HongKong will launch citywide COVID19 testing from Sep 1, which is expected to be completed within two weeks.
The HK govt will be responsible for sample collection, delivering samples, and the central govt will provide testing personnel and lab services. Without support of the central govt, Hong Kong cannot conduct the citywide testing
A WeChat users group that says it isn’t affiliated with the app’s owner filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration late Friday, seeking to block an executive order that would bar transactions with WeChat.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, claims the executive order is unconstitutional. It was filed by U.S. WeChat Users Alliance, a nonprofit organization, as well as other plaintiffs including a small business and several individuals.
Bloomberg reported that an army of corporate lobbyists are working with Team Trump to try and find a way to restrict WeChat’s use in the US without hamstringing every American company that depends on the app to connect with Chinese consumers.
According to sources from within the West Wing, the administration is still “working through the technicals” of how they’re going to restrict WeChat in the US while allowing American companies to liaise with it in foreign markets.
The Trump administration is signaling that U.S. companies can continue to use the WeChat messaging app in China, according to several people familiar with the matter, two weeks after President Donald Trump ordered a U.S. ban on the Chinese-owned service.
The administration is still working through the technical implications of how to enforce such a partial ban on the app, which is owned by Tencent Holdings Ltd., one of China’s biggest companies. A key question is whether the White House would allow Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to carry the app in its global app stores outside of the U.S., according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973; also known by her Chinese name Sai Zhenzhu; Chinese: 赛珍珠) was an American writer and novelist. As the daughter of missionaries, Buck spent most of her life before 1934 in Zhenjiang, China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling fiction book in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces”. She was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_S._Buck
After returning to the United States in 1935, she continued writing prolifically, became a prominent advocate of the rights of women and minority groups, and wrote widely on Chinese and Asian cultures, becoming particularly well known for her efforts on behalf of Asian and mixed-race adoption.
https://www.sohu.com/a/411037094_572660
In the prestigious Columbia University, the department of East Asian Studies, there is a post for special studies of Chinese culture and Han teachings called the “Dean Lung Professorship,” which was established and funded by Horace Walpole Carpentier in 1901 to commemorate Dean Lung, his illiterate but noble Chinese servant.
https://www.ixigua.com/6863135304874721804
近代中国史学泰斗钱穆记述了丁龙讲座的来历： 〝百年前广东有一华侨，名丁龙，居纽约。林肯总统时代，一将军退役后一人独居。雇一男仆，治理家务。但此将军性好漫骂，仆人辄不终约而去。丁龙亦曾为其家仆，亦以遭骂辞去。后此将军家遭火灾，独居极狼狈。丁龙闻之，去其家，愿复充仆役，谓其家乡有古圣人孔子，曾教人以恕道，曰：“己所不欲，勿施于人。”今将军遭火灾，独居，余曾为将军仆，闻讯不忍，愿请复役。此将军大叹赏，谓不知君乃读书人，能读古圣人书。丁龙言，余不识字，非读书人，孔子训乃由父亲告之。将军谓，汝父是一读书人，亦大佳。丁龙又谓，余父亦不识字，非一读书人。祖父曾祖父皆然。乃由上代家训，世世相传，知有此。此将军大加欣赏，再不加骂，同居相处如朋友。积有年，丁龙病，告将军，余在将军家，食住无虑，将军所赐工资，积之有年。今将死，在此无熟友，家乡无妻室，愿以此款奉还将军，以志积年相敬之私。丁龙卒。此将军乃将丁龙积款倍加其额，成一巨款，捐赠纽约哥伦比亚大学，创立一讲座，名之曰“丁龙讲座”。以专门研究中国文化为宗旨。至今此讲座尚在。但余居北平教读北大、清华、燕京三大学，教授多数以上全自美国留学归来，亦有自哥伦比亚毕业来者，但迄未闻人告余丁龙事。及余亲去美国，始获闻之。〞
A group[a] of at least six captive ravens are resident at the Tower of London. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect The Crown and the Tower; a superstition holds that “if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it.”
It was said that at the execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536, “Even the ravens of the Tower sat silent and immovable on the battlements and gazed eerily at the strange scene. A Queen about to die!”
Two ravens have been caught sneaking out of precincts of the Tower of London .
The Ryūkyū scops-owl or elegant scops-owl (Otus elegans) is a small rufous-brown owl with a brown face disk and a cinnamon facial ruff. The bill is olive-grey and it has yellow eyes.
It is found on the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan, on Lanyu Island off south-east Taiwan, and on the Batanes and Babuyan Islands off northern Luzon, Philippines, in tropical or subtropical evergreen forest. It is becoming rare due to habitat loss.
中医问闻望切四诊仪 主要组成及功能编辑
由舌面模块、脉象模块、问诊（体质辨识）模块、数据管理模块、传感器、内置数据处理工作站等组成。
适用范围：供医疗机构进行舌象、脉象、面色诊测信息采集及辅助体质辨识；供中医辨证参考用。
舌面模块
[工作原理 ]
在特定的光源环境下，采用照相机获得患者舌、面部位的图像信息，运用国际照明委员会（CIE）色差公式和支持向量机（SVM）、动态形状模型（ASM）等多项成熟先进技术，对舌体及面部图像的颜色、纹理、轮廓进行特征提取，将这些特征值与特征数据库中的阈值进行比对，给出舌象、面色分析结果。
[输出结果]
脉象模块
[工作原理 ]
采用特定触力面的压力传感器，对受试者脉搏压力信号进行采集，通过传感器将其转换为压力波的电信号，然后提取电信号中具有代表性的幅度值与时间值，与特征数据库中的阈值进行比对，给出脉象分析结果。
[输出结果]
脉象名称：浮 、沉 、迟 、数 、缓 、疾 、结 、代、促、虚、实、弦、紧、滑 、涩 、平等。
问诊（体质辨识）模块
[工作原理]
采用中华中医药学会ZYYXH/T157-2009《中医体质分类与判定》标准，通过问诊模块的人机交互，系统自动分析给出体质辨识结果。
[输出结果]
体质类型：平和质、气虚质、阳虚质、阴虚质、痰湿质、湿热质、血瘀质、气郁质、特禀质。
数据管理模块
舌面象模块
拍摄环境稳定，分析准确性高
采集装置有效像素1500万以上，分辨率与色彩还原性符合中医体质辨识临床应用的要求；
采集环境采用了具有自主知识产权的结构设计，能够模拟自然光照环境，均匀稳定、无反光、无阴影；
可根据不同的拍摄部位自动调整位置和角度，满足在同一光照环境中先后拍摄舌面图像的要求。
脉象模块
客观化信息采集，定量化脉图分析
脉搏采集部件符合人体工程学设计要求，能进行准确的取脉定位，并能模拟中医举、按、寻的诊脉过程，浮、中、沉三部全自动加压取脉，减少人为因素的干扰；
智能化软件分析，能自动进行特征提取、自动识别与滤除各种伪差，DS01-A型中医体质辨识系统可提供脉象分析结果。
问诊（体质辨识）模块
采用中华中医药学会ZYYXH/T157-2009《中医体质分类与判定》标准，通过问诊模块的人机交互，DS01-A型中医体质辨识系统自动分析给出体质辨识结果。
数据管理模块
信息输出丰富，查询统计快捷
可输出图示化、定量化的中医四诊信息，为中医临床疗效评估与科研提供参考依据；
可将中医四诊信息接入医院信息系统，支持中医电子病历建设；
可提供高级查找、信息回放、历次数据对比等功能，最大程度满足医生的应用需求
After defying world opinion to impose the national security law on Hong Kong, Beijing has suddenly started trying to soften its international image. Politburo member Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi have recently made conciliatory-sounding speeches, seemingly trying to arrest the deterioration in relations with the United States and others.
The logic behind this shifting of gears is probably complex, but an important component must be to rein in relations with Washington. As I told some scholars in China during a recent webinar, the upcoming US presidential election seems to offer both good and bad news for China. Beijing is trying to head off the bad news.
If you have trouble imagining what the good news might be, amid systematic efforts by the Trump administration to decouple the two countries, think about the US election. Despite four major speeches from cabinet-level officers, a host of executive orders and endless tweets from President Donald Trump, the American public remains focused on three major sets of issues: social disorder, the Covid-19 pandemic and the sorry state of the economy and employment. China is not high among them.
Since April, Trump and his team have tried to shift responsibility for the epidemic’s effects to China and its behaviour when the virus first appeared. Despite Trump calling it the “Chinese virus” and the “kung flu”, the American public is far more focused on his mismanagement of the pandemic and its effects at home than on Beijing’s responsibility for it. It’s quite a statement about Trump’s degree of mismanagement that efforts to stick the blame on China have failed.
This is where the bad news comes in. China has avoided moving to the top of the US election agenda partly because voters traditionally focus on domestic conditions and not foreign affairs during elections. The current triple-headed crisis will be difficult to dislodge.
The potential for that to change and China to become a central issue cannot be discounted, though. As the Pew Research Centre reported in late July, 73 per cent of US adults say they have an unfavourable view of China, up 26 per cent since 2018. The coronavirus and its effects have combined with rising authoritarianism, trade disputes and news from Hong Kong and Xinjiang to erode opinion towards China.
Anecdotally, I can attest that ordinary voters, whether for or against Trump, often say that at least he has tried to produce a long-overdue reset in relations with China. This is mirrored in the widespread notion that relations with China are due for a change, though not about exactly how to do so.
In this context, Beijing would be smart to call off its recent “wolf warrior” diplomacy and set a lower-key tone for its public rhetoric. Why? It would not take much more for all the anti-China sentiment to coalesce into an issue that Trump can use to change the topic from his mismanagement of the virus to China’s responsibility for the harm to the US population and economy.
If Trump succeeded in dislodging one or two of the major issues working against his re-election and put the focus on China, there would be no relief coming for Beijing from his Democratic opponent, former vice-president Joe Biden. The competition would more likely to be over who could be tougher on Beijing.
Between now and November would be an inauspicious time for tensions to rise suddenly in China’s activities with Taiwan, India or in the South or East China seas. It might help to avoid being seen as excessively draconian with Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well.
Lo and behold, China has dialled back its fiery rhetoric in the past two weeks, especially from the representatives of the Foreign Ministry. Beijing only ritually protested at the arrival of a US cabinet secretary in Taiwan, an event perhaps intended to provoke a stronger response. Troops have disengaged on the Line of Actual Control with India, and Chinese fishermen have been ordered to stay out of waters of the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands.
Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensionsWashington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions
Beijing is not out of the woods yet. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have suggested there is more to come in efforts by the administration to dismantle relations with China. It might be argued that some of Trump’s China hawks already see the writing on the wall for his defeat, believing now is their last chance to leave a legacy of significantly reducing relations with China.
The hawks have less than three months before the election to raise the ante, and a strong Chinese reaction could give them a win-win. They would win if Trump regains an electoral advantage over Biden, or they could win if they leave Biden a mess to clean up.
Douglas H. Paal 包道格 is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He previously served as vice-chairman of JPMorgan Chase International (2006–2008) and was an unofficial US representative to Taiwan as director of the American Institute in Taiwan (2002–2006).
https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3097971/us-china-relations-beijing-wise-ease-tensions-trump-seeks-election
