Exploring the Dzi Bead with Synchrotron Light: XRD, XRF Imaging and μ-XANES Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The origin of Dzi beads, also called “tian zhu”, has always been a mystery. These beads come in a variety of patterns, shapes and sizes. They have cultural and heritage significance in Tibet and areas surrounding the Himalayas. The most recognized beads are those with the “eye” pattern. They are said to ward off evil spirits. Due to their reputation, the demand for Dzi beads has increased in Asia. Herein, we report a study of a Dzi bead with a three-eye pattern using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) and imaging techniques. This is a novel area for Dzi bead research using X-rays from a synchrotron light source to determine the chemical composition of the bead, if the pattern is natural or man-made or if the bead is genuine or a replica. These techniques revealed the bead to be composed of agate (silicon dioxide). An interesting feature on the bead’s surface was the etched rings, which were observed to contain regular copper hot spots on their circumference. Our results suggest that the Dzi bead was genuine and started out as an earth-formed agate, with the pattern crafted.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".