Suchergebnisse

Our understanding of antique imaging is not immediate, the identification of some depicted scenes or figures is sometimes problematic, especially in the absence of unambiguous iconographic or textual codes. We will take as examples two headers of Athenian alliance treaties from the first half of the 4th century before our era between Athens and Corcyre on the one hand and Athens and four Peloponnese cities and territories on the other. The composition of the scenes of these two bas-reliefs is indeed similar, yet the identification of two different figures differs: in one case, it would be Zeus and Hera, in the other, personifications of the city of Corcyre or the Peloponnese and the dèmos. With these two examples, we will illustrate the complexity of the relationship between this type of representation and the associated registration, by questioning the criteria for the representation and identification of figures of divinity or personifications. A closer study of the veil gestures adopted by the central female figure, whose identity is in question, thus allows a genuine ideological reading of these documents, on the side of what will be called a 'diplomatic marriage scene'. ; International audience Our understanding of ancient imagery is not immediate, so identifying certain scenes or figures is sometimes problematic, especially in the absence of unambiguous iconographic codes or inscriptions. This article focuses on the reliefs above two Athenian treaties from the first half of the 4th century B.C., one stipulates an alliance between Athens and Korkyra, and the other between Athens and four cities and territories in the Peloponnese. The composition of both bas-reliefs is similar, but the identification of two figures differs: on the one hand, they could be Zeus and Hera, on the other, a personification of the city of Korkyra or of the Peloponnese, and of the Demos. These two examples illustrate the complex relationships between this kind of iconography and the inscription by examining the criteria for ...

China is moving towards a 'Russian' view of hybrid and proxy warfare - particularly in cyberspace. Russia's annexation of Crimea and the crisis in Ukraine have affected Chinese views of territorial sovereignty and peripheral stability. Chinese analysts are applying lessons learned from Ukraine to their own regional and international environment. An examination of 434 Chinese-language documents on the Ukraine crisis provides insights into how Chinese academics, economists, engineers, officials and military personnel view Russian tactics and strategy, as well as Western intentions, and suggests that China is moving towards a more holistic and 'Russian' view of hybrid and proxy warfare - particularly in cyberspace. (Survival / SWP)

President Xi Jinping formally publicised China's "One Belt One Road" (OBOR) initiative while inaugurating the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference at Hainan on March 28, 2015. Simultaneously, the National Development and Reform Commission of China released the full document at Beijing, which lays out a comprehensive plan for OBOR's implementation in the years ahead. The proposal consists of two distinct parts. One is the Silk Road Economic Belt, stretching across Asia to the Atlantic Ocean; and the other is the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, linking China's eastern sea board to the Indian Ocean and to the Persian Gulf and East Africa. The importance of this initiative must not be underestimated. It is the centrepiece of the economic, political and strategic policy framework of the Fifth Generation Leadership of China under Xi Jinping. Some have suggested that OBOR is a version of China's Marshal Plan. Others have argued that this is one way to expand China's economy and invest China's surplus foreign reserves for its greater economic and strategic advantage. It is likely to also give a boost to the PLA Navy's far sea activities and an expanded role in the Indian Ocean and beyond. Whatever it may end up being in practice, there is no doubt that it will impact in a significant way on Asia and on parts of Europe.

China's total trade amount in 2015 recorded 3,882 billion dollars, a 9.6% decrease compared to last year. In particular, imports (-18.4%) have dropped by a larger percentage than ex-ports (-2.7%), and the degree of the fall is larger than in 2009 (-11.3%), when the global financial crisis hit economies. The causes behind this dramatic decline of China's imports are numerous, including the slowdown of the global economy, drops in global raw material prices, and increase of import substitution thanks to enhanced industrial structures. But the main underlying cause is that processing trade has decreased as the Chinese government undertook a policy transition from a growth strategy focused on investment and export to one led by domestic demand.

As of recent, economic integration activities, including China's 'One Belt, One Road' policy and Russia's Eurasian Economic Union, are being actively implemented around the Eurasian region. In the rapidly-changing environment of international relations, the promotion of cooperation between Central Asia and Korea, located respectively in eastern and central Eurasia, has geological and geopolitical values. Central Asia sits in the middle of the Eurasian Continent, and is the heartland where the national strategies of China (One Belt, One Road), Russia (Eurasian Economic Union), and the United States (New Silk Road) intersect. Given its geo-strategic importance and economic development potential, the advancement of the cooperative relationship between Korea and Central Asian countries will contribute to opening up a new horizon in Eurasian economic cooperation in terms of transportation, logistics, energy, and trade network-building.

International audience The assignment of prosodic events (accent and phrasing) from the text is crucial in text-to-speech synthesis systems. This paper addresses the combination of linguistic and metric constraints for the assignment of prosodic events in text-to-speech synthesis. First, a linguistic processing chain is used to provide a rich linguistic description of a text. Then, a novel statistical representation based on a hierarchical HMM (HHMM) is used to model the prosodic structure of a text: the root layer represents the text, each intermediate layer a sequence of intermediate phrases, the pre-terminal layer the sequence of accents, and the terminal layer the sequence of linguistic contexts. For each intermediate layer, a segmental HMM and information fusion are used to fuse the linguistic and metric constraints for the segmentation of a text into phrases. A set of experiments conducted on multi-speaker databases with various speaking styles reports that: the rich linguistic representation improves drastically the assignment of prosodic events, and the fusion of linguistic and metric constraints significantly improves over standard methods for the segmentation of a text into phrases. These constitute substantial advances that can be further used to model the speech prosody of a speaker, a speaking style, and emotions for text-to-speech synthesis.

Ahead of the Bandung Asian-African Summit in Indonesia this past April, statements from Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's office suggests a long-range view for enhancing relationships on the continent. Driven by "commitment in strengthening cooperation" and achieving "prosperity through South-South cooperation," Malaysia is expressing great enthusiasm in exploring opportunities across Africa. Indeed, the continent could find itself playing a central role as part of Malaysia's effort to develop a latticework of political and trade relationships with developing nations. Since the 1990s, Singapore's northern neighbour has undertaken a sustained effort to build partnerships across the developing world as part of its vision to achieve greater resiliency on the global stage through political and economic diversification.3 The Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme has featured strongly as a mechanism to deepen bilateral relationships with developing countries, welcoming more than 20,000 participants from 138 countries since launching in 1978.4 In the wake of the recent financial crisis, this commitment to South-South cooperation has certainly been renewed.