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Religious clothing serves as the external manifestation of religious culture, and its evolutionary process not only reflects the developmental trajectory of religion but also demonstrates cultural exchange and social transformation in specific historical periods. This study focuses on the localization and evolution of Chinese Buddhism monks’ robes as its research subject. Through analyzing historical documents, archaeological materials, and artistic works, it explores the transformation process from Indian Kasaya to Chinese Haiqing 海青 (Chinese Buddhist Ceremonial Robe) and its cultural implications. The research findings reveal that the localization process of Chinese Buddhism monks’ robes exhibits characteristics of gradual Cultural Adaptation: while maintaining the core of Buddhist doctrine, it achieved organic integration with traditional Chinese culture through systematic reconstruction of material forms. This is specifically manifested in three aspects: formal adaptation responding to environmental constraints, the integration of craftsmanship and materials embodying cultural dialogue, and the color hierarchy system reflecting the dynamic interplay between secular power and religious authority. This process facilitated the reconstruction of monks’ multidimensional Identity Reconstruction—forming a new balance model among religious transcendence, cultural belonging, and social participation. This study provides a theoretical framework for understanding the internal logic of religious localization and the adaptive mechanisms of Cross-cultural Communication.

The Republican era of China witnessed three primary positions regarding Buddhist monastic robe reform. Taixu advocated preserving canonical forms (法服) for ritual garments while adapting regular robes (常服) to contemporary needs; Dongchu proposed diminishing ritual distinctions by establishing a tripartite hierarchical system—virtue-monk robes (德僧服), duty-monk robes (職僧服), and scholar-monk robes (學僧服); and Lengjing endorsed the full secularization of monastic robes. As a reformist leader, Taixu pursued reforms grounded in both doctrinal authenticity and contextual responsiveness. His initial advocacy for robe modifications, however, rendered him a target for traditionalists like Cihang, who conflated his measured approach with the radicalism of Dongchu’s faction. Ultimately, the broader Buddhist reform collapsed, with robe controversies serving as a critical lens into its failure. The reasons for its failure include not only wartime disruption and inadequate governmental support, but also the structural disadvantages of the reformists compared to the traditionalists, which proved decisive. This was due to the fact that the traditionalists mostly controlled monastic economies, wielded institutional authority, and commanded discursive hegemony, reinforced by lay Buddhist alignment. These debates crystallize the core tension in Buddhist modernization—the dialectic between “disenchantment” and “preservation of monastic discipline”. This dynamic of negotiated adjustment offers a vital historical framework for navigating contemporary Buddhism’s engagement with modernity.

Daoist robes in the Ming Dynasty literature underwent a marked transformation from exclusive religious vestments to widespread secular attire. Originally confined to Daoist priests and sacred rites, these garments began to appear in everyday work, entertainment, and ceremonies across social strata. Drawing on a hand-coded corpus of novels that yields robe related passages, and by analyzing textual references from Ming novels, Daoist canonical works, and visual artifacts, and applying clothing psychology and semiotic theory, this study elucidates how Daoist robes were re-coded as secular fashion symbols. For example, scholar-officials donned Daoist robes to convey moral prestige, laborers adopted them to signal upward mobility, and merchants donned them to impersonate the educated elite for commercial gain. By integrating close textual reading with cultural theory, the article advances a three-stage model, sacred uniform, ritual costume, and secular fashion, that clarifies the semantic flow of Daoist robes. In weddings and funerals, many commoners flaunted Daoist robes despite sumptuary laws, using them to assert honor and status. These adaptations reflect both the erosion of Daoist institutional authority and the dynamic process of identity construction through dress in late Ming society. Our interdisciplinary analysis highlights an East Asian perspective on the interaction of religion and fashion, offering historical insight into the interplay between religious symbolism and sociocultural identity formation.

We explore pump-probe high harmonic generation (HHG) from monolayer hexagonal-boron-nitride, where a terahertz pump excites coherent optical phonons that are subsequently probed by an intense infrared pulse that drives HHG. We find, through state-of-the-art ab initio calculations, that the structure of the emission spectrum is attenuated by the presence of coherent phonons and no longer comprises discrete harmonic orders, but rather a continuous emission in the plateau region. The HHG yield strongly oscillates as a function of the pump-probe delay, corresponding to ultrafast changes in the lattice such as specific bond compression or stretching dynamics. We further show that in the regime where the excited phonon period and the pulse duration are of the same order of magnitude, the HHG process becomes sensitive to the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the driving field, even though the pulse duration is so long that no such sensitivity is observed in the absence of coherent phonons. The degree of CEP sensitivity versus pump-probe delay is shown to be a highly selective measure for instantaneous structural changes in the lattice, providing an approach for ultrafast multidimensional HHG spectroscopy. Remarkably, the obtained temporal resolution for phonon dynamics is ∼1 femtosecond, which is much shorter than the probe pulse duration because of the inherent subcycle contrast mechanism. Our work paves the way toward routes of probing phonons and ultrafast material structural changes with subcycle temporal resolution and provides a mechanism for controlling the HHG spectrum.

Recent research in Sustainability has gained increasing attention within the past years, particularly regarding methods and approaches for designing sustainable products and services to address environmental and societal challenges. However, there has been limited exploration of incorporating cultural materials into the design process, which could enhance the cultural sustainability of products and services. This article aims to investigate the potential of integrating traditional royal costumes into fashion design to foster sustainability values and behaviours in contemporary society. A descriptive study focused on the Nhat Binh robe; a formal dress worn by noblewomen of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802–1945). The findings reveal that this traditional costume is rich in visual elements, offering a wealth of inspiration for fashion designers. However, existing products and services have yet to fully leverage the emotional and visual aspects of this unique cultural material. To creatively and sustainably preserve and promote traditional cultural values, this study proposes a model for incorporating traditional cultural materials into fashion design through co-design activities. This model emphasizes close collaboration between designers, artisans, and fashion consumers, with the goal of safeguarding traditional cultural values while advancing sustainable fashion. By fostering collaboration among them, the model has the potential to encourage a sense of ownership and emotional connection to the products, enriching consumer experiences. It not only addresses existing gaps in the use of cultural elements in fashion design but also positions designers to play a pivotal role in the future of sustainable fashion.

The subjects of this research are the burial clothes of Polish King Sigismund III Vasa and his wife Constance, which were woven and embroidered with silk and metal threads. Fragments of the textiles underwent spectroscopic, spectrometric, and thermogravimetric analyses. The hydrofluoric acid extraction method was improved to isolate various classes of dyes from the textile samples that had direct contact with human remains. High-performance liquid chromatography, coupled with diode array and tandem mass spectrometry detectors with electrospray ionization (HPLC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS) facilitated the detection and identification of colorants present in the textiles. Cochineal, indigo-, madder-, orchil-, and tannin-producing plants were identified as the sources of dyes used. Scanning electron microscopy with an energy-dispersive X-ray detector (SEM-EDS) was employed to identify and characterize the silk fibers and mordants and the metal threads. The presence of iron, aluminum, sodium, and calcium in the silk threads suggests their potential use as mordants. The analysis of the metal threads revealed that most of them were made from flattened gilded silver wire, with only a few being cut from a sheet of metal. Typical degradation mechanisms of metal threads were shown, resulting from both burial environment and earlier manufacturing process, and the use of the textiles in clothing, i.e., a significant loss of the gold layer was observed in most of silver gilt threads, caused by abrasion and delamination. The results of the thermal analysis confirmed the presence of silk and silver threads in the examined textiles.

The public perceives the Supreme Court to be a legal institution. This perception enables the Court's legitimacy-conferring function, which serves to increase public acceptance of its decisions. Yet, the public acknowledges a political aspect to the Court as well. To evaluate how the public responds to the different images of the Supreme Court, we investigate whether and how depictions of specifically partisan (e.g., Republican) Court rulings shape public acceptance of its decisions while varying institutional, legal, and issue characteristics. Using survey experiments, we find that party cues and partisanship, more so than the imprimatur of the Court, affect public acceptance. We also find that polarization diminishes the effect of party cues. Attributing a decision to the Court does little to increase baseline acceptance or attenuate partisan cue effects. The Court's uniqueness, at least in terms of its legitimacy-conferring function, is perhaps overstated.

The layering structure of a painting contains a wealth of information about the artist's choice of materials and working methods, but currently, no 3D noninvasive method exists to replace the taking of small paint samples in the study of the stratigraphy. Here, we adapt femtosecond pump-probe imaging, previously shown in tissue, to the case of the color palette in paintings, where chromophores have much greater variety. We show that combining the contrasts of multispectral and multidelay pump-probe spectroscopy permits nondestructive 3D imaging of paintings with molecular and structural contrast, even for pigments with linear absorption spectra that are broad and relatively featureless. We show virtual cross-sectioning capabilities in mockup paintings, with pigment separation and nondestructive imaging on an intact 14th century painting (The Crucifixion by Puccio Capanna). Our approach makes it possible to extract microscopic information for a broad range of applications to cultural heritage.

My main goal in this paper is to examine agreement in relative clauses with conjoined heads. Since there are many elements that can potentially agree with the conjoined head (i.e., the relative pronoun, the verb, nominal modifiers if present), there are many logically possible agreement patterns, only a subset of which is attested. I focus on the question of what the available (and unavailable) patterns tell us about the nature of the Agree, the mechanism responsible for agreement. The more theoretical question I examine is why sometimes Agree between a single Probe and multiple Goals surfaces as Resolved Agreement, and other times as agreement with a single Goal. Focusing on coordinate structures, I argue that Agree between a single Probe and multiple Goals in a Parallel Merge structure obligatorily leads to Single Conjunct Agreement, whereas Agree between a single Probe and multiple Goals in a non-Parallel Merge structure can result in either Single Conjunct Agreement or Resolved Agreement. This proposal has implications that go beyond Polish relative clauses, which I also discuss in the paper.

Does understanding how U.S. Supreme Court justices actually decide cases undermine the institutional legitimacy of the nation's highest court? To the extent that ordinary people recognize that the justices are deciding legal disputes on the basis of their own ideological biases and preferences (legal realism and the attitudinal model), the belief that the justices merely ``apply'' the law (mechanical jurisprudence and the myth of legality) is difficult to sustain. Although it is easy to see how the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, the most unaccountable of all American political institutions, is nurtured by the view that judicial decisionmaking is discretionless and mechanical, the sources of institutional legitimacy under legal realism are less obvious. Here, we demonstrate, using a nationally representative sample, that the American people understand judicial decisionmaking in realistic terms, that they extend legitimacy to the Supreme Court, and they do so under the belief that judges exercise their discretion in a principled and sincere fashion. Belief in mechanical jurisprudence is therefore not a necessary underpinning of judicial legitimacy; belief in legal realism is not incompatible with legitimacy.