Bin Yang - Böcker

Between Winds and Clouds tells the two-thousand-year history of Yunnan, an ethnic frontier bordered by Tibet, mainland Southeast Asia, and southwest China. Yunnan's prime geographic location turned the site into a center of cross-regional trade, and consequently, it became a desirable conquest for Eurasian rivals. Bin Yang details the fight for military control of Yunnan and its demographic, administrative, and economic transformation into a local entity. In conclusion, he discusses the impact of Yunnan's imperial legacy on modern state building, or, conversely, the way in which the modern state has contributed to the development of imperial discourse. Deploying a unique cross-regional approach, Yang brings the activities of Southeast and East Asia, Tibet, the Indian Ocean, and modern Europe to bear on the history of Yunnan, emphasizing both the local and the international forces that played a role in the region's long-term transformation.

Chinese traders and explorers first visited the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, in the early fourteenth century. The traveler Wang Dayuan “discovered” the island sultanate for the Chinese world, and merchants increasingly dealt in Maldivian goods such as coconuts, cowrie shells, and ambergris. Zheng He’s fifteenth-century voyages ventured to the islands, by then a trading hub, and brought their envoys to Beijing. But the Maldives faded from Chinese records by the end of the sixteenth century, after the Ming state suddenly retreated from the Indian Ocean and shifted focus to Southeast Asia.Discovered but Forgotten is a pioneering examination of China’s relations with the Maldives and Sino-Indian Ocean interactions, offering new ways to understand Chinese maritime exploration and the global history of the Indian Ocean. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including written records, Chinese and Jesuit maps, and archaeological analysis of shipwrecks—Bin Yang provides a comprehensive account of Chinese links to the Maldives and the Indian Ocean world from ancient times through the late Ming era. He scrutinizes Chinese understandings of the islands, emphasizing both seafaring material culture and textual knowledge production. Yang reconsiders the works of travelers such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta in light of Chinese explorations, and he opens a window onto a colorful world of intriguing commodities, port marriages, and voyages across the vast waters of maritime Asia. Transregional and interdisciplinary, Discovered but Forgotten reveals how a remote archipelago shaped the vast Chinese empire.

Chinese traders and explorers first visited the Maldives, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, in the early fourteenth century. The traveler Wang Dayuan “discovered” the island sultanate for the Chinese world, and merchants increasingly dealt in Maldivian goods such as coconuts, cowrie shells, and ambergris. Zheng He’s fifteenth-century voyages ventured to the islands, by then a trading hub, and brought their envoys to Beijing. But the Maldives faded from Chinese records by the end of the sixteenth century, after the Ming state suddenly retreated from the Indian Ocean and shifted focus to Southeast Asia.Discovered but Forgotten is a pioneering examination of China’s relations with the Maldives and Sino-Indian Ocean interactions, offering new ways to understand Chinese maritime exploration and the global history of the Indian Ocean. Drawing on a wide range of sources—including written records, Chinese and Jesuit maps, and archaeological analysis of shipwrecks—Bin Yang provides a comprehensive account of Chinese links to the Maldives and the Indian Ocean world from ancient times through the late Ming era. He scrutinizes Chinese understandings of the islands, emphasizing both seafaring material culture and textual knowledge production. Yang reconsiders the works of travelers such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta in light of Chinese explorations, and he opens a window onto a colorful world of intriguing commodities, port marriages, and voyages across the vast waters of maritime Asia. Transregional and interdisciplinary, Discovered but Forgotten reveals how a remote archipelago shaped the vast Chinese empire.

Originating in the sea, especially in the waters surrounding the low-lying islands of the Maldives, Cypraea moneta (sometimes confused with Cypraea annulus) was transported to various parts of Afro-Eurasia in the prehistoric era, and in many cases, it was gradually transformed into a form of money in various societies for a long span of time. Yang provides a global examination of cowrie money within and beyond Afro-Eurasia from the archaeological period to the early twentieth century. By focusing on cowrie money in Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian and West African societies and shell money in Pacific and North American societies, Yang synthsises and illustrates the economic and cultural connections, networks and interactions over a longue durée and in a cross-regional context. Analysing locally varied experiences of cowrie money from a global perspective, Yang argued that cowrie money was the first global money that shaped Afro-Eurasian societies both individually and collectively. He proposes a paradigm of the cowrie money world that engages local, regional, transregional and global themes.

This book introduces the application of computer vision (CV) and AI technologies to indoor personnel information monitoring, outdoor thermal environment monitoring, construction safety monitoring, and HVAC equipment monitoring.Computer Vision and AI for Indoor/Outdoor Thermal Environment, Construction Safety, and HVAC Equipment Monitoring explores non-contact measurement techniques relevant to the field of indoor human information and their applications in on-demand regulation of HVAC systems in sleep and office scenarios. It explores the application of CV technologies and machine learning algorithms in the field of outdoor environment monitoring, such as urban thermal environment improvement and building construction safety management. The book also covers HVAC equipment monitoring with CV technologies, including the use of visible and infrared images to detect heat pump frost and heat exchanger condensation. Finally, the authors address emerging technologies in indoor human information monitoring, outdoor environment monitoring, and HVAC equipment monitoring as well as their applications.This book is intended for researchers in computer science and image processing. It will also be useful to researchers in building environment as well as HVAC equipment maintenance.

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are some of the most important and valuable engineering materials developed in the last 25 years. These fascinating materials demonstrate remarkably versatile properties—including capacity for actuation and stimulus responsiveness—that are enabling technologists to develop applications used to explore everything from the outer reaches of space to the inside of the human body. Polyurethane Shape Memory Polymers details the fundamentals of SMP makeup, as well as their shape-recovery features and their seemingly endless potential for use in applications ranging from the macro- to submicron scales. With an abundance of illustrations and vivid pictures to explain how SMPs and their composites work and how they can be used, this book covers: History and most recent developments in SMPs Thermomechanical properties and behavior of the polymers and their composites Modification of SMPs and novel actuation mechanisms Large-scale surface pattern generation Multi-shape memory effect Fabrication techniques Characterization of compositesA must-have reference for anyone working in the materials science and engineering fields, this book outlines the properties—such as light weight, low cost, and ability to handle high strain—that make the easily processed SMPs so useful in fields including aerospace, biomedicine, and textiles. It is intended to help readers understand and apply the knowledge and techniques presented to develop new innovations that will further benefit society.

Originating in the sea, especially in the waters surrounding the low-lying islands of the Maldives, Cypraea moneta (sometimes confused with Cypraea annulus) was transported to various parts of Afro-Eurasia in the prehistoric era, and in many cases, it was gradually transformed into a form of money in various societies for a long span of time. Yang provides a global examination of cowrie money within and beyond Afro-Eurasia from the archaeological period to the early twentieth century. By focusing on cowrie money in Indian, Chinese, Southeast Asian and West African societies and shell money in Pacific and North American societies, Yang synthsises and illustrates the economic and cultural connections, networks and interactions over a longue durée and in a cross-regional context. Analysing locally varied experiences of cowrie money from a global perspective, Yang argued that cowrie money was the first global money that shaped Afro-Eurasian societies both individually and collectively. He proposes a paradigm of the cowrie money world that engages local, regional, transregional and global themes.

Shape memory polymers (SMPs) are some of the most important and valuable engineering materials developed in the last 25 years. These fascinating materials demonstrate remarkably versatile properties—including capacity for actuation and stimulus responsiveness—that are enabling technologists to develop applications used to explore everything from the outer reaches of space to the inside of the human body. Polyurethane Shape Memory Polymers details the fundamentals of SMP makeup, as well as their shape-recovery features and their seemingly endless potential for use in applications ranging from the macro- to submicron scales. With an abundance of illustrations and vivid pictures to explain how SMPs and their composites work and how they can be used, this book covers: History and most recent developments in SMPs Thermomechanical properties and behavior of the polymers and their composites Modification of SMPs and novel actuation mechanisms Large-scale surface pattern generation Multi-shape memory effect Fabrication techniques Characterization of compositesA must-have reference for anyone working in the materials science and engineering fields, this book outlines the properties—such as light weight, low cost, and ability to handle high strain—that make the easily processed SMPs so useful in fields including aerospace, biomedicine, and textiles. It is intended to help readers understand and apply the knowledge and techniques presented to develop new innovations that will further benefit society.

This book reviews the current applications of molecular tools in cytopathology and provides a concise handbook for those who provide care in this era of personalized medicine. Specifically, the text provides a comprehensive and concise review of the emerging molecular tests available clinically in different subspecialities of diagnostic pathology. It reviews the current data of molecular testing already applied in cytopathology, discusses some of the biomarkers with potential utility in cytopathology in the near future and reviews the technical challenges in applying and validating molecular tools in liquid-based cytologic materials. Molecular Cytopathology will serve as a valuable resource for cytopathologists, cytotechnologists, pathology trainees, and clinicians with an interest in molecular applications in cytopathology.

This book elaborates on the physical principles of polarization remote sensing. In addition, it introduces how polarization remote sensing works in advanced research programs as it can be used in aviation, astronomy, disaster risk prevention and navigation fields.

This book elaborates on the physical principles of polarization remote sensing. In addition, it introduces how polarization remote sensing works in advanced research programs as it can be used in aviation, astronomy, disaster risk prevention and navigation fields.

This book first describes fundamental knowledge on human thermal comfort, adaptive thermal comfort, thermal comfort in sleeping environments, modeling of human thermal comfort, and thermal comfort assessment using human trials.