Ji Ruan - Jimagine » China

Johan’s Lecture in Beida

Ji — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:34:15 +0000

I was fortunate to attend Prof. Johan van Benthem’s lecture on logic dynamics in Beida. He was one of my master thesis supervisor back in 2004, and we last met was in Liverpool in March 2009 on occasion of celebrating Wiebe’s 50th Birthday. I am a big fan of him as he has set a great example of how a researcher can be. Here are some Photos. A video clip will appear later.

He came from Tinghua Campus on his bike (a typical dutch way)

Here is the complete album:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiruan/sets/72157627784013200/

我将在北大的学术报告：通用游戏竞赛的逻辑 (星期天 25-09-2011) 题目：通用游戏竞赛的逻辑 (Logic for General Game Playing) 主讲人：阮吉计算机科学和工程学院，新南威尔士大学，澳大利亚时间：九月二十五日，星期天，晚上8点地点：哲学系1层会议室...
My coming up seminar at Tsinghua University (Friday 23-09-2011) Date: Friday, 23 September, 2011 Location: 清华新斋335 1:30-3:30 PM Speaker:...

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我将在北大的学术报告：通用游戏竞赛的逻辑 (星期天 25-09-2011)

Ji — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 01:30:35 +0000

题目：通用游戏竞赛的逻辑 (Logic for General Game Playing)

主讲人：阮吉
计算机科学和工程学院，新南威尔士大学，澳大利亚

时间：九月二十五日，星期天，晚上8点
地点：哲学系1层会议室

摘要：通用游戏竞赛GGP（General Game Playing）的目标是创建能自主地学习游戏规则进行游戏比赛的通用智能系统。和1997年打败人类国际象棋冠军的深蓝系统不同的是，通用游戏系统的设计者事先不知道竞赛的具体游戏，而只是被告知所有游戏是用游戏描述语言GDL（Game Description Language）所描述。GDL是一种基于规则的逻辑编程语言。自从2005年通用游戏竞赛在国际人工智能会议AAAI举办以来，已经引起了广泛的兴趣和深入的研究。GDL本身也从只能描述完全信息游戏（例如象棋）扩展到也能描述非完全信息游戏（例如扑克）。我将首先介绍如何对游戏进行描述，然后深入讨论逻辑在游戏推理和刻画中的应用，并展示一些推理复杂性结果。

http://www.phil.pku.edu.cn/cllct/ann_content.php?msgid=215

更新：现场的照片

例子

提问

来自相册：
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiruan/sets/72157627656865185

My coming up seminar at Tsinghua University (Friday 23-09-2011) Date: Friday, 23 September, 2011 Location: 清华新斋335 1:30-3:30 PM Speaker:...

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My coming up seminar at Tsinghua University (Friday 23-09-2011)

Ji — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:16:18 +0000

Date: Friday, 23 September, 2011
Location: 清华新斋335

1:30-3:30 PM
Speaker: Patrick Girard
Department of Philosophy, The University of Auckland

Title: Logic in the Communities

Photo Update:

3：30- 5:30 PM
Speaker: Ji Ruan
School of Computer Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales

Title: A Logic for Knowledge Flow in Social Networks （社交网络中的知识流的逻辑）

Abstract: In this talk, I will present a formal framework for analysing the flow of information and knowledge through social networks. More specifically, we propose a multi-agent epistemic logic in which we can represent and reason about communicative actions based on social networks and the resulting knowledge and ignorance of agents. This logic is applied to formally analyse the “Revolt or Stay-at-home” problem where social networks play an important role in agents’ knowledge acquisition and decision-making. We evaluate our work by proving some mathematical properties of our new logic, including the fact that it generalises the existing Logic of Public Announcement. (This is a joint work with Prof. Michael Thielscher)

Reference Link.

Photo Update:

More photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jiruan/sets/72157627753995408/

Conference paper: A Logic for Knowledge Flow in Social Networks Title: A Logic for Knowledge Flow in Social Networks Authors: Ji Ruan...

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Why Should I Talk About Politics?

flickrp — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 03:32:44 +0000

高铁事故现场掩埋, originally uploaded by DigiPub.

An English-speaking friend asked me yesterday, why did you talk a lot of politics on Facebook (even sometimes in Chinese)?

Here is a simple answer: my parents and best friends are living in China, which is a high-speed train in a similar type of the ones crashed on 23 July in Wenzhou, China. What the China railway bureau (part of Chinese government) did was digging a big hole and burying the racked train at the second day.

I am not on that train right now, but what about my relatives and friends?

Above photo may not show correctly but here is a copy

Call for the Release of Ai WeiWei (and a personal message from Ji) I just sent this message to my friends around the...

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About ZHANG Rui’s art work for Loveaiww.blogspot.com

Ji — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 15:00:12 +0000

A month ago, I contacted Shi Jing, who was then a volunteer for the Chinese language website that I created to support the detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The website was originally named “Love Ai Weiwei” (Loveaiww.blogspot.com). Since its creation on April 4, I had renamed it twice, “Ai Ai Weiwei” for May and “i Love Weiwei” for June. Such changes were intended to remind people that it had been another month since Ai’s detainment. At the same time, I also changed the small image reflexing Ai in the side bar of this website. The following is a snap shot of the website on 18 June 2011.

I asked Jing whether she could create an image that serves as a theme image for the website in July (to replace the existing image in the green frame). We had no idea on whether Ai and his colleagues would be released in that month. My point was, no matter what would happen, we had to prepare for the worst in advance. Jing agreed to give a try and at the same time, she recommended her then roommate ZHANG Rui for an alternative candidate. Two days later, I contacted Rui and she said she was willing to help. And after another day, the world learned that Ai was released on bail. I was, of course, extremely happy about that news (see a picture of me at that moment).

But the story did not stop here. Ai was not allowed to talk to the media about what what he had suffered and some of his colleagues are still missing. That’s why I felt that the website should keep running. I did not contact Jing again about the side bar image since she should spend more time in taking care of her boyfriend WEN tao, who was released shortly after Ai’s release. It was a very long wait for her. I did talk to Rui and I was glad to learn that she was willing to continue working on this. A few days later, she showed me her first two oil paintings with title “Love Ai Weiwei”.

I like her work. The first painting shows clearly a beard face of Ai Weiwei and some shadows of two other unknown figures. The theme color is gray, which associates me with what Ai had been suffered from his 81-day detainment. “Who are those unknown figures?”, I was wondering; they might be the guards or policemen but I did not ask Rui. On July 15, The Washing Post reported that ”the two guards watched Ai Weiwei constantly, never speaking; they stared at him without ever moving their eyes; they stood close by even while he used the toilet; and when he took a shower, they just stood right next to him, even though they were getting totally wet.” Then I suddenly understood. The power of Rui’s work is that it gave out this message at the time that we knew very little about what Ai suffered.

The second painting is a more abstract version of the first one. One can barely recognize Ai’s face or see the guards, but a suspicious eye is clearly visible at the right side. You can imagine that the figure in the center represents not just Ai, but a person like Ai, such as Liu Xiaobo, Ran Yunfei, Wang Lihong and many others, who are fighting for the universal human rights for Chinese people but are detained or imprisoned by the authoritarian government we have in China now. It is wrong to imprison these good souls; it is right to express our true feelings of these good souls. This painting did not end with a negative message. “Love Ai Weiwei” in red font clearly expresses the love and support from the artist and from people like you and me.

These two paintings were published on Loveaiww site (link) on 27 June and the readers loved them as the post was among the top 10 most visited posts of the coming month. Rui was happy about this and she said Ai is an angle and she was planning to paint another one about Ai. She wanted to show what Ai really is and should be. Over the next two weeks, she gave me some updates from time to time. One challenging task she gave me was to give a name for this painting. I thought about it and figured out three:

Ai is Love
Ai is Love, Love is Ai
Ai is Love, Love should be Free

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet, and it is based on pronunciation. In Chinese, the sir name of Ai Weiwei 艾 has the same pronunciation as the character 爱 which means “Love” in English. The reason I have “Ai is Love” in all three options above is very clear: on the one hand Ai Weiwei gives his love to many people by fighting for their rights, and on the other hand, it beautifully connects Chinese Pinyin with English by the same meaning of love. Rui said she had a similar feeling on this and she picked the option 3 finally. By applying Aristotle’s Syllogism upon this title “Ai is Love, Love should be Free”, we can derive that “Ai should be Free”. Ai Weiwei is still not allowed to speak or travel freely, and the recent tax hearing shows that he is even not a major player in the charge. On July 8, Rui published her work on her own blog: http://blog.ruizhang.net/?p=57. And this becomes the new theme image of Loveaiww website.

This shows the yearning for love and freedom. This is the Ai Weiwei I want to see. Art can speak for itself, but I thought that by providing some additional information about the creation of these art works of Rui, you will be able to appreciate more about this young artist and her work.

Call for the Release of Ai WeiWei (and a personal message from Ji) I just sent this message to my friends around the...

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Call for the Release of Ai WeiWei (and a personal message from Ji)

Ji — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:09:33 +0000

I just sent this message to my friends around the world by email. Here it is in case I missed you in the mailing list.

Dear Friends:

A Chinese artist, Ai WeiWei, was detained 9 days and 8 hours ago by the Chinese authority due to his effort of promoting basic human rights (eg. freedom of speech) in China (apart from doing great art work, eg., Bird Nest, 100 Sunflower Seeds). The authority has been investigating his “crimes”, and the state news medias hinted that it was due to his “economic crimes” not “human rights crimes”. It is hardly convincing of course, if you know a bit about what he did publicly.

Here is a website about him:
http://www.freeaiweiwei.org
and a BBC Documentary: Imagine 2010 Ai Weiwei Without Fear or Favour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGpvby18tr8
(Note: Youtube is blocked in China)

As a Chinese, I am saddened by the recent suppression of freedom of many human rights defenders by the authority. My Chinese friend Teng Biao, who is a lecture and a human rights lawyer, has been disappeared since 19th February. Nobody knows where he is and no newspapers in China mention his name. He is not as famous as Ai WeiWei, so even the state medias do not bother to denounce him as what they did to Ai.

Personally, I would plea you to join this petition (as of now 19,041 supporters have signed):
http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei
I even made a small video about this to show you that I am serious about this. Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7QNEUmTtaM
(The background song is by a Chinese musician named Li Zhi, the title is “People Need No Freedom”.)

Please forward this message to your social networks if possible.

With Regards from Sydney,

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A Remarkable Moment of Google For China

Ji — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:54:26 +0000

On 2010, March, 23rd, 3AM (Beijing Time), Google announced that it would no longer censor the search results for the Chinese Government in Google.cn, which is subsequently redirected to Google.com.hk. I appreciate that Google has made such a brave decision to counter our Government to promote the freedom of Internet (freedom of Speech), which is universal human rights. Google Rocks!

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced—it’s entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China.

(see the whole announcement from Google Blog.)

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UK-China Fellowships for Excellence 2009

Ji — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:32:35 +0000

I received this message from the departmental mailing list in the University of Liverpool. I thought my readers might be interested.

Note: this fellowship is only for the researchers based on UK.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Wiebe van der Hoek
Date: Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 4:55 AM
Subject: Fwd: UK-China Fellowships for Excellence 2009
To: CSC-PHDS@liverpool.ac.uk

From: Neil Kemp [mailto:neil.kemp@nkeducation.com]
Sent: 29 September 2009 18:17
To: Neil Kemp
Subject: UK-China Fellowships for Excellence 2009
Importance: High

I am assisting DIUS to identify appropriate post-doctoral fellows for their China Fellowships programme (see below). I would therefore appreciate your help by forwarding this notice to any of your colleagues who might be interested in applying.

Best wishes, Neil

UK-China Fellowships for Excellence: 2009 Round 2

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) are pleased to announce Round 2 of the 2009 Fellowships for Excellence Programme (this in addition to the previous Round which ended July 2009). Up to 20 post-doctoral scholarships are available to top researchers who are based in either an English university or research institution wishing to undertake research in China or Hong Kong from Autumn 2009.

The Fellowships for Excellence scheme forms a central part of the Sino-UK Partners in Education programme and, so far, has enabled 30 or so young and outstanding post doctoral researchers to study and conduct cutting edge research at a Chinese university or research institution for up to one year. The 2009 tranche of awards will provide funding for up to 15 new awards for post doctoral researchers to undertake research and create lasting research links with a Chinese research department. Applications are welcome from all disciplines although preference will be given to areas directly related to science and technology. We would welcome especially applications from Sports Science researchers in recognition of each country’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008 and 2012.

In addition, a further 5 awards will be made available in 2009 for UK based researchers wishing to undertake research in Hong Kong.

Completed application forms should be sent electronically to uk.china@jiu.gsi.gov.uk by 30 October 2009.

Further Information
Further information on and the application form for the Fellowships for Excellence programme can be found on the BIS website atwww.bis.gov.uk/international/china, or you can email: uk.china@jiu.gsi.gov.uk.

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The Urumqi Tragedy (Updating)

Ji — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 23:36:41 +0000

On 5th July 2009, a tragic event happened in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Province, China. As of 9th July, it has been reported that 156 people died, and more than 1000 people injured. I was saddened by the news. So what happened? What are the causes of this tragic? What is still going on? Here is a list of information sources I collected. I will keep updating it until I know enough to answer these questions.

July 2009 Urumqi riots (Wikipedia)
Search for Han Chinese sister whose family were butchered by Uighurs (The Times, 10 July)
Roit Video 1 (*containing very disturbing images, Youtube)
Photos on 8th July (Boston.com)
The Urumqi Mass Incident (A compilation of news from many sources. *Containing very disturbing images)
Migrants Describe Grief From China’s Strife (New York Times)
The riots in Xinjiang: Is China fraying? (Economist.com)

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When GFW encounters Micor-Blogging (1)

Ji — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:59:32 +0000

I have only a Chinese version yet: #lvba #greendam

当GFW遭遇微博客（1）

In this first article, I try to analysis the huge impact of the uprising of micro-blogging services towards the Great Firewall (GFW), which is created by the Chinese government to censor the Chinese Internet. My website was blocked by the GFW from August 2008 to May 2009, so during that period, the users from China mainland could not directly access my website. Whenever they tried to connect to any page in jiruan.net, their web browsers would get a “The Connection Has Been Reset” error message.

I will argue that the micro-blogging services are making the GFW more difficult to stop the information flow to Chinese people. I believe that this is the very reason that recently Chinese government requested all the pc vendors in China install a censorship software called “Green Dam + Youth Escourt” by 1st July.

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