In contrast to the aphoristic style of the Daodejing, Zhuangzi is known for its abundant use of dialogues. These dialogues, especially those found in chapters 21 and 22, are consciously organized ...around the theme of “asking about Dao”. They bring together the diverse propositions about the Dao that are found independently throughout the Daodejing. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the fact that Zhuangzi consciously orders these propositions in terms of the different levels of knowledge of Dao. Within this theoretical framework, Zhuangzi further ranks the questions and answers regarding these propositions. Certain dialogues are partly dismissed because both participants demonstrate a flawed and shallow understanding of the Dao, while other questions and answers are acknowledged and appreciated for their correct and profound understanding of it. There is a strict corresponding relationship between levels of knowledge of Dao and different attitudes toward dialogues in it. Therefore, the examination of the dialogues about the Dao reveals that Zhuangzi places explicit emphasis on the knowledge of the Dao compared to the Daodejing, which also sheds light on Zhuangzi’s distinctive awareness of the problems surrounding this key concept.
Negative terms are widespread in the text of Laozi; however, our understanding of their field, form and philosophical meaning is still unclear. In this paper, I intend to argue that the theoretical ...meaning of these terms first needs to be understood in terms of the proposition “Truthful words seem contrary”. In this proposition, “contrary” is the accurate meaning of negative terms. I demonstrate that the essence of the “contrary” lies in the critical reaction of xuande (dark virtue) to mingde (brilliant virtue), which is the traditional highest value. Thus, dark virtue is the theoretical foundation of the “contrary” because it is the new highest value. The “contrary” manifests itself in two forms: intuitive words (including adjectives and nouns), which are reflective, and negative words (including negative adverbs and verbs). Intuitive words represent the highest value or Being by means of the states and beings in the empirical world (I make use of the ontological difference between Being and being made by Heidegger, and so I maintain the capitalization of Being). In contrast, negative words more clearly distinguish the highest value or Being from secular values and beings in negative sentences. According to a further analysis of the relationship between affirmative and negative sentences, the latter is the universal expression of the former. All of these propositions reveal a philosophical possibility in which the diverse ways and values of the existence of all beings are affirmed and fulfilled.
Bidirectional long short-term memory (BLSTM) acoustic models provide a significant word error rate reduction compared to their unidirectional counterpart, as they model both the past and future ...temporal contexts. However, it is nontrivial to deploy bidirectional acoustic models for online speech recognition due to an increase in latency. In this letter, we propose the use of temporal convolution, in the form of time-delay neural network (TDNN) layers, along with unidirectional LSTM layers to limit the latency to 200 ms. This architecture has been shown to outperform the state-of-the-art low frame rate (LFR) BLSTM models. We further improve these LFR BLSTM acoustic models by operating them at higher frame rates at lower layers and show that the proposed model performs similar to these mixed frame rate BLSTMs. We present results on the Switchboard 300 h LVCSR task and the AMI LVCSR task, in the three microphone conditions.
The theoretical proposition that sages or ideal rulers wuwei 無為 (act noncoercively) to achieve ziran 自然 of people has been clearly identified as the key claim in the political field, as posed by ...Laozi. However, this proposition leaves two questions worth further consideration. Firstly, how does this political claim relate to other, somewhat negative, political claims in Laozi, such as bushangxian 不尚賢 (not promoting those of superior character)? Secondly, why and in what sense should ziran of people and things be affirmed? Correspondingly, the purpose of this paper was to elucidate that those seemingly negative political claims are critiques of the ruler’s youwei 有為 (coercive action) in governance, in accordance with the viewpoint of noncoercive action, and to argue that the affirmation of the value of ziran must be established in the metaphysical realm of shapeless Dao instead of in the political realm. On the grounds of Dao, although the content of ziran involves the diversity of states of things, a permanent change of those states really establishes the measures and criteria of the ziran of things.
Non-human primates are among the most vulnerable tropical animals to extinction and ~50% of primate species are endangered. Human hunting is considered a major cause of increasingly ‘empty forests’, ...yet archaeological data remains under-utilised in testing this assertion over the longer-term. Zooarchaeological datasets allow investigation of human exploitation of primates and the reconstruction of extinction, extirpation, and translocation processes. We evaluate the application and limitations of data from zooarchaeological studies spanning the past 45 000 years in South and Southeast Asia in guiding primate conservation efforts. We highlight that environmental change was the primary threat to many South and Southeast Asian non-human primate populations during much of the Holocene, foreshadowing human-induced land-use and environmental change as major threats of the 21st century.
South and Southeast Asia are hotspots for non-human primate biodiversity but also home to critically endangered and vulnerable species.Zooarchaeology can help guide primate conservation efforts in South and Southeast Asia but has been under-utilised.Conservation research often emphasises human hunting as the major cause of primate extinction; however, zooarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental data suggests habitat change has also played a major role.Zooarchaeology can provide species-specific suggestions for endangered primate taxa, such as orangutan.
Humans evolved in a patchwork of semi-connected populations across Africa
; understanding when and how these groups connected is critical to interpreting our present-day biological and cultural ...diversity. Genetic analyses reveal that eastern and southern African lineages diverged sometime in the Pleistocene epoch, approximately 350-70 thousand years ago (ka)
; however, little is known about the exact timing of these interactions, the cultural context of these exchanges or the mechanisms that drove their separation. Here we compare ostrich eggshell bead variations between eastern and southern Africa to explore population dynamics over the past 50,000 years. We found that ostrich eggshell bead technology probably originated in eastern Africa and spread southward approximately 50-33 ka via a regional network. This connection breaks down approximately 33 ka, with populations remaining isolated until herders entered southern Africa after 2 ka. The timing of this disconnection broadly corresponds with the southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, which caused periodic flooding of the Zambezi River catchment (an area that connects eastern and southern Africa). This suggests that climate exerted some influence in shaping human social contact. Our study implies a later regional divergence than predicted by genetic analyses, identifies an approximately 3,000-kilometre stylistic connection and offers important new insights into the social dimension of ancient interactions.
SignificanceUnderstanding the drivers of South Asian monsoon intensity is pivotal for improving climate forecasting under global warming scenarios. Solar insolation is assumed to be the dominant ...driver of monsoon variability in warm climate regimes, but this has not been verified by proxy data. We report a South Asian monsoon rainfall record spanning the last ∼130 kyr in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river catchment. Our multiproxy data reveal that the South Asian monsoon was weaker during the Last Interglacial (130 to 115 ka)-despite higher insolation-than during the Holocene (11.6 ka to present), thus questioning the widely accepted model assumption. Our work implies that Indian Ocean warming may increase the occurrence of severe monsoon failures in South Asia.
•Abundance of ARGs and bacterial pathogens were reduced along with the composting process.•Additives improved the removal rate of ARGs during chicken manure composting.•Bacterial pathogens could be ...effectively removed in the thermophilic stage.•Firmicutes was an important potential host bacteria for ARGs in chicken manure.•Bacterial evolution and environmental factors determined the ARGs profile.
Factory-scale chicken manure composting added with zeolite (F), superphosphate (G), or zeolite and ferrous sulfate (FL) simultaneously, were evaluate for their effects on the behaviors of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and bacterial communities. After composting, ARGs in manure decreased by 67.3% in the control, whereas the reductions were 86.5%, 68.6% and 72.2% in F, G and FL, respectively. ARGs encoding ribosomal protection proteins (tetO, tetB(P), and tetM) were reduced to a greater extent than tetG, tetL, sul1 and sul2. Bacteria pathogens were also effectively removed by composting. Network analysis showed that Firmicutes were the important potential host bacteria for ARGs. The bacterial communities and environmental factors, as well as the intI gene, contributed significantly to the variation of ARGs. The ARGs and integrons were reduced more when zeolite was added than when superphosphate was added; thus, it may be useful for reducing the risks of ARGs in chicken manure.
Based on the background of big data, it is necessary to study the dynamic parameter optimization of the commercial bank risk model neural network. Several customer information attribute groups that ...have an impact on loan customer rating are selected, and the existing customer data are used to train the network model of the attribute group and customer default rate, so that it can predict the customer’s default rate according to the newly entered loan customer information and then predict whether the customer defaults. Based on a neural network model, this article constructs the credit risk early warning model of science and technology bank, makes an empirical test, and puts forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions to control the credit risk of bank. This article establishes a warning model of commercial banks by using a neural network. Taking the bank as an empirical sample, the constructed neural network model is used. Finally, the error of the model is small and the early warning results are satisfactory. The experimental results show that the proposed risk early warning model can accurately predict the customer default rate, so as to warn the defaulting customers. In the whole process, there are few human intervention factors and a high degree of intelligence, which reduces the operational risk.
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•Ecosystem service value (ESV) experienced a net increase of 10.64 billion USD in Guizhou Province from 2000 to 2020.•Transition from forest to farmland resulted in 53.66% of ESV ...loss.•The total ESV will increase by 17.07 billion USD, 30.16 billion USD, and 48.58 billion USD under mild GFGP, moderate GFGP, and strong GFGP scenarios, respectively.•The moderate GFGP scenario (i.e. converting farmland on a slope greater than 20° into forestland) was the optimal intensity in Guizhou Province.
Understanding the impact of land use change on ecosystem service values (ESV) will provide a valuable reference for the formulation and implementation of ecological restoration programs (ERPs) and land use policies. The Guizhou Province is a typical karst region with a fragile ecosystem in southwest China. During the past decades, multiple ERPs, especially the Grain for Green Program (GFGP), have been implemented in this region, which has resulted in dramatic land use change. However, how the ESV responded to land use change in Guizhou Province remains unclear. Moreover, few studies have addressed the response of ESV to different intensities of ERPs in the future. This study adopted the benefit transfer method to quantitatively evaluate the contributions of different land use transitions to ESV change in Guizhou Province from 2000 to 2020. Moreover, we designed three GFGP scenarios to explore the response of ESV to the intensity of GFGP and identify the priority areas. The results showed that the total ESV in Guizhou Province experienced a net increase of 10.64 billion USD from 2000 to 2020, which was mainly attributed to the expansion of forestland and water area. However, the transition from forestland to farmland resulted in a loss of 5.07 billion USD in ESV, accounting for 53.66% of the total ESV loss, which should receive enough attention. The total ESV will increase by 17.07 billion USD, 30.16 billion USD, and 48.58 billion USD under mild GFGP, moderate GFGP, and strong GFGP scenarios, respectively. The high-intensity GFGP enhanced the trade-off relationship between provision services and the other three kinds of services (i.e. regulating services, culture services, and habitant services). The moderate GFGP scenario (i.e. converting farmland on a slope greater than 20° into forestland) was the optimal intensity in Guizhou Province and Zunyi, Bijie, and Qiandongnan should be the priority areas to implement GFGP in the future. The trade-off relationship between ecosystem services should be taken into consideration and the suitable intensity of GFGP should be determined based on local characteristics in the formulation and implementation of GFGP. This study can provide references for formulating and optimizing ecological restoration policy in Guizhou Province.
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