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This article examines the murals of Dabaoji Palace in Lijiang during the Ming Dynasty, analyzing their tripartite religious spatial configuration to elucidate how the Mu chieftains visualized and asserted their political and cultural agency as local elites operating at the empire’s south-western frontier within the framework of imperial authority. Through an interdisciplinary methodology that combines textual research, spatial analysis, and iconographic interpretation, the study identifies and theorizes a threefold religious spatial model in Dabaoji Palace: a Daoist facade symbolizing allegiance to the Ming court, a Han Buddhist-dominated central hybrid space asserting political authority and local agency in cultural mediation, and a secluded Tibetan esoteric sanctum providing sacral legitimacy for frontier governance. This tripartite spatial configuration is interpreted as a strategic localization of religious space that embodies the Mu chieftains’ response to Ming frontier administration. By highlighting the Sino-Tibetan artistic synthesis in the murals, the paper argues that the Mu chieftains, as Naxi elites in a borderland context, crafted a visual narrative of frontier rule that both reinforced their ties to the Ming court and forged a distinctive local identity. In doing so, their initiatives contributed to the cultural integration of multi-ethnic communities in northwest Yunnan and laid the foundation for the formation of a shared national identity.

The spread of Taoism to the Western Regions marked the movement of Central Plains culture to the frontier, demonstrating its influence on local society. During the Han Dynasty, Central Plains culture had reached the Western Regions. With the deification of Laozi and his becoming the founder of Taoism, the story “Laozi converting the barbarians” (Laozi huahu 老子化胡), which claimed that Laozi journeyed to the west and taught the Hu people, provided the impetus for the spread of Taoism to the Western Regions. The Tang imperial family venerated Laozi and regarded Taoism as the state religion. Laozi belief, including the veneration of the man himself, his writings, his stories, and the precepts claimed to be related to him, was also used to assist in the Tang Dynasty’s governance of the Western Regions. Following the Tang Dynasty’s decline, the Central Plains’ influence receded from the Western Regions. However, due to the relaxed religious environment in the Western Regions, Taoism, which was representative of Central Plains culture, still survived there. Moreover, Taoism attempted to incorporate Islam in the Western Regions into its divine system by huahu, which might be related to the early history of exchange between the two religions.

Police were utilised in British India to put down resistance to colonial rule. The role of the police varied from region to region. This article discusses the style of policing and police administration designed by the British administrators in the province of erstwhile Northwest Frontier Province (Presently Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan) and tribal areas adjacent to the province. Internal security was enforced by the police within the provinces, supplementing military efforts. Instead of using direct coercion, colonial authorities in the northwest frontier and border regions focused on integrating local populations into the system of regional security and coordinating their interests with those of the ruling class. The analysis in this article is based on the Indian archival records in the British Library London and other primary sources available in archives. This analysis demonstrates the importance of understanding colonial policing and police administration in the erstwhile Northwest Frontier province and tribal region near the border between British India and Afghanistan in particular leading to the postcolonial police administration in the northwestern frontier province of present-day Pakistan.

Halting forest loss and achieving sustainable development in an equitable manner require state, non-state actors, and entire societies in the Global North and South to tackle deeply established patterns of inequality and power relations embedded in forest frontiers. Forest and climate governance in the Global South can provide an avenue for the transformational change needed—yet, does it? We analyse the politics and power in four cases of mitigation, adaptation, and development arenas. We use a political economy lens to explore the transformations taking place when climate policy meets specific forest frontiers in the Global South, where international, national and local institutions, interests, ideas, and information are at play. We argue that lasting and equitable outcomes will require a strong discursive shift within dominant institutions and among policy actors to redress policies that place responsibilities and burdens on local people in the Global South, while benefits from deforestation and maladaptation are taken elsewhere. What is missing is a shared transformational objective and priority to keep forests standing among all those involved from afar in the major forest frontiers in the tropics.

This paper employs Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis of American democracy to construct a framework for understanding the U.S. university campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem. One question that immediately comes to mind when studying ecosystem performance is what the proper unit of analysis is: the country, the state, the city, the region, or something smaller, like an incubator or accelerator? This paper suggests that the open, innovative American frontier that closed at the end of the twentieth century has reemerged in the entrepreneurial economy on the U.S. campus. The contemporary campus entrepreneurial ecosystem offers the characteristics of Turner's frontier available assets, liberty, and diversity while creating opportunity, and fostering entrepreneurship and innovation. A case study of the University of Chicago explores governance of the campus as an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the output produced by that campus ecosystem.

This paper contributes to the literature by separately examining the impact of board characteristics and ownership structure on upward and downward earnings management of non-financial firms listed on Hanoi Stock Exchange and Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange. In our research, we conduct Pooled OLS, Fixed and Random effect models, and Generalized least squares. Then, we run a regression with the System Generalized Method of Moments (System GMM) to find the most appropriate model. Firms with high average board age, high ownership concentration, and high financial leverage tend to manage earnings downward. High managerial ownership tends to reduce downward earnings management. Firms with high state ownership reduce upward earnings management. Stakeholders should be more cautious of firms with high average board age, high ownership concentration, high financial performance, and high financial leverage as they tend to manage earnings. Previous studies combined upward and downward earnings management in one regression model, therefore ignoring the chance to investigate the impact of board characteristics and ownership structure on earnings management in each case. The impact of a factor on upward and downward earnings management may be different, and the combination of them in one regression model can drive the findings of previous studies toward errors of unknown directions. Therefore, assessing the effects of board characteristics and ownership structure on earnings management in each case is necessary. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to do so.

The measurement of corporate performance is central to strategic management research. A common objective of this research is to identify top performers in an industry and their sources of competitive advantage. Despite this focus on best firms and practices, most researchers utilize statistical methods that identify average effects in a sample, and they assess a single performance dimension while ignoring other relevant dimensions. Emphasis on purely financial measures can overlook the fact that a firm's efficiency in transforming resources has been shown as a major source of competitive advantage. In this article we demonstrate how frontier methodologies, such as Data Envelopment Analysis and the Stochastic Frontier approach, can address these challenges. We provide an illustration based on longitudinal data from U.S. and Japanese automobile producers.

In this article, we recall the United Nations’ 30-year journey in disaster risk reduction strategy and framework, review the latest progress and key scientific and technological questions related to the United Nations disaster risk reduction initiatives, and summarize the framework and contents of disaster risk science research. The object of disaster risk science research is the “disaster system” consisting of hazard, the geographical environment, and exposed units, with features of regionality, interconnectedness, coupling, and complexity. Environmental stability, hazard threat, and socioeconomic vulnerability together determine the way that disasters are formed, establish the spatial extent of disaster impact, and generate the scale of losses. In the formation of a disaster, a conducive environment is the prerequisite, a hazard is the necessary condition, and socioeconomic exposure is the sufficient condition. The geographical environment affects local hazard intensity and therefore can change the pattern of loss distribution. Regional multi-hazard, disaster chain, and disaster compound could induce complex impacts, amplifying or attenuating hazard intensity and changing the scope of affected areas. In the light of research progress, particularly in the context of China, we propose a three-layer disaster risk science disciplinary structure, which contains three pillars (disaster science, disaster technology, and disaster governance), nine core areas, and 27 research fields. Based on these elements, we discuss the frontiers in disaster risk science research.

Rapid urbanization across the world has put an enormous burden on our environment. Cities from developing countries, in particular, are experiencing high air pollution levels. To address this challenge, the new WHO global air quality guidelines and various nations are mandating cities to implement clean air measures. However, these implementations are largely hindered by limited observations, siloed city operations, absence of standard processes, inadequate outreach, and absence of collaborative urban air quality management (UAQM) governance. The world is experiencing transformative changes in the way we live. The 4th industrial revolution technologies of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing bridge gaps between physical, natural, and personal entities. Globally, smart cities are being promulgated on the premise that technologies and data aid in improving urban services. However, in many instances, the smart city programs and UAQM services may not be aligned, thereby constraining the cumulative advantage in building urban resilience. Considering the potential of these technologies as enablers of environmental sustainability, a conceptual urban computing framework “SmartAirQ” for UAQM is designed. This interdisciplinary study outlines the SmartAirQ components: 1) data acquisition, 2) communication and aggregation, 3) data processing and management, 4) intelligence, 5) application service, 6) high-performance computing- (HPC-) cloud, and 7) security. The framework has integrated science cloud and urban services aiding in translating scientific data into operations. It is a step toward collaborative, data-driven, and sustainable smart cities.