Mahjong Research Articles

A Restored Perspective

The recent retrospectives of Edward Yang’s cinematic oeuvre in Taiwan and North America have provided long-awaited access to his most overlooked works such as Du li shi dai (1994) and Ma jiang (1996). The last two films of his to undergo restoration, while seemingly uncharacteristic of Yang’s usual style, exhibit a remarkable consistency in his experimentation with various juxtapositions of sound, image, thought, and emotion. This essay explores how these satirical works yield fierce critiques of the pervasive materialism and the absence of independent thinking. In foregrounding dark comedy and ironic distance, these films offer timely ruminations on the difficult tensions and complex dynamics between individuals and society, and between tradition and modernity.

LsAc ∗‐MJ: A Low‐Resource Consumption Reinforcement Learning Model for Mahjong Game

This article proposes a novel Mahjong game model, LsAc ∗‐MJ, designed to address challenges posed by data scarcity, difficulty in leveraging contextual information, and the computational resource‐intensive nature of self‐play zero‐shot learning. The model is applied to Japanese Mahjong for experiments. LsAc ∗‐MJ employs long short‐term memory (LSTM) neural networks, utilizing hidden nodes to store and propagate contextual historical information, thereby enhancing decision accuracy. Additionally, the paper introduces an optimized Advantage Actor‐Critic (A2C) algorithm incorporating an experience replay mechanism to enhance the model’s decision‐making capabilities and mitigate convergence difficulties arising from strong data correlations. Furthermore, the paper presents a two‐stage training approach for self‐play deep reinforcement learning models guided by expert knowledge, thereby improving training efficiency. Extensive ablation experiments and performance comparisons demonstrate that, in contrast to other typical deep reinforcement learning models on the RLcard platform, the LsAc ∗‐MJ model consumes lower computational and time resources, has higher training efficiency, faster average decision time, higher win‐rate, and stronger decision‐making ability.

Impact of Mahjong Game on the Physical, Mental and Cognitive Health of the Elderly in China

Objective: The mahjong game is known for stimulating cognitive skills and improving the physical and mental functioning of particularly the elderly population. This study discusses how the mahjong game is extended from leisure and entertainment to improving the physical, mental and cognitive health of the elderly. Methodology: The study utilized a qualitative and explorative research design to examine the impact of mahjong activities on physical, cognitive and mental states of the elderly in China. The data was collected through both primary and secondary sources. Being empirical in nature, the study findings were analyzed through sorting techniques and content analysis, categorizing the impact into physical, cognitive and mental impacts. Results:The study found out severe impacts of the mahjong game on nervous system, cardiovascular system, nervous systems and digestive tract of the elderly. The study also evaluated the cognitive and emotional abilities of the elderly in some cases like dementia and depression, mahjong is reported to have positive effects. Conclusion: Elderly people should adjust the arrangement of recreational mahjong activities according to their conditions. The findings of this article would be beneficial and serve as a reference to future mahjong-related research. It may also be used therapeutically to treat emotional problems and poor coordination skills among the elderly.

Modifiable Lifestyle Factors Associated with Cognitive Recovery from MCI: A 12-Year Longitudinal Study

Introduction: Many studies have investigated the risk factors associated with progression from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to cognitive impairment, while it is unclear which lifestyle factors are associated with cognitive recovery among those who have mild cognitive impairment. Methods: The study includes 7,422 participants above 65 years old with MCI from The Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). Cox regression analysis was adopted to investigate the association between cognitive recovery and selected lifestyle factors. LASSO was applied to select the variables. Results: Daily consumption of fresh fruits is associated with higher possibility of cognitive recovery (HR: 1.28, 95% CI: 1.15-1.42) while daily consumption of meat show opposite influence (HR: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.80-0.99). Smoking (HR: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.98-1.00) and alcohol consumption (HR: 1.00, 95% CI: 0.99-1.00) are both negatively associated with cognitive recovery. Daily engagement in reading (HR: 1.24, 95% CI: 1.00-1.54), housework (HR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.08-1.35) as well as mahjong and other card games (HR: 1.23, 95% CI: 1.08-1.39) are associated with higher possibility of cognitive recovery. Conclusion: This study has identified important modifiable lifestyle factors associated with natural cognitive recovery from MCI. The findings have considerable implications for dementia prevention.

An efficient AI-based method to play the Mahjong game with the knowledge and game-tree searching strategy

The Mahjong game has widely been acknowledged to be a difficult problem in the field of imperfect information games. Because of its unique characteristics of asymmetric, serialized and multi-player game information, conventional methods of dealing with perfect information games are difficult to be applied directly on the Mahjong game. Therefore, AI (artificial intelligence)-based studies to handle the Mahjong game become challenging. In this study, an efficient AI-based method to play the Mahjong game is proposed based on the knowledge and game-tree searching strategy. Technically, we simplify the Mahjong game framework from multi-player to single-player. Based on the above intuition, an improved search algorithm is proposed to explore the path of winning. Meanwhile, three node extension strategies are proposed based on heuristic information to improve the search efficiency. Then, an evaluation function is designed to calculate the optimal solution by combining the winning rate, score and risk value assessment. In addition, we combine knowledge and Monte Carlo simulation to construct an opponent model to predict hidden information and translate it into available relative probabilities. Finally, dozens of experiments are designed to prove the effectiveness of each algorithm module. It is also worthy to mention that, the first version of the proposed method, which is named as KF-TREE, has won the silver medal in the Mahjong tournament of 2019 Computer Olympiad.

A novel deep residual network-based incomplete information competition strategy for four-players Mahjong games

The game theory is widely acknowledged to benefit a lot from recent advances in deep learning, and intelligent competition strategies have been proposed for both complete information games and incomplete information games in recent years. In this paper, the four-players Chinese Mahjong game, which is a typical incomplete information game, is emphasized, a low-level semantic pseudo image generated based on game related prior knowledge and a novel deep residual network-based competition strategy are introduced to play the Chines Mahjong game. Technically, the deep learning within this new competition strategy is realized by a series of “GoBlock”, which is a new deep learning model structure introduced in this paper. Also, the “GoBlock” is further made up of several “Inception+” sub-structures, which is novel as well. Comprehensive experiments are conducted to reveal the superiority of this new competition strategy. A great number of the Chinese Mahjong game data have been collected from an online Chinese Mahjong company to construct the dataset in this study, and the newly proposed competition strategy has been compared with several shallow learning-based methods as well as deep learning-based methods. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis have been conducted based on outcomes obtained by all compared methods, and the superiority of the new competition strategy over others are suggested. Furthermore, an interesting competition among the new AI competition strategy and three real senior players are also introduced in this paper. The effectiveness and efficiency of the new competition strategy over real senior human players are also revealed by quantitative analysis based on four measures, from the statistical point of view. It is also necessary to point out that, this work is the first attempt to tackle the Mahjong game, which is a typical incomplete information game, from the deep learning perspective.

WELLNESS MAHJONG – AN EFFECTIVE RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY AND HEALTHY PATHWAY TO FULFILLING ACTIVE AGING FOR ELDERLY

Wellness Mahjong focuses on using the traditional mahjong game to motivate the elderly lived and played actively by participating in the tournament organized under the modern sports model. The main purpose is to help the elderly to maintain a “healthy” body and mind, expand their “interesting” social circus, and feel the “vitality” of life. An experiment using the fNIRS to conduct “The Impact of Mahjong on the Cerebral Activity”, the results showed that mahjong plays an effective role in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease because respondents who actively play mahjong have a healthy brain by effectively activating the cerebral nerve cells. Wellness Mahjong allows the elderly have a thing to do and a place to go – it is crucial to the present aging era as it helps the elderly to expand their interesting social interactions as well as to achieve a healthy and vitality of life.

Implementasi Algoritma Greedy pada Pencarian Langkah Optimal Permainan Mahjong Solitaire

The game of mahjong solitaire is a difficult tough teaser and takes a long time to complete when manually played by the user. The greedy algorithm is applied to find the optimal step in completion of this solitaire mahjong game. The algorithm used in this research is greedy algorithm. The result of this research is game of mahjong solitaire with 5 model of tile arrangement where game can be completed manually or automatically by greedy algorithm. The greedy algorithm is applied to compare the acquisition of the most tile pairs in the 1 step forward when 1 pair of tiles is removed. The conclusion of this study is from 250 times testing of 5 levels of the game where the test at each level as much as 50 times, obtained the victory as much as 168 times and defeat as much as 82 times. So the percentage of success of greedy algorima in completion of game of solitaire mahjong is 67.2%. While in manual testing, from 250 times the test of 5 levels of the game where the test at each level as much as 50 times by 5 players, obtained 161 victories and defeat 89 times. So the percentage of success of greedy algorima in game settlement is 64.4%.

Comparison of Cortical Activation during Mahjong Game Play in a Video Game Setting and a Real-life Setting

The purpose of this study was to compare the hemodynamic changes that occur during Mahjong game play in virtual and real-life settings. Fourteen healthy right-handed men (average age ± standard deviation; 36.7 ± 14.9 years) played: 1) a Mahjong solitaire game on a video console against virtual rivals; 2) a Mahjong game against human opponents without conversation; and 3) a Mahjong game against human opponents with conversation. We measured oxygenated hemoglobin concentration at 44 locations over both hemispheres during Mahjong game play in each setting using near-infrared spectroscopy. The increase in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration at several locations, including Broca’s area, the somatosensory cortex, the somatosensory association cortex, the supramarginal gyrus part of Wernicke’s area, the primary and auditory association cortex, the angular gyrus part of Wernicke’s area, and the associative visual cortex was greater during game play in the real-life settings than during game play in the video game setting. There were no significant differences during game play in real-life settings without and with conversation. Each cortical area correlated with broad or specific areas. The common correlation areas were found at Angular gyrus part of Wernicke’s area of left hemisphere during real-life settings without and with conversation, but not during game play in a video game setting. These results suggest that the brain responds differently to game play in real world and virtual world settings, and indicate that comparison of games played in the virtual world and the real world may be an effective model to enhance understanding of the effects of video game on the brain.

A new RFID-based and ontological recreation system for blind people

More than five million people are blind in China. Computer game should be attractive to them for leisure time, especially Mahjong. Ontology theory has been adopted to retrieve its knowledge and the low-cost RFID as the mediation between the blind player and computer. We designed an autonomous computer platform called Blind Mahjong Game (BMG), which includes 144 Mahjong tiles and voice prompt function. BMG comprises a plurality of Mahjong cubes (stuck RFID tag) their location in the Mahjong-selection tray or Mahjong-discard tray, a plurality of Chow-Pong-Kong-Win indicator cubes, a win frame, a tile frame, at least one RFID reader connected to BMG by USB port gateway to transmit an RF signal. As compared to current static or drab game for the blind, BMG has been certified by two patents in Taiwan which have shown that its software and hardware integrated novelty, progress and utilisation in the application of RFID technology for the blind.

Rooted in Field Research: A Day in the Life of Betty Klepper

Rooted in Field Research: A Day in the Life of Betty Klepper

Participation and expenditure of migrants in the illegal lottery in China’s Pearl River Delta

Using a unique data-set from the Pearl River Delta in China, we examine the factors associated with rural-urban migrants’ participation in and expenditure on illegal gambling. The characteristics that have the largest marginal effects on participation and expenditure are gender, whether one also participates in the legal lottery and playing mahjong and other card games. Of the variables specific to the migration experience, we find that living in a factory dormitory increases the probability of participating in the illegal lottery, and that migrants who are unwilling to give up their farmland are less likely to participate in the illegal lottery. We also find that having a network of female friends is negatively correlated with participation in the illegal lottery. However, other variables specific to migrants, such as willingness to obtain a local hukou and remittances, were found to have an insignificant effect on participation.

Designing an Anti-swindle Mahjong Leisure Prototype System using RFID and ontology theory

Mahjong11http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong and http://atawmj.org.tw is the quintessential Chinese game. It is played with 144 tiles and each game has 16 rounds. Opportunities for cheating abound during each round of play. Video recording is the traditional method for preventing cheating, but it has significant flaws. These deficiencies are overcome by the Anti-swindle Mahjong Leisure System (AMLPS) which uses mature RFID technology and employs ontology to capture Mahjong playing knowledge from a focus group. Unlike current non-IT-based Mahjong systems, AMLPS has computing capabilities which make it applicable to other games such as bridge or chess. AMLPS has proven to be unique in the field of Mahjong games; it has two patents registered with Taiwan’s Intellectual Property Office. The low cost of AMLPS gives it significant potential market value.

Narratives as tools for interpretation: Hong Kong life through the lens of 1970s’ cinema

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. In one of the episodes, a successful middle‐aged male doctor is the target of blackmail. He was tricked into visiting a female patient and then drugged. Under the influence of the drug he lost control and was manipulated into doing foolish and embarrassing acts, one of which was to dress in a flimsy female nightgown and layers of female underwear while he waited for his suit, which was soaked in an accident, to dry. Although the male body was shown to be wearing the very same clothes that clad the female bodies, the effect was really hilarity rather than sexual consumption. 2. This is an individual popular song written and sung by Sam Hui, Michael Hui’s younger brother, who was also a main character in the comedy The Private Eyes (1976) which established the Hui Brothers’ production as a new kind of local comedy reflecting local concerns/identity. The fun of the song comes not only from the lyrics, which vividly described a mahjong game and people’s moves, but also because it was based on a song originally describing the martial arts hero. The grand and the trivial make a comic comparison. The theme of Hong Kong people’s obsession with mahjong playing is described in another film by the Hui brothers, Games Gamblers Play (1974).

Mah-Jong-induced epilepsy: a special reflex epilepsy in Chinese society

We present five patients of epilepsy in which seizures were triggered by playing or watching the traditional Chinese gambling game “Mah-Jong.” One patient also experienced seizures while playing a computer version of the Mah-Jong game. This condition appeared to have a predominance of males (80%) and middle-aged onset (39.4 years). Four patients had generalized tonic-clonic seizures and one patient had partial seizures with secondary generalization. No spontaneous seizure occurred in these patients. Three patients had been receiving antiepileptic drug therapy, but without effective control over their seizures. Mah-Jong-induced epilepsy is a very peculiar form of complex reflex epilepsy that involves the higher mental activities. This phenomenon may consist of distinct pathophysiologic mechanisms from other reflex epilepsy induced by thinking and spatial tasks in idiopathic generalized epilepsies. This unusual reflex epilepsy is relatively benign in nature and antiepileptic drug therapy has uncertain benefits. It may be necessary to avoid playing the Mah-Jong game in order to prevent seizures.

Automatic Commentary System Based on Multiple Viewpoints with Different Amount of Information

Previous commentary systems generate commentaries only from the viewpoint of a commentator. However there are various viewpoints for comments, and such different viewpoints invoke various comments. The amount of information about a situation may differ between the viewpoints, and the understandings of the situation may also differ between them. In this paper, we propose a method to generate commentaries automatically so that users can easily understand situations by taking into account the different understandings of the situations between viewpoints. Our method is composed of two parts. The first is generation of comment candidates about the current situation, unexpected actions, intentions of players by using a game tree. The second is comment selection which chooses comments related to the prior one so that listeners can compare the situations from different viewpoints. Based on our approach, we implemented an experimental system that generates commentaries on mahjong games. We discuss the output of the system.

Asymmetric somatosensory activation with right- vs left-hand stimulation: a positron emission tomographic study

Metabolic activation of the right and left somatosensory cortices (SSC) in response to an active sensorimotor task (palpation and sorting of mah jongg tiles) was studied in 16 right-handed normal volunteers using positron emission tomography (PET) and a double-injection [ 18F]fluorodeoxyglucose strategy. In 8 subjects with right-hand stimulation, cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (CMRglc) in the contralateral SSC increased by 16.7 ± 5.1% ( mean±S.D.); the increase in the ipsilateral SSC was 4.8 ± 3.2% In contrast, in the 8 subjects with left-hand stimulation, the contralateral increase was 12.0 ± 2.9% and the ipsilateral increase was 5.9 ± 1.5%. Thus, contralateral SSC activation was significantly higher with stimulation of the right hand, while the ipsilateral/contralateral symmetry of activation was greater when the left hand was stimulated.

DERMATITIS DUE TO JAPANESE LACQUER

It has long been established 1 that Japanese lacquer is a dermal irritant, but it was Pusey's report 2 of a case of lacquer dermatitis, solved through the ingenious work of L. F. Weber, which aroused particular interest in the subject in this country. Soon after that, Wayson 3 reported cases in canneries, where every can passed through a hot bath of a commercial lacquer and gasoline and often caused papulovesicular dermatitis among the workers. When the game of mah jong became popular in this country, instances of dermatitis venenata from lacquer on the boxes of mah jong sets were recognized and reported. 4 The fact that lacquered bowls, plates and cups are in use and that they may be the source of irritation has received little if any attention. The following report of a case illustrates this and also demonstrates the need for better interpretation of cause and effect.

DERMATITIS VENENATA FROM THE LACQUER ON THE BOXES OF MAH JONGG SETS

The increasing popularity of mah jongg has brought to my attention a number of cases of dermatitis of the hands and face in which I have suspected that the irritating agent was the Japanese lacquer with which the mah jongg sets are varnished. In the subjoined case this was definitely proved to be the etiologic factor. REPORT OF CASE A man, aged 38, who had been under my care for several years with a mild ichthyosis and at various times had had an eczematoid ringworm of the feet, presented himself, Dec. 24, 1923, with a vesicular dermatitis of the right forearm. The diagnosis I made at this time was a plant dermatitis, as inquiry elicited the fact that he had ferns and other plants in his apartment. Under soothing local applications (calamine lotion) the eruption subsided in a few days. On the morning of December 30, I was called to

DERMATITIS VENENATA FROM THE LACQUER ON THE BOXES OF MAH JONGG SETS

The development of a cutaneous inflammation subsequent to contact with a chemical is, of course, familiar. The term dermatitis venenata is applied to the various conditions due to chemical irritation. Recently I have observed several cases in which it was apparent that the instigating chemical agent was present in the lacquer on the boxes of mah jongg sets. It is my purpose in this communication to call attention to this etiologic factor in the production of a form of dermatitis which promises to become common. REPORT OF CASE J. B., a man, aged 26, a silk salesman, was referred by his physician as suffering from a vesicular inflammation of the skin. The history, as described, was that for one week the eyelids had been swollen, and that the skin of the adjacent cheeks had shown vesicles on an inflammatory base. Similar lesions had developed prior to this on the fingers