Homeless in the world : war, narrative, and historical consciousness in Eileen Chang, György Lukács, and Lev Tolstoy

This paper explores how Lev Tolstoy’s work was discussed by both Marxist philosopher György Lukács and Chinese writer Eileen Chang during the global crisis of the 1930s and the Second World War. According to Lukács, Tolstoy’s fiction embodied the quintessence of realist narrative’s ability to capture the mass experience of history. For Chang, defending herself against charges of being a trivial and uncommitted pulp writer, Tolstoy’s work exemplified the value of a narrative process marked by the very serendipity and contingency mirrored in reality. All three writers struggled with a conception of a unified world both as a utopian ideal, and as a violent historic actuality produced by capital’s global and imperial logic. I explore the common resonances of war, narrative, and history that run through Lukács’ and Chang’s appropriations of Tolstoy, as well as examine the ways in which all three writers grappled with world-historical consciousness through literary form. Finally, noting Lukács’ and Chang’s common citation of Tolstoy as a monument to their own writing, I also articulate how all these writers engaged in a special kind of “world literature” indelibly marked by modern warfare and mass-produced suffering

Business Cycle Correlation and Output Linkages among the Asia Pacific Economies

Currency crises and financial instability in the 1990s have increased the needs of regional cooperation, hence leading to the proposition of optimal currency area (OCA). But only if shocks are symmetric, the cost of relinquish the flexible monetary policy is to be outweighed by the benefits of forming OCA. To tackle the issue, this paper studies the extent of business cycle correlation and output linkages among fifteen Asia Pacific economies during 1961-2004. The real outputs series which sourced from the Penn World Data were estimated in standardized international dollars to construct business cycles based on the Christiano-Fitzgerald (2003)’s asymmetric band-pass filtering method. On the whole, the selected APEC members (especially ASEANs and NIEs) have achieved some important degree of business cycle co-fluctuations since the 1990s and further enhanced after 1997, most possibly attributed to the improved intra-trading and cross-boarder investments. For the US-Japan-ASEAN5 series, a dynamic analysis was conducted using the Autoregressive Distributed Log bounds test and the Unrestricted Error Correction Model (UECM) representation advanced in Pesaran et al. (2002). Nonetheless, the idiosyncratic and common shocks in ASEAN economies are more identical to the Japanese experience rather than the US’s. The overall finding has signified the brighter likelihood of economic cooperation and regional currency arrangements among APEC members.Business Cycle Correlation, Output linkages, OCA, Asia Pacific, Band-pass Filtering, UECM

Dynamic financial linkages of Japan and ASEAN economies: Evidence based on real interest parity

This article provides empirical evidence on the dynamic linkages of real interest rates among the ASEAN-5 during the post-liberalisation era (1984-1997).The upshots of our findings are four-fold. Firstly, there were co-movement of ASEAN real rates in the long-run and dynamic causalities in the short-run,which explicitly indicated monetary inter-dependency among the ASEAN countries. Secondly, most of the forecast error variance of real interest rates in own country can be attributed to other ASEAN-4’s innovations (more than 50%), which partly explains the contagion effects during the Asia crisis of 1997/98. Thirdly, the real interest differentials are mean reverting over time, implying that RIP holds between ASEAN-Japan (except Singapore) and ASEAN-US. Forthly, the deviations from RIP have half-lives of around 6 to 11 months, meaning RIP adjustments change rapidly to its parity of equilibrium value. All in all, this finding supports the recent proposal of Currency Union with the Japanese yen taken as common currency

TBI Contusion Segmentation from MRI using Convolutional Neural Networks

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is caused by a sudden trauma to the head that may result in hematomas and contusions and can lead to stroke or chronic disability. An accurate quantification of the lesion volumes and their locations is essential to understand the pathophysiology of TBI and its progression. In this paper, we propose a fully convolutional neural network (CNN) model to segment contusions and lesions from brain magnetic resonance (MR) images of patients with TBI. The CNN architecture proposed here was based on a state of the art CNN architecture from Google, called Inception. Using a 3-layer Inception network, lesions are segmented from multi-contrast MR images. When compared with two recent TBI lesion segmentation methods, one based on CNN (called DeepMedic) and another based on random forests, the proposed algorithm showed improved segmentation accuracy on images of 18 patients with mild to severe TBI. Using a leave-one-out cross validation, the proposed model achieved a median Dice of 0.75, which was significantly better (p<0.01) than the two competing methods.Comment: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8363545/, IEEE 15th International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI 2018

The influence of set-repetition configuration in eccentric exercise on muscle damage and repeated bout effect

It is well known that maximal eccentric exercise induces muscle damage, especially when it is performed for the first time. However, muscle damage is attenuated in subsequent bouts of the same or similar exercise, which is known as the repeated bout effect. One of the factors affecting the magnitude of muscle damage and the repeated bout effect is the number of eccentric contractions; however, it is unknown if different set-repetition configurations with the same number of eccentric contractions would result in different magnitudes of muscle damage and adaptation. This study investigated changes in muscle strength, range of motion (ROM), muscle cross sectional area (CSA), muscle soreness and plasma creatine kinase (CK) activity following an initial bout of maximal eccentric contractions with the same total number of contractions but different set-repetition configurations (e.g. 3 sets of 10 reps vs. 10 sets of 3 reps) and a second bout (20 sets of 3 repetitions) separated by four weeks. Since the present study was the first to use the ultrasound extended field of view (EFOV) technique to quantify bicep brachii CSA for an indication of muscle swelling, the reliability and validity of the technique were assessed in a separate study using 6 men (27.5 ± 1.9 y). In the main study, 10 non-resistance trained men (26.1 ± 4.1 y) performed two bouts of eccentric exercise of the elbow flexors for each arm (4 bouts in total). One arm performed 3 sets of 10 maximal eccentric contractions (3x10) followed 4 weeks later by 20 sets of 3 maximal eccentric contractions (20x3). The contralateral arm performed 10 sets of 3 maximal eccentric contractions (10x3) followed 4 weeks later by 20x3. The order of the exercise (3x10, 10x3) and the use of arm (dominant, non-dominant) were counterbalanced amongst subjects. Changes in the criterion measures over time and peak torque were compared among the initial bouts (3x10 vs. 10x3) and the repeated bouts (20x3 vs. 20x3) by a factorial repeatedmeasures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with two factors. Significance level was set at

Real Exchange Rate Behavior: New Evidence with Linear and Non-linear Endogenous Break(s)

Using monthly frequency data from 1981 to 2005, we test for the potential mean reversion of Japan-US real exchange rates using newly improved unit root tests allowing for endogenous (unknown) break(s) in the linear as well as non-linear manner. Both countries have contributed vital proportion in global trading on top of being the major trading partner to each other since 1960s. We identify structural breaks in 1985 and 1994 respectively via the Lumsdaine and Papell (1997)’s linear test, but the results were against the PPP hypothesis. The Saikkonen and LÄutkepohl, (2002)’s test, however, provides sufficient supports for non-linear adjustment of real exchange towards long run PPP. In addition, stronger evidence for PPP is found in the post-1994 period, in conjunction with the small persistence of real exchange deviations (half-life less than a year). Also, the exchange rate misalignment is less evident after the Plaza Accord 1985. In brief, our findings reveal that the Japanese authority has shown some form of PPP-oriented rule as a basis for their exchange rate policies, in the presence of structural break(s) and non-linearity.Real Exchange Rates, Endogenous Breaks, Non-linearity, Half-life

Structuring and Modeling Knowledge in the Context of Enterprise Resource Planning

In recent years, the Information Technology (IT) industry has been overwhelmed by a new class of packaged application software collectively known as Enterprise Systems (ES). Enterprise Systems are comprehensive business operating systems that weave together all the data within an organisation's business processes and associated functional areas. In particular, ES provide organisations with the ability to manage data and information in a real-time environment and to integrate operations between various departments; capacities that had been previously unrealized in traditional information systems. ES have since been established as an integral development in the Information Systems (IS) field and extensively studied by academics. The implementation and operation of ES are known to be complex and costly installations that require knowledge and expertise from various areas and sources. The knowledge necessary for managing ES is diverse and varied; it extends from the application of knowledge in different phases of the ES life cycle to the exchange of knowledge between ES vendors, clients and consultants. The communication of knowledge between the various agents adds another dimension to the complex nature of ES. Thus, ES clients have been motivated to reduce costs and retain ES knowledge within the organisation. Research has been conducted on the critical success factors and issues involved in implementing ES. These studies often address the lack of appropriate in-house ES knowledge and the need to actively manage ES-related knowledge. With motivation from another area of research known as Knowledge Management, academia and industry have strived to provide solutions and strategies for managing ES-related knowledge. However, it is often not clear what this 'knowledge' is, what type(s) of knowledge is relevant, who possesses the type(s) of knowledge and how knowledge can be instituted to facilitate the execution of processes. This research aims to identify the relevant knowledge in the context of Enterprise Systems. The types of knowledge required for ES are derived by studying the knowledge (techne)1 for different ES roles, managers and implementation consultants. This provides a perspective for understanding how ES knowledge can be structured. By applying a process modeling approach, the understanding of the relation of ES knowledge to roles and business processes thus gained will demonstrate how knowledge can be modeled. The understanding of ES knowledge and how it can be managed is first formalized by the development of a conceptual framework based on the existing literature. An exploratory study found that the identification of ES knowledge was necessary before the other activities in the knowledge management dimension could be effected. As an appropriate concept of knowledge could not be derived from the IS literature, the concept of techne emerged from a more comprehensive literature review. Techne ('art' or 'applied science' or 'skill') is defined as the trained ability of rationally producing, i.e. the ability to produce something reliably, under a variety of conditions, on the basis of reasoning. This involves having knowledge, or having what seems to be knowledge (awareness) of whatever principles and patterns one relies on. With this foundation, the main focus of the research is on the content analysis of the most popular implementation tool for Enterprise Systems management, ValueSAP. This tool is studied with respect to the types of knowledge (techne), roles and activities in ES implementation. The analysis of ValueSAP thus contributes to the understanding of the structure and distribution of knowledge in ES projects. Consequently, case studies were conducted to understand how the derived ES knowledge can be instituted in business processes using process modeling techniques. This part of the study demonstrates the modeling perspective of the research. 1. The terms 'knowledge' and 'skills' will be used interchangeably for the context of this thesis; where the term 'knowledge' is mentioned, the author refers to the skills required in the ES context. This section is further elaborated in Chapter 2 on techne and skills

A Framework to Structure Knowledge for Enterprise Systems

Enterprise Systems (synonym: Enterprise Resource Planning systems) are customizable business operating systems that support the core processes and the main administrative areas of various industries in an integrated way. Selecting, implementing, using and continuously changing Enterprise Systems (ES) requires a great amount of knowledge and experience. The lack of inhouse ES knowledge and the high costs of engaging experienced implementation consultants have led organizations to realize the need to better leverage their knowledge resources. As the necessary knowledge is comprehensive, different kinds of expertise are required at different points in time during an ES project. This paper proposes a framework which structures the knowledge required to manage Enterprise Systems. This framework is derived from a comprehensive literature analysis and is applicable to organizations seeking to identify the relevant knowledge and to manage the knowledge resources. Based on the framework, this paper suggests how knowledge can be modeled in the ES context in order to identify the relevant knowledge during different stages of an ES project

Teachers’ Feedback on a New Variety of English: The Case of Hong Kong English

The present short report reveals how teachers of English in Hong Kong (HKTEs) react to Hong Kong English (HKE). By employing a mixed method approach consisting of 100 survey responses and 28 interviews, types of feedback and activities teachers use when they encounter HKE in classroom were recorded and reported. The results showed that the two types of teachers of English – Native and Non-native English speakers – provided different kinds of responses because of the differences in attitude they held toward new varieties of English. The current study potentially sheds light on how different varieties of English could fit in traditional ESL curricula. Further research is warranted on how the feedback may affect English acquisition among Hong Kong students and whether the feedback brings positive or negative effects to the students