The “intimate and expansive” (Time) memoir of “one of the most important artists working in the world today” (Financial Times), telling a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process “Poignant . . . An illuminating through-line emerges in the many parallels Ai traces between his life and his father’s.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, BookPage, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp. With candor and wit, he details his return to China and his rise from artistic unknown to art world superstar and international human rights activist—and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime. Ai Weiwei’s sculptures and installations have been viewed by millions around the globe, and his architectural achievements include helping to design the iconic Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing. His political activism has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011. Here, for the first time, Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his exceptional creativity and passionate political beliefs through his life story and that of his father, whose creativity was stifled. At once ambitious and intimate, Ai Weiwei’s 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows offers a deep understanding of the myriad forces that have shaped modern China, and serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression.
How did ancestral arthropods successfully diversify to colonize the land? How do insects use their wings to exploit terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems by metamorphosis? The causes and consequences of metamorphosis are still poorly understood in biology. This collection of essays examines the molecular basis underlying the metamorphosis regulation of the white wax scale insect (WWS), a fascinating insect that undergoes different metamorphoses between males and females. It shows that the WWS has produced great economic or medical benefits for human beings for thousands of years. This book provides interesting information for scientific and technical personnel, as well as undergraduate and graduate students engaged in entomology, molecular biology and biogeography.
This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections. Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career-from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011-providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists. Ai Weiwei is one of China's most influential and inspiring figures. Artist, architect, curator, and activist, he has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government's stance on human rights and democracy.
Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one of the world's most important artist-activists and a powerful documentary filmmaker. His work and art call attention to attacks on democracy and free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement--often on an epic, international scale. This collection of quotations demonstrates the range of Ai Weiwei's thinking on humanity and mass migration, issues that have occupied him for decades. Selected from articles, interviews, and conversations, Ai Weiwei's words speak to the profound urgency of the global refugee crisis, the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition, and the role of art in providing a voice for the voiceless. Select quotations from the book: "This problem has such a long history, a human history. We are all refugees somehow, somewhere, and at some moment." "Allowing borders to determine your thinking is incompatible with the modern era." "Art is about aesthetics, about morals, about our beliefs in humanity. Without that there is simply no art." "I don't care what all people think. My work belongs to the people who have no voice.
The book focuses on visual object tracking systems and approaches based on correlation filter and deep learning. Both foundations and implementations have been addressed. The algorithm, system design and performance evaluation have been explored for three kinds of tracking methods including correlation filter based methods, correlation filter with deep feature based methods, and deep learning based methods. Firstly, context aware and multi-scale strategy are presented in correlation filter based trackers; then, long-short term correlation filter, context aware correlation filter and auxiliary relocation in SiamFC framework are proposed for combining correlation filter and deep learning in visual object tracking; finally, improvements in deep learning based trackers including Siamese network, GAN and reinforcement learning are designed. The goal of this book is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in visual object tracking, especially correlation filter and deep learning based methods, which is particularly suited for readers who are interested in the research and technology innovation in visual object tracking and related fields.
Marcat per les experiències personals més doloroses de l'exili, Ai Weiwei sempre s'ha sentit un estranger, i és a partir de la seva experiència artística que aconsegueix donar a aquest estat singular una dimensió universal. «Les persones sempre han fugit, des dels primers compassos de la humanitat. És un procés pràcticament tan natural com el moviment de l'aigua, el vent o la gespa». A Manifest sense fronteres ens ajuda a entendre que l'exili és sobretot un problema de ser, no un problema de tenir, tot i la indefensió de les persones que han hagut d'abandonar casa seva. I ens il·lumina transmetent-nos el seu compromís amb la humanitat i l'arrel de les motivacions de la seva esplendorosa creativitat. Ai Weiwei és l'artista xinès més destacat de l'art contemporani, i és conegut per centrar les seves creacions en temes polítics i socials, i per la defensa dels drets humans i la llibertat d'expressió.
This book focuses on control techniques for LCL-type grid-connected inverters to improve system stability, control performance and suppression ability of grid current harmonics. Combining a detailed theoretical analysis with design examples and experimental validations, the book offers an essential reference guide for graduate students and researchers in power electronics, as well as engineers engaged in developing grid-connected inverters for renewable energy generation systems.
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is recognized around the globe for his conceptual installations catalyzing dialogue between the contemporary world and traditional Chinese modes of thought and production. Ai Weiwei: Life Cycle accompanies Ai's multifaceted installation at the Marciano Art Foundation, the culmination of 10 years of effort, featuring works related to his interests in mass production, antiquity and mythology. Enduring issues of political and social justice are given renewed potency through Ai's thoughtful and powerful installations. These include Life Cycle, a sculptural response to the global refugee crisis, and a series of figures based on mythic creatures from the Shanhaijing, or Classic of Mountains and Seas, crafted from bamboo and silk.
The potential of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to differentiate into insulin producing beta cells offers great hope for cell-based therapy for diabetes treatment. However, in vitro pancreatic differentiation of hESCs remains challenging. In the past decade, most protocols for differentiating pancreatic cells have been focused on the use of signaling molecule cocktails on 2D substrates. Studies on embryonic development biology strongly suggest that extracellular matrix (ECM) plays a critical role on hESCs behavior. In this work, we first established a 3D collagen scaffold culture system for hESCs differentiating into definitive endoderm (DE), which is the first and most important step for coaxing hESCs into transplantable beta cells. Collagen scaffold have shown to promote the attachment, proliferation and DE differentiation of hESCs in 3D microenvironment. Furthermore, we optimized the 3D scaffold compositions by integrating various ECM proteins into collagen scaffold. Our data showed that compared to collagen with single ECM protein, collagen combined with fibronectin, laminin, and vitronectin can greatly enhance DE differentiation generating up to 93% SOX17 positive DE population. Finally, we demonstrated that mature insulin-producing cells can be achieved by differentiating hESCs in 3D biomimic scaffold made of collagen and Matrigel, combined with a modified step-wise protocol. More mature insulin-producing cells were generated with our 3D scaffold compared to traditional 2D culture. The 3D differentiated pancreatic endocrine cells were assembled into tissue-like structure and displayed greater similarities in phenotype and gene expression profile to adult human islets. These hESC-induced pancreatic cells comprised 20% insulin positive cells in 3D culture and can response to high glucose and release four-fold insulin as compared to 2D culture. Insulin-secreting granules were also observed, which confirmed the generation of insulin-producing cells in 3D scaffold.
As everybody knows, the dynamic interactions between biotic and abiotic factors, as well as the anthropic ones, considerably affect global climate changes and consequently biology, ecology and distribution of life forms of our planet. These important natural events affect all ecosystems, causing important changes on biodiversity. Systematic and phylogenetic studies, biogeographic distribution analysis and evaluations of diversity richness are focal topics of this book written by international experts, some even considering economical effects and future perspectives on the managing and conservation plans.
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