7,868 research outputs found

    Wang Meng and contemporary Chinese literature: the vicissitudes of a committed writer

    No full text
    This thesis examines the way Wang Meng has developed as a writer from the 1950s to the 1990s in the context of New China's political and literary background. It looks at the compromises he was forced to make between his political beliefs in the Communist Party and his chosen role as a professional writer. After his disastrous early foray into what was deemed to be unacceptable political criticism with The Young Newcomer in the Organisation Department in the 1950s, when the opportunity came to start publishing again in the late 1970s he was boldly innovative in style, helping to transform New Period literature, but conservative in content, sticking to politically acceptable topics. It was only with Hard Porridge in 1989 that he ventured again, and very successfully, into political comment. There is no outstanding leading writer in contemporary China, but Wang Meng is a leading contender for the title

    Wang Shuo and the commercialisation of contemporary Chinese culture

    No full text
    This thesis examines the commercialisation of Chinese culture that has taken place over the past twenty years in mainland China. It explores the contribution of Wang Shuo, a cultural figure who straddles different fields of culture, moving from literature to the ultimate mass culture medium of television, this study plots Wang Shuo' s development from educational failure, to business failure, to fiction writer, film & TV editor, film director and cultural critic and analyst. His stories, films, TV series and articles have caused shock-waves throughout national cultural circles as he has transformed the terms of the debate from academic discourse to a validation of the role of the market in the culture field. Although Wang Shuo has not been labelled as a dissident, his approach to the culture market has had a more subversive effect on official ideology that those overt dissidents who have had to live in exile or have been imprisoned. He has utilised the language of official ideology to satirise the authorities, turning the ideology and its supporters into figures of fun. Yet his own goals have been strictly personal and economic ones. The authorities recognize the value of Wang Shuo's work in the cultural market but at the same time distrust his works and place him under strict censorship. Examining the way Wang Shuo and people surround him have succeeded in different fields of cultural achievement is a mirror to understanding the process of the transformation of contemporary Chinese culture from a socialist state-controlled culture to a market-oriented mass culture industry

    Distribution of TT virus (TTV), TTV-like minivirus, and related viruses in humans and nonhuman primates

    No full text
    TT virus (TTV) and TTV-like minivirus (TLMV) are small DNA viruses with single-stranded, closed circular, antisense genomes infecting man. Despite their extreme sequence heterogeneity (>50%), a highly conserved region in the untranslated region (UTR) allows both viruses to be amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). TTV/TLMV infection was detected in 88 of 100 human plasma samples; amplified sequences were differentiated into TTV and TLMV by analysis of melting profiles, showing that both viruses were similarly prevalent. PCR with UTR primers also detected frequent infection with TTV/TLMV-related viruses in a wide range of apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons) and African monkey species (mangabeys, drills, mandrills). These findings support the hypothesis for the co-evolution of TTV-like viruses with their hosts over the period of primate speciation, potentially analogous to the evolution of primate herpesviruses

    Designing role-based view for object-relational databases

    No full text
    In a federated database system, a view mechanism is crucial since it is used to define exportable subsets of data ; to perform a virtual restructuring d ataset; and to construct the integrated schema. The view service in federated databa se systems must be capable of retaining as much semantic information as possible. The object-oriented ( 0 - 0 ) model was considered the suitable canonical data model since it meets the original criteria for canonical model selection. However, with the emergence of stronger object-relational (0 -R ) model, the re is a clear argument for using an 0 - R canonical model in the federation. Hence, research should now focus on th e development of semantically powerful view mechanism for th e newer model. Meanwhile, the availability of real 0 -R technologies offers researchers the opportunity to develop different forms of view mechanisms. The concept of roles has been widely studied in 0 - 0 modelling and development. The role model represents some characteristics that the traditional 0-0 model lacked, such as object migration, multiple occurrences and context-dependent access. While many forms of 0-0 views were designed for the 0-0 canonical model, one option was to extend the 0-0 model to incorporate a role model. In a role model, the real entity is modelled in the form of a role rather than an object. An object represents the permanent properties of an entity is a root object; and an object represents the temporary properties of an entity is a role object. The contribution of this research is to design a view system that employees the concept of roles for the 0 -R canonical model in a federated database system. In this thesis, an examination of the current 0 -R metamodel is provided first in order to provide an environment for recognising the roleview metadata and measuring the view performance; then a Roleview Definition Language (RDL) is introduced, along with the semantics for defining virtual classes and generating virtua l extents; finally, a working prototype is provided to prove th e role-based view system is implementable and the syntax is semantically correct
    corecore