Why and how does critical reporting persist at the local level in China despite state media control, a hallmark of authoritarian rule? Synthesizing ethnographic observation, interviews, survey and content analysis data, Convenient Criticism reveals evolving dynamics in local governance and the state-media relationship. Local critical reporting, though limited in scope, occurs because local leaders, motivated by political career advancement, use media criticism strategically to increase bureaucratic control, address citizen grievances, and improve governance. This new approach to governance enables the shaping of public opinion while, at the same time, disciplining subordinate bureaucrats. In this way, the party-state not only monopolizes propaganda but also expropriates criticism, which expands the notion of media control from the suppression of journalism to its manipulation. One positive consequence of these practices has been to invigorate television journalists' unique brand of advocacy journalism.
In this book, the authors discuss the biophysical characteristics of Dendritic cells (DCs) at various differentiation stages and in tumor microenvironments in detail. A type of Chinese traditional herb, which can improve the biophysical and microrheological properties of DCs, is also introduced. DCs are potent and specialized antigen-presenting cells that play a crucial role in initiating and amplifying both the innate and adaptive immune responses. The biophysical and microrheological characteristics of DCs are important for their motility and normal immune function. In tumor microenvironments, the motility and immune functions of DCs are impaired, but the mechanisms are largely unknown. This book offers researchers a comprehensive and deep insight into the biophysical characteristics of DCs and may also help to improve the efficiency of anti-tumor therapy based on DCs.
Large-Scale Simulation: Models, Algorithms, and Applications gives you firsthand insight on the latest advances in large-scale simulation techniques. Most of the research results are drawn from the authors’ papers in top-tier, peer-reviewed, scientific conference proceedings and journals. The first part of the book presents the fundamentals of large-scale simulation, including high-level architecture and runtime infrastructure. The second part covers middleware and software architecture for large-scale simulations, such as decoupled federate architecture, fault tolerant mechanisms, grid-enabled simulation, and federation communities. In the third part, the authors explore mechanisms—such as simulation cloning methods and algorithms—that support quick evaluation of alternative scenarios. The final part describes how distributed computing technologies and many-core architecture are used to study social phenomena. Reflecting the latest research in the field, this book guides you in using and further researching advanced models and algorithms for large-scale distributed simulation. These simulation tools will help you gain insight into large-scale systems across many disciplines.
Used by companies, organizations, and even individuals to promote recognition of their brand, logos can also act as a valuable means of identifying the source of a document. E-business applications can retrieve and catalog products according to their logos. Governmental agencies can easily inspect goods using smart mobile devices that use logo recognition techniques. However, because logos are two-dimensional shapes of varying complexity, the recognition process can be challenging. Although promising results have been found for clean logos, they have not been as robust for noisy logos. Logo Recognition: Theory and Practice is the first book to focus on logo recognition, especially under noisy conditions. Beginning with an introduction to fundamental concepts and methods in pattern and shape recognition, it surveys advances in logo recognition. The authors also propose a new logo recognition system that can be used under adverse conditions such as broken lines, added noise, and occlusion. The proposed system introduces a novel polygonal approximation, a robust indexing scheme, and a new line segment Hausdorff distance (LHD) matching method that can handle more distortion and transformation types than previous techniques. In the first stage, raw logos are transformed into normalized line segment maps. In the second stage, effective line pattern features are used to index the database to generate a moderate number of likely models. In the third stage, an improved LHD measure screens and generates the best matches. A comprehensive overview of logo recognition, the book also presents successful applications of the technology and suggests directions for future research.
This book explores robust multimodal cognitive load measurement with physiological and behavioural modalities, which involve the eye, Galvanic Skin Response, speech, language, pen input, mouse movement and multimodality fusions. Factors including stress, trust, and environmental factors such as illumination are discussed regarding their implications for cognitive load measurement. Furthermore, dynamic workload adjustment and real-time cognitive load measurement with data streaming are presented in order to make cognitive load measurement accessible by more widespread applications and users. Finally, application examples are reviewed demonstrating the feasibility of multimodal cognitive load measurement in practical applications. This is the first book of its kind to systematically introduce various computational methods for automatic and real-time cognitive load measurement and by doing so moves the practical application of cognitive load measurement from the domain of the computer scientist and psychologist to more general end-users, ready for widespread implementation. Robust Multimodal Cognitive Load Measurement is intended for researchers and practitioners involved with cognitive load studies and communities within the computer, cognitive, and social sciences. The book will especially benefit researchers in areas like behaviour analysis, social analytics, human-computer interaction (HCI), intelligent information processing, and decision support systems.
This authored monograph presents a study on fundamental limits and robustness of stability and stabilization of time-delay systems, with an emphasis on time-varying delay, robust stabilization, and newly emerged areas such as networked control and multi-agent systems. The authors systematically develop an operator-theoretic approach that departs from both the traditional algebraic approach and the currently pervasive LMI solution methods. This approach is built on the classical small-gain theorem, which enables the author to draw upon powerful tools and techniques from robust control theory. The book contains motivating examples and presents mathematical key facts that are required in the subsequent sections. The target audience primarily comprises researchers and professionals in the field of control theory, but the book may also be beneficial for graduate students alike.
This study develops a methodology for rapidly obtaining approximate estimates of the economic consequences from numerous natural, man-made and technological threats. This software tool is intended for use by various decision makers and analysts to obtain estimates rapidly. It is programmed in Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) to facilitate its use. This tool is called E-CAT (Economic Consequence Analysis Tool) and accounts for the cumulative direct and indirect impacts (including resilience and behavioral factors that significantly affect base estimates) on the U.S. economy. E-CAT is intended to be a major step toward advancing the current state of economic consequence analysis (ECA) and also contributing to and developing interest in further research into complex but rapid turnaround approaches. The essence of the methodology involves running numerous simulations in a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for each threat, yielding synthetic data for the estimation of a single regression equation based on the identification of key explanatory variables (threat characteristics and background conditions). This transforms the results of a complex model, which is beyond the reach of most users, into a "reduced form" model that is readily comprehensible. Functionality has been built into E-CAT so that its users can switch various consequence categories on and off in order to create customized profiles of economic consequences of numerous risk events. E-CAT incorporates uncertainty on both the input and output side in the course of the analysis.
Hong Kong Hollywood is the inaugural novel by Dan Wasserman. It chronicles the dramatically intertwined lives of Paul Chen and Jon Davidson. Chen's story harks back to his first year in college where as a stellar student he is unfairly charged as part of a cheating ring and expelled. Since his immigrant parents had mortgaged their lives to the local tong his only real option becomes a life of crime. But, with his extraordinary talents he establishes business opportunities in the entertainment industry that over time eclipse his other illegitimate interests. Davidson, an entrepreneur, is aggressively building the first truly effective anti-piracy tool designed to protect movies, television, music, and video as the industry transitions from analog to digital. Considering this pre-dates the World Wide Web, file sharing and even DVDs, his company secures venture financing from some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. The story is fast-paced with action occurring in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Bay Area, Hong Kong, Miami Beach, Toronto, Montreal, Cannes, and the Cinque Terre (Italy). It engages the reader with a tale that has far-reaching consequences pitting an angry, yet extremely successful man, against an unassuming hero. When faced with the risk of technology causing the loss of billions of dollars invested by the Hong Kong crime bosses, Chen fights back using every resource at his disposal including his teenage son. The outcome has far-reaching consequences, which can still be seen to this day.
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