The roads of the Sayan Mountains: Theorizing remoteness in eastern Siberia

The Sayan crossroads is a distinct cultural and economic region in the mountains of eastern Siberia. It spans three federal units in the Russian Federation: the national republics of Tyva (Todzha kozhuun) and Buryatia (Okinskii raion), as well as Irkutsk oblast (Tofalarskoe municipality). Attempts at integration by the state during the Soviet period and afterwards have privileged the construction of roads in a variety of forms to connect these areas economically with regional centers and, in turn, the rest of the country. Yet this process has been uneven and led to divergences in the economic regimes in each of the three regions that make up the crossroads. The evolution of subsistence economies, exploitation by extractive industries, and the development of tourism as an alternative source of income all differ across the three federal subunits. In turn, these divergences within the crossroads as a region point to variation in the condition of remoteness. Remoteness is an instance of relative immobility, determined by physical geography, environment, and ethnicity. And remoteness influences the function that roads play in integrating state spaces both economically and politically. In turn, this article argues for the foregrounding of the remote in the literature on mobilities in human geography, considering what the condition of remoteness allows for and forecloses in the articulation of state power and the integration of hard-to-reach areas.     

一种新型的公路核子检测仪

本文介绍了一种基于康谱顿背散射扫描（ＣＢＳ）的新型的公路核子检测仪的主要特点,软件流程框图和数据处理的基本算法。     

Measuring the Effect of Foreign Direct Investment on CO2 Emissions in Laos

This paper aims to explore the determinants of CO₂ emissions in Laos by accounting for the significant role played by foreign direct investment (FDI) in influencing CO₂ emissions during the period 1990-2017. We apply a Johansen co-integration testing approach to investigate the presence of co-integration, and the empirical findings underscore the presence of a long-run co-integration relationship between CO₂ emissions, FDI, per capita GDP, and industrial structure. We also employ an error-correcting model to examine the short-term dynamic effect of FDI on CO₂ emissions. The empirical results show that FDI has a significant short-term dynamic effect on changes in CO₂ emissions, indicating that the relationship between FDI and CO₂ emissions is an inverted U-shaped curve. This is a validation of the EKC. Changes of FDI, per capita GDP, and industrial structure increase CO₂ emissions. Based on the analysis results, this paper puts forward policy suggestions emphasizing the need for both Laotian policymakers and Chinese investors to improve eco-environmental quality.     

哈尔滨市基础设施普查信息系统——城市道路查询子系统的建立

城市道路查询子系统的建立,不仅对提高城市道路管理工作效率产生重要作用,而且还能为城市的建设与发展提供准确、快速、权威的辅助决策信息。     

The German Bight (North Sea) is a nursery area for both locally and externally produced sprat juveniles

To better understand the role of the German Bight (GB) as a nursery area for juvenile North Sea sprat Sprattus sprattus we sought to determine whether the area may receive only locally or also externally produced offspring. We sampled juveniles during 3 trawl surveys in the GB in August, September, and October 2004 and applied otolith microstructure analysis in order to reconstruct their distributions of the day-of-first-increment-formation (dif). These were contrasted with spatial and seasonal patterns of sprat egg abundance in the GB and its adjacent areas, observed during 6 monthly plankton surveys. It was found that the majority of juveniles originated mainly from April/May 2004, coinciding with high spawning activity west of the GB, whereas spawning and larval production inside the GB peaked notably later, in May/June. This indicated that a large proportion of juveniles was produced outside the GB and transported subsequently into it through passive and/or active migration. Shifts to later mean difs from one survey to the next and length distributions indicative of the simultaneous presence of multiple cohorts, supported the notion that the GB is a complex retention and nursery area for sprat offspring from different North Sea spawning grounds and times. Later born juveniles had significantly faster initial growth rates than earlier born conspecifics, which was likely temperature-mediated, given the strong correlation between back-calculated growth histories and sea surface temperature as a proxy for thermal histories of juveniles (r² = 0.52).     

Millennial- to centennial-scale anti-phase relationship between the Westerlies and the East Asian summer monsoon and its cultural response along the Silk Roads after a great earthquake in southern Altay ~ 3500 cal a BP

It is strongly debated whether the Westerlies and the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) are in-phase, anti-phase or out-of-phase, and how hydroclimatic changes in the above two climate systems affected trans-Eurasian cultural exchanges during the late Holocene. In this study, we establish a 3500-a-long paleoclimatic sequence based on high-resolution analyses of sedimentological and geochemical data of a well-dated sediment core from Yileimu Lake in southern Altay. High percentages of the >63-µm fraction and high values of Zr/Rb and Rb/Sr ratios indicate strong transport of weakly weathered, coarse sediments into the depocenter of the lake caused by enhanced surface runoff and catchment erosion associated with a wet climate, and vice versa. High values of Ca and total inorganic carbon (TIC) contents imply increased precipitation of endogenic carbonates in the lake water under intense evaporation associated with a dry climate, and vice versa. This new record indicates two wet intervals at 3500–2300 and 600–100 cal a bp , interrupted by a severe and prolonged dry interval from 2300 to 1000 cal a bp , and a mild dry interval with occasionally wet conditions from 1000 to 600 cal a bp. These results are broadly consistent with other paleoclimatic records in Westerlies-dominated Asia and are generally anti-phase with those in the EASM region. We suggest that a strengthening/weakening and southward/northward migration of the Westerlies during a negative/positive phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) transported more/less water vapor into arid Asia. Meanwhile, a decreasing/increasing El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) superimposed on a southward/northward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) triggered a weakening/strengthening and southward/northward movement of the West-Pacific subtropical high (WPSH), resulting in decreasing/increasing EASM intensity. In addition, the wet climate from 3500 to 2300 cal a bp may have contributed to the development of nomadic herding in the eastern Eurasian Steppe and Altay region, and to the opening of the proto-Silk Roads. Potentially, intense seismic activities in the Altay Mountains ~3500 cal a bp may have also promoted the opening of the proto-Silk Roads by forcing the herdsmen to move to the inter-mountainous basins. The strong EASM intensity from 2300 to 1000 cal a bp in eastern China may have contributed to the creation of the ancient Silk Roads by the Han Dynasty.