Was Nixon’s visit to China a harbinger for Chinese media policy?

In a telling scene from Mike Chinoy’s documentary, “Assignment China: The Week that Changed the World,” an oral history of Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to the PRC, American Journalist Ted Koppel describes Nixon’s first view of Great Wall.Along the wall were families on blankets, listening to radios, snapping pictures, and doing all the things that you’d expect to see on a casual day out. The TV people got their pictures, Nixon saw the Great Wall (“I guess you’d have to conclude,” he commented, “That this is a great wall,”) and everyone seemed to ignore the curious fact of a leisurely crowd enjoying their day out despite cold temperatures that drove Walter Cronkite to wear electric socks. A suspicious Koppel hid behind trees until the press vans departed, and watched as Communist party vans pulled up behind them to sweep away the crowds and take back the cameras, radios, and tape recorders that they had handed out.When journalists complained about the barrage of staged media events, Nixon’s staff shrugged them off. “We’re in China,” they said, “We’ve got to do it the Chinese way.” But the upcoming 1972 election, and China’s desire to appear modern (it constructed a Western-style TV studio for the purpose of the visit) created a mutual sense of purpose between the two nations: Nixon and China’s interests aligned perfectly when it came to media management

London is dreaming of London: culture and identity in the capital

This week’s Media Agenda Talk was about London’s identity and culture. Three panellists – Author Eve Harris, music critic Lloyd Bradley and Channel 4 Reporter Fatima Manji – presented their unique perspective on the city, stemming from their professional experience and their life as Londoners. Does London have a culture of its own, or should we be speaking of a culture of neighbourhoods? Do its inhabitants identify more as ‘Londoner’ than ‘British’? How accurately does the media represent the capital? This post was written by Polis Reporter Eryk Salvaggi

Image Quality Modeling and Optimization for Non-Conventional Aperture Imaging Systems

The majority of image quality studies have been performed on systems with conventional aperture functions. These systems have straightforward aperture designs and well-understood behavior. Image quality for these systems can be predicted by the General Image Quality Equation (GIQE). However, in order to continue pushing the boundaries of imaging, more control over the point spread function of an imaging system may be necessary. This requires modifications in the pupil plane of a system, causing a departure from the realm of most image quality studies. Examples include sparse apertures, synthetic apertures, coded apertures and phase elements. This work will focus on sparse aperture telescopes and the image quality issues associated with them, however, the methods presented will be applicable to other non-conventional aperture systems. \\ In this research, an approach for modeling the image quality of non-conventional aperture systems will be introduced. While the modeling approach is based in previous work, a novel validation study will be performed, which accounts for the effects of both broadband illumination and wavefront error. One of the key image quality challenges for sparse apertures is post-processing ringing artifacts. These artifacts have been observed in modeled data, but a validation study will be performed to observe them in measured data and to compare them to model predictions. Once validated, the modeling approach will be used to perform a small set of design studies for sparse aperture systems, including spectral bandpass selection and aperture layout optimization

Notes from an Un-hyphenated American

The introduction to this thesis project discusses the idea of poetic prose as a literary device to draw in the reader and create a sense of closeness within creative non-fiction, memoir specifically. Several noted memoirists’ work is also discussed under a close reading lens examining their particular style of creating non-fiction prose. The use of punctuation to control pace in writing and the idea of the hyphen as a means to mirror the author’s “hyphenated” identity is maintained throughout the creative chapters that follow. The project concludes with several chapters composing the author’s original memoir which explores the idea and reality of the immigration experience in this “coming-to-America” tale

A Voxel-Based Approach for Imaging Voids in Three-Dimensional Point Clouds

Geographically accurate scene models have enormous potential beyond that of just simple visualizations in regard to automated scene generation. In recent years, thanks to ever increasing computational efficiencies, there has been significant growth in both the computer vision and photogrammetry communities pertaining to automatic scene reconstruction from multiple-view imagery. The result of these algorithms is a three-dimensional (3D) point cloud which can be used to derive a final model using surface reconstruction techniques. However, the fidelity of these point clouds has not been well studied, and voids often exist within the point cloud. Voids exist in texturally difficult areas, as well as areas where multiple views were not obtained during collection, constant occlusion existed due to collection angles or overlapping scene geometry, or in regions that failed to triangulate accurately. It may be possible to fill in small voids in the scene using surface reconstruction or hole-filling techniques, but this is not the case with larger more complex voids, and attempting to reconstruct them using only the knowledge of the incomplete point cloud is neither accurate nor aesthetically pleasing. A method is presented for identifying voids in point clouds by using a voxel-based approach to partition the 3D space. By using collection geometry and information derived from the point cloud, it is possible to detect unsampled voxels such that voids can be identified. This analysis takes into account the location of the camera and the 3D points themselves to capitalize on the idea of free space, such that voxels that lie on the ray between the camera and point are devoid of obstruction, as a clear line of sight is a necessary requirement for reconstruction. Using this approach, voxels are classified into three categories: occupied (contains points from the point cloud), free (rays from the camera to the point passed through the voxel), and unsampled (does not contain points and no rays passed through the area). Voids in the voxel space are manifested as unsampled voxels. A similar line-of-sight analysis can then be used to pinpoint locations at aircraft altitude at which the voids in the point clouds could theoretically be imaged. This work is based on the assumption that inclusion of more images of the void areas in the 3D reconstruction process will reduce the number of voids in the point cloud that were a result of lack of coverage. Voids resulting from texturally difficult areas will not benefit from more imagery in the reconstruction process, and thus are identified and removed prior to the determination of future potential imaging locations

LA FINANZA SOCIALMENTE RESPONSABILE IN EUROPA E IN ITALIA ALLA LUCE DELLA CRISI: UN FOCUS SUI FONDI ETICI

Il lavoro si propone di analizzare l'evoluzione della finanza socialmente responsabile in Europa e in Italia alla luce della crisi finanziaria. Nel primo capitolo si è proceduto ad individuare il concetto di finanza etica e la sua evoluzione nel tempo in Europa. Nel secondo capitolo si è preso in considerazione il fenomeno degli investimenti etici tenendo conto degli studi e dei dati di Eurosif. Il terzo capitolo è stato incentrato sui fondi comuni di investimento etici. Il capitolo conclusivo riguarda la storia, la politica di gestione e i risultati di Etica Sgr