Thinking about biology and culture: can the natural and human sciences be integrated?

Genomic analyses have shown that only 1.2 per cent of the genome is devoted to protein coding sequences (the most commonly invoked definition of genes), and that much of the remaining sequences are employed in regulation – that is, in responding to signals, first, from the immediate environment of the DNA, but ultimately from the distal environment – from the cytoplasm, from the environment outside the cell, and finally, from the environment beyond the organism. Such signals are not restricted to the simple physical and chemical stimuli that impinge directly on the DNA, on the surface of the cell, or even on the body as a whole: organisms with central nervous systems have receptors for forms of perception that are not only more complex but far longer range. Humans have especially sophisticated perceptual capacities, enabling them to respond to a wide range of complex visual, auditory, linguistic and behavioural/emotional signals in their extended environment. Research has recently begun to show that responses to such signals can extend all the way down to the level of gene expression. The question is this: to what extent are we witnessing (at last) a rapprochement between the natural science of biology and the human sciences of sociology and anthropology, and to what extent do the new promises of synthesis merely reflect an expansion of older reductionist aims, threatening once again to marginalize rather than incorporate the insights of cultural analysis? As in my earlier discussion of the nature/nurture debate (2010), my focus will be restricted to the Anglo-American context.     

隐秘灵魂的自我剖析与展示——解读鲁迅《野草》的色彩意象

翻开《野草》,全篇色彩瑰丽奇幻,红色、白色、黑色、青色……构成了《野草》艺术世界中独特的色彩意象体系.鲁迅笔下象征性色彩形象的选择和色彩意境的营造,不仅展示出特定历史时期自然与社会的风貌,而且传达出作者在这一时期内心深处的体验和感受.     

从《白鲸》中的白色探讨美国的种族歧视问题

美国作家赫尔曼·麦尔维尔的《白鲸》是19世纪的一部宏篇巨作，作者从白色的意义、白色的本质以及对白色的追寻这几个层面，挖掘出白色所隐含的种族歧视问题，探讨了其中所蕴藏着的反种族歧视的萌芽，表明了麦尔维尔对自己的内心世界、对种族问题所进行的艰难而又痛苦的探索与思考。     

民众知识形态描述

本文对民众知识的存在、层次、思维、内容、传承等形态进行了粗略的描述 ,提出了多种相应的认识推论 ,对民众知识概念及其所关涉的一些问题给予了提示性的回答     

纳西族空间观念之色彩表象

空间是抽象的 ,只有对它们进行具体的表象 ,才能将抽象还原成具体。无论在纳西族民俗中 ,还是在其他民族的民俗中 ,色彩常常成为对空间方位进行表象的具体手段之一。由色彩所表象的空间不仅决定着民俗活动的性质 ,也规范着民俗活动的形式与内容。本文从前空间、原空间等方面对纳西族民俗中空间的色彩表象作了介绍和分析     

产业化视野下羌族服饰与刺绣色彩运用模式研究

在当下市场经济驱动下,催生出所谓的民族色彩经济的概念,但民族色彩语言的设计运用有表面肤浅的倾向。本文从侧重分析羌族色彩的运用模式研究,结合所蕴含的历史文化象征意义,解析该民族的文化密码。以满足羌族产业化发展的需求,对羌族服饰色彩语言传承、发展与创新起到一定的作用。     

A Polynomial Optimization Approach to Principal–Agent Problems

This paper presents a new method for the analysis of moral hazard principal–agent problems. The new approach avoids the stringent assumptions on the distribution of outcomes made by the classical first‐order approach and instead only requires the agent's expected utility to be a rational function of the action. This assumption allows for a reformulation of the agent's utility maximization problem as an equivalent system of equations and inequalities. This reformulation in turn transforms the principal's utility maximization problem into a nonlinear program. Under the additional assumptions that the principal's expected utility is a polynomial and the agent's expected utility is rational in the wage, the final nonlinear program can be solved to global optimality. The paper also shows how to first approximate expected utility functions that are not rational by polynomials, so that the polynomial optimization approach can be applied to compute an approximate solution to nonpolynomial problems. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the polynomial optimization approach extends to principal–agent models with multidimensional action sets.     

Impatience versus Incentives

This paper studies the dynamics of long‐term contracts in repeated principal–agent relationships with an impatient agent. Despite the absence of exogenous uncertainty, Pareto‐optimal dynamic contracts generically oscillate between favoring the principal and favoring the agent.     

信访制度下村干部的多重身份和生成逻辑

村干部因直接接触上访群体和落实信访政策而成为信访研究热点。多数研究文献对村干部的定位是上访事件筛选者,忽视了村干部在信访制度中的多重身份。在转型时期的信访制度下,村干部不仅是沟通“国家—社会”的双向代理人:既协助国家维持基层稳定又嵌入乡村社会关系网络中;而且可能成为上访制造者:或因侵害村民合法利益使自己成为信访事由,或因治理需求和私利驱动参与村民上访。这些都表现出信访场域中村干部的身份的复杂性,其生成与“国家—社会”的结构夹缝、信访制度的刚性和资源下乡的拐点密不可分,分析这三重逻辑有助于全面理解基层官员与制度运作之间的互动和乡村治理权力再生产的过程。