ESSE 2017. Proceedings of the International Conference on Environmental Science and Sustainable Energy

Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physical-, biological-, and information sciences to study and solve environmental problems. ESSE - The International Conference on Environmental Science and Sustainable Energy provides a platform for experts, professionals, and researchers to share updated information and stimulate the communication with each other. In 2017 it was held in Suzhou, China June 23-25, 2017

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Civil Engineering

This open access book is a collection of accepted papers from the 8th International Conference on Civil Engineering (ICCE2021). Researchers and engineers have discussed and presented around three major topics, i.e., construction and structural mechanics, building materials, and transportation and traffic. The content provide new ideas and practical experiences for both scientists and professionals

River sands/urban spaces : Changsha in modern Chinese history

textThis work is a modern history of Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province, from the late nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries. The story begins by discussing a battle that occurred in the city during the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), a civil war that erupted in China during the mid nineteenth century. The events of this battle, but especially its memorialization in local temples in the years following the rebellion, established a local identity of resistance to Christianity and western imperialism. By the 1890’s this culture of resistance contributed to a series of riots that erupted in south China, related to the distribution of anti-Christian tracts and placards from publishing houses in Changsha. During these years a local gentry named Ye Dehui (1864-1927) emerged as a prominent businessman, grain merchant, and community leader. When a massive urban riot erupted in April 1910, Ye and other gentry were accused of withholding grain from starving peasants and other disgruntled locals. At the end of the same decade, in 1919 the Treaty of Versailles ended the war in Europe but awarded German owned territory in north China to Japan. Students and activists erupted in protest in cities throughout China, especially in Changsha. The climate of urban activism that emerged by the 1920’s inaugurated an age of civic identity in the city. Activists embraced certain ideas associated with western modernity—such as Marxism—in order to overcome western imperialism. Among the voices of dissent were young activists such as Mao Zedong (1893-1976). Students from foreign missionary schools even joined the protests. This new generation of activists published articles in the local press and other journals denouncing the West’s influence not only in Changsha, but also in communities throughout China. I also discuss the history of women in Changsha, most notably the experiences of an activist named Zhu Tierong (1915-2009). During World War II she worked with the local chapter of the YMCA to care for refugees. The war also brought intense carnage to Changsha, as much of the city was destroyed by a fire in 1938.Histor

Digital Jianghu: Independent Documentary in a Beijing Art Village

My ethnography explores the independent documentary film community in Songzhuang, an artist village in Beijing's Tongzhou District. Through participant-observation, interviews, participation in festivals, and my own filmmaking practice, I describe filmmakers and festival organizers as cultural producers endeavoring to work outside the confines of both the government and the mainstream cinema industry. To offer an analysis of the social, political, economic, and ethical conditions of this independent film community, my study also focuses on concrete practices of filmmakers and film supporters; privately-owned centers and social networks that enable the production, exhibition, and distribution of films; and the relationship between this community and government regulation. I argue that the independent documentary community constitutes a jianghu (literally, “rivers and lakes”), which, drawing from Chinese literature, I delimit as a social world of marginality and resistance against the status quo. Further, jianghu refers not only to independent filmmakers, but also to millions of “migrants” within the Chinese population who, even as they provide labor that fuels development, nonetheless subsist on the margins. This study also considers the efforts of filmmakers and scholars to elucidate a Chinese visual aesthetic, which has been called xianchang (“on the spot”) and, most recently, jingguan dianying (“quiet observational cinema”). These indigenous framings counter eurocentric notions of documentary and prevail among the majority of independent directors as an aesthetic wellsuited to represent the “cruelty of the social,” a term I introduce to describe social suffering born not only of China’s modern history of pain but also its contemporary turbulent era. I draw together the issues of distribution, social impact, and economic stability for independent documentary, as well as document the role of the state in quelling, censoring, and co-opting independent film. I conclude by exploring xianchang and my own filmmaking practice as advancing a form of knowledge that, owing to its experiential quality and its refusal to simplify and reduce phenomena into cultural data, is well-suited to represent the inherent complexity of Chinese society. Finally, a coda documents recent government oppression and festival cancellations to argue that the current moment is one of grave uncertainty for Chinese independent film.Anthropolog

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Civil Engineering

This open access book is a collection of accepted papers from the 8th International Conference on Civil Engineering (ICCE2021). Researchers and engineers have discussed and presented around three major topics, i.e., construction and structural mechanics, building materials, and transportation and traffic. The content provide new ideas and practical experiences for both scientists and professionals

Solving the ‘Wicked Problem’ of China’s Environmental Future: Cautious Optimism in the Face of Unprecedented Threats

China’s global position as an exporter of inexpensive, low-value goods has been sustained by a coal-fired growth model whose devastating environmental and social consequences are only recently being acknowledged properly by party leadership. A systematic review and analysis has been conducted of the most current academic literature addressing China’s environmental challenges. A sizeable amount of research (around 360 publications) was amassed in this pursuit, covering not only China’s environment, but also related governmental, economic, and social factors. The author has defined China\u27s environmental future as a \u27wicked problem\u27, which creates two allowances by default. First, it communicates that the problem is highly complex, involves multiple stakeholders, and has no easy solutions. Second, it recognizes that only a uniquely multi- sectoral approach can achieve accurate forecasting and sound recommendations. This paper follows this multi-sectoral approach, crossing institutional lines in search of developments economically and politically, as well as prevailing trends in both technology and culture. Scenario building of divergent futures has been visualized in order to generate confident and informed forecasting of China\u27s environmental future. The author remains cautiously optimistic regarding these future projections. However, heroic innovations in technology and environmental efficiency must be matched by seismic shifts in economic, social, and political policy. Real solutions and recommendations are prescribed in the final section of this Capstone. The importance of these recommendations cannot be overestimated. Expert consensus has equated humanity\u27s avoidance of climate fallout with the need for transformative solutions in China

Contemporary Squares of China--Nanjing Case Study

In urban history books about Chinese cities, all the vivid descriptions of traditional urban life convey one message--as an important part of the city today, square seems to be absence in China’s past. Square was imported to China along with the establishment of concessions. When foreigners (Russian/German/Italian/, etc.) introduce square toChina along with constructing their concessions, they would never image that Chinese square will become something highly peculiar and unusual in many ways after 100 years. However, the form and function of Chinese square appear quite similar with European square in the very beginning, so what forms the peculiar characters of Chinese today? The answer to this question may start from China’s failure of ‘the first Sino-Japanese war, since then The foundation of Chinese ideology and philosophy--Confucianism was doubted and questioned. Meanwhile, Social Darwinism was influential and prevailed nationwide. the direct influence of these 2 transformations are western culture was considered as higher potential culture. This idea leading to the disappear of traditional public spaces like streets and appear of western public spaces like squares or parks. With the purpose to reform the public life and remake the public space, there are 3 stages for square design in China.All these ideological transformations and urban reform have 3 points influence square design of China, the first is the disappear of China's traditional street culture, the second is the residue of collectivism since Mao's era, the third is the influence of the Soviet Union and Beaux-Arts system. In this context, there are similar and peculiar characters in both form and function. In this study, Nanjing was selected as studying subject. Nanjing was the capital of China on many occasions. The name Nanjing literally means ‘the southern capital’ and its counterpart is Beijing—means ‘the northern capital’. Among them, the urban design of Ming Empire and Republic China contributes greatly to influence the urban structure of Nanjing today. All the five cases selected for study have close relationship with traces of republic china, 3 of them have relationship with remains of Ming Empire

Cinema of Dislocation: the geo-emotional journeys of the suffering women in 21st century Chinese cinema

This thesis argues that there is a genre of film concerned with the travels of disenfranchised women in 21st century Chinese cinema. An identifiable set of film narratives have largely emerged in China’s neoliberal moment since the 1980s; and especially after the 2000s when China has been more engaged with the processes of globalisation, modernisation, urbanisation (Rofel 2007; Ong and Zhang 2008). Such a socio-economic procedure has stimulated massive population flows, spatial transition and development-induced displacement, uprooting and destabilising identity and sense of belonging (Wagner et al. 2014; Chen and Yang 2013). These subjects are often dislocated physically and socially from the dreams of the nouveau-riche and older cosmopolitan subjectivities that surround them. Heroines in such a cinema are either the village/suburban indigenous whose intra-village travels define their status of marginalisation and resistance, the rural migrants who have worked or lived in the city and choose to return, or urban middle-class women who are troubled by urban lives and set off on journeys to remote regions for self-revival. I argue that, in the cinema of dislocation, on the one hand, heroines are all displaced to various degrees by their unique circumstances; on the other hand, the status of dislocation serves as the women’s agency and empowers them, enabling them to seek for a new sense of location, belonging and identity during their travels and search for homecoming. Apart from contextual and thematic exploration, the challenges for this thesis will be to identify the other qualities that will justify defining the Cinema of Dislocation definitively as a genre of Chinese film in its own right: the network of directors, a shared aesthetic, distinctive dislocation narratives and cinematographies, and a degree of flexibility that allows the genre to develop