Ghost city extraction and rate estimation in China based on NPP-VIIRS night-time light data

The ghost city phenomenon is a serious problem resulting from the rapid urbanization process in China. Estimation of the ghost city rate (GCR) can provide information about vacant dwellings. This paper developed a methodology to quantitatively evaluate GCR values at the national scale using multi-resource remote sensing data. The Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership–Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer (NPP-VIIRS) night-time light data and moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land cover data were used in the evaluation of the GCR values in China. The average ghost city rate (AGCR) was 35.1% in China in 2013. Shanghai had the smallest AGCR of 21.7%, while Jilin has the largest AGCR of 47.27%. There is a significant negative correlation between both the provincial AGCR and the per capita disposable income of urban households (R

D-branes and Closed String Field Theory

We construct solitonic states in the OSp invariant string field theory, which are BRST invariant in the leading order of regularization parameter. One can show that these solitonic states describe D-branes and ghost D-branes, by calculating the scattering amplitudes.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, based on an invited talk presented at the international workshop "Progress of String Theory and Quantum Field Theory" (Osaka City University, December 7-10, 2007), to be published in the proceeding

The ghosts of Ishinomaki: space, hauntings, and the materialized absences of disaster

Ishinomaki is a city of 150.000 people, in Tohoku, Japan. It is infamously famous for being the city with the most casualties in the 2011 Eastern Japan triple disaster: a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, a more than 30 metres high tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. My contribution aims utilizing the geographies of affect and post-disaster to look at how cities can be haunted by the ghost of disaster, trauma and loss. I will look, on the one hand, at how absences are materialized in the ghostscape of Ishinomaki: as the city was partially destroyed, many moved out, leaving the city centre depopulated and abandoned. On the other hand, I will look at how the narratives and ghost stories built around the disaster add a new layer of spectrality to the city

Ghost city phenomenon along China’s high-speed railway grid

A fresh urbanism era appears in China with the development of high-speed railway (HSR). Voluminous numbers of local governments are designing and erecting novel cities oriented to the HSR stations with the objective of gaining benefits from the HSR system. Nevertheless, a huge number of these freshly erected districts or cities entail a tremendously high vacancy rate, thereby resulting in 'ghost cities'. The present paper commences with an outline of the China's urban HSR growth and the phenomena of ghost cities. After a literature review on worldwide urban HSR development, the reasons behind the 'ghost city phenomenon' in China are analysed. In the end, the study is concluded by proposing several suggestions for HSR development

China's ghost city: popular religion, tourism and local development in Fengdu.

Tan, Xilin.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-127).Abstracts in English and Chinese ; includes Chinese.Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.1Controversies over the Ghost City --- p.1Fengdu --- p.2The Ghost City and Popular Religion --- p.3The Three Gorges Reservoir and the Relocation --- p.8Developing Tourism --- p.9Popular Religion in China --- p.13Revival of Popular Religion --- p.13Legitimatization of Popular Religion --- p.15Organization of the thesis --- p.17Chapter Chapter 2: --- The Landscape of Fengdu --- p.20Landscape of Fengdu County --- p.20The Reservoir Area in Chongqing --- p.20Population --- p.23Influence of the Dam --- p.25Fengdu Religious Landscape --- p.30The Ghost City after the 1980s --- p.33The Divine Palace: A Modern Amusement Park --- p.48Chapter Chapter 3: --- Legitimating the Ghost City --- p.51The Ghost City in Dispute --- p.51The Ambiguous Use of Wenhua --- p.52“The Culture of the Ghost City´ح --- p.54Promoting Righteousness --- p.56New Symbols of Fengdu: from Ghost to Divinity --- p.60Promoting the Ghost City --- p.63Another Version of Local Culture --- p.65Conclusion --- p.67Chapter Chapter 4: --- Fengdu Temple Festival 2009 --- p.70Fengdu Incense Festival in the Past --- p.70Festival Origins and the Incense Festival Before 1949 --- p.70Names and Organization --- p.73The Fengdu Temple Festival in 2009 --- p.75The Parade: Memories of Fengdu --- p.77Emperor of the Netherworld and His Wedding --- p.78Fengdu in History and the New Cultural Symbolism --- p.80People's Participation --- p.80Conclusion --- p.84Chapter Chapter 5: --- People's Religious Life in Current Fengdu --- p.87Tourism and Its Influence --- p.87Tour Guides --- p.87Communal Temples --- p.96The Wantian Shrine --- p.101Why do local people go to the Ghost City? --- p.102Spirit Mediums --- p.107Grandma Long --- p.108Water Bowl Augur --- p.109A Physiognomist --- p.110Conclusion --- p.111Chapter Chapter 6: --- Conclusion --- p.113A Rise of Superstition? --- p.113In the Name of Development --- p.115Promoting Tourism as a Means to Vitalize the County's Economy --- p.116The Wenhua of the Ghost City --- p.117The Culture of the Ghost City --- p.118The Lost Ghost --- p.118Popular Religious Practices in Daily Life --- p.119Alternative Interpretations of the Ghost City --- p.119Local Pilgrim --- p.121Bibliography --- p.12

The White Bicycle: Performance, Installation Art, and Activism in Ghost Bike Memorials

In this project I examine the performative nature of the ghost bike memorial. Ghost bikes, flat-white painted immobile bicycles created by cycling communities and loved ones of victims, are installed roadside to mark the locations of cycling related deaths. Using critical performance ethnography and critical-cultural analysis as methods, I analyze how the ghost bike performs as an artifact of mourning and inspires co-incident performances of grief, activism, and community building and maintenance. As a memorial object used worldwide to represent cycling culture, the ghost bike acts as a social network link that connects a multitude of diverse cycling communities. I present five case studies of ghost bikes in New York City, Durham, North Carolina, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Lafayette, Louisiana in order to dissect what the polysemic ghost bike communicates to public audiences. My analysis led to the discovery that ghost bikes are not only used as memorials. They also perform as metonyms for the absent, ruined bodies of cyclists; as markers of racial identity for victims; and as tools to reframe the narratives told about cycling-related deaths. I describe how the differing interpretations of the memorial are adapted to create and alter performances of identity, and I argue for the potential for these performances to influence perceptions about cycling safety, cycling-based legislation, and road infrastructure

Wawel Meets Elsinore. The National and Universal Aspects of Stanisław Wyspiański’s Vision of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

The aim of this paper is to show the role, the possibilities and the limits of Wyspiański’s national thinking through Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Of particular importance, in this context, is the role the Ghost takes in Wyspiański’s celebrated interpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. By the Ghost we mean the spirit of history, the ghost of a father, the spirit of the fatherland, the voice of the ancestors, and particularly that of the Polish king Casimir the Great, as well as the Holy Ghost and the Evil Spirit because all these aspects of the Ghost belong to Wyspiański’s vision. The play in question bears witness to what the Polish poet calls “the truth of other worlds,” as well as the truth of the theatre, which Wyspiański calls the labyrinth. The poet manages to reduce, to some extent, this difficult truth to the truth of the world he cared most about, that is the present and historical reality of Poland, more specifically the city of Cracow, known as Poland’s spiritual, that is “ghostly,” and only virtual, capital. It is also remarkable that Wyspiański saw the Ghost in Hamlet in the context of other Shakespearean ghosts, apparitions and magicians, such as those that appear in Macbeth, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Richard III. At the same time, Wyspiański realizes that the Ghost, with its irrationalism, offends the spirit of post-medieval times, and as such, is understandably neglected by Hamlet, who for Wyspiański, in anticipation of Harold Bloom, stands for modernity

China\u27s Unethical Economic Development Practices

The purpose of this research paper is to inform the public about some of the unethical economic development practices that China is performing with their citizens and global partners. These activities include escalating the national GDP at the detriment of their citizens through forced relocations in order to build new cities, dividing families with harmful public policies, and the imbalance between their citizens’ annual earnings and housing costs. Also discussed is the environmental pollution of the air, water, and soil, and poorly treating their international constituents when asked to provide consulting services to their nation

A ghost tour in Rouge = 遊魂《胭脂扣》

This paper discusses how Fleur\u27s association to some of the worldwide ghost tours insinuates the haunting quality of the past, time, and the cityscape; in other words, it discusses how the tragic love story between Fleur and Twelfth Master can also be allegorically read as a tragic cultural story of Hong Kong. This discussion allegorically reads Fleur, Twelfth Master and Yuen as figures hauled by modernity