Even in the twenty-first century, the contemporary Chinese prison camp remains a more obscure and poorly understood realm than the Forbidden City of old. Apolitical service organizations such as the International Red Cross have routinely been denied access to PRC prison camps and prison camp inmates who have smuggled out frank, unofficial accounts of their incarceration have only been published overseas, and often had their sentences extended as a result. Presenting extensive analysis of literary and biographical accounts, this illuminating book provides a window to the affective side and emotional tenor of day-to-day life in modern day labour camps. With contributions from well-known and respected scholars, the book covers the contentious issues of prison economics, prisoner 'remolding' and post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing parallels with Soviet, Nazi and Japanese prison camp practice, this outstanding new book will be invaluable to those interested in how the human mind responds to extremity, as well as to scholars of Chinese history, politics, literature and sociology.

When style is everything, will Ethan learn that true beauty is on the inside? Chase Myles can throw together a swinging dinner party or redecorate an entire townhouse with jaw-dropping elegance. Followers scroll his Insta and see effortless workouts, exotic travel, and an adoring boyfriend. The world believes Chase is a style icon. The world is mistaken. Ethan Wells is actually the one who knows what to wear, what to eat and how to do it but he’s happy staying behind the scenes producing their hit LGBTQ show Myles of Style. When Chase walks off set just before the Pride live TV show that will make or break Ethan’s career, Ethan thinks it’s just another tantrum… until Chase’s Instagram shows him partying hard in Abu Dhabi. Out of options, Ethan drives up to rural New York to convince Chase’s estranged twin, Beau, to pass him off as Chase for a week, but Ethan finds a hairy, rugged mountain man who couldn’t be more different from his social butterfly, influencer brother. Can Ethan transform Beau into the star of the show and fool his bosses and Chase’s followers? And when Beau turns out to be kind, romantic and everything that Chase is not, does he really want Chase back, anyway? A gorgeously uplifting queer romance that is a love letter to NYC, featuring a fake-fake boyfriend, opposites attract and a vintage convertible full of elderly drag queens, don’t miss the feelgood read of 2023! Fans of Casey McQuiston, Boyfriend Material and Beth O’Leary will love this.

This unique book provides a comprehensive introduction to the most popular syntax-based statistical machine translation models, filling a gap in the current literature for researchers and developers in human language technologies. While phrase-based models have previously dominated the field, syntax-based approaches have proved a popular alternative, as they elegantly solve many of the shortcomings of phrase-based models. The heart of this book is a detailed introduction to decoding for syntax-based models. The book begins with an overview of synchronous-context free grammar (SCFG) and synchronous tree-substitution grammar (STSG) along with their associated statistical models. It also describes how three popular instantiations (Hiero, SAMT, and GHKM) are learned from parallel corpora. It introduces and details hypergraphs and associated general algorithms, as well as algorithms for decoding with both tree and string input. Special attention is given to efficiency, including search approximations such as beam search and cube pruning, data structures, and parsing algorithms. The book consistently highlights the strengths (and limitations) of syntax-based approaches, including their ability to generalize phrase-based translation units, their modeling of specific linguistic phenomena, and their function of structuring the search space.

Qian Zhongshu was one of twentieth-century China's most ingenious literary stylists, one whose insights into the ironies and travesties of modern China remain stunningly fresh. Between the early years of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and the Communist takeover in 1949, Qian wrote a brilliant series of short stories, essays, and a comedic novel that continue to inspire generations of Chinese readers.

With this long-awaited translation, English-language readers can immerse themselves in the invention and satirical wit of one of the world's great literary cosmopolitans. This collection brings together Qian's best short works, combining his iconoclastic essays on the "book of life" from "Written in the Margins of Life" (1941) with the four masterful short stories of "Human, Beast, Ghost" (1946). His essays elucidate substantive issues through deceptively simple subjects-the significance of windows versus doors, for example, or the blind spots of literary critics--and assert the primacy of critical and creative independence. His stories blur the boundaries between humans, beasts, and ghosts as they struggle through life, death, and resurrection. Christopher G. Rea situates these works within China's wartime politics and Qian's literary vision, highlighting significant changes that Qian Zhongshu made to different editions of his writings and providing unprecedented insight into the author's creative process.

Garrand Medeville has become the trusted protector of 37 giant pandas genetically engineered to see the future in their dreams.

Trapped between Imperial saboteurs and marauding Gambor, Garrand attacked an Imperial Battle Frigate in a desperate attempt to scavenge spare parts for his ship. The ensuing battle took its toll: betrayed by his lover, Garrand lost all but two of the pandas to Imperial forces before he fought his way back to freedom.

Vice Proctor Hellius Barrett now plans to use the creatures' prophetic powers to launch a devastating war campaign. But first he must convince the tribe that he is the natural heir to their legacy, and that only he can keep them safe. If he cannot sway the Elders to his side, then he will reverse engineer the genetic process, sacrificing the pandas one by one until he is able to replicate the procedure.

Captain of the Imperial Guard Vailetta Strom's secret identity as the Emperor's illegitimate daughter has been well hidden for her entire life, but now she will be placed in charge of precognitive creatures that could bring down her father's empire. Together with Assassin Torg, she must navigate Lord Barrett's traitorous court and determine where her ultimate loyalties lie.

Reeling from their losses, Garrand and Sid Panda must learn to unravel the mysteries of the pandas' lyrical dreams-visions that they begin to translate into epic poetry-and discover a way to save the tribe before a billion souls are butchered under Lord Barrett's command.

The story of exiled hero Garrand Medeville, a soldier fated to lead 37 mysterious giant pandas to salvation, and his beautiful partner in the endeavor, a woman who will do anything to avenge the loss of her family.