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Abstract:This paper argues that Wu Zhao's reimagined Double Ninth (Chongyang) Festival on the 9th day of the 9th lunar month emphasized a number of Daoist elements—including circumpolar sovereignty, divine kingship, longevity, and lofty venues that placed her in proximity of divinities and immortals—geared toward enhancing her religious and political authority. China's first and only female emperor inaugurated her Zhou dynasty (690-705) on the Double Ninth and celebrated personal triumphs on this same date five times between 690 and 697. The paper claims that this novel iteration of the Double Ninth helped link Wu Zhao to several circumpolar goddesses. Finally, the performances of the Double Ninth Festival, this paper contends, may represent a prototype of the later Festival of Nine Sovereigns.

In Tang dynasty (618–907) China, early in the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56), a severe locust infestation undermined the young sovereign's political legitimacy. When anomalous insect-wrought disasters compromised seasonal agrarian rhythms of state, the stability of the dynasty was imperiled. Given the widespread belief in the idea of tianren ganying, the cosmic resonance of heaven and man, many in court and country understood the plague of locusts as a scourge visited on humankind by a censorious heaven. Thus for newly enthroned Xuanzong to prove that he possessed sufficient virtue, that he possessed the mettle to be Son of Heaven, it was imperative that he successfully manage the swelling tide of insects. A fierce court debate ensued over how best to handle this ecological crisis. The passive camp maintained that if Xuanzong cultivated virtue, the crisis might be resolved of its own accord. Alternatively, proponents of a proactive approach, namely chief minister Yao Chong, urged Xuanzong to wage an aggressive campaign of extermination. With a combination of powerful rhetoric to persuade opponents to follow his proactive course of action and well-devised pragmatic measures to exterminate the locusts, Yao Chong ultimately won the day and quelled the infestation. In the process of the vigorous debate, many epiphenomena are brought to light: the push and pull between central and local authority, growing tensions between Han Chinese and ethnic minority subjects in the cosmopolitan multiethnic state, and the ideological conflict between Confucianism and Buddhism.

The present work reports on the entrapment of parathion hydrolase from Pseudomonas spp. into the sol-gel glass matrix. Enzyme entrapment was studied in the range of 0.01–0.25 U, and compared with the activity of the free, non-immobilized enzyme. The reaction catalyzed by the entrapped enzyme was almost two orders of magnitude slower than with the free enzyme. Addition of surfactants slightly increased the parathion hydrolysis rate, and the addition of ethanol almost doubled it. However, this increase of reaction rate cannot by itself explain the decrease of activity, suggesting that irreversible damage to the enzyme during gelation, rather than diffusion limitation throughout the gel-glass structure, is the main cause for the decrease of activity. Regardless of damage to the enzyme during gelation, the remaining entrapped active fraction displayed stability even after eleven days, during successive cycles of the same entrapped enzyme batch, each for 24 h. The sol-gel entrapped enzyme retained relatively good activity for several months when stored as a dry powder, and over a year when kept in buffer solution, at ambient conditions. The results obtained may give a rise to the use of entrapped parathion hydrolase for simple on-field bio-detection of organophosphates.

1. Ch?topsylla setosussp. nov.? Nearest to Ch. ursi, Rothsch. (1902), but easily recognized by the shape of the abdominal sclerites and the tarsi.Head.?The labial palpus consists of about ten segments, reaching beyond the trochanter, while in ursithere are seven or eight segments only. There is one row of four or five bristles before the eye. The occiput bears two or three hairs behind the base of the antenna, a lateral row of four or five bristles in the centre, and a subapical row.

Discusses macro lenses and how to determine whether a lens is really a macro-focusing lens of not. Doubling magnification; Zoom lens with macro.