Special Section Guest Editorial: Image/Video Quality and System Performance

Rapid developments in display technologies, digital printing, imaging sensors, image processing and image transmission are providing new possibilities for creating and conveying visual content. In an age in which images and video are ubiquitous and where mobile, satellite, and three-dimensional (3-D) imaging have become ordinary experiences, quantification of the performance of modern imaging systems requires appropriate approaches. At the end of the imaging chain, a human observer must decide whether images and video are of a satisfactory visual quality. Hence the measurement and modeling of perceived image quality is of crucial importance, not only in visual arts and commercial applications but also in scientific and entertainment environments. Advances in our understanding of the human visual system offer new possibilities for creating visually superior imaging systems and promise more accurate modeling of image quality. As a result, there is a profusion of new research on imaging performance and perceived quality.

Cyborg Subjects: Discourses on Digital Culture

This book is an interrogation of humanity's new potentials and threats brought by technology when the question of social change is becoming more crucial than ever. Collected in the course of 2010-2012, the selected essays in this anthology confront questions from a wide-ranging perspective that evoke the postmodern idea of the cyborg to illuminate recent phenomena from global warming, Wikileaks, to the Occupy movements. Multiple disciplines from music to psychoanalysis to journalism to anthropology collaborate to examine the way we shape the world from behind our ubiquitous screens to taking to the streets in mass protests. What does the increasing omnipotence of networked machines ultimately mean? What do social networks do to our sense of self, others and society? Does P2P technology foster new ethics and spiritualities? What potentials does posthumanity have to bring about social change? Featuring essays from Robert Barry, Siri Driessen & Roos van Haaften, Bonni Rambatan, Dustin Cohen, Jacob Johanssen, Michel Bauwens, Aliki Tzatha, Zakary Paget, Stefen Baack, Alessandro Zagato, Peter Nikolaus Funke, Glenn Muschert, and Jung-Hua Liu.

Reducing job-irrelevant bias in performance and appraisals: compliance and beyond

Job-irrelevant discrimination seems as ubiquitous as the performance appraisals in which it is commonly detected. This paper explores both compliance-based and more proactive approaches that deal with the various possible sources of discrimination in performance appraisal ratings. The suggestions lead to a code of practice for performance management in firms across cultures and national boundaries.

Smart City-Regional Governance: A 'Dual Transition'

This paper introduces the concept of ‘dual transition’ in relation to the notion of ‘smartness’ in city-regional governance. This consists of two intersecting dimensions, a broader change in political-economic and societal circumstances which surround city-regions, and a more detailed, local change towards ‘smartness’ in policy practices. Although ‘smart’ seems to have become a somewhat ubiquitous adjective in urban policy, it seeks to project policies that seek to go beyond a one-dimensional ‘growth agenda’ by addressing also the multifaceted quest for social, economic and environmental sustainability. The underlying shift in discourse, rationality and suggested policy responses in both dimensions may be captured by the concept of ‘transition’ in relation to policies and governance. Originally developed in conjunction with broad political-economic regime change, such as post-authoritarian democratisation, the idea of ‘transition’ has also been applied to the more specific concept of sustainability as ‘sustainability transition’.