Problem: Background: Shen Kuo (Chinese: Chen Gua ; 1031-1095), courtesy name Cunzhong (Cun Zhong ) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (Meng Xi Weng ), was a Han Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960-1279). Excelling in many fields of study and statecraft, he was a mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, zoologist, botanist, pharmacologist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, encyclopedist, general, diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, academy chancellor, finance minister, governmental state inspector, poet, and musician.
Context: The new Chancellor Cai Que (Cai Que ; 1036-1093) held Shen responsible for the disaster and loss of life. Along with abandoning the territory which Shen Kuo had fought for, Cai ousted Shen from his seat of office. Shen's life was now forever changed, as he lost his once reputable career in state governance and the military. Shen was then put under probation in a fixed residence for the next six years. However, as he was isolated from governance, he decided to pick up the ink brush and dedicate himself to intensive scholarly studies. After completing two geographical atlases for a state-sponsored program, Shen was rewarded by having his sentence of probation lifted, allowing him to live in a place of his choice. Shen was also pardoned by the court for any previous faults or crimes that were claimed against him.  In his more idle years removed from court affairs, Shen Kuo enjoyed pastimes of the Chinese gentry and literati that would indicate his intellectual level and cultural taste to others. As described in his Dream Pool Essays, Shen Kuo enjoyed the company of the "nine guests" (Jiu Ke , jiuke), a figure of speech for the Chinese zither, the older 17x17 line variant of weiqi (known today as go), Zen Buddhist meditation, ink (calligraphy and painting), tea drinking, alchemy, chanting poetry, conversation, and drinking wine. These nine activities were an extension to the older so-called Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar.  According to Zhu Yu's book Pingzhou Table Talks (Ping Zhou Ke Tan ; Pingzhou Ketan) of 1119, Shen Kuo had two marriages; the second wife was the daughter of Zhang Chu (Zhang Chu ), who came from Huainan. Lady Zhang was said to be overbearing and fierce, often abusive to Shen Kuo, even attempting at one time to pull off his beard. Shen Kuo's children were often upset over this, and prostrated themselves to Lady Zhang to quit this behavior. Despite this, Lady Zhang went as far as to drive out Shen Kuo's son from his first marriage, expelling him from the household. However, after Lady Zhang died, Shen Kuo fell into a deep depression and even attempted to jump into the Yangtze River to drown himself. Although this suicide attempt failed, he would die a year later.  In the 1070s, Shen had purchased a lavish garden estate on the outskirts of modern-day Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, a place of great beauty which he named "Dream Brook" ("Mengxi") after he visited it for the first time in 1086. Shen Kuo permanently moved to the Dream Brook Estate in 1088, and in that same year he completed his life's written work of the Dream Pool Essays, naming the book after his garden-estate property. It was there that Shen Kuo spent the last several years of his life in leisure, isolation, and illness, until his death in 1095.
Question: Did he achieve something from the study?
Answer: After completing two geographical atlases for a state-sponsored program, Shen was rewarded by having his sentence of probation lifted,

Problem: Background: Vasco da Gama was born in 1460 or 1469 in Sines, on the southwest coast of Portugal, probably in a house near the church of Nossa Senhora das Salas. Sines, one of the few seaports on the Alentejo coast, consisted of little more than a cluster of whitewashed, red-tiled cottages, occupied chiefly by fisherfolk. Vasco da Gama's father was Estevao da Gama, who had served in the 1460s as a knight of the household of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu. He rose in the ranks of the military Order of Santiago.
Context: In December 1499, King Manuel I of Portugal rewarded Vasco da Gama with the town of Sines as a hereditary fief (the town his father, Estevao, had once held as a commenda). This turned out to be a complicated affair, for Sines still belonged to the Order of Santiago. The master of the Order, Jorge de Lencastre, might have endorsed the reward - after all, da Gama was a Santiago knight, one of their own, and a close associate of Lencastre himself. But the fact that Sines was awarded by the king provoked Lencastre to refuse out of principle, lest it encourage the king to make other donations of the Order's properties. Da Gama would spend the next few years attempting to take hold of Sines, an effort that would estrange him from Lencastre and eventually prompt da Gama to abandon his beloved Order of Santiago, switching over to the rival Order of Christ in 1507.  In the meantime, da Gama made do with a substantial hereditary royal pension of 300,000 reis. He was awarded the noble title of Dom (lord) in perpetuity for himself, his siblings and their descendants. On 30 January 1502, da Gama was awarded the title of Almirante dos mares de Arabia, Persia, India e de todo o Oriente ("Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia, India and all the Orient") - an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (evidently, Manuel must have reckoned that if Castile had an 'Admiral of the Ocean Seas', then surely Portugal should have one too). Another royal letter, dated October 1501, gave da Gama the personal right to intervene and exercise a determining role on any future India-bound fleet.  Around 1501, Vasco da Gama married Catarina de Ataide, daughter of Alvaro de Ataide, the alcaide-mor of Alvor (Algarve), and a prominent nobleman connected by kinship with the powerful Almeida family (Catarina was a first cousin of D. Francisco de Almeida).
Question: What is the origin of this title?
Answer:
an overwrought title reminiscent of the ornate Castilian title borne by Christopher Columbus (