Madness in Southern China : illness as metaphor in Su Tong\u27s The tale of the siskins and Madwoman on the bridge

In Su Tong’s novels, the term madness is more than a medical term and it carries metaphorical meanings. In The Tale of the Siskins and “Madwoman on the Bridge,” Su Tong uses madness as a metaphor to challenge the dichotomy between normality and abnormality, and draws an analogy between mental hospitals and contemporary society. Unlike Yu Hua’s 余華 (1960-) novels, which intertwine sanguinary violence with madness, Su Tong depicts madness mainly to unveil the absurdity of the Mahogany Street. This paper analyses the use of patients’ illnesses in mental hospitals as metaphors in these two stories. In “Madwoman on the Bridge,” Su Tong displaces the role of doctors and madmen. In The Tale of the Siskins, Su Tong dismantles the clear-cut distinction between normality and abnormality. By reversing the two signifying concepts of normality and abnormality, Su Tong leads us to re-assess a variety of conventions, customs and acts we deem reasonable and legitimate in contemporary society

Discussion of "Feature Matching in Time Series Modeling" by Y. Xia and H. Tong

Discussion of "Feature Matching in Time Series Modeling" by Y. Xia and H. Tong [arXiv:1104.3073]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-STS345B the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A livelihoods study of farmers and fishers in Dang Tong Village Kampong Chhnang Province

This is the report of a livelihoods study team working together with villagers from Dang Tong Village in Kampong Chhnang Province, Cambodia. The study of the livelihoods of farmers and fishers is based on information provided by the villagers of Dang Tong, who shared their knowledge and raised real problems related to their livelihoods. [PDF contains 37 pages.

Exquisite jade carving: figures, animals, ornaments

Exhibition held at the University Museum and Art Gallery, University of Hong Kong on Dec. 6, 1995-Feb. 6, 1996.published_or_final_versionFurther comments on flying deity/winged figure 17Foreword Lau, Michael W.M. Lau, Michael W.M. 4List of lenders 18借出展品的藏家和機構 18Chronology 19年表 19Works cited in the descriptions 20Plates 25Introduction Yeung, Chun-tong Yeung, Chun-tong 10展品圖版 25序言 楊春棠 楊春棠 12On Hongshan jade pendants So, Jenny F. So, Jenny F. 14Preface Fung, Sydney Fung, Sydney

Dimensions of the irreducible representations of the symmetric and alternating group

We establish the existence of an irreducible representation of $A_n$ whose dimension does not occur as the dimension of an irreducible representation of $S_n$, and vice versa. This proves a conjecture by Tong-Viet. The main ingredient in the proof is a result on large prime factors in short intervals.Comment: 24 page

Lim Goh Tong Memorial Hall Opens

The Lim Goh Tong Memorial Hall built in remembrance of Genting Higlands founder, the late Tan Sri Dr. Lim Goh Tong, was opened on friday

Setar Modelling of Traffic Count Data.

As part of a SERC funded project investigating outlier detection and replacement with transport data, univariate Box-Jenkins (1976) models have already been successfully applied to traffic count series (see Redfern et al, 1992). However, the underlying assumption of normality for ARIMA models implies they are not ideally suited for time series exhibiting certain behavioural characteristics. The limitations of ARIMA models are discussed in some detail by Tong (1983), including problems with time irreversibility, non-normality, cyclicity and asymmetry. Data with irregularly spaced extreme values are unlikely to be modelled well by ARIMA models, which are better suited to data where the probability of a very high value is small. Tong (1983) argues that one way of modelling such non-normal behaviour might be to retain the general ARIMA framework and allow the white noise element to be non-gaussian. As an alternative he proposes abandoning the linearity assumption and defines a group of non linear structures, one of which is the Self-Exciting Threshold Autoregressive (SETAR) model. The model form is described in more detail below but basically consists of two (or more) piecewise linear models, with the time series "tripping" between each model according to its value with respect to a threshold point. The model is called "Self-Exciting" because the indicator variable determining the appropriate linear model for each piece of data is itself a function of the data series. Intuitively this means the mechanism driving the alternation between each model form is not an external input such as a related time series (other models can be defined where this exists), but is actually contained within the series itself. The series is thus Self-Exciting. The three concepts embedded within the SETAR model structure are those of the threshold, limit cycle and time delay, each of which can be illustrated by the diverse applications such models can take. The threshold can be defined as some point beyond which, if the data falls, the series structure changes inherently and so an alternative linear model form would be appropriate. In hydrology this is seen as the non-linearity of soil infiltration, where at the soil saturation point (threshold) a new model for infiltration would become appropriate. Limit cycles describe the stable cyclical phenomena which we sometimes observe within time series. The cyclical behaviour is stationary, ie consists of regular, sustained oscillations and is an intrinsic property of the data. The limit cycle phenomena is physically observable in the field of radio-engineering where a triode valve is used to generate oscillations (see Tong, 1983 for a full description). Essentially the triode value produces self-sustaining oscillations between emitting and collecting electrons, according to the voltage value of a grid placed between the anode and cathode (thereby acting as the threshold indicator). The third essential concept within the SETAR structure is that of the time delay and is perhaps intuitively the easiest to grasp. It can be seen within the field of population biology where many types of non-linear model may apply. For example within the cyclical oscillations of blowfly population data there is an inbuilt "feedback" mechanism given by the hatching period for eggs, which would give rise to a time delay parameter within the model. For some processes this inherent delay may be so small as to be virtually instantaneous and so the delay parameter could be omitted. In general time series Tong (1983) found the SETAR model well suited to the cyclical nature of the Canadian Lynx trapping series and for modelling riverflow systems (Tong, Thanoon & Gudmundsson, 1984). Here we investigate their applicability with time series traffic counts, some of which have exhibited the type of non-linear and cyclical characteristics which could undermine a straightforward linear modelling process