleasant surprise with his film Shanghai Triad (Yao a yao yao dao wai po qiao, 1995). The film is probably the last collaboration between the director and Gong Li, the leading actress in all his previous films(1) and his off-screen partner until the completion of this film. Few gangster movies have been made in recent years that equal the film in its freshness, style, intelligence, sensual and lyrical beauty. However, in his interview with Zhang at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, Nigel Andrews reported that Zhang's latest film had been indifferently received by critics who thought no more of it than "just a gangster film" and a mere waste of the director's talent(2). Though under-appreciated as a gangster film, Shanghai Triad's merit has not been totally ignored...

A Comparison of Reform-Era Labor Force Participation Rates of China’s Ethnic Minorities and Han Majority

Previous research suggests that minorities are not faring well in China’s transition—both income and occupational attainment gaps are widening. We are particularly interested in whether the differences in majority and minority economic outcomes are the result of ethnicity per se, or whether they are artifacts of local economic conditions. In this paper, we employ data from the three most recent population censuses of China to explore differences in the labor force participation rates of a number of China’s important ethnic groups. We estimate urban labor force participation rates using probit regressions controlling for sex, marital status, educational attainment, age, ethnicity, and location. We also account for the geographic concentration of particular ethnic minorities and compare the participation rates of different ethnic groups within geographic regions that represent the areas of principal residence for each minority. We concentrate on seven important minority groups: Hui, Koreans, Manchu, Mongolians, Uygurs, Yi and Zhuang. We find that location has limited explanatory power in explaining differences in the probability of labor force participation between these important Chinese ethnic minorities and the majority Han.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40181/3/wp795.pd

Comparison of the Poetics between British Ballads and Yao Ballads

Although British ballads and Yao ballads are created in different backgrounds of language and culture, they all come from the folk and are characterized by the folk songs, not only following the principles of traditional poetry composing, but also reflecting the social reality in an easy-to-understand language. Actually they are rare intangible cultural heritages retained by human beings. In this paper, poetic characteristics of British ballads and Yao ballads are analyzed from three aspects of meter, rhythm, rhyme and poetic style. The purpose is to explain the commonality and uniqueness of different national literary systems, and to sum up the aesthetic value and development law of literary works. Meanwhile, it also expounds the similarities or unique features between British ballads and Yao ballads by discussing the typical composing techniques and poetic structure characteristics of the ballads of the two nationalities, so that a useful conclusion is drawn for philosophical, aesthetic and critical comparative research as well as a new comparative perspective is explored for comparative literature research

北宋の修武窯

It is strange that the Hsiu Wu Yao, or Chiao Tso Yao, the most important. and particularly fine in the quality of products among the Chinese ceramic kilns. in the Northern Sung Dynasty, has not hitherto been known of its existence. The discovery of the Hsiu Wu Yao brought various problems, hitherto left unsettled, about important Northern Sung ceramic products, and proved a very significant center of the sort in the period, even more significant than the Ting Yao or Ju Yao. The writer learned the existence of this kiln site during his trip to Northern China in 1943, and has kept an eye on products from it ever since. A detailed information about it reached him through the Notes on the Wares from the Chiao Tso Potteries (Ethnos, No. 3, 1943) by Orvar Karlbeck, a copy of which was kindly sent to him from Sir Herbert Ingram, B.T., England. The Hsiu Wu kiln site was discovered in 1933 by the late R. W. Swallow, and was inspected in the following year by Mr. Karlbeck. The site is located at the Potter\u27s Valley about four miles north of Chiao Tso in the northern part of Honanshêng Province. It is worth a discussion by what name this kiln site should be called. Mr. Karlbeck called it Chiao Tso after the name of a town near it. The Chinese people call it T\u27ang Yang Yü, the name of the hamlet where the kiln actually existed. The writer suggests to call it Hsiu Wu by the name of the prefecture, since it can be easily identified while Chiao Tso or T\u27ang Yang Yü are too small to be found in any of Chinese gazetteers or maps. We have already similar examples, such as the Ting Yao, Ju Yao, Tzu Chou Yao and Lung Chüan Yao named after respective prefectures, though the actual locations of them may be miles or even tens of miles away from those places. Resultant from the discovery of the Hsiu Wu Yao, we ought to amend our notion of the Tzu Chou Yao, for most of the best ones among the pieces hitherto believed to be Tzu Chou Yao ware have been found to be Hsiu Wu Yao ware. There were picked up at the Hsiu Wu Yao site quite a number of rare ceramic fragments, which are roughly classified into four groups, as follows: (1) pottery resembling Tzu Chou Yao ware; (2) porcelain resembling Ting Yao ware; (3) pottery resembling Chün Yao ware; and (4) others. (1) Among pottery pieces hitherto ascribed to be Tzu Chou Yao ware, there are various sorts besides the ones like the specimen given in color reproduction at the head of this volume : (a) marbled ware; (b) ware having free and artistic designs painted in black or brown on white slip (c) ware decorated with graffito ornament; (d) ware coated with green glaze at low temperature on the body of Tzu Chou Yao style pottery; and (e) three-color glaze ware of the Sung Dynasty, all of which are presumed to be Hsiu Wu Yao ware. (2) Of the Ting Yao style porcelain, there are: (a) white porcelain; (b) black porcelain; and (c) white porcelain having elaborate decorations in black or brown. (3) Of the Chün Yao style pottery, too, there are various sorts, including, in particular, such famous ware as bulb bowls and flower-pots which have been valued very highly since old. Mr. Karlbeck reports of his discovering “glaze samples with incised numerals and with Chün-like glaze.” (4) Besides the three groups discussed above the Hsiu Wu Yao produced various sorts of ceramics. The writer presumes that the red-enamel ware of the Sung Dynasty, famed as the oldest of enamel-color pottery in the East, are products from the Hsiu Wu Yao, too. The Hsiu Wu Yao is the most impressive and most attractive kiln, not only in the Northern Sung Dynasty but througout the long history of twenty centuries of Chinese ceramics. The reason why such excellent ware was produced at the Hsiu Wu Yao, is presumably attributable to the location of the kiln near K\u27ai-fêng, the capital city of the Northern Sung Dynasty. In other words, the prosperity of the Hsiu Wu Yao, and the style of its products, were closely related to the prosperity of K\u27ai-fêng. It is not known when the Hsiu Wu Yao was founded and when abandoned, but it is most likely that it was active from the middle of the Northern Sung Dynasty to the Yüan Dynasty, and that it flourished most around the Chêng-ho and Hsüan-ho Eras (1111-1125A.D.) towards the end of the Northern Sung Dynasty

A Comparison of Reform-Era Labor Force Participation Rates of China’s Ethnic Minorities and Han Majority

Previous research suggests that minorities are not faring well in China’s transition—both income and occupational attainment gaps are widening. We are particularly interested in whether the differences in majority and minority economic outcomes are the result of ethnicity per se, or whether they are artifacts of local economic conditions. In this paper, we employ data from the three most recent population censuses of China to explore differences in the labor force participation rates of a number of China’s important ethnic groups. We estimate urban labor force participation rates using probit regressions controlling for sex, marital status, educational attainment, age, ethnicity, and location. We also account for the geographic concentration of particular ethnic minorities and compare the participation rates of different ethnic groups within geographic regions that represent the areas of principal residence for each minority. We concentrate on seven important minority groups: Hui, Koreans, Manchu, Mongolians, Uygurs, Yi and Zhuang. We find that location has limited explanatory power in explaining differences in the probability of labor force participation between these important Chinese ethnic minorities and the majority Han.China, ethnic minorities, labor force participation, economic reform, population censuses

Valley optoelectronics and spin-valley coupling: from graphene to monolayer group-VI transition metal dichalcogenides

Session T2: Invited Session: Valley Polarization Physics: Transition Metal Dichalcogenides and Other: Abstract: T2.00001The Bloch bands in many crystals have a degenerate set of energy extrema in momentum space known as valleys. The band-edge carriers then have an extra valley index which may also be used to encode information for device applications provided that dynamic control of valley index is possible. In this talk, we show that, when inver...published_or_final_versio