This article examines Chinese animationBaishe: Yuanqi(White Snake) () and discusses how ecoaesthetics are intertwined with questions of gender representations. Ecoaesthetics are broadly defined to consider the relationship between the human and natural world via de-anthropocentrism – which is the criticism of a human-centred view of the world that surrounds us. The filmWhite Snakefocuses on a man who becomes a monster to be with the creature he loves. This article argues thatWhite Snakeprovides a multi-species model for ecocriticism. On the one hand, the film presents ecological thoughts that showcases a contradictory but symbiotic relationship between human and non-humans; on the other hand, the film neglects the connection between ecoaesthetics and feminist criticism so that it ends up portraying an ecological system that is under the inveterate patriarchal reign and therefore violates ideas around equality in ecoaesthetics. I propose a notion becoming-monster to decipher this ambivalent ecoaesthetic representation. The representation of becoming-monster showcases the harmony that can potentially exist between the human and the non-human appealing de-anthropocentric actions while the ideal image of the equality between human and non-human others is in fact under the male gaze.
Estimations on people movement behaviour within a country can provide valuable information to government strategic resource plannings. In this paper, we propose to utilize multi-domain statistical data to estimate people movements under the assumption that most population tend to move to areas with similar or better living conditions. We design a Multi-domain Matrix Factorization (MdMF) model to discover the underlying consistency patterns from these cross-domain data and estimate the movement trends using the proposed model. This research can provide important theoretical support to government and agencies in strategic resource planning and investments.
As charging-while-driving (CWD) technology advances, charging lanes can be deployed in the near future to charge electric vehicles (EVs) while in motion. Since charging lanes will be costly to deploy, this paper investigates the deployment of two types of charging facilities, namely charging lanes and charging stations, along a long traffic corridor to explore the competitiveness of charging lanes. Given the charging infrastructure supply, i.e., the number of charging stations, the number of chargers installed at each station, the length of charging lanes, and the charging prices at charging stations and lanes, we analyze the charging-facility-choice equilibrium of EVs. We then discuss the optimal deployment of charging infrastructure considering either the public or private provision. In the former, a government agency builds and operates both charging lanes and stations to minimize social cost, while in the latter, charging lanes and stations are assumed to be built and operated by two competing private companies to maximize their own profits. Numerical experiments based on currently available empirical data suggest that charging lanes are competitive in both cases for attracting drivers and generating revenue.