Chinese calligraphy: character style recognition based on full-page document

Calligraphy plays a very important role in the history of China. From ancient times to modern times, the beauty of calligraphy has been passed down to the present. Different calligraphy styles and structures have made calligraphy a beauty and embodiment in the field of writing. However, the recognition of calligraphy style and fonts has always been a blank in the computer field. The structural complexity of different calligraphy also brings a lot of challenges to the recognition technology of computers. In my research, I mainly discussed some of the main recognition techniques and some popular machine learning algorithms in this field for more than 20 years, trying to find a new method of Chinese calligraphy styles recognition and exploring its feasibility. In our research, we searched for research papers 20 years ago. Most of the results are about the content recognition of modern Chinese characters. At first, we analyze the development of Chinese characters and the basic Chinese character theory. In the analysis of the current recognition of Chinese characters (including handwriting online and offline) in the computer field, it is more important to analyze various algorithms and results, and to analyze how to use the experimental data, besides how they construct the data set used for their test. The research on the method of image processing based on Chinese calligraphy works is very limited, and the data collection for calligraphy test is very limited also. The test of dataset that used between different recognition technologies is also very different. However, it has far-reaching significance for inheriting and carrying forward the traditional Chinese culture. It is very necessary to develop and promote the recognition of Chinese characters by means of computer tecnchque. In the current application field, the font recognition of Chinese calligraphy can effectively help the library administrators to identify the problem of the classification of the copybook, thus avoiding the recognition of the calligraphy font which is difficult to perform manually only through subjective experience. In the past 10 years of technology, some techniques for the recognition of single Chinese calligraphy fonts have been given. Most of them are the pre-processing of calligraphy characters, the extraction of stroke primitives, the extraction of style features, and the final classification of machine learning. The probability of the classification of the calligraphy works. Such technical requirements are very large for complex Chinese characters, the result of splitting and recognition is very large, and it is difficult to accurately divide many complex font results. As a result, the recognition rate is low, or the accuracy of recognition of a specific word is high, but the overall font recognition accuracy is low. We understand that Chinese calligraphy is a certain research value. In the field of recognition, many research papers on the analysis of Chinese calligraphy are based on the study of calligraphy and stroke. However, we have proposed a new method for dealing with font recognition. The recognition technology is based on the whole page of the document. It is studied in three steps: the first step is to use Fourier transform and some Chinese calligraphy images and analyze the results. The second is that CNN is based on different data sets to get some results. Finally, we made some improvements to the CNN structure. The experimental results of the thesis show that the full-page documents recognition method proposed can achieve high accuracy with the support of CNN technology, and can effectively identify the different styles of Chinese calligraphy in 5 styles. Compared with the traditional analysis methods, our experimental results show that the method based on the full-page document is feasible, avoiding the cumbersome font segmentation problem. This is more efficient and more accurate

China’s Charm Offensive in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Comprehensive Analysis of China’s Strategic Communication Strategy Across the Region [Part II: Influencing the Media]

This report will analyze China’s communication strategy in LAC through the action of the Chinese media and its foreign media networks as a tool to influence LAC in favor of the CCP’s ideological objectives. It will also seek to understand the functioning of the vast network of print, audiovisual, and digital media owned by the Chinese government and LAC groups that serve the purpose of the Chinese regime. News outlets such as the Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, China Radio International, China Central Television (CCTV), CGTN Español, and China Today are strategic and geopolitical tools that seek to repeat, amplify, and consolidate the authoritarian power of Xi. In addition, it is crucial to understand the direct action of representatives of the Chinese government to marginalize critical information through direct and indirect pressure. It will also study how China tries to transmit a positive image through campaigns in all possible media, incorporating LAC journalists, academics, politicians, and all those who can promote its image and narrative.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/jgi_research/1055/thumbnail.jp

KŪNQǓ IN PRACTICE: A CASE STUDY

Ph.D

Power and identity in the Qing empire: a study of the political and economic life of the elites through confiscation inventories 1700-1912

China has often been portrayed as a society that changed little for centuries before 1912. It was ruled by the same “Chinese” elite. Some equate “Chinese” culture with Han culture and the Han minzu, who form most of the inhabitants of today’s China. Yet in the Qing empire, which lasted from 1644 to 1912, the state declared that their ruling elite, the Manchus, as a distinct cultural entity. Their banner army system included separate Manchu and Mongol branches as well as a Han branch. After their consolidation of the central plain, the Qing rulers allowed Han people to join the bureaucracy, but Manchu officials worked in parallel. The Qing categorized the people under their rule based on vague cultural categories, but what did it mean to be Manchu, Mongol or Han? Did the Manchu and Mongol bannermen become assimilated to the majority Han culture because they only constituted 3% of the population? Or did they retain an independent identity of their own? This thesis examines the cultural identity of the Qing empire’s elite through the evidence of their possessions in order to understand whether the Qing regime was a Han empire or a multi-cultural empire. Existing research on Qing elite group identity focusses predominantly on textual evidence. Yet material culture is one of the hallmarks of identity. People, whether literate or illiterate, use material culture as a powerful medium through which to express themselves, whether through their clothing, the furnishing and decoration of their domestic environment or their activities. This study exploits the confiscation inventories of 17 Mongolian and 96 Manchu bannermen, and 192 Han families (127 officials), reported in memorials housed in various East Asia archives. It combines a quantitative analysis of possessions recorded in the confiscation inventories with the study of the cultural resonances of these goods. It argues that the ruling elite, in general, maintained their proto-ethnic cultural distinctiveness throughout the Qing period. In private, the non-banner Han elite decorated their houses in ways rooted in the Chinese book culture and literati taste that had persisted since the Song period. They owned silk, porcelain, ritual objects, and carvings. They possessed hundreds of volumes of Chinese books and practiced calligraphies and paintings. In contrast, Manchu and Mongol bannermen kept to a northern taste and way of life. They acquired gold utensils, metalware, rare court-controlled luxuries, and rare fur clothes. They 4 practiced martial arts and owned more horses and weapons than Han elite. When we look at their dress, at least in public, elite presented themselves as Qing subjects, following the Qing sumptuary requirement on style, but Han scholar officials also mimicked the garments and hunting accessories preferred by the Manchu and Mongol bannermen. The material cultural analysis provided in this thesis suggests that the Qing empire was a multi-cultural empire at the elite level, ruled by a culturally distinct group of Manchu and Mongol bannermen who sat at the top of the society

Dilemmas of Empire: Movement, Communication, and Information Management in Ming China, 1368-1644

This dissertation analyzes the dilemmas of governance that confronted the Chinese state under the Ming dynasty. These dilemmas, I argue, arose from the Ming's dual existence as an empire (a state that ruled over a large territory) and a bureaucracy (a state that ruled through written documents and hierarchically-structured offices). As a bureaucratic empire, the Ming pursued several distinct objectives simultaneously, the resulting complications of which form the focus of my investigations. Chapter 1 describes the Ming state's methods for authenticating and synchronizing information, and shows how the needs of bureaucratic communication necessitated a seemingly redundant style of administrative writing. Chapter 2 explains why the postal system, despite its creators' best intentions, turned out to be much slower than non-postal methods of communication. Chapter 3 discusses how territorial officials made regular trips to the capital to participate in state rituals and to undergo personnel evaluations, even though the trips generated great costs and undermined local security. Chapter 4 examines the long time it took for officials to transfer from one province to another and the bureaucratic needs that slowed down their movement. Ultimately, the Ming state maintained a delicate equilibrium between four conflicting objectives: speed, cost-saving, administrative certainty, and propriety. Given the constrains of premodern communication, it was logistically impossible to meet all four objectives simultaneously. Any attempt to advance one objective necessarily undermined one or more of the other objectives, and no amount of investment in transportation or communication infrastructure could have resolved this basic tension

“Parallel Worlds“. Clusters for a Theory of Concepts of Communications. Historical Intercultural and Cultural Comparative Studies in Perspectives of National and Transnational Constitutions, Values, Concepts, and Terms of ‘Communication’ - ‘Orality’ - ‘Literacy’ - ‘Rhetoric’ - ‘Media’.

This is a study regarding the history of communication based on several clusters traced back from ancient time to the 21st century. It contains also in the second part chapers on the specific conditions of communications in different cultures

“Parallel Worlds“. Clusters for a Theory of Concepts of Communications. Historical Intercultural and Cultural Comparative Studies in Perspectives of National and Transnational Constitutions, Values, Concepts, and Terms of ‘Communication’ - ‘Orality’ - ‘Literacy’ - ‘Rhetoric’ - ‘Media’.

This is a study regarding the history of communication based on several clusters traced back from ancient time to the 21st century. It contains also in the second part chapers on the specific conditions of communications in different cultures

Stage Technology in Modern China: The Media of Revolution and Resistance

This dissertation examines how the introduction of new stage technologies—from electric spotlights to live-feed digital cameras—into modern Chinese theater has shaped dramatic text, performance practice, and artistic theory from the 1930s to the present. Extant scholarship on modern Chinese performing arts acknowledges the importance of technical elements like scenography and lighting, but generally treats such elements as secondary to the artistic labors of actors, directors, and playwrights. In contrast, my study foregrounds the material and medial components of live performance and demonstrates that they are in fact central to both the aesthetics and politics of modern theater in China. Using a methodology that combines literary and performance analysis, I argue that the modernization of the stage apparatus in China has propelled a reconceptualization of drama as a technology in the service of political and ideological goals. Yet, at the same time, the very technologies that have facilitated this shift also have galvanized aesthetic innovation, enabled new forms of critique, and connected Chinese dramatists to global trends in theater arts. The project is structured around periods of innovation in modern Chinese theater, examined through specific performance case studies: lighting in early spoken drama (1930s), architecture and political theater (1950s), the body as anti-technology in “little theater” (1980s), and new media in avant-garde performance (2010s). For each case, I use sources such as literary texts, technical drawings from theater periodicals and archives, memoirs and essays by theater artists, and interviews with living directors and designers to reconstruct the real and imagined material conditions of performance at distinct historical moments. These materials enable me to examine the intersection of technology and theater on three interrelated levels: how practical advances influence the writing (or adaptation) of scripts and facilitate production; how conceptual innovations refashion the craft of performance; and how human agents mobilize in service of (or against) the stage apparatus. Together, these cases demonstrate that the entanglement of technology, performance, and politics has been and continues to be a defining force in the development of Chinese theater.East Asian Languages and Civilization

Commercializing Ideologies : Intellectuals and Cultural Production at the Mingxing (Star) Motion Picture Company, 1922 - 1938

This dissertation presents an in-depth look at a pioneering Chinese film company, the Mingxing (Star) Motion Picture Company, and reveals the ways in which intellectual ideas were transformed into part of commercial films as well as the implications of this production in a time of drastic social change in China. This study based on a wide range of primary source materials revises the conventional history of early Chinese cinema in many respects. I challenge the conventional categorization of screenwriters and directors along political or ideological lines and argue that cultural production at the commercial film company facilitated the dissemination of intellectual ideas through a combination of commercial drives and joint efforts of many allegedly radically different groups of filmmakers. With the aim to look into the dynamic process of cultural production at Mingxing, this study is divided into three parts. Part One (Chapter 1) reconstructs the institutional and economic history of Mingxing. Part Two (Chapters 2-4) presents a revisionist analysis of film producers at Mingxing. By unfolding a network of interactions and entanglements between Mingxing?s film directors and screenwriters, I argue that these persons acted as an intermediary that bridged the intellectual world and the film industry. In Part Three (Chapters 5-7), I analyze the narrative and thematic motifs of Mingxing films and show that issues expressed in films generally resonated with the contemporary intellectual discourse on modernity and national salvation. In doing so, I demonstrate that cinema played a largely unrecognized role in China's modern transformation in its specific ways

La transmisión del conocimiento en los oficios artísticos : Valencia, 1370-1450

Esta tesis tiene como objetivo indagar en las vías de transmisión del conocimiento artístico en Valencia entre 1370 y 1450. Para ello, se ha consultado abundante bibliografía relacionada con el tema, tanto en vernáculo como en otras lenguas extranjeras, y se ha revisado documentación archivística (sobre todo protocolos notariales), tanto en el Archivo del Reino como en el Archivo de Protocolos del Real Colegio Seminario de Corpus Christi. En principio, se han determinado cuatro vectores en esta transferencia del saber artesano: el aprendizaje en un obrador, la emulación o superación de un modelo, el viaje y la colaboración con otros profesionales. El adiestramiento en el taller es una circunstancia profusamente documentada en la Europa preindustrial, fundamentalmente –aunque no sólo- a través de los contratos que vinculaban a maestro y discípulo. En el caso concreto de la Corona de Aragón, gracias a la riqueza de las fuentes históricas que se conservan, ha sido posible explorar este fenómeno con cierta profundidad: se ha podido comprobar cómo, bajo el nombre genérico de ‘carta d’afermament’ se escondía una variada casuística que no siempre implicaba el aprendizaje de un oficio. A pesar de ello, este compromiso ante notario en ocasiones era utilizado estratégicamente para asentarse en un nuevo medio laboral o para formarse al lado de un profesional de renombre. El seno de la familia, por otra parte, también era un contexto privilegiado para la transmisión del conocimiento artesano: frecuentemente se documentan casos en los que el hijo sigue el oficio del padre, heredando probablemente con ello el taller, las herramientas y los clientes, aunque no ha sido posible identificar muchos ejemplos que superasen la tercera generación de operarios dedicados al mismo menester. A pesar de ello, la búsqueda de un mercado más próspero impulsó el desplazamiento de muchos jóvenes, incluso de los que pertenecían a una familia que era una célula de producción consolidada. Además, el aprendizaje en el taller pudo ser utilizado, también, como una herramienta de promoción social. A propósito de ello se examina el caso particular de Jaume Mateu, llegado a Valencia desde un municipio catalán del interior en las postrimerías del siglo XIV para trabajar en el obrador de su tío Pere Nicolau, el pintor más prolífico y reputado de la primera generación del Gótico Internacional en la ciudad. La segunda vía de transmisión del conocimiento artístico estudiada en la tesis es la emulación o superación de un modelo, ya fuera éste un diseño previo u otra pieza terminada que debía servir de referencia en la confección de un encargo. En la documentación notarial pueden encontrarse con frecuencia alusiones a una ‘mostra’ que servirá de garantía tanto para el artista como para el comitente, y que suele quedar en poder del notario ante el que se suscribe el contrato de obra. La mayoría de veces este croquis se ha perdido, aunque los escasos ejemplos conservados ilustran sobre todo la factura de retablos. La proposición de otra obra como modelo es tanto o más frecuente que la cita de una ‘mostra’, y parece ser más la concreción de unos estándares de calidad o de envergadura que un patrón que debía reproducirse con exactitud en todos sus pormenores. En ocasiones, en los inventarios de bienes de artistas fallecidos (aunque también en otro tipo de documentos, como pueden ser almonedas, ventas y procesos legales) se encuentran diseños que probablemente conformaron un muestrario, apto también para la copia en los procesos de aprendizaje. En este sentido, el listado de los bienes del presbítero Andreu Garcia, fallecido en 1452, es un ejemplo excepcional: en casa del difunto se registran varias tablillas pintadas y dispuestas a manera de libro, diseños en papel, muestrarios de letras, e incluso un dibujo a pluma que se dice ‘de mà de Johannes’. De todas formas, las pruebas del uso de repertorios de oficio no consisten sólo en la huella que dejaron en los archivos, sino también en evidencias materiales que han pervivido hasta hoy, como puedan ser cuadernos de dibujos o reflectografías que desvelan el dibujo subyacente de una pintura. En lo que a Valencia se refiere, resulta de particular interés el cuaderno conservado en los Uffizi y asignado a un ‘anonimo valenzano’, objeto de examen detenido en esta tesis. El dibujo arquitectónico (ejemplos conservados, métodos y problemas) se ha tratado en un epígrafe distinto por su especificidad respecto a los diseños empleados en otros oficios. Por supuesto, con este asunto de los modelos está estrechamente relacionada la cuestión de la visualidad, la historicidad de la mirada y la memoria, que se examina brevemente al final del capítulo. El tercer vector de transferencia del saber en los oficios artísticos es la colaboración entre profesionales. Este trabajo conjunto se articuló mediante compañías, subcontratas y asociaciones puntuales para sacar adelante determinado proyecto. Las compañías se documentan en referencia a gran variedad de actividades: la pintura de cortinas, la explotación de canteras o el bordado, por ejemplo. La subcontratación parece ser un fenómeno más extendido de lo que dan a entender las noticias de archivo: emergen más datos sobre esta práctica de manera accidental (sobre todo en litigios y testamentos de operarios) que en registros relacionados directamente con ella. De las asociaciones puntuales, sin embargo, sí se tiene un registro más regular a través de los contratos de obra, en los que figura tanto el promotor como los maestros que asumen la confección de la pieza en cuestión. Este sistema de producción ha sido estudiado particularmente en lo que a la pintura se refiere: son ya famosas las colaboraciones entre los grandes maestros del Gótico Internacional, que vinculan con frecuencia a un operario extranjero y al jefe de un taller local, con todas las implicaciones que eso tiene en términos de estrategia de mercado. En concreto, esta investigación aporta un nuevo caso de colaboración entre Pere Nicolau y Marçal de Sas, quienes habían contratado juntos dos retablos ya con anterioridad. En esta ocasión, era la viuda de un miembro de la oligarquía ciudadana quien requería su trabajo. Aunque no se conoce el coste total de la obra, sí puede suponerse que era notablemente elevado, a juzgar por la fracción que se les pagó en octubre de 1400. Tras el examen de esta noticia, se revisa sucintamente el fenómeno de los arbitrajes y de las tasaciones como posibles indicios de cualificación profesional y/o de reconocimiento social. El cuarto y último medio que posibilitó el transvase de conocimientos fue el viaje de artistas y de obras. Es un tema que se trata de modo transversal durante toda la investigación: por ejemplo, en el capítulo sobre el adiestramiento en el taller hay un apartado específico sobre el desplazamiento, tanto de aprendices como de maestros; y en las páginas referentes al dibujo arquitectónico se da cuenta de varios viajes que tienen el objeto de conocer edificaciones que puedan servir de modelo. Aparte de esto, en esta parte de la tesis se analizan con especial atención documentos que posiblemente son indicio de un desplazamiento, como avecindamientos, guiajes, o procuradurías. Se examinan además cuáles pudieron ser los medios de inserción en un nuevo medio laboral: la constitución de una compañía, el matrimonio, el ‘afermament’ se perfilan como los recursos más utilizados por los recién llegados. La importación de obras fue asimismo un cauce de introducción de novedades. En muchos inventarios fechados entre 1370 y 1450 se registran objetos artísticos de procedencia notablemente variada: cajas pintadas de Barcelona, retablos de ‘obra de Romania’, o alabastros ingleses son enseres que emergen de la documentación bastante frecuentemente. Si bien la Catedral, la Ciudad y la Corona fueron los grandes promotores que atrajeron a la urbe y al Reino obras y artistas de calidad sobresaliente, patrocinando también, cuando lo estimaron oportuno, el viaje de menestrales a otros lugares en los que pudieran aprender nuevas habilidades (recuérdese el caso de Lluís Dalmau), se ha preferido concentrar la atención en otros ejemplos menos conocidos, ligados más a avatares personales del operario que a la voluntad de un gran cliente. El epílogo de la tesis está constituido por una semblanza de la figura del presbítero Andreu Garcia, protagonista de una serie documental notablemente relevante, en lo que al arte 1420-1450 se refiere. El testamento, el inventario y la almoneda de los bienes del eclesiástico, junto a otros documentos relacionados con su actividad en vida, revelan su interés por las artes figurativas, además de evidenciar que también practicaba el dibujo. Asimismo, sus vínculos con los operarios más conocidos eran numerosos: aparece relacionado con el carpintero Jaume Spina, con el imaginero y maestro de obras Martí Llobet, con los iluminadores Pere Bonora y Simó Llobregat; con los pintores Jaume Mateu, Berenguer Mateu, Miquel Alcanyís, Gonçal Sarrià, Jacomart y, sobre todo, Joan Reixac. En suma, Garcia estuvo en contacto con lo más granado de la menestralía artística de la ciudad, mediando en sus encargos e incluso dando diseños para algunas obras. Esta circunstancia revela cuán cerca pudieron estar unos artistas de otros y cuán viva pudo ser la transmisión del conocimiento artístico en Valencia durante la primera mitad del siglo XV