The Qara Khitai

The Qara Khitai or Western Liao dynasty (1124–1218) ruled in Central Asia in the period that preceded the rise of Chinggis Khan. Founded by Khitan refugees who escaped from north China when the Jurchen Jin dynasty (1115–1234) vanquished their Khitan Liao dynasty (907–1125), they soon carved out for themselves a multicultural empire in Central Asia that combined Chinese, nomadic, and Muslim elements. Vanquishing the Qarakhanids and the Seljuks and making the Khwārazm Shāhs, the Gaochang Uighurs, and various Mongolian tribes their vassals, at its height the Qara Khitai Empire stretched from the Oxus to the Altai Mountains (namely, from Uzbekistan to western Mongolia including most of Xinjiang, China). Their biggest victory in 1141 against the Seljuks even became the basis for the legend of Prester John. Practicing religious tolerance and mostly indirect rule—leaving local rulers largely intact apart from in their capital Balāsāghūn (Burana, Kyrgyzstan)—and, using their Chinese and nomadic cultural capital, the Sinicized Buddhist nomads ruled over their heterogeneous but mostly Muslim sedentary population in rare harmony. The aging dynasty, however, could not survive the repercussions of Chinggis Khan’s rise, which coincided with the bolstering of the Khwārazm Shāh’s power. In the early 13th century, after a Naiman prince who had escaped from Chinggis Khan usurped the Qara Khitai throne, the Mongols vanquished the Qara Khitai, incorporating most of their troops into the Mongol army and channeling their skilled subject population for imperial needs. A scion of the Qara Khitai established the Muslim Qutlughkhanid dynasty of Kirman (south Persia, 1222–1306) that ruled under Mongol and later Ilkhanid aegis.

Automated Detection of Pin Defects on Counterfeit Microelectronics

Counterfeit electronics constitute a fast-growing threat to global supply chains as well as national security. With rapid globalization, the supply chain is growing more and more complex with components coming from a diverse set of suppliers. Counterfeiters are taking advantage of this complexity and replacing original parts with fake ones. Moreover, counterfeit integrated circuits (ICs) may contain circuit modifications that cause security breaches. Out of all types of counterfeit ICs, recycled and remarked ICs are the most common. Over the past few years, a plethora of counterfeit IC detection methods have been created; however, most of these methods are manual and require highly-skilled subject matter experts (SME). In this paper, an automated bent and corroded pin detection methodology using image processing is proposed to identify recycled ICs. Here, depth map of images acquired using an optical microscope are used to detect bent pins, and segmented side view pin images are used to detect corroded pins.

Pretty and Apt

Critical attention to the cross-dressed boy player has tended to focus on the erotic appeal of the boys. The boy player may have been an object of desire, but he was equally a skilled subject. Indeed, ‘boyishness’ is constituted by certain forms of skill display, and redirecting our attention to the skill of the boy player can provide a fuller account of the nature of embodiment on the early modern stage. The childishness of the boy actor allows him to play a double game, a dialectic of revealing and concealing skill, of presentation and representation that draws attention to the animate and quicksilver qualities of the young actor. This argument is made by contrasting the presentational and representational strategies in Lyly’s Galatea and Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours Lost and Twelfth Night.