PANG XUNQIN (1906-1985) - A CHINESE AVANT-GARDE'S METAMORPHOSIS, 1925-1946, AND QUESTIONS OF "AUTHENTICITY"

This dissertation has three goals. The first is to chart the artistic life of Pang Xunqin (1906-1985) and his art works from 1929 to 1946. Pang's metamorphosis from an aspiring young artist in Paris and Shanghai in the 1920s and 30s, into an artist in his own right, a graphic designer, an educator, and a scholar of the history of Chinese art and craft, while ceaselessly trying to renew himself - all this is a record that deserves an art historical recognition. The second goal is to locate Pang Xunqin in the historiography of Chinese modern art in an attempt to problematize issues of inclusion and exclusion in the historiography of the field. The third goal, which is closely tied to the second, is to utilize post-colonial inquiries to explore myriad issues of non-Western modernism embodied in Pang Xunqin's case. Such issues include the divisions among the "traditionalists," the "academic realists," and the "modernists," colonial cosmopolitanism in the Shanghai of the 30s, and the appropriation of "primitivism" in the 40s. Attention also focuses on the issues of authenticity and "hybridity," Western orientalization of the East and self-orientalization by the East in cross-cultural encounters, and identity politics and nationalistic agendas in the construct of the guohua (national painting) and xihua (Western painting) divide. The post-colonial methodology employed here helps raise questions regarding the binary construct of tradition vs. modernity, the East vs. the West, the center vs. the periphery, and the global vs. the local. By placing Pang Xunqin's case in its semi-colonial historical and transnational context and by engaging in dialogue with the recent rich scholarship on cultural and post-colonial critiques, in conjunction with a formal analysis of his paintings and designs, this dissertation offers not only a monographic study of Pang's artistic life but also a critical examination and reassessment of the established art historical narratives of Western-trained artists in the historiography of Chinese modern art

Developing decentralized business within highly institutionally centralized environment: the case of blockchain-based business in China

Blockchain-based business and therefore cryptocurrency-related activities are spreading globally developing the newly emerging crypto economy. However, regulatory responses to the crypto economy and businesses within it were very diverse in different countries. Given the above, the main research aim was to investigate how blockchain-based business (BBB) with idea of opposing the institutional regulations can be developed in the regula-tory adverse institutional environment. More specifically, this thesis investigated, how BBB are developed within the ultimate institutional constrains in the environment, such as China, where crypto-related activities are banned. The research question for the thesis was how to develop decentralized BBB in highly centralized institutional environment of China? The research objectives were to assess blockchain technology's impact on Chinese companies; to explore the situation of BBB in China; and to explore how companies in BBB in China cope with the institutional environment. The case study approach was undertaken for this research. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with six interviews, leaders of successful BBB in China. To sup-port primary data, secondary data was collected to deeper learn about the BBB cases in-vestigated. The findings suggest that strict institutional environment for BBB in China has a significant impact on BBB innovation and growth in several diverse ways. On the one hand, the Chi-nese government is promoting blockchain technology and innovations related to it. On the other hand, the cryptocurrency, as one of the most prominent blockchain technology application, is a contentious issue that the Chinese government opposes. As a result, the Chinese government considers BBB regulation to be necessary and essential. Firms that are operating in Chinese market do not necessarily need to stop their operations and de-velopment of the BBB. However, they need to make various adjustments to balance out the requirements of the regulatory regime. The thesis contributes to the literature by showcasing how innovative decentralized busi-nesses, such as BBB can remain active within adverse and regulatory pressing institutional environment

Technical Target Setting in QFD for Web Service Systems using an Artificial Neural Network

There are at least two challenges with quality management of service-oriented architecture based web service systems: 1) how to link its technical capabilities with customer\u27s needs explicitly to satisfy customers\u27 functional and nonfunctional requirements; and 2) how to determine targets of web service design attributes. Currently, the first issue is not addressed and the second one is dealt with subjectively. Quality Function Deployment (QFD), a quality management system, has found its success in improving quality of complex products although it has not been used for developing web service systems. In this paper, we analyze requirements for web services and their design attributes, and apply the QFD for developing web service systems by linking quality of service requirements to web service design attributes. A new method for technical target setting in QFD, based on an artificial neural network, is also presented. Compared with the conventional methods for technical target setting in QFD, such as benchmarking and the linear regression method, which fail to incorporate nonlinear relationships between design attributes and quality of service requirements, it sets up technical targets consistent with relationships between quality of web service requirements and design attributes, no matter whether they are linear or nonlinear

Distributed Rate Allocation Policies for Multi-Homed Video Streaming over Heterogeneous Access Networks

We consider the problem of rate allocation among multiple simultaneous video streams sharing multiple heterogeneous access networks. We develop and evaluate an analytical framework for optimal rate allocation based on observed available bit rate (ABR) and round-trip time (RTT) over each access network and video distortion-rate (DR) characteristics. The rate allocation is formulated as a convex optimization problem that minimizes the total expected distortion of all video streams. We present a distributed approximation of its solution and compare its performance against H-infinity optimal control and two heuristic schemes based on TCP-style additive-increase-multiplicative decrease (AIMD) principles. The various rate allocation schemes are evaluated in simulations of multiple high-definition (HD) video streams sharing multiple access networks. Our results demonstrate that, in comparison with heuristic AIMD-based schemes, both media-aware allocation and H-infinity optimal control benefit from proactive congestion avoidance and reduce the average packet loss rate from 45% to below 2%. Improvement in average received video quality ranges between 1.5 to 10.7 dB in PSNR for various background traffic loads and video playout deadlines. Media-aware allocation further exploits its knowledge of the video DR characteristics to achieve a more balanced video quality among all streams.Comment: 12 pages, 22 figure

CIM-based Data-sharing Scheme for Online Calculation of Theoretical Line Loss

AbstractThis paper presents a new CIM-based data-sharing scheme for online calculation of theoretical line loss. The proposed method can read data from other applications which are being used in electric power company, such as electrical SCADA, Power Distribution Network GIS, DMIS, and so on. Moreover, the calculation model, which is used in theoretical calculation of line loss, is formed automatically. Users no longer need to manually input the structure data and operation data of grid. The operation data are updated from the DMIS and the SCADA continually, and the structure data are changing according to GIS and SCADA. Main electric wiring diagrams are also consistent with GIS and SCADA. Compared with conventional approaches, the proposed implementation can cut down the requirement of time and energy that line loss management must spend in maintaining the original data of calculation