A Critical Inquiry into the Concept of East Asia （China, Japan, Korea） of the Past Centuries： In the Context of Asia＇s Image

In East Asia---China, Japan and Korea^there has always existed both a desire and hope for regional integration. Europe has been, and remains, a symbolic model of regional integration at political, economic, social and cultural levels. The hope to achieve a similar regional community has provided the momentum and impetus to think about a more general idea of East Asia： An idea that might substantiate the entire region＇s future prospects. Previously, East Asia has not been overly successful at generating any knowledge or understanding of its own identity. It is therefore necessary to conduct an inquiry into the concept of East Asia. The complexity of knowledge about East Asia should be clarified. This paper interprets the concept of East Asia in past centuries, explains how people conceptualized East Asia in the broader context of the continent and evaluates its characteristic features.

CHINA＇S IMAGE IN AFRICA RESTS WITH CHINA＇S SUCCESSFUL STORIES IN AFRICA

China＇s image in Africa depends on an ＇African China success story＇. First decade of the 21st Century experienced a rise in efforts to cultivate public diplomacy among different nations to augment practices in bilateral relations. Public diplomacy has been mostly pronounced within the framework of soft power as a means of establishing appeal and grounding the likeability of one＇s nation in foreign shores. China has been at the forefront of cultivating means of public diplomacy in their new spheres of influence as it positions itself on the global centre stage. The promotion and success of the Chinese Dream by President Xi Jinping ought to be viewed within the context of efforts by China to complement the usual foreign policy practices through public diplomacy.

China's Image in The Painted Veil from the Perspective of Orientalism

William Somerset Maugham(1874-1965),one of the most popular writers of the twentieth century,is famous for his exquisitenarrative technique.The Painted Veil tells a touching story with unique narrative style.This paper takes Edward Said's postcolonial crit-ical theory of orientalism as its theoretical foundation to conduct a study of The Painted Veil in detail with an intention to explore China's image and disclose the cultural hegemony of Maugham.The Painted Veil about demonizing and distorting China's image is based onthe perspective of Orientalism,which is inextricably linked to Maugham's cultural hegemony thought.

Improving Somalia’s Image

The other Mogadishu But despite the progress, violence remains a major hurdle. Prior to the MBF. at least 14 people were killed when a hotel in the capital was attacked by aI-Shabab gunmen. Soon after the MBF. there were two car bomb attacks, one near the Mogadishu International Airport and the other close to the presidential palace, killing at least 12 people.

Measurement of charge transfer potential barrier in pinned photodiode CMOS image sensors

The charge transfer potential barrier （CTPB） formed beneath the transfer gate causes a noticeable image lag issue in pinned photodiode （PPD） CMOS image sensors （CIS）, and is difficult to measure straightforwardly since it is embedded inside the device. From an understanding of the CTPB formation mechanism, we report on an alternative method to feasibly measure the CTPB height by performing a linear extrapolation coupled with a horizontal left-shift on the sensor photoresponse curve under the steady-state illumination. The theoretical study was pertbrmed in detail on the principle of the proposed method. Application of the measurements oil a prototype PPD-CIS chip with an array of 160 ×160 pixels is demonstrated. Such a method intends to shine new light oil the guidance for the lag-free and high-speed sensors optimization based on PPD devices.

Can Language Skills Help Government’s Image?

From August this year, civil servants under the age of 50 in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, have been told to attend training in five foreign languages, as well as common spoken Chinese and

Women's Images in Chinese Literature Have Varied During Current Century

●In the early 20th century, awakening women who ran from their feudalistic families found that the male-dominated society, where men managed the exterior affairs and women managed the interior ones, was indestructible.

Koizumi's Yasukuni Visits,China-Japan Relations And Japan's International Image

Early on the morning of August 15, 2006, which was the 61st anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War, Junichiro Koizumi dressed himself up in a formal tuxedo jacket with coattails and paid his sixth and also the last visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in his official capacity as Japan’s prime minister. Koizumi’s deliberate action taken amidst the strong protests from people both in and outside Japan has

Prenatal radiographic evaluation of congenital transverse limb deficiencies:A scoping review

BACKGROUND Congenital transverse deficiencies are horizontal deficiencies of the long bones that occur with a reported incidence as high 0.38%.They can occur alone or represent a manifestation of a various clinical syndromes.Diagnosis has tradi-tionally comprised of conventional radiography and prenatal imaging studies.There has been much advancement regarding prenatal imaging modalities to allow for early diagnosis and appropriate treatment.AIM To summarize the current state of knowledge on congenital transverse limb deficiencies and to provide an update regarding the radiographic evaluation of congenital transverse limb deficiencies.METHODS This IRB-exempt scoping review followed the PRISMA-ScR checklist for scoping reviews strictly.Five search engines were searched for a total of 265 publications.Four authors reviewed these during the screening process.Of these,51 studies were included in our article.Prenatal magnetic resonance imaging(MRI),3D Ultrasound,and multidetector Computed tomography(CT)exist are emerging modalities that have the potential to improve diagnosis.RESULTS Use of the appropriate classification system,three-dimensional ultrasonography with a maximum intensity projection,and appropriate use of prenatal MRI and prenatal CT can improve diagnosis and inter-provider communication.CONCLUSION Further scholarly efforts are required to develop improve standardized guidelines regarding the pre-natal radiographic evaluation of congenital limb deficiencies.

The Linguistic Means of Representing Women in the Doukhobor Russian Psalms

This paper analyzes the language employed in the representations of women in Doukhobor Russian ritual texts called ＂ncanMbf＇ （psalms） from the viewpoint of linguistic text analysis performed in the Russian tradition of folklore stylistics. While addressing the representations of Biblical female characters, such as the Holy Virgin Mary Magdalene, the Heavenly Bride, and the Whore of Babylon, along with the portrayals of Doukhobor and other women, the paper identifies stylistic features in their textual descriptions. The study establishes connections between Doukhobor texts and Russian folklore and liturgical tradition. The paper strives to identify the place of Doukhobor psalms as an integral part of the Russian literary and folklore heritage

Research on the Characteristics of Collective Impression of China in the Perspective of Modern Western Peregrinators

Since modern times,western countries had influenced the formulation of rules for travelling China through a series of gunboat diplomacy and a series of unequal treaties,and promoted the formation of three major peregrination routes,namely south China centered on Guangzhou and Shanghai,southwest China centered on the Yangtze River and Chengdu,and north China centered on Beijing and the Great Wall.Overpopulation,lack of curiosity and knowledge,difficulties in board and lodging,good onlookers,beauty of exotic scenery,and intensive farming were the common perceptions of the collective impression of China by the three types of peregrinators coming to China.These perceptions were the historical map for the west to construct the image of modern China,and had a profound influence on the formation of China’s image of “the inferior other”.

Wu Zetian’s Manipulation of Confucianism and Buddhism

This paper discusses the overseas dissemination of Wu Zetian’s image as a stateswoman and a pragmatic“thinker”.The author studies Wu Zetian’s attitude towards Confucianism and Buddhism,and analyzes her manipulation of Confucianism and Buddhism for political purposes.

Tracking of iron-labeled human neural stem cells by magnetic resonance imaging in cell replacement therapy for Parkinson＇s disease

Human neural stem cells（h NSCs） derived from the ventral mesencephalon are powerful research tools and candidates for cell therapies in Parkinson＇s disease. However, their clinical translation has not been fully realized due, in part, to the limited ability to track stem cell regional localization and survival over long periods of time after in vivo transplantation. Magnetic resonance imaging provides an excellent non-invasive method to study the fate of transplanted cells in vivo. For magnetic resonance imaging cell tracking, cells need to be labeled with a contrast agent, such as magnetic nanoparticles, at a concentration high enough to be easily detected by magnetic resonance imaging. Grafting of human neural stem cells labeled with magnetic nanoparticles allows cell tracking by magnetic resonance imaging without impairment of cell survival, proliferation, self-renewal, and multipotency. However, the results reviewed here suggest that in long term grafting, activated microglia and macrophages could contribute to magnetic resonance imaging signal by engulfing dead labeled cells or iron nanoparticles dispersed freely in the brain parenchyma over time.

Modulatory effects of acupuncture on brain networks in mild cognitive impairment patients

Functional magnetic resonance imaging has been widely used to investigate the effects of acupuncture on neural activity. However, most functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have focused on acute changes in brain activation induced by acupuncture. Thus, the time course of the therapeutic effects of acupuncture remains unclear. In this study, 32 patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment were randomly divided into two groups, where they received either Tiaoshen Yizhi acupuncture or sham acupoint acupuncture. The needles were either twirled at Tiaoshen Yizhi acupoints, including Sishencong（EX-HN1）, Yintang（EX-HN3）, Neiguan（PC6）, Taixi（KI3）, Fenglong（ST40）, and Taichong（LR3）, or at related sham acupoints at a depth of approximately 15 mm, an angle of ± 60°, and a rate of approximately 120 times per minute. Acupuncture was conducted for 4 consecutive weeks, five times per week, on weekdays. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging indicated that connections between cognition-related regions such as the insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, thalamus, inferior parietal lobule, and anterior cingulate cortex increased after acupuncture at Tiaoshen Yizhi acupoints. The insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus acted as central brain hubs. Patients in the Tiaoshen Yizhi group exhibited improved cognitive performance after acupuncture. In the sham acupoint acupuncture group, connections between brain regions were dispersed, and we found no differences in cognitive function following the treatment. These results indicate that acupuncture at Tiaoshen Yizhi acupoints can regulate brain networks by increasing connectivity between cognition-related regions, thereby improving cognitive function in patients with mild cognitive impairment.

Magnetic resonance imaging in children and adolescents with chronic inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel diseases(IBD) represent challenges, both from a diagnostic, and therapeutic point of view. Deep-seated anatomic structures are difficult to assess by ultrasound technique alone. As radiation-free alternative cross-sectional imaging method, magnetic resonance imaging of the intestinal structures is costly and time-consuming. Examination of pediatric patients imply additional considerations: reduction of body motions in younger children and consideration of the most appropriate preparation, and examination technique. The demanding Sellink technique is the only means for appropriately distending the lesser intestine in order to detect small bowel strictures. Oral intake of contrast medium(CM) alone shows its limitations regarding distensibility. The need for intravenous contrast media application needs to be considered, too. Active inflammation of both intestinal wall, and mesentery can be demonstrated accurately. Nevertheless, viable alternatives to CM application is desirable, considering non-negligible adverse reactions. Recent data suggest diffusion weighted imaging might fill this diagnostic gap. Irrespective of sequence technique chosen, bowel movement remains a major obstacle. Antispasmolytics in their function as smooth muscle relaxants help in improving image quality, however, their use in children might be off-label. Optimal preparation for the examination and appropriate imaging technique allow for diagnosing typical patterns of changes in IBD, such as bowel wall thickening, ulcers, mural stratification, strictures, creeping fat, and comb sign, and lymphadenopathy. The article gives a detailed overview of current significance of magnetic resonance imaging pediatric patients suffering from IBD, considering indications, limitations, and safety aspects.

Hierarchical MPS-Based Three-Dimensional Geological Structure Reconstruction with Two-Dimensional Image(s)

Multiple-point statistics(MPS)is a useful approach to reconstruct three-dimensional models in the macroscopic or microscopic field.Extracting spatial features for three-dimensional reconstruction from two-dimensional training images(TIs),and characterizing non-stationary features with directional ductility are two key issues in MPS simulation.This study presents a step-wise MPS-based three-dimensional structures reconstruction algorithm with the sequential process and hierarchical strategy based on two-dimensional images.An extension method is proposed to construct three-dimensional TIs.With a sequential simulation process,an initial guess at the coarsest scale is simulated,in which hierarchical strategy is used according to the characteristics of TIs.To obtain a more refined realization,an expectation-maximization like iterative process with global optimization is implemented.A concrete example of chondrite micro-structure simulation,in which one scanning electron microscopy(SEM)image of the Heyetang meteorite is used as TI,shows that the presented algorithm can simulate complex non-stationary structures.

Joint regression and learning from pairwise rankings for personalized image aesthetic assessment

Recent image aesthetic assessment methods have achieved remarkable progress due to the emergence of deep convolutional neural networks(CNNs).However,these methods focus primarily on predicting generally perceived preference of an image,making them usually have limited practicability,since each user may have completely different preferences for the same image.To address this problem,this paper presents a novel approach for predicting personalized image aesthetics that fit an individual user’s personal taste.We achieve this in a coarse to fine manner,by joint regression and learning from pairwise rankings.Specifically,we first collect a small subset of personal images from a user and invite him/her to rank the preference of some randomly sampled image pairs.We then search for the K-nearest neighbors of the personal images within a large-scale dataset labeled with average human aesthetic scores,and use these images as well as the associated scores to train a generic aesthetic assessment model by CNN-based regression.Next,we fine-tune the generic model to accommodate the personal preference by training over the rankings with a pairwise hinge loss.Experiments demonstrate that our method can effectively learn personalized image aesthetic preferences,clearly outperforming state-of-the-art methods.Moreover,we show that the learned personalized image aesthetic benefits a wide variety of applications.

A leaf image localization based algorithm for different crops disease classification

Agricultural crop production is a major contributing element to any country’s economy.To maintain the economic growth of any country plants disease detection is a leading factor in agriculture.The contribution of the proposed algorithm is to optimize the extracted infor-mation from the available resources for the betterment of the result without any additional complexity.The proposed technique basically localizes the leaf region prior to the image classification into healthy and diseased.The novelty of this work is to fuse the information extracted from the available resources and optimize it to enhance the expected outcome.The leaf colors are analyzed using color transformation for the seed region identification.The mapping of a low-dimensional RGB color image into L*a*b color space provides an expansion of the spectral range.The neighboring pixels-based leaf region growing is applied on the initial seeds.In order to refine the leaf boundary and the disease-affected areas,we employed a random sample consensus(RANSAC)for suitable curve fitting.The feature sets using bag of visual words,Fisher vectors,and handcrafted features are extracted followed by classification using logistic regression,multilayer perceptron model,and support vector machine.The performance of the proposal is analyzed through PlantVillage datasets of apple,bell pepper,cherry,corn,grape,potato,and tomato.The simulation-based analysis of the proposed contextualization-based image categorization process outperforms as compared with the state of arts.The proposed approach provides average accuracy and area under the curve of 0.932 and 0.903,respectively.

The Economic and Trade Factors in China’s National Image in the Arab Countries

In the context of globalization,although governments maintain the leading role in shaping the image of states,the increasing bilateral economic and trade exchanges are gradually becoming an equally important,if not more important,element.The recent years have witnessed a continuous growth of trade between China and Arab countries—a newly established crucial trading partner and platform for practicing the“going-out”strategy.Thanks to both sides complimenting each other,a positive win-win situation has been achieved.However,as more and more Chinese merchandises and enterprises have entered the Arab world,certain problems have emerged,such as poor quality of merchandises,illegal operation of enterprises,and difficulties of certain Chinese employees integrating into local life.These economic and trade elements have become key factors in shaping China’s image in the Arab countries,and hence should not be left unattended.

Biomarkers for Parkinson's Disease:Recent Advancement

As a multi-factorial degenerative disease, Parkinson＇s disease （PD） leads to tremor, gait rigidity, and hypokinesia, thus hampering normal living. As this disease is usually detected in the later stages when neurons have degenerated completely, cure is on hold, ultimately leading to death due to the lack of early diagnostic techniques. Thus, biomarkers are required to detect the disease in the early stages when prevention is possible. Various biomarkers providing early diagnosis of the disease include those of imaging, cerebrospinal fluid, oxidative stress, neuroprotection, and inflammation. Also, biomarkers, alone or in combination, are used in the diagnosis and evolution of PD. This review encompasses various biomarkers available for PD and discusses recent advances in their development.