Policy-making in the PRC: A study of the variations in decision-making across three issue areas; 1969-1978.

This thesis examines the policy-making process in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between 1969 and 1978. By undertaking a study of three issue areas (agriculture, foreign policy and higher education), this thesis challenges many of the conclusions of earlier single-issue or broad band studies of the decision-making process in the PRC which failed to generate sufficiently detailed information to allow comparisons to be made regarding policy-making across issue areas. his thesis highlights variations in the decision-making process which suggest that the pattern of decision-making in each of the three issue areas under study appears to be independent of most of the developments in the other fields. Policy-making in each area appears to follow its own internal logic such that a radical upsurge in one field is not necessarily matched by a similar upsurge in either, or one of, the other areas. Furthermore, the influence of the various groups competing over policy also appears to vary, both across each area and with time. So, for example, the radical Left dominated higher education policy from 1969 to their purge in 1976, but had little influence over foreign policy during this period. his study suggest that the fundamental reason for these variations is that the senior Party leadership, and in particular Mao Zedong, made an assessment as to the possible consequences of failure for radical policies in each of the three issue areas, and that where the cost was seen as too great, the radical influence was restricted and a more pragmatic line adopted. So, for example, this research shows that throughout this period agriculture was characterised by a cyclical pattern whereby radical policies were curtailed during Spring and Autumn, periods of peak activity for agriculture. Similarly, radical activity in the foreign affairs system was stopped following the threat of a possible war with the Soviet Union in 1969

A Pattern of Patience: On Providing Technical Direction for \u3ci\u3eKing Lear\u3c/i\u3e

The following writing will document my process as technical director for the 2009 mainstage production of King Lear at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film (JCSTF) at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln (UNL). King Lear was directed by Virginia Smith with scenery designed by fellow Master of Fine Arts (MFA) candidate Patric Vendetti, lights by senior Angela Sharman, and sound by sophomore Max Holm. Costumes were designed by MFA candidate Cecilia Sickler. The shop foreman was Bryan Ruhs, and the production was stage managed by junior Amber Naylor. I was advised by JCSTF technical director Ed Stauffer. In this work, I will discuss the planning, construction, and production of King Lear, as well as how I overcame challenges along the way

Using Dynamic Bayesian Networks for Posed versus Spontaneous Facial Expression Recognition

Automatic analysis of facial expressions is a complex area of pattern recognition and computer vision with many un- resolved problems, one of which is the distinction between posed and spontaneous expressions of emotions. Previous psychology research indicates that the temporal dynamics in the face are essential for distinguishing between posed and spontaneous smiles. There are six temporal characteristics which are important: morphology, apex overlap, symmetry, total duration, speed of onset and speed of offset. In this work, we propose to distinguish between posed and spon- taneous expressions by using Dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN) to model the temporal dynamics. The DBN provides a suitable framework to represent probabilistic relationships between and within the various types of temporal dynamics. Based on the temporal phases of four different Action Units (onset, apex offset and neutral of facial actions) and the six temporal characteristics from the psychology research, we build several DBN models to distinguish between posed and spontaneous expressions. We present experimental results from 50 videos displaying posed and spontaneous smiles. When the DBNs trained on the temporal characteristics are combined to provide a joint classification, we attain an AUC of 0.97.Computer ScienceElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Policy-making in the PRC A study of the variations in decision-making across three issue areas; 1969-1978

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