The Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm and the Turkmen of the Byzantine frontier, 1206–1279*

This article examines the frontier between the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm and its Byzantine neighbours in the thirteenth century, concentrating on the place of these frontier districts within the Seljuk state. Scholarship on the frontier, influenced by the ideas of Paul Wittek, has seen it as something of a “no man's land”, politically, economically, culturally and religiously distinct from the urban heartland of the Seljuk sultanate in central Anatolia, dominated by the nomadic Turks, the Turkmen, who operated largely beyond sultanic control. It is often thought that the Seljuk and Greek sides of the border shared more in common with each other than they did with the states of which they formed a part. In contrast, this article argues that in fact the western frontier regions were closely integrated into the Seljuk sultanate. Furthermore, with the Mongol domination of the Seljuk sultanate in the second half of the thirteenth century, the Seljuk and Mongol elites became increasingly involved in this frontier region, where some of the leading figures of the sultanate had estates and endowments.     

The Byzantines and Saladin: Some Further Arguments

This is the second of two articles by the same author arguing against the thesis that there was a conspiracy between the Byzantine emperors and Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, against the crusader states and the Third Crusade in the 1180s. While the focus of the first article was primarily on the Latin sources, the present study shifts the focus to the Arabic primary material, hitherto largely neglected or inadequately treated by modern historians. Through a critical re-examination and re-interpretation of the Arabic sources, backed by the introduction and discussion of new Latin material when necessary, this article presents expanded arguments on the relations between the Byzantine Empire, the Sultanate of Konya and Saladin in the 1180s. The conclusions lend further support to the view that the Byzantine rulers and Saladin never concluded an alliance against the Latin settlers of Outremer and the Third Crusade.     

The De Kretser case: a note on Sri Lankan writing in English

Abstract

How is the content of a literary canon, or tradition to be configured? What counts as a literary archive? More than 25 years after Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978 Said, W. Edward. 1978. Orientalism, New York: Vintage.  [Google Scholar]), it seems reasonable to assume, that central to such traditions, would be the work of those who live and work in the society that gives rise to it. In this review, such a location of Michele de Kretser’s new novel, The Hamilton Case, is offered, as a caution to metropolitan literary critics who continue to approach Sri Lankan writing in English, as Christopher Columbus approached ‘America’. It is argued that the novel owes much to, and can be read as echoing and elaborating the detective fiction of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who was, also, the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 1956–59.     

The Will to Be Unveiled: Sufi Autobiographies in Classical Sufism

While autobiography as a special genre increasingly occupies an important position in modern scholarship, independent Sufi autobiographies still require additional and detailed examination. The current paper seeks to examine two spiritual autobiographies known very well in the history of Sufism: Al-?akīm al-Tirmidhī's Bad? sha?n, and Rūzbihān al-Baqlī's Kashf al-asrār. References to these works in modern research do not go beyond the assumption that they may represent visionary autobiographies, dreams, and mystical, extraordinary experiences and states. In the framework of this paper, we consider it essential to regard both texts as serious indicators of different realities, contexts, and mystic discourses.     

绿色奥运年对我国竞技体育中“阴盛阳衰”现象的剖析

“阴盛阳衰”是中国竞技体育的一种独特现象,中国女子竞技体育运动以发展快、项目多、实力强、潜力大的特点,优于男子的发展。分析“阴盛阳衰”现象形成的诸因素,有利于女子竞技体育成绩的保持和发展,并能为男子竞技体育成绩的提高提供参考。     

学生工作视野下高校“弱势群体”体育个性化教育问题研究

通过学生工作视野,观察、了解、分析和研究“体育弱势群体”的体育教育问题和学生素质教育等问题,全面了解他们的健身需求和心理变化。采用文献法、调研法等,经过体育部门与学生工作部门协同研究,制订了“体育弱势群体”体育教育个性化的方案,并进行了教育实验法的验证。结果显示,该方案不仅有助于“弱势群体”的身心健康发展和体育技能的掌握,还能及时防范体育教育等带来的负效应,对高校和谐校园的稳定和发展以及学校人才培养目标的实现起到了积极的作用。     

海南省普通高校体育弱势群体的体育行为及影响因素研究

采用问卷调查、数理统计和文献资料等方法,对海南省普通高校体育弱势群体的体育行为及影响因素进行调查与分析,结果显示：体育弱势大学生普遍对体育锻炼缺乏正确认识,没有形成良好的锻炼习惯,锻炼行为受健康因素影响较大,教学内容枯燥和教师不了解学生心理等是影响大学生参加体育锻炼行为主要因素。     

创新环境的形成是振兴地区经济的关键

在当今的全球化进程中,竞争力的来源是知识和创新。区域经济假如墨守成规而不能创新,则很容易在高度竞争中失败。而区域的创新活动,既需要长期的知识和经验累积,并使之成为当然和常规化的“隐形知识”,同时也需要透过厂商之间的网络关系建立信任,转化既有知识加以创新,而这些更需要社会制度及创新环境的配合和支持。     

Application of the Levenshtein Distance Metric for the Construction of Longitudinal Data Files

The analysis of longitudinal data in education is becoming more prevalent given the nature of testing systems constructed for No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). However, constructing the longitudinal data files remains a significant challenge. Students move into new schools, but in many cases the unique identifiers (ID) that should remain constant for each student change. As a result, different students frequently share the same ID, and merging records for an ID that is erroneously assigned to different students clearly becomes problematic. In small data sets, quality assurance of the merge can proceed through human reviews of the data to ensure all merged records are properly joined. However, in data sets with hundreds of thousands of cases, quality assurance via human review is impossible. While the record linkage literature has many applications in other disciplines, the educational measurement literature lacks details of formal protocols that can be used for quality assurance procedures for longitudinal data files. This article presents an empirical quality assurance procedure that may be used to verify the integrity of the merges performed for longitudinal analysis. We also discuss possible extensions that would permit merges to occur even when unique identifiers are not available.