Retrieving landscape: Drawing(s) as key to the development of alternative biographical readings of Nanhai in the Pearl River Delta

This article focuses on two methods employed in the selection, interpretation, and representation of diverse source materials for developing alternative biographies for my ancestral landscape - Nanhai district in the Pearl River Delta in southern China. These biographies aim to approach Nanhai from a long view of continual transformation, as opposed to prevalent readings of the region that focus on the striking spatial contrasts and large-scale developments that have only come about in recent decades.  The chronological reading explores a critical shift in the cosmological understanding of the landscape situated in the 19th century through a selection of historical gazetteer maps, while in the excavational reading the diffuse continuity of the lineage in the present-day landscape of Nanhai is traced. In both methods, the drawing functions as a crucial (research) tool to engage the range of source materials

A Common Heritage? The Interpretation of Heritage in Museum Design

A common heritage? The interpretation of heritage in museum design. Aside from the ever increasing number of museums in China and the political agenda behind this museum boom calling to attention, the architectural design of the museums themselves merits closer observation. For good reasons, Chinese architects have increasingly come to the attention of foreign design media due to their commitment to engaging with Chinese context and heritage. Chinese architects have increasingly shown interest to interpret anew their own ‘heritage’ for incorporation into contemporary design. This includes the use of the vernacular, ‘traditional’ materials, local craftsmanship, scaled typologies, the referencing to traditional arts such as shanshui painting, etc. They attempt to give answers to rapidly changing conditions, to negotiate with surroundings instead of starting from a tabula rasa attitude. At the same time, the design process and the final realized project show us what the designer considers to be ‘Chinese tradition’. Since designers have a certain freedom to choose what heritage to work with, they present us with their – often simplified or reduced – vision of Chineseness. But what exactly is Chineseness in a plural and multi-ethnic society? This paper will explore recurrent themes of modernity, tradition, collective identity, unity and plurality, authenticity, and appropriateness in recent museum building through a number of case studies in China. The selected projects vary geographically, incorporating museums in the coastal area as well as the interior and frontier regions. Designers include foreign and locally educated architects. Through the use of the writings by architecture critics and by the architects themselves, and close readings of the spatial and formal qualities of the museum buildings, I will attempt show the complexity that befall architects when negotiating plurality and unity in a country as vast as China and the community each of them separately imagines

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILL OF CHILDREN IN HONG KONG

The phase of fundamental movement abilities represents a time in which young children are actively involved with exploring and experimenting with the movement capabilities of their bodies. The development of fundamental movement skills, which is believed to form the foundation for more complex sports and game skills, should be essential teaching content in the lower form, kindergarten and primary school curriculum (Gallahue and Ozmun, 1998). However, in Hong Kong, there is no specific school teaching syllabus aimed at developing students' fundamental skills in primary school physical education lessons. Moreover, there is currently a lack of information about the standards of children's abilities in this area. The aim of this study is to evaluate the current level of students' fundamental movement in different age groups using field tests and then comparing the results with the norm in USA samples

Body-Mind Connectedness: Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Group Work for Depressed Persons with Salient Somatic Disturbances

Globally, depression frequently comorbid with a variety of physical illnesses, which exert substantial mental and somatic distresses on patients. Sleep disturbance is one of the common conditions reported by individuals with either, mental or physical illnesses. Complex interaction among depression, sleep and physical illnesses highlighted the essential mind‐body connection in the planning of integrative care and other clinical services. A number of eastern mind‐body practices, such as Qigong, acupuncture and meditation, have been frequently studied indicating the efficacy of mind‐body connection in complementary therapies. This chapter will introduce the integrative body‐mind‐spirit (I‐BMS) group work, which has been found effective in addressing comorbid depressed mood and somatic afflictions, especially sleep disturbances among Hong Kong Chinese adults

Maintenance therapy in advanced non-small cell lung cancer: A prime-time for change?

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A PILOT STUDY OF MASTERY OF FUNDAMENTAL MOTOR SKILLS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN HONG KONG

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current proficiency level of fundamental motor skills among primary students in Hong Kong. Three male and three female grade three students participated in this pilot study. The Test of Gross Motor Development Second Edition (TGMD-2) was employed. Four out of six students displayed an average mastery of the overall fundamental motor skills while two were rated as below average in their proficiency. The performance of the Locomotor subtests outweighed the performance of the Object Control subtests. Further studies with larger sample size and with subjects in different age groups will be conducted in order to have a better understanding of the mastery level of the whole school students and to suggest and implement appropriate intervention programs to improve their fundamental motor skills

Parental use of the term "Hot Qi" to describe symptoms in their children in Hong Kong: a cross sectional survey "Hot Qi" in children

BACKGROUND: The Chinese term "Hot Qi" is often used by parents to describe symptoms in their children. The current study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of using the Chinese term "Hot Qi" to describe symptoms in children by their parents and the symptomatology of "Hot Qi". METHOD: A cross sectional survey by face-to-face interview with a semi-structured questionnaire was carried out in a public hospital and a private clinic in Hong Kong. The parental use of the term "Hot Qi", the symptoms of "Hot Qi" and the remedies used for "Hot Qi" were asked. RESULTS: 1060 pairs of children and parents were interviewed. 903 (85.1%) of parents claimed that they had employed the term "Hot Qi" to describe their children's symptoms. Age of children and place of birth of parents were the predictors of parents using the term "Hot Qi". Eye discharge (37.2%), sore throat (33.9%), halitosis(32.8%), constipation(31.0%), and irritable (21.2%) were the top five symptoms of "Hot Qi" in children. The top five remedies for "Hot Qi" were the increased consumption of water (86.8%), fruit (72.5%), soup (70.5%), and the use of herbal beverages "five-flower- tea" (a combination of several flowers such as Chrysanthemum morifolii, Lonicera japonica, Bombax malabaricum, Sophora japonica, and Plumeria rubra) (57.6%) or selfheal fruit spike (Prunella vulgaris) (42.4%). CONCLUSION: "Hot Qi" is often used by Chinese parents to describe symptoms in their children in Hong Kong. Place of birth of parents and age of the children are main factors for parents to apply the term "Hot Qi" to describe symptoms of their children. The common symptoms of "Hot Qi" suggest infections or allergy

Viewpoint switching in multiview videos using SP-frames

The distinguishing feature of multiview video lies in the interactivity, which allows users to select their favourite viewpoint. It switches bitstream at a particular view when necessary instead of transmitting all the views. The new SP-frame in H.264 is originally developed for multiple bit-rate streaming with the support of seamless switching. The SP-frame can also be directly employed in the viewpoint switching of multiview videos. Notwithstanding the guarantee of seamless switching using SP-frames, the cost is the bulky size of secondary SP-frames. This induces a significant amount of additional space or bandwidth for storage or transmission, especially for the multiview scenario. For this reason, a new motion estimation and compensation technique operating in the quantized transform (QDCT) domain is designed for coding secondary SP-frame in this paper. Our proposed work aims at keeping the secondary SP-frames as small as possible without affecting the size of primary SP-frames by incorporating QDCT-domain motion estimation and compensation in the secondary SP-frame coding. Simulation results show that the size of secondary SP-frames can be reduced remarkably in viewpoint switching. Index Terms — Multiview, viewpoint switching, SP-frame, QDCT-domain, motion estimatio

Global embeddings of scalar-tensor theories in (2+1)-dimensions

We obtain (3+3)- or (3+2)-dimensional global flat embeddings of four uncharged and charged scalar-tensor theories with the parameters B or L in the (2+1)-dimensions, which are the non-trivially modified versions of the Banados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black holes. The limiting cases B=0 or L=0 exactly are reduced to the Global Embedding Minkowski Space (GEMS) solution of the BTZ black holes.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure