This book proposes, for the first time, a basic formulation for structural control that takes into account the stochastic dynamics induced by engineering excitations in the nature of non-stationary and non-Gaussian processes. Further, it establishes the theory of and methods for stochastic optimal control of randomly-excited engineering structures in the context of probability density evolution methods, such as physically-based stochastic optimal (PSO) control. By logically integrating randomness into control gain, the book helps readers design elegant control systems, mitigate risks in civil engineering structures, and avoid the dilemmas posed by the methods predominantly applied in current practice, such as deterministic control and classical linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control associated with nominal white noises.

The book considers the challenge of poverty and deterioration of the ecological environment in China, particularly in rural areas. Examining key factors such as the overuse of natural resources and the loss of biodiversity in the face of an expanding population and rapidly developing economy. It focuses on examining the frameworks of rural households in poor mountainous areas in rural China, considering their livelihood choices and decision-making processes. It analyses the relationship between these households' livelihoods and their environment, notably farmers' attitudes and perceptions towards ecological conservation policies, and their use of forest resources. Cutting across the fields of population studies, sociology, economy and environment, this is an important read for scholars and students interested in how China is dealing with the challenges of natural resources exploitation, sustainable development and social welfare.

The Chinese government has recently adopted a radical welfare approach by contracting out social services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This is a big departure from its traditional welfare model, whereby all public services were directly delivered by government agencies. This book examines this new welfare approach. It analyses the implementation of various types of services for individuals, families and communities - including medical social services, care of the elderly, probation services and much more. It discusses important issues arising from contracting out, considers the nature of the contracted NGOs and their services, and explores major problems encountered by both government agencies and NGOs. This book also compares the similarities and differences of contracting policies in different cities. Overall, the book provides an overview of one of the most important welfare policy changes in contemporary China.

The Chinese government has recently adopted a radical welfare approach by contracting out social services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This is a big departure from its traditional welfare model, whereby all public services were directly delivered by government agencies. This book examines this new welfare approach. It analyses the implementation of various types of services for individuals, families and communities - including medical social services, care of the elderly, probation services and much more. It discusses important issues arising from contracting out, considers the nature of the contracted NGOs and their services, and explores major problems encountered by both government agencies and NGOs. This book also compares the similarities and differences of contracting policies in different cities. Overall, the book provides an overview of one of the most important welfare policy changes in contemporary China.

This book, for the first time, introduces comprehensively all main topics of lifeline earthquake engineering, including the structure analysis, network evaluation, and network design. The distinctive features involved in this book are the construction of theories and methods for stochastic analysis of structures based the physical idea, probability analytical algorithms for network evaluation by employing Boolean Algebra, functional evaluation of water distribution networks using hydraulic analysis, and network design methods by employing genetic, simulated annealing, and hybrid algorithms.

An important consideration in improving the performance of a distributed computer system is the balancing of the load between the host computers. Load balancing may be either static or dynamic; static balancing strategies are generally based on information about the system's average behavior rather than its actual current state, while dynamic strategies react to the current state when making transfer decisions. Although it is often conjectured that dynamic load balancing outperforms static, careful investigation shows that this view is not always valid. Recent research on the problem of optimal static load balancing is clearly and intuitively presented, with coverage of distributed computer system models, problem formulation in load balancing, and effective algorithms for implementing optimization. Providing a thorough understanding of both static and dynamic strategies, this book will be of interest to all researchers and practitioners working to optimize performance in distributed computer systems.

How might cinema make revolution and mobilize the masses? In socialist China, the film exhibition network expanded from fewer than six hundred movie theaters to more than a hundred thousand mobile film projectionist teams. Holding screenings in improvised open-air spaces in rural areas lacking electricity, these roving projectionists brought not only films but also power generators, loudspeakers, slideshows, posters, live performances, and mass ritual participation, amplifying the era’s utopian dreams and violent upheavals. Cinematic Guerrillas is a media history of Chinese film exhibition and reception that offers fresh insights into the powers and limits of propaganda. Drawing on a wealth of archives, memoirs, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, Jie Li examines the media networks and environments, discourses and practices, experiences and memories of film projectionists and their grassroots audiences from the 1940s to the 1980s. She considers the ideology and practice of “cinematic guerrillas”—at once denoting onscreen militants, off-the-grid movie teams, and unruly moviegoers—bridging Maoist iconography, the experiences of projectionists, and popular participation and resistance. Li reconceptualizes socialist media practices as “revolutionary spirit mediumship” that aimed to turn audiences into congregations, contribute to the Mao cult, convert skeptics of revolutionary miracles, and exorcize class enemies. Cinematic Guerrillas considers cinema’s meanings for revolution and nation building; successive generations of projectionists; workers, peasants, and soldiers; women and ethnic minorities; and national leaders, local cadres, and cultural censors. By reading diverse, vivid, and often surprising accounts of moviegoing, Li excavates Chinese media theories that provide a critical new perspective on world cinema.

How might cinema make revolution and mobilize the masses? In socialist China, the film exhibition network expanded from fewer than six hundred movie theaters to more than a hundred thousand mobile film projectionist teams. Holding screenings in improvised open-air spaces in rural areas lacking electricity, these roving projectionists brought not only films but also power generators, loudspeakers, slideshows, posters, live performances, and mass ritual participation, amplifying the era’s utopian dreams and violent upheavals. Cinematic Guerrillas is a media history of Chinese film exhibition and reception that offers fresh insights into the powers and limits of propaganda. Drawing on a wealth of archives, memoirs, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, Jie Li examines the media networks and environments, discourses and practices, experiences and memories of film projectionists and their grassroots audiences from the 1940s to the 1980s. She considers the ideology and practice of “cinematic guerrillas”—at once denoting onscreen militants, off-the-grid movie teams, and unruly moviegoers—bridging Maoist iconography, the experiences of projectionists, and popular participation and resistance. Li reconceptualizes socialist media practices as “revolutionary spirit mediumship” that aimed to turn audiences into congregations, contribute to the Mao cult, convert skeptics of revolutionary miracles, and exorcize class enemies. Cinematic Guerrillas considers cinema’s meanings for revolution and nation building; successive generations of projectionists; workers, peasants, and soldiers; women and ethnic minorities; and national leaders, local cadres, and cultural censors. By reading diverse, vivid, and often surprising accounts of moviegoing, Li excavates Chinese media theories that provide a critical new perspective on world cinema.

This book, for the first time, introduces comprehensively all main topics of lifeline earthquake engineering, including the structure analysis, network evaluation, and network design. The distinctive features involved in this book are the construction of theories and methods for stochastic analysis of structures based the physical idea, probability analytical algorithms for network evaluation by employing Boolean Algebra, functional evaluation of water distribution networks using hydraulic analysis, and network design methods by employing genetic, simulated annealing, and hybrid algorithms.

The book considers the challenge of poverty and deterioration of the ecological environment in China, particularly in rural areas. Examining key factors such as the overuse of natural resources and the loss of biodiversity in the face of an expanding population and rapidly developing economy. It focuses on examining the frameworks of rural households in poor mountainous areas in rural China, considering their livelihood choices and decision-making processes. It analyses the relationship between these households' livelihoods and their environment, notably farmers' attitudes and perceptions towards ecological conservation policies, and their use of forest resources. Cutting across the fields of population studies, sociology, economy and environment, this is an important read for scholars and students interested in how China is dealing with the challenges of natural resources exploitation, sustainable development and social welfare.

This book proposes, for the first time, a basic formulation for structural control that takes into account the stochastic dynamics induced by engineering excitations in the nature of non-stationary and non-Gaussian processes. Further, it establishes the theory of and methods for stochastic optimal control of randomly-excited engineering structures in the context of probability density evolution methods, such as physically-based stochastic optimal (PSO) control. By logically integrating randomness into control gain, the book helps readers design elegant control systems, mitigate risks in civil engineering structures, and avoid the dilemmas posed by the methods predominantly applied in current practice, such as deterministic control and classical linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control associated with nominal white noises.

In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account -- part microhistory, part memoir -- Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways from the Republican, Maoist, and post-Mao eras. Exploring three dimensions of private life -- territories, artifacts, and gossip -- Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.

First built by British and Japanese companies in 1915 and 1927, the two homes at the center of this narrative were located in an industrial part of the former "International Settlement." Before their recent demolition, they were nestled in Shanghai's labyrinthine alleyways, which housed more than half of the city's population from the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution. Through interviews with her own family members as well as their neighbors, classmates, and co-workers, Li weaves a complex social tapestry reflecting the lived experiences of ordinary people struggling to absorb and adapt to major historical change. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who all fought for a foothold and haven in this city, witnessing spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories.

In the dazzling global metropolis of Shanghai, what has it meant to call this city home? In this account -- part microhistory, part memoir -- Jie Li salvages intimate recollections by successive generations of inhabitants of two vibrant, culturally mixed Shanghai alleyways from the Republican, Maoist, and post-Mao eras. Exploring three dimensions of private life -- territories, artifacts, and gossip -- Li re-creates the sounds, smells, look, and feel of home over a tumultuous century.

First built by British and Japanese companies in 1915 and 1927, the two homes at the center of this narrative were located in an industrial part of the former "International Settlement." Before their recent demolition, they were nestled in Shanghai's labyrinthine alleyways, which housed more than half of the city's population from the Sino-Japanese War to the Cultural Revolution. Through interviews with her own family members as well as their neighbors, classmates, and co-workers, Li weaves a complex social tapestry reflecting the lived experiences of ordinary people struggling to absorb and adapt to major historical change. These voices include workers, intellectuals, Communists, Nationalists, foreigners, compradors, wives, concubines, and children who all fought for a foothold and haven in this city, witnessing spectacles so full of farce and pathos they could only be whispered as secret histories.

The breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991 had significant repercussions on Chinese politics, foreign policy, and other aspects. In this book, Jie Li examines the evolution of Chinese intellectual perceptions of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, before and after the collapse. Relying on a larger body of updated Chinese sources, Li re-evaluates many key issues in post-Mao Chinese Sovietology, arguing that the Chinese views on the Soviet Union had been influenced and shaped by the ups-and-downs of Sino-Soviet (and later Sino-Russian) relations, China’s domestic political climate, and the political developments in Moscow. By researching the country of the Soviet Union, Chinese Soviet-watchers did not focus on the USSR alone, but mostly attempted to confirm and legitimize the Chinese state policies of reform and open door in both decades. By examining the Soviet past, Chinese scholars not only demonstrated concern for the survival of the CCP regime, but also attempted to envision the future direction and position of China in the post-communist world.

This book describes a closed-loop supply chain (CLSe model with used product collecting and remanufacturing, or in other words, a reverse logistics model. The key feature of this book is that the CLSC model is retailer-driven while traditional CLSC models have been manufacturer- driven. This book is motivated by the emergence of super retailers such as Wal-Mart in recent years. These super retailers have tremendous pricing and supply chain power over other parties in the supply chain. This book shows that a loss leader pricing strategy is the optimal strategy for the super retailer, that is, the super retailer intentionally loses money for each used product returned in the reverse supply chain flow so as to make the maximum total profit considering both forward and reverse flows. This book also illustrates various ramifications of the retailer-driven model with respect to coordination mechanisms, policy implications, and third-party logistics. People who are in the supply chain management area, particularly in the reverse logistics area, will find this book enlightening and interesting.

In Utopian Ruins Jie Li traces the creation, preservation, and elision of memories about China's Mao era by envisioning a virtual museum that reckons with both its utopian yearnings and its cataclysmic reverberations. Li proposes a critical framework for understanding the documentation and transmission of the socialist past that mediates between nostalgia and trauma, anticipation and retrospection, propaganda and testimony. Assembling each chapter like a memorial exhibit, Li explores how corporeal traces, archival documents, camera images, and material relics serve as commemorative media. Prison writings and police files reveal the infrastructure of state surveillance and testify to revolutionary ideals and violence, victimhood and complicity. Photojournalism from the Great Leap Forward and documentaries from the Cultural Revolution promoted faith in communist miracles while excluding darker realities, whereas Mao memorabilia collections, factory ruins, and memorials at trauma sites remind audiences of the Chinese Revolution's unrealized dreams and staggering losses.

In Utopian Ruins Jie Li traces the creation, preservation, and elision of memories about China's Mao era by envisioning a virtual museum that reckons with both its utopian yearnings and its cataclysmic reverberations. Li proposes a critical framework for understanding the documentation and transmission of the socialist past that mediates between nostalgia and trauma, anticipation and retrospection, propaganda and testimony. Assembling each chapter like a memorial exhibit, Li explores how corporeal traces, archival documents, camera images, and material relics serve as commemorative media. Prison writings and police files reveal the infrastructure of state surveillance and testify to revolutionary ideals and violence, victimhood and complicity. Photojournalism from the Great Leap Forward and documentaries from the Cultural Revolution promoted faith in communist miracles while excluding darker realities, whereas Mao memorabilia collections, factory ruins, and memorials at trauma sites remind audiences of the Chinese Revolution's unrealized dreams and staggering losses.