The Efficiency of the Chinese Silver Standard, 1920–1933

We test for integration of financial markets in China during 1920-1933 using a new dataset of domestic exchange rates. Our data concerns tael-denominated telegraphic transfers between Shanghai and nine other cities. We find that Chinese financial markets, as measured by the efficiency of silver-point arbitrage, were highly integrated among major commercial hubs in north and central China, but there was a lower level of integration for more remote cities in the south. Our paper presents the first comprehensive assessment of the efficiency of the Chinese silver standard and contributes to a revaluation of market performance during pre-communist China.

Digital Currencies and Relevant Policy Analysis

The paper collates the relations of digital currencies with the past forms of currencies, studies the operating mechanism of digital currencies, analyzes the influence of digital currencies on the financial order and economic pattern, and probes into how to drive the reform of global monetary system with pragmatic and innovative efforts. The paper highlights: First, the evolution and development of currency reflects the mankind’s social and economic development level. Second, digital currency born with the advances of technology does not change the content of credit money. The credit money-to-digital currency shift must respect the operating mechanism of money and ensure that the physical market and the money market are balanced or roughly balanced. Third, with a complicated influence on the social economy, digital currency is unlikely to change the global monetary system and the international economic pattern easily. Fourth, the work of encouraging financial innovation and improving overall financial infrastructure should come with strengthened efforts to develop sound rules governing the market order in the context of digital economy, by guarding against the risks from “excessive monopoly” and “decentralization”. Fifth, the paper calls for linking “trust, confidence and credit” of the human society organically with such intrinsic values as global development, global planning and global resources, and also leveraging such values to actively approach the “Earth-based” monetary system and its replacement of the “gold standard”, the “silver standard” and the sovereign credit based monetary system which have been in long use.

Does Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) Meet the Citizens’ Mobility Needs? Evaluating Performance for the Case of Multan, Pakistan

Bus rapid transit (BRT) has emerged as an efficient and cost-effective transport system for urban mobility that offers safe and high-quality transport services for city dwellers. Recent research has widely discussed BRT systems’ performance evaluation, but such assessments have remained limited in the South Asian context, where users’ needs might be distinct. The present study addresses this research gap and evaluates the performance of the BRT system in Multan, Pakistan, based on the passengers’ perceptions and the BRT standard scorecard. The data were collected at 21 BRT stations, and a face-to-face questionnaire survey was carried out with 420 users. The BRT standard scorecard method was also applied by conducting an observation survey and semi-structured interviews based on the aspects as specified by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP). The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software package was mainly utilised for data analysis. This research concluded that around 54% of passengers are highly satisfied and opted for BRT due to comfort. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability analysis concluded that most of the BRT stations possess the acceptable value (0.8 > α ≥ 0.7), with only six out of 21 stations categorised as unacceptable (α < 0.5). Multan BRT achieved overall 79 scores and classified as Silver-Standard BRT. The study suggests critical insights to improve the citizens’ mobility with the existing BRT system, serving as a benchmark for policymakers and transport planners.

Validity of Inertial Sensors for Assessing Balance Kinematics and Mobility during Treadmill-Based Perturbation and Dance Training

Inertial sensors (IS) enable the kinematic analysis of human motion with fewer logistical limitations than the silver standard optoelectronic motion capture (MOCAP) system. However, there are no data on the validity of IS for perturbation training and during the performance of dance. The aim of this present study was to determine the concurrent validity of IS in the analysis of kinematic data during slip and trip-like perturbations and during the performance of dance. Seven IS and the MOCAP system were simultaneously used to capture the reactive response and dance movements of fifteen healthy young participants (Age: 18–35 years). Bland Altman (BA) plots, root mean square errors (RMSE), Pearson’s correlation coefficients (R), and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were used to compare kinematic variables of interest between the two systems for absolute equivalency and accuracy. Limits of agreements (LOA) of the BA plots ranged from −0.23 to 0.56 and −0.21 to 0.43 for slip and trip stability variables, respectively. The RMSE for slip and trip stabilities were from 0.11 to 0.20 and 0.11 to 0.16, respectively. For the joint mobility in dance, LOA varied from −6.98–18.54, while RMSE ranged from 1.90 to 13.06. Comparison of IS and optoelectronic MOCAP system for reactive balance and body segmental kinematics revealed that R varied from 0.59 to 0.81 and from 0.47 to 0.85 while ICC was from 0.50 to 0.72 and 0.45 to 0.84 respectively for slip–trip perturbations and dance. Results of moderate to high concurrent validity of IS and MOCAP systems. These results were consistent with results from similar studies. This suggests that IS are valid tools to quantitatively analyze reactive balance and mobility kinematics during slip–trip perturbation and the performance of dance at any location outside, including the laboratory, clinical and home settings.

Universal Discourse Representation Structure Parsing

We consider the task of cross-lingual semantic parsing in the style of Discourse Representation Theory (DRT) where knowledge from annotated corpora in a resource-rich language is transferred via bitext to guide learning in other languages. We introduce Universal Discourse Representation Theory (UDRT), a variant of DRT that explicitly anchors semantic representations to tokens in the linguistic input. We develop a semantic parsing framework based on the Transformer architecture and employ it to obtain semantic resources in multiple languages following two learning schemes. The Many-to-One approach translates non-English text to English, and then runs a relatively accurate English parser on the translated text, while the One-to-Many approach translates gold standard English to non-English text and trains multiple parsers (one per language) on the translations. Experimental results on the Parallel Meaning Bank show that our proposal outperforms strong baselines by a wide margin and can be used to construct (silver-standard) meaning banks for 99 languages.

Money and Power on the World’s Last “Silver Frontier”

This chapter discusses the negotiations of the Qing dynasty on loan contracts with a banking consortium in the spring of 1911 that included firms from Britain, the United States, France, and Germany. It mentions the signing of the Bizhi shiye jiekuan or currency reform and industrial development loan among bankers and Qing officials to provide funds to unify the Chinese currency system on the silver standard and develop Manchuria. It also cites the diplomatic controversy about the currency loan and Chinese monetary reform that played out in the context of the rapidly changing money markets during the First World War. The chapter points out how China saw the rise of silver as an opportunity to consolidate its debts and move to a gold standard. It points out the significant rise of silver that set the scene for its later decline in the 1920s.

The Shanghai Mint and Establishing a Silver Standard in China, 1920–1933

This chapter uses the story of the Shanghai Mint as a lens to examine the financial history of China in the 1920s and early 1930s to show how familiar events occurred in economic history. It reviews political and economic changes within China that influenced monetary reform on the last silver frontier. It also talks about the construction of the mint, which started in 1921 and produced coins in the spring of 1933. The chapter refers to China's movement from the warlord period of the late 1910s and early 1920s to the Nationalist period wherein the new government inherited the goals of currency reform from its predecessors and the half-finished physical plant of the Shanghai Mint. It looks at the history of the mint that connects small technical details to much larger political and economic issues, such as the types of coining equipment to be used and the design of coins.