Historical Experience Research Articles

Assessment of Great Coach Effect in Olympics

Our study aims to analyze the impact of the “great coach” effect on the Olympic medal counts of athletes from different countries, with a focus on the situation where athletes cannot change teams due to nationality restrictions, as well as the influence of coach mobility on performance in specific sports. Our study first collects data on coach-athlete pairings, including the personal characteristics of the coaches and medal data, along with athletes’ performance records in various Olympic Games. In the data processing stage, this research appropriately handle missing values and standardize the historical performance and experience of the coaches to ensure the integrity and fairness of the dataset. By utilizing methods such as correlation matrices and principal component analysis, this paper identifies key features related to medal counts and build a fixed effects regression model to quantify the direct contribution of coaches to athletes’ medal counts. The analysis results indicate that athletes from different countries gain more gold medals in specific events due to the coach effect. A heatmap is used to visualize the distribution of gold medals across different sports for various countries, while model evaluation metrics such as R-squared, AIC, and BIC are employed to assess the balance between model fit and complexity. Finally, sensitivity tests, including 5-fold cross-validation and regularization methods, are conducted to ensure the stability and generalizability of the model across different data subsets. The findings of the study demonstrate that the influence of coaches is significant, and the established model performs well in both predictive ability and explanatory power, providing valuable references for countries’ future investments in sports and coaching strategies.

Geopolitical dimensions of the National Museum of China: strategic narratives and the construction of socialist citizenship (1949–1981)

ABSTRACT This study investigates how between 1949 and 1981, Chinese cultural authorities strategically developed the National Museum’s symbolic capital to cultivate a public culture consonant with an aspirational spirit of socialist excellence. By recasting historical experience as an authorised narrative of national advancement, the museum consolidated collective memory, fortified civic identity, and prepared the conceptual substratum for later recalibrations of civic will. Newly systematised archival records and contemporaneous visitor testimonies disclose moments when autonomously engaged patrons advanced reflexive interpretations that dialogically shaped—rather than merely contested—curatorial discretion. Operating within this interactive continuum, the institution functioned both as custodian of official historiography and as a moderated arena for constructive public deliberation, retaining limited autonomy while mediating between state discourse and societal participation. Through precisely calibrated curatorial stewardship, it reinforced sanctioned narratives even as it facilitated guided interpretive pluralism, thereby simultaneously stabilising and incrementally evolving the cultural–political discourse of the early People’s Republic.

Dual-use capabilities of concern of biological AI models.

As a result of rapidly accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, multiple national governments and multinational bodies have launched efforts to address safety, security and ethics issues related to AI models. One high priority among these efforts is the mitigation of misuse of AI models, such as for the development of chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological (CBRN) threats. Many biologists have for decades sought to reduce the risks of scientific research that could lead, through accident or misuse, to high-consequence disease outbreaks. Scientists have carefully considered what types of life sciences research have the potential for both benefit and risk (dual use), especially as scientific advances have accelerated our ability to engineer organisms. Here we describe how previous experience and study by scientists and policy professionals of dual-use research in the life sciences can inform dual-use capabilities of AI models trained using biological data. Of these dual-use capabilities, we argue that AI model evaluations should prioritize addressing those which enable high-consequence risks (i.e., large-scale harm to the public, such as transmissible disease outbreaks that could develop into pandemics), and that these risks should be evaluated prior to model deployment so as to allow potential biosafety and/or biosecurity measures. While biological research is on balance immensely beneficial, it is well recognized that some biological information or technologies could be intentionally or inadvertently misused to cause consequential harm to the public. AI-enabled life sciences research is no different. Scientists' historical experience with identifying and mitigating dual-use biological risks can thus help inform new approaches to evaluating biological AI models. Identifying which AI capabilities pose the greatest biosecurity and biosafety concerns is necessary in order to establish targeted AI safety evaluation methods, secure these tools against accident and misuse, and avoid impeding immense potential benefits.

TRENDS IN CREATING CREATIVE CONTENT IN MEDIA AS A COMPONENT OF MEDIA PRACTICE

The article analyzes the historical experience of forming attractive media content and identifies the key factors of its emotional saturation, which affects the cognitive perception of the audience. The mechanisms of creating “emotional packaging” of content through creative technologies, including storytelling, mythmaking, metaphorization, memification, and humor, are investigated. Their role in forming socially constructive content that can attract attention and facilitate the assimilation of information and influence decision-making is considered. The author substantiates the need for an integrated approach to combining traditional and modern methods in creative media practices, which contributes not only to the effective information exchange but also to the development of critical thinking, social responsibility, and resistance to manipulative strategies in the modern information space.

A half-century of climate change in major agricultural regions: Trends, impacts, and surprises

Efforts to anticipate and adapt to future climate can benefit from historical experiences. We examine agroclimatic conditions over the past 50 y for five major crops around the world. Most regions experienced rapid warming relative to interannual variability, with 45% of summer and 32% of winter crop area warming by more than two SD (σ). Vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a key driver of plant water stress, also increased in most temperate regions but not in the tropics. Precipitation trends, while important in some locations, were generally below 1σ. Historical climate model simulations show that observed changes in crops' climate would have been well predicted by models run with historical forcings, with two main surprises: i) models substantially overestimate the amount of warming and drying experienced by summer crops in North America, and ii) models underestimate the increase in VPD in most temperate cropping regions. Linking agroclimatic data to crop productivity, we estimate that climate trends have caused current global yields of wheat, maize, and barley to be 10, 4, and 13% lower than they would have otherwise been. These losses likely exceeded the benefits of CO2 increases over the same period, whereas CO2 benefits likely exceeded climate-related losses for soybean and rice. Aggregate global yield losses are very similar to what models would have predicted, with the two biases above largely offsetting each other. Climate model biases in reproducing VPD trends may partially explain the ineffectiveness of some adaptations predicted by modeling studies, such as farmer shifts to longer maturing varieties.

Intellectual Initiatives of the Iranian and Kazakh Intelligentsia in the 20-30s of the XX Century

The article examines the role of the Iranian and Kazakh intelligentsia in the process of modernization. We are talking about the struggle for the independence of the country at the beginning of the twentieth century and the modernization of the consciousness of traditional society. The historical experience of the Kazakh and Iranian intelligentsia was studied, as well as the goals and objectives set by the intellectuals of the two countries on this path, the path of their struggle. The ideas of intellectuals of both countries regarding nationalism and colonialism are analyzed, including their reaction to European imperialism and their efforts to promote national independence. In the twentieth century, a comparative analysis was conducted of how intellectuals reacted to the challenges of modernization and secularization, how their ideas and values changed over time, their ideas about nationalism and identity, including how language, culture and history played an important role in the formation of national identity. The author speaks about the gradual transition of the ideas of enlightenment of the intelligentsia of the nation to the idea of political reforms, that is, reforms at the state level, about the process of introducing this idea into the national idea. The reasons for the emergence of these ideas and the functions they perform were analyzed. The article presents a historical and comparative analysis of the intellectual activity of the Iranian and Kazakh intelligentsia of the early twentieth century. To this end, an attempt was made to conduct a study of the activities and ideological initiatives of the intelligentsia of the two countries using methods of historical comparison and comparison, historical description and analysis.

Federated learning with empirical insights: Leveraging gradient historical experiences for performance fairness

Federated learning with empirical insights: Leveraging gradient historical experiences for performance fairness

The Core Essence, Historical Experience and Realistic Enlightenment of Mao Zedong’s Construction of the Image of the Communist Party of China: Rereading The Publication Speech of Communist

The Core Essence, Historical Experience and Realistic Enlightenment of Mao Zedong’s Construction of the Image of the Communist Party of China: Rereading The Publication Speech of Communist

Features and Significance of Patriotic Publications in Besieged Leningrad (1941-1943)

This article is devoted to a little-studied aspect of history, examines the significance of the patriotic book in the lives of the city’s residents and its defenders, and describes the patriotic literature produced in Leningrad during the years of the siege. The study of patriotic blockade publications is an attempt to understand what kind of literature Leningraders stood up to. The appeal to the historical experience of studying the book of the blockade is determined by the growing interest in the Great Patriotic War, and directly to the battles for Leningrad, how our people were able not only to withstand the most difficult trials, but also to defeat the superior forces of almost all of Europe. The work shows how the repertoire of patriotic publications changed, depending on the stages of hostilities. An analysis of patriotic literature is presented. The list of the main patriotic publications in the Besieged city from 1941-1943 is presented.

Seamless multi-skill learning: learning and transitioning non-similar skills in quadruped robots with limited data

In multi-skill imitation learning for robots, expert datasets with complete motion features are crucial for enabling robots to learn and transition between different skills. However, such datasets are often difficult to obtain. As an alternative, datasets constructed using only joint positions are more accessible, but they are incomplete and lack details, making it challenging for existing methods to effectively learn and model skill transitions. To address these challenges, this study introduces the Seamless Multi-Skill Learning (SMSL) framework. Integrated within the Adversarial Motion Priors framework and incorporating self-trajectory augmentation techniques, SMSL effectively utilizes high-quality historical experiences to guide agents in learning skills and generating smooth, natural transitions between them, addressing the learning difficulties caused by incomplete expert datasets. Additionally, the research incorporates an adaptive command sampling mechanism to balance the training opportunities for skills of various difficulties and prevent catastrophic forgetting. Our experiments highlight potential issues with baseline methods when imitating incomplete expert datasets and demonstrate the superior performance of the SMSL framework. Sim-to-real experiments on real Solo8 robots further validate the effectiveness of SMSL. Overall, this study confirms the SMSL framework’s capability in real robotic applications and underscores its potential for autonomous skill learning and generation from minimal data.

Pandemics in Human History: Lessons Learned and Lasting Impacts

Health crises, particularly in the form of pandemics, have a long history of destroying and disrupting the political, social, and economic order of organized human societies. There is a continuous endeavor to derive lessons from these historical events to better comprehend, prepare for, and mitigate the impacts of future pandemics. This review article, adopting the perspectives of crisis management and crisis communication, seeks to operationalize historical human experiences in the realm of policy-making. By engaging with both academic and popular literature on past pandemic events, the article endeavors to apply these insights to the COVID-19 pandemic while the crisis was still unfolding. The findings indicate that the most pertinent lessons from past health crises are often not accurately learned or applied, potentially due to political pressures that emerge during such crises.

Pastoral Livestock Farming in Southern Regions of Russia under Natural and Climatic Conditions of “Black Earth” of Kalmykia in 1930s.

The relevance of analyzing the historical experience of livestock development on migratory pastures in Southern Russia during the 1930s stems from the fact that agriculture is currently one of the most vital sectors of the country’s economy. The unique livestock products of Kalmykia, shaped by the unprecedented experiences of the 1930s in raising hardy animals capable of enduring harsh conditions such as lack of shelter, feed shortages, and poor-quality (brackish) water, are now in demand on a global scale. This article characterizes the actions taken by central and local authorities to combat natural disasters and assesses the assistance provided by neighboring regions to rescue livestock from the areas of the North Caucasus and Lower Volga that were on the migratory pasture known as “Black Earth.” The scientific novelty of this research lies in the comprehensive analysis of how a significant herd survived on one of Southern Russia’s pastures amidst a shortage of natural fodder, concentrated feed mixes, and water during winter, particularly during periods of extreme hardship. The study is primarily based on materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Central State Archive of the Republic of Dagestan, and the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia. It demonstrates that poorly conceived policies by regional authorities regarding the concentration of livestock from the North Caucasus and Lower Volga regions, despite initial planning for placement during adverse ecological conditions, led to the loss of a substantial number of animals, including breeding stock.

Traditional Healing Practices in Tharu Community of Lamahi-4, Dang, Nepal

Introduction: The use of the traditional healing practices is deeply rooted in Nepalese culture and are based on beliefs and historical experiences accumulated from generation to generation. In Nepal, over 60 traditions exist and about 85% of the population depends on traditional medicines for their basic healthcare. The Tharu are the largest indigenous ethnic group in Nepal’s Terai region, practicing traditional medicines in their community since long time. This study mainly focuses on the survey of traditional healing practice including plant used and dhami-jhakri of Thanu community of Dang district Nepal. Method: It was cross sectional descriptive study. The survey was performed to collect the data in Tharu community of Lamahi-4, Dang by using open ended questionnaire and face to face interview. Results: The maximum traditional healers were between age group 61-70 i.e. 37.14% and dominated by male i.e. 85.71%. Majority of traditional healers were engaged in agriculture and 97.145% of traditional healers were illiterate. The diseases were diagnosed by observation and complaint of patient, aksheta herne, traditional mantra, touching body parts etc. Various treatment methods used by traditional healers were aksheta herne, phukphak, body massage, yoga and herbal plants. 76 plant species belonged to 42 families were used by healers for preparing different herbal formulation to cure the different ailments Conclusion: Traditional healing practices was widely used as means of primary healthcare in study area and this area was rich in medicinal plants that have significant role in treatment of different ailments. The widespread use of some medical plants caused the extinction of valuable plant; hence those plants must be preserved for future use.

The Iranian Post-Islamist Intellectuals and Christian Theology: The Case of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari

Abstract Both the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Āyatollāh Ruhollāh Khomeyni (1902–89)’s conception of Islamic government reflected traces of an opposition to modernism and a discourse of self-return advanced by Iranian thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s. The end of the Iran-Iraq War, the pursuit of economic liberalization policies, the emergence of an urban middle class, and the challenges of theocracy created conditions for a new religious discourse among Iranian post-Islamist intellectuals. Influenced by the historical experiences of the church and Christian theology in the Western world, as well as the need to reconsider religious knowledge, these new Iranian post-Islamist thinkers introduced fresh interpretations of religious and Shariʿa-based government. Drawing on Christian theological approaches, they initiated a dialogue with Shiʿi Islamic texts. Focusing on the thought of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (b. 1936), this paper argues that Iranian post-Islamist scholars, in adapting Islam to contemporary realities, employ Christian theological frameworks to reinterpret Shiʿi jurisprudence.

Re-evaluation of dominant visual images present in national symbols for communication in Kenya

The present study aimed to evaluate the dominant visual images embedded within Kenya's national symbols. This investigation was guided by two theoretical frameworks: Social Semiotic Theory (SST) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA). Adopting a qualitative paradigm and descriptive survey design, the study employed purposive sampling to select three key national symbols for analysis: the national anthem, national flag, and national emblem. Content analysis was utilised to scrutinise these symbols and extract thematic findings. The results revealed that the elements of Kenya's national flag effectively conveyed a sense of unity, progress, and the nation's core values. Similarly, the dominant visual components of the Kenyan coat of arms communicated a powerful narrative of national defence, strength, vigilance, unity, and a deep-rooted connection to the country's agricultural and economic foundations. These symbols were found to reflect the aspirations, values, and historical experiences that have shaped Kenyan national identity. The themes present within the national anthem were central to the Kenyan national consciousness and served as guiding principles for the country's ongoing development and progress. The data obtained would be valuable in enlightening the public about the importance of Kenyan national symbols in promoting peace and highlighting their efficacy as a means of communication. Furthermore, the findings contribute new knowledge and information to the field of applied linguistics.

Violence as a Constitutive of States

Abstract Is the state monopoly on the use of legitimate violence a modern invention that refers exclusively to a particular provincial sociohistorical phenomenon that emerged in seventeenth-century Europe? The answer this paper presents is no. Instead, I argue that the canonical Eurocentric epistemic communities have sought to displace other systems of governance and administration and replace them with European and Westphalian-like models. Yet, an urgent question remains unanswered: Why were political scientists and political sociology scholars from the Global South forced to adopt these [Eurocentric] theses and apply them to other, diverse regions, which have had different and prior historical, social, political, cultural, and economic experiences from Europe? To answer these questions, the paper adopts a decolonial approach to examine the following hypothesis: internal violence, repression, and control (from above) were the constitutive factors of forming and preserving political authority necessary for the establishment and development of modern states outside the Western hemisphere. To do so, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Ḵẖaldūn’s (1332–1406) theses on the ontological and constitutive role of violence are deployed to critique the Weberian principle of the state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force. I present what I call the Ḵẖaldūnian trilogy of ʿasabiyya, al-Daʿwa al-Diīniyah, al-shāwkāh wa al-ghālbāh wa al-qāhr (i.e., the dominant group, religious-ideological discourse, force majeure, and repression-domination), upon which state/authority relies to constitute and consolidate its power and legitimacy, without being occupied with either the legality or the justice of this violence, as epistemic alternative of the Eurocentric conceptions of state-building.

СЕВЕРНЫЙ ФРОНТ: УРОКИ ВТОРОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ

The article highlights the problem of the lessons of global confrontation during the Second world war and the historical experience of joining forces to combat the risks of a global catastrophe. A general description of the opposing forces and assets in the Northern theater of military operations, their victories and losses is given. Using the example of Hero of the Soviet Union G.I. Shchedrin, the heroism and dedication of the Soviet people in the battles in the Arctic and the contribution of the Northern Front to the Great Victory of the soviet people against european fascism are shown. Some lessons of the Second world war are formulated, including the need to ensure a level of political, military-strategic and operational management appropriate to existing realities; the use of constructive cooperation between antagonistic geopolitical actors, albeit in the short term, under strict control over the implementation of agreements; the obligation and importance of preventive defensive and offensive actions based on objective information and appropriate training; focusing on the most vulnerable places in the security system; the need for reliable cover for both combat operations and continuous logistical support for the active army. The relevance of the lessons of the Second world war and their oblivion by modern political elites is substantiated. A historical analogy is drawn between modern events in the European theater of military operations and the course of the last world war.

80-ЛЕТИЕ ВЕЛИКОЙ ПОБЕДЫ: ГЕРОИЧЕСКАЯ ОБОРОНА СОВЕТСКОГО СЕВЕРА В ГОДЫ ВЕЛИКОЙ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННОЙ ВОЙНЫ (ОБЗОР МАТЕРИАЛОВ КРУГЛОГО СТОЛА)

The review highlights the abstracts of the round table «80th Anniversary of the Great Victory: The Heroic Defense of the Soviet North during the Great Patriotic War», held on January 29, 2025 at the Lomonosov Northern (Arctic) Federal University (Arkhangelsk) as part of the Business Program of the Interdepartmental Experimental Research Exercise of Forces and Means of the Unified State System. prevention and liquidation of emergency situations in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation «SAFE ARCTIC – 2025». The round table was attended by representatives of federal authorities, researchers and scientists, experts in the field of the history of the Great Patriotic war and the security of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. The review highlights the historical experience of solving the problems of ensuring the security of the northern flank of the theater of military operations during the Great Patriotic war, as well as the justification for the need to take it into account in modern even more difficult conditions.

Diplomatic training and Sovereign Foreign Policy: Experience from Asia

This article analyzes the relationship between diplomatic training and the international positioning of countries, using the example of the Asian macro-region. The paper is a case study focusing on the experiences of China, Vietnam, the Republic of Korea, Indonesia, and India. Through detailed country analyses, the paper aims to examine how the quality of diplomatic training correlates with states’ aspirations for autonomy and sovereignty in the emerging polycentric world order. The methodological framework of the study incorporates a multi-paradigm approach, integrating a neorealist perspective of the state as the central actor in international relations and a constructivist analysis of the impact of social practices on diplomatic strategy. An examination of the diplomatic training systems of the countries reveals a complex relationship with their foreign policy and personnel policies. The study finds a non-causal correlation between the foreign policy positioning of countries and their diplomatic training models. A state’s desire to increase its autonomy depends to a greater extent on its role and position in world politics in the space-time continuum. Thus, based on historical experience, among the cases studied, the desire for autonomy is stronger in those states where the colonial trauma is more acute. “Sovereignty” can take different forms depending on the resources available to a state. At the same time, quality diplomatic training ensures the possibility of implementing the sovereign line and provides the necessary human and ideological tools for this purpose.

ERL-MPP: Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Multi-head Puzzle Perception for Solving Large-scale Jigsaw Puzzles of Eroded Gaps

Solving jigsaw puzzles has been extensively studied. While most existing models focus on solving either small-scale puzzles or puzzles with no gap between fragments, solving large-scale puzzles with gaps presents distinctive challenges in both image understanding and combinatorial optimization. To tackle these challenges, we propose a framework of Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning with Multi-head Puzzle Perception (ERL-MPP) to derive a better set of swapping actions for solving the puzzles. Specifically, to tackle the challenges of perceiving the puzzle with gaps, a Multi-head Puzzle Perception Network (MPPN) with a shared encoder is designed, where multiple puzzlet heads comprehensively perceive the local assembly status, and a discriminator head provides a global assessment of the puzzle. To explore the large swapping action space efficiently, an Evolutionary Reinforcement Learning (EvoRL) agent is designed, where an actor recommends a set of suitable swapping actions from a large action space based on the perceived puzzle status, a critic updates the actor using the estimated rewards and the puzzle status, and an evaluator coupled with evolutionary strategies evolves the actions aligning with the historical assembly experience. The proposed ERL-MPP is comprehensively evaluated on the JPLEG-5 dataset with large gaps and the MIT dataset with large-scale puzzles. It significantly outperforms all state-of-the-art models on both datasets.