Conflicting Neo-colonialist Narratives in the Representation of Africa in Ngugi and Naipaul\u27s Novels

In their article Conflicting Neo-colonialist Narratives in the Representation of Africa in Ngugi and Naipaul\u27s Novels Weiping Li and Xiuli Zhang analyze the conflicting neo-colonialist narratives by comparing the different representations of the post-independent Africa between Ngugi\u27s Petals of Blood and Naipaul\u27s A Bend in the River. The multiple narrators in Petals of Blood expose imperialists\u27 continuing domination of Africa, while the limited third person narrator in A Bend in the River blames the African people for the deterioration and chaos of the African society. One from an insider\u27s perspective, the other from the outsider\u27s, Ngugi and Naipaul thus form conflicting narratives on neo-colonialism. With their diverse perspectives, the two writers provide not only clashing representations of African women but also opposing visions of the African future

The State and the Arts of Research on Foundation Buried Depth Effect on Building Structure

The state and the arts of research on foundation buried depth effect on building structures are reviewed and summarized in detail from such aspects as static response property and dynamic response property, and a brief discussion is carried out on the future developments and studies. Different scholars have conducted research for this aspect of the issue; the conclusions vary because of differences in the conditions of the upper structure stiffness. Superstructure should consider different stiffness conditions a lot of numerical calculations, foundation depth summary obtained reaction influence on the dynamic characteristics and dynamic soil structure interaction system of law

Business Borderlands: China's Overseas State Agribusiness

In the context of widespread interests in China's agro?state?owned enterprises (SOEs), this article starts demystifying four narratives prevailing internationally. In this intellectual landscape, the article coins an innovative approach, ‘farm as business borderland’ to investigate an agro?SOE in Tanzania. Based on the ethnographic case study, the article presents the tensions arising between the case farm and its Beijing headquarters on the one hand, and between Chinese managers and local stakeholders on the other. The authors examine the reasons why the travelling business bureaucracy rationalities from Beijing to Tanzania works and how this is adapted locally in the farm's daily practices. The authors also explore why and how Chinese managers' footloose expatriate lifestyle is not as relevant as normally expected in constructing convergence with locals. Finally the article discusses the implications of the new approach on international development inquiry and global governance practices

Optimal Reserve Prices in Name-Your-Own-Price Auctions with Bidding and Channel Options

Few papers have explored the optimal reserve prices in the name-your-own-price (NYOP) channel with bidding options in a multiple channel environment. In this paper, we investigate a double-bid business model in which the consumers can bid twice in the NYOP channel, and compare it with the single-bid case. We also study the impact of adding a retailer-own list-price channel on the optimal reserve prices. This paper focuses on achieving some basic understanding on the potential gain of adding a second bid option to a single-bid system and on the potential benefits of adding a list-price channel by the NYOP retailer. We show that a double-bid scenario can outperform a single-bid scenario in both single-channel and dual-channel situations. The optimal reserve price in the double-bid scenario is no less than that in the single-bid case. Furthermore, the addition of a retailer-own list-price channel could push up the reserve prices in both single-bid and double-bid scenarios