Vulnerability In The City: Reading Healing Narratives In East Asian Animal Films

Narratives of mourning and healing have become a popular discourse in films about animalhuman relationships set in the contemporary East Asian urban milieu. From the mainstream to the arthouse, from micro films to personal documentaries, images of the dying pet have triggered poignant revelations about human existence. While most of these films focus on the process of how the human protagonists come to the enlightening moment of self-understanding through the grieving experience, the deaths of their animal companions are often the imperative origins of such self-making. Interestingly, the cause of these animals’ loss is either evaded by or mirrored through human illness in these cinematic Bildungsromane. Given such a lacuna in the interpretive context, how do we read these textual animals who are dying in the arms of their fragile human companions? How do the interspecies life-and-death stories illuminate the dialectics of alienation and intimacy of the city dwellers? How does the claustrophilic timespace of the cinematic medium articulate and habituate these affective stories of failures and recovery? How do we produce a critical reflection on the imaginary of vulnerability, the ethics of care, and fabulations of inadequacy and sentimentality in the cosmopolitan East Asian cities where pet-keeping is becoming en vogue and a sign of economic prosperity? Through a comparative study of Quill (dir. Yochi Sai, Japan, 2004), Gu Gu The Cat (dir. Isshin Inudo, Japan, 2008), and This Darling Life (dir. Angie Chen, Hong Kong, 2008), this paper attempts to examine the urban phenomenon that while animals have become vital participants of everyday life, human beings are facing a (de)pressing need to rethink their affective network with these nonhuman urban residents. These stories of failures – the failure of language in articulating the loss of the animal other in the human milieu as well as the failure of knowing oneself until the inconceivable moment of loss and death – signify the therapeutic journey in which the seeking of interpretation beyond language becomes an essential process toward a more limpid subjectivity both within and outside the narrative chronotope. By studying the representation of selected ‘cute’ animal images and their tragic deaths on East Asian screens, this paper aims at exploring the transference of vulnerability and power between the animal beings and their human counterparts.published_or_final_versio

Suicides in general hospitals in Hong Kong: Letters to the editor

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Suicides in general hospitals in Hong Kong: Letters to the editor

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Sensitivity analysis of a Bayesian network for reasoning about digital forensic evidence

Bayesian network representing an actual prosecuted case of illegal file sharing over a peer-to-peer network has been subjected to a systematic and rigorous sensitivity analysis. Our results demonstrate that such networks are usefully insensitive both to the occurrence of missing evidential traces and to the choice of conditional evidential probabilities. The importance of this finding for the investigation of digital forensic hypotheses is highlighted. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Protecting digital data privacy in Computer Forensic Examination

Session 1: Forensic Modeling and Framework: no. 3Privacy is a fundamental human right defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To enable the protection of data privacy, personal data that are not related to the investigation subject should be excluded during computer forensic examination. In the physical world, protection of privacy is controlled and regulated in most countries by laws. Legislation for handling private data has been established in various jurisdictions. In the modern world, the massive use of computers generates a huge amount of private data and there is correspondingly an increased expectation to recognize and respect human rights in digital investigation. However, there does not exist a forensically sound model for protecting private data in the context of digital investigation, and it poses a threat to privacy if the investigation involves the processing of such kind of data. In this paper, we try to address this important issue and present a cryptographic model designed to be incorporated into the current digital investigation framework, thereby adding a possible way to protect data privacy in digital investigation. © 2011 IEEE.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Analyzing storage media of digital camera

Digital photography has become popular in recent years. Photographs have become common tools for people to record every tiny parts of their daily life. By analyzing the storage media of a digital camera, crime investigators may extract a lot of useful information to reconstruct the events. In this work, we will discuss a few approaches in analyzing these kinds of storage media of digital cameras. A hypothetical crime case will be used as case study for demonstration of concepts. © 2009 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2009 International Workshop on Forensics for Future Generation Communication Environments (F2GC-09) in conjunction with CSA 2009, Jeju Island, Korea, 10-12 December 2009. In Proceedings of CSA, 2009, p. 1-

Memory acquisition: A 2-Take approach

When more and more people recognize the value of volatile data, live forensics gains more weight in digital forensics. It is often used in parallel with traditional pull-the-plug forensics to provide a more reliable result in forensic examination. One of the core components in live forensics is the collection and analysis of memory volatile data, during which the memory content is acquired for searching of relevant evidential data or investigating various computer processes to unveil the activities being performed by a user. However, this conventional method may have weaknesses because of the volatile nature of memory data and the absence of original data for validation. This may cause implication to the admissibility of memory data at the court of law which requires strict authenticity and reliability of evidence. In this paper, we discuss the impact of various memory acquisition methods and suggest a 2-Take approach which aims to enhance the confidence level of the acquired memory data for legal proceedings. © 2009 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2009 International Workshop on Forensics for Future Generation Communication Environments (F2GC-09) in conjunction with CSA 2009, Jeju Island, Korea, 10-12 December 2009. In Proceedings of CSA, 2009, p. 1-

Protecting digital legal professional privilege LPP data

The Best Paper AwardTo enable free communication between legal advisor and his client for proper functioning of the legal system, certain documents, known as Legal professional privilege (LPP) documents, can be excluded as evidence for prosecution. In physical world, protection of LPP information is well addressed and proper procedure for handling LPP articles has been established. However, there does not exist a forensically sound procedure for protecting 'digital' LPP information. In this paper, we try to address this important, but rarely addressed, issue. We point out the difficulties of handling digital LPP data and discuss the shortcomings of the current practices, then we propose a feasible procedure for solving this problem. © 2008 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 3rd International Workshop on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensic Engineering (IEEE/SADFE 2008), Oakland, CA., 22 May 2008. In Proceedings of the 3rd SADFE, 2008, p. 91-10

Pet-animals In The Concrete Jungle: Tales Of Abandonment, Failures, And Sentimentality In San Hua And Twelve Nights

When pet-keeping in the urban space is becoming a vogue as a sign of economic prosperity, stories about such human-animal relationship have illuminated the dialectics of alienation and intimacy of the city dwellers. At the same time, the “sentimental fabulations” (to borrow from Rey Chow) embedded in the life-and-deaths of these animal companions has triggered a critical reflection on the imagery of vulnerability in popular narratives. In light of the growing urban landscape of the concrete jungle, the ethics of caring is rethought when questions of affection and cruelty towards pet-animals (Tuan, 1984) are foregrounded, and the animal has emerged from the disappeared to the epitomized in the cosmopolitan everyday life. Pet-animals have triggered both the compassionate facet of the lonely urban humans as well as deterred the way these humans comprehend the limitations of affect. With the increasing concern with animal abuse and animal welfare by the local media and NGOs, there have been a rising number of films and microfilms (short films that are shown only on social media) on this subject in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the PRC in recent years. Through a comparative study of two independent documentaries (San Hua, 2010, and Twelfth Nights, 2014) in Chinese-language cinema, this paper attempts to map out the topography of an affective sphere mediated by the visual narratives between the animal-other and the human-self. It is found that images of abandonment and sentimentality about these hapless animals have often been used as tools to attract public awareness of animal rights. Under this didactic discourse wrapped in the glossy popular media, how do we critically reflect on the urgent need to examine the gloomy conditions of the abandoned pet-animals, and change this brutal scenario? What is the use of sentimental representations about pet-animals? Do the compassionate and sympathetic attitudes emitted from these cinematic representations transmit or impede enlightenment? This paper aims at provoking contemplation on the impact of speedy urban development on the wavering yet intimate relationship between animals and the human beings, as well as examining the potential susceptibility of such representations