Nature as Refuge in Chinese Film and Literature

In the period of 1920s and 1930s, traditional Chinese ideas and aesthetics, although embattled and in the process of being superseded by modern and Western aesthetics, did not totally disappear or die out in Chinese film and literature. For example, the image of nature continued to be constructed for its ability to relieve the misery of humanity. This is demonstrated in the films A Poet at the Edge of the Sea (1927) and Sand Washed by Waves (1936). However, because of social turmoil and turbulence of this period, the peaceful inner spirit as conveyed in the traditional culture seemed unattainable. There were more hints of social struggles in the “utopia”, as shown in the films Little Toy (1933) and Return to Nature (1936). The traditional ideas and aesthetics were also continued by some writers, such as Zhou Zuoren, Feng Wenbing, Yu Pingbo and Wang Tongzhao, who still had close spiritual connections with traditional culture. Sometimes the spirit of the “return to nature” was embedded with another mark of this period: the influence of Western culture, as shown by several of Guo Moruo’s poems

The evolution of altruism in spatial threshold public goods games via an insurance mechanism

The persistence of cooperation in public goods situations has become an important puzzle for researchers. This paper considers the threshold public goods games where the option of insurance is provided for players from the standpoint of diversification of risk, envisaging the possibility of multiple strategies in such scenarios. In this setting, the provision point is defined in terms of the minimum number of contributors in one threshold public goods game, below which the game fails. In the presence of risk and insurance, more contributions are motivated if (1) only cooperators can opt to be insured and thus their contribution loss in the aborted games can be (partly or full) covered by the insurance; (2) insured cooperators obtain larger compensation, at lower values of the threshold point (the required minimum number of contributors). Moreover, results suggest the dominance of insured defectors who get a better promotion by more profitable benefits from insurance. We provide results of extensive computer simulations in the realm of spatial games (random regular networks and scale-free networks here), and support this study with analytical results for well-mixed populations. Our study is expected to establish a causal link between the widespread altruistic behaviors and the existing insurance system.</p

Analytical study of the holographic superconductor from higher derivative theory

In this paper, we analytically study the holographic superconductor models with the high derivative (HD) coupling terms. Using the Sturm-Liouville (SL) eigenvalue method, we perturbatively calculate the critical temperature. The analytical results are in good agreement with the numerical results. It confirms that the perturbative method in terms of the HD coupling parameters is available. Along the same line, we analytically calculate the value of the condensation near the critical temperature. We find that the phase transition is second order with mean field behavior, which is independent of the HD coupling parameters. Then in the low temperature limit, we also calculate the conductivity, which is qualitatively consistent with the numerical one. We find that the superconducting energy gap is proportional to the value of the condensation. But we note that since the condensation changes with the HD coupling parameters, as the function of the HD coupling parameters, the superconducting energy gap follows the same change trend as that of the condensation.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Evolution of interactions and cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game

We study the evolution of cooperation in the spatial prisoner's dilemma game where players are allowed to establish new interactions with others. By employing a simple coevolutionary rule entailing only two crucial parameters, we find that different selection criteria for the new interaction partners as well as their number vitally affect the outcome of the game. The resolution of the social dilemma is most probable if the selection favors more successful players and if their maximally attainable number is restricted. While the preferential selection of the best players promotes cooperation irrespective of game parametrization, the optimal number of new interactions depends somewhat on the temptation to defect. Our findings reveal that the "making of new friends" may be an important activity for the successful evolution of cooperation, but also that partners must be selected carefully and their number limited.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in PLoS ON

The Preliminary Study on the Construction of the Energy Power Corpus

Under the severe development background of the energy power corpus, this passage is meant to make efforts to do some preliminary study for it from the aspects of the criteria for corpus design, principles for the text selection and releasing platform for the corpus and its maintenance. Based on some successful experience of the copra such as BNC, this corpus would make some specific adjustments for its unique use. For practically using goal, this corpus aims to benefit the teachers and students, researchers, translators and people who have certain needs.

A functional approach to OM-constructions

In traditional grammar, and is a prototypical paratactic additive conjunction, and yet when occurring in the OM-construction (the one more construction), this status is challenged because in these cases it represents an indeterminate or vague syntactic and semantic relation (e.g., Culicover & Jackendoff 1997). This paper discusses OM-constructions from a functional approach with the aim of resolving this indeterminacy and explaining the meaning potential they realised. Drawing on both attested examples from the BNC and the enTenTen15 corpora and examples from existing literature, we analyse a range of instances of the OM-construction, and we compare them to related constructions (e.g., pseudo-imperatives, if-conditionals). We draw three main conclusions: (1) the OM-construction constitutes a clause complex which construes a sequence of figures, where the nominal form of the OM-construction may be an elliptical clause; (2) the non-canonical uses of and evolved from the prototypical additive conjunction and, where interpersonal speech functions play a key role in differentiating potential readings of the OM-construction; and (3) uses of and in the OM-construction function not only to link a paratactic sequence but also a hypotactic one, where and is also used to express sequential, causal and conditional enhancement

Kinematics Analysis and Optimization of a Multi-Mode Mobile Parallel Mechanism

This paper aims to disclose the kinematics and optimize the design of multi-mode mobile parallel mechanism. To this end, a multi-mode mobile parallel mechanism was designed based on single-loop planar 4R systems. The horizontally symmetric mechanism is controlled by two motors: the mechanism can switch freely among different modes of movements (e.g. sliding, turning and rolling) by changing the input angles of the two motors. Based on the mechanism structure, the author analysed the degrees of freedom (DOFs) and kinematics of each mode, and optimized the stability of the mechanism. The results show that the mechanism is more stable at a short rod length and small rotating angle, when its width is constant. Finally, the theoretical correctness of the mechanism was verified through simulation and prototype test. The research findings provide a valuable reference for similar studies on multi-mode mobile parallel mechanism, and lay the theoretical basis for the application of mobile robots in various fields

Genomic Diversity in Pig (Sus scrofa) and its Comparison with Human and other Livestock

We have reviewed the current pig (Sus scrofa) genomic diversity within and between sites and compared them with human and other livestock. The current Porcine 60K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel has an average SNP distance in a range of 30 - 40 kb. Most of genetic variation was distributed within populations, and only a small proportion of them existed between populations. The average heterozygosity was lower in pig than in human and other livestock. Genetic inbreeding coefficient (FIS), population differentiation (FST), and Nei’s genetic distance between populations were much larger in pig than in human and other livestock. Higher average genetic distance existed between European and Asian populations than between European or between Asian populations. Asian breeds harboured much larger variability and higher average heterozygosity than European breeds. The samples of wild boar that have been analyzed displayed more extensive genetic variation than domestic breeds. The average linkage disequilibrium (LD) in improved pig breeds extended to 1 - 3 cM, much larger than that in human (~ 30 kb) and cattle (~ 100 kb), but smaller than that in sheep (~ 10 cM). European breeds showed greater LD that decayed more slowly than Asian breeds. We briefly discuss some processes for maintaining genomic diversity in pig, including migration, introgression, selection, and drift. We conclude that, due to the long time of domestication, the pig possesses lower heterozygosity, higher FIS, and larger LD compared with human and cattle. This implies that a smaller effective population size and less informative markers are needed in pig for genome wide association studies