Manifold worlds

We start to know our world when we begin our existence, and we believe that the world is like what we see. But is the world we know the real world? It may just be a world of how we feel about the real world! We are born equipped with a set of sensors to perceive the world. Our perception of the world depends on these sensors. Other living things possess different sensors; they see their worlds differently from us and each other. Although we have different perceptions of the same world, we do exist in the same physical world. The title of this exhibition is “Manifold Worlds”. I hope that we can bear in mind that there are many perceived worlds and that we should be more tolerant and understanding of each other. In these “Manifold Worlds”, there are many traces of things in multifaceted space: the inhabitants’ masks, tree spirits with hearts linked to QR codes, foods of special forms, shelters in unbounded space, and unidentified and unrecognized movements recorded by the inhabitants of the manifold worlds. Still there is no sight of any physical beings. What the audience can see are the presence of them through different means. Is this a world of the past or a deserted world in the future? What is this world telling us? Are we able to foresee our future? Do we have a future?https://commons.ln.edu.hk/vs_artist_catalog/1015/thumbnail.jp

Corpus-Level End-to-End Exploration for Interactive Systems

A core interest in building Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents is to let them interact with and assist humans. One example is Dynamic Search (DS), which models the process that a human works with a search engine agent to accomplish a complex and goal-oriented task. Early DS agents using Reinforcement Learning (RL) have only achieved limited success for (1) their lack of direct control over which documents to return and (2) the difficulty to recover from wrong search trajectories. In this paper, we present a novel corpus-level end-to-end exploration (CE3) method to address these issues. In our method, an entire text corpus is compressed into a global low-dimensional representation, which enables the agent to gain access to the full state and action spaces, including the under-explored areas. We also propose a new form of retrieval function, whose linear approximation allows end-to-end manipulation of documents. Experiments on the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Dynamic Domain (DD) Track show that CE3 outperforms the state-of-the-art DS systems.Comment: Accepted into AAAI 202

Process for Sustainably Sourced p-Xylene

Demand for para-xylene, a feedstock used to produce polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics like those found in water bottles or textile fibers, has risen steadily.14 In the PET market, there is a new sustainable focus, pushing producers to use environmentally-friendly processes to create plastic consumer products.3 The current process to create para-xylene relies on fossil fuel cracking and reforming - a decidedly non-green process. This project follows a patent by GEVO, titled Integrated Process to Selectively Convert Renewable Isobutanol to p-Xylene, that explores a green process to convert isobutanol, created from biomass, to para-xylene.20 The raw material for this project is 500,000 tons of isobutylene per year, which is sourced from biomass and has already been converted from isobutanol. The design first feeds the fresh isobutylene, as well as the diluent isooctane, into the process. Isobutylene then oligomerizes over a zeolite catalyst, with a separation following to remove the undesired byproducts. While they are undesired in the process, these byproducts are trimers which can be a valuable coproduct, similar to GEVO’s alcohol-to-jet fuel (ATJ).4 The desired intermediate, 2,4,4-trimethylpentene, proceeds to another reactor and dehydrocyclizes over a chromium oxide doped alumina catalyst. Another separation occurs to isolate para-xylene and remove hydrogen. The final product stream is 89 wt% para-xylene. According to a financial analysis over a 10-year period, the process is currently unprofitable with a negative IRR. To be competitive in para-xylene markets and reach a 15% IRR, a 79% premium is necessary. This is unattractive for a standalone production facility, leading us to recommend that this plant should not be built. However, in the future as the push toward sustainable projects increase, this design may serve as a feasible and economic process for green para-xylene

Designing Desires: Cultures, Commerce and Creativity in Late-Socialist Chinese Interior Design

The last four decades have seen China’s interior design transform rapidly from a decoration-based subsidiary role within the construction sector into a pivotal service industry crucial to economy. This new salience of design and innovation in both economic and cultural life presents an important opportunity for studies on creativity, commercial practice and cultural production. By drawing on original research materials and secondary data, this thesis examines the intrinsic operations of the interior design world and the professional life of its practitioners, including design business owners and individual designers. It traces the trajectories of modern design from its historical roots to the present, highlighting the proliferation and entrepreneurialisation of interior design, particularly evident in Shenzhen’s transformation into a contemporary design hub since the reform era. This shift has led to an unprecedented production of design professionals, driven by real estate markets and intellectual property rights protection, and ongoing human capital cultivation shaped by both the state and the design sector. Central to their professional life are not only industrialisation, culturalisation and aestheticisation of interiors, but also differentiation from existing products in a competitive market, which is achieved through varying degrees of innovation and originality to counter mindless imitation of foreign styles. While a significant change in practice has occurred involving the hybridisation of modernist design with Chinese and oriental elements, the industry demonstrates a persistent incorporation of Western design elements, knowledge, and standards. Simultaneously, there exists a continuity of Confucian learning practices through skilful copying. Focused on the design economy, this thesis underscores how late-socialist neoliberal logics of efficiency, profitability and responsibilities to oneself and the nation are constitutive of the process of subject formation. This process entails not only the reproduction of regulatory norms but also the concurrent exploration of alternative practices to align with commercial goals and personal ideals

From ‘take-ism’ to pursuit of newness and originality: design professionals and models of creativity in contemporary China

Chinese innovative workers are often discussed in terms of their exploitation and empowerment within the current intellectual property systems, but little attention is given to their creative processes. Meanwhile, design practitioners are viewed solely as an innovation resource in the field of design thinking. Based on interviews with Chinese interior designers and secondary data, this article provides an analysis that situates their practices and experiences within the intersection of these fields, emphasising practitioners’ accounts of creativity and production of innovative, cultural, and aesthetic forms. Drawing on theories of practice, genre, and post-Bourdieuian analysis of cultural production, this article argues that the valorisation of creativity needs to be understood in relation to the practices in which they engage, within particular contexts of history, organisation, and genre cultures that provide opportunities for the transformation of genre boundaries. Operating within a milieu that saw copying as part of creative process, the practitioners had no agreement on how the work should be understood within the rubric of creativity. Despite this, they aimed for slight differentiation in design, appropriating and rediscovering multi-cultural forms to resist ‘take-ism’ – the imitative culture of copying of foreign decorative elements and styles, while establishing themselves in the commercial world

Building the Democracy We Need for the Twenty-First Century

This toolkit situates collaborative governance, also known as "co-governance," within a framework for building community that sees civic education, relationship building, and leadership development as essential first steps toward an effective and sustained participatory process. It offers key takeaways and best practices from effective, ongoing collaborative governance projects between communities and decision makers. The best of these projects shift decision-making power to the hands of communities to make room for more deliberation, consensus, and lasting change. Building on the lessons of successful case studies from across the United States, including Georgia, Kentucky, New York, and Washington, this toolkit aims to support local leaders inside and outside government as they navigate and execute co-governance models in their communities