Orwell＇s text The Road to Wigan Pier, henceforth referred to as RWP, is problematic due to the ambiguity of its status as a literary genre. The text is subversive on many levels, namely on the level of form. In order...Orwell＇s text The Road to Wigan Pier, henceforth referred to as RWP, is problematic due to the ambiguity of its status as a literary genre. The text is subversive on many levels, namely on the level of form. In order to show some aspects of the author＇s challenge of the conventional norms and methods of literary writing, a comparison between the writer＇s original diary of the journey to the industrial North of England, the main site of the coal mines, and the present book could be of great import. This reveals the author＇s genuine intellectual ability to manipulate and rearrange the events and scenes of the story on the discourse level. The author＇s manipulation and rearrangement of the story （the journey）, events and scenes, clearly reveals his potential literary creativity and imagination. Orwell has deployed many strategies to fulfil this purpose. Each strategy is actually a contribution to the author＇s overall argument and at the same time it constitutes a further aspect of subversion. The first aspect of subversion lies on the level of form itself. The form of the book is effectively very challenging. Contrary to the conventional view of the fictional novel, the study of Orwell＇s text based on Grrard Genette＇s model reveals his challenge of the basic novelistic parameters. The novelistic ingredients such as setting, characterisation, and plot development have been treated in a subverting way. Though not totally discarded, they have been manipulated for the purpose of the author＇s general argument, which is Socialism. For instance, characters in the novel are treated as types, that is, representatives of their class. Besides, the order of scenes and events has been rearranged for the purpose of foregrounding representative scenes like the description of the Brookers＇ lodging-house. The author＇s treatment of the material of the text is primarily based on his personal experience as an outside observer during his journey to the North. Therefore, the exploration of the novel from a structuralist perspective based on Genette＇s model does not merely aim at the pure application of some literary and critical approaches to Orwell＇s text. This may be misleading since the investigation may fall in superficiality and simplicity. But the strategy deployed is actually a further contribution to the author＇s general argument and a manifestation of the novel＇s status as a creative and subversive text.展开更多
One of the main problems in controlling the shape of active structures （AS） is to determine the actuations that drive the structure from the current state to the target state. Model-based methods such as stochastic ...One of the main problems in controlling the shape of active structures （AS） is to determine the actuations that drive the structure from the current state to the target state. Model-based methods such as stochastic search require a known type of load and relatively long computational time, which limits the practical use of AS in civil engineering. Moreover, additive errors may be produced because of the discrepancy between analytic models and real structures. To overcome these limitations, this paper presents a compound system called WAS, which combines AS with a wireless sensor and actuator network （WSAN）. A bio-inspired control framework imitating the activity of the nervous systems of animals is proposed for WAS. A typical example is tested for verification. In the example, a triangular tensegrity prism that aims to maintain its original height is integrated with a WSAN that consists of a central controller, three actuators, and three sensors. The result demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed concept and control framework in cases of unknown loads that include different types, distributions, magnitudes, and directions. The proposed control framework can also act as a supplementary means to improve the efficiency and accuracy of control frameworks based on a common stochastic search.展开更多
The paper presents an improved tensor-based active contour model in a variational level set formulation for medical image segmentation. In it, a new energy function is defined with a local intensity fitting term in in...The paper presents an improved tensor-based active contour model in a variational level set formulation for medical image segmentation. In it, a new energy function is defined with a local intensity fitting term in intensity inhomogeneity of the image, and with a global intensity fitting term in intensity homogeneity domain. Weighting factor is chosen to balance these two intensity fitting terms, which can be calculated automatically by local entropy. The level set regularization term is to replace contour curve to find the minimum of the energy function. Particularly, structure tensor is applied to describe the image, which overcomes the disadvantage of image feature without structure information.The experimental results show that our proposed method can segment image efficiently whether it presents intensity inhomogeneity or not and wherever the initial contour is. Moreover, compared with the Chan-Vese model and local binary fitting model, our proposed model not only handles better intensity inhomogeneity, but also is less sensitive to the location of initial contour.展开更多
文摘Orwell＇s text The Road to Wigan Pier, henceforth referred to as RWP, is problematic due to the ambiguity of its status as a literary genre. The text is subversive on many levels, namely on the level of form. In order to show some aspects of the author＇s challenge of the conventional norms and methods of literary writing, a comparison between the writer＇s original diary of the journey to the industrial North of England, the main site of the coal mines, and the present book could be of great import. This reveals the author＇s genuine intellectual ability to manipulate and rearrange the events and scenes of the story on the discourse level. The author＇s manipulation and rearrangement of the story （the journey）, events and scenes, clearly reveals his potential literary creativity and imagination. Orwell has deployed many strategies to fulfil this purpose. Each strategy is actually a contribution to the author＇s overall argument and at the same time it constitutes a further aspect of subversion. The first aspect of subversion lies on the level of form itself. The form of the book is effectively very challenging. Contrary to the conventional view of the fictional novel, the study of Orwell＇s text based on Grrard Genette＇s model reveals his challenge of the basic novelistic parameters. The novelistic ingredients such as setting, characterisation, and plot development have been treated in a subverting way. Though not totally discarded, they have been manipulated for the purpose of the author＇s general argument, which is Socialism. For instance, characters in the novel are treated as types, that is, representatives of their class. Besides, the order of scenes and events has been rearranged for the purpose of foregrounding representative scenes like the description of the Brookers＇ lodging-house. The author＇s treatment of the material of the text is primarily based on his personal experience as an outside observer during his journey to the North. Therefore, the exploration of the novel from a structuralist perspective based on Genette＇s model does not merely aim at the pure application of some literary and critical approaches to Orwell＇s text. This may be misleading since the investigation may fall in superficiality and simplicity. But the strategy deployed is actually a further contribution to the author＇s general argument and a manifestation of the novel＇s status as a creative and subversive text.
基金Project supported by the National Key Technology R&D Program of China(No.2012BAJ07B03)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.51178415 and 51578491)
文摘One of the main problems in controlling the shape of active structures （AS） is to determine the actuations that drive the structure from the current state to the target state. Model-based methods such as stochastic search require a known type of load and relatively long computational time, which limits the practical use of AS in civil engineering. Moreover, additive errors may be produced because of the discrepancy between analytic models and real structures. To overcome these limitations, this paper presents a compound system called WAS, which combines AS with a wireless sensor and actuator network （WSAN）. A bio-inspired control framework imitating the activity of the nervous systems of animals is proposed for WAS. A typical example is tested for verification. In the example, a triangular tensegrity prism that aims to maintain its original height is integrated with a WSAN that consists of a central controller, three actuators, and three sensors. The result demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed concept and control framework in cases of unknown loads that include different types, distributions, magnitudes, and directions. The proposed control framework can also act as a supplementary means to improve the efficiency and accuracy of control frameworks based on a common stochastic search.
基金Acknowledgments This work was supported by Natural Science Fundamental Research Project of Jiangsu Colleges and Universities under Grant 11KJB510026, and National Science Foundation of P. R. China under Grants 11275007 and 81000639.
文摘The paper presents an improved tensor-based active contour model in a variational level set formulation for medical image segmentation. In it, a new energy function is defined with a local intensity fitting term in intensity inhomogeneity of the image, and with a global intensity fitting term in intensity homogeneity domain. Weighting factor is chosen to balance these two intensity fitting terms, which can be calculated automatically by local entropy. The level set regularization term is to replace contour curve to find the minimum of the energy function. Particularly, structure tensor is applied to describe the image, which overcomes the disadvantage of image feature without structure information.The experimental results show that our proposed method can segment image efficiently whether it presents intensity inhomogeneity or not and wherever the initial contour is. Moreover, compared with the Chan-Vese model and local binary fitting model, our proposed model not only handles better intensity inhomogeneity, but also is less sensitive to the location of initial contour.
