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We have been developing a communication robot “advice robot” that encourages and suggests actions to an elderly person, such as having a meal, taking a bath, taking medicine, etc. If the robot’s affective expressions are weak, an elderly user may not be able to understand or follow the robot’s suggestions. We focused on the vertical line and shadow techniques used in manga, or Japanese comics, to strengthen the affective expressions of disgust and fear, which can be difficult for the robot to express. The results of our experiment showed that the impression of disgust was strengthened by adding vertical lines. On the other hand, the impression of fear could not be strengthened by using the manga techniques. However, when the vertical lines were added to a happy face, the impression of fear was greater than when the lines were added to a fearful face.

This chapter addresses a testing issue of divisions between vertical lines and horizontal blocks in PRC governance. Rather than an approach, it is more a problem in a governance approach. It is an issue of balance between centralization and de-centralization or devolution, mimicked by vertical versus horizontal divisions. The former corresponds to a centralized top-down approach while the latter devolves the central power to administrative divisions, i.e., the blocks. There have been constant alternations between the emphases on the two approaches while divisions have been accompanied by connexions. After introducing the related notions, the chapter elaborates on divisions and connexions in action, being illustrated with diverse real world cases to demonstrate the varied links and commanding lines between governments and government departments and agencies at higher and lower levels. In addition, government departments and agencies in three categories of a province are studied comprehensively as examples of divisions and connexions in practice. Finally, swings and controversies in alternations in divisions and connexions are discussed, to reveal trending one directional alternations and shambolic alternations, also with real world cases and examples.

A graph is called a bar 1-visibility graph, if its vertices can be represented as horizontal vertex-segments, called bars, and each edge corresponds to a vertical line of sight which can traverse another bar. If all bars are aligned at one side, then the graph is an aligned bar 1-visibility graph, \(AB1V\) graph for short.

In bringing forward the accessibility-diagnosticity theory, Feldman and Lynch (1988) suggested that information influences a consumer’s evaluation of a brand extension as long as it is accessible and diagnostic. Accessibility refers to the contextual ease of retrieving a piece of information from memory for input into a judgment (Feldman and Lynch 1988) and diagnosticity is the degree to which that piece of information is relevant for that judgment (Meyvis and Janiszewski 2004). Kardes et al. (2004) argued that products and brands can rarely be described completely by consumers, who mostly form inferences based on the information available (e.g. recent advertising, point-of-purchase displays) to them at the time of judgment.

There are several other situations where the idea of a limit is needed. This section states the definitions for some of these situations and gives a theorem that is useful when trying to find limits.