Mawson the astrobiologist rover : towards automatic recognition of stromatolites

This work aims at developing a planetary rover capable of acting as an assistant astrobiologist: making a preliminary analysis of the collected visual images that will help to make better use of the scientists time by pointing out the most interesting pieces of data. This paper focuses on the problem of detecting and recognising particular types of stromatolites. Inspired by the processes actual astrobiologists go through in the field when identifying stromatolites, the processes we investigate focus on recognising characteristics associated with biogenicity. The extraction of these characteristics is based on the analysis of geometrical structure enhanced by passing the images of stromatolites into an edge-detection filter and its Fourier Transform, revealing typical spatial frequency patterns. The proposed analysis is performed on both simulated images of stromatolite structures and images of real stromatolites taken in the field by astrobiologists.

Combining multiple sensor modalities for a localisation robust to smoke

This paper proposes an approach to obtain a localisation that is robust to smoke by exploiting multiple sensing modalities: visual and infrared (IR) cameras. This localisation is based on a state-of-the-art visual SLAM algorithm. First, we show that a reasonably accurate localisation can be obtained in the presence of smoke by using only an IR camera, a sensor that is hardly affected by smoke, contrary to a visual camera (operating in the visible spectrum). Second, we demonstrate that improved results can be obtained by combining the information from the two sensor modalities (visual and IR cameras). Third, we show that by detecting the impact of smoke on the visual images using a data quality metric, we can anticipate and mitigate the degradation in performance of the localisation by discarding the most affected data. The experimental validation presents multiple trajectories estimated by the various methods considered, all thoroughly compared to an accurate dGPS/INS reference.

An imagery-based road map to tackle maladaptive motivation in clinical disorders

There is now a widespread recognition of the importance of mental imagery in a range of clinical disorders (1). This provides the potential for a transdiagnostic route to integrate some aspects of these disorders and their treatment within a common framework. This opinion piece argues that we need to understand why imagery is such a central and recurring feature, if we are to progress theories of the origin and maintenance of disorders. This will aid us in identifying therapeutic techniques that are not simply targeting imagery as a symptom, but as a manifestation of an underlying problem. As papers in this issue highlight, imagery is a central feature across many clinical disorders, but has been ascribed varying roles. For example, the involuntary occurrence of traumatic memories is a diagnostic criterion for PTSD (2), and it has been suggested that multisensory imagery of traumatic events normally serves a functional role in allowing the individual to reappraise the situation (3), but that this re-appraisal is disabled by extreme affective responses. In contrast to the disabling flashbacks associated with PTSD, depressed adults who experience suicidal ideation often report “flash forward” imagery related to suicidal acts (4), motivating them to self-harm. Socially anxious individuals who engage in visual imagery about giving a talk in public become more anxious and make more negative predictions about future performance than others who engage in more abstract, semantic processing of the past event (5). People with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) frequently report imagery of past adverse events, and imagery seems to be associated with severity (6). The content of intrusive imagery has been related to psychotic symptoms (7), including visual images of the catastrophic fears associated with paranoia and persecution. Imagery has been argued (8) to play a role in the maintenance of psychosis through negative appraisals of imagined voices, misattribution of sensations to external sources, by the induction of negative mood states that trigger voices, and through maintenance of negative schemas. In addiction and substance dependence, Elaborated Intrusion (EI) Theory (9, 10) emphasizes the causal role that imagery plays in substance use, through its role in motivating an individual to pursue goals directed toward achieving the pleasurable outcomes associated with substance use...

Muusikon mentaaliharjoittelu : Konsertoivan ja opettavan pianistin mentaaliharjoittelu

This research explores the foci, methods and processes of mental training by pianists who are active as performers and teachers. The research is based on the concept of mental training as a solely mental mode of practising. Musician s mental training takes place without an instrument or the physical act of playing. The research seeks answers to questions: 1) What are the foci of a pianist s mental training? 2) How does a pianist carry out the mental training? 3) What does mental training in music entail as a process? The research approach is qualitative, and the materials were gathered from thematic interviews. The aim of practising is always an improved result both in the act of playing and the performance. Mental training by a pianist is collaboration between technical, auditory, visual, kinaesthetic and affective factors. Also interpretation, memory and overcoming stage fright are needed. Technical, cognitive and performance skills are involved. According to the results of this research, mental training is a goal-oriented activity which can have an impact on all of these factors. Without a musical inner ear and its functionality, true musicianship cannot exist. One particular result of this research is the conceptualisation of opening up the inner ear. Auditory exercises and internally playing mental images are essential elements of the mental practice of a musician. Visual images, such as a picture of music notation or a performance event, are the point of focus for musicians who find visual images to be the easiest to realise. When developing technical skills by using mental training, it is important to focus on the technically most difficult sections. It is also necessary to focus on the holistic experiencing of the performance situation. By building on positive energies and strengths, the so-called psyching up may be the most important element in mental training. Based on the results of this research, a synthesis is outlined of the music event as an activity process, built on representations and schemes. Mental training aims at the most ideal possible act of playing and the creation of a musical event; these are achieved by focussing on various mental images produced by the different senses, together with concrete practising. Mental training in sports and in music share common factors. Both modes of practising, mental as well as physical, involve three important elements: planning, realisation and evaluation of the practice. In music, however, the goal is an artistic end result which does not often apply to an athletic event. Keywords: Mental training in music, auditory imagining, visualisation, kinaesthetic-mental experience, mastery of the psyche

A Success Story or a Failure? : Representing the European Integration in the Curricula and Textbooks of Five Countries

The economic, political and social face of Europe has been changing rapidly in the past decades. These changes are unique in the history of Europe, but not without challenges for the nation states. The support for the European integration varies among the countries. In order to understand why certain developments or changes are perceived as threatening or as desired by different member countries, we must consider the social representations of the European integration on the national level: how the EU is represented to its citizens in media and in educational systems, particularly in the curricula and textbooks. The current study is concerned with the social representations of the European integration in the curricula and school textbooks in five European countries: France, Britain, Germany, Finland and Sweden. Besides that, the first volume of the common Franco-German history textbook was analyzed, since it has been seen as a model for a common European history textbook. As the collective representations, values and identities are dominantly mediated and imposed through media and educational systems, the national curricula and textbooks make an interesting starting point for the study of the European integration and of national and European identities. The social representations theory provides a comprehensive framework for the study of the European integration. By analyzing the curricula and history and civics textbooks of major educational publishers, the study aimed to demonstrate what is written on the European integration and how it is portrayed how the European integration is understood, made familiar and concretized in the educational context in the five European countries. To grasp the phenomenon of the European integration in the textbooks in its entirety, it was investigated from various perspectives. The two analysis methods of content analysis, the automatic analysis with ALCESTE and a more qualitative theory-driven content analysis, were carried out to give a more vivid and multifaceted picture of the object of the research. The analysis of the text was complemented with the analysis of visual material. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative methods, the contents, processes, visual images, transformations and structures of the social representations of European integration, as well as the communicative styles of the textbooks were examined. This study showed the divergent social representations of the European integration, anchored in the nation states, in the five member countries of the European Union. The social representations were constructed around different central core elements: French Europe in the French textbooks, Ambivalent Europe in the British textbooks, Influential and Unifying EU in the German textbooks, Enabling and Threatening EU in the Finnish textbooks, Sceptical EU in the Swedish textbooks and EU as a World Model in the Franco-German textbook. Some elements of the representations were shared by all countries such as peace and economic aspects of the European cooperation, whereas other elements of representations were found more frequently in some countries than in others, such as ideological, threatening or social components of the phenomenon European integration. The study also demonstrated the linkage between social representations of the EU and national and European identities. The findings of this study are applicable to the study of the European integration, to the study of education, as well as to the social representation theory.

Many Faces of Mao Zedong

The main aim of this work was to explore the use of Mao Zedong s (毛泽东, 1893—1976) visual image in contemporary Chinese art during the years 1976—2006. Chairman Mao is the most visually reproduced person in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and the presence of his image is still unquestionable at many levels. Although several scholars have provided insightful observations on this topic, research focusing on Mao's visual image has been neglected. Employing the interdisciplinary approach of visual studies and using image as the main concept, this research combines different theoretical frameworks, deriving from art history, image studies and social sciences, for each chapter in order to explain the origins, intentions and major strategies of the contemporary Chinese artists. The focus of this research was to elucidate how Mao's visual image, deriving from the Maoist era, is re-created and negotiated in contemporary Chinese art works. The material reproductions - the visual images in contemporary art - are created to be juxtaposed with the immaterial mental images of Mao that were created during the Maoist era through the original visual images of Mao. This complex interaction between visual and mental images is further exemplified by art works that do not include Mao's visual image, but still imply his mental image. The methods used derive from both sinology and art history. The research is based on extensive fieldwork in China, which was crucial for gathering new information and materials from this vigorous art scene. The topic is approached through a Chinese cultural, political and historical perspective that is necessary for a further understanding of how the original visual images of Mao obtained their omnipotent status and what kind of iconography was created. Close structural analysis, taking into account the format, style, techniques, composition, colors, materials and space used in the art works, is employed to demonstrate the great variety of visual images created. The analysis is further placed in a continuous dialogue both with the contemporary art works of Mao and with the original visual images of Mao from the past. In this study it is shown that contemporary Chinese art relating to Chairman Mao is a more versatile and multilayered phenomenon than is generally assumed. Although some of the art works seem to fit into the definition of superficial art, the study demonstrates that this reading of the art works is not adequate. The author argues that employing Mao's visual images in contemporary Chinese art is based on three main strategies used by artists: to create a visual dialogue with a traumatizing past, to employ transcontextual parody, and to explore the importance of Tian'anmen through site-dependent art. These strategies are not exclusionary, but instead interdependent and many art works employ more than one of them. In addition, these three main strategies include versatile methods used by artists that make the use of Mao's visual images even more multifaceted.

地质体科学计算可视化研究及其应用

Describing visually space-time properties of geological phenomena consists of one of the most important parts in geology research. Such visual images are of usually helpful for analyzing geological phenomena and for discovering the regulations behind geological phenomena. This report studies mainly three application problems of scientific visualization in geology: (Dvisualizing geological body A new geometric modeling technique with trimmed surface patches has been eveloped to visualize geological body. Constructional surfaces are represented as trimmed surfaces and a constructional solid is represented by the upper and lower surface composed of trimmed surface patches from constructional surfaces. The technique can completely and definitely represent the structure of geological body. It has been applied in visualization for the coal deposit in Huolinhe, the aquifer thermal energy storage in Tianjin and the structure of meteorite impact in Cangshan et al. (2)visualizing geological space field Efficient visualization methods have been discussed. Marching-Cube algorithm used has been improved and is used to extract iso~surface from 3D data set, iso-line from 2D data set and iso-point from ID data set. The improved method has been used to visualize distribution and evolution of the abnormal pressures in Zhungaer Basin. (3)visualizing porous space a novel way was proposed to define distance from any point to a convex set. Thus a convex set skeleton-based implicit surface modeling technique is developed and used to construct a simplified porous space model. A Buoyancy Percolation numerical simulation platform has been developed to simulate the process of migration of oil in the porous media saturated with water.

Żydzi i judaizm w zwierciadle sztuki antycznej.

Wydział Historyczny: Instytut Historii Sztuki

O antropomorfizowaniu i potrzebie przedstawień figuralnych w sztuce greckiej

Estetyka w archeologii. Antropomorfizacje w pradziejach i starożytności, eds. E. Bugaj, A. P. Kowalski, Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie.

An investigation of implicit measurement techniques amongst low risk and forensic samples

There are difficulties with utilising self- report and physiological measures of assessment amongst forensic populations. This study investigates implicit based measures amongst sexual offenders, nonsexual offenders and low risk samples. Implicit measurement is a term applied to measurement methods that makes it difficult to influence responses through conscious control. The test battery includes the Implicit Association Test (IAT), Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP), Viewing Time (VT) and the Structured Clinical interview for disorders. The IAT proposes that people will perform better on a task when they depend on well-practiced cognitive associations. The RSVP task requires participants to identify a single target image that is presented amongst a series of rapidly presented visual images. RSVP operates on the premise that if two target images are presented within 500milliseconds of each other, the possibility that the participant will recognize the second target is significantly reduced when the first target is of salience to the individual. This is the attentional blink phenomenon. VT is based on the principle that people will look longer at images that are of salience. Results showed that on the VT task, child sexual offenders took longer to view images of children than low risk groups. Nude over clothed images induced a greater attentional blink amongst low risk and offending samples on the RSVP task. Sexual offenders took longer than low risk groups on word pairing tasks where sexual words were paired with adult words on the IAT. The SCID highlighted differences between the offending and non offending groups on the sub scales for personality disorders. More erotic stimulus items on the VT and RSVP measures is recommended to better differentiate sexual preference between offending and non offending samples. A pictorial IAT is recommended. Findings provide the basis for further development of implicit measures within the assessment of sexual offenders.

Belief and recollection of autobiographical memories.

In three experiments, undergraduates rated autobiographical memories on scales derived from existing theories of memory. In multiple regression analyses, ratings of the degree to which subjects recollected (i.e., relived) their memories were predicted by visual imagery, auditory imagery, and emotions, whereas ratings of belief in the accuracy of their memories were predicted by knowledge of the setting. Recollection was predicted equally well in between- and within-subjects analyses, but belief consistently had smaller correlations and multiple regression predictions between subjects; individual differences in the cognitive scales that we measured could not account well for individual differences in belief. In contrast, measures of mood (Beck Depression Index) and dissociation (Dissociative Experience Scale) added predictive value for belief, but not for recollection. We also found that highly relived memories almost always had strong visual images and that remember/know judgments made on autobiographical memories were more closely related to belief than to recollection.

Consulting pupils in Assessment for Learning classrooms: the twists and turns of working with students as co-researchers

This is an invited paper to a special issue on pupil voice focusing on methodological issues arising from the ESRC/TLRP project on consulting pupils about assessment practices in their classrooms. The issue of consulting pupils about assessment has rarely been researched before but what this article illustrates are some of the difficulties, tensions and positive outcomes of engaging with students as researchers within a nationally funded (and therefore externally driven), university-based project. This study adds considerably to the body of knowledge in this area by engaging students in the process as researchers in different capacities within the project. Issues discussed include the use of student advisory groups, ethical negotiation, students undertaking videotaped classroom observations and their subsequent role in co-interpreting video excerpts and visual images. The paper has attracted considerable interest already through the ESRC pupil seminar series forum and also from a prior paper presentation to the European Educational Research Association in September 2006 in Switzerland to the Childrens' Rights SIG becasue of researchers' current interests in embedding democratic principles and practices within research with children and young people.

Photographing Vladimir Putin: Masculinity, Nationalism and Visuality in Russian Political Culture

This article introduces the study of photographs of politicians as an object of geopolitical analysis. It does this through exploring the holiday photographs of Vladimir Putin released by the Kremlin in 2007, 2009, and 2010. Putin's biography provides a backdrop to a detailed analysis of the geopolitical representations contained in the photographs of him. In the same fashion as other images, the photographs seek to provide a contemporary view of events and, at the same time, serve as a medium through which particular political scripts are narrated. The photographs also help to reproduce (and question) hegemonic discourses about public forms of masculinity in Russia. This article is intended to contribute to the debate on how visual images can help make sense of the geopolitical world

Forced Displacement, Suffering and the Aesthetics of Loss

This article investigates how artists have addressed shocking experiences of displacement in different political contexts. Drawing on the notion of ‘the aesthetics of loss’ (Köstlin, 2010), it examines and compares the different aims, desires and strategies that have shaped the histories and social lives of paintings, memorial statues, installations and other artefacts. The analysis identifies a mode of artistic engagement with the sense of a ‘loss of homeland’ that has been commonly felt amongst Sudeten German expellees, namely the production and framing of visual images as markers of collective trauma. These aesthetics of loss are contrasted with the approach taken by the Dutch artist Sophie Ernst in her project entitled HOME. Working with displaced people from Pakistan, India, Palestine, Israel and Iraq, she created a mnemonic space to stimulate a more individualistic, exploratory engagement with the loss of home, which aimed, in part, to elicit interpersonal empathy. To simply oppose these two modes of aesthetic engagement, however, would ignore the ways in which artefacts are drawn into different discursive, affective and spatial formations. This article argues for the need to expose such dynamic processes of framing and reframing by focusing on the processual aspects of aestheticisation with attention to the perspective of loss.

Do auto-retrato à máscara

Relatório da Prática de Ensino Supervisionada, Ensino das Artes Visuais, Universidade de Lisboa, 2014