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This thesis examines the subcultural politics of the "cut-out generation" in 1990s China. It is driven by a double aspiration, and aims to bridge gaps in two main fields of literature. The first aspiration is a historical one: I offer a fine historical account of the "cut-out generation" as a slice of 1990s Chinese society, which remained overlooked in Chinese studies. The second aspiration is a theoretical one: I interrogate existing theories and concepts in the larger field of cultural studies, including music and materiality, subculture and profanity, regime of value and structure of feeling, with evidence found in this Chinese case, and point toward a comprehensive framework for the analysis of subcultural politics. The methodological approach consists of 72 in-depth life history interview and archival analysis of a "cut-out archive", both conducted through an "ethnographic imagination" lens. The thesis unpacks subcultural politics by looking into the materiality of subcultural objects, the sensuous interactions between people and things, and the dialectical interplay between a subculture and its historical, structural settings. It has three main empirical foci corresponding to each empirical chapter and organized under three theoretical themes: politics of value, dialectics of profanity, and structure of feeling. The first empirical chapter (politics of value) investigates three contested materialities of the cut-outs as plastic scrap, defective records, and "music info", demonstrating in this way the different regimes of value which the cut-outs travelled through. The second one (dialectics of profanity) reveals how the cut-outs became a music object whose profanity was realized in various sensuous and creative relationships formed with Chinese consumers. The last empirical chapter (structure of feeling) provides a historicized analysis of the structure of feeling of the "cut-out generation", which functioned as an affective infrastructure which both "emerged" from and "penetrated" the historical context of 1990s China.

This dissertation addresses the ultimate strength analysis of nonlinear beam-columns under axial compression, the sensitivity of the ultimate strength, structural optimization and reliability analysis using ultimate strength analysis, and Reliability-Based Design Optimization (RBDO) of the nonlinear beam-columns. The ultimate strength analysis is based on nonlinear beam theory with material and geometric nonlinearities. Nonlinear constitutive law is developed for elastic-perfectly-plastic beam cross-section consisting of base plate and T-bar stiffener. The analysis method is validated using commercial nonlinear finite element analysis. A new direct solving method is developed, which combines the original governing equations with their derivatives with respect to deformation matric and solves for the ultimate strength directly. Structural optimization and reliability analysis use a gradient-based algorithm and need accurate sensitivities of the ultimate strength to design variables. Semi-analytic sensitivity of the ultimate strength is calculated from a linear set of analytical sensitivity equations which use the Jacobian matrix of the direct solving method. The derivatives of the structural residual equations in the sensitivity equation set are calculated using complex step method. The semi-analytic sensitivity is more robust and efficient as compared to finite difference sensitivity. The design variables are the cross-sectional geometric parameters. Random variables include material properties, geometric parameters, initial deflection and nondeterministic load. Failure probabilities calculated by ultimate strength reliability analysis are validated by Monte Carlo Simulation. Double-loop RBDO minimizes structural weight with reliability index constraint. The sensitivity of reliability index with respect to design variables is calculated from the gradient of limit state function at the solution of reliability analysis. By using the ultimate strength direct solving method, semi-analytic sensitivity and gradient-based optimization algorithm, the RBDO method is found to be robust and efficient for nonlinear beam-columns. The ultimate strength direct solving method, semi-analytic sensitivity, structural optimization, reliability analysis, and RBDO method can be applied to more complicated engineering structures including stiffened panels and aerospace/ocean structures.