26,875 research outputs found
Wang Meng and contemporary Chinese literature: the vicissitudes of a committed writer
No full textThis 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
Model-based analysis of X-band scattering from oil-covered sea surface using SAR imagery
No full textIn this paper, the normalized radar cross section of sea surfaces as well as the damping ratio of surfactants of known origin are predicted using the Advanced Integral Equation Model (AIEM), which is augmented using the Model of Local Balance. Theoretical predictions are contrasted with actual measurements acquired-over the same oil-covered area and under the same met-ocean conditions-by the X-band TerraSAR-X (TSX) and Cosmo-SkyMed (CSK) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions. Experimental results show that the AIEM provides a fairly good agreement with both TSX and CSK actual measurements for both oil-free and oil-covered sea surfaces
Model-based comparisons of near-coincident TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMed VV-polarized SAR measurements over sea surface with and without oil slicks
No full textThis paper contrasts predicted X-band sea surface backscattering from slick-free and oil-covered sea surfaces with actual measurements acquired by the X-band satellite TerraSAR-X and COSMO-SkyMed Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions. Two SAR scenes were acquired with a temporal difference of about 36 minutes, under similar met-ocean conditions, during the North Sea’s Gannet Alpha oil spill accident. The normalized radar cross section of the slick-free sea surface is predicted using the Advanced Integral Equation Model (AIEM) while the backscatter from the oiled sea surface is predicted by the AIEM augmented with the Model of Local Balance (MLB) to include the damping effect of oil slicks. Experimental results show that X-band co-polarized numerical predictions agree reasonably well with both TSX and CSK actual measurements collected over slick-free sea surfaces. When dealing with oil-covered sea surfaces, the predicted backscattering reasonably agrees with TSX measurements, while it overestimates the CSK ones. This is likely due to the different spreading conditions of the oil imaged by the two satellite missions
On the joint use of scattering and damping models to predict X-band co-polarized backscattering from a slick-covered sea surface
No full textIn this study, sea surface scattering with and without surfactants is predicted using the two-scale boundary perturbation model (BPM) and the advanced integral equation model (AIEM) augmented with two different damping models, i.e., the Marangoni one and the model of local balance (MLB). Numerical predictions are showcased for both mineral oil and biogenic slicks. They are contrasted with actual satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) measurements collected at X-band by the German TerraSAR-X sensor over mineral oil and plant oil slicks of known origin. Experimental results show that the two-scale BPM augmented with the Marangoni damping model is more suitable for predicting the normalized radar cross section and the damping ratio of plant oil (biogenic) slicks. In contrast, the AIEM combined with the damping MLB results in a better agreement with SAR measurements collected over mineral oil slicks
Migrant workers, collaborative research and spatial pressures : an interview with Meng Yue
No full textIn July last year I had the opportunity to interview Meng Yue, literary scholar and author of Shanghai and the Edges of Empire (2006). Meng Yue has been collaborating with Toronto-based architect and artist Adrian Blackwell for a number of years, with their students from literature and architecture undertaking highly interesting research on the peripheral zones of Beijing. Questions of peri-urban food production, land use, resource distribution and the multiplication of labour skills have framed these investigations. The interview below is extracted from a considerably longer discussion we had in Beijing during the late summer of 2007, half of which was lost to the faulty battery of an ipod (the rest remains to be transcribed from video…)
Correction to: Visible lattice points along curves
No full textThe article “Visible lattice points along curves”, written by Kui Liu and Xianchang Meng, was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 27 July 2020 without open access. With the author(s)’ decision to opt for Open Choice the copyright of the article changed on 9 July 2021 to © The Author(s) 2020 and the article is forthwith distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
X. J. Meng accorded Honorary Diplomate status in American College of Veterinary Microbiology
No full textDr. X. J. Meng, of Blacksburg, Va., has recently been elected as an Honorary Diplomate in the American College of Veterinary Microbiology
Composition measurements of crude oil and process water emulsions using thick-film ultrasonic transducers
No full textThis paper presents an experimental study to investigate the suitability of thick-film ultrasonic transducers for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures. Following on from earlier developments [G. Meng, A.J. Jaworski, T. Dyakowski, J.M. Hale, N.M. White, Design and testing of a thick-film dual-modality sensor for composition measurements in heterogeneous mixtures, Meas. Sci. Technol. 16(4) (2005) 942–954], focused on the design and preliminary testing of the transducers for mixtures of vegetable oil and salty water, the current paper looks in more detail into their application to industrially relevant fluids, namely crude oil and process water, which are common in oil and gas extraction and petrochemical industries. The measurements are based on the time-of-flight of the ultrasonic pressure wave in order to obtain the speed of sound. The results, showing the variation of the speed of sound with the volume fraction of crude oil, for three different temperatures, are compared with five theoretical models available in the existing literature. It is shown that the models proposed by Urick [R.J. Urick, A sound velocity method for determining the compressibility of finely divided substances, J. Appl. Phys. 18 (1947) 983–987] and by Kuster and Toks¨oz [G.T. Kuster, M.N. Toks¨oz, Velocity and attenuation of seismic waves in two-phase media. Part I. Theoretical formulations, Geophysics 39 (1974) 587–606] provide a relatively accurate prediction for the speed of sound in the media studied. Interestingly, the model developed by Povey and co-workers [V.J. Pinfield, M.J.W. Povey, Thermal scattering must be accounted for in the determination of adiabatic compressibility, J. Phys. Chem. B 101 (1997) 1110–1112] only agrees with experiment when its thermal scattering features are neglected. Overall, the results obtained demonstrate that the slim-line and compact thick-film transducers can be considered as a viable means for the composition measurements in the process conditions
Sequels to honglou meng : how gu taiqing continues the story in honglou meng ying
No full textAfter Honglou meng (1791) was published, a number of sequels appeared that redefined its major characters, rewrote its ending, and continued the story of life within the two Jia households. One of these was Honglou meng ying (1877), by female poet, Gu Taiqing. Despite its status as the earliest extant novel written by a woman, few studies have been devoted to examining it. Building on research that Ellen Widmer has provided on Gu Taiqing and her work, including Honglou meng ying, I will explore the novel further in terms of its relationship to the parent work and to other sequels written by men, and also examine it on its own terms as a literary work. Some of the main questions that I will address include: how does it compare to other sequels to Honglou meng? How does Gu Taiqing’s continuation of Honglou meng depart from the parent novel? I have organized my discussion by providing an introduction to Gu Taiqing, whilst providing contextual information about women’s education, their relationship to fiction, and the impact of Honglou meng. Chapter One will deal with the broad issue of sequels in the Chinese context, the popularity of writing sequels during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and conclude with some observations about Honglou meng sequels in particular. The second chapter will deal exclusively with Gu Taiqing’s Honglou meng ying, evaluating it in terms of how the author continues the parent work, how she refashions its characters and themes, and how her sequel reflects her own unique concerns (which may not have been part of the original parent work). Finally, I will conclude with some remarks about Honglou meng ying in terms of its relation to sequel writing in late imperial China and its contribution to our understanding of women’s reading and writing in the final years of the Qing dynasty.Arts, Faculty ofAsian Studies, Department ofGraduat
Mechanistic Study of Radium Adsorption onto Goethite
No full textRadium (Ra2+) is a radioactive element with a long half-life. It is used in industry and is often found in shallow aquifers due to natural or anthropogenic leakage or spill of brine from deep subsurface. A major factor influencing the transport and fate of Ra2+ in water is the adsorption/desorption process onto soil particles. Goethite, a ubiquitous natural mineral generally present as a coating of soil particles, contributes significantly to the adsorption of Ra2+ in the subsurface. However, the chemical reactions of adsorption of Ra2+ onto goethite are not well-established, yet. Previous studies reported that Ra2+ creates either tetradentate or monodentate complexes on goethite and no distinction between outer-sphere and inner-sphere types of complexes were made. Knowledge of the type and structure of Ra-goethite surface complexes is important to predict the behavior and the fate of Ra2+ in the subsurface, e.g., upon a spill and during the remediation of a contaminated site. Here, the adsorption of Ra2+ onto goethite is investigated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. By using a combination of geometric structure, adsorption energy, and electronic state (i.e., density of states and magnetic moment) analyses, the outer-sphere adsorption was found to dominate Ra2+ complexation on goethite, suggesting a significant effect of salinity on Ra2+ transport in the subsurface. Inner-sphere adsorption configuration was not observed to be thermodynamically favorable, resulting from ionic rather than covalent interaction between Ra2+ and goethite. Based on these results, a surface complexation model was developed and validated successfully with literature data. This study provides insights into the mechanism of Ra2+ adsorption on soils containing goethite and provides chemical reactions of Ra-goethite surface interaction that can be coupled with a transport model to predict Ra2+ migration in the subsurface
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