Opening the Dichotomy of Universalism and Relativism

A review of: Negotiating Culture and Human Rights edited by Linda S. Bell, Andrew J. Nathan and Ilan Peleg. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. 428 pp. and East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia by Daniel A. Bell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 369 pp

Being Sinologists in Post-Communist-party States: Reflections from Czech, Poland and Russia

Mongolian Journal of International Affairs Vol.19 2014: 82-8

Reforming China's Anti-Poverty Policy from Below: Experiences from Western Hunan

The relationship between poorpeasants and the state is derived from the unsuccessful introduction of competitive market exchange. The state intervenes unilaterally and in a top-down manner. This relationship creates mistrust and leaves poor peasants in a permanent state of poverty. The official anti-poverty (fu-pin) campaign is a source of in come for the poor peasants, not a step toward modernization. To portray their seemingly dependent mentality as "cultural backwardness" misses the point, however, because the poor peasants' aim of squeezing as much as possible out of the state without being absorbed into the process of modernization is not specifically directed against modernization, but is a result of it. Peasants feel secure only when they can work as members of a collectivity in which everyone shares the burden and the profits equally. Expecting peasants to compete on the market as individuals can therefore only result in sporadic success. Asfor those who prefer to staywhere they are in terms of income, neither the fu-pin teams nor the state willingly recognize their attitude as a legitimate option

Being Sinologists in Post-Communist-party States: Reflections from Czech, Poland and Russia

Mongolian Journal of International Affairs Vol.19 2014: 82-8

Hemispheric dispersion of radioactive plume laced with fission nuclides from the Fukushima nuclear event

Radioactivities of particulate 131I and 137Cs released from the Fukushima nuclear accident were monitored in a regional aerosol network including two high mountain sites (central Taiwan and Tibetan Plateau). The results were integrated with data measured elsewhere around the world, with special focus on the mid-latitudes. The hemispheric transport of the Fukushima radiation clouds (FRCs) by the westerlies took $18 days, displaying an exponential-like decrease eastward, with a dilution factor of at least five orders of magnitude following a full circuit around the globe. The initial two waves of FRCs may travel at different atitudes: the first one at$3–4 km, whereas the second one up to 5 km or more. 131I and 137Cs were fractionated during transport, with 137Cs concentrated in the shallower layer, susceptible to depositional removal, while 131I moving faster and higher. This accident may be exemplified to identify some atmospheric processes on the hemispheric scale

Scalable photonic sources using two-dimensional lead halide perovskite superlattices

Miniaturized photonic sources based on semiconducting two-dimensional (2D) materials offer new technological opportunities beyond the modern III-V platforms. For example, the quantum-confined 2D electronic structure aligns the exciton transition dipole moment parallel to the surface plane, thereby outcoupling more light to air which gives rise to high-efficiency quantum optics and electroluminescent devices. It requires scalable materials and processes to create the decoupled multi-quantum-well superlattices, in which individual 2D material layers are isolated by atomically thin quantum barriers. Here, we report decoupled multi-quantum-well superlattices comprised of the colloidal quantum wells of lead halide perovskites, with unprecedentedly ultrathin quantum barriers that screen interlayer interactions within the range of 6.5 Å. Crystallographic and 2D k-space spectroscopic analysis reveals that the transition dipole moment orientation of bright excitons in the superlattices is predominantly in-plane and independent of stacking layer and quantum barrier thickness, confirming interlayer decoupling